With AIDS vaccine plans in disarray after trials of the most promising candidate collapsed, the head of the federal agency that oversees AIDS research renewed the government's commitment to the development of a drug to prevent the wasting disease.
"We will not discontinue research, period. Not only will we not decrease it, we will in fact try to increase it," Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a summit of top HIV/AIDS researchers in Bethesda.
The agency organized the gathering to help scientists regroup after Merck & Co. announced that it had halted tests of a prominent vaccine candidate in September. After 10 years and millions of dollars in development, two clinical trials determined that the drug not only failed to protect people against AIDS - but might actually have increased their risk of infection.
"Despite hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, the reality in 2008 is that an HIV vaccine clearly remains beyond our grasp," Dr. Warner C. Greene, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco and co-chair of the summit, told the attendees. "The HIV vaccine field is clearly at a critical crossroads, and decisions about our future course will affect the lives of billions of individuals in both research-rich and resource-poor settings for years to come."
As the scientists discussed the future of HIV vaccine research, others argued that the field has no future. Officials of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which bills itself as the largest AIDS organization in the United States, called yesterday for the end of government funding for HIV vaccine research.
They said the money should instead be spent on effective and proven strategies for HIV prevention. On Sunday, the group published an op-ed piece in The Sun, laying out its argument.
"Twenty-five years into the epidemic and 20-plus years of vaccine research and we are no closer to a vaccine," said Ged Kenslea, spokesman for the Los Angeles-based foundation. "We just don't think our tax dollars should be going to something that doesn't have much hope, especially with science as it is today."
Although health-care providers have made great strides in treating AIDS and turning it from a death sentence into a chronic disease for many patients, there is no question among scientists that recent failures have shaken confidence in the underlying approach to developing vaccines that would prevent HIV/AIDS in the first place.
