AIDS research: Still one step forward and one step back

The pattern of promising advances and setbacks temper specific predictions on when development of a vaccine might be realized.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. April 22/29, 2002.

Last month, those hoping for an AIDS vaccine had good news. Researchers announced the approval of the first vaccine for feline AIDS and said that its development offered hope for the eventual realization of one for the human form of the disease.

"It gives an insight into a possible approach to use," said Barbara Torres, PhD, associate scientist at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and spokeswoman for the team that developed the vaccine.

But then, there was also the bad news.

In February, the National Institutes of Health scrapped plans for a large-scale trial of a combination of ALVAC, made by Aventis Pasteur Inc., and AIDSVAX, made by VaxGen Inc. Research into both of these vaccines will continue separately.

Meanwhile, in January, Nature published a report about a monkey who died in a vaccine trial because the HIV mutated in a way that allowed it to get past the immune response generated by the augmented DNA vaccine.

These recent reports demonstrate the one-step-forward, one-step-back scenario that has long been a part of AIDS vaccine research. Ever since the discovery of the virus that causes AIDS, the promise of a vaccine has been something that always seems on the horizon, but never quite in reach.

In 1984, for instance, then Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler announced the discovery of HIV and said a vaccine would be ready for human testing within two years. She's been eating her words ever since.

And now, scientists who have been in the business long enough are no longer willing to make predictions or offer timelines. [...]