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    Nicotine Vaccine Too

    A vaccine for cocaine addiction? Baylor's Dr. Kosten is on the brink of abreakthrough for addicts

    Caroline Gallay
    Jul 7, 2011 | 6:22 pm
    • Dr. Kosten

    Dr. Thomas Kosten, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine, has spent the last 20 years of his career working on breakthrough vaccines.

    Not vaccinations for H1N1, or even the common cold. No, Dr. Kosten is working to create vaccinations for a far more sinister disease — drug dependence.

    Kosten's vaccines aren't meant to be preventative as, say, a chicken pox vaccine is. Instead, they're intended as therapeutic treatments for people who are drug-dependent or who have suffered damage from drug abuse.

    Although Kosten concedes that his vaccines could be used preventatively, say in patients with a high risk of addiction, "the more sensible use is to prevent relapse."

    "Immunotherapy is really the better word, but it uses the vaccine mechanism," Kosten says.

    Kosten's cure for cocaine addiction

    Although Kosten has vaccines for several types of dependencies in the works, we found his work on a vaccine for cocaine addiction the most fascinating.

    Kosten's cocaine vaccine works by preventing the cocaine from getting into the brain and activating the receptors that produce the drug's desired effect — an artificial sense of euphoria caused by dopamine. Preventing the desired effect also acts to detox the abuser as they're vaccinated, effectively weaning the abuser off the drug.

    Kosten says there are an estimated 3 million cocaine abusers in the United States alone, and he envisions the main candidates for the vaccine as being high-risk adolescents and pregnant women.

    The vaccine's effectiveness in pregnant women with a history of cocaine abuse is particularly impressive — if the mother relapses while pregnant, the vaccine keeps the cocaine from reaching the fetus. And if the drug has already reached the womb, the vaccine can actually act to extract it.

    How it works

    Most drug particles are so tiny that the human body has trouble producing antibodies to fight them. Kosten's vaccines work by attaching the drug of abuse to a carrier protein — for example, inactivated cholera toxin — and injecting it into the patient, causing the patient's immune system to produce antibodies to both the protein and the drug.

    Some vaccines produce more antibodies than others, and the cocaine vaccination takes approximately five rounds of treatment over several months to produce the desired number of antibodies. The antibodies then remain in the body for approximately three months before the patient needs a booster shot.

    He foresees interested buyers in governments (to vaccinate indigents), insurance companies, law enforcement agencies and concerned family members looking to stage an intervention.

    For those initial three months, the vaccine produces extremely high affinities of antibodies. People in treatment, Kosten says, could be administered 10 times the lethal dose of cocaine without experiencing its effects.

    And what about risk of overdose? If a patient finds himself or herself three-months-immune, is there a chance the patient could relapse and accidentally O.D.?

    Kosten says drugs of abuse are usually ingested in such a manner that the abuser knows immediately whether they're getting an effect. In other words, unless a drug user is actively trying to kill themselves, the vaccine puts them at no greater risk of overdose.

    What's next

    The cocaine vaccine is now in its second large phase II study and is currently being shopped to American manufacturers. "The U.S. and Europe are the places that cocaine is a huge problem," Kosten says, and adds that if he can't find a manufacturer here, he may simply produce the vaccine in China and export it to the States.

    He foresees interested buyers in governments (to vaccinate indigents), insurance companies, law enforcement agencies and concerned family members looking to stage an intervention.

    A nicotine vaccine, for which there is obviously a vast American market, is in in phase III — the last stop before FDA approval.

    It seems that vaccinating drug abusers is not a cause that's necessarily personal to Kosten, but rather attractive.

    "I thought it was a good idea, and not a lot of people were working on it," he says. (Kosten is also working on vaccines for morphine and methamphetamine addiction, although he is developing those in China due to that nation's more advantageous relationship with its pharmaceutical companies.)

    "That's how science works," Kosten says. "If you're lucky, it is a good idea. And if you have one good idea during your career, you're a great success."

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    eyes on the road

    5 Houston highways rank among deadliest roads in America, per report

    Amber Heckler
    Jun 12, 2025 | 9:30 am
    I-45 Houston downtown
    Photo courtesy of TXDOT
    I-45 is in the hotseat again.

    Heads up to Houstonians commuting on the city's freeways: Five busy Harris County highways were just deemed among the deadliest roads in the country, with I-45 in Houston ranking as the deadliest road in Texas. That's according to a new study based on the latest National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) data.

    The study, commissioned by Santa Ana, California-based company Future Bail Bonds, compared fatal crash data across 96,000 U.S. roads from 2019-2023. The top 150 "deadliest" roads were ranked by the total number of fatal crashes that occurred during the five-year period.

    The No. 1 deadliest road in America is I-15 in San Bernardino County, California, the study found. The interstate, which runs from Southern California to Las Vegas, experienced the highest rate of deadly car crashes from 2019-2023 with 196 crashes.

    For comparison, I-45 in Houston had 88 fatal vehicle wrecks during the same time period to rank as the 16th deadliest U.S. road and No. 1 deadliest in Texas. Considering that tens of thousands of people drive the road every day, a fatal crash is relatively unlikely, but the data underscores the need for drivers to remain aware of their surroundings at all times.

    The crowded highway stretches from Dallas to Galveston, and the I-45 North Freeway earned its own spot on the list as the 124th deadliest U.S. road. I-45N experienced 44 deadly crashes between 2019 and 2023, the report said. I-45's controversial expansion project between downtown Houston and the north Sam Houston Tollway (and portions of connecting freeways) also earned it a new reputation as a "freeway without a future" by the activist group Congress for the New Urbanism.

    Elsewhere in Harris County, I-10 ranked as the 22nd deadliest U.S. highway on the list with 76 fatal crashes during the five-year span. It was dubbed the third most fatal Texas highway, with I-35 in Austin splitting up the two Houston roads as the second deadliest statewide.

    "From 2019 to 2023, motor vehicle crashes claimed 186,284 lives across 96,257 roads in the United States, underscoring the persistent danger on American roadways," the report said.

    Two more Houston highways ranked much farther down the report, but still remained among the top 150 deadliest U.S. roads: FM 1960 ranked 114th on the list with 45 fatal crashes, and I-610 ranked No. 131 with 43 fatal crashes.

    Nine other Texas roads that were deemed the deadliest in America with the highest rates of fatal vehicle crashes from 2019-2023 include:

    • No. 23 – I-30 in Dallas County (76 crashes)
    • No. 27 – I-410 in Bexar County (73 crashes)
    • No. 32 – I-10 in El Paso County (69 crashes)
    • No. 63 – I-20 in Tarrant County (56 crashes)
    • No. 66 – I-820 in Tarrant County (55 crashes)
    • No. 115 – SR-12 in Dallas County (45 crashes)
    • No. 130 – I-35 in Bexar County (43 crashes)
    • No. 132 – I-635 in Dallas County (43 crashes)
    • No. 141 – I-10 in Jefferson County (42 crashes)
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