Can a vaccine be used to treat addiction? It sounds perplexing, but this is exactly the question the National Institutes of Health is trying to answer through an initiative called HEAL, or Helping to End Addiction Long-Term. Several experimental opioid vaccines are already in development and have been successful with rats and mice.

The vaccine developed by a team led by Dr. Colin Haile, a research associate professor at the University of Houston, is specific to fentanyl....

Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin, it can be easily mixed with other illicit drugs and is often fatal. The synthetic opioid is cheap and continues to be smuggled into the country in huge numbers.

However, for the first time in five years, opioid deaths in the U.S. are declining, a positive sign that shows that education campaigns and the availability of naloxone are working. While we must keep our guard up, this is cause for optimism.