community exhibits, such as WORLD's booth, had a good central location and were staffed by really friendly folks (such as our own Nilda Rodriguez).  The big hall for the main oral presentations was very nice but the makeshift rooms for other oral sessions were lacking (poor sound and video quality).  As usual, there were long lines for the women's bathroom facilities.

The selections of oral and poster presentations: The conference organizers tried to balance the presentations so that countries from all parts of the world were represented.  Some people at the conference felt that too much emphasis was placed on geographical diversity rather than scientific excellence.  As in years past, I felt there were some great presentations that were only accepted for poster presentation and there were some terrible presentations that were featured as oral presentations.

Currently most researchers try to publish their newest findings in journals rather than save them to present at this meeting.  However, the conference is a good place to learn more about things that have been published.  The conference is also an excellent place for networking with others who are doing work similar to your own.  The International AIDS conferences are now held every other year with the next one scheduled for Durban, South Africa, in July 2000.

We are devoting much of this issue of The WIHS Woman to report back from the recent International Conference on AIDS held in Geneva, Switzerland.  I would therefore like to share some of my impressions of this conference to go along with the other scientific aspects of the meeting.

The locale: Geneva is a picturesque moderately sized city that favors tourism so most places are very kind to foreigners.  Unfortunately, since the AIDS conference is so large, there were not enough hotels to accommodate all the participants in town so many people who attended the conference were a long train ride away.  Fortunately, Geneva and its surroundings have a very good public transportation system.

The conference facilities: The meetings were held in the Palexo, which is made up of several large Quonset hut-like structures connected by narrow corridors.  The oral sessions, posters, and exhibits were distributed throughout the conference facility and it wasn't easy to get from one end of the place to another.  The

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Impression of the 12th International Conference on AIDS   page 1
  CAB Corner   page 2
  Interview with the Fabulous Nilda Rodriguez   page 3
  WHIS Staff Comings and Goings   page 4
  Here's What You Had to Say   page 5
  WIHS Clinically Relevant Lab Tests  Diagnostic Tests: Identification of Various Infectious Agents   page 6
  12th Annual World AIDS Conference   page 7