Wednesday, March 24, 2004

Had interesting and full day. Went to the National Defense University at Fort McNair, Washington, D.C. to participate in the DHS exercise of a hypothetical aerosolized anthrax attack on Chicago. It was for the benefit of press leaders. Secretary Ridge, Susan Neely (Assist. Sec. for Public Affairs, DHS), Ed Thompson (CDC) were the main players. It was exciting and the press totally enjoyed it and got engaged in active Qs and As. Virtually all of the senior producers and correspondents of networks, CNN, Fox, etc were present as were top print media. Frank Sesno (CNN) moderated it and Aaron Brown (CNN) was present. Tom Ridge relied virtually totally on me to answer medical questions. Also, had meeting at PEPFAR Headquarters (2100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.) with Gary Edson, Randy Tobias, Robin Cleveland (OMB), Mark Dybul, Joe O’Neill and Ambassador Lange to discuss how we can work an AIDS issue into the upcoming G-8 meeting in June at Sea Island, GA. Gary and I proposed the possibility of highlighting the HIV Vaccine Enterprise that Rick Klausner and I have been working on for the past year. It would cost the USG virtually no new money since the “Enterprise” is a virtual organization that is proposing a strategic plan as described in our Science article. The POTUS can urge the G-8 countries to make a political commitment to make the Enterprise work.