Diary Prequel Package — page 143

infected and 10 have birds and humans infected. Of note that about 1-2 weeks ago it became apparent that there was a family cluster of 7 cases in Sumatra, Indonesia. Recent evidence strongly indicates that this was human-to-human spread similar to the small cluster in Thailand in 2004 where 11 year old girl infected her mother and aunt who nursed her in the hospital before she died. Similar situation in Sumatra where father nursed 10 year son and others in family slept in small room while one or 2 people were coughing all night. Bottom line was a media blitz. I was asked by HHS and White House to go to "Pebble Beach" on the White House grounds and do wall-to-wall interviews to allay fears. Fact is that the cluster looks like it is dead-ending. I did interviews with NBC Evening News, CBS Evening News ABC World News tonight, Nightline, CNN Wolf Blitzer Situation Room, WTOP radio, MSNBC TV, etc. Big time exposure. HHS was very pleased with how I handled this volatile situation. May 25, 2006 - I have not been recording this type of thing of late even though I have gone to several of these, but I went tonight to the 18th Annual National Education & Leadership (NELA) Awards Gala at the Omni-Shoreham given by the Sons of Italy. I was the guest of Chuck Conconi (Washingtonian Magazine, formerly columnist for Washington Post) and his wife Janelle. At the Table were Ed Henry (CNN White House Correspondent), Lloyd Hand, Mike Petruzzelo (Managing Director of Qorvis Communications) and Mr. Thompson (?first name) African American billionare and his date Cheryl Lee (CEO of BET). Pres. Clinton and Hillery Clinton were guest speakers. Ran into the usual DC crowd - Sen Chris Dodd, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, Franco Nuschese (Owner of Café Milano - who was also an awardee), etc. June 11 - 17, 2006 - Went to Tuscana with Chris and the girls for a few days and then went on to Genoa for the annual review of the Gaslini Institute. Wonderful time had by all. Stayed in an amazing converted farm house (to a villa) owned by a friend of Jim Huskey's from the Embassy in Florence. The weather was amazing - warm and totally sunny during the day and cold at night requiring a fire in the fire-place and blankets in bed. Sunsets over the Tuscan hills with a glass of chianti was incredible. June 20, 2006 - Did a one hour face to face briefing of VP Cheny in his West Wing office on pandemic flu. Also present was Carl Kuntz, David Addington (new chief of staff replacing Scooter Libby and Scott Diechman (new health person for the VP). As usual, it was a lively briefing. It is clear and Carol told me that the VP has said this that the VP very much looks forward to being briefed by me. The day was a typical hot sunny 90 degree day in DC. July 26, 2006 - Has been a busy few weeks with relatively mundane institute issues. Weather has been very hot - ~95+ degrees. Two days ago David Stout and Jean-Paul Garnier from Glaxo-Smith Kline called and briefed me on the great success of their H5N1 clinical trial using their proprietory adjuvant ASO3. They got terrific results with 3.8 micrograms X2 with adjuvant giving predictably protective responses in >80% of people compared to the Sanofi study (see above) that gave predictably protective responses at 90 micrograms X2 without adjuvant in only about 50% of people.