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

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1 know the bulk of NIH activity goes on at medical centers
2 throughout the country and throughout the world, and the
3 bulk of the $150 million that is being spent will not be
4 under the control of this new AIDS vaccine center. They're
5 going to create basically just an institutional box on the
6 organizational chart.
7 So there's still no one person you can point to
8 and say, "This is the person that we hold accountable. If
9 we don't make some progress in a year or two, we can bump
10 him out and find a replacement."
11 If you go back to the polio epidemic, we had
12 not so much Jonas Salk but really Basil O'Connor, a driving
13 executive type person who was committed, heart and soul, to
14 getting this product to solve that epidemic, and he would
15 solve every problem as they arose.
16 If you look at the Manhattan Project, it was
17 secret at the time, but it was --
18 MR. FOGEL: Bruce, let me ask you a question.
19 I got the impression from what Dr. Mann said that we have
20 the capability to go forward with field trials now, and I
21 think there is a person who has the moral and ethical
22 responsibility to make the decision to go forward, and
23 that's either the President or the Secretary of Health and
24 Human Services. So the issue isn't creating someone else
25 to make the decision. The issue is to get those in the
26 position and with the authority to make the decisions to

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