A Fentanyl Vaccine Is a Long Shot That Just Might Work

Fentanyl is ridiculously cheap and roughly 100 times more potent than morphine. Mexican cartels and other producers of illicit drugs add small amounts of it to cocaine, counterfeit versions of Adderall and other pills, methamphetamine and synthetic cannabis as an extremely cost-efficient filler that hooks customers. In slightly larger amounts—the equivalent of 10 to 15 grains of salt—it stops brain functions that regulate breathing. Fatal overdoses from fentanyl-laced drugs in the US and Canada have increased so rapidly over the past five years that some health officials classify it as an epidemic.

Two years ago, JR Rahn had a thought: What if you could treat fentanyl tragedies like you would a traditional health epidemic? Could you create a fentanyl vaccine?