Diary Prequel Package — page 283

April, 13, 2012 - It has leaked 12 hours after it was sent. There is no way that Mike did not know it would leak since he sent it to so many people. It has appeared on the Nature website and in and "Science Insider" article by Jon Cohen. It is clear to me that Mike Osterholm is bipolar. If you look at the letter, it is crazy. He keeps referring to "anonymous" influenza researchers who are not involved in transmissibility research who say that the research should not have been done. In the Science Insider piece, Susan Ehrlich, another NSABB member says that she agrees with Mike. She is a complete goof-ball, having spoken with her at the NSABB meeting. Mike goes on in the letter to say that the NIH did not invite any experts on surveillance or non-transmission influenza experts, even though he requested this. We checked all of the files and he never made any such requests. He asked for a security briefing that said that there was no credible terror threat with H5N1. This is not what he wanted to hear and so he said that the briefing was useless. BTW, it was given by the CIA and the NIA. He also states that according to discussions at the March 29-30 NSABB meeting, Ron Fouchier already has the necessary mutations to create a ferret-transmissible virus that do not require passage. Since Mike absolutely knew that this letter would leak, he has egregiously violated the confidentiality agreement of the NSABB. This together with the paranoid statement of Mike Imperiale that he was uncomfortable because he thought that the NIAID would not fund his grant if he voted to not publish makes me certain that the NSABB as it is presently constituted is fatally flawed. As you can imagine, the press and bloggers are having a field day with this. I am astounded that Helen Branswell (Canadian Press) was more interested in why she was not given the leaked document than she was in the fact that the very leaking of the document reflects the craziness of some people on the NSABB. This whole process has circumvented our plan to coordinate with the Dutch our release of the NSABB recommendations since Mike in effect has made public the "minority vote" before the actual majority vote to publish. Remember, the committee voted 18-0 to publish the Kawaoka manuscript and 12-6 to publish the Fouchier manuscript. April 14, 2012 - Went over John and Elaine Gallin's to first have John and I fish in the Potomac and then have dinner. Unfortunately, John backed out of his garage going very fast without looking in his rear view mirror and smashed the rear-end of my car. Damages = >$5000.00. More later. April 18, 2012 - Went to Palo Alto to give the Thomas C. Merigan Lecture at Stanford. Great day. Lectured on "Ending the AIDS Pandemic" and had several long Qs and As sessions with students, fellows and faculty. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Got me out of the craziness of the Washington scene with H5N1 (see below). Of note, Stan Falkow wrote me a terrific note of how amazing I was with the fellows and students. It was important coming from him since he had been one of the people who were against me 10 years ago when we began the $1.5 billion biodefense program. He wrote me an e-mail after the Merigan Lecture and said that he knew that I loved my job as NIAID Director, but I am truly a great "professor" and teacher in the classic sense. Several students and faculty told me it was the best lecture that they had ever heard there and the best interaction with students/faculty. Also, had dinner with Ali the night before at "Cuccina Italiana" in Palo