Hype artist
Porter Stansberry proclaims
"stunning" news before VaxGen
crashes
A midnight
announcement on February 24 2003 that
the candidate HIV vaccine AidsVax showed
no effect in a phase III clinical trial
was long predicted by independent
scientists. Inquiries by Brian Deer during his 1999
Sunday Times investigation of VaxGen, unearthed a
worrying picture, and led to the
prosecution of Dr William Heyward, who as
HIV vaccine chief at the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention cheer-led
for VaxGen's technology and arranged
federal grants whilst secretly engaged to
join the company
As the
pivotal clinical trial of AidsVax
progressed, the company forged another
close relationship - with stock hypester Porter
Stansberry. Annotated extracts
from material at the Stansberry website
is reproduced at another page here,
claiming to prove that AidsVax
works, and below are excerpts
from "Blast", a mailshot to his
followers before the stock markets opened
on February 24. VaxGen opened at $3.31,
shedding a staggering twenty bucks from
its 52-week high and more than $30 from
its post-IPO peak
Porter
Stansberry's "Blast" is dated
February 24, 2003 and opens with the
following heading:
AIDSVAX PROVES
SUCCESSFUL
IN CERTAIN ETHNIC GROUPS;
APPROACH SHOULD LEAD TO END OF
EPIDEMIC
Porter Stansberry
says:
I have stunningly good
news to report.
He claims that the
vaccine was "proved" to be
"broadly effective in stopping HIV
infection in two ethnic groups". He
says: "Specifically, the incidence
of infection in black people was reduced
by 78%; in Asian volunteers infections
were reduced by 67%."
Thus, AIDSVAX seems to
work.
He
says the challenge will be to
"improve the immune response"
in whites and Asians, but that he
wouldn't be surprised to see news
organizations report that the vaccine was
a failure.
The press has covered
this story almost solely from the
perspective of their primary sources,
government-backed scientists, most of
whom hate Don Francis, VaxGen's
founder and president. Also, because
VaxGen's approach was so widely
dismissed, there is an enormous short
position in the stock. These
investors are now in enormous
jeopardy and, more than likely, will
lobby the reporters covering the
story to accentuate the negatives in
the data.
In
the early hours before the stock crashed
to $3, from a 52-week high of $23.25,
Porter Stansberry told his followers:
I suspect the stock will
soar tomorrow.
And
he offers to tell us why. He says the
trial was carried out
"flawlessly", the vaccine is
"safe and impressively effective in
the two ethnic groups", and
"being effective in black people may
be worth more to VaxGen".
But to really understand why these
results are so impressive, you need
to know what the previous chimp and
monkey data has always suggested:
that there's a correlation between
antibody production and protection -
a "correlate of
protection." In the monkey tests
there was a range of antibody
responses. The strongest responders
were protected from infection and the
weaker responders didn't develop
AIDS. If that's also true for the
human volunteers, VaxGen has a
profoundly valuable vaccine - one
that prevents infection in some
subjects and prevents AIDS in almost
everyone.
It also seems likely to me that
VaxGen will attempt to alter their
vaccine formula slightly to induce a
stronger immune response in whites
and hispanics. One way of doing this
could be to use Antigenics' adjuvant,
QS-21.
Porter
Stansberry concludes his hype mail by
speaking of "a very brave group of
medical entrepreneurs" who he says
"have something fantastic to
celebrate" after putting their
"reputations on the line" to
stop HIV.
Tonight for the first
time since the outbreak of AIDS in
the early 1980s the disease is in
reach of being stopped. Fittingly,
Don Francis, who saw the first cases
of AIDS from his post at the CDC, has
played a key role in stopping this
epidemic.
Not surprisingly, the government
scientists are wrong. Again.
Congratulations Don. We never
doubted.
Porter
Stansberry complained about this page -
and about another highlighting a
promotion in which he claimed that VaxGen
was "the greatest investment
opportunity I've ever seen". Read Porter Stansberry
hype. Read Porter Stansberry
complaint.
Later,
Stansberry was prosecuted for securities
fraud. Read the result of
the SEC prosecution
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