The undercover video operation run by right-wing operative James O’Keefe is in turmoil, wracked by unhappy donors and O’Keefe’s “outright cruel” behavior towards his staff, according to an internal memo signed by a third of its employees.

Working for O’Keefe at Project Veritas can mean being “publicly humiliated” by him in what amounts to “public crucifixions,” and even being required to take lie detector tests, his unhappy employees write in the memo.

“I would describe Project Veritas’ current environment with this saying: ‘The beatings will continue until morale improves,’” one disgruntled staffer wrote in the memo.

On Monday, Project Veritas staffers presented the nonprofit’s board with the document covering his behavior, saying they were “troubled and frustrated” by O’Keefe’s management style. Later that day, the board voted to reinstate two executives O’Keefe had fired a week earlier, while O’Keefe went on paid leave.

“James will be taking a few weeks of well-deserved [paid time off],” Project Veritas executive director Daniel Strack wrote Monday in an internal Project Veritas group chat obtained by The Daily Beast.

Even though O’Keefe is synonymous with the group he founded, his fate at the nonprofit remains unclear. New York Magazine first reported on the internal dissension and O’Keefe’s leave.

O’Keefe didn’t respond to requests for comment. In a statement, Strack told The Daily Beast the board is “constantly evaluating what the best path forward is for the organization.”

The internal dissension comes as Project Veritas faces a number of threats, including an FBI investigation and an ex-employee’s lawsuit alleging O’Keefe oversaw a raucous, sexually charged workplace complete with at least one drug overdose. Project Veritas has denied breaking any laws in the FBI investigation, and is fighting the lawsuit. In December, the group laid off several staffers.

The memo, which was obtained by The Daily Beast, covers its founder’s demanding and allegedly abusive treatment of his staff, even laying out concerns that Project Veritas will soon collapse entirely as donors and employees flee. Sixteen staffers signed their names to the memo, according to the document.

“James has become a power drunk tyrant,” one staffer complained in the memo.

While employees signed their names to the memo, they didn’t reveal who wrote individual accounts, and The Daily Beast was not able to independently confirm the anecdotes. Still, they offer a glimpse into the internal debate within Project Veritas before O’Keefe went on leave and saw his decisions reversed by the board.

The memo details a series of bizarre incidents. In one, during a Sept. 2022 trial against a Democratic consulting firm that O’Keefe later lost, an employee complained that O’Keefe berated them in front of jurors because he needed something to eat. Ultimately, the employee alleged, O’Keefe took a sandwich from a heavily pregnant woman to sate his hunger.

“I was yelled at in front of jurors because he was hungry and then he took the 8-month pregnant woman’s sandwich,” the account reads.

In another apparent reference to O’Keefe, a staffer complains about employees at Project Veritas getting spat upon.

“Rule #1: You can’t spit in an employee's face over a tweet,” the message reads. “True story.”

The memo’s authors describe O’Keefe as a paranoiac so fearful of leakers within his organization that he set up at least one “mole hunt” complete with private investigators and a lie detector test. Most staffers were purportedly required to return to the group’s New York headquarters for an interview with the investigators.

In another incident, a top O’Keefe lieutenant was required to take a polygraph as part of a leak investigation.

“If you can’t trust your own team let alone your own team leaders, what kind of trust do you claim to have?” one employee complained in the memo, describing the lie-detector test.

The employees also complained more broadly about O’Keefe’s allegedly widespread use of “verbal abuse,” claiming they could be “publicly humiliated” or face “public crucifixions” at O’Keefe’s hands in front of donors or other employees. Throughout the memo, O’Keefe is described as “berating” various employees so strongly that people who witnessed the alleged abuse apologized to O’Keefe’s targets later.

In one instance, the employees claim O’Keefe called Project Veritas staffer Spencer Meads — a staffer so prominent in the group that the FBI raided his home — a “pussy.”

“They were raided and James still called Spencer that name,” the memo reads.

In another anecdote, staffers were “so severely verbally attacked by James that the staff morale dropped to an all-time low.”

The memo’s authors also raised concerns about O’Keefe’s use of Project Veritas money to promote his own theatrical ambitions. Project Veritas is best known for its undercover stings against Democratic groups and other Republican targets. But O’Keefe, who performed in high-school musicals, has added a series of musical productions to the group’s repertoire, including an elaborate “Project Veritas” experience that involves O’Keefe dancing while wearing a bulletproof vest.

In December, Project Veritas acknowledged improperly giving O’Keefe $20,500 in “excess benefits” to pay for Project Veritas staff to accompany him to Virginia as he performed a lead role in a production of the musical Oklahoma!.

In the memo, one employee thinking that all of the money spent on musicals risked alienating donors.

“All the theatre stuff and how that is handled makes me very uneasy,” the memo reads, adding later, “In the end, we are in a deficit now, our fans and potential fans beyond do not respond positively to all of that stuff.”

But musicals weren’t the only thing irritating donors, according to the petition. O’Keefe is portrayed throughout the document as badgering uncomfortable donors for five- and six-figure checks. Other donors didn’t like his treatment of his employees, the employees say.

When a woman O’Keefe had asked for a $75,000 check requested a picture with him, according to the memo, he “very rudely” refused.

“She was humiliated to the point of tears,” the memo reads.

James O'Keefe, the founder of the controversial right-wing video organization Project Veritas, is taking paid leave from the company with his future currently in doubt.

According to an internal message to Project Veritas' employees sent by the organization's executive director, Daniel Strack, seen by New York Magazine's Intelligencer website, O'Keefe is taking "a few weeks of well-deserved" paid time off.

The message did not expand upon while the founder of the undercover activist group is on leave from the company.

In a further statement, Strack said: "Like all newsrooms at this stage, the Project Veritas Board of Directors and Management are constantly evaluating what the best path forward is for the organization.

"There are 65+ employees at Project Veritas dedicated to continuing the mission to expose corruption, dishonesty, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions," the statement added. "To our supporters: We hear you, we care about you, and we will never supply up."

Newsweek reached out to Project Veritas for comment.

The paid leave for Keefe arrived as a leaked memo reveals that Project Veritas employees have raised concerns about his behavior to the board.

The memo, obtained by The Daily Beast, alleged that workers were "troubled and frustrated" by O'Keefe's management style and that he was "outright cruel" to staff members.

Project Veritas employees said that O'Keefe engages in berating and "public crucifixions" of staff members.

O'Keefe is also alleged to have forced workers to take lie detector tests to prove they weren't leaking information about the company and spat at them.

"James has become a power drunk tyrant," one staffer wrote in the memo signed by 16 Project Veritas workers.

The memo also lays out concerns that Project Veritas will soon go under because donors are no longer happy to fund the company, as well as staff leaving.

There is also speculation online that O'Keefe's paid time off may be linked to the exact video Project Veritas released about pharmaceutical company Pfizer.

In January, Project Veritas, known for spreading false or misleading statements, published a clip of what they claimed was an employee saying that Pfizer had considered doing research to mutate the virus behind COVID-19 in an effort to preemptively develop vaccines.

There is no evidence that such so-called "gain-of-function" research was carried out, with fact-checkers, including Newsweek's, finding that the Pfizer employee was only speaking theoretically.

In a statement about the video, Pfizer said: "In the ongoing development of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research.

"With a naturally evolving virus, it is important to routinely assess the activity of an antiviral. Most of this work is conducted using computer simulations or mutations of the main protease–a non-infectious part of the virus," the statement added.

"In a limited number of cases when a full virus does not contain any known gain of function mutations, such virus may be engineered to enable the assessment of antiviral activity in cells

"It is important to note that these studies are required by U.S. and global regulators for all antiviral products and are carried out by many companies and academic institutions in the U.S. and around the world."

O'Keefe's paid time off arrived as Project Veritas faces an ongoing federal investigation after paying $40,000 for a diary that had been stolen from Joe Biden's daughter, Ashley Biden.

O'Keefe's lawyers deny that he was aware that the diary had been stolen from a property in Florida in September 2020 and that it was merely abandoned. He is also arguing that it is his right as a journalist to use the document as it would have been protected under the First Amendment.

Aimee Harris and Robert Kurlander pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit interstate transportation of stolen property involving the theft of personal belongings of an immediate family member of a then-former government official who was a candidate for national political office in August 2022 in connection to the diary theft.

In December, Project Veritas also admitted that it provided staff a prohibited "excess benefit" of more than $20,000 to accompany O'Keefe when he starred in a 2021 production of Oklahoma! in Virginia.

James O’Keefe, the founder of right-wing video organization Project Veritas, took a paid leave as his leadership role at the nonprofit undergoes a review from its board, according to former and current staff members in a NY Mag report.

The chairman’s position is being considered for removal as the conservative organization is embroiled with complaints of O’Keefe’s “outright cruel” behavior towards employees and disgruntled donors, according to an internal memo signed by a third of its employees obtained by The Daily Beast.

Daniel Strack, the nonprofit’s executive director, sent an internal message to Project Veritas staff that said O’Keefe would be taking “a few weeks of well-deserved PTO,” per the NY Mag report.

“Like all newsrooms at this stage, the Project Veritas Board of Directors and Management are constantly evaluating what the best path forward is for the organization,” read another statement released by Strack through a Project Veritas spokesman, per the report.

In the memo acquired by The Daily Beast, employees wrote that working for O’Keefe at Project Veritas could mean being “publicly humiliated” by the founder and “public crucifixions.” Employees also claimed that staff could even be required to undergo lie detector tests, that O’Keefe was a “power drunk tyrant” (according to one complaint), and that the chairman once took a sandwich from a pregnant woman because he was hungry.

“I was yelled at in front of jurors because he was hungry and then he took the 8-month pregnant woman’s sandwich,” the account by an employee alleged, detailing an incident during a Sept. 2022 trial against a Democratic consulting firm that O’Keefe ultimately lost.

In the memo, employees also brought up the use of Project Veritas money to boost O’Keefe’s own theatrical interests. In December, Project Veritas said it provided a prohibited $20,500 in “excess benefits” to O’Keefe last year to pay for staff to accompany him to Virginia when he starred in a 2021 production of “Oklahoma!”

“All the theatre stuff and how that is handled makes me very uneasy,” the memo stated, and added, “In the end, we are in a deficit now, our fans and potential fans beyond do not respond positively to all of that stuff.” The memo also raised concerns that the money dedicated to musicals risked alienating donors.

In February last year, Rolling Stone’s Laura Jedeed attended O’Keefe’s American Muckrake book launch party that included a 50-minute musical-theater production dedicated to telling O’Keefe’s story in song, dance, and strobe light.

As Jedeed pointed out, O’Keefe has an over dozen year track record of dubious reporting practices, and his resume of issuing few retractions is nothing to be proud of: ethical journalists correct their mistakes, O’Keefe doubles down. Veritas reporters have been known to not simply ask questions, but instead actively manipulate and pressure their targets into the reactions, sometimes by going on multiple dates with their chosen targets, sometimes by relentlessly badgering them, sometimes by targeting customer-service workers trained to mollify even the most aggressive and unpleasant customers or risk losing their jobs.

In what seems to be another reference to O’Keefe in the memo, an employee complained about Project Veritas workers being spat on.

“Rule #1: You can’t spit in an employee’s face over a tweet,” the note read. “True story.”

The nonprofit group O’Keefe built from a carriage house behind his parents’ house in suburban Westwood, New Jersey has grown into a news organization with a more than $20 million annual operating budget, per the report. With O’Keefe’s leadership position under consideration and what seems to be a slew of unhappy donors and former and current staffers, his reign may soon be coming to a close.

James O’Keefe, the founder and chairman of Project Veritas, has taken a paid leave from the conservative nonprofit media organization as its board considers whether to remove him from his leadership position, according to current and former employees of the organization.

An internal message sent to Project Veritas employees by the organization’s executive director, Daniel Strack, said that O’Keefe would be taking “a few weeks of well-deserved PTO.” An image of the message was shared by a source familiar with the organization’s internal operations, and its authenticity was confirmed by a current employee. When reached for comment on his personal cell phone, O’Keefe said nothing in response and did not respond to follow-up calls and text messages. Through a Project Veritas spokesman, Strack later released a statement on behalf of the organization. “Like all newsrooms at this stage, the Project Veritas Board of Directors and Management are constantly evaluating what the best path forward is for the organization,” the statement read in part. It did not directly address questions about O’Keefe’s employment status. “There are 65+ employees at Project Veritas dedicated to continuing the mission to expose corruption, dishonesty, waste, fraud, and other misconduct in both public and private institutions,” the statement read. “To our supporters: We hear you, we care about you, and we will never supply up.”

O’Keefe is his organization’s guiding ideological force and onscreen face, but his status as its day-to-day manager has become uncertain amid reports of internal turmoil, lawsuits from former employees, leaks about its internal workings, and a federal investigation into its conduct in purchasing a diary stolen from Ashley Biden, the president’s daughter. Strack’s internal message to employees made reference to what he called “a distracting time” and said that a board meeting had been held to discuss “the health of the organization” and that while “we have not come up with final solutions yet we have made a few immediate decisions.” The message said two top Project Veritas executives, including the nonprofit’s chief financial officer, had been “reinstated.” Multiple sources said that the pair had recently been fired by O’Keefe.

A meeting of the Project Veritas board is scheduled for Friday, when O’Keefe’s potential removal is set to be discussed, according to one source familiar with the matter. The source said that Project Veritas was currently divided between a group of employees who are perceived to be loyal to O’Keefe, including his communications adviser, R.C. Maxwell, and the board, which has been dissatisfied with what it perceives as O’Keefe’s mismanagement. Matthew Tyrmand, a conservative journalist who serves on Project Veritas’ board, said he was about to walk into a meeting and could not talk when reached on his cell phone on Wednesday. When asked specifically if O’Keefe was being ousted, he replied: “I just said I was walking into a meeting and this was not the appropriate time. What don’t you understand about that?” He did not respond to subsequent phone calls. Two other board members did not respond to phone messages.

As rumors of O’Keefe’s potential ouster circulated among his friends and enemies on Wednesday, his usually pugnacious Twitter and Instagram accounts were silent. Project Veritas continued to promote the organization’s latest stings, including a series of hidden-camera videos that captured a Pfizer scientist discussing what Project Veritas described as dangerous gain-of-function research related to COVID vaccines. (“Pfizer has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research,” the pharmaceutical company responded in a statement after the videos appeared.) One video in the series culminated with a physical altercation between O’Keefe and the Pfizer employee. In another video, posted in late January, O’Keefe accosted an investigative reporter for the New York Times, Adam Goldman, whose byline has appeared on multiple stories about the Biden-diary case. “Look how scared he is,” O’Keefe says in the videos, as Goldman holds up an iPhone to record their interaction.

“I’m an investigative reporter, unlike you, you’re a government stooge,” O’Keefe says and tauntingly calls Goldman a “punk” and a “Fed-boy!” (From Goldman’s side of the camera, O’Keefe looks even more hostile.)

Even as O’Keefe continued his confrontational act, long-standing infighting at the Project Veritas headquarters in Mamaroneck was coming to a head. Over the dozen years since he founded the nonprofit in a carriage house behind his parents’ home in suburban Westwood, New Jersey, the group has grown from a shoestring YouTube prank operation into a large, ideologically driven news organization with an annual operating budget of more than $20 million. But former employees describe O’Keefe as an erratic and often angry boss. According to a letter dated February 6, which was circulated by Project Veritas staff who were critical of O’Keefe’s management, he “berated” and fired the organization’s CFO, Tom O’Hara, and its chief strategy officer, Barry Hinckley. Hinckley later wrote a message to the staff saying he had “stood up to a bully” and had lost his job as a result. The letter included an 11-page list of testimonials from anonymous current employees, describing O’Keefe, in the words of one, as a “power drunk tyrant.”

Even many of O’Keefe’s enemies wondered, however, if his organization could survive without him as its leader. “Quite frankly, he’s the company,” one former employee said.

In collaboration with stakeholders across industry, academia and environmental organizations, GTI Energy's Veritas initiative meets urgent need for credible, comparable methane emissions measurement

DES PLAINES, Ill., Feb. 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, GTI Energy announced new open-source methane emissions measurement protocols to meet the urgent need to accurately measure and reduce methane emissions and accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. GTI Energy's Veritas initiative is a set of standardized, science-based, technology-neutral, and measurement-informed protocols built to assemble methane emissions inventories that are Checked by direct field measurements.

Reducing emissions from methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is one of the most cost-effective and impactful ways to mitigate climate change. In exact years, more than 100 countries have joined the Global Methane Pledge, a critical first step toward achieving methane emissions reductions. In the U.S., the Inflation Reduction Act requires companies to start producing precise measurements of methane emissions and reduce them.

"The GTI Energy Veritas protocols will effectively fill the gap between making reduction pledges, and actually keeping them," said Erin Blanton, Managing Director of Zero Emissions Systems at GTI Energy. "The tools we have developed will bring simplicity and consistency to the once-daunting challenge of measuring and reporting methane emissions."

Since September 2021, GTI Energy, along with Highwood Emissions Management and SLR Consulting, has convened dozens of industry, research, and environmental stakeholders to engage in a transparent protocol development process complete with diverse viewpoints and perspectives to enable credibility. More than 35 companies partnered with Veritas to shape the protocols' development.

The GTI Energy Veritas technical protocols cover six segments of the natural gas supply chain, including production, gathering and boosting, processing, transmission and storage, distribution, and liquified natural gas. Protocols for each of the six supply chain segments include:

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• Methane Intensity: Defines what methane intensities should look like for each segment of the natural gas supply chain.

• Measurement: Describes how to take measurements to inform emission inventories by segment.

• Reconciliation: Reconciles emission-factor inventories with genuine measurements by segment.

• Supply Chain Summation: Adds multiple segments to reach a total emissions intensity.

• Assurance: Provides guidance for verifying an emissions inventory, company documentation requirements, and third-party auditing.

"The natural gas industry has been calculating methane emissions inventories for decades, but now needs tools to verify, validate, or modify these calculated inventories by using site-scale field emission measurements," said Matt Harrison, Senior Principal at SLR Consulting. "This set of protocols offers a new 'measuring stick': a consistent set of guidelines for using these measurements that all company stakeholders can understand."

The design of the protocols is aimed at working together with existing methane reduction target frameworks and collaborations—empowering the industry with real-world technical solutions and consistent data to rapidly scale and accelerate methane emission reductions.

"The global economy is moving towards precise carbon accounting of commodities across multiple companies and supply chain segments," said Thomas Fox, President of Highwood Emissions Management. "To decarbonize the energy sector, we need robust, empirical methodologies that foster innovation and collaboration, like the Veritas protocols. Highwood is proud to support Veritas, which confronts a monumental challenge with a credible solution focused on data integrity and consistent measurement."

For more information about GTI Energy's Veritas, and to view the protocols, visit veritas.gti.energy.

About GTI Energy

GTI Energy is a leading research and training organization. Our trusted team works to scale impactful solutions that shape energy transitions by leveraging gases, liquids, infrastructure, and efficiency. We embrace systems thinking, open learning, and collaboration to develop, scale, and deploy the technologies needed for low-carbon, low-cost energy systems. www.gti.energy

About Highwood Emissions Management

Highwood Emissions Management's mission is to innovate, collaborate, and educate the path to a world with effective and affordable emissions management solutions. We work with businesses, governments, and entrepreneurs around the world to reduce emissions, using innovative and strategic methods. https://highwoodemissions.com

About SLR Consulting

SLR Consulting is an international environmental consultancy that provides tailored environmental and engineering services across seven industry sectors—Energy, Power, Infrastructure, Built Environment, Industry, Mining & Minerals, and Financial Services. With over 2,300 employees throughout six regions, our professional services encompass a broad range of technical skills from environmental scientists, engineers, architects, geologists, planners, remediation specialists, and landscape architects collaborating with our clients throughout the globe. https://slrconsulting.com

For media requests, please contact: 
Kristin Cone, 847-768-0794, kcone@gti.energy

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gti-energy-launches-veritas-open-source-protocols-to-accelerate-methane-emissions-reductions-301745351.html

SOURCE GTI Energy

Veritas Technologies, a provider of multi-cloud data management, announced that the United States Postal Service (USPS) has selected the company to help strengthen its regulatory and litigatory posture by modernizing its data compliance and eDiscovery toolset. The USPS will tap into Veritas Enterprise Vault, Merge1, and the Veritas eDiscovery Platform.

“Veritas has a proud history of supporting many federal agencies. We’re thrilled and confident in our ability to now also provide the US Postal Service and its legal department tools to streamline and expedite its eDiscovery workflow while reducing risk in an increasingly multi-cloud world,” said Kevin Youngquist, vice president for U.S. public sector at Veritas.

Enterprise Vault, Merge1, and eDiscovery Platform will provide the Postal Service with automated data archiving and retention across all its on-premises and cloud-based data sources—including cloud collaboration tools—combined with a powerful engine for conducting large-scale, dataset-driven searches.

The contract award is for three years. Including options, it has the potential to extend to 7 years with a maximum potential value of up to $70 million.

The mission of the USPS is to provide trusted, affordable, and efficient mailing and shipping services to the people of the US.

For more information about this news, visit www.veritas.com.

Neil Thorns, Veritas Regional Director, South Africa.

Veritas is set to launch its most comprehensive and secure cloud data management platform yet, at a solution day in Pretoria this month.

The Veritas Solution Day, to be staged on 23 February, will reveal advanced approaches and solutions to controlling and securing data and applications in the cloud.

Neil Thorns, Veritas Regional Director, South Africa, says: “Managing and protecting data at enterprise scale has become a challenge for most large organisations today. Technical teams must now reduce data sprawl, technical debt and complexity, while also strengthening cyber resilience. Further complicating matters, data volumes are growing exponentially. Last year alone, 74 zettabytes of data were generated worldwide, with IDC reporting that 80%-90% of the world’s data is unstructured.”

Veritas Alta, built to overcome these challenges, combines the entire Veritas Cloud Services and Solutions portfolio, creating the most comprehensive cloud data management platform built for any environment.

Veritas Alta will be introduced to the South African market at the Veritas Solution Day, where experts will elaborate on the platform’s unmatched ransomware and application resiliency, cloud control and scalability, its data compliance and governance capabilities.

Veritas will share its vision for the future – a world where data management just happens – with presentations by Peter Grimmond, International CTO at Veritas; Mansoor Ibrahim, Senior Cloud Specialist International Emerging Region at Veritas; André Steyn, Veritas Data Compliance & Governance Technical Practice Lead – EMEA & APJ; and Neil Thorns, Regional Director at Veritas.

The event will explore the major syllabus impacting data management today, including safeguarding against cyber attacks, strengthening ransomware resilience, reducing operational costs, understanding the shared responsibility model and the limits of cloud-native standard tools.

The Veritas Solution Day will get under way at 12pm on 23 February at the Maslow Time Square, Menlyn, Pretoria. 

To register for this event, go to: https://registrations.corpcam.com/veritas/registrationd.aspx?e=&pname=Veritas23022023Physical

© Provided by News Nation Vaccine called 'game changer' in fight against opioid addiction

(NewsNation) - Researchers say they have developed a vaccine that can prevent the effects of fentanyl, calling it a "game-changer" in the fight against opioid addiction.

In a statement from the University of Houston, researchers suggest the "breakthrough discovery" blocks the drug's ability to enter the brain, thus eliminating the drug's "high."

"We're very excited about the progress we've made," the study's lead author, Dr. Colin Haile, told NewsNation. "This is nearly six years in the making."

Fentanyl is a powerful and deadly synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine that has helped perpetuate the U.S. opioid epidemic.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than 150 people die every day from overdoses related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Two-thirds of the 107,000 overdose deaths in the country in 2021 are also attributed to the drug.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has called fentanyl the deadliest drug in the nation.

Researchers tout the development of the new vaccine as an effective relapse prevention agent that would theoretically make it easier for people to quit using opioids.

"Our vaccine is able to generate anti-fentanyl antibodies that bind to the consumed fentanyl and prevent it from entering the brain, allowing it to be eliminated out of the body via the kidneys. Thus, the individual will not feel the euphoric effects and can ‘get back on the wagon' to sobriety," Haile said in a statement from the university.

The vaccine would have to be taken before an individual is exposed to fentanyl.

"The vaccine technology is a very different strategy in that we are given a vaccine against a chemical," Haile said "And that chemical is fentanyl. Instead of, say, getting a vaccine against the pathogen, like a virus or bacteria. It's much different."

Research published in the journal Pharmaceutics indicated an estimated 80% of those dependent on the drug suffer a relapse. 

According to researchers, lab tests on rats and mice showed very promising results, with the animals producing anti-fentanyl antibodies that stop the drug's effects.

"We've used multiple behavioral paradigms, we've used the standards in the field," Haile said. "And every experiment, the vaccine has performed remarkably."

The vaccine is only in animal trials right now, but researchers believe they will see the same findings once human trials begin in the coming weeks.

According to the university statement, the team plans to start manufacturing clinical-grade vaccine in the coming months with clinical trials in humans planned soon.

"We are very excited to be moving forward in manufacturing the vaccine," Haile said. "And once we get the clinical-grade material, the next step is to do toxicology testing for the FDA."

Researchers also said the vaccine "did not cause any adverse side effects" in the immunized rats involved in lab studies.

Working to create a vaccine against drug addiction is nothing new. The first study in a peer-reviewed journal on the subject was published in Nature in 1974. 

Experts say vaccines hold long-lasting promises that available medications do not.

The medications methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone are current treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD), but also come with downsides, according to experts.

According to a report from the National Institue of Health, current medications for opioid abuse have only had limited success and can be very costly. They have to be taken every day and may require a specialized doctor visit. Methadone itself can be addictive.

"Fentanyl use and overdose is a particular treatment challenge that is not adequately addressed with current medication," said Therese A. Kosten, professor of psychology and senior author of the study.

Kosten called the vaccine a potential "game changer." 

Dr. Haile told NewsNation he would use the word "hope."

"I would call it hope," he said. " And you know, 'game changer' as well, primarily because the medications that we use presently aren't addressing the opioid epidemic. In fact, the opioid epidemic is getting worse. And so we need a different treatment strategy."

Fentanyl was originally developed as a legal drug to treat intense pain from ailments including cancer.

In exact years, Mexican drug cartels have produced most of the illegal fentanyl seen in the U.S., smuggling it inside vehicles or strapped to pedestrians crossing at ports of entry along the border.

In 2022 alone, the DEA says it seized more than 50 million fake pills and 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. 

Illegal fentanyl is an especially dangerous threat because it is often added to street drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine and even other opioids.

Haile included illicitly manufactured medications for ADHD and anti-anxiety to the list.

These counterfeit drugs laced with fentanyl add to the number of overdoses in individuals who do not ordinarily consume opioids, researchers point out.

"Individuals are being exposed to fentanyl unknowingly, and unfortunately, overdosing and dying," Haile said. "So the idea would be to use the vaccine as a prophylactic measure, just in case individuals are accidentally exposed, or for those individuals that may come into contact with the drug to a high degree."

A new University of Washington research center focused specifically on medication development for substance use disorders opened last year.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it may approve over-the-counter nasal sprays that prevent overdoses as part of its efforts to expand access to the life-saving drug naloxone.

Officials are hopeful it could help solve the fentanyl epidemic. They say a solution to the growing crisis could not come too soon.

According to the DEA, nitazines, a synthetic opioid first developed in the 1950s and up to 40 times stronger than fentanyl, is now falling back into the hands of Americans.

As the supply of nitazines rises, the rise in nitazine-related deaths increases the public health response to the growing addiction crisis across the nation.