A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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March 27, 2010 - Phone call on Saturday with Heidi. She wants to get more money for NIAID to help in the process of bringing investigators from concept to very early development in order to increase the pipeline of products in addition to all of the things that we have been talking about regarding "advanced" development.
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Mar. 29, 2010 - Continue with the Monday evening weekly meetings with Heidi Avery at the WH Sit. Room. Usual suspects. Still Heidi pushing and everyone but me pushing back. Peggy Hamburg seems her usual spacey self often not even having read the documents that Heidi distributes for comment. Jesse Goodman (wonderful guy) continues to be reserved and cautious in typical FDA fashion, but cannot articulate well. Nicki Lurie is a good person, but over her head. In fairness to her, she is caught between a rock and a hard place in trying not to let this get ahead of the Secretary who in my mind is distracted or does not really care about this. Nicki keeps pushing back on Heidi's "transforming initiative". Zeke Emanuel comes to most of the meetings and is with Heidi and me in wanting to push this. In typical Zeke fashion, he is brilliant, but shoots often from the hip. Mike Kurilla is doing a great job with me and probably understands the proposed process better than anyone in the room. Andy Weber of DoD (assistant Secretary) is a good guy, but he is just trying to keep the DoD in the "game"
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Mar. 31, 2010 - Meet with Alan Bernstein (Executive Director of the "Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise" (see above comments about my negative reaction to this unnecessary group). Alan is a good guy, but is heading a superfluous organization. In any event, his multiple layers of "working Groups" has come up with a Strategic plan for the "Enterprise". Peggy Johnston is all over this and so she shields me from the week-byweek dealings of this organization (I am one of the Founding Council Funders). Meeting in my office with Alan since wants me very much to approve of the plan since NIAID is the major world funder of HIV vaccine research. Meeting In NYC next week of the Enterprise Council and so he is here to pay respects and make sure that I am on board. The Plan is OK, but NIAID will do what we think is best for vaccine development. Later in the day, the HHS Flu team (me, Nicki Lurie, Jesse Goodman, Peggy Hamburg, Tom Frieden, Laura Petrou, Jenny Backus, etc) meets with Sebelius in her private conference room. We present the supposedly penultimate draft of the MCM Review that she ordered and that we have been working on for weeks trying to reconcile it with Heidi's initiative. Nicki gives a terrible presentation; Sebelius is confused as to the "scope" of the review that she ordered - was it a review only of medical countermeasure (MCM) development or a review of end-to-end process of responsdng to health crises, including flu. I tried to clarify for Nicki, and Sebelius agreed with me. We need to keep it focused. Back to the drawing board on a few issues. One issue is how much money should we ask for in the 2010 flu supplement and the 2011 budget to fulfill some of the gaps identified in the review and in what is proposed by Heidi.
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April 5, 2010 - After Action Review of the H1N1 response in Nicki and Jesse's home in Bethesda (near the Palisades section). Beautiful home with magnificent view of the Potomac and the opposite Virginia shore. Beautiful sunny day. Present - Nicki, Jesse, Robin, Steve Redd, Anne Schuchat, Laura Petrou, Makala Ross (OS). Good discussions.
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2010-04-06 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
April 6-7, 2010 - Went to NYC night before and had great dinner and time with Jenny and Meg. I stayed at "W" hotel at Union Square. Went for run on April 5 evening past Larry Kramer's Apartment; called, but found out later that he was asleep on his couch and did not hear the phone. In front of Larry's Apt. (2 Fifth Avenue - right across the street from Washington Square Park), ran into Bob Bazell (NBC News), who live in the same apartment. Next AM (April 7) went to Enterprise headquarters and met with the leadership to discuss the "Plan". Beautiful day. I stayed for AM. Present were Alan, Tachi Yamada, Peter Piot (new Chair of Council), Manuel Romaris (EU), Catherine (Kate) Hankins (UNAIDS-WHO). Seth Berkley (IAVI), Jose Esparza (BMGF), Peggy Johnston, Yves Levy (INSERM), Rafi Ahmed (Emory and chair of the Scientific Committee). Good discussions. I kept them on track about what NIAID would or would not agree to).
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April 14, 2010 - Dedicated the Special Unit at the Clinical Center for vaccine studies. Honored Stewart Simonson for the role he played in pushing through the red tape to get this done. Had nice ceremony with Cliff, John Gallin, Gen Jim Gilman (USAMRIID), Stewart, etc. Group went to Black's restaurant on Woodmont Avenue - Bethesda) for drinks on the outdoor terrace (pretty cold). We continue to have endless meetings with ASPR on the Medical Countermeasure (MCM) review led by Nicki Lurie with Laura Petrou and Jenny Backus involved. I now attend by conference call since it is a waste of time to go down town for these drawn out discussions. Theme is post-mortem on the pandemic flu response and how do we incorporate what Heidi Avery wants into the Secretary's (HHS) MCM review. The incompetence and amateurishness of HHS crew in general is noteworthy. I love Jesse Goodman, but he just does not get it that the FDA is a major part of the problem; and he is one of the very best FDA people.
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April 17, 2010 - Was at the Georgetown Harbor near Thompson's Boat House watching Ali's Varsity Crew Boat compete in a regatta. Nice Spring day on the Potomac. Chris and I were with the usual parents group including our good friends Liz and David Hayes whose daughter Molly is Ali's "best" friend and boat-mate. Both will attend Stanford in September. There had been a terrible explosion in an off shore deep-water oil rig a few days ago with no apparent oil leak despite the fact that the platform was destroyed, 11 people died and scores injured. It was the British Petroleum (BP) Horizon Deepwater well. David Hayes is the Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior. In the middle of the regatta, David got a phone call from the White House communications people. Apparently, there is considerable amount of oil leaking from a broken pipe line. They were saying that the leak is minimal and David was caught in the middle in having spoken to the press and saying that this was serious. The White House communications people were concerned that he said that we have a bigger problem than exists. They were apparently giving him some "shit" about this. David, who recently (last year) had a cardiac arrest associated with a myocardial infarction on a golf course, looked shook and distracted. I encouraged him to not worry about what the communications people think. I know something about the WH trying to control the "message". Little did either of us know that over the subsequent months would unfold the worst oil spill in history and the worst environmental disaster in the history of the USA. 1 implementation \R at
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April 19, 2010 - Went to the Lasker Board of Directors dinner at the Citronelle Restaurant in Georgetown at the invitation of Maria Freire. Sat next to Al Somer. Good evening, but ridiculous situation where the government people (me, Peggy Hamburg, John Gallin, Harvey Alter actually had to pay for our own meal due to misguided conflict of interest rules.
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April 21, 2010 - Continue to have weekly meetings in the Situation Room of WH led by Heidi Avery. Continued frustration on Heidi's part about the lack of cooperation on part of Nicki Lurie and HHS. Heidi wants transformation and HHS is conservative, only concerned about the Secretary, and "stuck in the mud". What a sorry crew. These meeting are started to take a toll on my schedule with having to take the METRO down and back and the Red Line being barely functional with amazing slowness and frequent mishaps.