A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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April 6, 2006 - Had dinner with Tara O'Toole of the Univ of Pittsburg Biodefense Program. She had just testified at the BioShield Hearing on the Hill and wanted to get my perspective on how things were going with the Biodefense effort and if there was anything that she could do for me. I explained to her that the reason the current BioShield effort was not successful was that the Congress did not approve the Bill that I and VP Cheney and Scooter Libby had originally proposed. The Congress limited the money to $5.6 Billion instead of an unlimited authorization to draw from the Treasury and the Appropriations Committees still controlled how much could be spent each year. Also, we could not do advanced development for products. This put off the big companies (not enough money) and the little companies (advanced development) and so the process has not been entirely successful. We are attracting marginal companies like VaxGen that cannot get to the goal post.
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April 8, 2006 - Attended the Annual Gala of the National Hospice Foundation at the Hilton Hotel on Connecticut Avenue, N.W. where I presented the Global Vision Award to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. At my table were Holbrooke, Margaret Warner from the NewsHour, her husband John Reilly, Ann Morgan Vickery and Bob Kyle of Hogan and Harston. Usual gala-like atmosphere. Has a chance to catch up with Richard Holbrooke, who is currently the President and CEO of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS. We reminisced about our trip to Africa with Tommy Thompson in 2003.
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May 2, 2006 - Dedicated Building 33 as the C.W. Bill Young Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases. Terrific ceremonies with speakers being: me, EZ, Secretary Leavitt, Ralph Regula, Bill Young. Tour of building, many festivities, beautiful sunny day.
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May 25, 2006 - I have not been recording this type of thing of late even though I have gone to several of these, but I went tonight to the 18th Annual National Education & Leadership (NELA) Awards Gala at the Omni-Shoreham given by the Sons of Italy. I was the guest of Chuck Conconi (Washingtonian Magazine, formerly columnist for Washington Post) and his wife Janelle. At the Table were Ed Henry (CNN White House Correspondent), Lloyd Hand, Mike Petruzzelo (Managing Director of Qorvis Communications) and Mr. Thompson (?first name) African American billionare and his date Cheryl Lee (CEO of BET). Pres. Clinton and Hillery Clinton were guest speakers. Ran into the usual DC crowd - Sen Chris Dodd, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, Franco Nuschese (Owner of Café Milano - who was also an awardee), etc.
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2006-06-11 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
June 11 - 17, 2006 - Went to Tuscana with Chris and the girls for a few days and then went on to Genoa for the annual review of the Gaslini Institute. Wonderful time had by all. Stayed in an amazing converted farm house (to a villa) owned by a friend of Jim Huskey's from the Embassy in Florence. The weather was amazing - warm and totally sunny during the day and cold at night requiring a fire in the fire-place and blankets in bed. Sunsets over the Tuscan hills with a glass of chianti was incredible.
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June 20, 2006 - Did a one hour face to face briefing of VP Cheny in his West Wing office on pandemic flu. Also present was Carl Kuntz, David Addington (new chief of staff replacing Scooter Libby and Scott Diechman (new health person for the VP). As usual, it was a lively briefing. It is clear and Carol told me that the VP has said this that the VP very much looks forward to being briefed by me. The day was a typical hot sunny 90 degree day in DC.
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July 26, 2006 - Has been a busy few weeks with relatively mundane institute issues. Weather has been very hot - ~95+ degrees. Two days ago David Stout and Jean-Paul Garnier from Glaxo-Smith Kline called and briefed me on the great success of their H5N1 clinical trial using their proprietory adjuvant ASO3. They got terrific results with 3.8 micrograms X2 with adjuvant giving predictably protective responses in >80% of people compared to the Sanofi study (see above) that gave predictably protective responses at 90 micrograms X2 without adjuvant in only about 50% of people. I spent the greater part of July 26 with the press (mostly print - NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today, AP, Phil Inquirer, Bloomberg, Baltimore Sun, etc) as well as CNN (Christy Feig). This is an important advance in trying to prepare for a pandemic flu since it seemingly overcomes the obstacle of a prohibitive requirement of high dose.
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July 27, 2006 - Went to NYC to participate in the Pandemic Flu Summit at City Hall. Part of Secretary Leavitt's program of visiting every state and some additional cities within states to talk about pandemic influenza preparedness. Mayor Michael Bloomberg hosted us. Secretary Leavitt spoke about the history of the 1918 pandemic in Utah and said that he came from a small town. When it came to my turn to talk about the science of pandemic flu, I told the Mayor and the audience that I came from a small town called "Bensonhurst" and I brought the house down. I mentioned that my father was born a few blocks away on Elizabeth Street and Grand Street in Little Italy. The day was sweltering hot and sunny. I got an exciting ride back to LaGuardia by an attractive young security woman named April who works in the regional office of the Inspector General of HHS. She got me through traffic with sirens and blinking lights to catch my 3:30 PM Delta Shuttle in order to get to DC in time to pay respects at the retirement party of Carol Kuntz at the White House. In her office in private, I gave her a gift of a statuette of Dr. Joseph Kinyoun with the inscription: "To Carol R. Kuntz With appreciation from your friends at NIAID" She burst into tears.
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August 15-16, 2006 - Things have been fairly uneventful since last entry (July 27). I was one of the featured panelists at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto on August 16. The session was "25 Years of AIDS - Reflecting Back and Looking Forward". Each of us gave a 7 minute presentation followed by a panel discussion. I spoke on the "Scientific Response". Also presenting was Peter Piot of UNAIDS, H. Broadbent (AIDS patient), Gregg Gonsalves, and E. Madraa (African Community person). Session Moderated by Richard Horton, Editor of Lancet, and chaired by Mark Wainberg and Helene Gayle (organizers of the conference). There were 30,000 people at the conference and about 6000-7000 people in the audience for our session. Of note, a group of USA activist wanted to protest the fact that the USG was spending $90 million dollars on prevention this year and they thought that all that the USG was doing was purchasing the Orasure quicktest for HIV. In fact, they were incorrect and a good part of the $ was going for actual prevention education. The group was very nice and almost apologized for disrupting my session. They stormed on stage with the usual chanting and signs that said "George, listen to Tony" and "This is only a test!" (referring to the Orasure test). They disrupted me for the agreed-upon 2 minutes and then let me give my talk. I started the talk by saying "Thank you for the kind introduction" and the audience laughed. The talk was very well received. The major theme of the meeting was "Time to Deliver", but the real theme was prevention. The meeting was opened by Bill Clinton and Bill and Melinda Gates. I did a lot of press during the meeting and after I returned (Diane Rehm Show).