working notes: response for ahf's call for end of vaccine research

[Guest guest]

[apologize if this is a

dup---am having difficulties with my laptop---rk

Working notes in response

to Weinstein’s/AHF’s call to end HIV vaccine research: an unfunny

subject for Weinstein’s bad-boyism

A couple of years ago, i was on a panel with

michael weinstein at a public forum about AHF’s extremely flawed

prevention ad campaign, (HIV---not fabulous). At the time Weinstein said AHF

gets about $22,000 income per year per patient, and he was doing public-minded

prevention things because he wasn’t content with profiteering off AIDS.

from my report on the forum (not getting caught --- ahf not fab forum report)

http://aids-write.org/?p=133

26.

weinstein in response: in many issues of treatment, follow the money

27.

kearns takes exception: economic disincentive to come up with vaccine

I took exception with his position at the time and I do now. While

we were not limiting our discussion to HIV vaccine research then,

“following the money in many issues of treatment” clearly invited

discussion of big pharma’s economic disincentive to seek a vaccine and was

clearly a part of the big picture of all funding for HIV research. Is profit is

the ultimate director of research? Should it be? My exceptions to his argument

were built on these three following pieces of research (which i brought up then,

to which Weinstein responded by agreeing “yes, there is that.”):

vaccine should be global

top priority

#1 Laurie Garrett writes in

the July 2005 council on foreign relations report

on hiv and national security:

clearly, the entire

question of national security and hiv/aids would be moot were there an

effective, affordable vaccine available. investment in basic vaccine related

research and development ought to be a critical priority. similarly, were

prevention campaigns aggressively funded and executed the world over, the

security dimensions of the pandemic would obviously be softened. No aspect of

hiv-prevention has received adequate attention on the global stage.

[i’ve cut-and-pasted a little more from garrett at the end of this note]

not ENOUGH profit: big

pharma’s “economic disincentive” for a vaccine spelled out in

bucks for you

#2 Greeve wrote in

the May 22, 2005 charlotte, nc observer:

“the basic problem is

that vaccines, which typically offer long-term immunity from one battery of

shots, aren’t nearly as profitable as drugs that are taken daily.

pfizer’s cholesterol-lowering lipitor, for example, with $10 billion in

global sales, grosses more than all the world’s vaccines combined.”

[from an

interview with bill gates]

big pharma has re-tooled and

acted to eliminate the development of vaccines.

#3 A. Offit wrote in Health Affairs,

vol 24, issue 3, 622-630 © 2005

“During the past

fifty years, the number of pharmaceutical companies making vaccines has

decreased dramatically, and those that still make vaccines have reduced

resources to make new ones. Pharmaceutical companies are gradually abandoning

vaccines because the research, development, testing, and manufacture of

vaccines are expensive and because the market to sell vaccines is much smaller [read

less lucrative – rk] than

the market for other drug products. Congressional action could assure both a

steady supply of existing vaccines and the promise of vaccines for the

future.”

In the Baltimore

Sun article, 8th paragraph: “We already know what a successful

AIDS control program looks like.” Do you know what it looks like? I

seemed to have missed it. Have we cured anyone? Have we brought new infections

to a halt? Where did it happen? How could i have missed it? Is the plague over

now? Will people forget there was a time when AIDS killed millions of us? What

does the cure look like?

the quote attributed to “Dr.

S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious

Diseases, [who] recently stated: ‘We have to leave open the possibility

.... that we might never get a vaccine for HIV’ " is meaningless

because of the equivocation---we might or we might not get a vaccine. safe

answer for history & the electorate.

here’s the bigger problem:

daniel

costello, latimes: big pharma shovels in profit for HIV treatments (780)

http://aids-write.org/?p=703

HIV treatment

becoming profitable

By Costello, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

February 21, 2008

http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-hiv21feb21,0,3240250.story

.. . .

something unexpected is happening: As treatment of HIV patients in the U.S.

and abroad continues to improve, it has turned into a growing profit center for

the drug industry. . . .

At the

same time, hopes for an HIV vaccine have faded and rates of new infections in

some communities are climbing after years of stabilizing.

Although

some of those developments might be bad news for public health, they’re

benefiting companies such as City-based Gilead,

whose name refers to a medicinal balm in the Bible. The firm saw revenue reach

$4.3 billion last year, up a third from 2006. HIV product sales in 2007 were

$3.14 billion, an increase of 48% compared with a year earlier.

Last

year, Gilead’s stock price rose by more

than a third, and recently its market value climbed above $42 billion, making

it the third-largest biotechnology company by market value in the world.

Should

its growth continue apace, the company could soon be worth more than Thousand

Oaks-based biotech giant Amgen Inc., analysts predict.

Sunday’s call to give up on vaccine development has the

feeling of a done deal among the good ol’ boys. It represents an attitude

bothers me tremendously. It is strategy in conflict with public interest. I am

also too tired at this moment to finish pulling together a cogent response and

pack it off to the baltimore

sun asap. essentially, AHF calls for an abandonment of hope that there will

ever be a zero infection rate, and faith in the dollar as an alternative. it is

an unfunny topic as a subject for Weinstein’s bad-boyism.

more from laurie garret’s/council on foreign relations

report “HIV and national security: where are the links?”

http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/HIV_National_Security.pdf

The horrors of HIV might not be felt so acutely, forcing

agonizing decisions for leaders the world over, were

there an international commitment to blocking the further

spread of the virus. Prevention efforts, generally,

have taken a backseat to treatment campaigns, however, and

some human rights groups have framed the question of access to life-extending

medicines as the paramount AIDS issue of the day. There is at least an equally

compelling argument that people have a right not to get infected in the first

place, meaning that access to lifesaving education, condoms, safe needles, and

possible vaccines and microbicides constitute essential human rights. Of all of

the tools of prevention, the only one likely to stop the pandemic is an

effective vaccine. Sadly, investment in vaccine research and development is

woefully inadequate, with 2004 total spending worldwide amounting to a mere $680

million, of which $610 million came from public sources. Commercial-sector

investment in AIDS vaccine work is extremely modest, at roughly $50 million

internationally. The U.S.

government remains clearly dominant in contributions to the vaccine search,

having spent $526 million, or 80 percent of the total world vaccine effort.

Fortunately, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2005 announced the

creation of an enterprise initiative to tackle the quest for an AIDS vaccine,

adding $450 million to the globaleffort and a mechanism meant to coordinate the

pursuits of various government and private initiatives. Nevertheless, the

overall vaccine research effort is characterized by financial inadequacy, a

serious lack of urgency, along with highly significant intellectual challenges.

Therefore:

[recomended] Action Five: Development of an

effective, affordable, protective HIV vaccine must rank among the world’s

top biological research priorities. The effort lacks sufficient funding and

urgency at this time.

does weinstein think we should give up on a

cure also, because we are no closer to it than we were 20 years ago? are we

better off keeping corporate greed, government inaction and indifference in

control? as long as AHF gets its piece?

i will rest and come back to this. i would

appreciate hearing comments for a letter to the baltimore sun, even though the timeframe has

almost slipped away.

thanks & namasté

---richard kearns

aids-write.org

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