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HOWARD URNOVITZ, PH.D

July 7, 2003

ON WASTING EVEN MORE PUBLIC MONEY ON HIV VACCINE TRIALS

By Howard Urnovitz, PhD

A former National Cancer Institute Director, Richard D. Klausner, is being called on the congressional carpet to explain why he personally accepted money from universities and research institutes to which the NCI awarded multi-million-dollar research grants during his tenure as Director.

As Congressional investigators were collecting evidence that Klausner had possibly violated federal criminal and ethics laws by accepting personal payments from NCI grantees, he authored (along with 24 other HIV researchers) a Science article, calling for even more public funding for a major effort that would result in an HIV vaccine, a move that I would consider to be a total waste of time and money.

Apparently, the first HIV vaccine trials have not been big enough failures to close the books on this unsuccessful but very expensive area of research.

The authors of the Science magazine article include two Nobel laureates, four current NIH directors,  the head of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention,  and an official at UNAIDS, along with a host of HIV researchers from the U.S., France, India, England, South Africa, and Switzerland.  I would imagine that the vested research interests of each and every one of these authors depends to some degree, at the least, upon HIV being accepted as the sole cause of AIDS and the continued funding of HIV research into the foreseeable future. Calling for the creation of a global HIV vaccine enterprise in the midst of ongoing and widespread failure, rather than focusing on a cure for AIDS seems a move to further enshrine the HIV concept and those vested interests. 
Consider the spectacularly unsuccessful HIV vaccine, AIDSVAX, as merely one example of why putting any further faith in developing an effective vaccine against AIDS amounts to a self-delusion and denial.

The phase III AIDSVAX clinical trial failure was big news in April 2003, and the publicly-traded company’s stock fell precipitously.  Within weeks, a number of class-action lawsuits were filed against VaxGen. They alleged that company representatives had made misleading positive statements about the AIDSVAX trial that artificially inflated stock prices prior to the release of the disappointing clinical trial data. 

Despite the well-publicized failure of the AIDSVAX phase III clinical trial and lawsuits alleging that company officials had misled both patients and investors, VaxGen received a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, headed, incidentally, by Anthony Fauci, a member of the group calling for a widening of the effort to develop an AIDS vaccine. Note well that this could turn out to be yet another form of the type of HIV vaccine that has just failed.

What on earth is going on here? Will Congress open its eyes and investigate where AIDS money is going? Certainly don’t stop with Klausner. Though it may prove difficult to sue government scientists, Congress can at least inflict some major discomfort by asking tough questions and rattling some cages.