Imagine having a vicious hangover after just one sip of booze. Alcoholics around the world will face that very nightmare scenario if an experimental vaccine reaches the marketplace, the Daily Mail reports. Scientists at the University of Chile have designed a drug they say will give anyone who consumes alcohol an accelerated heartbeat, intense nausea, and general sickness. The vaccine works by telling the liver not to express genes that metabolize alcohol—but a scientist involved in the study warns it's no cure-all.
"People who end up alcoholic have a social problem, a personality problem because they’re shy, whatever, and then they are depressed, so it’s not so simple," he tells the Santiago Times. But solving the chemical aspect of alcoholism "could help quite a bit." The vaccine is scheduled to undergo a preclinical trial on mice next month before being tested on people in November. It resembles an old drug called Disulfiram, which was so awful that people simply stopped taking it. But the new vaccine would last for 6 solid months upon injection. (More vaccine stories.)