http://www.michaelspecter.com/ny/2003/2003_02_03_vaccine.html New Yorker article on the ethics and economics of AIDS research. This is blurbed as being on whether it’s appropriate to subject AIDS research to the same constraints that govern other medical research, but it actually covers a lot of subjects (and doesn’t actually cover the ethical issue in much depth).
“In 2001, less than two per cent of the twenty billion dollars spent on aids prevention, treatment, and research across the world was devoted to the search for a vaccine.” (Apparently there’s not much incentive to find a vaccine because the ideal vaccine is cheap, and administered once. Also, finding a vaccine looks to be very hard.) 15:21
