A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Dec. 24, 2009 - Traditional "great" dinner for my birthday at sister Denise's home. Over the years, Jenny, Megan and Ali have come to treasure this tradition similar to some of the family traditions that Denise and I treasured like dinner over Grandma Abys's home for the holidays. In the AM had my traditional birthday breakfast hosted by Chris and the girls at the Silver Diner on Connecticut Avenue.
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Dec. 30, 2009 - Lunch at the White House mess with Heidi Avery. She is Deputy to John Brennan at the National Security Council at the White House. She is former CIA and Counter Terrorist Unit Chief. She want to talk to me about how we should broadly handle "all threats to the public health" instead of going incident by incident as with pandemic flu. She wanted to speak with me because she heard that I was a visionary about these issues. Very enjoyable conversation. Obviously, WH sources know about me despite the sometimes discouraging relationships that I have had with HHS and their lack of appreciation about who I am and what I have done over the years.
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Jan. 6, 2010 - Big Global Health Research Summit held at NIH (Fisher's Lane) with big hitters attending. Convened by Francis Collins to flesh out suggestions for his Global Health Initiative as one of the 5 pillars of his tenure. Jack Lew from State was there as were Eric Goosby, Zeke Emanuel representing WH, and many, many global health stars. Good meeting.
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Jan. 12, 2010 - Finally had the launch of the DC - NIH HIV/AIDS Partnership. Went to Anacostia for a inauguration and press conference with me, Mayor Fenty, Councilman David Catania, Shannon Hader and Pierre Vigilance from DC Dept. of Health. Got good press with Channel 5 FOX News. Also, had good and lengthy interview with Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room" that evening on National Influenza Vaccination Week (Jan. 10-16). Again, the latter is part of the push to get people vaccinated. Of note, all over Europe there are tens of millions of doses of vaccine that countries like France, Germany, Italy are turning back to the company since they are unused. Interesting issue might arise about the companies no longer wanting to respond to crises since they make a lot of vaccine an then countries cancel the orders. More to come on this.
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2010-01-19 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Jan. 19, 2010 - Heidi Avery (see Dec. 30, 2009) called a meeting this evening (7:00 to 8:45 PM) in the Situation Room of the West Wing to discuss the broad plans to handle all public health threats, i.e. existing, naturally emerging and deliberately emerging. Present at the meeting was Zeke Emanuel, Nicki Lurie, Peggy Hamburg, Tom Frieden by phone from Atlanta, Jesse Goodman, Brian Kamoe, George Korch, Richard Hatchett, James Lawlor (latter 2 are my employees detailed to Heidi), Mike Kurilla, among others. Heidi had asked us (NIH, CDC, FDA, HSS) through Nicki Lurie to prepare a 1-pager on this initiative from each of our perspectives. Nicki consolidated the 1-pagers and we presented the concept to Heidi. Heidi is aiming to get the POTUS to announce some sort of initiative in the State of the Union Address on January 27. I am very impressed with Heidi and her no-nonsense style of getting to the point and the question at hand. Heidi mentioned to me as we left the Situation Room that she was relying on my "vision" to help get this going. Let us see what comes of this.
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Jan. 21, 2010 - Has long meeting in my office and private dinner at Trattoria Sorrento in Bethesda with Eric Goosby, the Ambassador at Large in charge of PEPFAR and the new Chief of the OGAC (Office of Global AIDS Coordinator) to discuss the future of PEPFAR. Recall that Eric was one of the people that I flew in the put the icing on the cake of convincing the White House in 2002 that I was right about starting PEPFAR. In any event, we discussed the issues of broadening the mandate of PEPFAR and integrating it in a more comprehensive health systems partnership with the developing countries. Unlike in the past, he is in favor of "operational" or "Implementation" research to determine best practices associated with PEPFAR mission. He confided in me the issues in the Department of State in putting the President's Global Health Initiative (GHI) under USAID with new Director Raj Shah. Since PEPFAR in included within and is the major part ($51 Billion out of $63 Billion) of the GHI, the question remains will Hillary Clinton put PEPFAR under USAID. Given the ineptitudes of USAID, I told Eric that he should never accept that. He agrees and actually said that he would resign if that happened. I do not think that things will happen that way.
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Jan. 25, 2010 - Had strategy meeting in Building 31, Room 7A24 and subsequent dinner at Positano restaurant in Bethesda to determine the Institute's strategy for vaccine research following the RV144 Thai trial results. I called in a small group to hash out the issues in intense deliberations. Present were: Larry Corey, Bart Haynes, Gepi Pantaleo, Louis Picker, Cliff Lane, Carl Dieffenbach, Peggy Johnston, Hugh Auchincloss, Carol Hudgings, Patty Conrad. General consensus is to continue with basic discovery, but to go ahead with other Phase 2B trials, particularly a poxvirus (likely NYVAC) prime and a protein boost (Clade C) in Africa. Will continue this discussion next week with the AIDS Vaccine Research Subcommittee (AVRS).
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Jan. 26, 2010 - Another meeting with Heidi Avery at the Situation Room in the West Wing of the WH to further discuss the new initiative to counter all public health threats including bioterror, but also all emerging and existing Health threats. Mike Kurilla and I have been fine tuning the NIH component. Present at the meeting was the same group as on January 19, 2010 (see above0 . Also present was the POTUS's science advisor John Holdren. We now have a 1-pager that Heidi has discussed with the POTUS and that is being considered for a brief comment in the State of the Union (SOTU) Address.
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Jan. 27-28, 2010 - Went to Boston to be the Bulfinch Visiting Professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School at the invitation of Denny Ausiello (Chair of Medicine). Great visit, particularly interactions with House Staff and Wa Fellows. Gave the Bulfinch Lecture on Pandemic Influenza; extremely well-received by a standing room only crowd. On the trip home when I landed at DCA, I bought a hot dog since In was starving. I immediately ran into Nina Tottenberg and her husband David who god-naturely chastised me for eating the hot dog. With a minute I walked to a newsstand to buy a Washington Post. I ran into Karl Rove who jokingly said he would tell the world that the great Dr. Fauci was caught eating a hot dog. We had a good laugh. On evening of Jan. 27 POTUS mentioned the sentence that I crafted for Heidi in the SOTU Address: "And we are launching a new initiative that will give us the capacity to respond faster and more effectively to bioterrorism or an infectious disease -- a plan that will counter threats at home and strengthen public health abroad." This is the second SOTU Address where my words were included. Other was the PEPFAR and Project BioShield statements in the Jan. 28, 2003 SOTU address by Pres. Bush.