AIDS researchers look for new vaccine

BOSTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- AIDS researchers meeting in Boston said they are starting basically from scratch in the search for a vaccine to protect against the immune disease.

The San Francisco Chronicle said the failure of a Merck vaccine study that left some volunteers susceptible to HIV has led to calls for a pause in new clinical trials.

Dr. Tony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has agreed to convene a meeting of leaders in the vaccine field to rethink strategy, the newspaper said.

Speaking at the 15th annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections Tuesday in Boston, Harvard researcher Ronald Desrosiers said current vaccine research trials were basically useless. "There is no rational basis for believing that any of the products in the pipeline have any reasonable hope of being effective," said Desrosiers.

Desrosiers said the research community needs to accept that HIV is the "undisputed champion" among viruses in its ability to mutate resistant strains, the newspaper said.