U.S. Shifts Priorities for AIDS Research
Posted on: Wednesday, 26 March 2008, 14:05 CDT
U.S. Officials pledged to overhaul efforts to find an effective AIDS vaccine during a summit with scientists.Until now, more money has been given to human trials that have turned up no promising results. Government officials said they hope a shift of funding to less expensive lab work and animal trials will be more successful.
"We need to turn the knob in the direction of discovery. That is unambiguous," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "We really do need new and novel ideas."
He suggested that the $1.5 billion AIDS research budget could be used in laboratory work rather than vaccine development. Vaccines currently take about one-third of the budget.
Almost 30 trial vaccines are currently undergoing human trials . AIDS has killed about 25 million people worldwide.
The new initiative should begin within months and will focus on broader research and on encouraging young scientists to dig deeper to discover HIV’s mysteries.
"Everything is on the table," he said.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation criticized the initiative, arguing that a freeze on U.S. funding for a vaccine and investing in strategies that save lives and stop new infections would be the wisest and most effective use of limited public resources.
"Under no circumstances will we stop AIDS vaccine research. Not only will we not cut it, wherever possible we will increase it," Fauci said in response.
The summit comes less than a year after Merck & Co’s experimental HIV vaccine failed to show that it protected against AIDS infections, and may have made some patients more susceptible. Scientists said the outcome of the trials shows how little is actually known about HIV after more than two decades of research.
"Despite hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, the reality is that in 2008 an effective HIV/AIDS vaccine is beyond our grasp," said Warner Greene, a co-chair of the summit and professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco.
"There is no question in my mind that the HIV vaccine effort is in need of a major mid-course correction."
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National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
AIDS Healthcare Foundation
Source: redOrbit Staff and Wire Reports
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