Thursday, June 6, 2002

I found out at National Airport that President Bush was establishing a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would encompass 160,000 employees with a budget of >$30 billion by consolidating all activities related to terrorism, including bioterrorism in one Department. This would mean that $1.748 billion of NIAID money for FY 2003 would go to DHS. June 6 – 12, 2002 – Spending a lot of time working with the DHHS and th White House in trying to hash out the details of legislation that would create the DHS. Everyone seems to agree that the research would still be done at NIAID under my direction; however, the money likely will first go to DHS and thenn be passed through or contracted to me to perform the research. Also, the President is planning to announce the MTCT program that I helped to put together in a few days.