The start of a clinical trial with an AIDS vaccine developed by French company Pasteur-Mérieux Connaught made front-page news in several major papers in September. The vaccine, composed of three HIV genes inserted into a canarypox vector, was administered to 420 human volunteers in a Phase II trial that tested the vaccine's safety and ability to provoke an immune response. Some researchers view the undertaking as one more trial of a technology that is unlikely to result in a useful compo

'PERSONAL GOAL': NIAID's Penelope Hitchcock would like home STD tests to be as convenient as home pregnancy tests. While great attention has been focused on development of better therapies for HIV, incidence rates of other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States remain alarmingly high. Yet, as pointed out in an Institute of Medicine (IOM) report entitled The Hidden Epidemic: Confronting Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Washington, D.C., National Academy Press, 1997), the Americ

'IN TRANSITION': Association of Independent Research Institutes members are looking at new strategies, says president David Beck. Independent research institutes, which garner 10 percent of the National Institutes of Health's extramural research funding budget, rely heavily on federal support. With increased competition for grants and government funding far from assured, these institutes are reevaluating their financial strategies. Members of the Association of Independent Research Institutes

The 'environmental justice' movement presses for studies of links among poverty, exposure to toxins, and disease. A collaborative effort is under way to assess the legacy of environmental pollution that falls upon the poor. An Institute of Medicine (IoM) committee recently completed site visits as part of its 18-month study that will evaluate the research, educational, and health policy needs required to bring "environmental justice" to impoverished and minority communities. Environmental just

The minority researchers say that hard work and perseverance enabled them to overcome obstacles in their paths. SELF-SUFFICIENCY: Ciro Sumaya says, "what we do for ourselves has the strongest impact. Getting to the rarefied upper levels of scientific achievement is difficult for most researchers, but for many members of underrepresented minority groups, the road to success is littered with obstacles. While overcoming poverty or an inferior primary education are major hurdles themselves, many

Sidebar: HEO's Priorities For Action SKEPTIC: Henry Stevenson-Perez says HHS's agenda offers few services to Hispanic members of the public. For years, Hispanic health professionals have contended they are severely underrepresented in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a situation that they say jeopardizes HHS's ability to serve a rapidly increasing Hispanic population in the United States. HHS itself conceded this in a document released last September, "Hispanic Agenda for Ac

More than 100 federal employees, administrators, and community-based organizational leaders attended a Sept. 7, 1996, Hispanic Leadership Retreat to discuss how to improve services offered to Hispanics by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the working environment at HHS for Hispanic employees. Retreat participants set priorities for a new vision of the Hispanic Employee Organization (HEO), a group that represents Hispanic employees of HHS. Members narrowed the list, and HEO l

SIDEBAR: Mired in Politics: Emergency Contraceptives And Abortifacients LITTLE PROGRESS NOTED: "Why should a pharmaceutical company take these risks?" asks pioneer Carl Djerassi. Although the molecular biology revolution is in full swing and potential new products abound, basic methods of birth control have changed little in the 36 years since the contraceptive pill was introduced. Indeed, some scientists believe that political and economic pressures will keep most contraceptive advances -- e

When the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made an unprecedented announcement in July that, absent standard FDA-approval procedures, oral contraceptive pills in high doses are safe and effective for emergency contraception -- the so-called morning-after pill -- it was giving its imprimatur to a well-established use (T. Lewin, New York Times, July 1, 1996, page A1). An Institute of Medicine (IOM) report released in May (P.F. Harrison, A. Rosenfield, eds., Contraceptive Research a

Anxieties Hospital mergers are becoming a national trend, as institutions from New England to the San Francisco Bay area combine to strengthen their competitive positions in a changing health care market. The phenomenon has now emerged in New York, where the proposed merger between Mount Sinai Medical Center and New York University Medical Center (NYU), announced June 18, appeared to set off a flurry of similar transactions. In addition to combining their two hospitals, the institutions will me

Managed-Care Organizations In Clinical Trials RAY OF HOPE: Cancer-prevention specialist Jon Kerner says MCOs support Phase III trials in some cases. With the advent of managed-care organizations (MCOs) and their focus on cost competitiveness, academic scientists are concerned that clinical trials will suffer from decreased patient participation. MCOs, they say, have been refusing to pay for ancillary tests and procedures performed in the course of a trial that they would otherwise pay. Resear

Clinical-Trial Recruitment 'PLEASANT SUPRISE': NCI's Otis Brawley notes the racial makeup of treatment-trial patients was not planned. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), the largest of the National Institutes of Health, proudly touts its record of recruiting minorities into clinical trials it supports. "We have incredibly good representation of minorities on treatment trials," maintains Otis Brawley, senior investigator in the Community Oncology and Rehabilitation Branch of NCI's Division o