The vaccine trial, similar to a failed Merck and Co. product, was developed by the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. In a study called PAVE 100, the agency planned to include 2,400 men in the United States.
Rejecting the plan, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a unit of NIH, asked study designers to propose a smaller, more focused clinical trial that would cost less than $45 million. If the experiment proves successful, then additional studies could be carried out.
The new vaccine was based on the same lines as the Merck drug that was designed not to prevent HIV infection, but to trigger an immune response that would keep any infection in check.
Created by Dr. Gary Nabel of NIH, the new vaccine used strains from around the world to spark immunity, but also used the cold virus Adenovirus-5, the ingredient that was responsible for the failure of the Merck vaccine test. Both vaccines relied on a version of a common cold virus to stir up the immune system.
Many potential AIDS vaccines have been studied, but only two have made it to large-scale trials, and both have failed. Apart from the most recent Merck vaccines, a study of 4,500 North American and European volunteers found that a vaccine produced by Vaxgen, a Brisbane company, provided no protection against infection by HIV.
About 33 million people in the world have the AIDS virus, and 2.5 million new infections occur each year.
