Wednesday, November 13, 2002

Multiple meetings in the DHHS to plan roll out of smallpox vaccination plan. It is imminent. The President is planning on having to start bombing Iraq in the 2nd week of January and wants to start vaccinating the 500,000 people smallpox response teams by December 1 and the 10,000,000 first responders by January in order to prepare for a release of smallpox by Iraq. Much discussion about timing the announcement of vaccinating the military with the announcement about the general population. Concern is that if we do not link the 2, the people will react to vaccinating the military by saying “what about us?” It looked like we were going to make the announcement on Friday, Nov. 16. However, at the WH, the President told the cabinet (including TGT) that he now wants to wait until he comes back from a foreign trip (Nov. 27) since Osama bin Laden just released a tape yesterday indicating that he is still alive and threatened the USA, UK, and Russia. Bush does not want it to appear that we are panicking in response to the tape. I am relieved that we decided to wait since I would have had to cancel my going to Los Angeles to receive the RAND Prize ($10,000.00) in order to remain in DC for the Press. Heard that the WH meeting with the 4 visitors on the global AIDS plan went extremely well. I believe that we are convincing the skeptics that we can effectively treat HIV in developing nations. Of note, Robin Cleveland asked to have Nils Daulaire there for his opinion. It is my impressions that she is resentful of the NIH and me. This is likely due to the fact that her OMB account for which she is responsible includes USAID and there is obviously some competition in her mind given that NIH always does so well with the budget.