Joining health care organizations worldwide, several local hospitals and clinics have begun recruiting paid volunteers to test a new HIV vaccine that health officials say is promising, especially for people who are most prone to acquiring AIDS.
Unlike other vaccines that carry a dead form of the virus, this vaccine, developed by the National Institutes of Health Virus Research Center and pharmaceutical giant Merck, does not contain HIV in any form.
“[This approach] appears to be the most promising advance in recent years in the search for an HIV vaccine,” Peggy Johnston, director of the Vaccine and Prevention Research Program for the National Institutes of Health Division of AIDS, said in an Oct. 11 press release.
Several types of vaccines have been tested over the past 20 years, but most have had disappointing results. But developing a successful HIV vaccine is possible and will provide the best long-term solution for combating HIV, according to the institute’s website. HIV-positive people often remain healthy for years, which suggests that the human immune system can control HIV infection, the site explained.
Fenway Community Health, a gay and lesbian health care agency, hopes to recruit 100 high-risk men who have sex with men — or MSMs — to test the vaccine. Sixty-three percent of all HIV/AIDS cases in the U.S. are in gay and bisexual men, and HIV infection rates are rising among men who have sex with men, according to organization’s website.
“To see if it works, you need to test it on high-risk people,” said Jim Maynard, Fenway’s community outreach, recruitment and education programs manager. “We want to see if it elicits a strong enough immune response where, if they are ever exposed to HIV, the body would respond right away. We’re testing for safety and efficacy.”
The vaccine has already gone through the first phase of testing, which determined that it is safe for use in humans and that it looks promising, Maynard said.
Three thousand people will be tested worldwide, half of whom will receive a placebo in a blind procedure where neither the subject nor the doctor will know who has the placebos. Three injections will be administered over four years, after which time the HIV transmission rate in both sets of patients will be analyzed.
Maynard said the biggest obstacle Fenway Community Health faces in recruiting volunteers is misinformation, because some potential subjects think they can acquire HIV from the vaccine, when in fact, this is not true.
“No HIV is used at all in making this HIV vaccine,” Maynard said. “They created pieces of what you might find in the vaccine … and inserted them in a human cold virus that has been disabled.”
Fenway Community Health has recruited about 50 men over the past eight months. To find volunteers, they look for people on gay dating websites, visit gay bars and clubs and advertise in the gay press, Maynard said.
Although Fenway is recruiting only MSMs, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Miriam Hospital are recruiting all healthy men and women between age 18 and 50 who are HIV-negative, regardless of their sexual orientation. All three centers provide compensation, but Maynard said altruism is what brings most volunteers to the center.
School of Education sophomore Brad Koprowski, 18, who said he was gay, said he would be willing to be a test subject.
“It’s something to try and help people, and who knows, it could help me in the distant future,” he said. “I would hope that HIV never really affects my life, but it is something to be wary of.”
The HIV Vaccine Trial Network, a global partnership of researchers, government agencies, industries, academic institutions and community members, is conducting the trial, which is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health Division of AIDS.
Six countries are conducting trials, and Boston is one of six U.S. cities participating, according to the HVTN website. Depending on the results of this trial, there may be another phase to test safety and immune response in more people.
Maynard said he is enthusiastic about the future of the vaccine.
“Even if we could find something that was 50 percent effective, it would make such a difference in the human suffering throughout the world,” he said. “It will help not only our community, but entire generations.”
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