FAUCI DIARY ARCHIVE — Wednesday, December 4, 2002
https://faucisdiary.com/diary/2002-12-04

Text below is verbatim from the released PDFs, with the original line breaks.
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DIARY ENTRY — Wednesday, December 4, 2002
Source: Diary Prequel, pp. 63–64 of 2026.07.27_Diary-Prequel-.pdf
Words: 414
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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.