Thursday, June 13, 2002

Received a call from Richard Falkenrath at the White House who said that he had heard that I was concerned about the $1.748 Billion going to Department of Homeland Security (DHS). We wanted to assure me that the money would come directly to me from DHS and the research would be directed by me. He agreed that the research should be incorporated completely into the emerging diseases research agenda of NIAID and not fragmented out. He said that Sen. Kennedy mentioned to the WH that I was concerned and they wanted to alleviate my concerns. Interesting intrigue going on. I just got a call from Sue Hardesty of Sen. Richard Durbin’s office who said that the Senator had heard from Bono (of U2 fame) that I was against the global AIDS fund and had convinced President Bush not to support it. The Sen. wanted to know if this were true. In addition, Sue told me that Sen. Frist had said that he changed his mind and decided not to support the Global AIDS Fund because he had heard that I was against it. I believe that if this is true about Frist, then he is covering his ass since he backed down on his promise to support the extra money for the fund. I know that he backed down because Bush told him to. Now he is trying to make it look like I am the one against it. It is interesting that rumors are forming that I am involved in convincing the Pres. that we should not invest in the Fund. I believe that this results from my being involved in putting together the MTCT plan, which some feel that the Pres. actually wants to substitute for the increase in the Fund. Of note, Jeff Sachs called me from Rome last night asking about the same issue. Welcome to Washington!!! June 13 – 18, 2002 – Extremely busy with putting the finishing touches on the MTCT proposal that the Pres. is planning to annouce soon. I am trying and succeeding (I believe) in having them do it correctly, i.e. this is not a substitute for the Global Trust Fund, but as a comlement to it. Have been working very hard with Terrell Halaska and Mark Dybul in getting the Pres. speech written and his talking points arranged for the announcement. Simultaneously with this going on, I have been working with Stewart Simonson in trying to get the correct authorization language written for the proposed bill for the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The WH wants me to be comfortable with it; however, they seem inflexible in that they clearly want the $1.748 billion of NIH money to go to the new DHS and they want the perogative to set the research agenda. Richard Falkenrath of DHS assures me that despite this, they want me to run the program from NIH.