A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Feb. 21-24, 2012 - had conversations and e-mail exchanges with Ron Fouchier trying to work out that he re-submit a manuscript and that the NSABB reconvene to review with the new data and the clarifications from Geneva. Also, spoke with Journal editors to try and get them to agree (which they did) to hold off on publication, but agree to quickly consider a revised manuscript. Of note, during the Feb. 22 Situation Room meeting, I outted Kris Beardsley as a "leak" to the NSABB. Paul Keim had asked how things were going right after we returned from Geneva (see e-mails on file). I told him that I was about to brief the WH on Feb. 22. He said good luck and that he already had spoken to Kris Beardsley. I did not return e-mail, but I was astounded. She is NSS!!!. Now it became clear that the NSABB people were directly trying to get to and agitate the WH through Kris and also with Mike Osterholm getting to Rick Weiss, the Press person for John Holdrin at OSTP. Rick is a former Washington Post reporter. I believe that Paul Keim is OK, but it is incredible that Kris Beardsley and Rick Weiss are doing this. In order to make sure that Kris would not undermine my presentation to Heidi and the NSS, I started my explanation (see summary above) by saying that I know that Paul Keim has briefed Kris about part of this a day or so ago, but I will give a little more information since I spoke with Ron after the WHO meeting and Paul did not. Kris almost fell through her chair and Heidi gave her a very mean look followed by a statement that we have only one point of contact with NSABB and that is Fauci. Clearly Heidi not only was not briefed by Kris, she had no idea and was extremely pissed that Kris had spoken about this with Paul. Paul is advisory to HHS and NIH and NOT to the White House. BTW, I have been completely wearing myself down by this getting virtually no sleep and doing 1000 things at a time that are very heavy, i.e. White House stuff, Press misinterpretation. Mike Osterholm acting in his usually hysterical manner, Laurie Garret getting it wrong as usual. OF GREAT IMPORTANCE: How is it possible that everyone got it wrong? Why did not anyone ever ask the "Fauci question" that I asked in Geneva of Ron. This includes the reviewers of the papers, the entire NSABB including the Chairman Paul Keim, the outside influenza expert called to advise the NSABB (Rob Webster), the editors of the Journal. After I briefed him, Bruce almost comically stated. "You know, I knew there was something funny here when I read the paper and found that after aerosol transmission, blood samples were taken from the ferrets for 12 days. If the ferrets all died in 3 days, did they take samples from dead animals?" Clearly his own editorial staff did not pick it up. There is plenty of blame to go around. Clearly Ron did not say in the manuscript that the aerosol-transmitted animals died, but he never said in the manuscript that they did not die. Clearly he was doing what many scientists do, i.e. play up their own data to make it seem exciting. Yet, he knew that the media were clearly getting it wrong. He will say that he was never given the chance to explain this to the NSABB and his only comments to the press that they clearly misunderstood were before the NSABB and he did not realize that they misunderstood. However, after the decision of the NSABB, he still spoke to the press, yet never made it explicit what really happened. He could claim that at that point he could not discuss the data since it was confidential and the press could not ask the specific question sine they did not see the data. It is clear to me that a lot of people are embarrassed for not asking the Fauci question and as human nature goes, people are running for cover and/or looking to blame someone. Ron is in danger of getting thrown under the bus when the press finds out that he never clarified things. As an example, ABS World News on Saturday PM, Feb 18 had a piece showing all aerosol-infected animals dying schematically on the screen with the ever-present Laurie Garret commenting that "This virus just should not be allowed to exist". See Important e-mails below: Thursday, Feb. 24, 2012 11:26 AM Ron: In follow-up of our previous conversations, it is important for you to revise and expand your manuscript to include the important new data that were presented in Geneva. In addition (and this is critical), you need to make exceptionally clear the differences between the transmission studies and the pathogenicity studies, i.e. the response that you gave to me when I asked that direct question in Geneva whether there was any illness or death in the animals that had been infected by aerosol with the engineered highly pathogenic H5N1. You responded that some of these animals developed flu-like symptoms, all recovered, none got seriously ill and none died. This seems to be the key point about which many people were and are confused. It would be very important to make this exceptionally clear in the manuscript. There are also other important data that we discussed that would be important to include in a revised manuscript. I believe that the best course of action would be to resubmit this revised manuscript to the NSABB so that they have the opportunity to have all of the data that we discussed in Geneva in front of them as well as to directly question you in person in order to clarify any important points. Amy Patterson will request that the NSABB meet and review this manuscript. As I had mentioned to you, Francis Collins and I have spoken to Bruce Alberts about the importance of your having enough journal space to add the new data and a broader discussion of the issues. In our initial conversations with him, he seemed amenable to this approach. Obviously, we cannot know for sure what the journal decision will be. Francis and I will be speaking to Bruce again today (I hope) and we will bring this up to him. However, the important issue is that the NSABB have the opportunity to see the expanded manuscript as described above. I would be happy to discuss this further with you. Please give my office a call at your convenience at (301) 496-2263. I am not available between 12:00 and 12:30 PM and 3:30 - 4:00 PM Washington time. Best regards, Tony Anthony S. Fauci, MD Director National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Building 31, Room 7A-03 31 Center Drive, MSC 2520 National Institutes of Health Bethesda, MD 20892-2520 Phone: (301) 496-2263 FAX: (301) 496-4409 E-mail: afauci@niaid.nih.gov ______________________________________________ Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012 to Paul Keim Paul: Line-up and tasks sound good to me. We should strategize by phone on how to handle discussion of the WHO meeting. I have a meeting at the White House tomorrow to brief the security people on the WHO meeting and the outcome of those discussions may impact our decision on how to handle this. We should talk after that. Best regards, Tony Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012 from Paul Keim referencing Kris bearsdley Good luck with the meeting. I've prepping Kris today on the issues. Paul Keim, PhD TGen/NAU On Feb 21, 2012, at 5:41 PM, "Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E]" <AFAUCI@niaid.nih.gov> wrote: Paul: Line-up and tasks sound good to me. We should strategize by phone on how to handle discussion of the WHO meeting. I have a meeting at the White House tomorrow to brief the security people on the WHO meeting and the outcome of those discussions may impact our decision on how to handle this. We should talk after that. Best regards, Tony
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Feb. 22, 2012 - Briefed the NSS in the Situation Room with Heidi Avery leading (I had precontacted her explaining that I had to do the briefing and she agreed), Laura Holgate and Brian Kamoi from NSS, Kris Beardsley (more of her later), Francis Collins, Amy Patterson, Nancy Ann De Parle, Bill Shultz (HHS OGC), Bill Corr (Deputy HHS Sec.).
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Feb. 23, 2012 - Finally, a pleasant evening. Attended reception at the Jefferson Hotel for the Global Health Corps (GHC) created and led by Barbara Bush, George W's daughter. Great reception. It was a fund raiser for the fellows of the GHC. Laura Bush was there and she and Barbara during the speeches called me out for praise for all that I have done for AIDS research. All the GHC fellows were so happy to meet me since they had been hearing about me for years and now were meeting me. I met Marvin Bush, George's brother. The usual crew was there - Mark Dybul (host), Eric Goosby, Stephen Hadley former National Security advisor to GWB. Many other luminaries. The Ambassador for Woman's issues of DoS mentioned in her speech how much Sec. Clinton admired me.
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Feb. 25, 2012 - Went to a (now commonplace for me) dinner at Café Milano hosted by Catherine and Wayne Reynolds in honor of Gov. Jerry brown (D-CA) and his wife Anne. Brown in DC for Governor's Convention. Sat next to Anne and got major insight into the Gov. He was known as Governor "Moonbeam" in the 70s during the hippy years when he dated Linda Ronstadt. However, he is an amazing person in that he just tells the truth without an obvious ideology. Anne told me that Pres. Obama completely shuns even other Democrats such as Democratic Governors. Obama has never once asked Jerry for any advice about anything. It was a lively evening talking about the Republican Primaries and the ridiculousness of it with Romney vs Paul vs Gingrich vs Santorum. Other usual notables at dinner. Chris and Kathleen Matthews, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. I sat next to his wife Mary who is extremely conservative and not too bright (scary), Also there was Bob Barnett and his wife. NPR Nina Totenberg and husband David, Peter Agre, etc.
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2012-02-27 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Feb. 27, 2012 - Briefed the senior, but sub-Interagency Policy Committee on the Geneva meeting. Chaired by Laura Holgate from NSS (National Security Staff). Also present were Brian Kamoi (NSS - he has lost about 90 lbs. and looks great); Sally Howard (Chief-of-Staff to Sec. Sebelius); Kevin..... from Commerce; a bunch of representatives from the various US Government departments. Tom Countryman from State Department is really a jerk, pompous and uninformed. I alleviated the anxieties of the group regarding the studies by clarifying the difference between transmission and virulence in the Fouchier study. I strongly suggest that we reconvene the NSABB to allow them to see the new data and hear the clarification of the old data.
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Feb. 28, 2012 - Ron Fouchier flew in from Rotterdam to be on a panel tomorrow AM (Feb. 29) organized by American Society of Microbiology (ASM) to discuss this issue. Invited Ron over my house for dinner (rigatoni and sausage with tomato sauce) with Cliff Lane and Hugh Auchincloss to discuss the approach for tomorrow. Ron related to me that the NSABB never gave him a chance to explain his experiments and that he met them via teleconference. Clearly they were hostile to him and when his interview was over, Mike Osterholm started speaking before Ron signed off and Mike said (without knowing that Ron was still on the line) that Ron was a "liar". Ron stayed on the line in secret and described what sounded like a major ad hominem to Ron. After intense discussion with me before and during the dinner, Ron Finally got it that he has to be very clear tomorrow that the ferrets who got infected by aerosol transmission did not get very ill (flu-like sxs at worst), all recovered and NONE died. Only animals who got 1 million infectious doses of H5N1 directly inserted into the trachea died. It is clear that everyone NSABB, all the pundits who commented (Laurie Garret, Tom Ingelsby, Richard Ebright, D.A. Henderson, etc.) and the press thought that after aerosol transmission, the ferrets died. We had long discussions about future experiments and upcoming issues. Later in the dinner, Bruce Alberts (Editor of Science) flew in from San Francisco, called my cell phone to let me know he arrived, and I invited him over for the remainder of the dinner.
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Feb. 29, 2012 - ASM panel at 7:15 to 8:15 at Omni-Shoreham in D.C. Standing room only, fed live on Website with many reporters tuned in. Paul Keim chaired panel that included Ron Fouchier, me, Bruce Alberts, and Mike Osterholm. Everything was clarified and most people asked the question that I have been asking all along - how could this pervasive misunderstanding have occurred. It was clear, but no one wanted to embarrass anyone, that the NSABB missed this major point. March 1 and 2, 2012 - Much press coverage going on trying to decide what went wrong. Jon Cohen from Science is coming close to figuring it out. However, when he asked several members of NSABB to answer some questions, it become clear that they are being defensive and saying that it is the mere fact of making the virus "transmissible" that prompted them to recommend against publication, even if it was not clear that the aerosol-transmitted virus did not kill the ferrets. We are going to reconvene the NSABB ASAP to review the revised manuscripts from Ron and Yoshi to that they can see the additional and clarified data. I am afraid that they will not change their minds because they need to save face that they actually dropped the ball badly. I believe that Mike Osterholm and to some extent David Relman aggressively persuaded the others to vote not to publish. HOWEVER, I believe if the other members of NSABB knew that the aerosol transmission did not result in death of the ferrets, they would not have been convinced by the histrionics of Mike who told the press that this was equivalent to "thermonuclear war" if this virus gets out.
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March 5, 2012 - It is starting to become clear that the NSABB are saying that the basis for their recommendation is the fact that the virus was made transmissible and the decision had little or nothing to do with whether or not the virus was lethal via aerosol transmission. I just cannot believe this. I believe that most of the NSABB group did not know enough about flu to know the importance of this distinction. They now are embarrassed that they missed this and are likely covering their asses. Interesting that the N.Y. Times (Phil Boffey) editor wrote another Sunday editorial yesterday (May 4, 2012) criticizing the process and implying that "the NIH, whose reputation is at stake....." is somehow at fault. He clearly is taking the side of the NSABB calling them fiercely independent. He wrote me an e-mail prior to the Sunday editorial giving me a "headsup". He implied in his e-mail that I was trying to have him retract his prior editorial based on information from Geneva. He is totally missing the point. I do not want him to retract anything nor do I want to influence the NSABB to change their minds. I merely want them to reconvene so that they can have all of the information that was presented in Geneva and at the ASM meeting on Feb. 29, 2012 in Washington. Things that they almost certainly did not know at the time of their December, 2011 recommendation: 1) aerosol transmitted H5N1 does not kill ferrets; 2) engineered H5N1 is poorly transmissible, i.e. it takes 3 to 5 days after exposure to transmit to 75% of ferrets compared to 2009 N1N1 that transmits in 100% of animals within 1 day; 3) pre-infecting ferrets with either seasonal H1N1 or H3N2 and letting them recover and then instilling 1 million infectious doses of H5N1 into their tracheas completely protects the ferrets from disease and death. If they still feel after they hear this that the papers should be redacted, then so be it. I believe that they are incorrect and were driven by the hysteria of Mike Osterholm, the know-it-all of David Relman and the lack of understanding of the rest of the NSABB.
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Mar. 8, 2012 - Went to special premier showing of the movie "Game Changer" about Sarah Palin starring Julianne Moore, Ed Harris and Woody Harrelson. All the usual DC glitterati were there, both political and media. Tammy Haddad was responsible for my invite. Went with Chris.