Subject: AIDS Vaccine Can Alter People's Immune Response
Date: Published: 10/18/89 (38 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    Technology:
    AIDS Vaccine Can Alter
    People's Immune Response

    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.  -- An experimental vaccine can alter
 the immune response of people infected with the AIDS virus, a
 prominent U. S. scientist said.
    However, that doesn't mean they can benefit from the
 vaccine.  Its effectiveness can't be determined until a large
 clinical trial is undertaken by the Army in January,
 according to Robert Redfield, chief of acquired immune
 deficiency syndrome research at Walter Reed Army Institute of
 Research.
    Dr. Redfield's report on early experiments using an AIDS
 vaccine made by MicroGeneSys Inc. of West Haven, Conn., came
 at a meeting of AIDS vaccine researchers in Florida late
 Monday.  The vaccine, VaxSyn HIV-1, has been safely given to
 14 people, some of whom are experiencing substantial
 increases in certain antibodies.
    "The conventional wisdom used to be that you couldn't
 modify the immune response of an infected individual" by
 innoculating them with synthetic viral proteins, Dr. Redfield
 said.  "We've demonstrated that you can."
    He said certain volunteers developed kinds of antibodies
 associated with early AIDS.  Other antibodies sparked by the
 preparation are of a sort rarely present in large quantities
 in infected or ill individuals, he added.  One of the
 mysteries of AIDS remains why infected people produce large
 quantities of antibodies, but deteriorate nonetheless.

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