Making a Healthy Contribution; AIDS-Free Volunteers Testing Immunity-Boosting Drugs

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Making a Healthy Contribution; AIDS-Free Volunteers Testing Immunity-Boosting Drugs

Atlanta Journal-Constitution (01.10.02) - Friday, January 11, 2002
Karen Hill

In a small red brick building in downtown Decatur, Ga., some extraordinary people check in each week to take part in a small but promising fight against AIDS. These people, all healthy and many without personal ties to anyone with the illness, have volunteered for injections of various AIDS vaccines. Unlike many vaccines that are weakened forms of an illness-causing virus, these vaccines do not include HIV. Rather, researchers simply measure the effect of each vaccine on a volunteer's immune system, specifically noting increases in disease-fighting antigens.

Volunteers could be receiving one of several vaccines now being tested for Merck & Co., or a placebo, said Susan Laller, a research nurse at the clinic. These vaccines focus on slowing the symptoms of AIDS or making it harder for an HIV- positive person to infect someone else.

Volunteers undergo initial physical exams and are informed of the risks. There can sometimes be unanticipated consequences in medical trials: A 24-year-old woman died last June while testing an asthma medicine at Johns Hopkins University.

The Hope Clinic opened the week after Christmas to continue vaccine trials begun at Emory University. In the past decade, Emory has emerged as a leader in AIDS vaccine research. It has recruited scientists nationwide for its Vaccine Research Center, which is part of its medical school. In addition to testing vaccines developed by private pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, the Hope Clinic will be testing vaccines developed by Emory researchers. Clinic Director Dr. Mark Feinberg said that metro Atlanta has had the most volunteers of any of the 10 to 15 sites nationwide that are testing Merck vaccines. He credits this to a large number of professionals working here in public health or involved in global issues, including those at Emory, the Carter Center, and the CDC.
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