A recent report on the NewsHour on PBS noted that it took 47 years to develop a polio vaccine, 42 years for a measles vaccine and 105 years for typhoid. Therefore, at 24 years, research on the AIDS vaccine is still young. Nonetheless, because of years of failure in progress on an AIDS vaccine, some AIDS advocates have called for the cessation of U.S. government funding for a vaccine and using the funds instead for treatment known to work for those currently living with HIV/AIDS, which they assert could possibly save over 2 million additional lives a year. However, it appears most scientists support the continuation and necessity for ongoing vaccine funding, even though there have been numerous disappointing failures to date, and some danger discovered in human trials. Midcourse corrections in vaccine research are not unusual, and the primary focus will now be on laboratory and animal testing, although most scientists do not advocate abandoning human testing completely. AIDS experts supporting the continuation of vaccine research have noted that it would cost one quarter of all foreign aid to adequately treat everyone in need, that the very drugs that now work in treatment were also once thought impossible to discover or work, that failures in other vaccine efforts contributed to ultimate success, and that only a vaccine can ultimately deal decisively with the world-wide AIDS epidemic. Over 33 million people are infected with HIV and more than 2 million died from AIDS last year, with another 2.5 million people contracting HIV last year. Although there has been failure to discover an AIDS vaccine after nearly 25 years, and although diverting government funding for vaccine research to drug treatment programs in place and already working could theoretically save many more lives today, since vaccines have in the past taken far longer to develop, after significant failures along the way, and a successful vaccine is the only thing that can with certainty stop the AIDS epidemic, do you believe government funding to discover and develop an AIDS vaccine should continue?