Cuts to U.S. military's HIV research program threaten HIV vaccine progress

Fred Sawe, deputy director of the Kenya Medical Research Institute/Walter Reed Project HIV Program in Kericho, Kenya, and Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention, report in Global Health Magazine that "[t]he Department of the Army is set to slash 73 percent of the U.S. Military HIV Research Program's (MHRP) Army research budget for FY13 through FY17," a move they write is a threat to HIV vaccine progress. They outline recent advancements in HIV vaccine research and recap the U.S. military's contribution to this research, concluding, "If MHRP funding is drastically cut in the coming years as proposed, it will set back leading scientific research on a course to finding a vaccine, the best weapon against HIV. The Pentagon needs to capitalize on its success, and move forward with its sister agencies, to meet and defeat the national and global threat of HIV" (10/6).