NONE BUT THE BRAVE

By Christine Gorman

Helen Miramontes wants a doctor to fill a hypodermic needle with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and inject it into her blood. No, the 66-year-old grandmother and professor of nursing is not crazy. She is part of a group of 50 doctors, nurses and health advocates who are willing to give their bodies to science to help test whether a live but genetically weakened strain of the aids virus is safe enough to be used as a vaccine.

Miramontes' offer is part of a calculated--and well-publicized--effort to break a logjam that has stymied researchers since the start of the AIDS epidemic. Scientists know vaccines are the best way to stop the spread of a deadly virus, but there is no way to determine how effective a vaccine is in humans without putting some humans at risk. The situation with AIDS is especially frustrating because the safest preparations tested so far don't seem to work that well--at least on animals--and the most effective ones are not that safe. In fact, because the AIDS virus mutates so rapidly, would-be vaccines carry the risk of causing the very disease they are meant to prevent.

That has not stopped Ronald Desrosiers, a professor of microbiology at Harvard Medical School, from championing the live-virus approach. A year after injecting a handful of chimpanzees with a solution of weakened HIV, Desrosiers exposed them to the full-strength virus. Every chimp had an immune response strong enough to contain the killer virus--at least for a while.

But will Desrosiers' vaccine work in humans? Accidentally giving people AIDS is not the only risk. All AIDS viruses, whether weakened or full strength, permanently insert their genes into the chromosomes of infected cells. Theoretically at least, that microscopic intrusion could lead to problems ranging from cancer to systemic nerve damage. The problems might show up immediately, or they might show up 15 or 20 years later. There is no way of finding out unless a few brave souls are willing to step forward to be the first guinea pigs.

Adding to the urgency is the fact that 8,000 people around the world become infected with HIV every day. "I am a little fearful," admits Jose Zuniga, 28, a Chicago AIDS activist. "But I've lost too many friends and loved ones to this disease."

Zuniga and Miramontes, however, may never get a chance to help. There are strict rules governing how vaccine trials are conducted in the U.S.--rules that could delay any study by at least two years. Although the volunteers say they might proceed without the blessings of the National Institutes of Health and the FDA, Desrosiers insists he will not make his specially altered HIV strains available to any scientist who does not have government approval.

Even some of those who volunteered seem to be having second thoughts. "When I registered, it was more of an idea," says Dr. Bernard Hirschel of Geneva, Switzerland, who had not discussed his decision with his wife and children. "[The organizers] did not even talk about a vaccine that was ready for testing." Perhaps not. But by putting their bodies on the line, Hirschel and the growing ranks of other volunteers may have brought Desrosiers' unfinished vaccine one step closer.

--By Christine Gorman. Reported by Wendy Cole/Chicago

With reporting by Wendy Cole/Chicago