A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Oct. 21, 2005 - Much press regarding trip and updating on pandemic flu. The whole world is getting exorcised. Chickens now infected in Russia, KazakstanChina, Romania, Turkey. Clearly, migratory birds are bringing the disease West. Was on CNN, C-SPAN, NPR, Bloomberg News, etc.
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Oct. 24 - 28, 2005 - Hectic week with bird flu and grand jury indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter Libby" for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements in the er, and veil the investigation of the leak that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. She is the husband of Jim Wilson who has been criticizing the war in Iraq. Oct. 24 - briefing by me , Julie, Bruce Gellin and Secretary Leavitt (MOL from here-on) of several cabinet members in the Cabinet Liaison Office in EEOB. Subject - pandemic flu. Oct. 25, 26 - Boston to deliver Baruj Benacerraf Lecture at Harvard and Dana Farber Cancer Center. Nice dinner at Harvey Cantor's house to celebrate Baruj's 85th birthday. Say Jenny in Cambridge after the dinner on Oct. 25. Wonderful time with my amazing daughter! Oct. 27 - continue briefing of Hill members. Briefed Tom DeLay, Steny Hoyer, and others. Incredible attention to pandemic flu in this country. Oct. 28 - Briefed Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. The POTUS will unveil the Pandemic Plan at NIH on Nov. 1. I have been doing considerable press.
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Nov. 1, 2005 - POTUS came to NIH to unveil the National Flu Pandemic Plan. Beustiful Fall day with crystal clear skies and temperature around 65-70. I along with Sec Leavitt, Elias Zerhouni, Julie Gerberding, and others greeted him as he arrived. During his speech he specifally thanked me for my work. Attending the speech in Natcher Auditorium were several Cabinet Secretaries including Coni Rice, Minetta, Mike Chertoff, Johanns among others. With the POTUS was Karl Rove, Fran Townsend among others. POTUS gave a good speech. Afterwards, I did a media blitch and appeared on CNN Wolf Blitzer, CNN Lou Dobbs, CBS Evening News, Charlie Rose and did many print and radio interviews. Ted Kennedy is concerned about the liability issue. He agrees that we should give liability protection to the pharmaceutical companies to keep them in the business of influenza vaccine manufacturing. However, he feels that we must also provide compensation for those that might be injured by the vaccine. He appealed to me to discuss this with the administration. He followed this up 2 days later by having his staffer (David Bowen) call me and get more advice from me about how they could tackle this problem.
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Nov. 2 - 3, 2005 - Testified with MOL, Julie G., Bruce Gellin, and Bill Raub at both the Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees for HELP. We discussed the President's Plan as well as the more detailed HHS Pandemic Plan. We were generally well received, but there was the usual partisan skepticism on the part of the Democratic regarding the fact that the Plan asks the States to put up about 75% of the cost for a portion of the Tamiflu that would go to them. The point was made that the States do not have enough resources to do this. MOL makes the point that this is a co-pay situation similar to what is done for prescription drugs in Medicare and Medicaid. Much press. Big stuff going on with the indictment of Scooter Libby. The Democrats are trying to drag in the VP and the entire WH, claiming that there was a wide conspiracy to cover-up the fact that the WH distorted intelligence to get us into a war with Iraq and that Joe Wilson was smeared by outing his CIA wife in order to get back at him for disagreeing with the evidence used for going to war with Iraq.
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2005-11-03 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Nov. 3, 2005 - Top secret meeting at EEOB regarding conduct of certain experiments in the area of developing countermeasures. Cannot elaborate because of top secret nature of discussions. More press regarding Pandemic flu plan.
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Nov. 4, 2005 - Tesitified before the House Government reform Committee with Tom Davis Chairing. Same cast = MOL, me, Julie, Raub, Gellin. This was a tougher Hearing in that this Committee is generally tough. Both the Republicans and Democrats gave some heat to us. As usual, the tough ones (Chris Shays, Dan Barton, Henry Waxman) were quite deferential to me and so I did fine. Dennis Kucinich made a spectacle of himself by pushing MOL on the issue of taking over Roche's patent for Tamiflu. Kucinich wanted a government takeover and MOL argued that this would be a disincentive for companies to ever make scarce products (MOL is absolutely correct).
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Nov. 5, 2005 - Met Senator Bill Frist at the St. Alban's - St.Stephen's/St Agnes football game (2:30 PM) at St. Albans field. Beautiful Fall afternoon. Temperature = 70 and totally sunny. St. Albans won 42-20. Frist's son Brian plays for St. Albans (junior year - special teams and safety). Frist discussed a whole range of issues, particularly pandemic flu. He wanted my opinion on the budget bill for flu ($7.1 Billion). Also, ran into Tim Russert at the game. He told me that he wanted me for "Meet the Press" to talk about bird flu within the next couple of weeks.
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Nov. 9, 2005 - Spirited Hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Pandemic Flu. I testified along with Julie G., Andrew Natsios (USAID), and Paula Dobriansky (DoS). Committee chaired by Paul Lugar. Present at Hearing were Sens. Dodd, Biden, Obama, Sarbannes (all Dems.) They kept pushing Julie and me about "who is in charge?" We explained that it is primarily a health issue and in this regard, Sec. Leavitt is in charge. In the sense that the issue may involve multiple Agencies, this is coordinated through the Homeland Security Council and Fran Townsend is in charge. They did not like the latter and were pushing for a "Flu Czar". We said that this was a bad idea. There was a lot of animated back and forth. After the Hearing, I met with Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, President of Iceland. He was referred to me by Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA). He is sponsoring an Icelandic Drug Co ("Actavis") that makes generics for HIV drugs and he wants to get Iceland involved in helping out with global AIDS by making 3-in-1 drugs available free to some countries and sold at minimal prices to others. He wanted my advice. I strongly suggested that he contact PEPFAR in the form of Mark Dybul. I also suggested that he contact "Doctors without Borders" and Bono's people (Jamie Drummond). I will help them out to connect. They had already approached Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, but felt that they did not really have a substantive network.
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Nov. 10, 2005 - Frenetic activity continues. Briefed together with Bill Raub and Julie G. (by phone) and Jerry Parker (Stewart Simonson's Deputy at OEPHP) Secretary of Commerce Gutierrez (he is last of the Cabinet Secretaries to be briefed). Bruce Gellin is in Geneva with Stewart for Global Planning meeting for Pandemic Flu. They stopped in Paris to visit Institut Pasteur. This was in the middle of the riots around Paris by Muslim French Nationals who are enraged at poor living conditions and alleged prejudice in French Society against them. We also briefed the House Armed Services Committee and I gave a personal 1on-1 briefing to my old friend Sen. Barbara Mikulski. She was gracious and very glad to see me. This evening Sec. Leavitt and I and Michael Osterholm (connected from Minnesota) did the Nightline Show with Ted Koppel from D.C.