ON WASTING EVEN MORE PUBLIC MONEY ON HIV VACCINE TRIALS

[Guest guest]

http://www.redflagsweekly.com/urnovitz/2003_jul07.html

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

 

@

 

Alternative Medicine/Health-Vitamins, Herbs, Aminos, etc.

 

To , e-mail to:

alternative_medicine_forum-

 

Or, go to our group site at:

alternative_medicine_forum

 

 

 

SBC DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!