The Temptation Vaccination

The pharmaceutical industry is closing in on a new approach to treating addiction, one that takes the temptation out of recreational drugs by neutralizing their effect in the bloodstream. How cool is that? Or not?

Imagine, for a second, a shot that can protect you from sin.


It would require only a quick trip to your HMO. Roll up your sleeves, receive a jab from a needle and suddenly you've got complete and permanent immunity to pride, greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony and sloth.


An injection against iniquity!


The idea is not as far-fetched as it seems. The pharmaceutical industry is currently closing in on a new approach to treating addiction - one that takes the temptation out of recreational drugs. Vaccines are being tested that would program the body to produce immune-system proteins called "antibodies" that can chemically disarm specific drugs in the bloodstream.


Now antibodies themselves are nothing new - they've been protecting us from disease since Methuselah first sneezed in his crib. But the antibodies produced by these new vaccines would do something never before seen: They would attack recreational drugs in the bloodstream and keep them from reaching the brain, or break these drugs...