Diary Prequel Package — page 301

(MSF, aka Doctors Without Borders) entitled "Lives in the Balance: Delivering Medical Innovations for Neglected Patients and Populations" I spoke on the research issues related to neglected infectious diseases. My talk was very well received it took place at Mount Sinai Hospital on Madison Avenue and 99th St. The evening before I had dinner with my daughter Jennifer at Café Vida on Amsterdam Avenue and 97th Street. That evening when I got home I discussed the newly formed Office of Global Health Diplomacy with Eric Goosby. He wanted to give me a heads-up about the fact that Secretary Clinton would make an announcement the following day about the formation of this new office and that she would appoint Eric Goosby as the director of the new office while simultaneously maintaining his position as the director of PEPFAR. In typical manner, Eric is such a good person and friend that he wanted to keep me in the loop. December 14, 2012 - attended Lessons and Carols at the National Cathedral in Washington DC at 7:00 to 9:00 PM. This is a tradition which our family has done for all the years that are children attended the National Cathedral School. It was lovely and nostalgic. Megan and Ali attended with Chris and me. Jenny was still in NYC and would come down for Christmas in a few days. December 15, 2012 - had dinner with Wayne and Catherine Reynolds at the Adour Restaurant at the St. Regis Hotel on Connecticut Avenue in Washington DC. As usual Wayne and Catherine put together a very interesting group for dinner. This time it included my friend Rick Atkinson the Pulitzer Prize winning author as well as Buzzy Krongaard and his flakey wife Cheryl. Buzzie was formally the Executive Director of the CIA. We were joking about the smash TV Showtime hit series called "Homeland" starring Claire Danes as Carrie Mathieson (a bipolar CIA agent tracking terrorists) and Damien Lewis as Sarg. Nicholas Brody (a marine turned reluctant terrorist, turned back to good). Buzzie was saying that the CIA could never act domestically the way it was portrayed in the series. That would have to be FBI. Other guests included Francis Collins, Congressman John Dingell and his wife Debbie and others. December 17, 2012 - We had an "international consultation" on the problem of gain of function research on H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) (see above discussions). The meeting took over two days from December 17 to December 18 and was conducted at the Natcher Auditorium at the National Institutes of Health. This is a continuing issue and a source of great discussion about what experiments should or should not be funded by the National Institutes of Health on this topic. I gave the opening keynote which everyone felt very clearly defined the issues. We will now finalize the draft of "Framework" for addressing the issue of what grants and contracts we should or should not fund that relate to a gain of function regarding respiratory transmissibility in mammals of the HPAI H5N1 influenza. I am trying to get myself out of this argument which has consumed a considerable amount of my time over the past 14 months. Dec. 30, 2012 - Interesting and potentially bad news regarding Sec. Hillary Clinton. A couple of weeks ago she reportedly fell and had a "concussion" that kept her out of the public eye for ~ 3 weeks. Report today that she was admitted to NY Presbyterian