Bay Area Reporter - December 28, 2000
Peter L.T. Messina

Don Francis, who works with a very large corporation called Genentech, located in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has diligently been working on a vaccine for HIV/AIDS, called GP-120. He has been working on this vaccine for over 10 years and so far has a proven track record in developing this vaccine. Years ago he worked with Dr. Jonas Salk - a name we should all revere and hold close to our hearts, for this is the man who created the vaccine for polio. Francis knows the horrors of death inflicted by HIV, and he knows the miracles of hope that can happen with persistence and dedication. In my opinion, this is a man this world should stand up and applaud for the work he does. He believes he is very close to developing the vaccine which could cure millions upon millions of people throughout the world who can still - and probably will - become infected with the HIV disease.

It seems to me that the pharmaceutical companies as well as politicians from the Reagan administration to the present administration have done very little to fund this research which needs money - lots of money - to bring it to fruition. In the 1950s it was the number one priority to find a cure for polio which was crippling men, women, and children throughout the world, so why is it any less important to find a cure or vaccine for this dreaded disease of AIDS?

The National Institutes of Health has repeatedly refused to give money for clinical trials to begin for his work. I ask, "Why?" Is it because there's big money to be made in creating medications that only work sometimes or for short period of time or not at all? My monthly anti-viral medications cost in excess of $1,845. Fortunately, I belong to an HMO, but what happens to me when my HMO decides to put a cap on what can be spent on me for these medications? The answer is simple: the HIV virus in my body will begin to replicate, and eventually ravage my entire body to the point that I will become susceptible to every possible infection and even ineligible for any future possible anti-viral drugs. I will develop cancers - not just one, but many - and after that, I will die from a horrific death that only AIDS and cancer can do to a person. I know, for I have watched numerous friends go through the dying process and I have lived to watch a former partner die. It is not pretty and it is not something anyone of any age should have to endure.

I am going to eventually die anyway, but why does the process have to be pushed up when I am at such a young age, all because the people at NIH who have the ability to give money to these clinical trials - and don't? This will be the reason I die.

In just about every magazine you pick up today there is an advertisement showing people living longer while taking the current antiviral drugs.

What you don't see, however, in the fine print on the next page of the advertisement is the fact essentially stating that the drug does not cure HIV/AIDS and can in fact lead to horrible side effects that are so debilitating to some people, that this in itself will often bring upon complications resulting in death.

If there is the slightest possibility in this drug called GP-120, why wouldn't the government and the NIH put every resource they had into producing the clinical trials to allow me and every other person affected with HIV to live another 10, 20, or even 30 years?

How many of you can say you know someone personally or that you have a friend who knows someone who has AIDS? Whether you are gay or straight, male or female, this can happen to you.

I live as a celibate man, because I know it's the only way to make sure this disease stops with me. My heart goes out to every person infected with this disease, because it doesn't just affect the person who has it, but it all too often devastates co-workers, friends, and families of these people who live with HIV/AIDS.

I ask you America, do something about it. Write to the president of the United States, the administrators of NIH, your representatives in Congress, and your state legislators. After all, you put them in their jobs. Demand that they do something to request and allocate more money in the fight against this dreaded and dismal disease. Tell the NIH to start allocating money for human clinical trials for GP-120 and every other possible cure to eradicate this disease as we have done with previous worldwide diseases.

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