AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition Announces Appointment of Journalist Huntly Collins to Director of Science Communication and Advocacy

The AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition on Thursday announced the appointment of journalist Huntly Collins -- who from 1983 to 2001 covered public health issues, including AIDS, for the Philadelphia Inquirer -- as the coalition's first director of science communication and advocacy. "Huntly is an investigative journalist and science writer of the first rank," AVAC Executive Director Chris Collins, who is not related to Huntly Collins, said, adding, "She brings an ability to critically analyze scientific issues and clearly communicate on those issues. ... She will be an effective advocate for accelerated, ethical AIDS vaccine research." Huntly Collins said, "With money, politics and prestige influencing the quest for an AIDS vaccine, it's more important than ever that stakeholders and the general public have a reliable source of factual information about experimental vaccine candidates and issues surrounding their ethical testing in clinical trials both in the United States and abroad." Huntly Collins was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a Ford Fellow in educational journalism and a Kaiser Teaching Fellow in South Africa, where she mentored reporters covering AIDS (AVAC release, 1/30).