"Nobel Winner Pessimistic on AIDS Vaccine"

Associated Press (10.06.08):: John Leicester

Twenty-five years ago, when Pasteur Institute researchers first
described the virus that causes AIDS, they believed a global epidemic
could be averted.

"We were very naïve," said Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who, with Luc
Montagnier, is receiving the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering
HIV. "We naïvely thought that the discovery of the virus would allow
us to quickly learn more about it, to develop diagnostic tests which
has been done and to develop treatments, which has also been done to
a large extent and, most of all, develop a vaccine that would prevent
the global epidemic," Barre-Sinoussi said. "On that point, I must say
that until now it has been a succession of failures, failures linked
to the complexity of the interaction of this virus with human beings."

"Barre-Sinoussi said she was "very moved, very honored" to win the
Nobel, and that she was "very happy for France."

The search for an HIV/AIDS vaccine will need "far more fundamental
research to try to better understand the interaction between this
virus and the human body," said Barre-Sinoussi.

The Nobel Prize in medicine was announced Monday. Also sharing it is
Germany's Harald zur Hausen, who discovered that certain strains of
human papillomavirus cause cervical cancer.

http://www.cdcnpin.org/scripts/listserv/prevention_news.asp.