FAUCI DIARY ARCHIVE — Friday, March 28, 2003
https://faucisdiary.com/diary/2003-03-28

Text below is verbatim from the released PDFs, with the original line breaks.
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DIARY ENTRY — Friday, March 28, 2003
Source: Diary Prequel, pp. 74–75 of 2026.07.27_Diary-Prequel-.pdf
Words: 326
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I gave a talk on Bioterrorism at the American Dental Association
meeting in DC on March 28. The last person to come to the microphone to ask a
question after my talk said that he had waited many years to publicly address me. He
related that in 1979, his 7 year old daughter was gravely ill on a respirator with a diffuse
autoimmune-like disease that her doctors could not figure out. She was moribund and
they were about to give up on her. A doctor said that there was only one doctor in the
country that he thought could come up with something and so they called me.
Apparently, I spent over an hour on the phone walking through with them a plan for the
patient that included plasmapheresis together with cytoxan and prednisone. Within days,
his daughter began improving, got off the respirator, spent over a year in rehab, graduated
high school, went to Barnard College, graduated first in her class, became a Ph.D.
pathologist, got married and had a child. She is entirely well now. He said that he just
wanted to thank me publicly for “saving his daughter’s life”. The audience gave me and
him a standing ovation. It was one of the most moving things that I had experienced.

March 29 – April 1, 2003 – It is hitting the fan. SARS is getting out of control. More
than 1800 cases and 62 deaths worldwide. 3.6% mortality. Clusters of cases appearing
mostly in Hong Kong and China. Now there are 17 countries. USA has 72 cases in 27
states – no deaths yet. It appears that it is spread by respiratory droplets, but also recent
evidence that by fine aerosal and objects – not unlike other coronaviruses.
        I will brief the POTUS this week on SARS. The war in Iraq is raging with troops
engaging the Republican guard close to Bagdad. More myocarditis complications with
smallpox vaccine. What a week so far!!!