Leading US scientists, including Nobel prize winner David Baltimore, primate researcher Ronald Desrosiers, and virologist Neal Nathanson, have voiced criticisms recently of the direction taken by HIV vaccine research. They say, not for the first time, that more money should be spent on basic research, rather than rushing to human trials of vaccines that do not look particularly promising. In the US, one third of the National Institutes of Health HIV/AIDS research budget goes to human trials of vaccines.
Desrosiers said the field is hampered by many unknowns, such as an understanding of which immune responses a vaccine must elicit. Baltimore added ‘HIV has found ways to totally fool the immune system, so we’ve got to do one better than nature because nature just doesn’t work in this circumstance.’
No-one would suggest that animal research holds all the answers, but animal studies are a crucial part of going back to basics – they will continue to provide vital clues about the human immune system’s response to HIV.
All this is common sense and rather gives the lie to simplistic and misleading antivivisection statements like:
‘in the case of HIV/Aids, a review of the published literature by a BUAV scientist showed 25 years of primate research has failed to find cures or treatments. More than 30 experimental vaccines have been tested in people but to date, despite positive results in monkeys, none have proved effective or safe in humans.’
Michelle Thew of the antivivisection group BUAV in a Guardian blog last week
Comments on the Guardian blog pointed out, quite rightly, that primate research has actually been crucial to developing successful treatments for HIV. A joint publication from RDS and CMP, Medical Advances and Animal Research, provides a brief referenced case history on HIV treatments. It says that animals were crucial in identifying the virus, for developing diagnostic tests, and for producing therapies that have prolonged millions of lives, in the West at least.
HIV was identified in the early 1980s by studying animals carrying retroviruses – the class of virus that includes HIV. The blood test (to test blood for transfusion as well as to diagnose the disease) was developed using animals. By studying monkeys with a related virus, SIV, in the first few weeks after infection, scientists were able to develop antiretroviral medicines for HIV patients. Many now take just two or three pills a day to stop the virus from reproducing while helping the immune system to recover.
It is clear that basic research – including animal research – must continue if we are ever to reach the ultimate goal of a vaccine. Millions of lives still depend on it.
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