Diary Prequel Package — page 109

or Oct 22-23, 2004 - Continued intensity of activity around the influenza vaccine shortage. Daily White House Conference calls. The DHHS team has broken up into several groups to "tour" the country in a bus for outreach and education to health authorities, the general public and the Press. I was part of a tour that went from D.C. to Philadelphia to Trenton, Newark, NYC, Hartford, Providence, Boston and back (Flew back from Boston). Our team was Claude Allen, myself, Howard Zucker (Deputy Asst Secretary of Health), Bill Hall (DHHS Public Affairs), Sarah Greirich (Claude's assistant), Kate (?). It went well. This is becoming a serious political issue in that the Kerry Campaign is trying to paint the Bush Administration as responsible for the Chiron mess. President Bush in turn is claiming that liability issues are the cause of Pharma not getting into the vaccine business and that Kerry supports trial lawyers who are the problem (VP candidate Edwards is a liability lawyer). Oct. 25, 2004 - Went to LA to be Keynote Speaker at a USC conferenec on Multi-Sector involvement in research (Government, Industry, Academia). Afterwards I gave a press conference with the Editorial Board of the LA Times. The topic of influenza vaccine dominated the conversation. Oct. 26- Nov. 8, 2004 - Daily White House conference calls on influenza situation. Trying to get additional doses from Aventis, Medimmune and foreign sources. Bush re-elected. Very good for me since the team stays in place. Horrible tragedy - John La Montagne, my beloved friend, colleague and Deputy Director of NIAID dies suddenly on Nov. 2 after disembarking from flight from DC to Mexico City (his birthplace) on passport line in Mexico City. He had a pulmonary embolus, very likely from the flight with venous thrombosis. Nov. 12, 2004 - Meeting in Roosevelt Room of WH to discuss the plans for influenza preparedness and for pandemic flu plans. Major points are what we have been discussing for the past few weeks about providing incentives for PHARMA to get involved and stay in flu vaccine field. We (DHHS team) are proposing back end guaranteed purchases for overflow doses; liability protection, tax breaks, research to develop cell culture based and recombinant DNA approaches to replace egg-based approaches; advanced purchase and stockpiling of vaccine for children. TGT presented and I filled in. Present were: Karl Rove, Josh Bolton, Margaret Spellings, Kristen Silverberg, Alex Azar, Scott Whitaker, Grant Dixton, David Leitch, Harriet Miers, Alan Gilbert, Carol Kuntz and others. Nov. 17, 2004 - House Hearing of Government Reform Committee on the flu crisis today. I testified together with Julie Gerberding and Lester Crawford (Acting FDA Commisioner). Mostly they slammed FDA for not acting more aggressively to monitor the Chiron plant and pick up contamination. Bush shuffling around his Cabinet following election victory. People that I know are moving out of positions where it was good to have a contact for me and into positions where it is also good to have a contact. Condi Rice to State, Margaret Spellings to Education. Much rumor about TGT and whether he will go to DHS or whether it will be Fran Townsend if Tom Ridge leaves.