A single line often inverts meaning once you see what it
answers, so neighbouring messages are always shown.
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June 15, 2015 - had dinner over my house with Eric Goosby and Chris - the now traditional sausage and rigatoni dinners that I have had with Eric, Harold Varmus, and Gary Nabel over the years. Eric is in town for and IOM workshop. He also is seeking my assistance in obtaining a grant from the DDCF and also NIH now that he is out of government and pursuing global health issues. Of note, he has recently been appointed as the UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for TB. Tom Frieden is balking at supporting the proposal for the IOM Study on lessons learned in the Ebola response. I will be supporting the study with NIAID funds. Tom still is not really on the same page with me about what went on during the response. He is still fixating on have the IOM study focus on "alternative clinical trial designs" instead of the RCT. Also, he is still against Cliff trying to extend the RCT to Guinea. Tom feels that the Guineans will react badly to a trial and be paranoid that we are trying to kill them. This conflicts with the fact that the WHO is already doing a ring vaccination (poor design) study in Guinea. Anyway, conversation with Tom are still very cordial and I like him - just disagree with him sometimes.
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June 16, 2015 - I am in the midst of preparing my talk for the International AIDS Society to take place in Vancouver. As usual I am taking this very seriously and doing multiple drafts. Cliff Lane and I had a teleconference with individuals from Drs. Without Borders (MSF); in particular, we spoke with Sophie Delaunay along with Jennifer Cohen of MSF. The discussion was the interest on the part of MSF to be a major player in the development of a Biobank for specimens in West Africa related to the Ebola outbreak. Cliff and I are somewhat skeptical about this issue since MSF rarely, if ever, gets involved in biomedical research, and when they do, we have had concerns about their capability in this regard. CDC (Tom Frieden) agrees completely with us on this and has skepticism about their involvement. They are a wonderful organization when it comes to taking care of patients; however, we have had some difficult experiences with their inability to really appreciate the importance of the scientific method when doing research. Today I had the first meeting for the search committee for the director of the division of intramural research to replace Kathy Zoon. The Committee is co-chaired by Cliff Lane and Gary Gibbons.
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June 17, 2015 - I gave a talk at the HPTN/IMPAACT meeting at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel on Jefferson Davis Hwy. in Crystal City, Virginia. This was an important talk because I introduced to the investigators the difficulty that we are having now with certain members of Congress wanting to decrease the AIDS budget and even move money out of the AIDS bucket into other institutes. I showed the audience a C-SPAN clip of my debating with Senator Cassidy (R-Tea Party) from Louisiana where he was talking about matching allocation of funds with the number of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) in this country. If this approach were followed, it would have a serious negative impact on all global health research, particularly research on infectious diseases. I articulated well my objection to this. Some people have picked this up and put it on YouTube, and the clip has gone viral. In addition, I spoke to the group about future directions of focusing the AIDS research specifically on ending the epidemic so that ultimately we will not have to spend any money on AIDS. This would be an important public health accomplishment, and it would silence the people who want to take money from AIDS prematurely before we have ended the AIDS epidemic. Tonight, I flew to Atlanta to participate in the Charles C Shepard Science Award Ceremony in Atlanta at the CDC headquarters.
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June 19, 2015 - I gave a lecture at the CDC on the subject of " Ending the HIV AIDS pandemic: From scientific advances to public health implementation". The lecture was extremely well accepted by the CDC community. I had time to chat with my dear friend Tom Frieden about a number of issues of mutual interest. I was shown around the absolutely beautiful new CDC campus that I had not been on for several years. The campus has been completely transformed by beautiful, architecturally creative buildings. It is very clear that I am highly respected and revered by the CDC community. Tom introduced mew as a "living legend". It was a great visit that I enjoy very much and it cemented my relationship with our colleagues at the CDC.
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2015-06-20 00:00
Anthony S. Fauci
June 20, 2015 - I viewed the preview of the soon to be shown on HBO documentary on Larry Kramer entitled "Larry Kramer: In Love and Anger". It was played at the Naval Heritage Center on 701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. The documentary is a moving story of Larry Kramer's complicated life. I was prominently featured in the documentary interacting on multiple occasions with Larry.
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June 22, 2015 - I gave a lecture at Georgetown University O'Neill Institute at the Law School on New Jersey Avenue, NW Summer Program on Infectious Diseases and the Law. Again very well received by the group there. We are in the middle of an extraordinary heat wave now in Washington DC with temperatures reaching 95- 100° with sunny skies during the day and massive thunderstorms at night. ye
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June 23, 2015 - I had a very nice breakfast meeting at the American City Diner with Bill Schultz who is the general counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services. I met with Bill at the suggestion of Pulitzer Prize winning author and close friend of mine Rick Atkinson. Rick was concerned if I got involved with Don Fehr, who offered to be an unofficial agent for me and read over my manuscript as well as tell me how to write a book proposal for an editor, that this informal arrangement could spell out to the a legal issue later. This arrangement might also be something that is frowned upon by the department. And so Rick recommended that I meet with Bill and get his legal advice. My meeting with Bill was terrific. He was extremely encouraging to me about writing my book. He agreed with Rick that I should hold off making even any informal arrangements with anyone and I should just go ahead and continue to write my chapters and when I am ready to leave the government to then put together my proposal and "shop" it around to different publishers and agents. I will take his advice and go that way. This evening I gave a presentation to the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) annual meeting at the Renaissance Hotel Downtown at 999 - 9th Street Northwest. The talk was very similar to what I gave to the HPTN/IMPAACT group.
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June 24, 2015 - I participated with the NIH and CDC team here at NIH in Wilson Hall of Building 1 as well as in Room 151 in the meeting with the Vice Premier of China Jiu Yandong. The meeting was hosted by Sylvia Burwell (Sec., HHS). I presented a talk on the role of NIH in the response to the Ebola Outbreak. I interacted with several of my Chinese colleagues including the Director of the Chinese CDC. An agenda of the meeting is given in the PDF below: draft agenda.pdf June 25 - June 27, 2015 - I travel to Aspen, Colorado to be a participant in the 2015 Aspen Ideas Festival, Spotlight health. It was a most enjoyable experience as I attended several of the panels on areas that were of my own interest and expertise, and even some areas that are not my areas of expertise. With regard to my direct participation, on the morning of Friday, June 26 , I participated in a "Tutorial Session" which was a panel on the topic of "Be Preared: Infectious diseases are here to stay". On the panel with me were Larry Brilliant, Neeraj Mistry, and Storn Kabuluzi of Malawi. The Panel was chaired by Judy Woodruff of The NewsHour (PBS). Judy is an old friend and it was a very lively panel. An added plus for the experience was that I finally got to meet Larry Brilliant who is one of the icons of global health, having participated actively in the eradication of polio from India during his time at WHO. He is the kind of person who I think could be a really good friend. He obviously has an incredible amount of respect for me. The panels that I enjoyed watching were the health and Healthcare session on the morning of June 26, which was a breakfast session right before my session. The speakers with Tom Daschle, Henry Waxman, Bill Frist and the panel was chaired by Steve Clemons, Editor-at-Large for Atlantic magazine. It was a most joyful time for so many of us in Aspen because the very interesting Supreme Court had voted by 6 to 3 to uphold the Affordable Care Act and the tax credit for those who live in states that do not have their own exchanges. In addition, the following day the Supreme Court ruled by 5 to 4 to strike down the prohibition on gay marriage. The Obama administration has had an amazing couple of days. On Friday evening of June 26 it was a wonderful reception at the home of Gail and Al Engelberg who live on a beautiful mansion overlooking the mountains of Aspen and Aspen Valley. The reception was in honor of former secretaries of Health and Human Services. These included David Matthews, Kathleen Sebelius, Donna Shalala, Tommy Thompson. It was great to see Tommy Thompson again as well as all of the others. Of note Donna Shalala wanted to talk to me in her new capacity as the CEO of the Clinton Foundation. Apparently Chelsea Clinton had been approached by people from MSF and WHO to help fund the controversial "ring vaccination" study of the Ebola vaccine that they are conducting in Guinea. As I had mentioned, both Cliff and I feel that this is a flawed study since it has no control group. Donna wanted to know whether the Clinton Foundation should get involved. I recommend strongly to her that they do not support this study and if, in fact, Chelsea Clinton feels that she wants to support it, then it is importantfor the Clinton Foundation to get an outside group to look seriously at the design of the study, which I have a lot of trouble with, as well as to examine the data that is a ready been collected. Donna thanked me for :"Covering my back as you always do". The reception was idyllic in that views were breathtaking, the skies were crystal clear and the weather was warm without any humidity. I met many wonderful people at the reception including a nice conversation with my old friend Ashley Judd, who looked absolutely beautiful. She complimented me on "how great I looked" and on the important work that I have been doing for so long. She was with a little dog and was barefoot. She is an amazing looking woman and a really devoted global health advocate. She was there to talk about her reflections on global health on the following day. One of the people I ran into who was very complimentary was a Zoe Baird, who called me the epitome of the true public servant. She said that I was incomparable in what I have done over so many years for the people of the country in the world. It was a very moving and sincere compliment to me. The following day on Saturday, June 27, I participated in a panel on the "Looming Antibiotic Crisis". On the panel with me was Peggy Hamburg and Ramanan Laximinarayan, who heads the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases. He is a terrific guy with whom I had the opportunity to fly back to Denver with that same morning. All in all it was one of the best trips that I had taken in that the atmosphere was beautiful, the social interactions were in extremely positive, and I got the opportunity to do my thing in front of a lot of important people who have also become over the years good friends.
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June 29, 2015 - I had two interesting encounters today by telephone with very interesting people on very interesting subjects: 1) Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and founder of Facebook was introduced to me a few weeks ago by e-mail by Susan Desmond Hellman, the current CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Global Foundation. We arranged to have a teleconference between Mark and me today to discuss the issue of Mark wanting to get involved in a -- he signed into lon CNN with philanthropic way with promoting biomedical science. The call lasted one hour from 4 PM to 5 PM on an absolutely brilliantly beautiful day in Washington with clear skies and relatively no humidity(an unusual event in the summer in Washington). Mark was very engaging and we went over the multiple possible ways that he may contribute. He asked probing, highly insightful questions about how we fund biomedical research through grants in the extramural program and by funding the investigators in the intramural program. He was very interested in the concept of funding projects versus funding people. We went over several models of how research is funded. We discussed the issue of creating an institute that is an infrastructure with walls like the Rockefeller University. We also discussed the possibility of an institution that makes grants like the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He asked a lot of questions about the NIH and he wanted to continue the conversation at a later date after he thought a bit about what I had told him. I found him to be a very engaging, highly intelligent young man. 2) Gary Nabel, who is currently at Sanofi in Boston, called me on my cell phone to tell me that he had just been in California and had a conversation with Gov. Jerry Brown. The California State Assembly has put a Bill on the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown that would prohibit exemptions from vaccinations on religious and philosophical grounds. Gov. Brown had spoken to Gary when he was in California today about this since he finds this to be a difficult decision as to whether or not he should sign the bill. Gary spoke to him about me and my knowledge of the subject and Gov. Brown gave Gary his cell phone number to give to me to have me call him. I did so and had about a half an hour conversation with Gov. Brown in which I explained to him the reasons why I feel that he should sign the bill prohibiting religious and philosophical exemptions from vaccinations in the state of California. He asked probing questions. We had a very good conversation and he thanked me heartily for giving him the time. Based on the discussion, I believe that he will sign the bill. We shall see. The TedMed people got back to me and really like my draft. They have made some suggestions that are easy.