It was a bit of a travel nightmare for IRMA´s Jim Pickett.
Just because he was scheduled to arrive in Mexico City in the late evening of Thursday, July 31 - to be ready to participate and present at the "Invisible Men" pre-conference the following 
morning - did not make it so. Numerous nail-biting delays and narrowly missed connections meant he was not to arrive in Mexico City until 2pm on Friday, well after the IRMA presentation was supposed to have occurred. Thankfully, the wonderful organizers of the pre-conference (The Global Forum on MSM and HIV) changed the timing of the IRMA workshop for 3:30pm to allow for Pickett´s participation. When he finally arrived at the Sheraton Maria Isabel at 3:45, breathless, unkempt, under-rested and over-caffeinated - anything for attention! - IRMA co-presenters and all around Rectal Superstars Jeremy Kwan, Lanre Onigbogi and Jerry Galea had already gotten the presentation started.
morning - did not make it so. Numerous nail-biting delays and narrowly missed connections meant he was not to arrive in Mexico City until 2pm on Friday, well after the IRMA presentation was supposed to have occurred. Thankfully, the wonderful organizers of the pre-conference (The Global Forum on MSM and HIV) changed the timing of the IRMA workshop for 3:30pm to allow for Pickett´s participation. When he finally arrived at the Sheraton Maria Isabel at 3:45, breathless, unkempt, under-rested and over-caffeinated - anything for attention! - IRMA co-presenters and all around Rectal Superstars Jeremy Kwan, Lanre Onigbogi and Jerry Galea had already gotten the presentation started. Despite the drama - it ended up being a great workshop - if we must say so ourselves - with some really thoughtful questions from the 30 or so diverse participants - including concerns around ARV-based microbicides, the tension between the vaginal and rectal portions of the field, and how we best determine safety. We hope everyone who joined us for this workshop will go to the IRMA website and sign up to be a part of our expaning rectal empire!
Olivia from TheBody.com was there audio taping the whole thing - so when the link goes live, we will let you know. Thanks Olivia!
A highlight of the workshop (see an earlier post for all the slides), was the official, thrilling unveiling of the translated IRMA report - "Menos Silencio, Más Ciencia"- spearheaded by IRMA-ALC. Hard copies are being distributed at the International AIDS Conference which officially kicks off tomorrow.
It was a real delight to see so many friends from all over the world, IRMA members new and old, to put faces to names we have known for some time, and to meet new, aspiring rectal microbicide advocates!
¡VIVA IRMA!
1 comment:
Bravo Jerry, Lanre, Jeremy and Jim! And congratulations to IRMA-ALC for getting the document translated into Spanish!
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