FAUCI DIARY ARCHIVE — Thursday, July 14, 2005
https://faucisdiary.com/diary/2005-07-14

Text below is verbatim from the released PDFs, with the original line breaks.
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DIARY ENTRY — Thursday, July 14, 2005
Source: Diary Prequel, pp. 118–119 of 2026.07.27_Diary-Prequel-.pdf
Words: 576
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Lots of stuff going on. Had more Congressional Hearings. Today had
Hearing on success or failure of Project BioShield. Testified before House Government
Reform Committee chaired by Tom Davis (R-VA) and Henry Waxman as Minority.
Also, Chris Shays there and Congressman Issa, Davis, Issa, Cummings. I testified with
Stewart Simonson, and Joe Vitko (DHS). Interesting issues around current BioShield
(BS) legislation. The original Bill for BS was strong and contained indefinite authority to
purchase for stockpile as well as other strong incentives for industry. Remember when I
went around to the House and Senate at the behest of the VP to push BS, several Senators
and Members, particularly Sen. Byrd tried to neuter the Bill since they did not want to
give big Pharma too much. Now we have a Hearing where the Congress is chiding us
since we have not gotten enough products through BioShield. The reason is that the big
companies do not see any major advantage since they have no liability protection, no tax
incentives and no patent advantages, and not a big pot of money. This is an amazing
irony.
        Went to White House for a regularly scheduled (have not been reporting on these)
PCC on Pandemic Flu Preparedness. Co-Chaired by Rajeev Venkayya (HSC) and Lance
Leggitt (DPC). Reps were there from every cabinet department, CIA, etc. I presented
that we actually had a vaccine sine the results of the dosing shows a clear dose-response
curve for the prime-boost. We tested 7.5, 15, 45, and 90 ugm and clearly 90 gave a good
protective response after 1 dose and an amazing response after 2 doses. Now we have to
figure out the right dose sparing (adjuvant) strategy and/or the right combination of
prime/boost.
        On the way out of the WH, ran into Bob Woodward. Of note, I had just read his
new book “Secret Man” about Deep Throat Mark Felt. I congratulated Bob on the book
and discussed it a bit.

        Reauthorization language for the NIH has been circulating for comment. It is
incredible. It give all of the power to the NIH Director by eliminating individual
appropriations and by creating an IC within the NIH to “carry out” research. Importantly
and I must put this in the book. Chairman Barton has threatened to a group of
constituency groups who had come to him objecting about the bill that if any NIH IC
Director publicly opposes the Bill, he will open an investigation of that IC until the
person begs for the legislation. This is after they had “asked for comments”. This is a
clear case of blackmail and in my mind is unethical, and possibly illegal. I was told this
over the phone by his Committee Staffer Cheryl Jaeger.

July 14-22, 2005 – Looks like the Reauthorization Bill is getting some opposition from
constituents; however, Barton is trying to ramrod it through. Zerhouni testified at House
Hearing. It is still unclear how specifically he orchestrated this. My sense is that
Zerhouni inadvertently created this monster in that he declared the NIH “broken” when
he came in as Director. All he wanted was a little more power and some money to “be
somebody”. However, Barton seized on this to “be somebody” by radically changing the
NIH. Zerhouni may now be left with unintended consequences of his early attempts at
getting a bit more power.

July 25 – 29, 2005 – One of the most extraordinary weeks that I have experiences
(see below)