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According to a recent Reuters report, researchers are increasingly discouraged by the lack of progress in finding an AIDS vaccine, to the point some are calling for abandoning its pursuit. Reports in The Independent, The L.A. Times, and The Washington Post, all point to a chasm in the AIDS research community. These articles are being picked up internationally, with an increasing worry that no AIDS vaccine will ever be found or pursued. Yet, according to Science Magazine, the reality is that the pursuit of a vaccine is not being abandoned at all. Simply, efforts and money are shifting from testing vaccines, to a phase of renewed vigor to learn about the virus. 

A recent poll of leading AIDS scientists in the U.S. and England, conducted by Britain’s Independent newspaper, found that only four out of 35 scientists were more optimistic today about finding a vaccine than they were five years ago. Worse yet, nearly two thirds believed that an HIV vaccine will not be developed within the next 10 years. According to the Independent, ”A mood of deep pessimism has spread among the international community of AIDS scientists. There have been 25 years of setbacks in the struggle to find a vaccine for the virus, which infected 2.5 million people in 2007.”

In another column in the Independent, Steve Connor writes that the time has not come yet to abandon the search for a vaccine, even though the vaccine is as far away as ever. He explains that major advances in what we know about the AIDS vaccine have been made recently that can some day be employed in vaccines. 

And, writes The Washington Post, it’s important to put these setbacks into perspective. ”What might look like a devastating failure to the public could be a steppingstone to advanced medications and an eventual cure.” The Post goes further and suggests that failures are common when searching for vaccines. For example, it took nearly 50 years for vaccines against measles and polio to be developed. 

But, many believe too much money has been spent to find a vaccine, when the money could be better spent on drugs, getting the drugs to poorer countries, and lowering the costs for those that can’t afford them. 

“It is simply unconscionable for the U.S. government to continue such wasteful funding while millions worldwide die for want of access to the AIDS research breakthrough that occurred more than 10 years ago - life-saving antiretroviral treatment,” Michael Weinstein, head of the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a medical care and advocacy organisation, writes in the LA Times. 

Weinstein concludes that: “To continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a government-funded search for an AIDS vaccine in the vain hope of success someday while millions worldwide suffer and die is simply unacceptable when other currently available strategies offer practical - and effective - alternatives.”

Why is this happening now? Science Magazine, the leading international magazine reporting on scientific advances, recently reported that in September, the international research community was devastated when an international trial of a Merck AIDS vaccine was suspended. Merck suspended the trial because not only did it fail to protect against HIV infection, it may even have made some people more susceptible. 

In January, 14 researchers wrote National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci, urging him to decrease funding for testing.  There have been claims that NIAID has lost its way.

All this controversy led NIAID to call a one day meeting in Maryland last month. According to Science, Fauci agreed that researchers should “increase the share of vaccine research that goes for “discovery,” or basic research (now 47%), and spend less on testing candidate vaccines in the lab and in clinical trials.” Participants at the day-long meeting, specified a few areas worthy of pursuit, including finding antibodies that thwart HIV; investigating the mucosal immune system, where the virus usually gets a foothold; studying African monkey species that carry simianlike HIV but don’t get sick, as well as rare people who become infected with HIV but stay healthy without drugs; and developing an adequate animal model to study. 

In other words, the AIDS vaccine is not being abandoned all together. Simply, efforts and money are shifting from testing vaccines, to a renewed vigor in studying the virus.