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...such vaccine, known as TA-CD (for "therapy for addiction - cocaine addiction"), is being developed by husband-and-wife team Dr. Thomas Kosten, a psychiatry professor, and Therese Kosten, a neuroscientist and psychologist, at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas. TA-CD has had success in early clinical trials: Now under review, a blinded, placebo-controlled study of 114 subjects showed that compared with the placebo group, people who received the vaccine were twice as likely to reduce their cocaine use by at least 50%. The Kostens are currently seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration to go ahead...
Unlike traditional anti-addiction approaches, such as 12-step programs, psychotherapy and older medications like methadone for heroin addicts or the nausea-inducing Antabuse for alcoholics, vaccines like TA-CD prevent the addictive substance from ever reaching the user's brain - that is, they inhibit the addictive cycle rather than respond to it. The goal is to eliminate the chemical cascade that results in the euphoric "high," which, in turn, sparks addiction - what comedian George Carlin once described this way: "What does cocaine make you feel like? It makes you feel like having more cocaine...
While most foreign substances in the body trigger an immune-system defense, many illegal drugs, like cocaine, fail to do so because their molecules are too small; they slip into the brain unnoticed and unchallenged. But by attaching them to larger proteins - in the case of TA-CD, an inactivated cholera protein that has been widely tested and is unlikely to cause side effects, according to researchers - the immune system is prompted to create antibodies to both the larger protein and the piggybacked drug. The next time the user takes cocaine by itself, the body mounts an automatic defense: Antibodies...
...genocidal rampage that killed up to 2 million between 1975 and 1979. But after years of bureaucratic snags and political foot-dragging, the number of suspects left to prosecute is dwindling. Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge regime, died in his sleep at age 73 in 1998. Ta Mok, the feared Khmer Rouge military commander, succumbed at 81 in a Phnom Penh hospital last year...
...policewoman for harassing a young mother. The commotion drew the attention of a bearded superior officer, who came over to inspect me. "The problems are not few," he said, frowning at my sleeves, which fell a few inches above my unsteady wrists. He ordered me to sign a ta'ahod, a commitment that I would not repeat my mistake. "Now go home," he said. "Go home, and don't come back...