Wednesday, December 4, 2002

Amazing day. I was at one time on 3 different lines with 3 different people at the White House – Gary Edson, Jay Lefkowitz, Carol Kuntz. There was an intense and critical issue with Gary and Jay. Gary was getting ready to meet with Mitch Daniels regarding our AIDS plan and he heard through his WH grapevine that Mitch was going to try to “Steamroller” him by bringing up the Washington Post article from a couple of days ago about the program in Botswana being a failure. In other words, if Botswana failed, why did we believe that our program would succeed. I explained to Gary that the Botswana Program was “Top Down” government as opposed to local network. They were using high tech., approach instead of grass roots. Gary asked me to contact our African friends and get their opinion (in one half hour!!!!). I contacted Peter Mugyenyi, Sam Kibende, and Eric Goosby and they all agreed with me. Peter mentioned that the big mistake that the Gates Foundation and Merck went directly to the Botswana Government and asked them to put together a plan. Botswana then employed the Harvard AIDS Institute who developed a high-tech USA Harvard like plan with CD- ROMs for developing voluntary Counseling and Testing. Peter said that it was doomed to failure. I relayed this to Gary and he was satisfied. Also, more delays in the announcement of the smallpox vaccine policy. It will not be this week and so I will be able to go to Albany to give a talk associated with my Albany Prize from last Spring. Dec. 4 – 10, 2002 – Incredible amount of action going on. Many calls and interactions with VP Cheney’s staff (Carol Kuntz, Noreen Hynes, Seth Carus) regarding Project BioShield. The VP wants to come to NIH and have me show him around the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) in the context of the “Advanced Project Development” of Project Bioshield. Project Bioshield has caught on with the VP and his staff. Scooter Libby is becoming a strong ally and fan of mine. At the same time there is a lot of buzz as to when the President is going to announce his vaccine policy. Many leaks, interestingly most from the WH itself. We are busily preparing our Qs and As for the announcement. Elias Zerhouni feeling a bit out of the loop. I am trying to keep him informed, but the WH and DHHS wants to deal directly with me.