25 Feb 2002

The Washington Post reported last Friday that a dozen patients in the suspended trial of the Aβ vaccine AN-1792 have now fallen ill with cerebral inflammation. The newspaper also reported, and Elan company spokesman Max Gershenoff confirmed to Alzforum, that some of those additional cases turned up outside of France. This is relevant because the initial four cases in this joint U.S.-European trial were all in France, which led the company to suggest that the problem may not have been due to the trial vaccine.

Gershenoff refuted the Journal's assertion that the trial had now been halted. The trial remains temporarily suspended, though this distinction appears increasingly semantic. The company refuses further comment pending a review by an independent safety monitoring board. See our live discussion on AD immunotherapy.—Gabrielle Stroebel