Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Monday September 22 3:52 PM EDT
Maggie Fox
About 50 members of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care have signed up to test for safety the attenuated viral vaccine -- a version of the vaccine that has been genetically weakened.
"We cannot sit around after 16 years and continue to debate how quickly we can do trials," said Gordon Nary, executive director of the Chicago-based association and one of the volunteers.
"There are 8,000 new cases of AIDS a day and 1,000 children a day born with this disease, and all the drugs that get so much press attention only go to 6 percent of the world's population with this disease. A vaccine is the only significant type of scientific intervention that is going to have any impact," he said.
He said the group was not proposing the ultimate test of a vaccine -- exposure to the infectious agent, in this case HIV.
Nary said the organization had been swamped with offers to volunteer after it released news about the 50 doctors over the weekend. AIDS organisations already had lists of volunteers.
"It has touched a nerve, I think, among the public," he said. "Just on e-mails alone and calls and faxes -- we've just been inundated with responses."
Nary's group has a meeting scheduled Thursday with the National Institutes of Health to discuss their proposal. The NIH would have to approve any trial using humans.
"We are only talking 15 to 20 people in an initial safety trial," Nary said. "We think that with everyone focusing on the importance of speedy development we can answer the scientific concerns in a relatively short period of time and go into trials."
Most good vaccines use a weakened version of the infectious agent, or a close relative. Examples include the vaccines against measles, mumps and, most successful of all, smallpox.
The HIV virus causing AIDS is a special case -- in part because it mutates into different strains so quickly and also because it attacks the immune system, which is what a vaccine is supposed to stimulate.
A vaccine prompts the immune system to produce antibodies. But people infected with HIV produce plenty of antibodies, and yet they still develop AIDS.
Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said HIV was unusually persistent.
"The only concern that we have is ... whether or not it is premature to put this into people at this point in time," he told CBS television.
"The difficulty is the added problem of safety because the HIV virus has a capability that virtually no other viruses have of inserting itself into the genes of your cell in your bodies," Fauci added.
"You may not ever be able to get rid of that HIV out of the body."
Nary said his group's members were simply carrying on a long-standing tradition in medicine.
"These are informed decisions by scientists who understand that there will be some risks but who are stepping up to the plate," he said.
"This is how the principal vaccines that we enjoy today have been developed. This is what medicine is about -- it's putting ourselves at risk."
He added: "If we do not do everything that is humanly possible we are in some part responsible."
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