A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Sept. 25, 2003 - White House meeting with Jay Lefkowitz, Gary Edson, Mark Dybul, Joe O'Neill, Carol Thompson to discuss the controversy regarding $2 Billion versus $3 billion in FY '04 for the President's $15 billion, 5 year plan. Bono and other activists want a full $3 billion in '04. However, if we did that, then we would put less in '05, '06, etc. I recommended to Jay et al to stick with the Plan and leave flexibility to match other funds by 1/3. See below my e-mail to Jay from 9/25/03: Jay/Gary: Just a recap of my suggestion from this afternoon for your consideration. Mark was on the same page on this also. I believe that we must remind people and strongly underscore that the President's Plan is a $15 billion program over 5 years involving 14 countries. Within the context of such a plan (we must emphasize this point), the best way to spend the money and thus to save the most lives is by phasing in with $2 billion in the first year and more than $3 billion per year in subsequent years. We all realize that more money can be spent globally on AIDS and thus more lives can be saved. This is a no-brainer. We never said that the President's Plan of itself would cover all of global AIDS. We should not get into an "absorptive capacity" argument since no matter how clear we are, people will confuse absorptive capacity in the President's Plan of 14 countries and absorptive capacity for the rest of the developing world. I suggest that we take a 2 pronged approach. 1) We stick with the President's Plan as it has been outlined, and; 2) We publicly recognize that more money can indeed be spent on AIDS globally. We are hoping that other countries will follow the President's lead and put more money into programs either bilaterally or through the Global Fund. In fact, we are willing to go the extra mile and to contribute 1/3 of the global effort if other countries rise to the occasion. In '03, the world total was $3.6 billion with $1.4 billion by us (39%). Since we are giving $2 billion in '04, the rest of the world should give $4 billion. If the rest of the world gives more than $4 billion, we will match them by 1/3. Thus, if they want us to give $3 billion in '04, the rest of the world must total $6 billion. If this happens (which it will not), then we will put the additional money into a mix of Global Fund and other countries (beyond the original 14) bilaterally. In this way we show leadership and flexibility. If no one else gives an additional penny, we still are committed to the President's Plan as we have outlined. If other countries meet the above mentioned benchmarks, then we are flexible enough to match them by 1/3. Finally, if the Congress appropriates a couple of hundred million over the $2 billion and the President signs such a Bill, we would give that additional money to the Global Fund and/or additional countries and back up our contention that our funding plan for the 14 countries is indeed sound. I would be happy to discuss this further with you. Thanks, Tony
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Sept. 26, 2003 - White House meeting on Bioshield with the usual suspects - Stewart Simonson, Jorge Tavel, Ken Bernard, Bill Winkenwerder, Larry Kerr, etc. We are getting ready for finalizing the legislation. After the meeting in the EEOB, I went over to the West Wing to see Richard Falkenrath. NIAID will be awarding 2 NBLs (BSL-4 labs) and 9 RBLs (BSL-3 labs) on Sept. 30. I have been getting incredible lobbying pressure from people like Sen. Hillary Clinton and others for their state or district sites. Chicago is in the running for an NBL and the President is going to Chicago on Sept. 30. The WH wants me to delay the announcement until 2:00 PM after the President leaves Chicago since Chicago got an RBL, but not an NBL and the WH wanted to avoid any embarrassment for the President to be there when bad news arrived.
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Oct. 7, 2003 - Briefing in the Situation Room of the White House for Andy Card on the Craig Venter issue of synthesizing microbes. Also at the meeting were: Tommy Thompson, Spencer Abraham (Secr. Of DoE), Dan Bartlett; General Gordon; Ken Bernard, Harriet Miers (Card's Deputy), Bob Card from DoE, Ray Auerbach (DoE), Bruce Alberts (NAS), Gerry Fink giving summary of Fink Report on "Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism", which is an NAS/NRC report; Stewart Simonson; Carol Kuntz; Larry Kerr; I have essentially been adopted by the WH to be the one who explains the science of Venter's work. This, I was the major briefer. Also, I have been spearheading the NIH effort to create a subcommittee of the RAC to provide the "culture of responsibility" for the scientific community on these issue similar to the 1970s with the RAC following the Asilomar Meeting in 1974.
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Oct. 13, 2003 - Went to White House ceremony (President's speech) and reception to commemorate Columbus Day. The President specifically greeted me in his remarks saying how proud he was of how I was the General in the Global War on AIDS. After the ceremony, I ran into Josh Bolten in the hallway of the EEOB. He asked about my opinion of the controversy of $2 billion versus $3 billion in FY '04 for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Bono has been giving the WH a hard time saying that the President was reneging on his promise when in fact he promised $15 billion over 5 years staring with $2 billion in '04 (see above). He specifically asked my opinion of how Randy Tobias was doing as the new AIDS head of the program. He indicated that he did not think that there was anything wrong, but that he was getting the vague feeling that things were not moving along as aggressively as he thought that they would be. He asked me to quietly check it out.
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2003-10-16 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Oct. 16, 2003 - Had breakfast (at his invitation) with Jay Lefkowitz at the White House Mess to say goodbye. He is leaving as Director of Domestic Policy Council to return to his law firm in its NYC branch. He will likely return after 2 years for the President's 2nd term (if this occurs). We had a great conversation in which he mentioned how honored he was to work with me on the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the MTCT plan and to a lesser extent on the stem cell issue. I sincerely told him that he was second to none in people that I have worked with at the WH over the past 19 years. He asked my help in making sure that the AIDS Plan does not get derailed by the mischief of USAID in trying to lobby the legislation such that power is taken away from Randy Tobias and he would not be given an independent account.
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Oct. 17, 2003 - Went to going away reception in Indian Treaty Room of EEOB at White House in honor of Jay Lefkowitz. Great time just talking to the White House crew and others that I have gotten to know over the past 2+ years: Jay, Margaret Spelling, Kristen Silverberg (just back from Iraq and will replace Jay), Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Josh Bolten, Ginger Loper (WH Leg. Affairs), Terrell Halaska, Allen Gilbert, Mark McClellan (FDA), Scott Whitaker, Ladd Wiley, Alex Lazar, etc.
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Oct. 24, 2003 - Met with Sen. Barbara Mikulski to try to convince her not to support Rep. Chris Van Hollen's attempt to block the construction of the biodefense building (Bldg. 33) on the NIH campus and move it to Ft. Detrick. He keeps calling it a bioterror building. She was sympathetic, but indicated that we must engage the community more. Fact is....we have been doing this, but a very recalcitrant few do not want to building on campus no matter what. This is the same group that did not want to fence put up around NIH. This is a political issue since Van Hollen made 2 campaign promises: 1) no fence; and 2) no biodefense building. He already lost the first and does not want to lose the second. We will try to work with him. Also present at the meeting were several of Mikulski's staff, Elias Zerhouni, John La Montagne, and Marc Smolonsky. Also, I hosted Julie Gerberding to deliver the NIAID Joseph Kinyoun Lecture and then took her to dinner with John La Montagne, Ed Tramont, Pamela McInnes.
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Oct. 25, 2003 - Had biodefense strategizing meeting at Wye River Conference Center run by Richard Danzig. Discussed issues related to dealing with mass casualties. The usual suspects were there - DA Henderson, Julie Gerberding, David Franz, Michael Osterholm, Bill Patrick, C.J. Peters, George Tavel, people from DoD, FBI, CIA, etc.
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Oct. 27, 2003 - Had a Policy Coordinating Committee for an "end-to-end" analysis of biodefense responsiveness at the White House EEOB. Meeting run by Ken Bernard and Bob Kadlec. Attended by all the usual suspects from each agency - CIA, FBI, DHS, HHS, OMB, OVP, etc. After the meeting I met with Bob Kadlec about the possibility of going to Iraq to interact with the medical and research community. Apparently, the copies of HPIM-15 that I had sent to Iraq through Kristen Silverberg were a smash hit and the Iraqis want very much for me to go to Iraq. However, over the past few weeks there has been a great escalation of insurgency and terrorism with many suicide bombings and rocket and rocket propelled grenade attacks on both military and civilian targets. It appears that the terrorists are targeting the Iraqis who are cooperating with the USA in trying to rebuild the country. Kadlec does not trust the security associated with the ministries of health to provide for my safety. He actually feels that if word gets out that I am coming that I would be targeted by snipers. He feels that if I go, he will arrange for CIA operatives to get me into the country and move around "under the radar" and that CIA operatives would provide my security. We decided to wait a few weeks before resuming plans about going to Iraq and consider going in January/February. Bob will have to go there at this time anyway to continue search for weapons of mass destruction.