[Minutes, Advisory Committee to the Director GP-160 Meeting (1992: Bethesda, Maryland)]

1 efficacy trial that would be supported by the $20
2 million of U.S. taxpayer money.
3 As many of you know, the NIH was asked to
4 participate in the process in a rather unusual way.
5 We were not asked to help identify the best vaccine or
6 vaccines for research funding, but rather we were
7 asked to comment on Congress's predetermination of gp8 160 as the vaccine most worthy of Federal support.
9 Thus, the NIH was taken out of its usual
10 role of deciding which therapies and studies, from a
11 scientific and ethical standpoint, should receive
12 Federal support.
13 Instead, we have been put in the unusual
14 and possibly unprecedented position of determining
15 whether a specific research project, mandated in
16 legislation, is indeed worth of this support. One
17 might say that it's a case of the tail wagging the
18 dog.
19 I know that some of you share my concerns
20 about the unusual position in which NIH finds itself
21 and, like many of you, I also have concerns and
22 reservations about the process by which gp-160 was
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