VaxGen's AidsVax: William "Bill" Heyward prosecuted by United States over ethics

Documents passed in 1999 to Brian Deer during his Sunday Times investigation, The VaxGen Experiment, of California Aids vaccine company, VaxGen Inc, resulted in federal prosection 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 $8m in federal grants for its controversial product whilst secretly engaged to join the company. On February 24 2003, it was announced that a US phase III trial had failed to show efficacy for AidsVax

As of November 22 2002, VaxGen's website included the following biographical information for Dr Heyward

Dr William L Heyward MD MPH

Vice-president for international clinical research

The company says that Dr Heyward directs VaxGen's international clinical trials, including oversight of the phase III efficacy trial in Bangkok, Thailand, and efforts to evaluate a vaccine designed to protect against the predominant HIV subtype circulating in Africa, India and China.

"Dr Heyward served at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for more than 20 years before joining VaxGen in January 2000. While at CDC, Dr Heyward coordinated vaccine trial research in Alaska on hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b and was involved in the investigation of the Ebola epidemic in Kikwit, Zaire in 1995. His most recent position at the CDC entailed coordinating domestic and international HIV vaccine development and evaluation. Prior to that he was director of the largest Aids research project in Africa and was detailed to the World Health Organization and UNAIDS as a specialist in HIV vaccines and vaccine trials."

The company notes that Dr Heyward received his undergraduate degree from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, his MD from the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, and his MPH in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.