Graphic: Cathleen Heard |

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A week after the controversial XIII International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, a much smaller gathering in Atlanta took a broader view of the current emergence and reemergence of many infectious diseases. The International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases 2000, held July 16-19, attracted more than 2,000 attendees representing 35 nations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Society for Microbiology, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and the Association of Public Health Laboratories, supported by several pharmaceutical companies, organized the meeting, the second such event, and proceedings will be published in the CDC's journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. "The first meeting, also held in Atlanta two years ago, was in response to an Institute of Medicine report in 1992, headed by Joshua Lederberg [president emeritus and Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation Scholar, Rockefeller University, and chairman of The Scientist's Editorial Advisory Board], ...