Gates Package — page 448

Cc: Tabak, Lawrence (NIE/OD) [E] [ouin.gov>; Wolinetz, Carrie (NIH/OD) [E] ih.gov> Subject: POTUS meeting Hi Tony, Another strange chapter. Sec. Azar and I are supposed to meet with the POTUS in the Oval on Tuesday at 1:30 PM, but there is no information about the agenda. Apparently POTUS asked for this meeting to be set up, but no one in the WH seems to know why. Alex is trying to guess what this might be about: one possibility might be the universal flu vaccine, since Bill Gates recently spoke to the POTUS about that. See https://www.statnews.com/2018/04/30/bill-gates-vaccine-trump-meeting/ for the report on this conversation. (By the way, I'm surprised that Bill seems to be promoting this idea of the universal flu vaccine as if the US government hasn't been properly focused on it -- surely he knows about all the work that NIH has been doing, and about the current strategic plan? And how could his promised $12M add much to the much larger investment NIAID is making? Is this coordinated in some way, or is Bill going rogue?) Alex indicated that Gates had apparently told the POTUS that $5-6 billion was really needed to prepare for a worldwide flu pandemic. I'm not sure where that number comes from. The specific question that Alex thought might come up on Tuesday is what the funding trajectory is that's really needed if the preparation of the universal flu vaccine was to be considered the highest priority for the nation. What's the answer to that? Glad to speak by phone if that would make this easier. I Francis PS. Can I borrow your 3D printed model of the hemagglutinin protein, in case that turns out to be relevant? -----Original Message----- From: Collins, Francis (NIH/OD) [E] Sent: Friday, May 25, 2018 5:02 PM To: Glass, Roger (NIH/FIC) [E ail nih.gov>; Eiss, Robert (NIH/FIC) [E] [f@mail nih gov>: Fauci, Anthony (NIH/NIAID) [E] ai OV> Cc: Tabak, Lawrence (NIH/OD) [E] ih.gov>: Wolinetz, Carrie (NIH/OD) [E] ih.gov>:; Lauer, Michael (NIH/OD) [E] ih.gov> Subject: Re: Need info on BMGF -- Urgent Just spoke with Larry, he has the full scoop Sent from my iPhone > On May 25, 2018, at 4:55 PM, Collins, Francis (NIH/OD) [E] [f@0d.nih.gov> wrote: =] > For reasons I can't currently explain, I need answers to the following: > 1) are we giving any grants to BMGF (I assume no) > 2) what are our current collaborative projects with BMGF? For each one , what is the rough NIH annual spend, and what is it from BMGF? > > Hoping this won't be too hard to dig out. Ideally I need a response (at least a rough version) by Saturday 4 pm. > > Questions? Call Getting on a plane in 10 minutes > SEC s