Diary Prequel Package — page 279

secret and described what sounded like a major ad hominem to Ron. After intense discussion with me before and during the dinner, Ron Finally got it that he has to be very clear tomorrow that the ferrets who got infected by aerosol transmission did not get very ill (flu-like sxs at worst), all recovered and NONE died. Only animals who got 1 million infectious doses of H5N1 directly inserted into the trachea died. It is clear that everyone NSABB, all the pundits who commented (Laurie Garret, Tom Ingelsby, Richard Ebright, D.A. Henderson, etc.) and the press thought that after aerosol transmission, the ferrets died. We had long discussions about future experiments and upcoming issues. Later in the dinner, Bruce Alberts (Editor of Science) flew in from San Francisco, called my cell phone to let me know he arrived, and I invited him over for the remainder of the dinner. Feb. 29, 2012 - ASM panel at 7:15 to 8:15 at Omni-Shoreham in D.C. Standing room only, fed live on Website with many reporters tuned in. Paul Keim chaired panel that included Ron Fouchier, me, Bruce Alberts, and Mike Osterholm. Everything was clarified and most people asked the question that I have been asking all along - how could this pervasive misunderstanding have occurred. It was clear, but no one wanted to embarrass anyone, that the NSABB missed this major point. March 1 and 2, 2012 - Much press coverage going on trying to decide what went wrong. Jon Cohen from Science is coming close to figuring it out. However, when he asked several members of NSABB to answer some questions, it become clear that they are being defensive and saying that it is the mere fact of making the virus "transmissible" that prompted them to recommend against publication, even if it was not clear that the aerosol-transmitted virus did not kill the ferrets. We are going to reconvene the NSABB ASAP to review the revised manuscripts from Ron and Yoshi to that they can see the additional and clarified data. I am afraid that they will not change their minds because they need to save face that they actually dropped the ball badly. I believe that Mike Osterholm and to some extent David Relman aggressively persuaded the others to vote not to publish. HOWEVER, I believe if the other members of NSABB knew that the aerosol transmission did not result in death of the ferrets, they would not have been convinced by the histrionics of Mike who told the press that this was equivalent to "thermonuclear war" if this virus gets out. March 5, 2012 - It is starting to become clear that the NSABB are saying that the basis for their recommendation is the fact that the virus was made transmissible and the decision had little or nothing to do with whether or not the virus was lethal via aerosol transmission. I just cannot believe this. I believe that most of the NSABB group did not know enough about flu to know the importance of this distinction. They now are embarrassed that they missed this and are likely covering their asses. Interesting that the N.Y. Times (Phil Boffey) editor wrote another Sunday editorial yesterday (May 4, 2012) criticizing the process and implying that "the NIH, whose reputation is at stake....." is somehow at fault. He clearly is taking the side of the NSABB calling them fiercely independent. He wrote me an e-mail prior to the Sunday editorial giving me a "headsup". He implied in his e-mail that I was trying to have him retract his prior editorial based on information from Geneva. He is totally missing the point. I do not want him to retract anything nor do I want to influence the NSABB to change their minds. I