Thursday, July 27, 2006

Went to NYC to participate in the Pandemic Flu Summit at City Hall. Part of Secretary Leavitt’s program of visiting every state and some additional cities within states to talk about pandemic influenza preparedness. Mayor Michael Bloomberg hosted us. Secretary Leavitt spoke about the history of the 1918 pandemic in Utah and said that he came from a small town. When it came to my turn to talk about the science of pandemic flu, I told the Mayor and the audience that I came from a small town called “Bensonhurst” and I brought the house down. I mentioned that my father was born a few blocks away on Elizabeth Street and Grand Street in Little Italy. The day was sweltering hot and sunny. I got an exciting ride back to LaGuardia by an attractive young security woman named April who works in the regional office of the Inspector General of HHS. She got me through traffic with sirens and blinking lights to catch my 3:30 PM Delta Shuttle in order to get to DC in time to pay respects at the retirement party of Carol Kuntz at the White House. In her office in private, I gave her a gift of a statuette of Dr. Joseph Kinyoun with the inscription: “To Carol R. Kuntz With appreciation from your friends at NIAID” She burst into tears. August 15-16, 2006 – Things have been fairly uneventful since last entry (July 27). I was one of the featured panelists at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto on August 16. The session was “25 Years of AIDS – Reflecting Back and Looking Forward”. Each of us gave a 7 minute presentation followed by a panel discussion. I spoke on the “Scientific Response”. Also presenting was Peter Piot of UNAIDS, H. Broadbent (AIDS patient), Gregg Gonsalves, and E. Madraa (African Community person). Session Moderated by Richard Horton, Editor of Lancet, and chaired by Mark Wainberg and Helene Gayle (organizers of the conference). There were 30,000 people at the conference and about 6000-7000 people in the audience for our session. Of note, a group of USA activist wanted to protest the fact that the USG was spending $90 million dollars on prevention this year and they thought that all that the USG was doing was purchasing the Orasure quicktest for HIV. In fact, they were incorrect and a good part of the $ was going for actual prevention education. The group was very nice and almost apologized for disrupting my session. They stormed on stage with the usual chanting and signs that said “George, listen to Tony” and “This is only a test!” (referring to the Orasure test). They disrupted me for the agreed-upon 2 minutes and then let me give my talk. I started the talk by saying “Thank you for the kind introduction” and the audience laughed. The talk was very well received. The major theme of the meeting was “Time to Deliver”, but the real theme was prevention. The meeting was opened by Bill Clinton and Bill and Melinda Gates. I did a lot of press during the meeting and after I returned (Diane Rehm Show). August 28-29, 2006 – Went to Amsterdam for the AIDS Vaccine 2006 Annual Meeting. Invited by Joep Lange. On the evening of Aug. 28 I was part of a “Town Hall” – type meeting in Amsterdam where we discussed “Viral Threats” The panel consisted of Ab Osterhaus of the University of Rotterdam, Marie-Paul Kieny from WHO, Jaap Goudsmit from Crucell. It was moderated by a Dutch TV anchor. I gave the Opening Ceremony Keynote lecture on the evening of Aug. 28 and provided a “provocative” talk on “An AIDS Vaccine: Will It Ever Fit the Classical Paradigm?” It was extremely well-received by an audience of about 1000. Others that took part in the Opening Ceremony were Job Cohen (Mayor of Amsterdam), Hans Hoogervorst (Dutch Minister of Health), Princess Mabel van Oranje-Nassau (Director, EU Affairs, Open Society Institute), Jean-Francois Rischard, Former VP of the World Bank, and David Salisbury (Director of Immunization, UK Department of Health). We had a beautiful boat ride down the Amstel River to the Maritime Museum followed by dinner with all of the speakers and Joep Lange at the Amstel Hotel. Charming evening, but the weather was raining and cool.