Last Monday (24 February) the US biotech company VaxGen released the results of the first-ever, real-world test of an AIDS vaccine (see Mixed results for AIDS vaccine trial).

In this article Jon Cohen probes into the background to the announcement, and describes some of the reactions from the scientific community to its claims that the small subgroup of black, Asian and mixed-race participants were strongly protected by the vaccine.

It seems likely that VaxGen's analyses have touched off a debate that promises to reverberate around the community for weeks, if not months, to come.

Link to full Science article

Reference: Science 299, 1290 (2003)