A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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Oct. 29, 2014 - Eventful day today with another visit to the White House and once again meeting with the President. The President wanted to show his support for health care workers who have returned from West Africa, those who will be going soon to West Africa, and the NIH nurses and doctors who had taken care of There were several events. At approximately 3 PM the president met in the Green Room with Kent Brantly, myself, and a group of healthcare workers including Dan Chertow from NIH who had returned from Liberia about 1 month ago, people from Hopkins, people from Samaritan's purse, as well as three NIH nurses - Glory Inwang, and Anitra FitzgeraldMonroe, and Kimberly Jeffries. He congratulated everyone, took individual pictures with each of us and then went into the East Room where he was introduced by Brantly and gave a compassionate speech on how healthcare workers were heroes, and how we should treat them with respect and how we should monitor and allow them to move about according to principles consistent with the scientific data. This was obviously a reiteration of what he had said before and what I have been saying continually on national TV. However, it was clearly also a thinly veiled jab at Gov. Christie who has instituted the quarantine of returning health care workers in New Jersey. Following the ceremony I adjourned to the Roosevelt Room with Raj Shah, Sylvia Burwell, Gayle Smith, and Ron Klain, to meet with the cohort of healthcare workers for the purpose of learning from them about their experiences in getting suggestions from them about how to improve our effort in response to the Ebola epidemic in Africa and at home. I had interesting discussions with . He told me that there was no way the he got infected while in the ETUs treating Ebola patients since he was completely covered with PPEs, he is experienced and there were no breaches. He believes that he got infected when he was called to the ER to see a potential Ebola patient (woman). He was dressed in "contact" dress (not full PPE) but he did not touch the patient and called for a nurse to admit the patient since she clearly had Ebola. Accompanying the woman was her adolescent daughter who was crying and very upset that her mother was sick. took the girl outside to comfort her. He took off his gloves so as not to contaminate the girl and put his arm around her shoulder. When he looked at her, it became clear that she was likely also sick. She ultimately ran away and was never documented to have Ebola, but feels that this was the likely incident that go him infected, i.e. touching without gloves an Ebola patient. He did not fully realize this until he later reflected on that incident in the ER. After that I came back to the NIH and I practiced putting on personal protective equipment with Rick Davey. The purpose of the practice was because we are hosting a group of TV doctors tomorrow brought to the NIH by the White House to demonstrate to them our Special Clinical Studies Unit and how we Don and Doff our PPE's. It should be a good day tomorrow.
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Oct. 30, 2014 - Started the day with a 6:40 AM interview on WTOP. Another interesting day today. I was a panelist at the Washington Ideas Forum sponsored by The Atlantic magazine that took place at the Harmon Center for the Performing Arts on F and 6th Street, N.W. I was interviewed on stage by David Brooks, well-known columnist for the New York Times. The panel was broadcast live on C-SPAN as well as streamed online on their website. Of the people involved in this forum were Secretary of State John Kerry, Chris Matthews of NBC, and a large number of other notables. After that I went back to the NIH and hosted a whole group of network producers with full camera TV coverage on the process of donning and doffing for personal protective equipment. I demonstrated to them what we do in the process of taking care of patients with Ebola, in this case specifically Following the demonstration which was done by nurse specialist Kevin Barrett and hospital epidemiologist Tara Palmore, I did a long series of TV interviews with the cameras that were there during my step-by-step demonstration of the donning and doffing. Clips appeared on a variety of news outlets. An extraordinary situation occurred last night in which the state of Louisiana made an announcement that certain scientists and others who were planning to attend the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene during the first week of November in New Orleans would not be allowed to attend the meeting. In essence they said that these people need to be quarantined if they came from a West African country or if they had taken care of the patient with Ebola within the last 21 days. This is an extension of the quarantine craziness that was started by Governors Christie and Cuomo. In essence, they are barring scientists from a meeting where their expertise and experience is most needed. Finally, I have been informed that I have been named in the civil action lawsuit against Pres. Obama, me, Thomas Friedman, Secretary Burwell, and DHH Secretary Jeh Johnson for promoting terrorism and discrimination. They are accusing us of colluding with president Obama who is a Muslim citizen of Kenya and trying to destroy African countries by introducing Ebola into society. You just cannot make this stuff up. Received a note today (dated Oct. 16, 2014) from Hilary Rodham Clinton saying that she was thinking of me and cheering me on saying that "The American people are fortunate to have your leadership at NIH as we face the challenge of Ebola".
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Oct. 31, 2014 - Jeff Drazen, Editor of NEJM, contacted me to put him in touch with some of the trusted AIDS activists with whom I have worked over the years to get them to write a piece in the NEJM on the similarities between the stigma of HIV/AIDS and the current "stigma" against HCWs (regarding the quarantine discussed above). I pointed him to Peter Staley and Gregg Gonsalves and they are willing to do this. Kaci Hickox still defying orders from the Governor of Maine to remain in quarantine. A court judge upheld her right to not be quarantined. I did an interview for yahoo.com and refused to get into the battle between Kaci and the State of Maine. HHS does not want me to do TV since the news is focused on Kaci and it would be better for me not to get into that battle.
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Nov. 1, 2014 - Things calming down. Reports of decreased infections in Liberia, particularly Monrovia. Not sure if this is real or if the infections are now occurring in remote areas without good reporting. Also, the issue of second waves in Guinea and Sierra Leone. CDC having to put much effort into investigating Person Under Investigation (PUIs). These are people who are from West Africa who get a fever or nausea or vomiting for any of a number of benign reasons. Since they are from West Africa, these are being investigated, sometimes using PPEs, which is an "abundance of caution", but a major investment (?waste) of effort. Cliff Lane is in Monrovia doing spade work for the hopefully upcoming RCT for the Ebola vaccine. Heard on Secretary's call this AM (8:30 AM on Saturday) that now WHO (likely MariePaule Kieny) wants WHO to be responsible for the DSMBs of all clinical trials in West Africa. This is an egregious attempt on the part of WHO to stay "relevant" in an area in which they have no expertise. It is "stunning" to me how they just want to insert themselves into things where they quite frankly are incompetent. They already have made it clear that they just want to distribute unproven interventions (vaccines and treatments) and even though we seem to be winning the argument, they keep coming back in insidious ways to try to derail the scientific clinical trials process. Amazing!!
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2014-11-02 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Nov. 2, 2014 - Quiet Sunday. Trying to catch up on piles on my desk. Election on Tuesday. Concern that the GOP will take the Senate, which means Obama is in trouble with both House and Senate in GOP control. Despite reports that the number of cases in Liberia are decreasing rapidly, new reports today indicate that the cases in Sierra Leone are sharply increasing. I have warned that Ebola comes in waves and that we should not be complacent and the WH should refrain from saying that things are "turning around".
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Nov. 3, 2014 - Ron Klain visited NIH today (He had visited CDC last week). He wanted to familiarize himself with what the various components of government were doing in Ebola. I made a presentation to him in the VRC, showed him the lab where Nancy Sullivan works and where she developed the ChAd3 Ebola vaccine. Then we took him over to the Clinical Center to see Julie Ledgerwood's vaccine clinic where the phase 1 trial took place. Then we showed him the SCSU and the room where we took care of Ron was impressed and wants me to come to the WH on Friday to give a shortened version of my presentation at a meeting where the POTUS is hosting certain Congressional leaders. Tom Frieden spontaneously called me up to thank me for being so supportive of him. I have been continually serving as a late night (by phone or e-mail) sounding board for him in his attempts to negotiate his having to deal with some many factions (ASPR, HHS, USAID, etc.) Last night I helped him out by strongly suggesting that he not listen to the modelers who tell him "exactly" how many news cases of Ebola to expect in the USA over a period of time. I warned him that the models are based on assumptions and multiple variables and can be very misleading and he should not "own" data that comes 7renzy calming onference with from models or else it will come back to bite him. I urged him to totally resist such predictions. He was very grateful for my advice.
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Nov. 4, 2014 - GOP takes control of the Senate in today's elections. Frenzy calming down. Little press interest - like shutting off the faucet.
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Nov. 5, 2014 - Preparing for Hearings of the Senate Full Appropriations Committee (Mikulski). Tom Frieden and I will testify together with Sylvia Burwell. POTUS publicly requests $6.18 Billion in "emergency" funds for Ebola. We will dwefend this at Hearing on Nov. 12.
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Nov. 6, 2014 - Still calm. No Ebola Press. Did Hearing prep by teleconference with Sylvia.