2004

Over the past month a number of issues have arisen. There have been 3- 4 cases of SARS in China. The Fujian strain of Influenza A escalated and now is declining. It may be that it was just a moderate year that peaked…

Leave for Iraq! Feb. 26 – Mar. 1, 2004 Feb. 26 – Left for Amman, Jordan – Iraq on a Gulf Stream air force aircraft from Andrews Air Force Base. Trip purpose – “show the USA flag” in the context of health issues and…

Visited the King Hussein Cancer Center in Amman. Dr. Samir Khleif showed us around the modern facilities that have NIH-style telemedicine in real time. Toured the pediatric cancer wards with patients who had ALL…

Last day in Iraq…mostly in the red zone. Some very exciting and somewhat scary moments with the convoy getting caught in traffic in another “ambush alley” (narrow streets and high buildings where insurgents frequently…

Had interesting and full day. Went to the National Defense University at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. to participate in the DHS exercise of a hypothetical aerosolized anthrax attack on Chicago. It was for the benefit…

White House (Situation Room) - Had meeting today as a culmination of a series of PCC meetings related to preparedness against pandemic influenza. We have been working with DHS, the VP’s office and DHHS to develop a…

White House (West Wing) – Met with Gary Edson. Attending were Carol Thompson, David Nelson and Gary’s assistant Martina Strong. Discussed the G-8 issue regarding Gary’s concern that the other countries will bring up the…

White House (EEOB) – Met with Kristen Silverberg, Robin Cleveland, Randy Tobias, Mark Dybul, Alan Gilbert, Press person from WH (?name, a woman), Joe O’Neill, and others to discuss issue of the bad press we are getting…

White House (West Wing) – 2 meetings. First regarding the issue of the HIV Vaccine Enterprise and whether we should make this an initiative for the POTUS to present at the upcoming G-8 Summit in Sea Island, GA. Present…

White House meeting (EEOB 476) with Gary Edson, Rick Klausner, Rachel Ingram (Gates) and David Lane (Gates), Martina Strong, Carol Thompson to discuss the role of the Gates Foundation in the HIV Vaccine Enterprise. Rick…

Extensive phone conversation with Josh Bolten (OMB Director), Jim Capretta and Tom Reilly (OMB) regarding the details of my proposal for the “virtual” center for HIV Vaccine as described above. I described in detail the…

Had nice lunch with Jay Lefkowitz today at The Oval Room on Connecticut Avenue. Beautiful warm Spring day. Jay just wanted to catch up on things with me. We discussed the PEPFAR and the issues associated with it; and…

Busy day! Beautiful sunny day.Testified at my House Appropriations Subcommittee (Chaired by Ralph Regula) in the AM , then rushed to brief Senate and House Staff (at Dirksen 116) from the Homeland Security and…

Went to dinner over Dan and Marina Ein’s home on Kenmore Drive in NW Washington. Dinner was to bring together people in DC interested in bioterrorism and press folks who cover this. Present among others was Bob Malsam…

White House (West Wing) – Met in Kristen Silverberg’s office to discuss the FDC issue (see above). Much discussion regarding our approach to FDCs in the PEPFAR program. At meeting were the usual group: Kristen, Mark…

White House (West Wing) – Me with Gary Edson and Patti Stonecifer regarding the HIV Vaccine Enterprise and the upcoming G-8 meeting in Sea Island, GA. We have come to an agreement that if the POTUS presenting the…

Big White House day! The President visited the NIH for a “No Child Left Behind – Read First” ceremony. It was held at NIH since the NICHD had some activities in this area. Ceremony held in Natcher Auditorium. I sat in…

Good day! Project BioShield legislation passed the Semate by a 99-0 vote. The White House asked me to attend a press conference with Sens. Frist, Gregg, and Kennedy as well as Secretary Thompson at the Capitol. We…

Went to a nice retirement celebration at the White House (Indian Treaty Room of EEOB) for Gen. John Gordon (Director of the Homeland Security Council). I have developed a very nice relationship with John over the past…

Testified before the House Commerce Committee on Science chaired by Mr. Bilirakis for the NIH Priority Setting in anticipation of reauthorization of NIH. Testified with Elias Z., Andy VonEschenbach and Nora Volkow…

Busy day. Went to Ali’s Lower School Graduation and rushed to testify at House Select Committee on Homeland Security chaired by Chris Cox with Jim Turner as ranking minority. Chris Hayes and Joe Barton were there. Many…

Attended a farewell party at the White House for Gary Edson. He is leaving NSC to work in the campaign. His main job will be to prepare the POTUS for the debates with Kerry. I was the only non-WH person at the reception…

2 meetings in West Wing. First was a top secret briefing of Fran Townsend, the new Director of the Homeland Sceurity Council. She replaced Gen. John Gordon who retired in June (see above). Present at the briefing were…

Appeared on the Jim Lehr Newshour defending the USA position on PEPFAR. Steve Lewis from the UN was my “opponent” and we duked it out over the bilateral approach of PEPFAR versus the multilateral approach of the Global…

Two visits to WH today. The POTUS invited me to be at the signing ceremony for the BioShield Legislation in the Rose garden. I was asked to go up on the stage for the photo with the POTUS and the VP as well as Tom…

Testified with Secretary Thompson and Julie Gerberding to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) on Public Health preparedness, surge capacity and medical countermeasures. Present were…

West Wing – Had individual photo op with VP Cheney together with the entire “team” that worked on BioShield. Many people there: Stewart Simonson, carol Kuntz, Scooter Libby, Sally Canfield (DHS) (she just announced that…

Met at EEOB Room 283 with Carol Kuntz and Bruce Miller and Dorothy…. to discuss tentative plans to determine whether IL-4 gene inserted into monkeypox would have the same effect as IL-4 inserted into mousepox virus…

Had a interesting day. Flew by helicopter from the Pentagon to Fort Detrick to visit USAMRIID with Deputy Secretary of DoD Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Winkenwerder, and a number of other DoD and DHS senior staff to hear…

For the past few weeks, I have been involved in a number of briefings of Carol Kuntz and Stewart Simonson regarding Biodefense and the concern about the emergence of an H5N1 bird flu that has been smoldering in Asia…

Meeting in the Situation Room of the White House to brief Ken Rapuano (Deputy to Fran Townsend) on the IL-4 – monkeypox experiment that is being proposed as a classified experiment to be performed by DHS. I presented…

Historic day today with the UK regulatory agency suspending the license of Chiron to ship out their influenza vaccine to the USA because of issues related to the inspection of the plant in Liverpool. This is a huge…

Trip to Duke to honor retirment of Ralph Snyderman as Chancellor. White House conference call at the airport in Raleigh-Durham on way back regarding the influenza vaccine issue.

Trip to Duke to honor the retirement of Ralph Snyderman. Gave talk on Emerging Infectious Diseases. White House conference call on Influenza issue (see above). Incredible amount of media appearances: radio, TV, print…

Big time Congressional Hearing on influenza vaccine problem before the House Government Reform Committee. I testified with Julie Gerberding and Lester Crawford of FDA. More media, White House Conference calls, and Jim…

Front page story in the Washington Post saying that the UK regulatory authorities told our FDA about the problem at the end of August with the implication that the FDA failed to act in preparing for the shortage. Acting…

Things still hot and heavy with the Chiron/influenza situation. Had another White House conference call with Margaret Spellings, Alan Gilbert, Phil Hall, Harriet Miers (Deputy Chief-of-Staff), Jon Burks, Ken Bernard…

Important White House meeting at 1:00 PM in Roosevelt Room on the Flu situation. Chaired by Margaret Spellings and Harriet Miers. Also present were Fran Townsend (HSC), Joel Kaplan (OMB), Jack Marburger (OSTP), Alan…

Went to LA to be Keynote Speaker at a USC conferenec on Multi-Sector involvement in research (Government, Industry, Academia). Afterwards I gave a press conference with the Editorial Board of the LA Times. The topic of…

Meeting in Roosevelt Room of WH to discuss the plans for influenza preparedness and for pandemic flu plans. Major points are what we have been discussing for the past few weeks about providing incentives for PHARMA to…

House Hearing of Government Reform Committee on the flu crisis today. I testified together with Julie Gerberding and Lester Crawford (Acting FDA Commisioner). Mostly they slammed FDA for not acting more aggressively to…

Hearing today before House Commerce and Energy Investigations. Together with Julie and Les Crawford.

I arranged a meeting among Medimmune (Flumist), the FDA, and Stewart Simonson to try to pursue ways to get broader approval and utilization of Flumist for next year to make up for the anticipated shortages since Chiron…

Memorial service hosted by me at Natcher Building at NIH for John La Montagne. I delivered Eulogy (see speeches file). I am only starting to come to grips with the intense feeling of grief and sorrow at having lost…

Secretary Thompson resigns and asks me to come down to the Department as he makes his announcement. He brought me into his office alone and with both of us in tears he expressed his gratitude and admiration for my…

Terrible time over the past couple of weeks with a 4 part story by an AP reporter on the Jonathan Fishbein issue and the HIVNET 012 story. Fishbein is a Title 42 on a 2 year probation period in DAIDS. His performance…