Dozens volunteer for HIV injections to find AIDS cure
September 22, 1997 4:40 p.m. EDT
CHICAGO (AP) -- Joe Zuniga, who has watched friends and loved ones
die of AIDS, is willing to risk his life for the sake of science by being
injected with a vaccine carrying a live, weakened strain of HIV.
Zuniga is not alone. The International Association of Physicians
in AIDS Care announced this weekend that it has 50 volunteers willing to
take part in the project -- and dozens of others calling in offering to
participate.
The volunteers are doctors, nurses or health policy activists from
around the world. And while the group wants government approval, it said it
will go ahead with the study without it.
Human injections aren't anticipated for at least two years, Zuniga
said.
``Considering that there are 8,000 new infections of HIV per day,
we think that bold steps should be taken while observing good science,''
said Zuniga, deputy director of the Chicago-based association.
Added Gordon Nary, the group's director and another volunteer:
``There are millions of lives going by while we sit around debating the
research.''
AIDS vaccine development is a slow process because of the safety
measures and rigorous animal testing needed before injecting humans with a
trial vaccine. Research in the past decade has focused on vaccines that do
not involve a live strain of the human immunodeficiency virus because of
fear that even a weakened strain might cause AIDS or other complications.
The Chicago group argues that live strains of HIV have shown the
most impressive protection abilities in tests on animals.
While the greatest strides in research have been made in developing
drugs that prolong the lives of HIV-infected patients, they are expensive.
Nary said only 6 percent of the population can afford the drugs.
Study participants point to the success of Dr. Ronald Desrosiers.
The Harvard Medical School researcher has developed a vaccine that seems to
protect monkeys from the primate-equivalent of HIV.
It is that vaccine the group would like to use in its experiment. But
animal test results have been mixed and other combinations of the vaccine
has resulted in disease in test monkeys.
``We are not calling for a trial tomorrow, or even the next day,''
Zuniga said Sunday. ``We want there to be enough safety protocols in place
for this not to harm anybody.''
Dr. Mark Grabowsky of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases was skeptical of the proposed study, saying it is premature to
talk about injecting healthy people with a live vaccine.
Nonetheless, Grabowsky told the Chicago Tribune: ``I admire them. That
kind of activism can't help but be inspiring. But the scientific questions
still remain.''
The group wants approval from the National Institutes of Health and the
Food and Drug Administration but promises to go on even if they don't get
it. They could proceed with the trial without FDA approval by holding the
study within one state or conducting it outside the country.
Grabowsky said he has invited the group to discuss the study at the
National Institutes of Health in Rockville, Md., on Thursday.
Meanwhile, AIDS researcher David Ho said researchers are developing
protease drugs that would be taken once a day -- instead of the current
regimen of dozens of pills several times a day.
Trials involving patients could begin within six months, he said
Saturday at the U.S. Conference on AIDS in Miami Beach, Fla.
The combination drug therapies have been widely successful in making
the virus undetectable in some people's bloodstreams. Ho said he and his
colleagues have discovered tiny, dogged traces of virus in bits of lymph
tissues, the very heart of the immune system.
``We still don't know whether it's feasible to eradicate HIV, mainly
because we don't know if it's feasible to eradicate the last residual bit
of virus,'' said Ho, the New York virologist who was named Time magazine's
1996 Man of the Year for his work
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