Monday, April 5, 2004

White House (West Wing) – Met with Gary Edson. Attending were Carol Thompson, David Nelson and Gary’s assistant Martina Strong. Discussed the G-8 issue regarding Gary’s concern that the other countries will bring up the issue of generics and PEPFAR, i.e. the false impression that we (USG) are against generics , particularly the generic fixed dose combination of D4T, 3TC and nevirapine. Gary does not want the POTUS to be embarrassed if others blind side him with this. The PEPFAR people (Tobias et al) should have straightened this out at a recent (March 29-30) meeting in Botswana. There was a debate about WHO “pre-qualification” of these drugs and our concern about the criteria and data upon which these drugs were pre-qualified. Also, we discussed the issue of the POTUS proposing an endorsement of the HIV Vaccine Enterprise as our AIDS proposal for the G-8 meeting in June at Sea Island, GA. We will work with Gates (Patty Stonesifer) to endorse this, but the Gates Foundation is going to want us to promise even more money for an AIDS vaccine. Note that we are already spending>$500 million, vastly more than all other groups put together. Gary will rewrite the POTUS’s G-8 proposal regarding the Enterprise and run it by me, Kristen Silverberg, Secretary Thompson, Amb. Tobias before we launch it to the G-8.