A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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December 6, 2014 - I participated at the PRIM&R conference in Baltimore where I gave the keynote address on ethical considerations in HIV/AIDS. This was on a Saturday morning. Christine is a major player in this organization and spent the weekend there. I drove to Baltimore on Friday night and had dinner with Chris at the Baltimore Hilton Hotel Bar (lots of fun) and stayed with her in her hotel room that night. The following morning (Sat. Dec. 6) gave my talk to an audience of around 2500 people and got a standing ovation. Drove back to DC and had dinner with Alec Whyte at Matisse restaurant. Caught up on stuff. Always great to see Alec
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December 8, 2014 - I am getting particularly concerned with what I feel is noncollegial behavior on the part of the UK, particularly Dame Sally Davies (Chief Health Officer of UK) as well as the Oxford group personified by Adrian Hill and Jeremy Ferrar who are bad mouthing our randomized controlled trial idea behind our backs. However, this is the stuff that we deal with all the time. I am also getting concerned that the incidence of infection of Ebola in Liberia is so low that this may have an issue with our conduct of the randomized controlled trial in Liberia. Cliff will leave Dec. 10 for Liberia for the third time in 5 weeks. We have to consider the possibility of doing a trial also in Sierra Leone. Had contentious IC Director meeting concerning the issue of presenting reports (that I believe are flawed) to the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) on the Intramural research Program (IRP) and the AIDS Portfolio. Issue is that some outside group (ACD) want to homogenize the IRP to make it "trans-NIH" as opposed to being directed to the mandate of the IC in question. I am totally against this since this flies in the face of the NIAID mandate of being a "strike force" for emerging IDs such as AIDS, SARS, and dy Ebola. People like Eric Green (NHGRI) disagree with me. I do not like or trust Eric as I believe that he resents me because he is intimidated by my accomplishments and notoriety. That is life. Also, the "elephant" in the room with the distribution of the AIDS money by OAR that no one wants to address is that NIDA is spending about $180 million on drug abuse issues when ~7% of USA cases are drug abuse and one can stop this with needle exchange. I feel they should get some money, but not that much when we do not have enough to conduct vaccine trials that could end the pandemic.
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Dec. 9, 2014 - Participated in the The Atlantic STEM summit at GW (cold and rainy day). Was interviewed by my old media friend Frank Sesno (formerly of CNN and NPR) who now heads the Public Affairs Institute at GW. Nice crowd, good questions, well-received.
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Dec. 10, 2014 - Gave talk at Italian Embassy on Ebola followed by being interviewed by Ted Koppel, my old buddy from "Night Line". Great interview. Ted praised me as a national hero. Today "Time" magazine named the "Ebola HCWs" as "Persons of the Year" great choice as they put themselves in serious harm's way.
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2014-12-11 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
Dec. 11, 2014 - Will receive new patient at SCSU. nurse ftrom San Francisco volunteering in Sierra Leone with NGO got needle stick injury taking care of documented critically ill Ebola patient. High risk exposure. Flying in today. Woods_MedEvacFile. docx Saw this evening. Donned and doffed just droplet precautions since she is asymptomatic. Showered out anyway. is comfortable, received VSV post-exposure prophylaxis. Presented Ebola talk to ACD (Advisory Committee to the Director) of NIH. Great reception. Moncef Slaoui (GSK) is member of ACD and he was cordial and agreed completely about the need for an RCT for Ebola Vaccine. Ian Lipkin (also on ACD) strongly felt against it and wants open access. Am surprised at Ian since I thought he was more of a scientist. Note that he is not a clinical investigator; he is a good friend of mine. He is moved by all the suffering and death. The Swiss Phase 1 trial on VSV has been put on hold due to 4 cases out of 39 of "arthritis" (mild). We have seen arthralgias and myalgias (expected) in our VSV trial at the Clinical Center, but not arthritis even at 10x the dose of the Swiss study. Puzzling.... Gave entrance interview with producer from CBS who wants to do a profile on me.
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Dec. 12, 2014 - Went to White House today for meeting 1:45 PM to 3:00 PM in the Roosevelt Room. Crystal clear, crisp and cold December day. Meeting was to review the situation with the Ebola-ready hospitals and Assessment Hospitals in the USA and to discuss the shifting of resources from Liberia (low infection rate now) to Sierra Leone (rising infection rate). Present at the meeting were: POTUS, VP Biden, Lisa Monaco, Susan Rice, Denis McDonough, Ron Klain, Sylvia Burwell, Chairman, Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey, Tom Frieden by teleconference from Atlanta, Samantha Powers by teleconference from NYC - UN, Assistant Secretary Heather Higginbottom from State, Nancy Lindborg from USAID, Raj Shah - USAID. Ron Klain asked me to review for the POTUS the status of the vaccine plans as well as to explain the situation with the VSV adverse event of arthritis (see above). POTUS asked a few other questions of me. He referred a few times to his trip to NIH. Good meeting Did WTOP today
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December 12 - 14, 2014 - Cliff Lane has now gone to Liberia for the fourth time in order to set the stage for the upcoming randomized, placebo controlled, double-blind, clinical trial for the GSK/NIAID and the VSV vaccines. We are still getting nefarious comments and undermining of our efforts by the people from the UK, particularly Jeremy Farrar and Adrian Hill among others. They continue to inappropriately talk about the inadequacy of our vaccine efforts even though they are working with the same vaccine. It is unbelievable to me how nefarious they can be when the main goal should be to develop a vaccine to save the lives of so many unfortunate people in the West African countries. Nonetheless we will forge on and hopefully prove the safety and efficacy of this vaccine.
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December 15, 2014 - traveled to George Washington University to give a lecture for Bopper Deyton's course given at the Marvin Center at GW. It was an inspiring crowd of first-year medical students who were very excited to hear from me about the history of HIV and my involvement in it. That afternoon I participated by teleconference in an Ebola meeting that took place at the IOM sponsored dually by the IOM and the Rockefeller Foundation. The meeting was chaired by Secretary-General of the WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan. Many players were there in person or by phone including Paul Farmer from Liberia, as well as several Liberian and Sierra Leoneon and Guinean health officials. I presented the efforts in the development of vaccines and therapeutics
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December 16, 2014. Participated in a panel discussion on Ebola vaccines and therapeutics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) at 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. The panel was chaired by Steve Morrison. Other panelists included Julie Gerberding of Moncef Slaoui of GSK, Johan Von Hoof (Janssen and J & J), and Rohit Malpani (MSF). Good discussion about response to the epidemic.