EXPERIMENTAL AIDS VACCINE CRITICIZED

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 11, 1993                   TAG: 9302110035
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short
EXPERIMENTAL AIDS VACCINE CRITICIZED
An experimental AIDS vaccine scheduled for federal testing because of lobbying by its manufacturer has come under criticism by three researchers.
The researchers said laboratory studies show the vaccine would not efficiently prime the immune system to create antibodies that attack the AIDS virus at a protein known as gp120.
The vaccine, manufactured by MicroGeneSys Inc. of Meriden, Conn., is to be tested by the Defense Department to see if it helps people infected with the AIDS virus fend off the disease. The study resulted from congressional lobbying on behalf of MicroGeneSys.
John Moore of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York, one of the researchers criticizing the vaccine, cautioned in an interview that the antibodies are not the only way a vaccine might fight AIDS. He said his observations were simply part of a scientific disagreement over how to design such a vaccine.
MicroGeneSys said in a statement that the antibodies Moore referred to appear "in nearly all AIDS patients, but do not prevent progression to disease."
The company said that on the basis of the vaccine's performance in research so far, it has been chosen for a study in humans by a Swedish laboratory.
The comments by Moore, George Lewis of the University of Maryland in Baltimore and James Robinson of the University of Connecticut in Farmington appear in a letter to the editor in today's issue of the journal Nature.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB