Backup Text for Remarks Never Delivered

17 March 1998 C 19,, g 5 p. 1
Many on this Council, including myself, are properly OUTRAGED and
ANGRY that a PUBLIC HEALTH TOOL which could save a number of lives
from HIV -- needle exchange -- is being hampered by FEDERAL INACTION.
I feel JUST AS STRONGLY about SIMILAR Federal inaction over another
potential tool to slow this epidemic: the gpl20 HUMAN VACCINES for
HIV/AIDS. These vaccines have protected chimpanzees from HIV, have been
found safe and immunogenic in humans, and have been recommended by FDA
expert advisory panels for definitive large-scale field efficacy trials to
DETERMINE DEFINITIVELY if they will work to protect humans.
HOWEVER, those now running the Federal AIDS vaccine effort appear
UNABLE or UNWILLING to RECONSIDER their widely-criticised 1994
decision not to conduct field trials of these products. Some scientists predict, on
the basis of UNPROVEN SPECULATION, that they won't work and are not
worth testing. Those with experience making vaccines say we cannot know
whether they will work unless we have the courage to do the trials.
One has to WEIGH the RISKS if they do not work against the potential
BENEFITS if they DO. Even if these vaccines provide only partial protection, we
can quickly begin to save far more of the 40,000 Americans and countless
numbers in other countries newly-infected each year. Far more lives could be
saved than through needle exchange. And even if the vaccines don't work at all,
that is still valuable information to guide future scientific efforts.
Taking out of this document its frank and straightforward language would
be a WHITEWASH to which I could not, IN CONSCIENCE, SUBSCRIBE. It
would leave the overall MISLEADING MESSAGE to the President and his
advisors that "ALL IS WELL with the current Federal AIDS vaccine effort" and

that the only thing needed is to ADDRESS VARIOUS NON-SCIENTIFIC
POLICY ISSUES and to better COORDINATE things.
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