Promising AIDS Vaccine Not as Promising As Originally Thought

In a disappointing twist of events, updated test results from a recent and what-was-thought-to-be promising AIDS vaccine experiment show that the vaccine is less effective than originally thought and that this effectiveness may tend to decrease over an extended period of time. Nonetheless, the results from this experimental study have not hindered the excitement that AIDS researchers and scientists have been feeling because all the samples of blood used in this trial may be just what they need to create a new vaccine that proves more successful.

The data stemming from this recent trial show that this type of vaccine may be better suited for those in the general public, as opposed to those who have an increased risk of contracting the virus, including homosexual men and drug users. This study was the first of its kind in that it was tested mainly amongst heterosexual people with an average risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Colonel Jerome Kim, a United States Army doctor who helped lead the study, states, “This study becomes a landmark. You can put it on a map and begin to figure out where you go from here.” In a recent issued report, researchers attached to this trial informed the public that a combination of two vaccines was reducing the risk of somebody contracting HIV by over 31% according to a Thai study that had over 16,000 voluntary participants.

In an update to these findings, results show that the vaccine is perhaps not as beneficial as previously thought. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a sponsor of the study, feels this may be attributed to the fact that only a few of the participants (125 people) contracted HIV, which is 10 times less than other HIV vaccine trials. To the critics of this study, Dr. Alan Bernstein, the executive director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, states, “The bottom line is that those results are real. We, for the first time, have evidence of protection, and the nitty gritty (arguments) to me don’t matter a damn.” He has the support of many other researchers, including Dr. Lawrence Corey from the University of Washington, who states, “It’s a consistent story. There seems to be some effect. And I think it is an important study. It redirects the field to look at a different kind of vaccine and different kinds of immune responses.”

The combination vaccine trial was conducted by the Thailand Ministry of Public Health and had over 16,000 participants, both male and female, between the ages of 18 to 30. All of the participants tested HIV-negative and had an average risk of contracting the virus. Half of the participants received the combination vaccine and the other half received dummy shots. Results showed a 31% lower risk of contracting HIV in the group that had received the vaccine. Discussing the results of the study, Dr. Raphael Dolin from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, states, “Perhaps the requirements for protection against transmission in low-risk heterosexual persons are considerably different or less stringent.”