Day One

     Back to back overnighters without sleep is not easy and working on a German computer where the commands are in German and the keys of the computer are not the same as in America is not easy but here goes the first day.

     The keynote address was given by Bill Clinton.  Because of his efforts more than 2 million people in resource poor countries have had their lives saved by getting antiretroviral drugs for their HIV disease.  Then Bill Gates stepped up to the plate and said his foundation is dedicated to finding a cure for HIV, malaria, and TB, especially in resource poor countries.  Then there was a very good plenary session where some recent advances were talked about.  Treat earlier for all HIV infected patients was the motto of the day.  Antiretroviral treatment has improved significantly.  Unchecked HIV replications biggest threat is not AIDS but Cardiovascular disease, renal disease, and liver disease.  The best way to prevent HIV disease in resource poor countries is treat more people, even the ones that are not infected.  Treatment as prevention in resource poor countries is gaining favor.

    The Global Village was a popular spot where people from all countries could share experiences. Human rights were the buzz work of the congress so far. Lots of activists in Vienna this week, Vienna is a old city where western Europe meets eastern Europe.  The people here are much like the Germans were before the war.

     I gave my presentation without any problems.  It was well received. There were a lot of questions about Blue green algae.  What impressed people the most was no toxicity to the supplement, and the big boost in CD4 count seen just recently in the data.  A lot of people were interested in trying the supplement in their countries.  

    There are 25,000 people here and that is too many.  One of the best news of the day is next year’s IAS meeting will be in Washington DC. 

Day Two 

     The afternoon on Tuesday the l8th of July was very hot.  It got even hotter when there was an advocacy march right thru exhibition hall.  The cause was PEPFAR.  The chant of the marchers as they marched thru was PEPFAR KILLS.  For those of you who don't know what PEPFAR is was past President George Bush's attempt to leave his legacy into the field of HIV/AIDS.  As the story goes he knew of this MD who worked in the Caribbean and Africa who was very instrumental in the movement to get antiretroviral drugs to impoverished people.  Bush called this doctor into the white house and said I am going to give you a lot of money, so that my legacy can be that I solved a problem in the developing countries that need access to HIV medications.  The doctor agreed to be the point man but the program really never got started.  It ended up with a lot of people not having access to the drug and so the rallying on PEPFAR kills.  In the exhibition hall there was a long line of people at the AIDS Healthcare foundation booth.  They were waiting to get their free tee shirts which stated STAY NEGATIVE.  AIDS Health care foundation is a very reputable foundation whose goal a couple of years ago was to test 1 million people across the world for HIV.  They accomplished this task and now they are in to more movements such as that.  

     There was then a session on vaccine.  Vaccine failure has been the biggest disappointment in all of HIV/AIDS research.  The title of the talk was VACCINES-QUO-VADIS?  The first presentation was on the Army vaccine in Thailand that just about everyone involved with the trial thought it was a failure.  But just like the Step vaccine trial, people try to grind out data in order to justify continued funding.  The result was a very unimpressive reason why funding should continue into this are in Thailand.  Another study looked at DNA vaccines, the same type of vaccine in which the Step vaccine failed.  Again trying to find something positive in a trial that was for all intense of purposes a disaster in planning, implementation, and understanding human behavior, but the authors attempted to rev up the audience by saying that vaccine study is still justified.  Maybe so but an entire new approach into neutralizing antibodies, the complex nature of the field, has to have more research before the probability of a vaccine come to light.  Vaccine trials that test for efficacy are doomed to fail with today's knowledge. 

     Then I went to the most impressive lecture that I had been to and that was the one on intellectual property, or IP.  The TRIX phenomenon which allows emerging countries to bypass big pharmaceutical companies who have the patents in favor of patient need was important to know.  Also just the field of patent work and contract work and intellectual property work is something that the foundation is going to have to get more familiar with and our legal department will have to step up in that area.  It is the basis of our business plan where we have the FDA approvals and we might have to find a way to deal with competitors such as stem tech who has the patent for trafficking stem cells.  It is now uncommon for two companies to have patents to merge in the hope of finding one good product that is patent able.  We need to do this in our work with Blue green algae, Spirulina, and even LDL cholesterol treated by blue green algae.  This was far and away the best session I attended and it shows you never know when something is going to happen that benefits you.  But intellectual property is a field that all of our foundation people are going to have to grasp.