Diary Prequel Package — page 324

he gur work force. Sept. 20, 2013 - Went to Lasker Lunch at the Pierre Hotel in NYC. Beautiful Fall Day. Bill and Melinda Gates won the Bloomberg-Lasker Award for Public Service that I had won a few years ago. Nice event. Bill and I discussed briefly the challenges of the P5 vaccine agenda. Sept. 23, 2013 - Went to Friends of Cancer Research Awards reception on the roof of the Hay-Adams hotel. Beautiful Indian Summer nuight and spectacular view of White House. Invited by Ellen Sigal. She seated me in first row of award ceremony after reception. Present were Governors Martin O'Malley of MD and Robert McDonnel of VA. Got to chat with both. Usual glitterati reception. Sept. 27, 2013 - Had great typical dinner with Wayne and Catherine Reynolds at the Jefferson Hotel. Intimate setting with about 20 people at dinner - Rick Atkinson and wife Jane (Rick is strongly encouraging me to get going in writing my book); Gen. James Jones and wife; Gen. Colin Powell and Alma Powell; John Rogers (Goldman Sachs and wife Deborah Lehr); Ben Carson and wife Candy; journalist Dana Priest; Steve Rosenberg and wife Alice, among others. Stimulating conversation regard imminent shutting down of the USG due to stalemate on budget between Republicans (who want to defund Obamacare) and Democrats (who want a clean bill to keep government going on a CR without touching Obamacare). Difficult to predict what will happen on Monday (Sept. 30) at midnight, when the current fiscal year ends. During dinner varied discussion. I spoke passionately about the stupidity of across the board cuts in Biomedical research as part of the sequester and how this will damage our standing as the world leader in biomedical research. Sept. 28-30, 2013 - Threat of US government shutdown due to impasse in discussions between Republicans (Speaker Boehner - driven by T Party extremists) and Democrats (POTUS and Sen. Leader Harry Reid). GOP wants to negotiate defunding Obamacare or at least modifying (delaying) individual mandate before they pass a CR to keep government open after Sept. 30. POTUS refused to negotiate "with a gun to my head". He says: "pass CR and then we negotiate; also raise debt limit without conditions". I have prepared a video tape of my Opening Keynote for the Barcelona AIDS Vaccine meeting on Oct. 7 in preparation for possibility that I will not be able to travel to Spain. Rule is that if USG shuts down, then no USG employee travels. Oct. 1, 2013 - Government shut down. NIH begins to furlough 70+% of our work force. Oct. 7, 2013 - I obviously did not leave for Spain. Was scheduled to leave on Oct. 5 to arrive on Oct. 6. My video was played on this evening. I put an extraordinary amount of time over the previous 5 weeks preparing this talk and it was one of the best that I have done. It was received with overwhelming praise as many people e-mailed me after the video was shown (7:00 PM Barcelona time - 1:00 PM DC time). People were tweeting even during the lecture. Gepi Pantaleo e-mailed me right after the lecture and said that "it was amazing".