Diary Prequel Package — page 118

Cyanamide and nowon an IOM Committee of Biodefense). The Hearing was mostly blasting DoD for disorganization and "wasting money". Also, I went on my yearly trip to review the Gaslini Institute for Lorenzo Moretta from June 8 - 10. We are in the final stages of finally officially firing Jonathan Fishbein. The issue is that Sen Grassley and his Committee will likely come after us for this since they always take the side of whistleblowers, even though Fishbein is not really a whistleblower as he blew the whistle after he was told that he would be fired for performance. June 14 - July 2, 2005 - Many activities around briefings of White House, DHHS and Congressional Hearing continue. Had 2 more Hearings within said period: 1) Senate Foreign Relations on HIV Vaccines with actress Ashley Judd; 2) Hearing of House Government Reform Committee on Influenza Pandemic Threat. I testified with Jim LeDuc (CDC) and Bruce Gellin (HHS). Have been on CNN and all over C-SPAN. We finally fired Jonathan Fishbein (on July 1) amid angry threats from Sen. Grassley's staff. I must include in my book how totally vicious and completely unethical that crew is. They are a disgrace to government. They totally distort the Fishbein story and attack the NIH and everyone else, all in the name of protecting "whistleblowers" even though he is not a whisteblower. July 14, 2005 - Lots of stuff going on. Had more Congressional Hearings. Today had Hearing on success or failure of Project BioShield. Testified before House Government Reform Committee chaired by Tom Davis (R-VA) and Henry Waxman as Minority. Also, Chris Shays there and Congressman Issa, Davis, Issa, Cummings. I testified with Stewart Simonson, and Joe Vitko (DHS). Interesting issues around current BioShield (BS) legislation. The original Bill for BS was strong and contained indefinite authority to purchase for stockpile as well as other strong incentives for industry. Remember when I went around to the House and Senate at the behest of the VP to push BS, several Senators and Members, particularly Sen. Byrd tried to neuter the Bill since they did not want to give big Pharma too much. Now we have a Hearing where the Congress is chiding us since we have not gotten enough products through BioShield. The reason is that the big companies do not see any major advantage since they have no liability protection, no tax incentives and no patent advantages, and not a big pot of money. This is an amazing irony. Went to White House for a regularly scheduled (have not been reporting on these) PCC on Pandemic Flu Preparedness. Co-Chaired by Rajeev Venkayya (HSC) and Lance Leggitt (DPC). Reps were there from every cabinet department, CIA, etc. I presented that we actually had a vaccine sine the results of the dosing shows a clear dose-response curve for the prime-boost. We tested 7.5, 15, 45, and 90 ugm and clearly 90 gave a good protective response after 1 dose and an amazing response after 2 doses. Now we have to figure out the right dose sparing (adjuvant) strategy and/or the right combination of prime/boost. On the way out of the WH, ran into Bob Woodward. Of note, I had just read his new book "Secret Man" about Deep Throat Mark Felt. I congratulated Bob on the book and discussed it a bit.