Diary Prequel Package — page 214

July 22 tion program. I Tuesday, July 21. I visited with Linda-Gail the Township of Masiphumelele. Again, I was deeply moved by the poverty and physical nature of the place. Like Gugulethu, there were small huts made of corrugated tin and cardboard thast were stuck to each other in a "wall-to-wall" fashion for acres and acres. One could barely walk between the huts. Again, the work that the South African health personnel were doing was inspiring. The same numbers and problems with HIV and TB as in Gugulethu. Tuesday night we flew back to DC and arrived early (6:00 AM) on Wednesday, July 22 July 22, 2009 - I rolled out the NIAID plan for the clinical trials of H1N1 vaccine to be performed in the NIAID's VTEUs. We will start in early August and do trials on healthy adults, elderly, children to determine immediate safety, immunogenicity, dosage and number of doses, and sequence of administration vis-à-vis seasonal flu vaccine. Much press associated with this, i.e. appearances on ABC Evening News, CNN Situation room with Wolf Blitzer, (on July 23) much print and radio (NPR, etc). July 24, 25, 26, 2009 - Went to the Aspen Health Forum where I gave talks and served on 4 panels: 1) Sex and health, 2) ARRA funds and how we spend them; 3) Swine flu; and 4) Vaccines. My brief talks and panel appearances were extremely well received. I mostly "ad-libed" and they loved it. Typical Aspen scene with many terrific people to interact with: Tom Daschle, Walter Isaacson, Billy Tauzin, Mehmet Oz, Rick Stengel (managing editor of Time), Jeff Kluger (senior editor of Time), Susan Denzler, Nancy Synderman of MSNBC and a host of others. Excellent discussion, setting and exposure. Beautiful place. Also had dinner at the Mr. and Mrs. Greenwald. July 27, 2009 - Had a nice appearance on MSNBC with Dr. Nancy Snyderman discussing H1N1 Swine flu. She was in Aspen (where I had just spent some time with her) and I was in the studio at NIH. July 28, 2009 - ACIP will recommend to CDC regarding vaccination program. I appeared on ABC World News Tonight July 29, 2009 - Big issue with release of data and paper in lancet showing that pregnant women have significant increased risk of hospitalization and death from flu. I appear on Good Morning America and MSNBC. On the latter, I spared with Arianna Huffington who feels that we should not vaccinate children or pregnant women or even adults. Dr. Nancy Snyderman (of MSNBC) was on program and complimented me and disagreed with Arianna. CDC held press briefing after ACIP recommendations to first vaccinate pregnant women, then caregivers of infants (<6 months old), then HCW, then young people, then non-elderly with underlying conditions. I appear on BBC TV and then on NBC Nightly News with Bob Bazell and Brian Williams. Press stuff starting to heat up. I think that the HHS and Jenny finally realize what I can do with the press.