A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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July 15, 2009 - Went with Patty Conrad to the book signing of D.A. Henderson's book on the history of smallpox eradication sponsored by Tommy Thompson of Aikin Gump (his law firm). Tommy was very moved that I was there and introduced me when I came in as "the person who discovered the AIDS virus" (ha!). When I corrected him he said, "Well, Tony is the world's greatest scientist". Nice party. Some of Tommy's old crew was there: Stewart Simonson, Kevin Keane, Bill Pierce, Ladd Wiley, etc. Patty and I went out to dinner at McCormick and Schmick's on 19th Street afterwards.
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July 16 - 21, 2009 Trip to Cape Town, South Africa to the International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on Pathogenesis, treatment and Prevention held at the Cape Town Convention Center from Sunday, Sept. 19 to Wed, Sept 22. I left USA on Thursday, July 16 and arrived in Cape Town on Friday evening. Came DC with fuel stop at Dakar, then to Johannesburg and on to cape Town. Exhausting 20 hour trip. Stayed at Cullinan Hotel (Southern Sun) On Saturday AM, July 18 gave the Keynote Address at the HIV/TB research Meeting at the Desmond Tutu HIV Center of the University of cape Town. Lecture extremely well received. I spoke of the same critical needs for TB (together with HIV) research that I spoke about a few weeks before at the Pacific Health Summit in Seattle. During the afternoon of July 18 drove down to Cape Point with Gray Handley. Clearly Cape Town and the Western Cape is one of the most beautiful cities/areas in the world. It look so much like the California coast from San Francisco down to Monterrey/Carmel. Weather was stunningly beautiful with crisp clear skies and temperatures about 65-70. This is most unusual at this time of years since this is SA's winter. In the evening of July 18, met with Julio Montaner (Pres. IAS) and co-chair of meeting and Craig Mc Clure (Exec. Director of IAS) and Robin Gorna upcoming President of IAS to discuss the possibility of holding the 2012 IAS meeting in Washington, D.C. They know that I am pushing to have the immigration ban lifted in time to make the decision to have the meeting in DC. The ban has been lifted by law and is now in public comment for final lifting by HHS. Also, they wanted me to help get Michelle Obama or the POTUS to open the meeting in 2012. Night of July 18, went to terrific dinner at a vineyard (Stillness Manor) hosted in my honor by Linda-Gail Bekker. Linda Gail turned out to be fantastic as a major player in the Cape Town (and all of SA) AIDS clinical trials network that NIAID supports. Met with many South Africans to whom I told the story of PEPFAR. Only a few of them actually knew how it started: John Hargrove, Robin Wood (Linda-Gail's husband), Brian Williams, Brian Brink, Des Martin, among others. Sunday, July 19, took tour of Robben Island with Gray Handley. It was an incredibly moving experience. The tour guide was a person who was imprisoned there for 5 1⁄2 years. I saw Nelson Mandela's cell, the quarry where he worked at hard labor and the place where he planted his garden in the exercise courtyard of the prison. That evening, I attended the opening ceremony of the IAS Conference. Monday, July 20. Visited the Township of Gugulethu and participated in the launching of the SAAVI102/HVTN 073 vaccine trial, which is a collaboration between the NIAID and the South Africans on a DNA prime MVA boost vaccine. The South Africans involved are Linda-Gail in CT and Glenda Gray in Durban (KwaZulu-Natal) Collaboration also with VRC (Gary Nabel). Big ceremony at the launching with the Minister of Science and technology (Dr. Pandor - woman), Anthony (Tony) Mbewu - head of SA MRC, and Minister of Health Matsoaledi. I was very moved by the terrible conditions of poverty in the Township of Gugulethu, but was equally impressed with what was being accomplished by the roll-out of PEPFATR by Linda-Gail in this setting. The extraordinary overlap and burden of disease with TB here and in Masiphumelele (see below) was staggering. 30% of patients on the PEPFAR program were diagnosed and were on treatment for TB when they entered program. Another 20% were diagnosed with TB when they got there and another 10% developed TB during the time that they were there. In the early afternoon (1:00 PM I gave the Plenary Keynote at the meeting on the subject of "US Sponsored HIV/AIDS Research and Prevention: Science and Policy". Following my talk was a talk by Eric Goosby, the new head of the Office of Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC). The session was devoted to AIDS science and policy in the new Obama administration. My talk was very well received. I emphasized the science but also stressed that the needle exchange ban would soon be over as would be the immigration constraints, as would be abstinence only. I clearly stated that abstinence only does not work. The crowd loved it. That night had reception at the Consul-General's (Alberta Mayberry) home (amazingly beautiful view of CT from her terrace. All the implementers of PEPFAR were there from USAID, CDC, and South Africans. I gave a short speech sincerely thanking them for their work, and told them the story of PEPFAR. Eric Goosby also gave a speech July 22 tion program. I Tuesday, July 21. I visited with Linda-Gail the Township of Masiphumelele. Again, I was deeply moved by the poverty and physical nature of the place. Like Gugulethu, there were small huts made of corrugated tin and cardboard thast were stuck to each other in a "wall-to-wall" fashion for acres and acres. One could barely walk between the huts. Again, the work that the South African health personnel were doing was inspiring. The same numbers and problems with HIV and TB as in Gugulethu. Tuesday night we flew back to DC and arrived early (6:00 AM) on Wednesday, July 22
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July 22, 2009 - I rolled out the NIAID plan for the clinical trials of H1N1 vaccine to be performed in the NIAID's VTEUs. We will start in early August and do trials on healthy adults, elderly, children to determine immediate safety, immunogenicity, dosage and number of doses, and sequence of administration vis-à-vis seasonal flu vaccine. Much press associated with this, i.e. appearances on ABC Evening News, CNN Situation room with Wolf Blitzer, (on July 23) much print and radio (NPR, etc). July 24, 25, 26, 2009 - Went to the Aspen Health Forum where I gave talks and served on 4 panels: 1) Sex and health, 2) ARRA funds and how we spend them; 3) Swine flu; and 4) Vaccines. My brief talks and panel appearances were extremely well received. I mostly "ad-libed" and they loved it. Typical Aspen scene with many terrific people to interact with: Tom Daschle, Walter Isaacson, Billy Tauzin, Mehmet Oz, Rick Stengel (managing editor of Time), Jeff Kluger (senior editor of Time), Susan Denzler, Nancy Synderman of MSNBC and a host of others. Excellent discussion, setting and exposure. Beautiful place. Also had dinner at the Mr. and Mrs. Greenwald.
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July 27, 2009 - Had a nice appearance on MSNBC with Dr. Nancy Snyderman discussing H1N1 Swine flu. She was in Aspen (where I had just spent some time with her) and I was in the studio at NIH.
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2009-07-28 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
July 28, 2009 - ACIP will recommend to CDC regarding vaccination program. I appeared on ABC World News Tonight
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July 29, 2009 - Big issue with release of data and paper in lancet showing that pregnant women have significant increased risk of hospitalization and death from flu. I appear on Good Morning America and MSNBC. On the latter, I spared with Arianna Huffington who feels that we should not vaccinate children or pregnant women or even adults. Dr. Nancy Snyderman (of MSNBC) was on program and complimented me and disagreed with Arianna. CDC held press briefing after ACIP recommendations to first vaccinate pregnant women, then caregivers of infants (<6 months old), then HCW, then young people, then non-elderly with underlying conditions. I appear on BBC TV and then on NBC Nightly News with Bob Bazell and Brian Williams. Press stuff starting to heat up. I think that the HHS and Jenny finally realize what I can do with the press. V1. 1 discussing HIN1 sponsored VTEU the HIN1 clinical + Y5
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July 30, 2009 - Appeared on MSNBC today with Dr. Nancy Synderman and a vaccine nihilist named Diane Miller. She was a nerd who said we should not vaccinate anyone with flu vaccines since they do not work and they are dangerous. Nancy and I annihilated her.
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July 31, 2009 - Got called by Mike Gerson who is getting very interested in needle exchange programs and will do a piece on it in The Washington Post.. He called from the mobile unit that goes around DC doing needle exchange. He was very excited in a positive way telling me that he is now converted to a "true believer' in favor of needle exchange. He wanted to know from me what the scientific data are. I told him the story of the Shalala Committee that I was on with Harold Varmus, David Satcher, Alan Leschner, etc. where Donna asked us to do a "meta-analysis"-type look at the literature on needle exchange and ask 2 questions: 1) does needle exchange promote drug abuse and 2) does needle exchange decrease incidence of HIV infection among drug users. We found clearly that it did not promote drug use and did decrease HIV infection. We presented the data to Donna who strongly recommended a federally funded needle exchange program and called the WH to indicate this. To all of our dismay, the WH rejected this for political reasons. Drug Tsar McCaffrey did not want it; neither did prominent black Congressmen like Charlie Rangel (Charlie thought that it might be interpreted as a signal that we had given up on the black community). In any event, Mike was thrilled that the science backed up his impression. As a background, the Congress just recently lifted the ban on federally funded needle exchange, only with the proviso that such programs cannot be implemented within 1000 feet of school, park, recreational facility, etc. This is silly since it blocks out most of the entire city in most places.
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August 1 - 10, 2009 Much press regarding the beginning of the vaccine trials for H1N1. I was on ABC, MSNBC, multiple radio shows, Diane Rehm Show, etc. discussing the H1N1 issues.