Officials: Search for HIV vaccine needs overhaul (AP)

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer 7 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Scientists will have to take "enormous intellectual leaps" to develop an AIDS vaccine in the coming years, say researchers clearly frustrated by the failure of a once-promising shot. The researchers, including a top National Institutes of Health official, want new people with new ideas to step up and join the search. They say the focus of their research should be on discovering a vaccine rather than on clinical trials for evaluating medicines that may or may not work. "Design of a vaccine that blocks HIV infection will require enormous intellectual leaps beyond present day knowledge," concluded a broad team of researchers writing in Friday's edition of the journal Science. More than 6,500 new HIV infections occur daily worldwide. A recent high-profile trial... [read full story]