In a battle plan for a "final assault on AIDS," a panel of top scientists is urging a major shakeup of the $1.4 billion federal AIDS research program. The sometimes-flawed program needs new talent and imagination, the panel says.
The committee of more than 100 scientists called on federal officials to recruit new researchers, combine various clinical trials into one coordinated effort and start a crash program to develop a vaccine against the virus that causes AIDS.Fifteen years of research directed by the National Institutes of Health have produced dramatic treatments and understanding of AIDS, the report said. But committee members found some efforts to be flawed, inadequate and even deceptive.
Some NIH programs funded by AIDS dollars, the report said, have "little or no direct relevance to AIDS."
The report, to be released Thursday, was being given privately to NIH officials Wednesday. A copy was obtained by The Associated Press.
The report is based on more than a year of fact-gathering by a committee selected in 1994 by the Office of AIDS Research. The committee, chaired by Dr. Arnold Levine of Princeton University, includes two Nobel laureates and many members of the National Academy of Sciences.
"We hope this report will lay the groundwork for the final assault on AIDS," said a committee official who asked not to be identified.
AIDS research now is spread among more than a dozen institutes, divisions and departments at the NIH, and some of the work is duplicative and wasteful, the report said.
The committee said it found many instances where promising research projects were not recognized and funded because NIH review committees lacked depth and expertise.
Evaluations favor veteran scientists who already have gathered extensive preliminary data, the report said.
As a result, it said, "many investigators are reluctant to submit novel or innovative proposals."
Efforts to develop an AIDS vaccine have been short-funded and unsuccessful, although finding a vaccine "is among the highest priorities," the report said.