A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Sept. 25, 2012 - Meeting in the Situation Room of the White House (1:30 to 3:00 PM) called by Heidi Avery. Discussed the issues around DURC and how we are going to address the voluntary (on the part of the scientists) moratorium on gain-of-function for transmissibility in mammals research on highly pathogenic avian H5N1 influenza. We (ASF, May Patterson, Francis Collins, Larry Tabak and the HHS crew led by Sally Howard, Chief-of-Staff to Sebelius and Bill Corr, Deputy Secretary, HHS) have been working for several weeks on a meeting-working group-consultation (to take place hopefully in December, 2012) to develop principles for making decisions regarding funding (mostly by HHS) for these types of H5N1 experiments. These principles could then serve as the basis for guidelines for DURC that go well beyond H5N1. The Europeans (mostly the Dutch with Ron Fouchier) want to end the moratorium now. I have written a commentary to appear soon in mBio (online Journal of the ASM) that asks for keeping the moratorium on H5N1 gain-of-function until the abovementioned December meeting. The NSABB people, particularly Mike Osterholm, Mike Imperiale, and David Relman are continuing their somewhat hysterical comments in and out of the press about how dangerous these experiments are and how they should never be performed. Heidi is adamant that they could be very important to do these experiments for the national security and she does not tolerate any "advisory group" such as NSABB dictating to the USG what it can or cannot do in the line of National Security. I love Heidi; she is a tough CIA operative and unfortunately for us will return to the CIA soon. She confided this to me a week or so ago. Apparently, Leon Panetta has some important, secret assignment for her. As always, she e-mails me or calls me after an important White House meeting to get my take on it. I am inserting below an e-mail she sent me (10:15 PM - Sept. 25, 2012) the evening after the White House meeting: Tony, Just to say thank you for your time today, along with your NIH colleagues. I am very sorry for how tedious parts of the discussion became. We were not all on the same page before the meeting. Hopefully you agree we identified a path forward. I will not be around to see this through, but very much hope success is achieved in terms of HHS guidelines enabling researchers to be comfortable moving forward with this important work. Really is a national security imperative. Best regards, Heidi
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Sept. 27, 2012 - Attended World Leaders Forum at the Low Library at Columbia University. On a panel with Wafaa El-Sadr, Eric Goosby and Michel Sidibe (Director, UNAIDS). Very enjoyable. Jenny attended. Discussed the potential end of AIDS.
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Oct. 6 - 10, 2012 - trip to South Africa mainly to participate in the opening of the Kwazulu-Natal Research Institute for TB and HIV (K-RITH) in Durban. Flew to Johannesburg and gave special lecture on Ending the AIDS Pandemic to the University of Witwatersrand. Then drove to Pretoria to participate in the 10th Anniversary of the PHIDISA project with the South Africa National Defense Force (SANDF). This program largely championed by Cliff Lane. Then flew to Durban to Open the K-RITH. Amazing architecture of the new building. Many luminaries present at the opening - Ron Daniels (Pres. of JHU), Pres. Of Mass. General, Rob Tjian - President of HHMI who funded the project. NIAID funds Bill Safai (PI of KRITH). Great dinner at the Oyster Box Hotel. I gave some after dinner remarks.
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Oct. 12, 2012 - Lunch at the Italian Ambassador's (Amb. Bisogniero) home (Villa Firenze) on Albermarle Street, N.W. Lunch in honor of former Italian Ambassador, now Foreign Minister of Italy Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata.
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2012-10-15 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Oct. 15, 2012 - Attended the Elton John AIDS Foundation Benefit Gala at Cipriani's Restaurant on Wall Street by special invitation of Sir Elton John whom I had met at the IAS meeting in DC in July, 2012. The entertainment by Stevie Nicks was amazing. Many people came up to me thanking me for my work. Most of these I had never met before. Heavy representation of donors and business luminaries.
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Oct. 16, 2012 - Spoke at the Annual Meeting of the Institute of Human Virology (Bob Gallo's Institute) held at the Marriott Waterfront Hotel in Baltimore. Took train from NYC (Elton John Gala) directly to Baltimore.
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Oct. 17, 2012 - Participated at the National Press Club in the launching of the WHO Global TB Report. Panel moderated by Jeanne Meserve (old friend from CNN, now with WTOP) and neighbor. On panel was Mario Raviglione (WHO), Ken Castro (CDC), someone from USAID, someone from PEPFAR.
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Oct. 18-19, 2012 - Went to Cornell Medical School Reunion and gave Keynote Lecture on Ending the AIDS Pandemic. Went up night before (Oct. 18) and had dinner with Jenny at Gazala Restaurant. Great time with her. On the evening of Oct. 19, had class of 1966 reunion dinner at Nino's Restaurant on 1st Avenue between 72 and 73rd Street. Really great to see some of the old crew, many of whom have retired. They were all very gracious in saying how proud they were to have been my classmates. Great to see Patty Downs, Suzie Stewart, Mark Kaplan, Mike Dosik, Dave Fraser, David Tucker, Jim McSweeney, Carmine Bedotto, Frank Duggan, Randy Bell, among many others.
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Oct. 23, 2012 - Met with Howard Koh (Assist. Sec. for Health) and Deputy Ron Valdesarri in my conference room 7A-24. They wanted to discuss and were actually putting pressure on me/us at NIH to put together a guidelines panel for treatment of HCV. They clearly are getting pressure from constituents. Since we (NIH) have done such a great job on the HIV treatment guidelines for HHS, they wanted us to do the same for HCV. Problem is that if we start doing guidelines for HCV, then other diseases would want us to do guidelines and we should not be in the guidelines business. Howard was friendly and somewhat fawning over me. Ron Valdesarri in my opinion is somewhat of a jerk.