A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Oct 29, 2001 -- More calls by the Press and others for me to be by Gov. Ridge's side for White House Press briefings. Received call from White House that Ridge wants me at the press conference at WH tomorrow. First case in New Jersey of cutaneous anthrax in woman who had no direct connection with postal service. Possibility of contaminated letter from Hamilton Township post office going to her home or place of employment. The plot is thickening!
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Oct. 30, 2001 -- Give press conference at White House. After conference, met at the office of the Nuclear Threat Initiative with former members of the USA Army bioterrorist team and others. Frank and frightening discussion about the nature of the material (anthrax) that was used in the Daschle letter. For some reason, the CIA and the FBI are not making public (probably for forensic reasons in tracking the perpetrators) the true nature of the threat. In short, this material is of the highest grade even better than our bioterrorist experts have made. They feel that only a highly skilled person could do this. That person could get material in small quantities and do the work here. If the person has large amounts, he would have to have special facilities or would have to have gotten it from a rogue state or covertly from USA . People at the meeting were: Richard Spertzel, ay others; also on sm. No new cases. Stewart Simonson, Michael Osterholm, Margaret Hamburg, C.J. Peters, William Patrick, James LeDuc, Phil Russell, Les Caudell, Co. Edward Eitzen.
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Oct. 31, 2001 - NYC "outlier" women dies of inhalation anthrax. Still no connection with postal cases. Could this be an outlier of the existing paradigm or the sentinel case of an entirely new paradigm? Did major media today with The Today Show with Katie Couric, Grand Rounds at NIH covered by all networks, CBS Evening News, Jim Lehr Newshour, etc.
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Nov. 1, 2001 - Had extraordinary briefing of Democratic Senate Caucus on bioterrorism. Present among others were Sens. Lieberman, Daschle, Boxer, Mikulski, Cleland, Hollings, Wellstone, Jeffords, Biden, Wydan, Levin, etc. In all there were about 30 senators. They were extraordinarily complimentary to me for my public leadership on bioterrorism, calling me an "American hero", a national treasure, etc. I thoroughly briefed them. They felt strongly that I should lead the nation's efforts. I politely suggested that I prefer my present job.
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2001-11-02 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Nov. 2, 2001 - Important Senate Hearing of the Labor, HHS Subcommittee chaired by Tom Harkin. Also present were Sens. Spector, Byrd, and Stevens. Hearing on smallpox. I was able to communicate to Specter that NIAID was not allowed to put in a request in the $1.6 billion supplement of DHHS for bioterrorism. In other words we needed $153.7 million additional to the PB, but we were not allowed to submit for the supplement by OMB. I "busted" the budget by telling Specter after the Hearing what we needed. He promised to put it into our appropriation.
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Nov. 3, 2001 - There was a spoof on me and Attorney General Aschroft on "Saturday Night Live". No new cases of anthrax. Kathy Nguyen case in NYC still a mystery.
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Nov. 4, 2001 - I appear on "Face the Nation" with Sen. Ted Kennedy and others; also on CSPAN's Washington Journal and CNN Special. No new issues.
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Nov. 5-12, 2001 - relatively quiet re: bioterrorism. No new cases.
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Nov. 9, 2001 - Still no information on why the WH ordered me to recall my Op-Ed. Have e-mailed Gayle Smith (NSS). I will explain situation to her tomorrow and see if she has any insight. Meeting did not occur at 8:30 AM because of scheduling issues. Will try to do a call tomorrow Nov.10, 2011 - Got some insight from Gayle, but am afraid she is not telling me everything. She claims that she heard discussion about my Op-Ed at the WH, but not by WHCOMS. Issue was whether it was a good idea to put it out right after HRC's speech since it already got great PR and so why waste a Fauci Op-ED. Perhaps better to wait until the POTUS does World AIDS Day. This could be true, but who knows? Gayle did say that the OMB people might have been concerned by the couple of words that said we need significant increases in resources, including from other donor countries. This implies needing more USG resources, which would obviously bother OMB. However, I could easily have changed this to say we need significant new resources FROM other donor countries. In any event, Gayle assured me that the Op-Ed was not "off message" in the substance of its content. We will hold onto it for now. Having said this, here is another example of the ridiculous need to control the "message" on the part of this White House. AIDS Conference Back to the Raj Shah intrigue. On Raj's suggestion, Yesterday's scheduled meeting now a phone call among me, Eric, Raj, Tom Frieden. Raj wanted to again bring up the possibility of doing something "big" since he feels that the POTUS will not have another opportunity. After much discussion we explained to Raj again that "Blue Sky", i.e. $2.5 billion will never get by OMB or the Congress and even so, the best way forward according to the models is not to just pick out a few countries and full-court-press. Raj goes along and we think it is over. Apparently, immediately after the call, Raj calls Rick Klausner asking him to convince me to not give in and adopt his plan. Rick calls me on my way to The Inn at Little Washington for my delayed 70th birthday present from Denise from last December. We are in the limo (rented by Denise) and Rick tries to convince me to re-convene the group. He says that Raj feels that I am the only one who could do this. Raj just does not want to give up. However, out of want to go the extra mile, I will call up Eric and Tom.