Diary Prequel Package — page 178

<s working with elegant meals at mountain cliff restaurant or on the beach. Visited Oia, Fira - stayed at Kamara Beach. One of the best vacations (albeit brief) that I have ever experienced. July 3, 2008 - Gave lecture at the Ideas Festival at Aspen, CO on HIV/AIDS in 2025: Will we have a vaccine and a cure by then?". Usual ambiance of Aspen with nice dinner on the night of July 2 catered by the famous Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkley, CA and narrated by Corby Kummer, renowned food critic of The Atlantic (also the person who lent us his apartment in Boston for Jenny's graduation (see above). Met usual celebrities at dinner. Spoke with Chris Jennings (Clinton's Health person who is now with the Obama Campaign since Obama won the primary. He wants to get me involved as a person to advice the campaign informally about what they are on track with certain issues. July 6, 2008 - Wonderful day. Chris Hultzen arranged to have Danny and Joe Hultzen and their friend Austin do "batting practice" with me at STA field. Danny pitched to me and it was terrific. I hit several line drives to outfield, but the distance was poor, nothing like the fence shots that Danny and the others were hitting. It is clear that my power is no where near Danny's and the others. I pitched to Danny and he hit some over the right field fence. July 17, 2008 - Made what some are saying is a "landmark decision not to proceed with the PAVE 100 HIV vaccine trial of the NIAID VRC product. This followed weeks and months of committee meetings and recommendation such as the AIDS Vaccine Research Subcommittee (AVRS) who voted to proceed and the Strategic Working Group (SWG) who voted not to proceed. The issue was that the Merck STEP trial failed and actually had some safety issues. The PAVE trial is somewhat different (3 DNA primes and an Ad5 boost containing env) from the STEP trial (3 Ad5s without env), yet the preliminary immunological data from PAVE 100 was in my mind (some such as Gary Nabel disagreed) not much better than those of STEP. I received many e-mails from people arguing for and against. The decision was mine alone and I decided to reject the proposed PAVE trial of 2400 people since it was powered to do immunological correlates on a subgroup who might seem to benefit even if the endpoint of the entire group was not "effective", i.e. decrease in viral set point after infection. I argue that if the trial failed, I am not interested in the immunological correlates in a subgroup since this has no statistical value. There was much activity in the Press about my decision and the feedback was overwhelming that I had made the right choice. I encouraged Larry Corey of HVTN and Scott Hammer the PI of PAVE to come back to me with a "leaner, meaner" protocol that is less expensive, fewer people, less samples to ask if the product works. If it does, then we will go back and do immune correlates. July 30, 2008 - Christine, Meg and Ali left for Rwanda to spend 2 weeks working with Paul Farmer in his Clinic. More later. July 30, 2008 - Invited to the White House (East Room) to witness and celebrate the signing by the POTUS of the reauthorization of PEPFAR at $48 Billion. The law is officially H.R. 5501 - The Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global