When America became frightened by the bio-terror threat, Congress and the Administration moved swiftly to put funding and incentives in place. That same kind of decisive action is needed to accelerate research and ensure an AIDS vaccine is available to all who need it. This Report looks at the bioterror model, and provides the results of our new industry survey.

Five years away from the date former President Bill Clinton set as a goal for finding an AIDS vaccine, there are more candidate vaccine products in development than ever before. No one knows if any of the current experimental vaccines will work. No one even knows what immune response a vaccine needs to elicit to prevent HIV disease. The only way to obtain answers is to ask tens of thousands of altruistic and courageous participants to participate in dozens of trials. The only way to obtain answers is to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to fund these trials.

In 1996, AVAC was the first organization to demand that development of an AIDS vaccine become a national goal. President Clinton set that goal in May 1997, calling for a successful vaccine by 2007. We are now six years away from the goal and counting. None of the challenges are insurmountable. The optimism that characterizes HIV vaccine research today should drive policy makers and researchers to grapple effectively with the issues that remain. An HIV vaccine is possible. The question is how soon we find it, and who gets it when we do.

The last year was one of great activity across US agencies and throughout the world. This Report documents the steadily increasing activity in the quest for a vaccine against HIV. We have also identified several actions necessary to accelerate development of HIV vaccines, and we outline all of this in the AVAC Report for 2000.

This Report urges government, industry, and community to dedicate themselves to the development of a safe and effective HIV vaccine. If the goal for 2007 cannot be achieved, then we need to know what will be accomplished over the next eight years toward a vaccine that could bring the HIV pandemic under control. With 16,000 new HIV infections each day, the world can afford no delay. This Report describes what each of these sectors has accomplished during the past year and outlines what each can do to speed the search for a preventive vaccine.

This report surveys the public- and private-sector efforts on HIV vaccine research and development in the past year, with a focus on the US government agencies and pharmaceutical companies that are most likely to make a difference. It finds that, despite an impressive array of dedicated researchers and increasing funding for HIV vaccines, the world will fall short of President Clinton’s deadline. US government research efforts are not focused on results, leaders err on the side of caution rather than on moving forward, responsibility is diffuse, and the nation has stood silent as pharmaceutical companies, including the world’s largest vaccine producer, make little or no investment in one of the greatest public health challenges of our century. AVAC addresses these obstacles and recommends an agenda for action in this report.