Aug 10, 2009 10:34 am US/Central
Battle Erupts Over Plan For HIV Vaccine Test
County Health Officials Turned Down Proposal Last Week
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
A plan to test a possible new HIV vaccine in Cook County has run into a roadblock.
In June, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger signed an agreement with GeoVax Labs Inc. to discuss a plan to bring a trial HIV vaccine test to the county,
according to the Chicago Free Press. The tests called for GeoVax to hold the tests at the Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center an organization founded by the county Bureau of Health Services and Rush University Medical Center that runs an HIV/AIDS clinic on the city's West Side , the article said.
The tests would have been held at the Gift House, a testing facility at 1309 S. Kedzie Ave.
But the CORE Foundation,turned the proposal down.
Foundation officials do not want the vaccine trials at the CORE Center. This was in part due to a concern that patients would go off their HIV medications while taking the vaccine, as well as the fact that "there is no example to date of a therapeutic vaccine that has been successful," the Free Press reported.
But Stroger and his deputies suggest politics played a big role in the decision to reject the vaccine test.
"I think that politics is at issue with everything that happens in the county," he told CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery. "That's just a sad fact of life."
Stroger's once-close ally, County Commissioner John Daley, chairs the panel that made the decision. In a phone conversation, Daley ridiculed Stroger's complaint about political motivation.
Robert Weinstein, the chief operating officer of the CORE Center, said it was strictly based on science. He said medical officials there discussed it with health experts, board members and researchers.
"None of these individuals gave us any encouragement to move ahead on the therapeutic vaccine," Weinstein said.
Stroger said he's undeterred.
"I think that the public ought to have more information about this, and they should let the foundation and the board know what they think," Stroger said.
The Cook County Health and Hospitals system could overrule CORE and force it to accept the proposal, but the chairman, Warren Baits, usually listens to his board, Stroger's office told the Free Press.
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery contributed to this report.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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