A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
-
Feb. 28, 2015 - Had another one of those great dinners hosted by Catherine and Wayne Reynolds at the Book Room of the Jefferson Hotel. Freezing weather. Great guests including Vernon Jordan and his wife Ann; David Petraeus and wife Molly, Jim Johnson and his date Heather (?), Buffy Cafritz. Interesting discussions by Jordan on the political arena of Hilary Clinton and her candidacy. Petraeus spoke about the ISIS treat, Iraq and the Middle East. One of the best of the Reynolds's dinners. Chris could not be there. She was in Northern California cheering on Ali who was running a marathon in the Napa Valley.
-
March 3, 2015 - Testified before the House Labor - HHS Appropriations Subcommittee for the NIH budget. As usual for the past few years, it was only a 2 hour Hearing with Francis Collins testifying and me backing him up at the table together with Gary Gibbons (NHLBI), Tom Insel (NIMH), Nora Volkow (NIDA) and Jon Lorsch (NIGMS). Hearing started early (8:30 AM) since Benjamin Netanyahu was speaking before a Joint Session of Congress at the invitation of Speaker Boehner and against the wishes of Obama. He was making the argument that the USA was making a "bad deal" with Iran on nuclear control versus sanctions. During the Hearing Congressman Andy Harris (R-MD) made the point that he felt that we were spending too much on AIDS compared to other diseases with much more of a morbidity and mortality impact on the USA. He wants to allocate money strictly according the disease burden in the USA. Hence, this would destroy funding for malaria and TB and greatly hurt funding for AIDS. Obviously, I will be opposing this. Still record cold weather and lots of snow in DC.
-
March 5, 2015 - Was supposed to go to Boston yesterday evening in order to speak at an Ebola Forum at Harvard today. However, a big snow storm was forecast for DC for today and I was afraid that I would get stuck in Boston. I wisely, did not go and actually gave my talk and Panel discussion via "GoToMeeting", which worked very well. Paul Farmer was on the panel in Boston. Good thing that I did not go since DC got 8 inches lical of snow and all flights were cancelled from Boston to DC. I would have been stuck there.
-
March 6, 2015 - Met with Nina Russell and Emilio Emini from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation (BMGF), Emilio is taking over as the Director of Global Health for BMGF and he wanted to review our mutual commitments for the AIDS vaccine plans (i.e. the P5 follow-up of the RV144 study). He wanted to re-examine the criteria for moving forward with candidates. Emilio generaly thinks that he knows everything; however, on this one he has a valid point and so we will do this together. Cliff Lane in Liberia (also Sierra Leone) now for the 7th time in a few months trying now to expand the RCT vaccine trial to Guinea and also expand the therapeutic trials with ZMapp to Sierra Leone and possibly Guinea since there are virtually no patients in Liberia. Cliff and I had phone call early (6:30 AM) with Cliff in Sierra Leone, me in DC at home, and Yves Levy and Jean-Francois Delfraissy in Paris to try and get a collaboration going in Guinea for the trials since the French have a presence in Guinea.
-
2015-03-09 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
March 9, 2015 - Went downtown today to be the BBC studio to do the final taping of the segment that they will be doing on HIV/AIDS were I am the moderator and narrator. In the afternoon, I attended the FDA/NIH Leadership Council meeting to discuss better ways of collaboration between the NIH and FDA.
-
March 10, 2015 - Gave the after dinner talk at the Project Hope Board meeting at the Willard Hotel in Washington DC. I spoke on Ebola: The Perfect Storm. It was extremely well received and the evening was pleasant. Ran into former Secretary of HHS Louis Sullivan.
-
March 11, 2015 - Was Visiting Professor at the John's Hopkins Hospital and Medical School. Gave two major talks: 1) a formal lecture on Ebola, and 2) a lecture to the students and fellows on my career as a scientist, clinician, policymaker.
-
March 12, 2015 - There was a considerable misunderstanding involving a situation in Sierra Leone. Cliff Lane is trying to expand the randomized controlled trial of ZMapp versus standard of care in countries in addition to Liberia with the protocol he has already started. As it turns out the commanding general in charge of the British military hospital in Sierra Leone, Brig. Gen. Tim Hodgetts, was under the misimpression regarding the protocol was standard of care to see ZMapp + standard of care versus standard of care alone . And so he said that this trial was unethical and refused to participate in it. The reason why this is important is because an American citizen who works for Partners in Health became infected while working in Sierra Leone. We had made arrangements to air evacuate the patient to the NIH clinical Center as soon as possible. Because the patient was in the British facility, we wanted to start the randomization to one or the other arm of the protocol while the patient was still in Sierra Leone before flying back the United States. Brigadier General Hodgetts stated that he would give ZMapp as a compassionate use but would not participate in the randomized protocol. He felt it was unethical to delay the flight to the USA by giving the person a placebo if in fact the person randomized to placebo limb. We arranged a teleconference with him and I led the teleconference. I explained to the general that there was no placebo and that if the patient randomized to the standard of care alone arm we would not delay the flight and he would immediately come to the United States. If the patient randomized to the ZMapp arm we would give the personZMapp right away and then put him on a plane. When he heard that, he apologized blocking this protocol and we agreed that with the next patient who came through, he would be able to help us by participating in the protocol. However, it was too late for this patient since we had already arranged to put the patient on the plane to come back here to the United States.
-
March 13, 2015 - Woke up at 1:45 AM to get to the NIH in time to greet the patient who was being flown in by chartered flight to Dulles Airport to then come to the NIH by He was working fo: Over the past 48 hours in i i has written me several e-mails indicating that he told the patient and the patient's uly that since I was taking care of the patient that he would be getting the best care in the world. The patient arrived rather sick with nausea, vomiting, liver function abnormalities, lactic acidosis, and profound weakness. His condition was deemed to be "serious". He arrived at Dulles Airport at 3:16 AM. He arrived by ground transportation at the NIH at 4:45 AM. We admitted him to the special clinical studies unit (SCSU) and he was randomized into the protocol. As it turned out he was randomized to the supportive therapy and general medical care alone. In other words, he did not get ZMapp. In some respects, this is good since if he was randomized to ZMapp, it is certain that some people would have said that we actually put him on the ZMapp deliberately because he was an American citizen. More later on this patient.