A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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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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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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2007-07-27 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
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 -
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Sept. 15-16, 2007 - Press announcement for the Lasker Award. Almost immediately, scores of congratulatory e-mails started arising. My picture was in the Washington Post with an article; article in NY Times and picture and article on Monday (Sept.17) in USA Today.
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Sept. 19, 2007 - Over the past few days, literally hundreds of e-mails and letters coming in regarding Lasker Award from friends, colleagues, people I knew years ago such as nurses from H-4 ward at NY Hospital, White house people, congressmen, etc. Today had meeting at White House (EEOB-428) run by NSC (Mike Falan) and HSC (Rajeev Venkayya) to discuss updating and broadening the vision of the NSC/HSC TB White Paper that we (NIAID) had contributed to a couple of months ago when we introduced our Research Agenda for MDR/XDR-TB. Beautiful Fall day (crisp and sunny). Meeting from 9:00 to 11:00 AM followed by briefing from Tachi Yamada (Gates Foundation) who came from Seattle to present to us (USG) out of courtesy the new $282 million Gates TB initiative. In preparation for this I alerted Rajeev that we really needed to coordinate the many USG activities on TB and present it in a vision format so that the POTUS could claim the legacy of having addressed AIDS (PEPFAR), malaria (President's Malaria Initiative - PMI) and now TB. It would be the 3rd leg in the stool of his Global Diplomacy program. Rajeev agreed - unfortunately, he will be leaving government on Sept. 26. It was great working with him over the past few years. His background is that he trained as an MD at Michigan and was actually Chief Medical Resident when Tachi was Chairman of Medicine at Michigan. In any event, we will update and sharpen our USG White Paper.
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Sept. 20, 2007 - Another great crisp Fall day. Heard real bad news regarding the Merck AIDS vaccine trial 502 in which adenovector HIV was immunogen. Study done mostly on gay men and phase 2b was looked at by DSMB on usual periodic look. Trial closed for "futility" in that the data showed that more people got infected in vaccinate group versus unvaccinated group (19 vs 11 - not significant, but highly suggestive). Also, viral set point exactly same in infected people who were vaccinated versus those that were not. Trail stopped - press releases imminent. It is going to be a hot time. People will focus on whether we should proceed with the Phase IIb of PAVE 100 (Gary Nabel's VRC trial). The latter also was a adeno vector, but is different in 3 ways: 1) it has a DNA prime; 2) it has envelope; 3) it is done also in heterosexuals. More to come. Went to Gate-sponsored dinner at Le Paradou Restaurant at 678 Indiana Avenue, NW in honor of retiring President of Botswana Festus Mogae. I had met the President in 2002 when I went to Africa with Tommy Thompson in 2002 to develop PEPFAR. At the dinner were: Todd Summer and Cheryl Scott (Gates), Jeff Struchio (Merck), Bobby Pittman (NSC Director of African Affairs), Congresswoman Nita Lowey, Tommy Thompson, Max Essex (Harvard School of Public Health), Ambassador John Lange (former Amb to Botswana), Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Nice evening. I commiserated with TGT about his failed attempt at Republican nomination for President. Nice conversations with Nita Lowey about Iraq (Democrat viewpoint), and warm conversation with Mogae regarding my work on AIDS.