Yabbit and I attended a seminar yesterday that was sponsored by Biogen/MSActiveSource.
There was pretty good attendance- maybe 40 people, good crowd for a Saturday a.m. in Bangor, Maine.
I'd say the attendees were spread out across the board, some PPMS, some SPMS, some RRMS, caregivers and a few professional folks.
There was a buffet breakfast. They fed us pretty good! They gave out bags with pens, day planner calendars, CDs, information on Avonex and a bunch of new Tysabri information/items.
The featured speaker just happened to be my neuro. He did a lively presentation on MS, explained the differences, didn't pull any punches when he had to say "No one knows" He talked about the CRABs, Tyabri, efficacy rates, how changing meds may or may not help people, etc.
There was another speaker scheduled. a patient advocate who was a no show.
There were two Biogen reps there, who fielded a few questions that he could not answer.
After his talk, he opened the floor to questions and there were a lot of them. He answered questions about imaging, symptoms, progression, drug switching, Tysabri risks and benefits, etc. He even talked about one of his Tysabri patients who was going for a new MRI because she was twitching, and how he would rather be cautious no matter what the symptom...
(picture me *smacking* Yabbit for looking right at me!)
All in all a very good presentation. If you get an invite to attend one of these, take advantage of it and go!
I got a lot of answers about Tysabri and will post those specifically on the Tysabri thread.