National AIDS Task Force Expected To Accelerate Drug Development

Bench scientists will play a major role in an ambitious effort to streamline the campaign against HIV

The soon-to-be-appointed National Task Force on AIDS Drug Development may have a strong, positive impact on the research and development of antiviral therapies to counter HIV infection, say industry and academic scientists, government officials organizing the task force, and members of the AIDS-affected community. Key to the task force's effectiveness, however, will be the personnel selected by Secretary of Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala, probably in early February, to serve on it, these sources say.

"People's views run the gamut from cynical to optimistic," says activist Derek Hodel with the AIDS Action Council in Washington, D.C. "Those of us who are optimistic hope that the task force will be effective at its charter in identifying barriers to research and to drug development, of which there are many. If it's well-appointed and well-...