Though most borderline alcoholics don’t need an anti-fun vaccine for alcoholism, those that drink a little too much could probably use the world’s first vaccine for alcoholism. Made by scientists in Chile, the vaccine “works” by screwing over people who drink. Seriously, once you pump yourself with the juice, you’ll experience the worst hangover of your life.
According to The Santiago Times, the way the vaccine works is by telling the liver to not “express genes that metabolise alcohol”. So if some poor sap takes a swig of alcohol, he’ll be ridden with severe nausea, an accelerated heartbeat and an all around shitty time. The thinking is if you drink while vaccinated, it’s going to suck immediately. It’s not a foolproof fix for alcoholism but if the shot can make an alcoholic regret even taking a sip, it helps make the first step in fixing the problem a lot easier (of course it does nothing for the addictive personalities who’ll just find something else to fixate on).
The idea for the vaccine came from recreating a gene mutation in people of the Far East (think the Chinese, the Japanese, etc.) — certain people of those ethnicities cannot breakdown alcohol and thus, have lower alcoholism rates. The vaccine goes into preclinical trial this autumn and into human testing later this year. [The Santiago Times via FoodBeast]