Diary Prequel Package — page 229

Feb. 12, 2010 - Meet with the POTUS from 2:00 to 3:00 in the Situation Room. Richard and Heidi present and the HHS team answered questions. I was not shy in telling the PTUS what I thought. He said "Are we making this more complicated than it should we? Why not contract out for the relatively limited number of countermeasures that we have Intel. On that could be threats". I reminded him that in his SOTU address he said that we would develop an initiative to counter all threats to public health even naturally emerging infections. I then told him that the dual use and new platform technologies were essential to get industry involved since they would not take the investment risk unless we helped them with the technology, etc. He agreed. He recognized who I was without even an introduction and called me "Tony". All in all, the meeting went well and he said that he endorsed the plan. Parenthetically, The traffic was horrible getting to the WH via the GW parkway by Taxi. I took a taxi because the METRO Red Line shut down due to a derailment. Stressful getting there, but great to have 1 hour face time with the POTUS. This is now the 5th POTUS that I have personally advised via serious face-time. Feb. 15-17, 2010 - Went to annual CROI meeting in San Francisco. Gave Opening Session Plenary on "The HIV/AIDS Research Agenda: A View from NIAID". Gave a bold and provocative talk about the high risk, high impact, potential "game-changer" research that we plan to do over the next few years. The 3 "pillars" of this research are 1) Aggressively seek, test and treat infected individuals. However, the math tells us that the treatment paradigm in a vacuum will never end the AIDS pandemic since more people get infected than get put on treatment. Hence we need to do something different such as getting people who are on therapy off therapy by developing a 2) CURE for HIV - tough challenge. Also we need to 3) Prevent new infections by a) ARVs as prevention - ARV containing microbicides; PrEP; test and treat; and b) vaccine. Beautiful days in SF. Stayed at the Westin St. Francis. Many people said that it was the best and most inspiring talk that I have ever given - "bold and challenging". On Feb. 17, I briefed by teleconference the PCAST working group about the POTUS initiative and gave them background info. On the call were co-chairs Harold Varmus and Eric Lander. Also, David Baltimore, Ed Penhoelt, Emilio Emini, Harvey Fineberg, among others. Feb. 18, 2010 - Another meeting at the Sit Room of the WH from 4:00 to 5:30 PM with Heidi Avery and the "team". Getting ready for the various meetings next week of IOM (Secretary's review), PCAST, and National Biodefense Science Board (NBSB). I brought up that reports from these other meetings may confuse people regarding the POTUS's initiative to transform PHEMCE. Heidi will likely let the other meeting happen, incorporate some ideas from them and still have the POTUS initiative be the driving force of policy. During the day prior to the WH had a visit from Rick Klausner. I had been talking to Rock about these issue for awhile and he is very much in agreement with my stand on how we need to transform the way the USG interacts with industry in the development of products.