Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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The Wall Street Journal - May 5, 1997
Hilary Stout
In a speech evoking President John F. Kennedy's 1961 call to put a man on the moon, Mr. Clinton used a commencement address at Morgan State University in Baltimore to summon the nation's scientific and business community to make an AIDS vaccine "the first great triumph" of the 21st century.
President Kennedy "gave us a goal of reaching the moon and we achieved it ahead of time," Mr. Clinton told graduates of the predominantly black college, which specializes in science and technology. "Today, let us look within and step up to the challenge of our time."
While the speech was aimed at grabbing headlines trumpeting the bold initiative, it actually accents the constraints of Mr. Clinton's presidency. With no new federal money to offer -- indeed, his biggest effort is focused on an accord to cut federal spending and balance the budget -- Mr. Clinton's second term in many ways is becoming a bully-pulpit presidency. Yesterday, he was reduced to exhorting the pharmaceutical industry to pump more money into AIDS-vaccine research, saying development of an inoculation should be part of the industry's "basic mission."
A number of AIDS activists sneered at the president's call for rapid development of an AIDS vaccine without putting federal money behind his plea. Wayne Turner, spokesman for the activist group ACT-UP, told the Associated Press it was a "sham and a hoax for Clinton to compare himself with Kennedy and then put no money behind it."
The pharmaceutical industry used the speech as an opportunity to push its own political agenda. "To make the president's vision a reality, he must also embrace tort reform that will remove the impediment to vaccine research, as well as restore the 13% cut to the [Food and Drug Administration] budget for human drug and biologic operations," said Alan F. Holmer, president of the industry trade group Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America. "Without these actions," he warned in a statement, "the president erects major obstacles to the realization of this shared priority."
Mr. Clinton also plans to use the prestige of his office to encourage greater tolerance and harmony in race relations. On Friday, he issued an emotional apology to the survivors of the federal government's Tuskegee experiment, in which hundreds of black men were purposely left untreated for syphilis beginning in the 1930s. This week, he plans to use a White House ceremony to encourage businesses to hire workers from the welfare rolls.
With Mr. Clinton's prodding, funding for AIDS research , including vaccine development, has steadily increased over the past four years though many scientists and AIDS activists believe far more resources are needed. But yesterday, instead of proposing a new infusion of cash, Mr. Clinton announced plans to bring together researchers already hard at work on a vaccine in a new laboratory at the National Institutes of Health.
He also said he plans to seek the cooperation of other countries in the vaccine effort, and he vowed to use a summit of the world's leading industrialized nations in Denver next month to urge other nations to "join us in a world-wide effort to find a vaccine to stop one of the world's greatest killers."
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