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February 28, 2003
U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS
"Effectiveness of AIDS Vaccine May Be Overstated"
New York Times (www.nytimes.com) (02/27/03) P. C7; Pollack, Andrew
University of Washington biostatistics professor Steven G. Self asserts that VaxGen overstated the effectiveness of its AIDS vaccine for African-Americans, Asians, and other non-Hispanic minorities. VaxGen President Donald P. Francis counters by asserting that even with proper adjustments, the data would show statistically significant effectiveness of the product for minorities. Self believes the adjustments would make the confidence interval just slightly above zero, and he believes data analyzed enough can always find some effectiveness for subgroups of people. Francis says VaxGen will search for reasons why the AIDS vaccine is more effective in some groups but not others.
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