AmFAR Supports Community Trials

The American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) awarded $30,000 to New York's Community Research Initiative, and $50,427 to San Francisco's County Community Consortium, for testing AIDS treatments through patient volunteers in physicians' private practices. Such community-based trials can be set up much faster than the usual trials at university or government medical centers.

AmFAR has also earmarked up to one million dollars--to be raised at a Carnegie Hall concert organized by Leonard
Bernstein--for additional community trials. The benefit concert is scheduled for World AIDS Day, December 1, 1988.

Since 1985, AmFAR has awarded $11 million is seed or start-up grants to more than 170 research teams. These grants have usually been for AIDS laboratory studies. Support for community-based clinical trials represents a new direction for the organization.
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