Diary Prequel Package — page 120

Leavitt's upcoming briefing of the POTUS on July 29. I will accompany him there also. Carol was not too pleased with the briefing. She confided in me that HHS does not seem to be as prepared and definitive as she wants (excluding me, she said). We (HHS team) worked on the briefing afterwards to make it better. Also, appeared on Diane Rehm Show (Susan Page substituting for Diane) to discuss Pandemic Flu. July 28, 2005 - Even busier day today. Spent 3 hours in White House Situation Room with Julie Gerberding, Carol Kuntz, Kristen Silverberg, Bruce Gellin, Michael Jackson (Deputy at DHS), Alex Azar, Tom Reilly (OMB), Joel Kaplan (OMB), Tevi Troy (NSC), Ken....., and others to sharpen and focus the presentation of Sec. Leavitt for the POTUS for the following day. Then Julie and I testified before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack. Chaired by John Linder, minority - Jim Langevin. Also present were Chris Shays, Jane Harmon, Ed Markey, Normal Dicks, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Donna Christensen, Bennie Thompson, Ron Simmons, Bobby Jindal, Michael McCall, Jim Gibbons. Good Hearing for me, but only fair for John Vitko (DHS). Also testifying were Julie Gerberding and Gen. Eric Schoomaker. One of several Hearings on BioD. Norton gave Julie some flack (she always gets on Julie). After the Hearing we (Julie and I) went back to HHS and spent the next 2 hours again briefing Sec. Leavitt for the POTUS briefing. At the briefing were Leavitt, Rick McKeown, Alex Azar, Natalie Kochnour, Bill Raub, Bruce Gellin, Stewart Simonson. We are getting close to having it right. July 29, 2005 - Another amazing day. Spent a couple of hours together with Julie Gerberding and Bruce Gellin at DHHS again pre-briefing Sec. Leavitt for the visit with the POTUS. Then went to White House and briefed the POTUS for 1 hour on Pandemic Flu in the Roosevelt Room. The POTUS was very engaged and went back and forth in an animated and interested way with Julie and me and the Secretary. He vowed to do whatever is necessary to stop the onset of a Pandemic Influenza. He turned to Josh Bolten (OMB Director) and indicated that no expense should be spared. He essentially gave us a mandate to take care of this problem in no uncertain terms. Present at the briefing were: VP Cheney, Karl Rove, John Bolten, Andy Card, Harriet Meiers, Fran Townsend, Kristen Silverberg, Dan Bartlett, Scott McClellan, Mike Chertoff, Tevi Troy, Julie Gerberding, Sec Leavitt, and others. In the late afternoon, I showed around the NIH Michael Gerson who was with Miss America Nicole Johnson Baker and her husband Scott Baker. He was visiting the NIH to look around and get a feel for the place. We presented an HIV-infected IL-2 patient (Terry Brown) and discussed our IL-2 work. Then we went across the street and discussed malaria with Tom Wellums. Mike Gerson is very interested in domestic AIDS. He will get back to me to work on this since he wants to put an initiative of this sort into the 2006 State of the Union Address. Very successful meeting. August 7, 2005 - Major Sunday news day with front page article in NY Times predominantly quoting me) regarding the successful preliminary data from the NIAIDfunded H5N1 vaccine trial that showed safety and an immune response that would be