CONTROVERSIAL AIDS VACCINE WILL BE TESTED

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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 7, 1993                   TAG: 9304070168
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
CONTROVERSIAL AIDS VACCINE WILL BE TESTED
The deadline for stopping a controversial $20 million test of an experimental AIDS vaccine expired Tuesday, ensuring that clinical trials of the drug will proceed despite strong objections from federal health officials and leading AIDS researchers.
The Department of the Army confirmed Tuesday that it planned to test a therapeutic AIDS vaccine manufactured by MicroGeneSys of Meriden, Conn. Known as VaxSyn, the vaccine contains gp160, a substance made from part of the outer coating of the AIDS virus.
The Department of Defense, plays a major role in AIDS drug research, including trials on civilians. But the choice of which drugs to test is traditionally made by scientists at the National Institutes of Health. In the case of the gp160 vaccine, however, Congress bypassed NIH.
The trial was mandated by an amendment to the defense appropriations requiring that the trial proceed unless the NIH director, the commissioner of food and drugs and the secretary of defense unanimously determined not to proceed within six months of the bill's passage.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB