 Well I thank you all very much. As you know generally when I talk to a group like this I open with a joke or two to put all of us at ease and get things rolling and I hope you'll forgive me if I skip that today. I've just come from the wards you have here for children who have AIDS and let me just make a promise to those children and all others who have contracted this disease. We will, I will, do all that God gives us the power to do to find a cure for AIDS. We'll not stop, we'll not rest till we've sent AIDS the way of smallpox and polio. Those are words of resolve and now I'd like to add a few words of hope. One of the amazing stories of modern medicine is the progress that we've already made against AIDS. I know this is old news to you in this room so many of the breakthroughs were achieved right here in this building but for our friends in the press I thought I should put the speed of progress in perspective. Just think that the day I was sworn in as president we didn't even know that AIDS existed. It wasn't until five months later that the disease was discovered but only three years after that in a laboratory on this campus Dr. Robert Gallo isolated the AIDS virus. This was of course at about the same time as is often the case. Similar work was being done by Dr. Luc Montagnier at the Pasteur Institute in Paris. Within a year a blood test was available and now a treatment drug AZT is also on the market also developed here in this building by Dr. Sam Broder whom I met earlier this afternoon. Dr. Broder told me by the way that more progress is coming. He mentioned work on a number of new and promising drugs for treating AIDS and I understand that a vaccine will soon go into testing. As these drugs and vaccines come along I'm determined that red tape will not keep them away from those in need. We will make certain that they get the same kind of accelerated review from the Food and Drug Administration that got the AZT application approved in only four months. Record time. I know that everyone here understands how dazzling the progress against AIDS has been. It took 40 years of study to learn as much about polio. It took 19 years to develop a vaccine against hepatitis B. To keep up the momentum this year the federal government will spend 317 million dollars on AIDS research and development and 845 million overall and next year we'll spend 30 percent more on research and 1.26 billion overall. Spending on AIDS has been one of the fastest growing areas of the federal budget. Limits on research progress today are not the limits of spending but of the scientific process itself. Growing cultures, monitoring the spread of infection, conducting tests all of this takes time. Today we're taking another big step against AIDS. This morning at the White House we announced the members of the presidential commission on the human immunodeficiency virus epidemic. Dr. Eugene Mayberry the chief executive officer of the Mayo Clinic is chairman of the commission, the members of which are drawn from a wide range of backgrounds and points of view. And I say Dr. Mayberry is chairman, not will be chairman because not only did we announce the commission's membership today but today is also the commission's first day of work. They're wasting no time and in fact talk about speed Dr. Mayberry will present the commission's first report to me in 90 days. Dr. Mayberry and his colleagues will recommend a full fledged strategy for battling AIDS. We already have a research strategy for finding a cure. The commission will be reviewing not only that but also looking at questions of treatment and prevention. How can we most compassionately care for those who have AIDS? How can we most justly and effectively protect the public from the spread of AIDS? But we need right now in the battle against AIDS is a good strong dose of common sense. It seems to me common sense to recognize that when it comes to stopping the spread of AIDS medicine and morality teach the same lessons. It's also common sense that ignorance about the extent of the spread of AIDS won't help anyone. Those who have it, those who might get it, those who are looking for ways of preventing its spread. This is why I called recently for certain kinds of testing. I hope the commission will help us all put aside our suspicions and work together with common sense against this common threat. I wish I could say that the vast amounts of money and effort we're putting into AIDS research will give us a cure in a week or a year or by an absolutely certain date. The truth is none of us knows for certain just when a cure will come. It might not be until the late 1990s, might not be until later. That's why prevention and treatment are so important now. But in the spirit of hope, let's not forget a cure might possibly arrive much sooner. A few weeks ago I was reading about another field of astonishingly rapid scientific progress, not in medicine but in physics. Despite all the advances of the last year and what has become known as the phenomenon of superconductivity, one problem was said to be years from solving that of finding material that could handle what I as a layman would call large amounts of electricity. Well the next week another report appeared announcing that the problem had been solved. What some said would be years in coming happened just one week later. I don't know if the day will come when such progress will be in the cards for AIDS research but that's my hope and after the visit to the ward today and after the death of by AIDS of friends and former associates this is my prayer. One way or another, whether by breakthrough or steady progress, we will beat this disease. Now let me turn the meeting over to Secretary Bowen. Thank you very much Mr. President. We're grateful for your repeated commitment to victory and the struggle against AIDS and for your pledge of continued support. We welcome the members of the commission to the arena and we look forward to their advice, to their counsel, and to their assistance. I'm sure their work will advance the day of final success. This development is really only the latest example of this administration's dedication to research and to progress on many health and medical fronts. Last year NIH alone spent nearly $5 billion on more than 300,000 research grants and procurements and shining as it is, NIH is only one component of the Department of Health and Human Services whose mission is the improved health and the well-being of all the American people. We're presiding over dramatic decreases in infant mortality and in premature deaths from infectious diseases, coronary diseases, and stroke. We're making inroads against cancer and Alzheimer's disease and other human afflictions. With regard to AIDS, the whole department has been in the forefront of the struggle against every aspect of the disease. We're engaged in ongoing research into the psychology, the risk factors, methods of transmission, the care and treatment of the disease, and the development and testing of new drugs. NIH has been responsible for much of our success. To tell you more about what this institution is doing is its esteemed director, and I'm very pleased to present to you Dr. James B. Weingarden. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And on behalf of the National Institutes of Health, I would like to extend our warmest welcome to you, Mr. President, and to let you know how deeply honored we feel at this visit this afternoon. As Dr. Bowen has mentioned, the NIH is the major arm of the federal government for biomedical research. We are celebrating our centennial year this year. When NIH began 100 years ago as a small laboratory on Staten Island, our efforts were then aimed at important epidemics of that era, cholera, influenza, tuberculosis, yellow fever. Today in our centennial year, the modern NIH is making a major effort against the most important of modern epidemics, namely AIDS. The current statistics show that as of this day, there have been more than 38,000 cases diagnosed in this country, including over 500 in children with more than 22,000 deaths, including more than 340 deaths in children. AIDS was first described in the spring of 1981 by scientists in California supported through NIH grants. The NIH began immediately to address this important problem, and to date, NIH has seen approximately 800 adult AIDS patients in this hospital and in addition about 20 children. As the President mentioned, progress against AIDS has come very rapidly in the last few years. And I'd like to cite at least two reasons why it was possible to make such rapid progress. The first of these has been the sustained support of biomedical research by the federal government and by the administration and the Congress. A great deal was learned in the last 10 to 15 years about viruses, about molecular biology, about the immune system. Had AIDS burst upon the scene 10 or 15 years ago, we would not have known how to address the problem. Instead, rather quickly, the nature of the disease was perceived, the cognitive agent identified, and as mentioned within three years, the virus was isolated. So it was the investment in basic science over time that made that possible. The second major factor was the presence on this campus of experts in a number of fields, and in particular, Dr. Robert Gallo, a world leader in retrovirus research, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, an internationally known expert in clinical and basic immunology. Today, scientists all over the country are involved in AIDS studies and are supported by nearly all of the NIH institutes. The largest support comes through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, but the National Cancer Institute, National Heart Institute, and many others have extensive programs in AIDS research. Following the discovery of the virus, it was a relatively short time until we had a procedure for assuring the safety of the blood supply. And just as quickly a number of other advances occurred, understandings of the basic characteristics of the disease, understanding of the modes of transmission, identification of high-risk behavior and high-risk groups, complete deciphering of the genetic code of the virus, recognition that the brain, among other tissues, is a primary site of infection. Our current challenges are aimed at three principal areas, understanding more about the virus itself and how it paralyzes the immune system and affects the brain, developing antiviral agents to treat the disease and not just its symptoms, and developing vaccines that can be truly preventative and effective. You have heard about the extraordinary budgetary assignments to this disease. In the current year, the NIH is spending $252 million on AIDS research, and the President's request for AIDS research at the NIH alone next year is more than $423 million. Of those sums, more than 80 percent will be devoted to supported research conducted by scientists across the country in medical schools, universities, hospitals, and industry laboratories. Truly, there is an organized national effort involving now many of the finest and most highly talented scientists of this country. To give you a little more information about the details of NIH programs, I would like to introduce to you Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. Since 1985, he has also served as coordinator of NIH AIDS research. Dr. Fauci. Thank you, Dr. Weingarten. Mr. President, Secretary Bowen, commissioners, and guests, I'd like to spend the next few minutes outlining very briefly for you the NIH AIDS efforts, which can be divided into five major categories. The epidemiology and natural history of the disease and effort we share with our colleagues at the CDC. The etiologic agent, the human immunodeficiency virus, its discovery and the delineation of the function of its genes. The pathogenesis or the mechanisms whereby this virus destroys the body's defenses, thus letting it prey to infections and opportunistic neoplasms. Studies on therapy against the AIDS virus as well as reconstituting the defective immune response, and finally vaccine development. As Dr. Weingarten alluded to, the very foundation of our ability to be able to fight the AIDS epidemic lies in the fact that the entire NIH has a basic science base from which has emanated the research on AIDS. This has been a multi-institute phenomenon, and as you can see here, a variety of efforts that have been going on at the NIH for decades from multiple institutes such as the entire cancer research program, studies on recombinant DNA technology, blood-related research, research on the immune system, basic immunology, molecular biology, and what have you. So really virtually the entire science base of the NIH has contributed to our ability to spring forth rapidly in the study of this devastating disease. For example, again as Dr. Weingarten alluded to, the causative retrovirus of AIDS is the human immunodeficiency virus. It was the study of retroviruses in animals and ultimately the discovery of the first retrovirus to affect man in the late 70s by Dr. Gallo and his colleagues in the Cancer Institute that laid the foundation for the technology that allowed us to isolate this as you see here, the causative agent of AIDS. In addition to that, the advances over the last 10 years in molecular biology have allowed scientists here at the NIH and in NIH supported universities throughout the country to be able to, as we call it, map the genome of the AIDS virus. By this we mean being able to point out and isolate each of the genes of the virus. This is of great importance because by recombinant DNA technology, the leading different genes were able to pinpoint very clearly the function of the genes. Once the function of the genes is known, you can then make manipulations to interfere with the function of the virus. Two simple examples of that are the gene that codes for an enzyme, reverse transcriptase, responsible for the replication of the virus is one of the major targets of the antiretroviral therapy that you just heard a little while ago from Dr. Broder, AZT. An understanding of the outer coating of the virus, which is coded for by this envelope gene, allows us to understand the heterogeneity, which makes one virus a little bit different from another virus, even though essentially they're the same, the differences have major implications in vaccine development. With regard to drug development, the steps are simple, although the goal is an ominous goal. I understand that you have some closing comments for us. Thank you, Dr. Bowen, Dr. Weingarten, Dr. Fauci, and Dr. Davis there was most helpful in our assembling this commission. These people here who I have confidence are going to do such a job for us. By the way, I thought you'd all like to know that near as I can determine, Dr. Bowen is only the seventh physician to serve in the cabinet from George Washington's time to the present. As I was listening to the panel and going on the tour today, I couldn't help remembering something that W. H. Outen said that the true men of action in our times are not politicians or statesmen, but scientists. Dr. Mayberry and the commission will be working with you and many others to chart the nation's course against this disease. I believe that when the medical history of our times is written, you and they will go down as among our greatest men and women of action. I thank you all, and God bless you all.