NASA: Cocaine found in Shuttle Discovery Hanger

NASA has launched an extensive investigation to determine how a small amount of cocaine ended up in a space shuttle hangar at the agency's Florida spaceport.

A bag containing a small amount of white powder residue that was later confirmed to be cocaine was discovered in the space shuttle Discovery's hangar at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The hangar, known in NASA parlance as an Orbiter Processing Facility, is a restricted zone for shuttle workers only.

The cocaine was discovered Tuesday when a shuttle worker spotted it outside a bathroom and reported it to NASA security, NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel told SPACE.com today.

An on-site test of the bag stated it was cocaine, and subsequent follow-up tests confirmed it was the drug, he said.

"This is a rare and isolated incident, and I'm disappointed that it happened, but it should not detract from the outstanding work that is being done by a dedicated team on a daily basis," said Bob Cabana, a former astronaut and director of the Kennedy Space Center, in a statement. "We are conducting an investigation and working with center security and law enforcement officials to get to the bottom of it."

Cocaine Vaccine under development

Researchers announced this week the early trial results of a new vaccine to fight cocaine addiction — a compound that, by vaccine standards, was only mildly effective but served as an important proof of concept that vaccination against addiction could work.

"Vaccines are one of our top priorities," says Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which helped fund the study and will finance a larger study of the cocaine vaccine next year.

In September, NIDA also granted $10 million for a clinical trial to the makers of NicVAX, a nicotine vaccine that works similarly to the cocaine vaccine — by stimulating the immune system to create antibodies that bind to drug molecules and prevent them from entering the brain.

This is because people don't generally make natural antibodies to cocaine, the cocaine vaccine combines a cocaine molecule with an inactive cholera toxin; incidentally, the vaccine protects against cholera as well).

In the new study, published in the October issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, researchers recruited 115 cocaine-dependent people who were also addicted to heroin and enrolled in a methadone-treatment program, which made it easier for investigators to keep people in the study for a full 12 weeks. Half of the participants were given five injections of the vaccine over the course of the study, while the other half received a placebo.

The vaccine produced a strong antibody response in 38% of the 55 people who received all five doses. When antibody levels were highest — during weeks 9 through 16 of the trial — these participants used significantly less cocaine (as measured by urine samples taken three times a week) than either the placebo group or those who did not produce sufficient antibodies.

Overall, cocaine use was reduced by at least half in 53% of the people who produced a strong antibody response, compared with 23% of those who had a weaker antibody response. That's far from abstinence, although reduction in drug use still has benefits, Volkow notes — like reducing people's risk of overdose and heart attack, for example.

About 25% of the study participants did not produce cocaine antibodies when vaccinated. In about half of these cases, researchers think smoking crack was the problem. Crack causes intensely hot cocaine molecules to attach to lung cells. The body begins to produce antibodies against this damaged tissue, but ultimately, rather than deciding that it is alien, the body views the cell clusters as "self" and doesn't fight them.

(Similarly, allergists scratch the skin and expose it to allergens like grass seed to produce this kind of desensitization.) "They're a body constituent as far as [the immune system] is concerned," says Dr. Tom Kosten, professor of psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and the lead author of the study.

Cocaine all over your paper money? - Short Sharp Science - New Scientist

Cocaine all over your dollar bills? - Short Sharp Science - New Scientist
Here are Country-by-country, city-by-city results of his US team's study. Mainly US based, they also looked at banknotes from Brazil, China and Japan.

* Detroit, MI - 100 %
* Boston, MA - 100%
* Cambridge, MA - 100 %
* Providence, RI - 80 %
* Miami, FL - 100 %
* Los Angeles, CA - 100 %
* Niagara Falls, NY - 67 %
* Washington, D.C. - 95 %
* Salt Lake City, UT - 77%
* Toronto, Canada - 88%
* Brasilia, Brazil - 75 %
* Sao Paulo, Brazil - 100%
* Tokyo, Japan - 20%
* Kyoto, Japan - 10%
* Shanghai, China - 0%
* Beijing, China - 20%

Surprise, surpsrise! Looks like the US has the biggest problem.

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