19 May 2020
Dear friends and colleagues,
The Board of Trustees for the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology (AACT) met yesterday and have determined that
this September’s meeting of the North American Congress of Clinical Toxicology (NACCT) will be a fully remote event.
This was not an easy decision. It has become increasingly clear that we just don’t know what the situation will be in
September, and not just in California. Clearly our international attendees were not going to be able to attend at all.
Many Americans were still likely to be limited by institutional travel restrictions. Having an in-person meeting with just a
percentage of normal attendees, hearing lectures from presenters that themselves may be remote, and then scouring
the city for an open restaurant at night just did not seem like a good idea. To do that while potentially putting the health
of attendees and their families and co-workers at home at risk just seems irresponsible. It is our hope that making this
announcement relatively early will allow attendees to plan accordingly.
The NACCT planning committee and our partners at Contemporary Forums will be working diligently to bring attendees
an excellent educational experience with a fair and appropriate price point that will be determined in the next month.
Our goals for presenting the meeting are as follows:
• Both pre-meeting symposia will be live streamed in their entirety with questions and answers
• Up to 5 hours of content per day during the main congress will be streamed in real time with the opportunity to
ask questions of the presenter
• All sessions (live streamed or not) will be recorded for viewing at one’s leisure
• Continuing education credit will be available as always
• All accepted posters will be presented in pdf form online and we hope to facilitate each presenter to be able to
record a brief description to accompany each poster
• All platform presentations will be presented in real time with the opportunity for questions from the remote
audience
• Board meetings, business meetings and interest group meetings will all be scheduled on a grid and the leaders
of those sessions will have the opportunity to run them remotely
Recognizing that some researchers and clinicians out there may have been holding off on abstract submission with all
the uncertainty, we will again delay the deadline for abstract submission one more week until midnight EST,
Wednesday 27 May.
We are all disappointed with this situation. One of the best parts of NACCT is seeing friends that we only see once a
year. Hopefully we will be back on track in 2021 when we meet in Montreal.
Thank you for your understanding. I look forward to a great educational experience for all of us this September.
Warm regards,
Mark Kostic, President AACT