Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, International Issues Subcommittee [Transcript]

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1 about ethics because right now, it doesn't look like
2 anybody would distribute a vaccine. I think we need to go
3 on -- there are a lot of irons in the fire getting ready
4 for that day.
5 DR. MANN: Here's where the accountability
6 comes in. Whoever it is who would head that project and
7 that activity at the level of the White House, I would like
8 that person to be a champion of AIDS vaccines. By that I
9 mean it's a matter of mind set, a person who basically does
10 what champions of vaccines have done since the polio virus
11 vaccine was developed. They were developed by people who
12 believed something could be done, and who therefore
13 approached all of the challenges, like the ethical issues
14 that are usually raised, from the viewpoint of let's find a
15 way forward, rather than let's stop and have another
16 committee and more waiting.
17 What some of us hope to be able to do, and I
18 hope this will support what you're doing -- because the
19 danger in what you're proposing is the bureaucratization of
20 this and the disappearance of it from the radar screen. I
21 hope that there will be enough public pressure, and frankly
22 I think it needs to come, in part, from the minority
23 communities in this country, because the future of their
24 epidemic is going to be determined more by a vaccine than
25 probably anything else.
26 So basically I think it's important that there

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