A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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July 19-21, 2010 - Really great meeting in Vienna. My talk was a knockout. Also, very good press from Vienna - PBS Newshour, CNN, WTOP, CBS radio, also NY Times, Washington Post, etc. Meeting was a complete success. We announced the results from the CAPRISA microbicide trial. First success with topical microbicides.
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July 22-23, 2010 - Good press follow-up from meeting - NPR Science Friday among others. Note that we have been going through a record breaking heat wave on the East Coast with a concentration in DC. Temps between 92 and 101 F for the past several weeks. Welcome to Washington! Also, over the past 2 weeks I have been informed that I have won the Paul Janssen Prize from Belgium ($100,000.00) (cannot take the money since the prize is sponsored by J & J - what bullshit). Also won the Will Roger Prize for $50,000.00 (yes, I can accept the money). To be given to me in LA - am looking forward to this. This has been a very busy, hot, exciting summer. Am chronically tired, but good things are happening, particularly in the lab (a4B7) and with commentary papers that I am writing including some really nice ones with Gary Nabel on HIV vaccine and universal flu vaccine.
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Aug. 4, 2010 - Memorial service for Bob Chanock, giant in virology for 50 years at NIAID. Major figure in virology research - discovered M. pneumonia; several parainfluenza viruses, his groups also discovered norovirus (Norwalk agent), made vaccine for rotavirus and hepatitis A, etc. I gave one of the eulogies at his service.
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Aug. 5, 2010 - Dinner with Larry Corey who has just been offered and accepted President and CEO of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, where he has worked for many years. Big career decision regarding his future role in helping lead the HIV vaccine effort as PI of the HVTN.
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2010-08-18 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Aug. 18, 2010 - Big controversy regarding the conflicting studies of the role of XMRV (xenotropic mouse leukemia virus-related virus) in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). 2 papers coming out almost simultaneously from FDA (Shy-Ching Lo)/NIH (Harvey Alter) in PNAS and the CDC in Retrovirology. FDA/NIH finds correlation (86% vs 8.% in normals), while CDC finds no correlation. I have been involved in trying to get to the bottom of this prior to publication of the discordant results since we knew of the data before the papers were published. I believe that the FDA/NIH study is contaminated and I do not believe Shy Lo since in the late 1980s he had claimed with what appeared to be fool-proof data that AIDS was associated with a new species of mycoplasma (M. fermentans) as a co-factor. The data proved to be spurious,, but people seem to have forgotten about this. I have convinced Ian Lipkin from Columbia (Mailman School of Public Health) to referee coded sample examination of FDA looking at negative samples from CDC study. The exercise was somewhat inconclusive. Lo does not want to do another study starting with identical CFS samples that are coded together with known normals and known spiked samples to really settle this. The issue is that highly emotional CFS crowd now wants to treat CFS people with anti-retroviral drugs, despite no evidence of causality and several negative studies besides the CDC study.
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Aug. 19, 2010 - Finally had formal roll-out of the Medical Countermeasure (MCM) review and initiative together with PCAST Report re: 2009 pandemic flu. Roll-out was at HHS led by Secretary Sebelius. I presented the NIH component of the 5 part initiative which is the Concept Acceleration Program (CAP) and the Strategic Investment (SI) program (a 501 3(c) similar to a venture capitol firm). Other initiatives were regulatory Science for FDA, manufacturing capacity, enhance influenza capability (potency assays, sterility assays, etc.). All of this evolved greatly from the many meetings that we had over the past year in the White House Situation Room with Heidi Avery. We finally came to some compromise in the tension between the WH (Avery) and HHS (LurieSebelius).
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Nov. 2, 2010 - Mid-term Elections! In a strong repudiation of what some consider the over-reaching liberal policies of President Obama, the Republicans take of the House by winning 60+ seats and lick up many in the Senate. Pelosi out as Speaker and John Boehner (R-Ohio) in. Much upheaval with some Tea Party Candidates winning seats.
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Nov. 8, 2010 - Visited Holy Cross College to deliver the Inaugural Joseph E. Murray, M.D. Distinguished Lectureship in Medicine. Joe Murray (class of '40) had won the Nobel Prize for performing the first kidney transplant. I gave the lecture to a full house at the Hogan Campus Center at Holy Cross in Worcester. Write-ups in Boston Globe and Worcester Telegram. Old friends came to see the lecture from my class of 1962 - Bob (and Peggy) Curran, Jim Mulvihill, Pete Deckers. Best part of the evening was the appearance (stayed for dinner and the lecture) of Bob Cousy who had said that he was so proud of what I had done for the country and the world that he wanted to come to meet me and hear my lecture. He was attentive and engaged for the entire lecture in the first row. During the day before the dinner and lecture, I met for hours with students (almost all pre-med and mostly women). They were great and we had fun. They said that I was "cool" and "awesome"
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Nov. 23-24, 2010 - Big advance in HIV prevention research. The iPrEx study results for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PreP) for prevention of HIV infection in MSM came out on 11/23/10 in the NEJM showing 44% decreased risk in Truvada arm versus placebo. Importantly, for those who took the drug 90% or more of the days, decreased risk was 73%. For those with blood levels of Truvada vs those without blood levels, the risk was decreased by 92%. Big media days for me - Front page of NY Times, CNN Situation Room with Suzanne Malveaux, multiple print medias, Canadian and European TV, Local Fox News, several NPRs including "Talk of the Nation"; The NewsHour. This will be an important addition to the toolkit of prevention methods. Megan spending the first semester of 3rd Year in Morocco. Somewhat stressful, but extraordinary experience. She is an amazing young woman. I am actually in awe of her courage and adventurous spirit.