How can this be true?

Given the devastation that HIV/AIDS has caused around the globe for over 30 years, it is difficult to grasp how one of the best-established vaccine methods has been omitted from the entire AIDS research agenda. The short answer is that killed-virus vaccines have simply slipped through the cracks between the primary entities engaged in HIV vaccine research.

Biotech companies have seen no profit potential in vaccines based on old-fashioned public sector technology. For their part, academic scientists can get no support for product development based on “old-school” science as opposed to seeking innovative methods based on new scientific understanding. And the few practical vaccinologists interested in classical methods have never been able to obtain significant funding for killed-virus vaccine development from any of the traditional sources.

So while it never has been anyone’s explicit policy to omit one of the most historically-successful vaccine methods for HIV/AIDS, in effect, that has been the outcome.