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

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1 which there is enough disease happening that you could
2 actually find out the answer.
3 PARTICIPANT: I have two questions. The first
4 is about the degree of the irrelevance for actual
5 instruction of what is going on at the local levels,
6 (inaudible), and what is that degree. Is it merely
7 irrelevant, or is it actually obstructive?
8 The second question is, who should be doing
9 this?
10 DR. MANN: In terms of the first question,
11 there are networks of AIDS vaccine researchers in this
12 country. Actually, I have a family member, my wife, who is
13 a member of that network. The problem is the question of
14 moving forward. This is the problem I'm really focusing
15 on. And the kinds of field trials that are required are
16 field trials of effectiveness.
17 Now, those field trials most likely will have
18 to be done abroad, and it will probably take more than one
19 field trial to reach the point we need to reach. So
20 Belshe's contributions are very important. In fact, he's
21 spoken rather well in the press, in the Washington Post I
22 think, about the need to do field trials.
23 Who should do it? In my opinion, the idea of a
24 champion at the level of HHS, perhaps at the level of the
25 White House -- I don't know enough about politics to
26 comment in detail, but there needs to be a champion who has

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