SAN FRANCISCO: Mayor Honors AIDS Vaccine Volunteers

      San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown Monday honored 33 San Franciscans taking part in a nationwide clinical trial of two HIV/AIDS vaccines, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. The mayor's speech marked "HIV/AIDS Vaccine Awareness Day" -- the first anniversary of President Clinton's call to develop an inoculation against the virus by 2007. The vaccine trial is being conducted by Dr. Susan Buchbinder, head of the city's public department's HIV research division, who also works at the University of California at San Francisco. Brown praised the city for having "one of the few health departments that is engaged in HIV research. It obviously is a very dreaded disease, one we must never cease fighting." Buchbinder said "[m]any individuals have come forward and put themselves at risk. San Francisco General Hospital served as a pivotal site of testing new AIDS vaccines." One of the vaccines under examination is manufactured by Chiron, an Emeryville, CA-based biotechnology company, and the other is manufactured by Pasteur Merieux Connaught, a French firm. Both vaccines "have shown promise but are still in the early stages," the Chronicle reports (Johnson, 5/19). See the May 13 issue of the Daily HIV/AIDS Report or the May 13 issue of the Chronicle for more on the San Francisco vaccine trials.

HIV InSite Posts First Anniversary Feature
      To mark the first anniversary of the administration's call for a vaccine and the first "AIDS Vaccine Awareness Day," UCSF's AIDS information Web site, HIV InSite, has posted a series of articles and interviews about the status of AIDS vaccine development. Among the pieces included are a new AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) report and a "Real Audio" interview with Sam Avrett of AVAC.