A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Apr. 3, 2013 -- Went to NYC to deliver the Weill Cornell Medical College Global Health Lecture on "HIV/AIDS: A Look to the Future". Met with medical students after the talk and rushed back to DC on last USAirways flight (9:00 PM) to leave for SF the next morning at 6:45 AM.
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April 4, 2013 -- flew to San Francisco to receive the UCSF Gold Medal along with Melinda Gates, Brian Druker (developed Gleevec), and Mary Ann Koda-Kimble (former Dean of UCSF School of Pharmacy). Gala affair at Pier 48 across the street from the new SF Giants Baseball stadium. I gave a 3 minute acceptance speech blasting the "sequestration" that many people said was eloquent and "courageous". I had flown to SF in the AM and took a taxi to Stanford to have lunch with Ali and buy her a birthday present at Lulu Lemon. Took CalTrain back to SF for the Gala. Ali is amazing -- straight A+ average.
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Apr. 6, 2013 -- Took train to Philadelphia to attend the memorial Service for Chick Koop at the Tenth Presbyterian Church on 17" Street and Spruce Street. Chick was a dear friend and an historic figure. April 8 -- 14, 2013 -- Continual increase in cases of H7N9 flu from China. Virtually all chicken to human with about 20-30% fatality rate. HHS still not allowing me to do press on this for the usual reason that they say CDC has the lead. It is becoming clear that CDC is driving this obstruction. I am very sorry to hear that since this is really petty. An example is that on the evening of Sunday, April 14, WTOP contacted to me to be on their show at 7:05 AM on Monday, April 15. HHS said it should go to CDC even though WTOP is a local DC station!!! HHS gave it to Tom Frieden (Director of CDC) and just by chance, Tom called me at home on Sunday night at ~9:00 PM to talk about vaccines for H7N9 without even mentioning that he had been asked by HHS to do WTOP the next day.
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April 10, 2013 -- Spoke at the Hart Building in the evening together with Astronomer Nancy Roman (87 years old). I spoke to people and students involved in a pro-education program in DC. Introduced by Edwin Grosvenor (President of the American heritage Society and former CEO of National Geographic Society. He loved my talk on "30 Years of HIV -- A personal Journey" so much that he said I definitely should write a book and offered his wife Elizabeth as my agent/publisher. She did Morton Kondrake's book about his wife Millie.
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2013-04-11 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
April 11, 2013 -- James C. Hill Lecture given by Wafaa El-Sadr. Had lunch at Positano before the lecture. In the evening wend to the Lasker Board dinner at the Howard Hughes Institute Headquarters on Jones Bridge Road. I was asked with Harold Varmus to discuss the effects of the sequester on NIH.
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April 12, 2013 -- Sad day. Scheduled to get Whipple Procedure at Hopkins on April 15.
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April 13-23, 2013 - For the past several weeks there has been intense activity regarding the situation with H5N1. General press not really involved, but Helen Branswell (Canadian Press) and Laurie Garrett as well as some bloggers are stoking the flames and coming up with mischief. USG (NIH/HHS/Amy Patterson) have put together a letter point-by-point countering the crazy accusations in Mike Osterholm's letter. Big discussion at HHS/NSS about whether to have Sec. Sebelius officially accept the NSABB recommendations about publishing the 2 papers. Out of respect for the Dutch, State Department wants to wait until the April 23-24 meeting of the Dutch for the announcement. Real circus → White House (Heidi Avery) want us to release the acceptance now; Dutch are now saying that they may not allow Fouchier to resubmit the revised manuscript to Science without an export control license; Fouchier says that this is basic research that is not controlled by export control and so threatens to release it to Science anyway. He can theoretically face a fine and 6 years in jail. HHS releases Secretary Sebelius's acceptance on Friday afternoon, April 20; however, in order to halfway not offend the Dutch, they have Francis Collins announce on the NIH Website that the Secretary has accepted the recommendations of the NSABB to publish without her actually saying it. Meanwhile, the bloggers (Helen Branswell and others) are accusing the USG of releasing it on a slow news time (Friday afternoon). I know that this is clearly not the case since they have been trying to get it out for days, but the bureaucracy has held it up. I have a Senate Hearing coming up on April 26 where much of this will get hashed out. I am getting extremely stressed by all of this since the really bad outcome would be if biomedical research on dual use issues will be severely impeded by somewhat hysterical responses to things that really are non-issues. Most of the people (scientists or not) really do not understand the issues of ferret experiments and their limitations and the extremely unlikely possibility of a bioterror attack with flu compared to the importance of doing and communicating science to prepare against the natural emergence of pandemic influenza. Just to reiterate, there have been so many aspects of this "perfect storm" surrounding the manuscripts: 1) Ron Fouchier's original over-selling the scary nature of this "I have here one of the most dangerous viruses in the world" likely and innocently trying to push his research and the paper. 2) The NSABB amazingly mis-reading the papers to believe that the aerosol-transmitted virus actually killed the animals upon aerosol transmission instead of only after intra-tracheal insertion of 1 million IDs. 3) The demagoguery of Mike Osterholm and his probable bi-polar hysteria leading the uninformed NSABB members. 4) The relative lack of influenza expertise of the NSABB members. 5) The scientific "hubris" of the influenza community, i.e. Peter Palese who believes (correctly) and says (unfortunately) that the non-influenza people are clueless. 6) The relative weakness of Paul Keim (good guy) as a Chairperson. 7) The opportunistic news people (Branswell - Canadian Press and Phil Boffey - NY Times). 8) The occasional incompetency of Amy Patterson in dealing with the NSABB even though everyone in the USG thinks that she is doing a great job. 9) The "bioterror-industrial complex" who sees bioterrorists everywhere and whose jobs depend on the fear of bioterror (Thomas Ingelsby - think tank; Tara O'Toole - DHS; multiple Beltway bandit companies, etc.).
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April 14, 2013 -- Went with Chris to a book party at 3319 Newark Street, N.W. at home of Steve Pearlstein. Also hosted by Neera Tanden and Wendy Gray. It was for Zeke's new book "The Brothers Emanuel" about his and Ari and Rahm's growing up in Chicago. At the party met many of the usual DC crowd -- Nino Scalia, John Podesta, Walter Isaacson, Al Hunt, Gene Sperling, etc.
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April 15, 2013 -- A day of infamy! Two bombs go off near finish line at the Boston Marathon. 3 killed and 176 wounded. Many legs were blown off. Horrible pictures taken by iPhones. Clearly an act of terror. Not known who or why yet. Stay tuned.