Clinton AIDS Vaccine Call "A Recipe For Disaster"

US President Bill Clinton's challenge to drugmakers last week to get anAIDS vaccine onto the market within 10 years is "a recipe for disaster, where government scientists and drug companies are pressured to 'fix' a problem with a solution more based on good politics than good science," according to Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center, a consumer watchdog organization.

Speaking at Morgan State University, Baltimore, Pres Clinton had said: "if the last 50 years were the age of physics, the next 50 years will be the age of biology." He urged a new national goal to be set in the "age of biology," stating: "today let us commit ourselves to developing an AIDS vaccine within the next decade."

Ms Fisher suggested that Department of Health and Human Services advisors may have failed to inform Pres Clinton completely about the biological impediments and dangers associated with injecting DNA into humans via a genetic vaccine. She added: "America and the world cannot afford to make a mistake on this one. There is a real danger of creating greater harm with an AIDS vaccine that is rushed to market in a vacuum of scientific knowledge than the harm we are already experiencing with AIDS in its current form."