AIDS researchers have launched a high-profile attack on a large US government trial of an HIV vaccine taking place in Thailand.
The fight over trials began in 2002 when both the US National Institutes of Health and the defence department were planning to go ahead with separate trials of the same combination vaccine. AIDS researcher John Moore of Cornell University in New York attacked the double trial as useless duplication. A few months later the government cancelled one of them for reasons officials said were unrelated to Moore鈥檚 criticism. The NIH went ahead with plans for the trial in Thailand.
This $119 million study, which will involve 16,000 volunteers, was launched in September 2003. Now it, too, has come under fire. Moore and 21 other prominent AIDS researchers argue that new results strongly suggest the combination vaccine will not work. They say going ahead with a final or Phase III trial of a vaccine that seems certain to fail will squander money and erode public confidence in AIDS research (Science, vol 303, p 316).
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Ed Tramont of the NIH counters that the vaccine combo met every criterion leading up to the trial and underwent extensive review. He says the NIH will be publishing an official rebuttal.
