A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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April 25-30, 2002 - During the trip to South Africa, I spent about 1 1⁄2 hours at dinner trying to convince her to help President Mbeki change his stance on treatment of HIVinfected people including pregnant women (see above). Of note, just this week the South African government has made a major change in their stance. They now allow treatment for rape victims and soon will start treating infected pregnant women. It is entirely conceivable that my discussions played some role in this turnaround.
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May 23, 2002 - For the past 2 weeks, Mark Dybul, Terrell Halaska and I have been working on a proposal for prevention of mother-to-child-transmission (MCTC) in developing nations to present to president Bush who wants to use this as an announcement of a major initiative at the G-8 Conference this summer in Ottawa. Terrell asked me to put it together for her and I enlisted Mark Dybul who did a great job with me. I and Terrell had several pre-meetings at the White House Conference Center on Jackson Place during early May and then today Mark, Terrell and I met with Gary Edson and Jay Lefkowitz of the WH. To present our plan to save 146,000 babies from being infected per year for a cost of about $100,000,000 per year. Gary and Jay loved the plan and will present it to the President within a couple of days. It was a great meeting and they were very impressed at how we organized the data and the presentation.
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May 29, 2002 - I briefed President Bush in the Hamilton Room of the West Wing on the MCTC plan. Present were Josh Bolton (Deputy Chief of Staff), Andrew Card (Chief of Staff), Karl Rove, Mr Calio, Gary Edson, Secretary Thompson, Andrew Natsios (USAID), Terrell Halaska, Christen Silverberg, Jay Lefkowitz and others. The President liked very much our plan, which I presented to him succinctly, but completely. The background of the initiative is that Sens. Frist/Kerry are trying to get through a supplemental Bill on adding more money to the Global AIDS Fund. The President is against this since he feels that the Fund has no plan and the money will be wasted. This is the reason that he wants to seize the opportunity of the Congress throwing more money at us to put forth his own initiative on a concrete proposal as opposed to the vagaries of the Fund. He accepted my proposal. Interesting dynamics at the meeting in that Andrew Natsios was upset that this was an HHS proposal and started (quite inappropriately in front of the President) getting into a turf war where he pointed out that he has an MOU with the CDC that with regard to AIDS in Africa, USAID has the lead. The President picked up on this discord and said that the only thing that he knows is that he likes "Tony's plan" and that HHS and USAID should work out (with Gary Edson as referree) how it is going to be implemented. He stated, however, that he wants "a person" to be held accountable for the success or failure of the project. To say the least, Sec. Thompson was angry with Natsios. From my standpoint, the meeting was a great success since our plan was accepted by the President and he was extremely friendly to me.
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June 6, 2002 - I found out at National Airport that President Bush was establishing a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would encompass 160,000 employees with a budget of >$30 billion by consolidating all activities related to terrorism, including bioterrorism in one Department. This would mean that $1.748 billion of NIAID money for FY 2003 would go to DHS.
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2002-06-06 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
June 6 - 12, 2002 - Spending a lot of time working with the DHHS and th White House in trying to hash out the details of legislation that would create the DHS. Everyone seems to agree that the research would still be done at NIAID under my direction; however, the money likely will first go to DHS and thenn be passed through or contracted to me to perform the research. Also, the President is planning to announce the MTCT program that I helped to put together in a few days. the
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June 10, 2002 - Had breakfast with Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neill this AM to discuss the entire concept of AIDS in Africa. We related very well and he received my advice, consultation very enthusiastically.
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June 13, 2002 - Received a call from Richard Falkenrath at the White House who said that he had heard that I was concerned about the $1.748 Billion going to Department of Homeland Security (DHS). We wanted to assure me that the money would come directly to me from DHS and the research would be directed by me. He agreed that the research should be incorporated completely into the emerging diseases research agenda of NIAID and not fragmented out. He said that Sen. Kennedy mentioned to the WH that I was concerned and they wanted to alleviate my concerns. Interesting intrigue going on. I just got a call from Sue Hardesty of Sen. Richard Durbin's office who said that the Senator had heard from Bono (of U2 fame) that I was against the global AIDS fund and had convinced President Bush not to support it. The Sen. wanted to know if this were true. In addition, Sue told me that Sen. Frist had said that he changed his mind and decided not to support the Global AIDS Fund because he had heard that I was against it. I believe that if this is true about Frist, then he is covering his ass since he backed down on his promise to support the extra money for the fund. I know that he backed down because Bush told him to. Now he is trying to make it look like I am the one against it. It is interesting that rumors are forming that I am involved in convincing the Pres. that we should not invest in the Fund. I believe that this results from my being involved in putting together the MTCT plan, which some feel that the Pres. actually wants to substitute for the increase in the Fund. Of note, Jeff Sachs called me from Rome last night asking about the same issue. Welcome to Washington!!!
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June 13 - 18, 2002 - Extremely busy with putting the finishing touches on the MTCT proposal that the Pres. is planning to annouce soon. I am trying and succeeding (I believe) in having them do it correctly, i.e. this is not a substitute for the Global Trust Fund, but as a comlement to it. Have been working very hard with Terrell Halaska and Mark Dybul in getting the Pres. speech written and his talking points arranged for the announcement. Simultaneously with this going on, I have been working with Stewart Simonson in trying to get the correct authorization language written for the proposed bill for the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The WH wants me to be comfortable with it; however, they seem inflexible in that they clearly want the $1.748 billion of NIH money to go to the new DHS and they want the perogative to set the research agenda. Richard Falkenrath of DHS assures me that despite this, they want me to run the program from NIH.
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June 19, 2002 - Most extraordinary day!! The POTUS requested that I join him and Secs, Thompson, O'Neill, and Powell and Sen. Frist and Andrew Natsios at the Rose Garden Ceremony to announce the MCTC plan that Mark and I essentialy created. I met with the Pres for about 10-15 minutes in the Oval Office before the announcement. He was extremely gracious and complimentary. During the announcement, he specifically thanked me for all that I have done with the project. After the annoucnement, I went with Ari Fleischer and gave a press briefing in the WH press room on the program. Importantly, the Pres. asked Josh Bolten to meet with me and get my feel for the big picture of what the Adminsitration should be doing with AIDS (domestic and global). Present at the meeting were me, Josh, Margaret La Montagne Spellings, Robin Cleveland, Jay Lefkowitz, Gary Edson, Kristen Silverberg, Allen Gilbert. Josh asked whether we should do a Manhattan Project for a vaccine and not invest in international prevention and treatment. He said that I should assume that money was not an issues and I should tell them what is "the right thing to do". I gave details about the importance of building a sustainable (low tech) infrastructure of clinics and trained Africans. This infrastructure could then be used for HIV prevention and ulitmately treatment, but could also be used for approaching malaria, TBC, and other important diseases. I said that the USA needs to be the world leader in making international health a driving force in our foreign policy. If we lead, other countries will follow. Josh seemed genuinely moved and agreed with me. He even stated that it is his feeling that years from now, this Administration will be judged by how it handled the International HIV/AIDS Pandemic. He stated that the Pres. was very sympathetic to me and what he has heard me say on various occasions, but there is a skepticism that money will be wasted if there is no accountability. This is also fed by Paul O'Neill and Mitch Daniels. I said that I agree that we should not do it unless there was strict accountability. We need to have someone to run the program who could "kick ass". Josh and I resonated very well. I believe that the WH will be calling upon me soon to help with such a strategic plan. In fact, I am going to proceed to put one together and present to them pre-emptively. It was a great day!!! I may have accomplished more for global health on this day than on many, many others put together.