Government HIV vaccine doesn't make it out the gate

Darkfrog submitted, created time 4 months 2 weeks (www.nytimes.com)

Plans for a large-scale clinical trial of an HIV vaccine developed by the U.S. government were cancelled this week. The researchers fear jumping into human trials too soon, without knowing more about how their vaccine will affect the volunteers. Here is a quote:

"The trial canceled Thursday was supposed to have started enrolling 8,500 volunteers last October to receive the PAVE [Partnership for AIDS Vaccine Evaluation] vaccine, developed by the infectious diseases agency. PAVE is a consortium of federal agencies and key federally financed organizations involved in developing and evaluating experimental H.I.V. vaccines. It seeks to create an effective H.I.V. vaccine that no pharmaceutical company or institution is likely to accomplish on its own."

The man who canceled the test, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has called for more basic research and animal testing.

The failure of Merck's HIV vaccine some months ago has reminded vaccine researchers all over the world of one important idea: We don't know enough about how HIV works in the body.

Keywords: HIV AIDS HIV vaccine AIDS vaccine Merck vaccines politics clinical trials U.S. gag pol nef