Policy Wise

In another setback in the global fight against AIDS, the Step Study, the most promising in the efforts to develop an AIDS vaccine has failed,

a promising experimental AIDS vaccine failed to work in a large international test, leading the developer to halt the study. Merck & Co. said Friday that it is ending enrollment and vaccination of volunteers in the study, which was partly funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Officials at the company, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., said 24 of 741 volunteers who got the vaccine in one segment of the experiment later became infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In a comparison group of volunteers who got dummy shots, 21 of 762 participants also became infected.[link]

The global Health Policy blog has more coverage including this interesting quote by the editor of The Lancet

Contrary to the predictions and promises of most AIDS experts, the signs are that a vaccine to prevent HIV infection will not be found for, at the very least, several decades to come – if at all. Those responsible for carrying on the global fight against AIDS do not accept this grim outlook, at least publicly. Yet it is a conclusion, based on all the evidence gathered so far, which increasingly defies rebuttal. Until the gravity of this scientific failure is openly acknowledged, a serious debate about how to end HIV’s lethal grip on some of the poorest and most vulnerable human populations in the world cannot take place.[link]