Sober N Clean

Carolyn Dean is smoking again. A decade off tobacco proved not long enough.

Addictions are big nasty bears, of course.

They know all about that where Dean hangs out, where she lights up without being treated like a leper. It is the Floyd County Token Club, a one-time auto-parts store in New Albany's downtown that is home to 12-step meetings, about 20 each week.

Alcoholics come to listen, to talk. They need the support they hopefully want. "I just like to think I'm one drink away from a drunk," said Dean, a 67-year-old former social worker who says she turned to alcohol at 14 and turned away at 36.

"This is life and death, for me."

Like it is for others there, if not for all. The afternoon I met Dean at the club, news spread of a former member who had lost her struggle and had died. Members were to eulogize, to be confronted surely by their own demons.

They also have reason to celebrate, however. The 19-year-old club has just paid off its mortgage, through hat passing and other fundraising. An organization not always on anything close to sure footing counts on remaining for the 500 or so Dean figures show up sometime during each week.

"It's a safe place," she said.

Denny Sims, its president, is a 59-year-old factory retiree who said he has been sober 12 years. The words differ each meeting, Sims said, but the message is basically the same. In speeches and discussions, the moral of the stories remains vital no matter how familiar. Sims said by helping himself, he helps others.

"We just have to be sure we don't put the first drink in us," he said.

The club is open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Meetings are both mornings and evenings. Some people, like Sims, show up voluntarily. Others are sent by courts and by treatment centers. They are teenagers and they are grandparents. They attend routinely, or occasionally. "When you come back," Sims said, "you're welcome just like you've never left."

If they expect magic, they quickly learn otherwise. If they acknowledge their problem and are finally fed up with it, they are on their way to change. Sims said he attended two or three meetings each day, for quite awhile. "They know down deep it doesn't come overnight," he said.

"Denial is so strong," said Dean, a charter member who has been active off and on.

Come once and receive a white token -- akin to a poker chip -- that validates a day of sobriety. Return and trade it in for other-colored tokens that reflect ongoing progress. After one year, the token is bronze. It is typically kept handy for reassurance, a symbol of an important, maybe unlikely goal met. "It's a big deal to people who come around here," Sims said.

Sims drank for years yet somehow dodged legal consequences. Dean was not so lucky; she said she lost custody of her children.

When they were ready for better, they did better. Dean even led the establishment of Our Place, a center in Floyd County that counsels people with drug and alcohol issues.

Dean likens alcoholism to an elevator she wishes she had got off much sooner. "We get sober when we get sober," she said.

The club is in a rambling, old building with a roof and heating and cooling systems replaced not too long ago by a grant from the Caesars Foundation of Floyd County. A card game often goes on, and the pool tables stay pretty busy. There are Token Club dances and bowling teams. The club kitchen is operated by a contractor; otherwise, management is volunteer. The club receives no aid from the government or United Way, and Dean seeks broader backing.

"It's just like this disease," she said. "I'm chipping away at a rock."

"We're doing well, as far as helping people," Sims said.

To help, send checks to the Floyd County Token Club, 506 Pearl St., New Albany, IN 47150. Its telephone number is 945-4563. A Token Club also operates in Jeffersonville, at 511 Indiana Ave.

source: http://www.courier-journal.com

A woman who overdosed on crystal methamphetamine in rural Saskatchewan has successfully sued the man who gave her the drug, likely making it the first court win of its kind in the country.

"It was frustrating not having anything done through the criminal system," said 23-year-old Sandy Bergen, who has been drug- and alcohol-free since the incident in her hometown of Biggar in 2004.

"Financially, I'm not really going to gain from it. But it's a way of holding him responsible."

Bergen and her parents, Stan and Georgina, launched the negligence suit against Clinton Davey in 2005, asking for more than $50,000 in medical costs and other damages.

Bergen suffered a heart attack during the overdose and spent 11 days in a coma.

Now living in Saskatoon, she does public speaking events at high schools about the dangers of crystal meth.

Last Friday, a Court of Queen's Bench Judge in Saskatoon agreed to strike Davey's statement of defence in the case, which basically finds him in default. A hearing will now be scheduled to determine what amount the court will award.

Bergen learned about the win Monday from her lawyer.

"It means we've effectively won. We proceed as if we were never opposed," said Bergen's lawyer, Stuart Busse.

Busse says he could not find another such decision in his research.

"To my knowledge, it's the first case that's gone anywhere against a drug dealer," he said.

Busse asked the court to strike Davey's statement of defence and find him in contempt of court for not answering questions about where he got his drugs.

The unknown drug supplier, John Doe, was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

In court documents, Davey said he could not remember the name of his drug supplier, although he could recall other details about the night of Bergen's overdose.

Busse said he believes Davey received threats, so he was likely fearing for his safety when he refused to answer questions about his drug supplier.

"As a general rule, you don't rat," said Busse.

Davey did admit he gave Bergen crystal meth -- but said the cash she gave him was for cigarettes, not the drug.

Bergen said that's not the case. She gave him $40 for the meth even though the cost was $30. Already suffering from the sweats and hand pain of a heart attack, she was feeling too ill to demand the change.

An addict since 18, Bergen said she hadn't smoked meth for about eight months when Davey offered her the drug that night. She was weak and upset about having to testify in an upcoming sexual assault trial.

Davey's grandmother, Dalis Davey, was also named in the civil suit because the overdose happened in her home. But Busse said he's considering dropping her as a defendant.

He said if the drug supplier is identified in the future, he can still be held liable.

Davey, with no current address, may not have much money, said Busse. But his assets can be seized.

"The point is he caused this problem, and he should have to pay," Busse said.

Bergen said she doesn't expect much money but hopes to get enough to cover her legal expenses.

The purpose of the suit was to hold Davey accountable, she said, and put some fear into the drug trade.

"If you can take the financial gain away from them, drug dealing is not going to be that appealing."

The case could pave the way for similar lawsuits across Canada.

Busse said he has already spoken to a woman from Nova Scotia who wants sue the drug dealer responsible for her son's overdose.

There have already been similar cases in the United States, where more than a dozen states have passed a Drug Dealer Liability Act.

source: Saskatoon Star-Phoenix

British songstress Amy Winehouse, who croons "no, no, no" to rehab, has a lot of American company this time of year - both in her heavy-drinking ways and her unwillingness to spend weeks in a specialized facility to get sober.

But experts say there might be new hope for rehab refuseniks like Winehouse and an estimated 5.7 million alcoholics in the United States who are not in treatment - hope that could be as close as the family doctor.

New research and a growing arsenal of medications have set the stage for a major shift in the treatment of alcoholism, from specialized clinic to the "primary care office setting," the Journal of the American Medical Association reported in its Dec. 5 issue.

But if the promise of "office-based" treatment of alcoholism is to become a reality, the nation's 337,000 general-practice physicians - and the systems within which they work - will have to undergo some transformation themselves, addiction experts say.

Doctors must overcome their reluctance to broach the subject of drinking and learn how best to intervene when they suspect alcoholism. Medical practices might need to add staff to help counsel recovering patients. And insurance companies and federal insurance programs will need to be persuaded to reimburse patients for medication that can be costly and to pay physicians for taking on a new role in patients' care.

Several new drugs are making office-based treatment a realistic prospect. In April 2006, a monthly injectable form of the drug naltrexone won approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Marketed as Vivitrol, the new formulation of a long-available drug can be started after only four days of abstinence and appears to cause less nausea than pills taken daily - features that make it easier for patients to start and stay on the treatment. It joined two other medications approved to curb alcohol cravings.

Evidence is growing for the effectiveness of these and other addiction medications, such as the anti-convulsive drug topiramate, which, although not FDA-approved for this purpose, is widely prescribed off-label to help alcoholics stay away from drink. And more FDA approvals for drugs that treat alcohol dependence are on the horizon.

At the same time, studies published this year underscored the effect that a few frank words from the doctor can have on patients whose drinking appears to have become excessive.

These developments could be the "tipping point" into a new era of alcohol treatment, says Mark Willenbring, director of treatment and recovery research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. With new confidence in their powers of persuasion and new pharmaceutical tools in their black bags, primary care physicians - who have been notoriously shy of confronting patients about their drinking habits - might grow more willing to flag an alcohol problem, offer medication and dispense advice during routine office visits, Willenbring says.

In turn, as patients grow more confident that they can curb their drinking without the time, expense and stigma of a stay in a clinic, more probably will step forward for help.

"In many ways, we are with alcoholism where we were with depression 30 years ago," Willenbring says. As a new generation of antidepressants came to market in the early 1980s, physicians on the front lines of patient care grew more attentive to the signs of depression and more willing to treat it. Patients with protracted bouts of blue mood turned to their family doctors for help in increasing numbers.

In the process, depression was transformed from a highly stigmatized mental illness that rarely was treated before a suicide attempt or outside a psychiatric hospital to a condition for which 80 percent of patients turn first to a general medical practitioner.

A similar shift in the treatment of alcohol-related disorders won't happen overnight, Willenbring says. But with 19.5 million Americans thought to have alcohol-related disorders in 2006, and only 1.6 million getting specialized treatment, "We have to start thinking creatively about how to provide more accessible, appealing and creative options," he says, to encourage patients with drinking problems to get the help they need before they hit the skids.

Experts warn, however, that as general-care physicians armed with medications shoulder a greater role in treating alcohol dependence, patients and public officials must ensure that the sickest patients do not suffer in a rush to treat alcoholism more economically.

In that regard, not all experts see depression treatment as an encouraging example. Medication has worked wonders for many depressed patients. But a study published in 2001 found that only about one-quarter of depressed patients seeing a general practitioner got appropriate care. Meanwhile, insurance companies keen to reduce spending for depression care have limited patients' access to costly psychotherapy, despite studies showing that patients improve most when such therapy is paired with medication.

As anti-alcoholism drugs show gains in effectiveness, many people fear that insurance companies and federally supported programs will rely largely on medications and the brisk medical management of primary-care doctors.

That, they fear, could deny alcoholics who need the extra support of intensive rehabilitation the care they need to quit.

"You'd have to be naive not to be a little concerned that that will happen," says Mitchell Karno, a treatment researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Doctors, too, must make changes if this new era of "office-based" alcohol treatment is to become a reality, experts say - and some aren't convinced that the changes will happen easily.

"It's a vision that has some benefits to it, but it's not a done deal at this point," says Richard Rawson, associate director of UCLA Medical School's Integrated Substance Abuse Programs.

Rawson observed one crucial obstacle when he tried to launch a pilot program in which U.S. primary care doctors would screen patients for risky or excessive alcohol use and provide "brief interventions" intended to get those with problems to quit or reduce their alcohol consumption.

In all, the prescribed screening and intervention initiative would have taken physicians 10 minutes, Rawson says. He approached five institutions in an effort to recruit support.

None agreed.

"What we hear over and over again is, "Look, we have seven minutes to do whatever it is we're going to do. To take five minutes to do screening and then another five to do a brief intervention on this one dimension of health problems is just not in the cards,"' Rawson says. "I don't think we're at a point where we can just dump it all in the laps of primary care docs."

Physicians frequently hesitate to raise the question unless a patient is showing clear evidence of alcohol-related damage - including impaired liver function, high triglycerides or bloated red blood cells. "It's like, 'Don't ask, don't tell,'" says New York internist Dr. Steven Lamm, who successfully has treated a number of patients with medication, including the monthly injectable version of naltrexone. That's especially been the case, he adds, because of the perceived paucity of medical treatments they have to offer. "What are you going to do about it? Send them to Alcoholics Anonymous?" he says.

In the new climate, such reluctance might change.

As pharmaceutical companies launch new drugs - and new marketing campaigns for them - doctors will grow more assertive about raising the issue, says UCLA geriatrician Dr. Alison Moore, who sits on a panel at Willenbring's NIAAA that reviews the effectiveness of alcoholism treatments.

But, Moore adds, in addition to writing prescriptions for new drugs, physicians also had better learn new ways for how to talk to patients about their alcohol problems and where to refer them if they need more help than a pill or an injection can provide.

"They're better than nothing," Moore says of the available medications. "But I don't see them as wonder drugs." They don't work for all patients, and even when they do, patients frequently relapse, she adds.

A new era in alcohol treatment also might bring new definitions of sobriety, as well, experts say. Programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, as well as most people who treat alcoholism, have always drawn a clear line between sober - completely abstaining from alcohol - and alcoholic.

As alcohol treatment grows more accessible, however, a wider range of patients - including those who are not alcohol-dependent, but who endanger their health by drinking to excess - are expected to come forward for treatment. For these patients, support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous might be less relevant than newer groups such as SMART Recovery and Rational Recovery, less ubiquitous than AA, which emphasize a goal of moderation in drinking.

In January, the NIAAA will launch a print- and Web-based self-help program called "Rethinking Drinking," aimed at a wide range of drinkers, including those with what Willenbring calls "a mild form of alcohol dependence."

The emergence of these alternatives to AA is certain to reignite a long-running debate over what goals alcoholism treatment should embrace. And it probably will spark efforts to define more broadly the range of patients who have a drinking problem, as well as those who could benefit from preventive or early treatment.

When recovering alcoholic Michael Z began sending quotes he had heard in the 12 Step meetings he had attended to a small group of friends he never expected that his weekly email would turn into a global phenomenon and a book.

Over a series of years, quietly and anonymously on his own journey of recovery, author Michael Z collected and wrote down the sayings and quotes he heard in the various 12 Step meetings he attended. A little over a year ago, he began sending these quotes via email to a small group of friends. He soon began receiving requests to be added to his Monday morning email list which within just a few months exploded into the thousands worldwide. Astonished by the response to his simple email Michael Z created http://www.TheWisdomoftheRooms.com As his readership expanded over the following year, Michael Z put his weekly 12 Step quotes and reflections into a new book entitled, "The Wisdom of the Rooms: A Year of Weekly Reflections."

The book was an immediate hit and readers are already raving that this book is changing lives. "What a fantastic collection," Barb Metcalfe, Public Relations director of The Orchard Recovery Center (in British Columbia) says. "The Wisdom of the Rooms takes the myriad quotes heard throughout the recovery community, puts them all in one place, and persuades the reader to deepen her meaning and commitment to the process."

Through quotes like, "Instead of telling God how big your fears are, start telling your fears how big your God is," Michael Z challenges the reader to reflect on daily struggles and to act on this wisdom in their own lives. Readers are encouraged to reflect on one of 52 quotes each week by answering a series six questions that are related to each quote.

The Wisdom of the Rooms helps those both in and out of recovery. One weekly reader writes, "As the mother of a struggling teen addict, our family tales are the same as many. Reading this inspiration each week has helped me gain a certain perspective of the trials and tribulations my son faces and an understanding of his struggles that he is unable to explain. Each week, you fill my glass with hope."

Michael Z lives in Los Angeles, CA, where he works as a psychotherapist intern and Life Skills coach. He has worked the 12 Steps in a variety of programs and lectures and leads workshops and retreats on the journey of recovery. Each week thousands of subscribers across the globe receive his Monday morning email and visit http://www.TheWisdomoftheRooms.com

The Wisdom of the Rooms, by Michael Z (Palm Tree Press 2007) ISBN 0979441692

source: prweb.com

Despite the so-called 'explosion' of cocaine use throughout Ireland, heroin addiction remains the biggest problem in the country's dedicated treatment centres.

In fact, cocaine only ranks third, behind heroin and cannabis, for people with an illegal drug dependency.

The annual report of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, published just five weeks ago, confirms heroin's place at the head of the continent's most addictive drug league.

And figures compiled by the Health Research Board have also put Irish cocaine use in context. Just under 2pc of young adults (15-34-year-olds) in this country used cocaine over the last 12 months -- the European average was almost 2.5pc.

Heroin is still, without question, the drug causing most damage to individuals and communities throughout the country and particularly across the capital where the vast majority of users are living.

But whereas heroin was traditionally confined to Dublin, this is no longer the case. In recent years treatment clinics have been established to deal with heroin use in Galway, Waterford, Athlone, Portlaoise, Carlow, Tullamore, Drogheda and other provincial towns.

There are now reckoned to be somewhere in the region of 15,000 Irish heroin users, 13,000 of them in Dublin.

Despite the surge of cocaine use across the country last year, heroin patients remains the biggest group seeking treatment from the Health Service Executive (HSE) in the mid-west area.

HSE Assistant Regional Co-ordinator Rory Keane is responsible for the operational management and strategic development of drug and alcohol services in the region.

The latest figures available for the first eight months of last year show 37pc of 178 patients being treated by the HSE were former heroin users. Just 5pc sought treatment for cocaine.

"The significant changes have been with heroin. This relates primarily to Limerick city where 70pc of our patients would come from. The remaining 30pc would come evenly from Clare and north Tipperary," Mr Keane commented.

The vast majority of heroin users are aged in their early 20s and the youngest person being treated for drug addiction in the mid-west last year was 16-years-old.

"For heroin users in Tipperary and Clare, they will graduate towards Limerick for it as they are not as exposed as they would be in a rural area," he said.

According to Mr Keane, cocaine users are not presenting themselves for treatment to the HSE.

In the north west, the number of people presenting for treatment for opiate addiction has risen significantly in the last five years.

Figures show there was little or no evidence of heroin in the region in 2002 but the picture has been changing gradually since then.

While alcohol continues to be the dominant drug, accounting for 855 treatment referrals in counties Sligo, Donegal and Leitrim in 2004, other drugs accounted for 135 referrals during the same period.

Of the drug referrals, opiates accounted for 19 referrals or 14pc. In 2005 and 2006 this had risen to 20pc.

source: http://www.independent.ie/

A nationwide study of 7,751 emergency room patients has confirmed that visits to the E.R. provide a great opportunity to use brief interventions to reduce harmful drinking. Asking emergency department patients about their alcohol use and talking with them about how to reduce harmful drinking patterns is effective in reducing drinking, the study found.

In the study, conducted at 14 university-based emergency centers, researchers use a brief questionnaire to access the alcohol consumption of 7,751 patients, even if they had no signs of alcohol use when they were admitted. They found one-fourth of the patients qualified as harmful drinkers -- four drinks a day for men, three for women.

Of those patients, 1,100 agreed to participate in the study. They were divided into two groups, on e receiving intervention and one control group. Their drinking patterns were assessed again after three months.

Brief Negotiated Interview

The intervention group received a Brief Negotiated Interview (BNI) from E.R. personnel, written information about low-risk drinking, and a list of alcohol treatment providers. Patients in the control group received only the handout and referral list.

After three months, the intervention group reported drinking three fewer drinks per week than the control group, and more than one-third of the intervention group reported drinking at low-risk levels, compared with about one-fifth of those in the control group.

"The BNI, a conversation between emergency care providers and patients that involves listening rather than telling, and guiding rather than directing, is designed to review the patient's current drinking patterns, assess their readiness to change, offer advice about the low-risk guidelines and the next steps to pursue, and negotiate a written prescription for change or a drinking agreement with the patient," said co-author Edward Bernstein, M.D., of Boston University School of Medicine.

Brief Intervention Works

To prepare for the study, Dr. Bernstein trained more than 400 emergency department healthcare workers, including physicians, nurses, social workers, nurse practitioners and physician's assistants, how to conduct the 10-minute Brief Negotiated Interviews.

The study confirms previous studies that have shown that screening and brief intervention in primary care and in-patient trauma centers have been effective in reducing harmful drinking patterns, reducing injury rates and reducing costs to society.

The study was published in the December 2007 issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

source: about.com

Baylor doctors say shots block the drug's high

The needle may be one of addiction's enduring symbols, but two Houston researchers hope injections of modified cocaine actually provide the first-ever medication for people hooked on the destructive drug.

The Baylor College of Medicine scientists have developed a cocaine vaccine, currently in clinical trials, that stimulates the immune system to attack the real thing when it's taken.

As a result, cocaine no longer provides a kick.

"For people who have a desire to stop using, the vaccine should be very useful," said Dr. Tom Kosten, a psychiatry professor who was assisted in the research by his wife, Therese, a psychologist and neuroscientist. "At some point, most users will give in to temptation and relapse, but those for whom the vaccine is effective won't get high and will lose interest."

Kosten, who joined Baylor 18 months ago, asked the Food and Drug Administration in December to green-light a multi-institutional trial to begin in the spring. It presumably would be the final clinical hurdle before the vaccine might be approved for treatment.

Approval would mark a breakthrough in the treatment of cocaine addiction, which now mostly involves psychiatric counseling and 12-step programs. Over the years, Kosten notes, more than 50 pharmaceutical options have been investigated and found wanting.

The vaccine also could raise interesting ethical questions involving who should get inoculated and what happens if confidential information about those receiving it becomes known. Although developed for therapeutic purposes — the number of cocaine addicts in this country is estimated at more than 2 million — the vaccine eventually is expected to be used for prevention, as well.

The questions include whether parents would be allowed to have their children inoculated; whether it would amount to coercion to make it a condition for lighter criminal sentences; whether employers might happen upon such information and use it discriminatorily; and whether to use it on pregnant addicts to protect the fetuses.

The questions don't just reverberate about this vaccine: Tom Kosten also is at work on vaccines for methamphetamine, heroin and nicotine. Two other nicotine vaccines are being investigated by other scientists.

"Anti-drug vaccines may provide an important weapon against addiction," said Frank Vocci, director of treatment research and development at the National Institute of Drug Abuse, which funded much of the research. "We're starting to see progress. We just need to see more."

Concept called 'clever idea'
No one denies the extent of the problem. Federal estimates put the number of Americans classified with substance abuse or dependence at 22.2 million and the cost to the country at $484 billion a year — almost three times the cost of cancer.

The Kostens' cocaine vaccine has been more than a decade in the making.

In concept, the idea seems simple. Cocaine (and many other drug) molecules are so small the immune system fails to recognize them and make the antibodies necessary to mount an attack. To help the immune system, Kosten attached inactivated cocaine to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins.

In response, the immune system not only makes antibodies to the combination, which is harmless, but also recognizes the potent naked drug when it's ingested. The antibodies bind to the cocaine and prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate the highs that are so addictive.

"It's a very clever idea," says David Eagleman, a Baylor neuroscientist. "Scientists have spent the last few decades figuring out reward pathways in the brain and how drugs like cocaine hijack the system. It turns out those pathways are difficult to rewire once they've seen the drug. But the vaccine just circumvents all that."

Kosten says the idea goes back to the 1950s, when scientists devised a vaccine to treat potentially fatal overdoses of the then-popular heart medication digitalis, and the 1970s, when researchers experimented with a heroin vaccine before abandoning it.

Kosten took up the idea in the mid-1990s, figuring cocaine was a better candidate because the enzyme for breaking it down is in the bloodstream, not the liver, like most drugs. While they were at Yale, he led the clinical trials and his wife conducted the animal experiments.

The most impressive result involved a study at Columbia University in New York, where users who had no interest in being treated were paid to be vaccinated. Those who got a low dose saw little change. Those who got a high dose reduced their drug use by more than 50 percent. In Kosten's words, "it didn't do what it used to do."

But one expert warns against expecting too much.

"Addiction vaccines are a promising advance, but it's unlikely any treatment in this field will work for everyone," said Dr. David Gorelick, a senior investigator at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "Still, if they prove successful, they will give those working in drug addiction an important option."

To be sure, the vaccine is still a work in progress.

There also are questions about dedicated users' ability to overcome the vaccine if they ingest more cocaine than the immune system can fight off, and whether they'll simply switch drugs once they stop getting a high from cocaine.

FDA may act in a few years
Kosten acknowledges those are concerns. But he also notes that most users would have a hard time affording the amount of cocaine necessary to override the immune response, and that study participants didn't switch drugs when the cocaine lost its effect. Vaccines also could be combined — as is done with mumps, measles and rubella — if the concept pans out.

Vaccines' ethical concerns have occasioned academic papers, committee investigations and conferences. In a 2004 report, the National Academy of Sciences' Center for Studies of Behavior and Development lauded the new method's promise, but cautioned that it "poses distinct behavioral, ethical, legal and social challenges that require careful scrutiny."

"There are certainly important issues there, but I don't think any are insurmountable," said Dr. Peter Cohen, a Georgetown law professor and chairman of the District of Columbia Medical Society's physician health committee. "Overall, the benefits to society of such vaccines would outweigh the risks."

Addicts also will benefit from other treatment at the same time, such as behavioral therapies or counseling, says Kosten. Emphasizing that there was a reason drugs were used in the first place, he says the vaccine is not meant as "a stand-alone treatment."

Still, FDA approval could come within a few years, Kosten speculates, if he gets the go-ahead to conduct the Phase III trial next year and it succeeds. The trial would enroll about 300 patients at six sites around the country, one in Houston.

So, what will it mean to Kosten if and when that approval comes down?

"It'll be great," he said. "It'll also mean a new opportunity to make more vaccines and move on to more addiction problems."

By TODD ACKERMAN
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle