Feb. 2, 2010 - Had AIDS Vaccine Research Subcommittee (AVRS) meeting at the

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1. 2010-01-26 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
   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.
2. 2010-01-27 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
   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.
3. 2010-01-29 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
   Jan. 29, 2010 - Met at the White House (EEOB 234) with Heidi Avery, Zeke Emanuel and several Pharma people whom Zeke had called in to ask the question of what would they need to work with us on this project that Heidi and the rest of us have been developing regarding developing a transforming approach to developing countermeasures for all public health threats. Present at the meeting were: Peter Kim (Merck), Lloyd Klickstein (Novartis), Rob Mashal (NKT Therapeutics), Sandy Hecker (Hecker and Associates), Lynn Marks (GSK), Richard Hatchett.
4. 2010-02-01 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
   Feb. 1, 2010 - Another meeting in the Situation Room of the WH with Heidi Avery with the usual cast of characters. For the past 2 meetings, Andy .... From DoD has joined as has John Holdren from PCAST. There is tension building where the HHS people (particularly Nicki Lurie and to some extent Jesse Goodman, Peggy Hamburg and Tom Frieden are getting nervous about the boldness of the proposal and whether we can "deliver" on the promises. Heidi is trying here best to explain that we need a bold initiative and if we are not bold and transforming, we will get nowhere. They are concerned that this is moving quickly particularly since Heidi is talking about possible face-time with the POTUS to have him accept and sanction this bold "new initiative'. I am leaning much more towards Heidi and have served as somewhat of an intermediary to try to alleviate their concerns. They are somewhat in the weeds. Heidi has been calling me up at night to get my confidential feedback about how we can get the HHS group from being so conservative.
5. 2010-02-02 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci
   Feb. 2, 2010 - Had AIDS Vaccine Research Subcommittee (AVRS) meeting at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel to discuss the way forward following the Thai trial (RV144). We discussed the same issues that I discussed at the smaller meeting of my "Kitchen Cabinet" on Jan. 25. As usual, people had insecurities about pursuing a path that was not their path. In addition to the Jan. 25 group, also present were Dennis Burton, Bruce Walker, Nelson Michael, Jerome Kim, Debbie Birx (now at CDC). I made it clear to them in no uncertain terms that they needed to speak up openly and not stay silent and then after the meeting say they disagreed with the conclusions. It turned out to be a good meeting since they obviously heard what I said.
6. 2010-02-04 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
   Feb. 4, 2010 - Opened the Genomics Blue Ribbon Panel at the Bethesda North Marriott to plan the direction of genomics research for NIAID. All the stars were there - Ian Lipkin, Eric Lander, etc. Eric gave a great speech. About the use of genomics in infectious diseases. That evening presented my usual "State of NIAID" talk to the ASM Executive Committee. Feb. 5 and 6 and Feb and Feb 9 and 10 - 2 worse snow storms in the history of Washington, DC. Shut down schools and government for a week - it was a 0ne (32 inches at IAD) - two (20 inches in DC) punch. During this time we intensified the development of the PHEMCE (Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasure Enterprise) Initiative via Heidi Avery. Getting hot and heavy in that the HHS folks are getting cold feet. Although good friends of mine - Nicki Lurie appears afraid and over her head. Jesse Goodman is forever in the weeds. Peggy Hamburg is cautious but just now is starting to realize that this train is moving.
7. 2010-02-08 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
   Feb. 8, 2010 - Whole city is socked in with snow, but we still had meeting in Sit Room with the usual cast of characters. Heidi has obtained 1 hour face time for us with the POTUS, but the HHS crew is afraid. Issue is that they think that the concept is too bold and Nicki Lurie is afraid that it will supersede the IOM-led review of the enterprise that Sec. Sebelius has ordered for Feb. 22-23 and that must report to her by March 31. Heidi wants to leap over all of the nonsense and get the POTUS buy in. The pillars of her transforming plan are : 1) Multi-use principle - NIAID has already been pushing for this in the sense of partnering with industry to develop multi-use products and advance new platform technologies; 2) Collaborations, Partnerships and Cooperatives; 3) regulatory innovation and Advancement of regulatory Science; 4)Product Development and manufacturing services; 5) End-to-end Multidisciplinary Project Management (see entire document in records of My Documents).
8. 2010-02-10 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
   Feb. 10, 2010 - We (the HHS team) brief Bill Corr (Deputy Secretary). Again conservative concern. I am all for Heidi's initiative. These people just do not understand how important it is to get personal support of the POTUS (remember PEPFAR). Again, multiple conference calls with Heidi fine-tuning the document. Richard Hatchett (who actually works for me in DAIT, but is detailed to Heidi) and Heidi often call me late at night for help in getting this group off their asses. They are afraid that she will promise too much. She keeps saying (and I totally believe her) that we are not going to promise the POTUS anything, we just need to get his buy-in and then we will implement what we can.
9. 2010-02-11 00:00 Anthony S. Fauci open
   Feb. 11, 2010 - HHS team briefs Secretary Sebelius over the phone. She is smart, but clueless about what all this means. Nicki Lurie is inarticulate in explaining it to her. Nonetheless Heidi is going to give it a go with the POTUS even though she is terribly frustrated with the HHS people except for me. My time has been totally consumed with this despite the shutdown of everything with the snow.

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