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This is the very personal story of how I, Chris Duffield, got involved with IPT, and of many adventures that I have had along the way to now. If you want to know more about me, surf to my personal web page.
This is an abbreviated sketch. I'd like to do a book someday from my memories and my file boxes full of IPT material. But it's more important right now for me to help write the next chapter, the IPTQ chapter, the chapter that works, in real life...
Note: I am hereby registering my story as a proposal for a novel or a memoir, and the treatment for a play or screenplay, and reserving all rights. With apologies to any future agents, publishers, and producers, this has to be done in public.
CONTENTS
1. Captured
2. Call to Action
3. Adventure &
Rejection
4. Blessing
5. New Millennium
1. Captured
This is Act 1: the herald and the call to action. The back story comprises the story of the Donatos, and of SGA, and of my life to that point.
What would you do if someone suddenly handed you a possible better treatment for cancer, AIDS, and a whole host of other diseases?
It was a night filled with magic. We'd just enjoyed the largest formal dinner in southern Florida history. There were so many waiters that It had taken what seemed like five minutes for them all to parade single file into the ballroom, past the head table, each carrying a large tray with high-domed silver cover. There was a choice of wine at each table, and a choice of main courses. And the host entertained us with his jokes, and enchanted us with his after-dinner speech, capping it with a reading of some of his poems that brought many of us to tears of appreciation...
The dinner ended, but the magic lingered. There I was in the lobby of the Miami Beach Convention Center, in July of 1986, wearing my cream-colored tuxedo, wandering alone and light hearted among the dispersing happy crowd. Probably hoping, as usual, that my soulmate, whoever she is, might show up. I had some souvenir flowers from the table in one hand.
I overheard bits of a conversation and drew nearer to hear more. A tall man with graying hair and a mustache, dressed, like me, in a light-colored tux, was talking excitedly with a shorter man in a dark suit, who looked like he'd gotten cornered into more conversation than he'd bargained for. "...and not only does it work well for cancer, but it seems to enhance the effectiveness of antiviral drugs, so I think it might be an effective treatment for AIDS..." I had to break in and ask him what he was talking about. The next thing I knew, the man in the dark suit had fled, and I was the one now engulfed in the fire hose blast of enthusiasm from SGA, M.D. Only I didn't want to flee. I stayed and listened...
A half hour, an hour may have passed by, but I didn't notice the time. I was completely entranced by the IPT story Dr. SGA was telling me: Mexico. 1930s. Cancer treatment with no side effects. Transport of antiviral drugs across the blood-brain barrier. Apparent improved treatment for herpes, and possibly for AIDS. Not only could we do an amazing amount of good for the people of the world, he told me, but we could make an amazing amount of money. And perhaps I would like to help. It was like my destiny had found me... and it felt comfortable and real.
The crowd had thinned to a few stragglers. I gave him my card: Christopher Duffield, Ph.D., Scientific and Microcomputer Consultant. "Perfect", he said, "We'll be in touch." Dr. SGA shook my hand and caught a cab to his hotel, leaving me stunned and star-struck, with the flowers still in one hand, and a couple of papers he'd written about IPT in the other. I was captured.
I walked to my hotel on the beach, went to my room, and put the flowers in a vase. And leaning back on the bed's lofty pillows, still wearing the cream tuxedo, the night lights of hot Miami Beach sparkling through the polished windows, my heart singing, I read those papers, carefully, deeply, late into the night.
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