Ethics of potential 'behavioral' vaccines

No newspaper headline would seem to be more relevant to our work than this one from yesterday's Chicago Tribune: "New breed of vaccines raises new ethical questions". The story in question is actually a sidebar accompanying a lengthier examination of research underway hoping, hoping, to lead to safe and effective vaccines that would target nicotine addiction, obesity, and drug addiction. Here's the opening of the larger story, "Can vaccines cure our bad habits?":

"Vaccines, the most potent medical weapon ever devised to vanquish deadly germs, are now being called on to do something totally different and culturally revolutionary--inoculate people against bad habits like overeating, cigarette smoking and drug use. Whether this new era of vaccine research can actually subdue many of the poor lifestyle choices that are today's biggest threats to health--causing obesity, cancer, heart disease and other problems--has yet to be proved."

The story is a fair account of the early-stage research underway looking at these strategies. (Back in July, the New York Times looked specifically at NicVAX, a product designed to reduce the pleasurable and addictive aspects of smoking. We wrote about that story here.)

As for the ethical issues piece, it's little more than conjecture regarding the use of products years away from arriving in doctors' offices, if ever. While it may be an interesting question to ponder whether it would be appropriate to vaccinate our children 'against' obesity, it seems that vaccines face far more pressing and immediate ethical issues on a variety of fronts that would be a much more productive use of everyone's time.