we did it! you did it! next steps?

It seems self-serving to say that the Selling Sickness conference was a blockbuster, but it was.

• Attended by around 225 advocates, academics, journalists, health care providers, legislators, students, lawyers, librarians, writers
• From Russia, Finland, Germany, Scotland, France, UK, New Zealand, Australia, and half the provinces in Canada, not to mention coast to coast US
• Participants and speakers paid their own travel, registration and expenses so we could keep the registration fee low and still pay for costly hotel AV and lunches, coffee breaks with brownies, fresh fruit and nuts, and a boxed lunch that came in a bag
• The presentations were of high quality and diversely arranged so everyone could connect the dots in the slippery landscape of selling sickness and disease mongering
• Email comments to me include “historical and of immeasurable benefit,” “transformative experience – I found new language for vague ideas,” “recharged is putting it mildly” and lots more – thanks so much for getting in touch

What’s on our to-do list?

• We will upload as many of the talks as we can in the next few weeks
• We are working to put the CALL TO ACTION on an interactive website for additional signers (many attendees signed using a beautiful cobalt blue pen!)
• We are drafting an editorial that the BMJ will consider about the conference and the issues that will link to the CALL; PLoS will further distribute the CALL
• We are compiling the list of all attendees for further collaboration

As more than one person said to us at the end, “the struggle goes on.”