Diary Prequel Package — page 135

er, and veil the investigation of the leak that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. She is the husband of Jim Wilson who has been criticizing the war in Iraq. Oct. 24 - briefing by me , Julie, Bruce Gellin and Secretary Leavitt (MOL from here-on) of several cabinet members in the Cabinet Liaison Office in EEOB. Subject - pandemic flu. Oct. 25, 26 - Boston to deliver Baruj Benacerraf Lecture at Harvard and Dana Farber Cancer Center. Nice dinner at Harvey Cantor's house to celebrate Baruj's 85th birthday. Say Jenny in Cambridge after the dinner on Oct. 25. Wonderful time with my amazing daughter! Oct. 27 - continue briefing of Hill members. Briefed Tom DeLay, Steny Hoyer, and others. Incredible attention to pandemic flu in this country. Oct. 28 - Briefed Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. The POTUS will unveil the Pandemic Plan at NIH on Nov. 1. I have been doing considerable press. Nov. 1, 2005 - POTUS came to NIH to unveil the National Flu Pandemic Plan. Beustiful Fall day with crystal clear skies and temperature around 65-70. I along with Sec Leavitt, Elias Zerhouni, Julie Gerberding, and others greeted him as he arrived. During his speech he specifally thanked me for my work. Attending the speech in Natcher Auditorium were several Cabinet Secretaries including Coni Rice, Minetta, Mike Chertoff, Johanns among others. With the POTUS was Karl Rove, Fran Townsend among others. POTUS gave a good speech. Afterwards, I did a media blitch and appeared on CNN Wolf Blitzer, CNN Lou Dobbs, CBS Evening News, Charlie Rose and did many print and radio interviews. Ted Kennedy is concerned about the liability issue. He agrees that we should give liability protection to the pharmaceutical companies to keep them in the business of influenza vaccine manufacturing. However, he feels that we must also provide compensation for those that might be injured by the vaccine. He appealed to me to discuss this with the administration. He followed this up 2 days later by having his staffer (David Bowen) call me and get more advice from me about how they could tackle this problem. Nov. 2 - 3, 2005 - Testified with MOL, Julie G., Bruce Gellin, and Bill Raub at both the Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees for HELP. We discussed the President's Plan as well as the more detailed HHS Pandemic Plan. We were generally well received, but there was the usual partisan skepticism on the part of the Democratic regarding the fact that the Plan asks the States to put up about 75% of the cost for a portion of the Tamiflu that would go to them. The point was made that the States do not have enough resources to do this. MOL makes the point that this is a co-pay situation similar to what is done for prescription drugs in Medicare and Medicaid. Much press. Big stuff going on with the indictment of Scooter Libby. The Democrats are trying to drag in the VP and the entire WH, claiming that there was a wide conspiracy to cover-up the fact that the WH distorted intelligence to get us into a war with Iraq and that