A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Feb. 14, 2008 -- Had meeting with Carl Dieffenbach, Peggy Johnston, Larry Corey, Scott Hammer (Chair, PAVE 100 clinical trial), JJ. McGowan, Hugh Auchincloss, Cliff Lane, Carole Hudgings, Patty Conrad, Ralph Tate, Gary Nabel to discuss the great dilemma about proceeding or not with PAVE 100 in light of the failure of the recent Merck STEP trial of a somewhat similar T cell based vaccine for HIV (see reports of STEP study failure). STEP trial was performed within the HVTN (by Larry Corey's operation). It used an adenovirus (Ad) 5 vector prime and 2 boosts with gag, pol, nef. DSMB stopped study because of "futility" in that the vaccine did not protect against acquisition of infection (not expected to since it is a T cell vaccine) and also did not alter set point of virus. Importantly, for reasons that no one can figure out, vaccinees (not placebos) who had high pre-existing titer of antibody against Ad5, did worse than unvaccinated in acquisition of infection. The PAVE 100 trial (VRC-Gary Nabel) is also using a T cell vaccine approach with 3 DNA-gag, pol, nef, env prime/boost followed by an Ad5-gal pol env 4" shot. Question is whether we should go ahead with the PAVE 100. Basic researchers in AIDS (Ron Desrosiers, Doug Richman, Dennis Burton, etc.) want to stop all vaccine clinical trials until we figure out the "basic science". We should actually probably tilt the balance more towards discovery rather than development of vaccine candidates since we still have no idea what a protective immune response is or even how or if we can elicit it. However, the "basic" people have their own whining agenda since they feel that any money towards a trial is money away from their grants. Also, they are very jealous of Bart Haynes who got a lot of money for CHAVI (which is actually more basic than applied). I am holding a "Summit" on March 25, 2008 to examine this balance between basic and applied in HIV vaccine research.
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Feb. 16, 2008 -- Another trip to the White House (EEOB) to visit with Bob Kadlec concerning the Global Health Initiatives that we are working on. Everyone is actively engaged in "sprinting to the finish line" of the administration with various transforming initiatives (see above). Bob (who is with HSC) is emphasizing more the Global Security issue, which includes things that I am involved in such as pandemic flu, biodefense, etc. We are working on initiatives to present to the POTUS.
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Feb. 19, 2008 -- Briefed VP Cheney in his West Wing office at 10:00 AM (crisp, sunny day). This was one of several briefings that he has requested of me over the past 7 years. T updated him on pandemic flu threat, seasonal flu, AIDS, emerging IDs, malaria, TB, biodefense. Bruce Miller (VP's chief of Homeland Security) told me before the lecture that yesterday when he was flying back from the long weekend with the VP on Marine 2, the VP spontaneously said "Isn't Tony Fauci going to be briefing me tomorrow. I am really looking forward to his briefing; I always learn a lot from them". Bruce said that this was the first time that the VP has made such a comment about an upcoming briefing the day before the briefing in the 7 years that Bruce has been with the VP. The briefing went very well and the VP was very engaged, particularly about flu and about the dire situation in Washington, D.C. re: HIV/AIDS. He was shocked at the numbers - DC is 9X the national average for prevalence; 5% of the entire DC population is infected.
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Feb. 20-21, 2008 - Went to University of Chicago to deliver interdisciplinary lecture on HIV/AIDS. Had dinner with Megan at Volare restaurant. Went over very well and then flew early on AM of 21 Feb to DC to go directly to the White House for meeting with Dan Price, Gary Edson, Mark Dybul, Patrick Marcham, Paul Brown, Tim Ziemer to discuss malaria, TB, health care workers and other initiative. I am pushing for the tripling of resources ($20 M to $60 M) for TB vaccine research. We had a big week with the POTUS visit to Africa and receiving great praise and affection for the PEPFAR and PMI programs. POTUS announced a $350 M, 5 year program on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) to include attempt to eradicate in 300 million people in certain African , Asian and Latin American countries - Lymphatic filariasis, Onchocerciasis, Schistosomiasis, trachoma and ground worms (whipworm, hookworm, and roundworm). This is the same program that Gary Edson and I proposed 3 years ago and so our prior work has belatedly come to fruition. Great news!
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2008-02-26 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Feb. 26, 2008 - My picture and a story concerning me (in part) appeared in the Science Section of the New York Times today. It was related to the interview that I gave in Toronto last summer to 2 small children with the theme of explaining HIV/AIDS to little children. The filmakers were the children's parents.
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Mar. 3, 2008 - Participated in a State Department function for Jenna Bush on the occasion of celebrating her new book "Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope". Took place in the main auditorium of the State department. I was the main speaker and spoke on "The Global Effects of HIV/AIDS and the origins of PEPFAR". Other speakers were Kristen Silverberg, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, and Karl Zinmeister, Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. Got a chance to chat a fair amount with Jenna Bush as we waited together for the affair to begin. She is a very nice person who said that she was "in awe" of me because of all of the amazing things that I have accomplished over the years. She worked for UNICEF for a year in Jamaica and also spent time in Panama doing AIDS work. Very nice person; has a smile exactly like her father. I gave a history of the origins of PEPFAR and a short summary of HIV/AIDS. I showed the MMWRs from June 4 and July 5, 1981. When Jenna got up to speak, she remarked to the audience how impressed she was with me and my work over so many years and when I showed the 1981 slide, she was floored by the fact that I was involved in AIDS then and that was the year that she was born.
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Mar. 5, 2008 - Meeting in White House (EEOB 445) led by Bob Kadlec of HSC.. Was "Top Secret" meeting on anthrax threat with emphasis on drug resistant and even vaccine resistant anthrax. Based on supposed intelligence that Al Qaeda has been "talking about" anthrax and based on supposed documents captured from Al Qaeda. We were briefed by 2 CIA young women who provided the same vague, soft and even embarrassingly bad intelligence that I have been briefed on several times before by CIA. One gets a very bad impression of the quality of our intelligence based on meetings such as this. Also present were Julie Gerberding, Art Friedlander, Ben Petro, Gerry Parker and a whole bunch of CIA, Counter-terrorist people, Defense intelligence people, etc. Subject was how do we protect against drug resistant anthrax and vaccine resistant anthrax.
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Mar. 8, 2008 - Busy and nice social evening. Dropped in briefly to the NCS Annual Spring Festival "Casino Night" at the Athletic Center. Said hello to the usual suspects and then went to the Newseum at 555 Pennsylvania Avenue to celebrate the 65th Birthday of Gerry Sigal. Beautiful setting with bay window view of the Capitol Dome. Great food, drink and dancing. Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame at our table. Elias and Nadia Zerhouni were dancing away with us on the dance floor. DC was beautiful with crisp cold weather (upper 20s) and clear sky.
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Mar. 10, 2008 - Another in a long string of Global Health initiative meetings at the White House (EEOB 374) led by Dan Price (see above) with Gary Edson, Mark Dybul, Patrick Marcham, Mike Magan, Paul Brown, Dana DeRuiter. Mainly discussed Dan plans for the upcoming G-8 meeting in Japan (he is USG Sherpa). Issues are NTDs, heath workforce, HIV, Malaria, and TB. I was there representing the malaria and TB initiatives (see above). Apparently Josh Bolten is enthusiastic about both, but HHS is not supporting it since their priority in a bad budget year is pandemic flu and biodefense. Nonetheless, I am still going to these meetings and pushing the TB and Malaria agenda . I can do this since Dan Price (with Josh Bolten's approval) is including me in the process even though the HHS is against it.