Tony's Diary Package — page 843

r@hhs.gov dst story is really trying very hard to gain control of the agency and to change there are somewhat ossified culture. PRESS: MSNBC "Morning Joe" with Mika Brzezinski; Did Instagram and TikTok interviews with "influencers" including Actor Edgar Ramirez, Kathleen Barnes, Jax James, Merrick Hanna Chris Olsen/Ian Paget, Wisdom Kaye August 11, 2021 David Kessler is pissed at Peter Staley. David feels betrayed that Peter mentioned his name and my name in his interview with Yasmeen. Last night I called up Courtney Rowe and had a long about the pros and cons of responding to Yasmeen who has been trying to get a comment from me regarding the article. We came to the conclusion that it would not do any good since the quote could be misinterpreted. I agree with Courtney. However we may have a problem that the article may set us back in getting jeff's support to push for billions of dollars to expand capacity to be directed 2 low and middle income countries. I will try to repair any damage that has been done to this effort. I had a good conversation with Peter this morning and I believe Peter realizes that he may had done some damage by mentioning my name and David's name in his interview with Yasmeen. It is again a delicate balance of trying to get an activist-driven push to get the right thing done and still operate within the system that alone has the capability of getting the right thing done with all of the political sensitivities involved. Email from David Barr to David Kessler: From: David Barr <davidbarr376@gmail.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2021 8:47 AM To: Kessler, David (HHS/IOS) <David.Kessler@hhs.gov>; Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] <afauci@niaid.nih.gov> Subject: Follow up from the Washington Post story David - I saw your message to Peter. I think you have every reason to be annoyed at Peter's quote in the story. The story is about the sign-on letter that was developed as an outcome of a meeting sponsored by Yale School of Public Health, PrEP4All, ICAP at Columbia and AVAC, in which Peter was not involved. The letter is focused on the proposed plan to scale up mRNA vaccine manufacturing, a plan that has been public for many months now. The letter has nothing to do with the discussions we've been having with you and Tony and there was no reason whatsoever for Peter to have mentioned those discussions to the reporter. I don't see the quote as revealing any detailed information, but I do see how just saying publicly that we've been talking could undermine your negotiations. I've let Peter know that I'm not happy about this. I feel that you've worked with us in good faith and are making progress as evidenced by our last call. I hope we can keep these discussions going forward.