What AVAC Recommends In AIDS Vaccines at the Crossroads

In AIDS Vaccines at the Crossroads, AVAC documents what we see as the needed tasks in the search for an AIDS vaccine during a time of redirection. In brief, our list of resulting recommendations includes:

For AIDS Vaccine Scientists:

• Carry out a smart, evidence-based science agenda, even when that means giving up once favored products, combinations or trials that lack incrementally superior data.
• Tell everyone the basis for those decisions and explain them in ways all stakeholders can understand.
• Do prompt work on important areas of new constructs such as mucosal or innate immunity.

For the Global HIV/AIDS Vaccine Enterprise and Other Collaborations:

• Set technical and legal procedures to facilitate knowledge sharing.
• Be forthright and public about overcoming intellectual property obstacles that might inhibit private sector involvement.
• Overcome those obstacles with model and public sharing arrangements, harmonization and reasonable reward distribution.

For Funders:

• Supplement existing mentoring and investigator grant programs that expand the number of young scientists, especially international scientists, who make this work their career.
• Rich country governments that have not yet invested adequately in AIDS care, prevention and research need to step up their efforts.

For Clinical Trial Leaders

• Listen carefully to civil society and communicate openly and often with the communities on whom, for whom, and with whom research is performed.
• More fully integrate prevention, testing and treatment with clinical trials.
• Researchers testing tenofovir as pre-exposure prophylaxis need to better coordinate their studies and determine whether additional trials are needed. Collaborative efforts among trial sponsors and communities are urgently needed to address ethical and other concerns.

For the Blueprint and Roadmap Makers:

• On the many different organizational blueprints and agendas, you’ve said what you mean. Now is the time to mean what you say. The science agendas are great ones. Now implement them with due speed and enthusiasm!
• Examine past experiences of setting milestones and learn about common pitfalls made in establishing processes and making projections, then use that information as a reality check for the future.

For Government Policy Makers and Influencers:

• Support some of the current Bioshield II legislation in the US for infectious disease but amend it to correct problems with both its liability and its intellectual property incentives features.
• Organize advance purchase incentives as soon as possible and create additional incentives for vaccine developers.
• Provide open public access to research results including peer-reviewed articles of work funded by taxpayer dollars.
• Support the research collaborations, and keep them continually accountable. But don’t underestimate the power of independent research.

For All AIDS Vaccine Stakeholders and Advocates:

• Press forward with both existing prevention methods and expanded access to treatment that are responsive to local needs and demands today.

> Download a PDF of the Letter from the Board President & Executive Director

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