AIDS Vaccine Panel Discussion [Minutes]

7-APR-97 PACHA AIDS VACCINE PANEL DISCUSSION - p. 48

thinking about the legal and other aspects. That is different than someone who is the
CEO coordinator, because if that person then tries to coordinate things that are already
overcoordinated, we're going to have a problem.
I think that's the reluctance you're hearing. So we're not so much on different
wavelengths in that regard.
DR. LEVINE: Can I ask one other one? I'm sorry. And then I promise -- well, I don't know
what I promise.
(Laughter.)
DR. LEVINE: I don't think there's any debate at all on the committee vis-a-vis the scientific
coordination, and certainly not at NIH, but then the other part of that coordination was
the other DOD [Department of Defense] effort, et cetera. How would you envision
pulling that in so that there's absolute mandated communication and we assure that
there are no holes and so forth? Dr. Paul?
DR. PAUL: Well, of course, we'd very much like to see DOD become much more closely
involved in the efforts that are going on through David's committee. It was the early
hope that that would occur, and it's certainly a very strong view on our part that
scientist-to-scientist is the way that we're going to make the greatest progress here,
rather than installing someone above us to do that.
So our view, again, would be the AIDS Vaccine Research Committee could act
as a nucleating factor through which particularly the Department of Defense, which has
such an active and effective program, could very actively relate to the NIH program.
DR. LEVINE: Dr. McNeil?
DR. McNEIL: We certainly would be pleased to participate in that. But getting back to your
original question, I think I may have been one of the only people up here who said that
a date was a good idea, but I did modify the wording, saying that I think we should
fully evaluate three distinct strategies for HIV by the year 2005. Three first-generation
strategies.
I think we shouldn't be timid about this. The distal end of the pipeline needs to
be unplugged. We need to get some clinical efficacy data, and I think to commit to
evaluation doesn't mean we're committing to success, or that we'll have a vaccine that's
licensable, but we're committing to getting hard data on the performance of the
vaccine. I think that's an important recommendation.
I also did mention -- this may have gotten missed, because I was trying to cover