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Subject: Lobbyists and Drug Tests=
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 92 04:28:31 EST
Message-ID: <6.1992Oct28.042831@AmeriCast.com>

Lobbyists and Drug Tests=

 THE SENATE was in session for more than 16 hours on Sept. 18,
and in the course of considering a Defense Department authoriza-
tion bill, 62 separate amendments were discussed and adopted.
Among them were authorizations for dozens of pet projects of in-
dividual senators, such as a lab at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., and
a training facility at Kessler Air Force Base, Miss. Not all of
these were requested by the Defense Department, but this kind of
end run to the Hill for money - a practice refined by colleges
and universities - has unfortunately become all too familiar.

 Amendment Number 42 of those passed that day turns out to be
another such back-door authorization of a special project. It
provides $20 million in additional funds to the Pentagon "for
AIDS research." Sounds not only innocuous but positively
praiseworthy. But in fact the purpose of the amendment - and of a
similar provision in the Defense Department appropriations bill
passed five days later - is to force government researchers to
expand and accelerate the testing of an AIDS vaccine developed by
a Connecticut biotech company called MicroGeneSys Inc. The debate
on the amendment, not quite a full column in the Congressional
Record, is short on detail and long on praise for former senator
Russell Long, who represents MicroGeneSys and who was on the
floor of the Senate that day.

What's wrong with all this? Russell Long violated no laws or re-
gulations by contacting his former colleagues on behalf of a
client. But government scientists are understandably upset about
the precedent of Congress deciding which drugs have merit and
when they should be tested. The MicroGeneSys product, GP-160, is
already in the preliminary trials stage, as are about a half-
dozen other potentially effective AIDS vaccines. But researchers
claim there is no evidence to suggest GP-160 is better than the
others. No federal agency requested the money or authority for
accelerated testing, and officials specifically charged with
responsibility for AIDS research have protested that decisions
about the safety and efficacy of injecting thousands of people
with an experimental vaccine should be left to scientists, not
politicians and lobbyists.

 Dr. Bernadine Healy, director of the National Institutes of
Health, has been forthright in her opposition to this amendment.
She, Food and Drug Commissioner David Kessler and Defense Secre-
tary Dick Cheney have six months to consider the merits of ac-
celerated testing of GP-160, but they must act affirmatively or
the tests will go forward. Nevertheless, the process thus far is
troubling. Billions of dollars are at stake for the first commer-
cial company to win government approval of an AIDS vaccine, and
many thousands of patients are at risk in any experimental drug
trials. The matter is too important to be slipped into a heavily
weighted defense bill as if it were a new fire station for the
Klamath Falls, Ore., airport. Congress should encourage and sup-
port AIDS research and leave the scientific decisions to the
government researchers who are the experts. 02:04 10-28C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

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