Copyright 2000 The Washington Post
The Washington
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September 25, 2000, Monday, Final Edition
SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. A20
LENGTH: 533 words
HEADLINE:
Mr. Clinton's AIDS Challenge
BODY:
AT A
COMMENCEMENT address in 1997, President Clinton set a target of creating an AIDS
vaccine within the space of a decade. Three years later, there is encouraging
progress toward that objective. Preliminary trials on human beings have begun
for more than 20 potential vaccines. The president is
supporting legislation in Congress to speed vaccine development
with tax credits and to create an incentive to market
vaccines in poor countries that profit-seeking firms would
otherwise overlook. Thanks to presidential pressure, the budget for AIDS vaccine
research at the National Institutes of Health has more than doubled since 1997.
Yet Mr. Clinton's efforts remain incomplete in one respect. One of the most
promising approaches to vaccine development is not getting his support.
That approach is led by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, a
small group that works with biotech start-ups to do fast-track vaccine
development. The Initiative's theory is that high-tech innovation often comes
from small, flexible companies but that these can't attract private venture
capital to make products for developing countries. The group corrects that
market failure by providing capital. Rather than demanding a stake in the
profits it asks only that a successful vaccine be distributed in developing
countries cheaply.
The Initiative's "social-venture capitalism" shows
some signs of working. The British authorities have approved human trials of one
potential vaccine the group backed; the go-ahead for a second one was announced
last week, and a third may get the green light in the United States early next
year. All three research projects have progressed quickly. And unlike most other
potential vaccines, they are targeted at the strain of the virus prevalent in
Africa, the region that accounts for over two-thirds of people with HIV.
The group has received grants ranging from $ 3 million to $ 25 million
from the governments of Britain, the Netherlands, Canada and Ireland, as well as
millions of dollars from the World Bank and the Gates Foundation. Yet it has
received a grand total of $ 188,000 from the U.S. government. Last month Mr.
Clinton signed a law authorizing $ 20 million over two years for the Initiative;
now the challenge is to persuade Congress to appropriate the money. But the
administration is unclear which part of the budget to get the money from.
AIDS has already killed 16 million people, considerably more than live
in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia combined. More than 34
million live with the HIV virus; new infections are occurring at an estimated
rate of 15,000 a day. Campaigns to urge safe behavior plus treatment of those
who are infected are indispensable. But vaccine research and development is also
crucial, and right now it commands only about 2 percent of the $ 20 billion that
the world spends annually fighting the pandemic. The long history of other viral
epidemics, from measles to smallpox to polio, shows that vaccines--and only
vaccines--hold out the hope of victory. And the short history of the
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative suggests that America would be foolish not
to back its efforts.
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September 25, 2000 
