Grace and I were invited to attend whichever sessions were of interest to us. These are my thoughts on the sections I attended in addition to a talk we both saw titled Accessing Hepatitis C Treatment: A Case Study in Global Health Equity. The Accessing Hepatitis C Treatment panel was moderated by Forum Executive Director Dr. Veronica Miller. Drs. John Ward, Michael Horberg, and Camilla Graham, all frequent Forum collaborators, participated in the panel. Dr. Ward echoed his comments on Hepatitis C from the 2015 National Summit on HCV and HIV Diagnosis, Prevention, and Access to Care. One memorable comment from Dr. Ward was his belief that a public health victory is possible with HCV. Dr. Graham spoke to the difficulties of getting access to HCV medications for her patients when their insurance does not cover it. Dr. Horberg discussed the benefits of HCV treatment at both individual and community levels. This panel continued to emphasize to me that access to the HCV cure is one of the most pressing issues in public health today. The series of panels on this topic in the month that I have been an intern indicates its importance.

As an infectious diseases and vaccinology student, vaccines and their regulatory components are a part of my coursework and interest. Naturally, the sessions on vaccines drew my attention. I attended two notable panels regarding vaccines; one titled Balancing Individual Liberties and Community Needs in Compulsory Vaccination and another called Regulation of Vaccine Research & Development. The discussion around compulsory vaccination was fascinating. Matthew Penn of the Office for State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave and overview of state and federal immunization laws. Dr. Saad Omer from Emory University Schools of Public Health and Medicine described the exemption process for vaccinations across the country and laid out his views on how to approach that issue. Finally, Sherrie Wallington of Georgetown University Medical Center related her successes and challenges in regard to the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine mandate in the District of Columbia. Vaccines are on the nation's collective consciousness with the recent measles outbreak. These presentations and discussions on the complexities of vaccines and their interactions with state and federal law were enlightening.

The final sessions I attended centered on preventing antimicrobial resistance. Dr. Gail Hansen of the Antibiotic Resistance Project at the Pew Charitable Trust presented on the root causes of antimicrobial resistance, the consequences for modern medicine, and the role of advocacy in the community. Robert Guidos from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration described the steps in the National Action Plan for Combatting Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria and its goals. Dr. Nicole Mahoney of Cubist Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Merck, shared the state of the research pipeline for antibiotics and the challenges faced by industry in discovering and testing new drugs. The last panel I saw was on strategies for combatting tuberculosis (TB) drug resistance. Participants on this panel included Drs. Ya Diul Mukadi of USAID and Richard Chaisson of Johns Hopkins University and Brian Citro of the University Of Chicago School Of Law. Each of these individuals shared the stories of their work in the TB field, their concerns about the rise of multidrug resistant TB, and their calls to increase advocacy efforts for TB causes. I was surprised at the relative lack of advocacy being done for TB compared to HIV and HCV. The individuals on this panel did a wonderful job of bringing awareness to the issues.

Public health measures involve politics and law. The different sessions at the O'Neill Institute Summer Program on Infectious Diseases and the Law allowed me learn more about how these two areas come together. Special thanks to Rebecca Reingold and the O'Neill Institute for allowing us join.

Jonathan Liu is a graduate student intern at the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research. He is currently pursuing a Master of Public Health at UC Berkeley with a concentration in Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology.