Jan. 10, 2014 - Went to White House for farewell reception for Grant N. Colfax, head of
Diary Prequel Package, pp.333-335 · diary_prequel:entry:00938
Page text: p.333, p.334, p.335 · original PDF
- Date
- 2014-01-10 00:00 (day precision)
- Type
- diary entry · diary
- author
- Anthony S. Fauci
Jan. 10, 2014 - Went to White House for farewell reception for Grant N. Colfax, head of
the Office of National AIDS policy (ONAP). He had been at the job for 1 1⁄2 years. He
is returning to be in San Francisco with his partner and family. He is a good guy who
did a good job. During the speeches, he called me out as "a legend in HIV/AIDS" and
said how wonderful it was to work with me.
Jan.14, 2014 - Seasonal influenza is beginning to peak and I am doing the usual media.
Did FOX News.
Jan. 24 - Feb. 1, 2014 - Prince Mahidol Award - Bangkok. See attachment for daily
schedule:
Mahidol - Bangkok
2014.doc
In summary, I received the 2013 Prince Mahidol Award in Medicine together with David
Ho. Peter Piot (Director, London School of Public Health and Hygiene) and Jim Yong
Kim (President, World Bank) received the Prince Mahidol Award in Public Health. It
was a most extraordinary trip. We were hosted by the Royal Family of Thailand and we
were afforded luxurious treatment. Indicative of this treatment was the fact that we were
picked up at the airport in Bangkok by a representative of the royal family and was driven
to our hotel with a double police escort. By double police escort I mean a motorcycle
policeman leading the motorcade followed by a police car followed by a brand-new
Mercedes which carried me, my wife Christine and Gray Handley, my associate director
for global affairs, at NIAID. We spent an entire week in Thailand. The center of the
activities was the award ceremony at the Palace of the royal family. The pomp and
circumstance was most extraordinary. I received a gold medal and a check for $50,000
from the Princess of Thailand. In addition to the extraordinary ceremony followed by a
festive dinner at the Palace, we were treated to police escorted tours of several of the
other palaces, the Emerald Buddha, as well as other historic places. In addition Chris and
I and Gray toured the famous Thai canals on a boat as well as went to the major market in
Bangkok, which is the largest open market in the world. Our hotel was lavish. I also did a
considerable amount of work giving two official lectures, a panel discussion together
with David Ho, Peter Piot, and Jim Kim, when he was present. Jim was only there for
part of the time since he had just come back from Burma where, as President of the
World Bank, he gave $2 billion to Burma. In addition, I visited this Siriraj hospital, the
Thai Red Cross and anonymous clinic, the CDC facility, the Silom clinic, and other
facilities (see attached agenda) where we discussed some of the NIAID sponsored clinical
trials on HIV. Of particular interest was the study that was done in collaboration with the
Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Science (AFRIMS) on acute HIV infection.
I met some outstanding people from the CDC including Mitchell Wolfe Tim Holtz and
Marcel Curlin. In addition I was accompanied throughout the entire trip by Lieut. Col.
Robert O'Connell. Rob works with Nelson Michael and Jerome Kim, is the liason to the
US Embassy and was an extraordinary asset to the trip. Christine and I flew back and
forth first class from Washington to London (United) and then from London to Bangkok
(Thai Airways). There were many perks associated with the trip. One that stood out was
the fact that the royal family arranged for Chris and I to have a professional Thai massage
at the spa at Bangkok airport on our way home. Of note was the fact that there was
considerable political unrest in Thailand during our visit. I learned a lot about the
political situation from observing and listening to my Thai colleagues. Apparently, the
current Prime Minister (Yingluck Shinawatra) is the sister of the recently deposed Prime
Minister who is in exile. He was exiled because he of corruption (he paid off members of
Parliament to support him). However, much of the Thai population at least in Bangkok
and certainly among the academics, feels that his sister is merely an extension of him and
although she was democratically elected, they feel that she should be put out of office and
a special council run the country until the corruption is cleared up. This creates a
considerable dilemma for the United States Embassy since they want to side with
democracy; however, everyone knows that the democratically elected person is steeped in
corruption. I actually wound up meeting the Prime Minister at the award ceremonies at
the Royal Palace. There were several demonstrations while I was there in anticipation of
the elections which took place after we left on February 2. The demonstrators wanted to
block the election because they wanted to have reforms before the election. It is likely
that the election will not come to majority vote and that a new government will have to
be formed. There was a small amount of violence while I was there including someone
throwing a hand grenade into a crowd of demonstrators as well as a person murdering
one of the leaders of demonstrators. We were never in any danger as we were always
accompanied by a police escort. I also learned a lot about Prince Mahidol, who was the
father of the current king, who is very ill. Prince Mahidol started off as a naval officer
(trained in Germany, but then when he realized the poor health conditions in his country,
he wanted to do something about it. He wanted to learn Medicine first and so he went to
Harvard Medical School and graduated cum laude. He is considered the father of health
care in his country. This was truly a memorable trip from so many standpoints.