Subject: AIDS Experiment Shows Vaccine Shields Monkeys
Date: Published: 5/28/93 (34 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    AIDS Experiment Shows
    Vaccine Shields Monkeys

    WASHINGTON (AP) -- In an experiment that mimics the sexual
 transmission of AIDS, researchers showed that female monkeys can be
 protected from infection using a time-release vaccine.
    Preston A. Marx of the New Mexico Regional Primate Research
 Laboratory reports today in the journal Science that five of six
 female monkeys were protected against vaginal exposure to simian
 AIDS after inoculations with slowly dissolving beads coated with the
 virus.
    "The idea with this vaccine is to neutralize the virus at the
 point of contact," Dr. Marx said.  "Our feeling is that once the
 virus enters the bloodstream that the vaccine will be far less
 effective."
    The study with macaque monkeys used a virus called simian
 immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, that is closely akin to HIV, which
 causes AIDS in humans.  SIV causes AIDS in monkeys.
    Dr. Marx said the goal of the vaccine was to cause the female
 monkeys to develop SIV antibodies in the mucous membrane that lines
 the vagina.
    Although the majority of AIDS cases in the U. S. are among
 homosexual men, the disease world-wide is most commonly spread
 through heterosexual intercourse.  On a global basis, the majority of
 AIDS patients are heterosexual.

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