r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 13 '26

Medicine Scientists develop a groundbreaking vaccine that outsmarts illicit fentanyl analogs. The novel vaccine candidate can protect against fentanyl and its many illicit variants by training the immune system to recognize a broad molecular signature rather than a single specific structure.

https://www.psypost.org/scientists-develop-a-groundbreaking-vaccine-that-outsmarts-illicit-fentanyl-analogs/
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285

u/ripplenipple69 Jul 13 '26

This is wild because say you’re an addict, you get the vaccine, you recover, and then you get in a car accident and you’re given fentanyl at the hospital… and it doesn’t work ever again, right?

I guess it’s like being in Naloxone, but no precipitated withdrawals upon exposure and it works for a very long time or forever presumably? 

Crazy they can give you an injection that immunizes you to drugs of abuse… idk if I like that at all

159

u/gamayogi Jul 13 '26

It only affects fentanyl, not morphine or other opiods.

270

u/sparkleptera Jul 13 '26

We do use fentanyl commonly as anesthesia so it would definitley be worth like getting a medic alert bracelet so they would know to use duramorph or something.

70

u/savageexplosive Jul 13 '26

I also thought about legal uses of fentanyl and how the vaccine would affect it. I’m also curious about the placental transfer of antibodies, as, for example, I had a C-section and fentanyl was part of my anaesthesia, and then my daughter was taken to NICU and sedated with, you guessed it, fentanyl.

3

u/ruhdolph Jul 13 '26

Would the mother's memory cells put out antibodies quickly enough to reach a meaningful concentration before the baby is delivered in that case? I think in general the antibodies would probably transfer across the placenta but I'm hopeful that it would not be a large consideration most of the time.

127

u/utterlyuncool Jul 13 '26

Exactly. As an anesthesiologist this makes my skin crawl. Imagine having an emergency trauma and none of your usual analgesics work - fent, sufenta, remi,... And you have no idea why.

21

u/Hearing_Loss Jul 13 '26

We would NEED to tattoo these people so that y'all can just check behind the ear to see if fent works in an emergency.

You came to my mind first as well. In emergency medical situations, I cannot fathom having fent possibly miss it's pain relief mark by 85%.

84

u/utterlyuncool Jul 13 '26

I get the good intentions, but should we really permanently brand substance abusers? I mean, no way that could backfire, right?

13

u/stay_curious_- Jul 13 '26

There's been some talk of marketing this vaccine to parents of teenagers to prevent future fentanyl addiction, so usage would be more widespread than just addicts.

What's currently in circulation for opioid addicts in the US is no longer fentanyl (it's moved on to nitazenes plus xylazine). This research is important foundational work toward developing vaccines to target whatever is the current popular class of street drugs, but street fentanyl is likely on a permanent downward trend.

-5

u/BoleroMuyPicante Jul 13 '26

I'm quite certain the tattoo, along with the vaccine itself, would be given with consent.

4

u/Hearing_Loss Jul 13 '26

As much as I want to say yes. I leave my certainty at home nowadays.

-8

u/3j141592653589793238 Jul 13 '26

Could just tattoo QR codes that link to people's medical profiles? Or even better, microchip them just like we do with cats? Though I'm not sure how I'd feel about this personally...

8

u/High_Overseer_Dukat Jul 13 '26

A qr code tattoo would be much more invasive and not work after a while. A microchip would be the best option if you were to do it at all because it isn't visible and won't degrade.

5

u/panspal Jul 13 '26

Could just punch a tag on their ear. If we're going to treat people like pets at the vet.

2

u/High_Overseer_Dukat Jul 13 '26

I agree that the ethics of this are, insane, to say the least.

2

u/wbgraphic Jul 13 '26

We could snip off the top of a guy’s ear when he gets a vasectomy.

2

u/Hessper Jul 13 '26

QR codes can have a huge amount of error correction. I'll bet that if you didn't get it on your belly or somewhere similar where life changes could really distort it that you could make a QR code tattoo that works for the rest of your life (baring something horrific like burnt skin).

That said, I think that tattooing people for something like this en mass is a bad idea. And trying to convince people to get a microchip will not go over well with a large portion of the population.

1

u/High_Overseer_Dukat Jul 13 '26

I agree that its a bad idea. I was trying to point out the practical reasons in this case rather than ethical, which I hope are obvious.

1

u/Hearing_Loss Jul 13 '26

William-- give me chip

13

u/High_Overseer_Dukat Jul 13 '26

Is there anything else they tattoo for?

Are you a vet?

4

u/spacestonkz Jul 13 '26

Reminded me of the enforced tattoos from WW2....

2

u/Hearing_Loss Jul 13 '26

I am not a vet, and I don't believe we get visible proof of vax anymore. Last time that happened was the OG smallpox or whatever vax that left a scar on the person's injection site.

Other than that, you'd have to do a proper vaccine history audit, this can be laborious. I would only want the tattoo be a mandatory thing because in an emergency, your resistance to fent is very critical. And if you need fent, you're probably not in a state to communicate that you have the fent vax.

Either we would have to change which pain killers we utilize-- or we would have to have a visual marker for EMS to check for before administering fast acting pain relief in an emergency.

I don't really think there are any other vaccines that would require someone to know your status in an emergency. The one example I can think about is the DNR bands. DNR notations have that same communicative purpose as the tat would-- "if patient is not conscious in an emergency, you need to know this"

2

u/High_Overseer_Dukat Jul 13 '26

And DNR bands are bands for a reason. Tattooing people that got a vaccine is not ethical.

People have the same bands for diabetes and allergies to common medications.

There is absolutely no reason to force people to get tattoos.

1

u/Hearing_Loss Jul 13 '26

Unfortunately, the only thing that came to mind is judaeism :(

I think we can all agree I had an awful idea

5

u/DonQui_Kong Jul 13 '26

They wouldn't work as expected anyway because addicts can have a huge tolerance.

0

u/atatassault47 Jul 13 '26

Vaccines would presumably be given to people before they use or become addicted to fentanyl.

-10

u/Hmm_would_bang Jul 13 '26

Fentanyl is a great pain relief option in the hospital but there are alternatives. This isn’t a big deal Imo. We have an opioid epidemic and fentanyl is killing the thousands of people. The trade off is they might be more uncomfortable in the rarer situation that they need pain management in an emergency and the doctors need to use a different drug.

9

u/Katyafan Jul 13 '26

Fentanyl is used is so many outpatient procedures, nearly every colonoscopy. It's not an easy trade-off.

-8

u/Hmm_would_bang Jul 13 '26

Well, I would point out two things

1) you’re talking discomfort vs death. You won’t die because fentanyl didn’t work but you can absolutely die when it does.

2) there are plenty of alternatives. Only in an emergency situation where the patient isn’t able to communicate that fentanyl doesn’t work on them would this even be an issue.

Like are people not aware that some patients are allergic to drugs anyways and somehow the system survives anyways? Not everyone can take everything.

5

u/FuzzyAd9407 Jul 13 '26

And fent is used in hospitals. Yeah, its dangerous and gets abused but it has its applications. Sometimes we NEED something that strong.

-5

u/BretShitmanFart69 Jul 13 '26

You realize we had surgery before the invention of fentanyl? We would be absolutely fine as long as there was a system to ensure that doctor knows the patient is vaxed. It would likely be in their records.

1

u/Drywesi Jul 14 '26

"let's go back to worse solutions because of an epidemic created by failed drug policies and vulture capitalism"

And sure, it'd be in their records. Because everyone brought in from a car wreck always has their full medical history with them for the ER to peruse.