A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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May 11, 2001 -- HVIN in Crystal city in the AM of Friday 5/11/01; but then went to Atlanta on Sunday to deliver Commencement Address at Emory Medical School. I know.... I am nuts!
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May 18, 2001 -- Had important meeting with Adel Mahmoud in my Conference room regarding future collaborations with Merck on an HIV Vaccine. Present -- Jack Killen, John La Montagne, Peggy Johnston, Gary Nabel. Meeting triggered by my concern that Merck was leading Gary Nabel on regarding collaborations with NIH (in the form of Emilio Emini), but really did not want to collaborate for obvious and understandable reasons. Ed Scolnick and I spoke by phone and decided that we needed to get Adel M. involved. My feeling is that although the parties are friends (me, Adel Mahmoud, Ed Scolnick), Merck does not feel that it is in their best interest to get seriously involved in a collaboration with the US government (i.e. NIH) for the obvious reason that they want control given they have invested so much and are aimed directly at approval of product. I believe that they are acting like they want to collaborate for public relations purposes. I actually do not blame them since I would probably do the same thing if I were in private industry.
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May 21, 2001 -- Had dinner at home of William Haseltine (CEO of Human Genome Sciences). Bill is an old and good friend who frequently includes me in social events. The event was the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Brookings Institution. Bill is a Board member. It was a politically star-studded gust list including most of the Trustees. Present were James Johnson (Chair), Larry Summers (former Secr. of Treasury and recently appointed President of Harvard), Dennis Ross (Middle East peace negotiator who gave a great after dinner talk on Middle East conflict), Joan Spero (DDCF), Donna Shalala, Leonard Shaeffer. Michael Armacost (President of The Brookings), Lee Hamilton (former Congressman and President of the Woodrow Wilson Institute), Zoe Baird, etc. etc. Excellent conversation at dinner regarding a wide range of world and. domestic topics.
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May 24, 2001 -- Went with Christine to the Sons of Italy dinner at the National Building Museum. Met and had warm conversations with old friends Sam Donaldson (MC for the event), Tony Lo Bianco, Connie Stevens, John Podesta, etc. Seated at my table was Connie and Tony Morella, and Geraldine Ferraro.
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2001-05-25 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
May 25, 2001 -- Briefed the Staff of Sen. Thomas Daschle on global health down at the Senator's office. Main person was Dennis McDonough. It was coincidental that Sen. Jim Jeffords had just turned from Republican to Independent and will vote with the Democrats and so Daschle will be the new Senate Majority Leader. Big excitement about this in Washington.
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June 24-25, 2001 -- Attended the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on HIV/AIDS in NYC as part of the U.S. Delegation headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of DHHS Tommy Thompson. This was an historic event in which Heads of State, Ambassadors, and Ministers of Health gathered and pledged a new attitude towards the catastrophic epidemic. A Declaration was agreed. upon (with some objections from Moslem countries to the use of words such as sexworkers, homosexuality, etc.). A United National Global Trust Fund was agreed upon. As mentioned above, US contributed $200 million to the fund. Other countries are following such as UK with $200 million over 5 years, France with $120 over 5 years. There is some concern as to how the fund would be managed and administered. Kofi Annan gave a magnificent speech. Colin Powell also was superb; much of material from his speech reflected material that I had put together for the joint meeting in the White House (see above) in preparation for the "fund". I spent much time with Secretary Thompson negotiating with the French Minister of Health Bernard Kouchner and Brazilian Minister of Health Jose Serra. We discussed the establishment of Hospitals for AIDS in Africa with the French and the patent situation re: US made drugs used in Brazil.
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July 20, 2001 -- Meeting at the White House. Was asked and went to White House to present an "AIDS Update" to the Cabinet Task Force on HIV/AIDS that is chaired by Secretaries Tommy Thompson and Colin Powell. Present was Secretary of Education and Deputy Secretaries of Treasury, OMB, etc. I was very well received and Powell asked many questions.
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July 25, 2001 -- Met with former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. He is interested in diabetes and brought people from the American Diabetes Association with him. He had previously helped in getting us (NIAID) an additional $40 million dollars a couple of years ago for autoimmune diseases and wanted to know how he might continue to help us in our work on the immunological nature of Type 1 diabetes. He also wanted and got a general briefing on what NIAID is doing in diabetes research from me and Dan Rotrosen (Director, DAIT, NIAID).
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August 2, 2001 - Had meeting at NIH (Building 31, 7A-24 Conference room called by Richard Falkenrath of the National Security Council who is Ambassador to the Biological Weapons Convention. Present at the meeting were: John La Montagne, Thomas Monath (Acambis Co.- Vice Pres. For Research and Med. Affairs), Stuart Nightingale (DHHS), Robert Mikulak (Director, Office of Chemical & Biological Weapons Convention, Dept. of State), Carole Heilman (DMID/NIAID), George Poste, Matthew Meselson (Harvard), Margaret Hamburg, Joshua Lederberg. Purpose of meeting was to review a White Paper that had been put together as an internal document for President Bush. The President had just rejected signing the renewal of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) on the basis that it was unenforceable. Falkenrath was tasked with putting together a briefing document that was an expression of our interest in the problem, but was an alternative approach to the BWC. We crafted something that was a "high road" approach indicating that since we cannot enforce restrictions among committed users and abusers, then at least we can support biomedical research to provide better diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines. At worst, even if it does not help with bioterrorism, it would be useful for mankind.