AIDS Vaccine Panel Discussion [Minutes]

7-APR-97 PACHA AIDS VACCINE PANEL DISCUSSION - p. 5

vaccine development, where we've been, where we're going, how we get there, et
cetera, and for the panel's benefit here, you should know that the Council has spent
about 2 years postponing recommendations on vaccines while they tried to get
educated and gather information about this issue. But the time seems to be right that
we wanted to make some recommendations.
We certainly know that we don't have the knowledge to get involved in
specifically which vaccines are better than others or which research tack should be
taken, and we've stayed away from that. But I think we've gotten a strong sense that
the community has said they want more administrative and presidential leadership on
this issue, a little more direction, a little more money, a little more emphasis, and we've
taken that direction from the community that we hear from to take all the information
that we've gotten and synthesize it into a few recommendations that we hope are
general enough that they push this issue more, without stepping on a lot of toes nor
being too specific in terms of which vaccines, et cetera.
So with that, we asked Alexandra to put together this panel, and I wanted to
take this time to thank Bruce Weniger for pushing this issue and keeping it on the
burner for us and keeping us educated about it, as well as Alexandra for taking a
phenomenal amount of time to kind of referee the whole discussion and --"referee" is
not a good -- yes, it is, it's a good word -- referee the whole discussion and try and
bring this to, I think, something we can be proud of as a council, and I really want to
thank you for the time you've taken on this.
So with that, Alexandra.
DR. LEVINE: Again, I very much appreciate the panelists for your willingness to come here
and educate us and help us. We wrote draft recommendations, and my first point is
that those are draft recommendations. They are not in final form, by any means. That's
why we've asked you to come here, to help us with the final form or to change this
totally, if that's how you feel.
One of my jobs is going to be to keep this panel on time. It was going to be
difficult no matter what; now it turns out it's even more difficult, because Bruce Reed is
coming somewhere in the middle of the panel, and we'll have to break for that. We also
have to leave at 12:15 or 12:30. So forgive me, but I'm going to be a grossly
aggressive person up here.
We are still waiting for Dr. Baltimore, who is critically important. Instead of
waiting, we'll just move ahead in the panel. The first speaker, therefore, will be Dr.
John McNeil. Dr. McNeil is the director of the Department of Defense HIV/AIDS
vaccine development program at Walter Reed. He is formerly chief for international
site selection for the collaborative vaccine research with the Military Medical