Scientists Find New Painkiller From Saliva 398
dptalia writes "Scientists have found a new pain killer based on human saliva. Apparently 1 gram of the new drug provides as much pain blocking as 3 grams of morphine. The drug blocks the breakdown of the body's natural pain killing mechanism. Scientists say the molecule is simple and synthesis is expected to be simple."
Hold off on the stock buying (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/06058651
Milligrams, not grams. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Indeed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Saliva? (Score:4, Informative)
RTFA, please. (Score:5, Informative)
They didn't even inject 3g of morphine in a rat.
What they found was that 3 grams of morphine per kg body weight is about as potent as 1 gram of morphine per kg body weight of the new saliva substance.
Re:Indeed (Score:3, Informative)
Having worked in both the biotechnology and computer programming fields, I can tell you that there is not going to be a computer simulation that is good enough to obviate the need for all animal testing anytime soon. Biological systems are way too complex to accurately model. Also, there are almost always unexpected synergistic effects with new drugs. Of course, it is ridiculous to test a new hairspray on a rabbits eyes - we pretty much know what's going to happen there.
Most people who work in biotechnology are not the sadistic torturers you might think. One time in the lab I worked in, an animal tech didn't check all the mouse cages before a rack of cages went through the autoclave. There was a mouse left in one of the cages. The mouse most likely died a horrible and painful death. The tech was devestated about the mouse, and resigned even before she could be fired (which was the lab's policy if anyone was shown to have committed any animal cruelty).
Most reputable laboratories go to great lengths to ensure the comfort of the animals being tested. But the hard fact is that it is more ethical to test new drugs and procedures on animals than it is on humans.
Another thing that nobody on the Animal Rights side of the issue seems to mention is that a lot of this kind of testing furthers veterinary science. I have a 14-year-old dog that we rescued from a shelter when she was a pup. She is currently sporting two TPLO operations: one on each knee and is taking an antiinflammetory drug for arthritis. Both this surgery and the drug were experimental at one time, but thanks to science my dog is living out her final days in relative comfort rather than having to be put to sleep several years ago.
Re:Saliva? (Score:3, Informative)
Not quite... (Score:0, Informative)
The animals literally slow down, lay down, and pass out and don't wake up. There isn't any vocalization or any struggle etc. You might get leg twitches etc as they finally die, but you get those nervous reflexes regardless of method of killing.
What I don't kill by this method I used the good ole whap them on the head method... hold firmly onto the tail, hit them HARD on a metal/concrete/etc surface (especially the edge of something such as the edge of a table) and it kills them very quickly. If you don't hit the animal hard enough you don't kill it and just make it suffer. Sounds brutal, but much better than death due to some of the very painful envenomations from animals in my collection, and a lot better than being squeezed to death.
Re:Indeed (Score:1, Informative)
Re:That's the theme of an old Harlan Ellison story (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Make it stop! (Score:3, Informative)
I've never met an addict during clinical trials that wouldn't give anything to go back to the beginning and prevent the whole debacle from ever happening. It seems there's a "honeymoon period" while people still have a life, but a persons quality of life dimishes quickly when they're inflicted with the disease of addiction.
The biggest problem with the "war on drugs" is that it makes people think of addicts as the "enemy" instead of what they are, which is people suffering from a chronic disease.
I've worked on a Bupenorphine trial and let me tell you: The change in the subjects was remarkable. They came in for 8 hours of tests, evaluations, etc, once a week for six months. One told me "I look at this is trading one day a week in exchange for the other six."
There have been opiate addicts for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. This is the first time that a real, sensible treatment option is available.
If you've never tried treatment, if you're afriad of the stigma of comming forward, if you're repulsed by the idea of a "detox facility," if you're turned-off by the methadone clinic, please, search on the SAMHSA website and find a doctor in your area that is certified to prescribe Suboxone. It doesn't always work, and it doesn't work if you don't want it to, but if you're ready to crawl out of this nightmare that the average addict lives in, this is a very good first step.
The pharmacology is simple. It mixes a synthetic opiate agonist with an antagonist. The agonist has a very long half-life, which most addicts understand to mean one thing: Stability. Instead of the BAC doing roller-coasters, the amount of drug in your system stays constant. Moreover, the antagonist means that you cannot inject the drug w/o going into immediate withdrawal. Anyone familiar with Methadone will find this familiar.
The major difference is that instead of going to a methadone clinic every day, you get to go to a normal doctors office once a month.
I've met a lot of addicts. The best I can describe it, is they're normal people that have this enormous amount of scar tissue covering them up. You know that somewhere, underneath, they're a scared, desperate, depressed, lonely person. But society doesn't see that. Society sees the SIDE EFFECTS of their disease, which often is crime.
Suboxone, along with this epidemic of painkiller abuse, is doing a lot to make the average person realize that addicts are not the guy sleeping by the dumpster, or hanging out in some dark alley way.
In fact, I personally garauntee that every person reading this knows at least one person addicted to opiates. It could be your teacher, your teller, your butcher, your lawyer, your doctor, your friend, your mother, your brother, even your clergyman. Prescription painkillers have brought addiction from the shadows into the suburbs. This is tragic, but it's got a silver lining. Maybe now we can, as a country, move past stereotypes and into real treatment.
There was a time when we didn't understand mental illness. So we locked people up that suffered from those ailments.
And there was a time when we did the same for homosexuality.
Now, we lock up drug addicts. Eventually, that will change, too.
Good Luck. Believe me, there are people out there who want to help.