Critics Charge Author: FRANKLIN HOKE, pp.1
Date: July 11,1994

Disputing what they see as unproductive preoccupation with HIV-specific studies, they step up campaign for a `wider window' of research

Progress in AIDS research has faltered in the United States since the mid-1980s, according to some scientists, owing to a premature narrowing of the research focus by the scientific and administrative leadership of the National Institutes of Health, the agency that controls the bulk of funding for AIDS investigations.

With the epidemic well into its second decade and no effective drugs or vaccines yet in sight, these critics contend, the time has come for NIH to broaden its research support beyond the HIV-specific studies currently dominating the research portfolio.

Only through insights gained from new basic investigations in immunology, virology, and other areas largely excluded from NIH AIDS-related funding will the virus and its pathogenic mechanisms be sufficiently well understood to...

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