http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22029535/

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AIDS Section Front

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What annoys me is that despite it being World AIDS Day, I haven't seen any news coverage of the FaaH project! I actually emailed CNN on World AIDS Day (after seeing no FaaH in their coverage) asking them to do a report on FaaH so that their viewers would actually be able to do something about AIDS at no cost to themselves. We need more publicity & more crunchers!

Hi Papa3,

You're definitely preaching to the choir!

That was disappointing. The FA@H team at IBM tried to get us some publicity during World AIDS Day, but it fell through. Better luck next year?

Thank you very much for taking the time to email CNN for us. I hope that other people follow your excellent example. It will probably take a lot of e-mails from a lot of people before we get any major airtime. But it never hurts to ask, and each little bit helps.

One of my older brothers has called in to Air America a few times, and he is going to try to mention FA@H the next time that he gets on. They are probably sympathetic to our cause.

Maybe we should start e-mailing a few specific shows, such as The Daily Show on Comedy Central, Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC, and Realtime with Bill Maher on HBO? The networks as a whole probably receive far too many e-mails for them to notice all of the important ones, such as the one you sent to CNN about FA@H. But e-mailing a specific show or two might work better. I bet that at least one of those three shows would eventually be receptive to giving us a free plug, if they received enough e-mails. [Note: I'll admit that I'm a bit biased here, since those are some of my favorite shows.]

If anyone is going to e-mail Realtime with Bill Maher about FA@H, it wouldn't hurt to mention that the Olson lab and FA@H are trying to design drugs against FIV as well as HIV. Feline Immunodeficieny Virus (the HIV that cats get) has a protease enzyme that is similar to some of the multi-drug-resistant HIV protease mutants. The large HIV collaboration at TSRI that Prof. Olson leads discovered that some of their new inhibitors work well against both FIV protease and some of the mutants from HIV protease. Since Bill Maher is a proud member of the Board of Directors of P.E.T.A., he might appreciate this side of the research, too. ;)

I agree wholeheartedly that we need more publicity and more crunchers. I'm glad that you are trying to find and implement some creative solutions. I welcome and applaud the effort!!!

Thanks again,
Dr. Alex Perryman