Largest Current Study Of AIDS Vaccine Shut Down Because It Doesn't Work
HIV Virus C. Goldsmith / CDCIn fact, patients injected with the vaccine actually developed HIV more often than those who were given a placebo. Eep. The largest current study of a potential AIDS vaccine, a $77 million project led by a Columbia University doctor, has been shut down due to "futility." The patients will be monitored to see any long-term effects, but the message is clear: it doesn't work, shut it down. The study, called HVTN-505, was begun in 2009, over the years enrolling over 2,500 volunteers. The vaccination process doesn't actually involve any live or even deactivated HIV; instead, it starts with one that includes genetic material that's simply modeled after the virus, to prime the immune system. Then comes the real vaccine, involving recombinant DNA (meaning, DNA from various sources) based on adenovirus type 5, a common cold virus that in this case has been disabled so it doesn't...