Diary Prequel Package — page 225

doing a poor job with H1N1. Had an interesting 90 minute with Washington Post Editorial Board (Fred Hiatt and Jonathan Capehart) to discuss the response to H1N1. Meeting was me, Peggy Hamburg, Tom Frieden, and Jenny Backus. Dec. 17, 2009 - Continuing on with the HHS push to try to get a final positive spin for end of 2009 on our response to H1N1. They arranged a Press Briefing at the National Press Club with me, Secretary Sebelius, Tom Frieden, Peggy Hamburg, Nicki Lurie, Jess Goodman, etc. to explain what we have done in response to H1N1. Dec. 24, 2009 - Traditional "great" dinner for my birthday at sister Denise's home. Over the years, Jenny, Megan and Ali have come to treasure this tradition similar to some of the family traditions that Denise and I treasured like dinner over Grandma Abys's home for the holidays. In the AM had my traditional birthday breakfast hosted by Chris and the girls at the Silver Diner on Connecticut Avenue. Dec. 30, 2009 - Lunch at the White House mess with Heidi Avery. She is Deputy to John Brennan at the National Security Council at the White House. She is former CIA and Counter Terrorist Unit Chief. She want to talk to me about how we should broadly handle "all threats to the public health" instead of going incident by incident as with pandemic flu. She wanted to speak with me because she heard that I was a visionary about these issues. Very enjoyable conversation. Obviously, WH sources know about me despite the sometimes discouraging relationships that I have had with HHS and their lack of appreciation about who I am and what I have done over the years. Jan. 6, 2010 - Big Global Health Research Summit held at NIH (Fisher's Lane) with big hitters attending. Convened by Francis Collins to flesh out suggestions for his Global Health Initiative as one of the 5 pillars of his tenure. Jack Lew from State was there as were Eric Goosby, Zeke Emanuel representing WH, and many, many global health stars. Good meeting. Jan. 12, 2010 - Finally had the launch of the DC - NIH HIV/AIDS Partnership. Went to Anacostia for a inauguration and press conference with me, Mayor Fenty, Councilman David Catania, Shannon Hader and Pierre Vigilance from DC Dept. of Health. Got good press with Channel 5 FOX News. Also, had good and lengthy interview with Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room" that evening on National Influenza Vaccination Week (Jan. 10-16). Again, the latter is part of the push to get people vaccinated. Of note, all over Europe there are tens of millions of doses of vaccine that countries like France, Germany, Italy are turning back to the company since they are unused. Interesting issue might arise about the companies no longer wanting to respond to crises since they make a lot of vaccine an then countries cancel the orders. More to come on this. Jan. 19, 2010 - Heidi Avery (see Dec. 30, 2009) called a meeting this evening (7:00 to 8:45 PM) in the Situation Room of the West Wing to discuss the broad plans to handle all public health threats, i.e. existing, naturally emerging and deliberately emerging. Present at the meeting was Zeke Emanuel, Nicki Lurie, Peggy Hamburg, Tom Frieden by phone from Atlanta, Jesse Goodman, Brian Kamoe, George Korch, Richard Hatchett, James