TRENTON, N.J. — New data on an experimental AIDS vaccine that failed to work shows volunteers who got the shots were far more likely to get infected with the virus through sex or other risky behavior than those who got dummy shots.
The new details, released Wednesday by drugmaker Merck & Co., don’t answer the crucial question of whether failure of the vaccine also spells doom for many similar AIDS vaccines now in testing.
And researchers weren’t sure why more of the vaccinated volunteers wound up getting HIV than those who got dummy shots.
Some 3,000 people, mostly gay men and female sex workers, had volunteered to get the vaccine or dummy shots. All were warned to protect themselves from AIDS exposure.
At the time the study was halted in September, Merck said 24 of 741 volunteers who got the vaccine in one segment of testing later developed HIV; 21 of 762 participants who got dummy shots also were infected.
New data released Wednesday showed that to date, 49 of 914 vaccinated men had become infected with HIV, compared with 33 of the 922 men who got dummy shots.
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Sheriff’s deputy slain transporting robber
POMPANO BEACH, FLA. — A sheriff’s deputy was fatally shot as he transported a convicted robber to court Wednesday, and authorities captured the convict after a manhunt and said he was found with the deputy’s gun.
Broward County Sheriff Al Lamberti said Michael Mazza – already serving a life sentence for armed robbery – may have had accomplices who ambushed 76-year-old Paul Rein as he drove Mazza to court for his trial on a separate robbery.
Mazza, 40, was arrested at a Hollywood pawnshop shortly after noon, about four hours after Rein was found.
Ex-governor starts prison term
OXFORD, WIS. — Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan walked into prison Wednesday to start serving a 6 1/2-year corruption sentence.
The 73-year-old Republican was convicted in April 2006 of steering contracts, tax fraud, misuse of tax dollars and state workers, and killing a bribery investigation. Elected governor in 1998 after serving as secretary of state, he was in office just a few weeks before the federal investigation became public.
Reagan library missing thousands of mementos
WASHINGTON — The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library is unable to find or account for tens of thousands of valuable mementos of Reagan’s White House years because a “near universal” security breakdown left the artifacts vulnerable to pilfering by insiders, an audit by National Archives Inspector General Paul Brachfeld concluded.
Brachfeld said that his office was investigating allegations that a former employee stole Reagan memorabilia, but that the probe had been hampered by the Simi Valley, Calif., facility’s sloppy record-keeping.
A National Archives spokeswoman said the agency had accepted the audit’s criticisms and is working to fix the problems.
FBI investigates allegation of racist office display
NEW ORLEANS — The FBI is investigating allegations that a public works department supervisor displayed in his office two nooses, a bullwhip and a dart board with a black man as the bull’s-eye, an agent said Wednesday.
A black worker went public with the complaints Wednesday, saying he was fed up with the racist symbols in his white superintendent’s office at a sewage lift station in Jefferson Parish in suburban New Orleans.
Parish officials said “appropriate action” would be taken. FBI agent Jim Bernazzani said he assigned the case to his civil rights division.
