Access

Editorial


Nature Medicine 13, 1389 - 1390 (2007)
doi:10.1038/nm1207-1389

Cold shower for AIDS vaccines


A vaccine has the potential to substantially reduce the AIDS death toll. In the wake of the recent halting of phase 2b trials of Merck's HIV vaccine candidate, a hard look at the field's expectations and strategies is in order.


Vaccines have helped eliminate or control many public health scourges—smallpox, measles and hepatitis B among them—so it's not unreasonable to think that HIV might be similarly kept in check. Yet in spite of a surfeit of discussion in recent years of the best approach to developing AIDS vaccines, that goal remains out of reach.

$rb.Type.Code