A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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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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2001-08-02 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
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.
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August 9, 2001 - After much deliberation and soul searching, President Bush decided and announced that Federal funding would be allowed for research on embryo-derived stem cells. However, funding would be restricted to work on embryonic stem cell lines that had either already been established or were in the process of being established (i.e. the stem cells had already been removed from the embryo as of August 9, 2001). NIH (mostly in the form of Lana Skirboll) had canvassed the world and found that 60 such lines were in existence, many in the private sector. The lines were growing robustly and were established according to the 4 points that President Bush mentioned in his speech, i.e. they had to be in vitro fertilized embryos that fulfilled the following criteria: 1) informed consent; 2) in excess of clinical need; 3) not done as a result of financial inducement; 4) embryos not established for the purpose of research. The public response was that the far right felt that the President had betrayed his pledge not to fund research on embryonic stem cells. Several scientists felt that he had not gone far enough since he restricted granting of Federal funds for further (after August 9) use of embryos to derive stem cells. I felt that Bush went as far as he could go politically since on the one hand, if he disallowed any work on embryonic stem cells, the far right would have been happy, but it would not be a sustainable position for the general public. On the other hand, if he allowed the unrestricted use of embryos that had been established for in vitro fertilization (even though this was what I hoped he would do), the conservatives would have damaged him politically. In other words, I believe that he went as far as he could go.
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August 10, 2001 - Secretary Tommy Thompson came to NIH to hold a press conference to discuss the embryonic stem cell decision. He requested that I be with him on stage along with Claude Lenfant, Lana Skirboll, Ruth Kirschstein, and Audrey Penn (acting Director of NINDS). When he asked me to speak, I made a statement thanking him for his leadership (since he favored allowing funding all along) and also thanked the President for his courage in making a difficult choice, but one that will allow us to go 1 told him exactly NIH. forward and do some good for mankind. I also pointed out the important fact that now we can do head-to-head comparisons of stem cells derived from embryos versus adults versus fetal tissue. My comments appeared on the front page of the New York Times on August 11 and a clip of my comments was shown on the Lehr Newshour on the evening of August 10. I am sure that some scientists will criticize me for saying that the decision was a positive thing. However, it is clear to me that these types of people are clueless when it comes to the world of Washington, D.C. Furthermore, the far right will also be upset since I favored the use of embryonic stem cells at all. I care even less about what they think of my position. All in all, I believe that this was a good day for biomedical research. Lana Skirboll deserves much create for turning the President around.
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August 12, 2001 - CNN in association with Time Magazine ran a special program on "America's Best in Science and Medicine". I was featured in an 11 minute segment along with 4 other scientists. This was in association with Time Magazine naming me one of 18 scientists as "America's Best in Science and Medicine". This feature appeared in the August 26 edition of Time that reached the newsstands on August 13.
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August 13, 2001 - Bob Wood (Chief of Staff for HHS Secretary Thompson) phoned and said that Secr. Thompson and President Bush have been discussing my turning down of the NIH Director's job and they want me to reconsider and to name my own conditions including maintaining my Directorship of NIAID and virtually anything else I wanted.