The AIDS Vaccine Impasse: Lessons from Jonas Salk and the March of Dimes (Draft)

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foundations to create such structures are on the right track, and would be
strengthened by government participation and support.
Shepherding vaccines through the R & D process will be a long and
challenging charge. The AIDS vaccine development entity must encourage
private investment and charitable contributions. It must contract to fill
gaps in products or knowledge not covered by private or NIH research. It
must mobilize essential public support and involvement in sponsoring large
field trials. It must avoid a one-step-at-a-time serial approach, and
instead put various HIV vaccine designs into concurrently overlapping
field trials, each of which will take years to complete. And it must
overcome liability and regulatory obstacles before the first product can
become available.
At the White House Conference on HIV and AIDS on December 6,
President Clinton said that a vaccine was among the nation's first and top
priorities. He~reported ask the Vice President to convene a meeting of
scientists and leaders of the pharmaceutical industry to identify all the
ways to accelerate development.
President Kennedy mobilized the government bureaucracy and the
nation px a time of disillusionment44our technological capability after
Sputnik by setting a date certain for putting an American on the moon.
There can be no greater tribute to the memory of Jonas Salk -- who spent
the final years of his life working on a vaccine for AIDS -- than for the
President to declare a national goal to develop an effective vaccine for
AIDS by the 50th anniversary of the success of Dr. Salk's vaccine, which
would be the year 2005. "Reinventing" the federal role in HIV vaccine