MEETINGS next month may tell how much talk of change in AIDS research will translate into action.
A new open-mindedness has apparently blossomed since the presentation of disheartening reports at the Ninth International Conference on AIDS, held in Berlin, Germany, in June. Some of those reports deflated hopes for what were promising new drugs, others underscored doubts about what had bordered on dogma about the value of early intervention with antiretroviral drugs and combinations of those agents. Those who had crowed about how much has been learned are now acknowledging that most of the most basic questions remain unanswered.
At the same time, there is renewed interest in trying to restore, or at least augment, the damaged immune system, even in patients during the latest stages of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease, an area of research that has been overshadowed since the advent of nucleoside analogue antiretrovirals in the late