Friday, October 7, 2005

More media appearances, NBC, CNN, German TV, BBC, etc. Leavitt and I helped POTUS in the Roosevelt room talk with the CEOs regarding how we can engage them in building a vaccine production capacity. The POTUS heard from them what I had told him the previous day, i.e. that we much revitalize the production capacity not just for H5N1, but we must create a sustainable market and capacity for seasonal flu that will then provide a major head start in the event of a pandemic flu. CEOs present were: David Mott of MedImmune, David Williams of Sanofi-Pasteur, JP Garnier of GSK, Dick Clarke of Merck and Howard Pien of Chiron. Again, the POTUS was very interactive with me when he came in and left. He concentrated heavily on the CEOs during the meeting. Afterwards, Scott McClellan had Leavitt and I give a press conference in front of the White House. Multiple cameras, etc. I will leave for SE Asia tomorrow with Leavitt to visit Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Viet Nam, and Indonesia. October 8 – 18, 2005 – Trip to SE Asia as part of delegation of Secretary of HHS Michael Leavitt. Countries visited – Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Viet Nam, and Indonesia. Purpose of the trip was fact-finding in association with the threat of an H5N1 pandemic influenza. Delegation included Michael Leavitt, Paula Dobriansky (Under Secertary of State for Global Affairs), Jong-Wook Lee (Director-General, WHO), Kent R. Hill (Acting Assistant Adm. For Global Affairs, USAID), James Butler (Deputy Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agriculture Service), Suzy DeFrancis (Assistant Sec. for Public Affairs, DHHS), Julie Gerberding, Margaret Chan (Assistant Director general and Rep of WHO for Pandemic Influenza), H.E. Changchui (Assistant Dir.-Gen., Food and Agriculture Organization – FAO-), Alejandro Thiermann Pres. World Organization for Animal Health – OIE ), Kenneth Bernard (Advisor to WHO Dir. Gen.), William Steiger, Kerry Weems (Deputy Chief-of-Staff, DHHS), Vaughan Turekan (Special Assistant to Paula Dobriansky), Allyson Bell (Director, Scheduling and Advance, DHHS), Jay Hodes and Michael Lonetto (Security). Please see files for details of whom I met and when. I will list some of my impressions below. Major impression of the trip was the consistencies as well as the variabilities of the 5 countries visited. Thailand was certainly the most advanced. They were taking very seriously cleaning up and keeping clean the commercial poultry industry. They export chicken (mostly parts pre-cooked) all over the world. The problem is with the small farmers who have variable number of chickens in their back yards. The most disturbing yet very interesting was Cambodia due to a society that was still trying to recover from the Khmer Rouge genocide. It is a beautiful people; very sensual looking. Men almost effeminate. The sexuality of both men and woman stood out. (This was also seen to some extent in Thailand.) The Institut Pasteur in Phnom Penh is the best science they have there. I was very impressed with Laos. I expected a stark, Communist-style society. It was very warm and friendly. People seemed to look upon us as if we were normally there. They did not stare, nor did they smille too much. They were “very normal” looking. Bill Steiger and I had a terrific time running around the track in the National Stadium. The Laotian National Track team was practicing there at dusk and we ran until it got dark. Viet Nam was amazing. Hanoi was a vibrant, bustling exciting-appearing city. The most amazing experience was trying to walk across the street with the motor scooters and cars going very fast and literally messing into each other from multiple different directions. It was incredible that they did not hit each other continually. The word from the CDC folks who were with us was that you needed to just cross the street and not look or speed up or slow down. Just cross at the same pace and the scooters and cars will avoid you. It was scary. Haiphong was a different story. It was more stark and gray. The Vietnamese women are incredibly beautiful. We stayed at the Hanoi Hilton – beautiful hotel, run by Vietnamese, but very western. It seems incredible now given the energy, beauty and talent of these people that we could ever had been at war with them for so many years. Interestingly, they seemed to love Americans. It appeared to be very genuine. Indonesia was similar to what I imagine Hong Kong to be. Many skyscapers in an Asian country. The polluted stench in the air was similar to (but not quite as bad as) Delhi.