A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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June 4, 2008 -- Jenny's graduation from Harvard. J.K. Rowlings gave a great commencement address. Wonderful time despite very cold (for June -- 52 degrees) and raining for 2 days. Jenny graduated magna cum laude. Had nice dinner at Artu in the North End. June 10 -- Big honor. Was invited by President of the U.N. General Assembly Dr. Srgjan Kerim to deliver a Keynote Address at the 2008 U.N. General Assembly High-Level Meeting on HIV AIDS. Addresses were by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Pres. Kerim, Peter Piot, PWA Ms. Ratri Suksma from Malaysia. This was followed by several Heads of State (El Salvador, Togo, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, and Central African Republic). Jenny was in NYC interviewing for jobs and she was there for the presentations. She was excited by it. Have a great photo of me at the podium of the UN General Assembly giving my speech.
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June 11, 2008 -- It was publicly announced by the White House today that I will receive from the POTUS at the WH the Presidential Medal of Freedom on June 19. Other honorees will include: Dr. Benjamin Carson, Congressman Tom Lantos (posthumously and accepted by his widow), Gen. Peter Pace, Donna Shalala, and Laurence Silberman.
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June 17, 2008 - I will be attending his memorial service at the Kennedy Center tomorrow. Bono called me today to congratulate me on receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I caught him up on my family and mentioned that Megan was starting at Columbia in September. His daughter Jordan (JoJo) is also starting Columbia. He asked me to send him Megan's contact information since he is worried that his daughter will be lonely since she is coming directly from Ireland. Perhaps they will become friends.
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June 18, 2008 - Attended the memorial service for Tim Russert at the Kennedy Center. Extraordinary Washington affair with the total "A list" present. Hosted by Tom Brokaw. See book published in 2013 called "This Town" by Marc Liebovich for full details of the ceremony.
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2008-06-19 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
June 19, 2008 - Extraordinary day at the White House for the Presidential Medal of Freedom Ceremonies. Crisp, clear blue sky, sunny and comfortable day. A lot of joy in the presentations (see my written file records of what was said about me by the POTUS). Very good media coverage. The presentations for everyone were very warm. Lots of wonderful pictures. Many guests (some of whom came for me) such as Justice Scalia, Sam Donaldson, Cuba Gooding, Judge Merrick Arlen, Gen. Richard Meyers,, etc. I had very warm interaction with the POTUS. When we approached him with my group of 10 (Chris, Jenny, Ali, Denise and Jack, Cliff Lane, Hugh Auchincloss, J.J. McGowan, Greg Folkers and Patty Conrad) to take a group Picture, the POTUS hugged me and put his lips to my ears and said, "I love you Tony, Thanks for all you do for our country and the world". The ceremony took place in the east Room and the reception took place in the Banquet room of the East Wing. After the ceremony we watched from the balcony as the POTUS took off in Marine One for a tour of the flood damage in Iowa. After the reception, Chris took off with Ali to fly to Chicago to bring home Megan from her year there. Jenny is home after graduation trying to decide what she will do next year.
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June 21 - 29, 2008 - Extraordinary trip to Greece with Chris, Jenny, Megan and Alison. I went first to Thessaloniki to deliver Keynote Address at the Immunocompromised Host Society Chaired by Steve Holland. Spoke on HIV/AIDS (of course). Then met family in Athens where I received an honorary doctorate at the University of Athens sponsored by Haralampous (Harry) Moutsopoulos, my old friend from NIH days 30 years ago. Absolutely fabulous time, elegant hotel (Grand Bretagne), wonderful food, elegant ceremony (very formal with old robes), sight-seeing at Acropolis, Agora, Old Olympic Stadium. Then spent 3 days on the island of Santorini (Ali picked the place) in a beautiful, but understated beachfront Hotel with Harry and his wife Foteini. Santorini is a volcanic island of indescribable beauty. Perfect weather - no clouds at all for 1 week in Greece. Great hospitality, especially from Harris Roussos, an old and dear friend of Harry's who runs the biggest hospital in Athens and who owns an elegant home in Santorini. They threw a "Greek-Style" party for us one night. Spent evenings eating <s working with elegant meals at mountain cliff restaurant or on the beach. Visited Oia, Fira - stayed at Kamara Beach. One of the best vacations (albeit brief) that I have ever experienced.
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July 3, 2008 - Gave lecture at the Ideas Festival at Aspen, CO on HIV/AIDS in 2025: Will we have a vaccine and a cure by then?". Usual ambiance of Aspen with nice dinner on the night of July 2 catered by the famous Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkley, CA and narrated by Corby Kummer, renowned food critic of The Atlantic (also the person who lent us his apartment in Boston for Jenny's graduation (see above). Met usual celebrities at dinner. Spoke with Chris Jennings (Clinton's Health person who is now with the Obama Campaign since Obama won the primary. He wants to get me involved as a person to advice the campaign informally about what they are on track with certain issues.
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July 6, 2008 - Wonderful day. Chris Hultzen arranged to have Danny and Joe Hultzen and their friend Austin do "batting practice" with me at STA field. Danny pitched to me and it was terrific. I hit several line drives to outfield, but the distance was poor, nothing like the fence shots that Danny and the others were hitting. It is clear that my power is no where near Danny's and the others. I pitched to Danny and he hit some over the right field fence.
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July 17, 2008 - Made what some are saying is a "landmark decision not to proceed with the PAVE 100 HIV vaccine trial of the NIAID VRC product. This followed weeks and months of committee meetings and recommendation such as the AIDS Vaccine Research Subcommittee (AVRS) who voted to proceed and the Strategic Working Group (SWG) who voted not to proceed. The issue was that the Merck STEP trial failed and actually had some safety issues. The PAVE trial is somewhat different (3 DNA primes and an Ad5 boost containing env) from the STEP trial (3 Ad5s without env), yet the preliminary immunological data from PAVE 100 was in my mind (some such as Gary Nabel disagreed) not much better than those of STEP. I received many e-mails from people arguing for and against. The decision was mine alone and I decided to reject the proposed PAVE trial of 2400 people since it was powered to do immunological correlates on a subgroup who might seem to benefit even if the endpoint of the entire group was not "effective", i.e. decrease in viral set point after infection. I argue that if the trial failed, I am not interested in the immunological correlates in a subgroup since this has no statistical value. There was much activity in the Press about my decision and the feedback was overwhelming that I had made the right choice. I encouraged Larry Corey of HVTN and Scott Hammer the PI of PAVE to come back to me with a "leaner, meaner" protocol that is less expensive, fewer people, less samples to ask if the product works. If it does, then we will go back and do immune correlates.