Diary Prequel Package — page 227

Wa Fellows. Gave the Bulfinch Lecture on Pandemic Influenza; extremely well-received by a standing room only crowd. On the trip home when I landed at DCA, I bought a hot dog since In was starving. I immediately ran into Nina Tottenberg and her husband David who god-naturely chastised me for eating the hot dog. With a minute I walked to a newsstand to buy a Washington Post. I ran into Karl Rove who jokingly said he would tell the world that the great Dr. Fauci was caught eating a hot dog. We had a good laugh. On evening of Jan. 27 POTUS mentioned the sentence that I crafted for Heidi in the SOTU Address: "And we are launching a new initiative that will give us the capacity to respond faster and more effectively to bioterrorism or an infectious disease -- a plan that will counter threats at home and strengthen public health abroad." This is the second SOTU Address where my words were included. Other was the PEPFAR and Project BioShield statements in the Jan. 28, 2003 SOTU address by Pres. Bush. Jan. 29, 2010 - Met at the White House (EEOB 234) with Heidi Avery, Zeke Emanuel and several Pharma people whom Zeke had called in to ask the question of what would they need to work with us on this project that Heidi and the rest of us have been developing regarding developing a transforming approach to developing countermeasures for all public health threats. Present at the meeting were: Peter Kim (Merck), Lloyd Klickstein (Novartis), Rob Mashal (NKT Therapeutics), Sandy Hecker (Hecker and Associates), Lynn Marks (GSK), Richard Hatchett. Feb. 1, 2010 - Another meeting in the Situation Room of the WH with Heidi Avery with the usual cast of characters. For the past 2 meetings, Andy .... From DoD has joined as has John Holdren from PCAST. There is tension building where the HHS people (particularly Nicki Lurie and to some extent Jesse Goodman, Peggy Hamburg and Tom Frieden are getting nervous about the boldness of the proposal and whether we can "deliver" on the promises. Heidi is trying here best to explain that we need a bold initiative and if we are not bold and transforming, we will get nowhere. They are concerned that this is moving quickly particularly since Heidi is talking about possible face-time with the POTUS to have him accept and sanction this bold "new initiative'. I am leaning much more towards Heidi and have served as somewhat of an intermediary to try to alleviate their concerns. They are somewhat in the weeds. Heidi has been calling me up at night to get my confidential feedback about how we can get the HHS group from being so conservative. Feb. 2, 2010 - Had AIDS Vaccine Research Subcommittee (AVRS) meeting at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel to discuss the way forward following the Thai trial (RV144). We discussed the same issues that I discussed at the smaller meeting of my "Kitchen Cabinet" on Jan. 25. As usual, people had insecurities about pursuing a path that was not their path. In addition to the Jan. 25 group, also present were Dennis Burton, Bruce Walker, Nelson Michael, Jerome Kim, Debbie Birx (now at CDC). I made it clear to them in no uncertain terms that they needed to speak up openly and not stay silent and then after the meeting say they disagreed with the conclusions. It turned out to be a good meeting since they obviously heard what I said.