The chief executive and president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Seth Berkley, says that despite the recent trial failure of Merck & Co.’s AIDS vaccine, the idea of a preventive vaccine still offers great hope for combating the epidemic. His opinion piece appears in the December 18 edition of The Washington Post. (washingtonpost.com, 12/18).

“The failure of one product does not rule out success on that front,” Berkley writes.

He adds that no major viral epidemic has been successfully conquered without a vaccine: “It took 47 years after the virus responsible for polio was identified before scientists developed a vaccine for the disease. That we are free from iron lungs as well as a range of other infectious scourges is a debt we owe to the persistence and optimism of previous generations. Now it is our turn.”