A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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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.
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2007-09-25 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Sept. 25, 2007 - Was panelist at Science Magazine's annual retreat of their staff at their headquarters in Washington, DC. Chaired by Editor Don Kennedy. Lively discussion about the future of science and biomedical research. DSMB discontinues trial of Merck HIV vaccine based on Adenovirus vector. Possible that vaccine actually made things worse. Big setback for HIV vaccinology.
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Sept. 26, 2007 - Farewell reception at White House for Rajeev Venkayya (Deputy Director - Homeland security Council). I have worked closely with Rajeev for 5 years on Biodefense. He rose from WH intern to deputy Director in 5 years. He is someone to watch; good guy; physician trained at U of Michigan and UCSF. Usual cast of WH people, i.e. Fran Townsend, etc.
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Sept. 27 - 28, 2007 - Glorious 2 days in NYC for the Lasker Awards. Dinner on night of Sept. 27 at La Grenouille (Mary Lasker's favorite restaurant). Lasker Lunch at Pierre Hotel on Sept. 28. Ralph Steinman received Basic Science Lasker; Alan Carpentier and Albert Starr (Starr-Edwards heart valve) received the Clinical Lasker; and I received the Public Service Lasker. On Friday, Sept. 28, the Washington Post did a very large piece on me called "The Honored Doctor" talking about the Lasker, the National Medal of Science, the Kober Medal and other honors. I have received literally several hundred letters and e-mails and greeting in person related to the Lasker and the Post article. With me in NYC were Chris, Ali and Jenny. Megan had to stay on Chicago with "City Year".
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Oct. 4 - 5, 2007 - Went to Aspen for the World Biomedical Forum. Gave 4 to 5 talks on AIDS, Pandemic Flu, Emerging infections, etc. Again, usual cast of notables there. Very nice time. Weather in Aspen and DC has been spectacular for past couple of weeks. Sunny, Warm and no rain.
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Oct. 11, 2007 - Featured speaker at a Global Health Symposium at the Italian Embassy on Whitehaven Street in DC. Spoke on "HIV/AIDS in 2007: Much Accomplished, Much To Do". Much congratulatory activity by the Italians related to the Lasker and the Post article.