Don’t Touch That Money!
The embattled U.S. Agency for International Development malaria vaccine research project (The Scientist, July 10, 1989, page 1; Oct. 16, 1989, page 12) received another blow last month with the release of a government report that condemns the manner in which AID has managed the $100 million effort. The problems are so extensive, says the General Accounting Office, that AID officials should postpone any plans to build a $15 million field testing station in the South Pacific until the Institute of Medicine has conducted an extensive review of the status of malarial research around the world. The GAO report criticizes all aspects of the project, begun in 1974 and fueled by periodic announcements that a vaccine was just around the corner. Among its many faults, AID is attacked for bungling the research by: funding two projects that received negative evaluations in a scientific review;...