Summary

NAME: US AIDS ANNIV 20060604I TAPE: EF06/0487 IN_TIME: 10:51:47:02 DURATION: 00:04:04:11 SOURCES: AP/UN VNR DATELINE: Various - See Script RESTRICTIONS: SHOTLIST: AP Television San Francisco, California - 27 March 2006 1 Close-up of vaccine trial volunteer Matthew Bell walking down street 2 SOUNDBITE: (English) Mathew Bell, vaccine trial volunteer: I simply take a pill every morning at about the same time every day 3 Close-up Bell taking pill 4 SOUNDBITE: (English) Mathew Bell, vaccine trial volunteer: I would rather be part of the solution than sort of being on the sidelines just watching AP Television FILE: Atlanta, Georgia 5 Close-up CDC sign AP Television Bethesda, Maryland - 25 May 2006 6 SOUNDBITE: (English) Dr Anthony Fauci, Director, Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the US National Institutes of Health: Hopefully they will gain information from that trial that will help us in the next trial I don't think anyone has any comfort level that this is going to be an effective vaccine that will be widely used, but hopefully enough will be learned from the trial to help us in the next phases of trials AP Television San Francisco, California - 27 March 2006 7 Close-up pills used in clinical trial UN VNR - Non AP Television News material FILE: Unknown location, Africa 8 Various views of AIDS patient in hospital AP Television Baltimore, Maryland - 31 May 2006 9 SOUNDBITE: (English) Dr Robert Gallo, Founder & Director of Institute of Human Virology & Co-Discoverer of HIV: But I am not optimistic on any one of these candidates that are at the moment going forward AP Television Bethesda, Maryland - 25 May 2006 10 Mid view Dr Fauci at his desk 11 SOUNDBITE: (English) Dr Anthony Fauci, Director, Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the US National Institutes of Health: So it is a sobering reflection of the fact that historically we are in the midst of one of the most devastating epidemics in civilisation AP Television FILE: San Francisco, California - 198Os 12 Close-up men in street 13 Push in view of newspaper article AP Television Baltimore, Maryland - 31 May 2006 14 Close-up Dr Gallo walking through door 15 Dr Robert Gallo, Founder & Director of Institute of Human Virology & Co-Discoverer of HIV: There was the sense of the mystery, the sense of fear, a definite prejudice rising, a definite exclusionary attitude AP Television FILE: San Francisco, California - 198Os 16 Various close-up views signs of night clubs AP Television FILE: 17 GRAPHIC showing HIV virus AP Television FILE: San Francisco, California - 198Os 18 Close-up stills of men showing signs of Kaposi's Sarcoma, a rare skin cancer AP Television FILE: Date and location unknown 19 Close-up article showing headline 'Probable cause found of immunity disease' AP Television Baltimore, Maryland - 31 May 2006 20 Doctor Robert Gallo, Founder & Director of Institute of Human Virology & Co-Discoverer of HIV: We did think that it would likely be a brother of the leukaemia viruses we had just found We didn't think it would be a whole new class of retroviruses So the thinking was the one that was productive, but in its details was not right because it was a whole new class of retroviruses So, here we have man is infected by two different classes of retroviruses AP Television FILE 21 Graphic image showing cells infected with HIV virus AP Television Baltimore, Maryland - 31 May 2006 22 Close-up model showing cell infected by AIDS virus 23 Dr Robert Gallo, Founder & Director of Institute of Human Virology & Co-Discoverer of HIV: If the virus can be looked upon as let's picture a golf ball with a bunch of sticks, little sticks coming out of it The little sticks are what we called the envelope They have to interact with specific substances, molecules, on the surface of the cell they infect So, if my fist is the cell then each of my knuckles are different molecules on the surface of the cell Those sticks on the virus have to find one particular one and actually have to find a second one in time, so its a complex process of how HIV gets inside of the cell That process is being understood in molecular detail from knowledge of the structure of the little stick, the envelope 24 Pull back view of door, where volunteers are taking part in IHV vaccine trial 25 SOUNDBITE: (English) Gary Wolnitzek, Vaccine trial volunteer: With every new trial, with every new participant who enrols in a trial we get that much closer to a preventative vaccine for HIV 26 Various views Wolnitzek putting flyer on bulletin board 27 Close-up flyer asking for volunteers STORYLINE: Monday marks the 25th anniversary of the discovery of HIV/AIDS For Matthew Bell it is just another day, but, as part of a vaccine trial, these pills are now a fixture of his daily routine Volunteers like these are at forefront of modern HIV and AIDS research, willing to offer themselves as candidates in the latest rounds of vaccine studies Scientists have long believed that a vaccine is the best way to stop the spread of AIDS, but efforts to invent one have thus far failed A 32-year-old hotel manager from San Francisco, Bell is gay, HIV negative and has been taking one pill daily since last year He doesn't know if he's taking a drug combination or a placebo, but any risk is worth it to him A combination of two drugs has shown promise in early experiments in monkeys and US officials have expanded tests of the mixture in people around the world It's a combination of the drugs tenofovir (Viread) and emtricitabine, or FTC (Emtriva), sold in combination as Truvada by Gilead Sciences Incorporated Unlike vaccines, which work through the immune system, this drug combination, taken daily or weekly before exposure to the virus, may prevent it taking hold In trials, despite 14 weekly exposures to the virus, not one of the six monkeys treated with the drugs became infected All but one of another group of monkeys that didn't get the drugs did contract the virus, typically after two exposures The Centres for Disease Control has launched studies in Thailand, Africa, Atlanta and San Francisco on the two HIV drugs as a way to prevent the disease in people who are HIV negative If the trials pan out, a once-a-day prevention pill might help slow the global AIDS epidemic, although few scientists think tenofovir can completely stop the transmission of HIV The trials are funded by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) at a cost of 120 (m) million US dollars and will last more than three years, involving more than 15-thousand people While the head of the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the NIH, Doctor Anthony Fauci, doesn't believe that the trial will directly lead to a vaccine, he believes the results will be positive Hopefully enough will be learned from the trial to help us in the next phases of trials, he said Although the NIH-funded study is among more than 30 ongoing human trials of potential vaccines, the co-discoverer of the HIV virus, Doctor Robert Gallo, says none currently underway are offering great hope for an effective treatment Fauci says that since the virus' discovery, more than 60-million people have been infected, 25-million have already died, and upwards of 40-million are currently living with HIV/AIDS The figures were unimaginable 25 years ago The virus was first noticed in a CDC report published on June 5, 1981 and at the time was described as an unusual cluster of pneumonia and rare cancers found predominately in American gay men in Los Angeles Gallo recalls the fear and discrimination that quickly spread as the numbers of lives claimed by the virus increased Labelled a 'gay cancer' at first, it was only after heterosexual men, women and children were known to be affected by the virus that the stigma began to slowly subside Having earlier identified retroviruses in humans that can cause leukaemia, Gallo and his colleagues were among the first to argue that HIV, a retrovirus that had been identified in an AIDS patient by Luc Montagnier at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France, was the cause of AIDS The controversial find, with both teams claiming discovery of the virus, was settled a decade later when both scientists were named co-discoverers Despite early, and incorrect predictions that an AIDS vaccine was around the corner over the last two decades scientists are still struggling to combat HIV Some of the reasons for the difficulty include: it is a virus that mutates rapidly, eludes the human bodies natural immune response and once it has penetrated human DNA it has so far proven to be impossible to remove However, recent developments in molecular biology have given Gallo hope that a vaccine is possible He believes new details of how the HIV virus infects the cell, through the virus' envelope and the mechanisms it uses to penetrate cell DNA, could be the pathway to developing a vaccine Gallo and his team at the Baltimore, Maryland-based Institute of Human Virology have based their own human clinical trials on this theory and have started trials Based on an entirely different theory to the NIH study, and on the other side of the US from San Franciscan Matthew Bell, HIV/AIDS activist Gary Wolnitzek is also willing to lend his body in the cause of science Wolnitzek has already started a year-long study that involves injections of partial copies of HIV to test for safety Once Wolnitzek has completed his part in the clinical trial he intends to use his experiences as an example to seek other volunteers in the hunt for the elusive vaccine