AVAC Announces Appointment of New Director of Education and Outreach

NEW YORK – The Ford Foundation today announced a $250,000 grant over two years to the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC). Founded in 1995, AVAC is a community and consumer-based advocacy organization working to accelerate ethical development and delivery of AIDS vaccines to populations throughout the world.

AVAC also announced the appointment of Edd Lee as the new Director of Education and Outreach. Mr. Lee is currently the Associate Director of Prevention Services at Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center in San Francisco. He will start in his new role with AVAC in July.

“Community engagement is essential to moving AIDS vaccine research forward,” said Chris Collins, Executive Director at AVAC. “From pushing governments and industry to accelerate research, to monitoring the ethics of clinical trials, to insisting on rapid global access to vaccines, members of AIDS-affected communities have an important role to play. We thank the Ford Foundation for their support of this important work.” Resources provided by the Ford Foundation will help fund a variety of community outreach and mobilization activities designed to inform and engage communities on AIDS vaccine research.

“Community participation and trust is crucial to the development of AIDS vaccines,” said Edd Lee, AVAC’s new Director of Education and Outreach. “I am thrilled AVAC and the Ford Foundation are committed to community inclusion in AIDS vaccine development and I am proud to become a part of this effort. Many communities in the United States and around the world are concerned about past abuses in medical research and limited access to the benefits of health research. Community members need to be involved to assure ethical conduct of studies, protection of clinical trial participants, and equitable access to AIDS vaccines when they become available.”

The Ford Foundation is an independent, nonprofit grant making organization. For more than half a century it has been a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide, guided by its goals to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. With headquarters in New York, the foundation has offices in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and Russia.

AVAC is a watchdog, education and advocacy organization that has become a leading national voice on AIDS vaccines. The organization is coordinating a Vaccine Community Session on July 11, 2002 as part of the upcoming International AIDS Conference in Barcelona. AVAC is supported by grants from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Until There’s a Cure Foundation, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the Gill Foundation, and contributions from many individuals.

NEW YORK (May 17, 2002) – Today, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) issued its fifth independent assessment of AIDS vaccine development from a community perspective. Entitled “Five Years & Counting; Science, Urgency and Courage,” the report finds that the campaign to identify an effective AIDS vaccine needs to move more candidate vaccines into clinical trials, and cites the pressing need for increased community engagement and public pressure to accelerate research efforts.

“Five years ago the White House issued a challenge to the nation – to develop an AIDS vaccine within a decade,” said AVAC Executive Director, Chris Collins. “This month we hit the halfway mark and many scientists believe we will not meet the deadline, or even come close.”

The report notes some positive scientific news on AIDS vaccines, but also identifies significant challenges ahead. Last winter, plans to move forward with an efficacy trial on one vaccine candidate were canceled when initial testing revealed disappointing immune responses among vaccine recipients. “HIV continues to spread at the alarming rate of nearly 14,000 new cases each day. Additional basic research, clinical trials and new, creative approaches to vaccine design are all badly needed,” said Michael Powell, PhD, Chair of the AVAC Board of Directors.

Need for More Clinical Trials
While AVAC’s review finds that the U.S. government’s HIV/AIDS vaccine research effort is now moving with increasing energy to develop products and move them into trials, past under-investment in AIDS vaccines by both government and industry has led to a gap in products ready for human testing today.

“There has been only one candidate AIDS vaccine available that is prepared to move forward into Phase III trials. This is only partly because of the significant challenges presented by HIV, but also due to the failure of public and private sectors to fully engage in the vaccine effort for many years or to focus on more than one approach at a time,” said Powell. “At last, there are now more vaccine candidates in the pipeline that need to be moved forward into clinical testing as swiftly as possible.”

The AVAC Fund
One specific measure that AVAC is undertaking is the AVAC Fund, which will award small-scale emergency grants to sites around the world embarking on HIV vaccine clinical research. The money will help purchase equipment and supplies not covered by research protocols, but needed to support the work of scientists and communities. Starting small, but promising ease and speed in its grant-making, the AVAC Fund is designed specifically to give ancillary support to sites in resource-limited settings that are struggling with the devastation of AIDS and taking on the added challenge of testing vaccines.

Signs of New Engagement
AVAC notes that several new programs are furthering developing countries’ involvement in AIDS vaccine research. AVAC lauds the creation of the NIH-funded Comprehensive International Program of Research on AIDS, whose mission is to ensure long-term funding for these countries’ researchers. In Botswana, the Harvard AIDS Institute has teamed up with the national government to create the Botswana Harvard Partnership for HIV Research and Education, where a vaccine initiative is a central component of this partnership.

In the United States, the NIH’s new Vaccine Research Center is now up and running and has entered its first AIDS vaccine into human testing. For the first time, some state governments are also making a contribution. Georgia, for example, uses lottery funds to support Emory University’s groundbreaking HIV vaccine research. Still, federal lawmakers have so far failed to pass incentives for research and development on vaccines against malaria, TB and HIV contained in the Vaccines for the New Millennium Act. The bipartisan legislation has been introduced by Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Senator John Kerry.

Call to Increase Public Pressure
The report identifies many improvements in vaccine research infrastructure and regulatory capacity that could be made, but which will require clear and consistent advocacy voices aimed at elected officials, regulatory agencies, scientists, industry, research funders and governments worldwide.

“As much as anything, what we need is public pressure and political will – to increase public and private funding, to ensure ethical research, and to run efficacy trials when products demonstrate safety and promising immune responses,” said Collins. “Only public insistence on accelerated, universal access can ensure that an AIDS vaccine conquers the global epidemic, rather than solely benefiting those that are fortunate to live in the world’s wealthiest nations.”

The AVAC report acknowledges that AIDS vaccine research is likely to be a long-term endeavor and must be pursued in the context of a comprehensive response to the pandemic. “In many ways, AIDS vaccine research can help blaze a trail in health care delivery today,” the AVAC report notes. “Communities that participate in AIDS vaccine research are making an enormous contribution to future global health; they deserve tangible benefits today.”

About the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition
AVAC is a seven-year-old alliance of advocates dedicated to accelerating the ethical development and global delivery of vaccines for AIDS. Volunteers are located throughout the country, with staff now based in New York City. Through its education and mobilization activities, AVAC stimulates public awareness of the critical need for AIDS vaccines.

AVAC does not accept funding from governments or the pharmaceutical industry. AVAC’s annual reports and ongoing policy, advocacy and outreach work are made possible by the dedicated labor of AVAC advocates and contributions from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Until There’s a Cure Foundation, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the Gill Foundation, and many generous individuals.

Attention Media
AVAC has created a membership program designed to provide reporters and others with updates on HIV vaccine issues from a community and consumer perspective. Contact AVAC at 212-367-1084 or avac@avac.org.

Copies of “Five Years and Counting” are available from Lauren Mazzella, 212-581-2770 (x26) or lmazzella@senseihealth.com. They also may be downloaded from AVAC’s web site.

NEW YORK – The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) today responded to an announcement by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that it would not be able to run a clinical trial of immune responses with the canarypox HIV vaccine candidate. “We are very disappointed that immunology results do not meet the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) criteria to move ahead with a correlates trial,” said Chris Collins, Executive Director of AVAC.

The NIH also announced today that the highly regarded HIV vaccine research program based at the Department of Defense would be funded by NIH. “HIV vaccine research benefits from a diversity of efforts,” Collins said. “For years the DOD program has been engaged in directed research that well complements other efforts in government and industry. With support from the Thai government they intend to move forward with a more empirically based canarypox efficacy trial, which AVAC fully supports. As this program moves forward its accomplished military research team deserves to retain its scientific and operational independence.”

“Given these events, government and industry must now intensify their efforts on HIV vaccine research and development,” Collins said. “Today’s news must not become an excuse to abandon support for clinical trials or trial sites around the world. Ultimately, a series of large scale human trials of multiple candidate vaccines will almost certainly be necessary. It is essential that we continue to improve the clinical trials infrastructure needed to run these trials where the need is most intense, particularly in resource-poor countries where infections rates continue to be very high.”.

AVAC is a group of volunteer advocates, supported by a small professional staff, that has become a leading national voice on AIDS vaccines. In May of each year, AVAC releases a report analyzing the state of AIDS vaccine research and identifying needed actions in the public and private sectors to advance development and eventual delivery of vaccines for AIDS. AVAC also works to mobilize community support for AIDS vaccine research, develops and distributes educational materials, and advocates for expanded attention to AIDS vaccines in government and industry. AVAC staff and board members participate in a variety of national and international advisory boards shaping clinical trials, public policy, and communications strategies concerning AIDS vaccines.

Washington, D.C. – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a grant of $600,000 over three years to the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC). Founded in 1995, AVAC is a consumer-based advocacy organization working to speed development and delivery of AIDS vaccines to populations throughout the world.

AVAC also announced today the appointment of Chris Collins as its new Executive Director. “Expanded consumer-based advocacy is essential in order to accelerate development and delivery of vaccines for AIDS,” Collins said. “It is now clear that an AIDS vaccine is possible. The question is how soon we find it and who gets it when we do. Public support and engagement will be crucial in addressing many of the challenges in AIDS vaccine research and delivery. We thank the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for its continuing leadership on global health, and look forward to expanding our efforts with the foundation’s generous support.”

Collins is a cofounder of AVAC, and is currently a Principal with Progressive Health Partners, a health policy consulting company. He previously handled health policy and appropriations for Rep. Nancy Pelosi. He is the primary author of two University of California, San Francisco monographs: Sustaining Support for Domestic HIV Vaccine Research (1996) and The Policy of AIDS Vaccines (2001), and was the key architect of pending legislation to give incentives to industry to develop vaccines and microbicides against the globally most deadly infectious diseases. “The AVAC board couldn’t be happier that Chris Collins has agreed to lead AVAC. Chris is committed, superbly qualified and able to raise the organization’s profile and expand on its unique activities to help make a global preventive HIV vaccine a reality,” notes Bill Snow, a founding member of AVAC’s Board.

“Stopping the transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, is the foundation’s number one global health priority,” affirmed Dr. Helene Gayle, senior advisor on HIV/AIDS for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Developing a vaccine for AIDS in the near term and focusing on prevention in the immediate term are our most pressing and promising imperatives. AVAC’s contribution to vaccine development and delivery is critical to our continued momentum and ultimate success.”

AVAC is a group of volunteer advocates, supported by a small professional staff, that has become a leading national voice on AIDS vaccines. In May of each year, AVAC releases a report analyzing the state of AIDS vaccine research and identifying needed actions in the public and private sectors to advance development and eventual delivery of vaccines for AIDS. AVAC also works to mobilize community support for AIDS vaccine research, develops and distributes educational materials, and advocates for expanded attention to AIDS vaccines in government and industry. AVAC staff and board members participate in a variety of national and international advisory boards shaping clinical trials, public policy, and communications strategies concerning AIDS vaccines.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is dedicated to improving people’s lives by sharing advances in health and learning with the global community. Led by Bill Gates’ father, William H. Gates Sr., and Patty Stonesifer, the Seattle-based foundation has an asset base of $23.4 billion. For complete information, visit http://gatesfoundation.org/.