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

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1 vulnerable population in the United States, as Sandy and I
2 just discussed, the 40,000 or so new infections this year
3 are already people who are marginalized and discriminated
4 against within our society. Therefore, the failure to
5 proceed with the development of this vaccine exacerbates
6 existing and pre-existing patterns of societal
7 discrimination.
8 As an example, let's talk about Lime disease.
9 Lime disease, as you probably know, is a disease that
10 occurs in places like Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard. The
11 progress towards developing this vaccine has been rapid.
12 If 40,000 college students in this country were infected
13 with HIV each year, then I assure you that there would have
14 already been field trials of AIDS vaccines.
15 Now, the failure to proceed, therefore, with
16 vaccine field trials in the context not of an ideal world,
17 not in a world where we know all the answers -- my point to
18 you is that rotovirus vaccine, like many others, has been
19 developed without knowing before or after exactly what it
20 is that protects. Yet when it is shown to be, as rotovirus
21 vaccine is, well over 90 percent protective, the U.S.
22 government is willing to give it to every American child.
23 So either the development of rotovirus vaccine was
24 unethical, which no one would say, or the failure to
25 proceed with AIDS vaccine development is unethical, and
26 that's my statement here.

FREILICHER & ASSOCIATES, COURT REPORTERS
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