...is the headline for an article from from Michelle Faul of The Associated Press yesterday, after the publicity junket organised for the local launch of the UCT-developed HIV vaccines presently in Phase I clinical trial here and in the USA.
The AP piece goes on:
After a government official lauded the project at a ceremony at Cape Town's Crossroads shantytown, the scientist leading the research said state funding had been halted.
The contrast between Monday's hopeful vaccine launch and the revelation of funding cuts raised questions about whether the government was backsliding on its pledge to combat AIDS.
Anna-Lise Williamson, an AIDS researcher at the University of Cape Town, told The Associated Press the clinical trial would continue with U.S. money. But she said South Africa's Department of Science and Technology had pulled its funding in March, while the project's other sponsor, the state electricity utility Eskom, did not renew its contract when it expired last year.
Neither government spokesmen nor Eskom immediately returned calls seeking comment about funding cuts.
....
Williamson, the vaccine project's head researcher, said it was crucial to continue testing.
"For vaccine development presently, the South African AIDS Vaccine initiative has no money. If we do not continue working on this, we will never have a vaccine," she said. "It's incredibly important that we keep working."
Which contrasts rather with the UCT piece this morning, which doesn't mention the last bit.
Nice to have some of this out in the open, though - especially as it directly affected me, in that my HIV vaccine development projects halted abruptly, and caused the retrenchment of three people with about 27 years worth of accumulated expertise in HIV vaccine development.
Because of what amounted to a spat between a statutory funding body - the MRC - and a government Department - Science & Technology - over governance of the SA AIDS Vaccine Initiative, administered by the MRC. Basically, DST wanted SAAVI management to change; when it did not, they pulled their funding. And the largest biomedical biotechnology initiative in Africa abruptly folded.
Oh, it gets worse: there were comments that our vaccines were the products of bad science and would never get into people, for example. Amazing how petty people can be, when there is a lot at stake.
Someday the whole story will be told. Soon....
Ed Rybicki
