[Letter to Floyd Bloom from R. Scott Hitt]

Page Two
Dr. Floyd Bloom
August 26, 1998
ongoing communication and collaboration with the NIH and other federal agencies. It is clear that
representatives of the international community must be involved, including groups such as the World
Bank, the United Nations, and Intematioanl AIDS Vaccine Initiative; however, no administrative
mechanism exists to ensure the requisite ongoing communication among these groups and the NIH
and other federal agencies. After spending years in studying these issues, PACHA has
recommended that the role of administrative coordination of the federal vaccine effort be placed
within the White House, implemented through the Office of AIDS Research, which reports directly
to the President of the United States.
The authors of the letter to Science indicate that PACHA has advocated the widespread
testing of existing empiric vaccine approaches. In fact, based upon the continuing increase in HIVinfected persons throughout the world-despite all efforts at behavioral intervention--we have
recommended that both empiric and traditional scientific methods be employed in an attempt to
develop an effective AIDS vaccine as quickly as possible.
We hope that these comments will clarify the position of PACHA in terms of the federal HIV
vaccine effort. Clearly the goals of PACHA and the authors of the letter are the same: development
and implementation of a successful AIDS vaccine is quickly as possible. Toward this end we
believe that expertise from all relevant agencies within the federal government and administrative
coordination on a national and international level will be required to actually achieve this goal.
Sincerely yours,
R. Scott Hitt, M.D.
Chair, Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS
Alexandra Levine, M.D.
Chair, Research Subcommittee
Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS