HIV/AIDS Research Project Mired in Red Tape

Four years ago, Bill Gates came to Canada to sign on to a massive HIV research partnership that has yet to yield results.

A highly touted partnership that the Canadian government signed with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation four years ago to combat HIV/AIDS has suffered from red tape and held-up funds, says a report into the $139-million project. The announcement produced a great photo op between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Gates, one of the world's best-known philanthropists, and at the time aimed to put Canada on the leading edge of AIDS research. Within three years, though, only $5 million of an allotted $34 million had been dispensed, and the audit highlights the confusion over a $60-million facility that was to have been set up to manufacture a trial vaccine, but was cancelled after the vaccine was found to be ineffective. The money reserved for the facility was recently redirected to maternal health initiatives in the developing world.