A year ago the US cancelled a large-scale HIV vaccine trial because
boffins realised they didn't know enough about how HIV, vaccines and
the human immune system work.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, told the world it was becoming clearer that
more fundamental research and animal testing would be needed before an
HIV vaccine was ever marketed.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/health/18iht-18vaccine.14590901.html?_r=1>:

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Plans for a large human trial of a promising government-developed HIV
vaccine in the United States were canceled Thursday because a top
federal official said scientists realized that they did not know
enough about how HIV vaccines and the immune system interact.

The decision is a major setback in an effort to develop an HIV vaccine
that began 24 years ago when government health officials promised a
marketed vaccine by 1987. Health officials have long contended that
such a vaccine would be their best weapon to control the AIDS
pandemic.

[...]

The official who canceled the government trial, Dr. Anthony Fauci,
director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
said it was becoming clearer that more fundamental research and animal
testing would be needed before an HIV vaccine was ever marketed.

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Skip forward twelve months to the present day and the good doctor is
now taking advantage of a freebie to South Africa to celebrate the
launch of a new AIDS vaccine trial.  What happened to the fundamental
research and animal testing he proposed?  And when are these people
going to get the message that HIV isn't AIDS?

<http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jYfmlJybMcNe_Uze-ilsLTKgJGygD9
9HR7V00>:

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South Africa is launching clinical trials of the first AIDS vaccines
created by a developing country, a feat by scientists who forged ahead
even when some of their political leaders shocked the world with
unscientific pronouncements about the disease.

Trials to test the safety in humans of the vaccines begin this month
on 36 healthy volunteers, Anthony Mbewu, president of South Africa's
government-supported Medical Research Council, said in an interview
Sunday. Mbewu's respected organization shepherded the project.

A trial of 12 volunteers in the United States began earlier this year.

Mbewu said the vaccine was designed at the University of Cape Town
with technical help from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which
also manufactured the vaccine.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Disease and a leading AIDS researcher, was in South
Africa for the launch.

[...]

Some 250 scientists and technicians worked on the project, along the
way gaining scores of doctorates and producing work for professional
publications as well as a model for continued biotechnology
development in South Africa.

[...]

South Africa was the site of the biggest setback to AIDS vaccine
research, when the most promising vaccine ever, produced by Merck &
Co. and tested in a study in South Africa in 2007, found that people
who got the vaccine were more likely to contract HIV than those who
did not.

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It's simply another failure waiting to happen.