Rx for Visa Hassles

ABOUT 1,000 OVERSEAS physicians opted out of last fall's American Society for Microbiology meeting in San Diego. Normally, approximately 55 percent of those who register for the conference arrive from outside the U.S., but last September only about 47 percent of the 13,000 attendees did. Fear of flying to the U.S.? Nancy Elder, director of meetings and industry relations for the Washington, D.C.-based ASM, says she saw no evidence of that. Instead, she blames visa snafus for the drop