A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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June 18, 2007 - Informed by Don Koshland of the Lasker Foundation that I will be awarded the Lasker Award for Public Service in September ($150,000.00) - amazing. Thus, in 2007 I have won the Kober Medal for Physician Scientist, the National Medal of Science for Basic and Clinical Research and now the Lasker Award for Public Service. I have a lot to be thankful for! Ironically, had dinner over Ellen and Gerry Sigal's house last night with Joe Wilson, Bill Wilson and Melody (Confidante of the Kennedy's), Richard and Donna Ben-Veniste, Judge Judy who is trying the crazy $54 million "lost pants in the Dry Cleaners case and her husband Greg. I mentioned to Ellen that if Joe was pissed at me because I wrote a letter for Scooter, then I would not come to the dinner. Joe was very gracious and insisted that I be there. We had a good discussion and he said that he understood why I wrote the letter. He, however, is filing a civil suit against VP Cheney, Karl Rove, and Scooter and so it is not over yet. Amazing how different are the perspectives of what happened between Scooter and Joe/Valerie. I am in the unusual situation of being friends with both parties.
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June 18, 2007 - Accompanied First Lady Laura Bush at Howard University Hospital for a roundtable discussion of the implementation by Howard of the new CDC recommendations for the "Routinization" of HIV testing. Celia Maxwell (former NIAID fellow) led the discussion for Howard. Very cordial interactions with the First Lady and her staff, particularly Katy Montgomery. She was engaged and interactive. Very hot day in DC - sunny, slightly hazy and 94 degrees F. I explained to her the benefits that are coming out of this testing program as well as the PEPFAR program internationally.
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June 18, 2007).
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June 21, 2007 - Met with Nancy Pelosi in her "Speakers Office" at the Capitol to discuss the funding of the University of California at SF Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). They did not get the funding amount that they had hoped for and we finally worked it out to everyone's satisfaction by getting some extra money from OAR and the NHLBI to give them the additional $771,000.00 that they requested. Nancy was satisfied. I went with Elias Zerhouni and Marc Smolonsky from OLA at NIH. Her main staffer was Scott Brule. Nancy was as usual very warm and cordial to me. We discussed a plan that she had to get extra money to the NIH through a budget supplemental. She felt that if we wrap in the cancer package, all of the Congress would be in favor even though it was understood that it would go way beyond cancer. Elias and I and Marc will world on a strategic plan for the initiative and get back to her. Visited by USA Ambassador to Indonesia (just appointed) Cameron Hume. I know Cameron from time he was Ambassador to South Africa and we (Cliff Lane) established the Phidisa Project with the South African Military to treat HIV infection in the military. Cameron left South Africa and became (briefly) Ambassador to Sudan (during the Darfur crisis). He is on his way to take over in Jakarta and wanted me to brief him on Pandemic Influenza threat and what the USA is doing in this area. Indonesia is a hot spot for recent cases of chicken to human H5N1 Chris and I had dinner tonight at the home of Australian Ambassador to the USA Dennis Richardson and his wife Betty to celebrate the visit of immunologist Ian Frazer (wife Caroline) who is the 2006 Australian of the Year. His research led to the development of the HPV vaccine with Merck (Gardasil). Good food and conversation at the beautiful Ambassador's residence at 3120 Cleveland Avenue, N.W. Balmy Spring night in DC. June 21 - July 4, 2007 - POTUS commuted 30 month jail sentence for Scooter Libby, but did not pardon him. The conservatives are enraged that the POTUS did not go far enough to pardon Scooter and the liberals are saying that the commutation was a "disgrace". Went to the Gala Dinner of "The Golden Plate" with Chris. Usual celebrity gala. Met Hillary Swank for the first time. Others at the dinner were Alberto Gonzales, Margaret Spellings, David Rubenstein (Carlyle Group), and many many others. Sitting at Table with Chris and me were: Gen. Ralston (former Chairman of Joint Chiefs) Mac Macarty (former Chief-of-Staff to Pres. Clinton, Ann Venneman (UNICEF Director and former Sec. Dept. of Agriculture. Entertainment by Brooks and Dunn - country singers who were fantastic (winner of many country music awards) Went to a Cocktail Buffet at Jamie Gorelick's house on June 30 and met with the usual cast of DC notables: Richard Ben-Veniste, Bill Jeffress (Scooter's lawyer), David Ignatius of the Washington Post, Seth Waxman (lawyer), Judy Woodruff (PBS), Al Hunt (Bloomberg News), Mark Shields (Newshour), etc. Living discussions about Washington Politics, including the fact that I wrote a letter for Scooter.
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2007-07-05 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
July 5 - 7, 2007 - Went to the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, CO. Presented a session on "Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases: The Perpetual Challenge to Global Health". Beautiful mountain weather - warm, no humidity, clear skies. Met and interacted with many, many notable people: Colin Powell, Bob Hormats (Vice-Chairman of Goldman Sachs), Rahm Emanuel, Tim Wirth, Margaret Spellings, Dan Glickman (former Sec. Agriculture and current CEO of Motion Picture Association of America), Walter Isaacson (CEO of Aspen Institute), Jim Woolsey (Former Director CIA), Jim Lehrer and his wife Kate (Lehrer NewsHour), and many, many more. Very enjoyable experience. Perhaps started a friendship with Corby Kummer, whom I had not met or heard of before. He is senior editor at The Atlantic magazine. He is one of the most { was respected food journalists and he "narrated" the meal that was served to us at a very elegant dinner on July 6 at Plato's restaurant hosted by Booz, Allan, Hamilton. They brought in a chef from Denver and provided a meal made only from local ingredients (lamb, vegetables, corn soup, etc.). We had long discussions and we flew back together from Aspen to Denver. He offered Chris and me use of his Boston Apartment when we come to Boston to visit Jenny.
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July 10-14, 2007 - Went to Genoa for my yearly review of the Gaslini Institute. It was the usual pleasant interactions with Lorenzo Moretta, Alain Fischer, and Sergio Romagnani (Committee members) as well as the people of Gaslini such as Gianni Melioli, Giovanni Rossi, Alessandro Moretta. Since I was not allowed to take the honorarium this year of any more, this might be my last time doing this.
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July 21 - 25, 2007 - Went to Sydney Australia with Chris, Megan and Alison to present the opening session plenary lecture on the topic of "HIV/AIDS in 2007: Much Accomplished, Much To Do". We had to turn around quickly and come home and thus cancel our plans for a mini-vacation in Australia together. Reason was that I had to return to DC to receive the National Medal of Science (see below). The trip was nonetheless very enjoyable notwithstanding the length of travel time. My talk went over very well, got much press and turned out to be the defining theme of the meeting that caught on with the press and the other speakers.
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July 27, 2007 - Received the National Medal of Science from the POTUS at a 1:50 PM White House ceremony in the East Room. Hot, sunny Washington day. I was one of 8 people who received the award for 2005 (yes 2005 - they are 2 years behind in awarding them). The POTUS was very nice with me. The Army Major who announced the names completely blew the pronunciation of my name despite having a phonetic crib in front of him. The POTUS laughed and when I went up to the podium to get the medal and shake his hand, he put his arm around me and whispered in my ear "Maybe this guy does not know what you name is, but I certainly do". There was a nice reception after. Condi Rice gave me a hug and kiss and joked about the mispronunciation of my name. We saw the POTUS leave from the WH lawn on Marine One Helicopter to spend the weekend at Camp David. In the evening we had an elegant dinner with many guests from government at the Ritz Carlton on 22nd and M Streets, N.W. Guests at my table were Elias Zerhouni and John Gallin together with Denise and Jack Scorce. Nice time. I felt rather humbled by the amazing accomplishments of the other awardees (mostly physicists and engineers). July 27 - August 30, 2007 - A number of relatively minor issues over the past 4 weeks. Had laparoscopic surgery for right indirect inguinal hernia on August 2 at Sibley Hospital by Dr. Martin Paul. Minor complications of 2 1⁄2 weeks of severe pain over the mesh that had developed a "seroma". It is fine now. Went to Seattle, WA to deliver opening session plenary lecture at the HIV/AIDS Vaccine 2007 meeting run by Larry Corey. Talk well received. Have been having very "scratchy" voice that has significantly interfered with my lecture since my Plenary in Sydney (when I first noticed it) in July. I had laryngoscopy by Dr. Michael Siegel. It should some very minor "singer's nodules" similar to what Pres. Clinton had but much less severe (Dr. Siegel took care of Clinton), as well as some inflammation indicating esophageal-laryngeal reflux. Will start on antacids. Word is now out that I will receive the Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service on Sept. 28, 2007 in NYC (see below). August 30 - Sept. 13, 2007 - Went to NYC on Sept. 8 to visit my father for his 97th birthday. Recently had baloon valvuloplasty of aortic valve for progressively refractory CHF. Remarkable improvement following procedure. NYC was beautiful and warm. Chris, Jenny and Ali were with me and we had fun as always in NYC. Megan is in Chicago with City Year (Americorps) and is lonely and sad since this is first time away from home.
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Sept. 14, 2007 - Big day. Went to White House for Karl Rove's farewell party. Moving speeches by Josh Bolten (who showed PowerPoint slides on Karl's years with the POTUS here and in Texas), the POTUS who choked up a few times when talking about Karl, and Karl himself who gave a very moving thank you to his friends at the WH. He recounted how after Bush won the election Karl did not want to come to DC with the POTUS because he felt that although he was a good political strategist and tactician, he did not like internecine warfare and he saw that during the administration of the POTUS's father George H.W. Bush shook his head in agreement with this. Karl went on to say that it would not be this way during his administration since it will be like a family and he would not allow backbiting. My thought was that although this is an admirable thing, it might have had the unintended consequence of having a closed system that did not accept outside ideas very well. In any event it was a warm affair. I had the opportunity to chat with Josh Bolten, Karl Rove, Fran Townsend, Mike Chertoff, Charles Krauthammer, and many other notables. After the ceremony we waved the POTUS off from the balcony in Marine One on the way to Camp David for the weekend. I had a scheduled briefing of First Lady Laura Bush's staff with Anita McBride (Chief-of-Staff), Carrie Underwood (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects), and several others. The briefing went very well. I talked about global health issues and what the FLOTUS could do for the last year domestically and internationally to promote the health agenda. I will be suggesting places that she could visit. To do an event similar to what we did together at Howard University (see above -