Incidence of infection is converted to data. Responses to vaccine are converted to data. Hundreds of monkeys are converted to data. Millions of human beings are converted to data. Unfortunately, the conversion of human beings to data, as necessary as it is for science, allows science to depersonalize our world.
Data are only data.
Data are not human life. The question of when a human safety trial of a live-attenuated HIV vaccine is appropriate is not a question about data. While data may be the province of science, human beings are the province of bioethics. Our association is seeking funding to convene a committee of international bioethicists to reexamine the ethical issues relative to vaccine development, the conduct of vaccine trials, and whether greater risks should be considered in the conduct of such trials when such risks to a few individuals can result in data necessary to bring a relatively safe and effective vaccine to market that can save millions of lives. When CNN asked Mark Siegler, MD, director of the University of Chicago's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, to join Charles Farthing, MD, in a discussion about our proposal for a human safety trial of a live-attenuated HIV vaccine, the news network demonstrated its insight into the real issues of this debate.