A registered nurse will ask you some questions and provide information about clinical trials for which we need volunteers. Healthy men and women aged 18 to 60 who DO NOT have HIV infection are eligible to enroll. It is important to enroll people from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds to determine if there are differences in response to the vaccine. All vaccines are tested for toxic effects in small animals. The FDA must review and approve the clinical study for safety before vaccines can be given to people in a clinical trial.
Most people have a sore arm for a day or so.
A few people experience mild flu-like symptoms. There is, however, the possibility of more serious side effects or reactions that are unknown at this time. This is why we will monitor you very closely in the unlikely event that you have an adverse reaction to the vaccine. It is not possible to get HIV from the vaccine, because there is no live, killed, or weakened HIV in it. The vaccines are man-made in the lab from pieces of the virus and cannot multiply in the body.