On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service

by Anthony Fauci

when indinavir was combined with the drugs AZT and 3TC, which targeted a different viral enzyme (reverse transcriptase), the results were truly stunning. The level of virus in the blood dropped dramatically to below the level of detection and remained down. This was accompanied by an equally dramatic improvement in the clinical condition of the patients. The results of the triple combination indinavir trial were presented publicly as a last-minute add-on (Late Breaker) session to the International AIDS Society meeting that took place in July 1996 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and later were published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Other publications reported equally dramatic results with combination therapies using protease inhibitors produced by other pharmaceutical companies. I can remember sitting in Hall C, room B1 of the Vancouver Convention Centre filled with thousands of people on July 11, 1996, when the data were presented. The room was buzzing. I knew what was coming because I’d already seen the data, and yet I still felt like screaming out “Yes!” The audience clearly felt the same way. They erupted in sustained applause as soon as the data were presented. It was a truly historic moment. A game changer if there ever was one. No sooner did the session end than I was grabbed by Christy Feig, the CNN producer assigned to the Vancouver meeting, who hurried me out of the convention center for an interview. We ran out to the pier jutting into beautiful Vancou...