Could a fentanyl vaccine potentially save thousands of lives? A recent animal study published in the journal Pharmaceutics indicates that a fentanyl vaccine was able to block the drug from entering the brain of rats—thus making it a worthy candidate for human studies and eventually something available to the public that can save lives.
Researchers administered rats with three doses of the vaccine or immunization at three-week intervals, and another group of rats received a placebo. To determine if the drug was working, they tested the immunized rats’ pain responses by heating up their tails for up to 10 seconds and seeing how long they took to pull away.
The vaccination significantly reduced entry of fentanyl into the brain and anti-fentanyl antibodies targeted fentanyl with no cross-reactions to other opioids.
“We believe these findings could have a significant impact on a very serious problem plaguing society for years—opioid misuse,” study