FAUCI DIARY ARCHIVE — Wednesday, May 27, 2009
https://faucisdiary.com/diary/2009-05-27

Text below is verbatim from the released PDFs, with the original line breaks.
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DIARY ENTRY — Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Source: Diary Prequel, pp. 210–211 of 2026.07.27_Diary-Prequel-.pdf
Words: 425
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Went to Sons of Italy Awards Gala at the National Building Museum.
Sat next to VP Joe Biden and his granddaughter Naomi who goes to Sidwell Friends.
Also at table was his wife Jill (whose father is a Sicilian). Had nice conversations over
the evening with the VP – very amiable person with whom I have interacted several times
in the past re: anthrax, AIDS, SARS bird flu, etc. He was very complimentary to me
during his speech. He received the NELA Award for Leadership and Achievement in
Public Service (I received the NELA award for science in 1992). NELA = National
Education Leadership Award.

May 28 – June 2, 2009 – Continued activity working with HHS on flu preparedness.
Little press associated with this and Jenny Backus has not been heard from for weeks
since the press stuff has calmed down. Tom Freiden has been appointed as CDC Director
and so Richard Besser is completely out of the picture. He did a good job, but see above
regarding Jenny Backus. It is too bad, but my experience with Backus has seriously
soured me on HHS and everyone there. They seem to have no idea who I am and
certainly do not treat me with the reverence and respect that all other HHS people have
for the past 25 years. I do not think that Sebelius even knows my history and who I am.

June 3-4, 2009 – Received honorary Doctorate of Science at Harvard University in
Cambridge, MA. Wonderful honor. Other awardees were Steven Chu (Secretary of
Energy and the Commencement Speaker), Pedro Almodovar (Famous Spanish
filmmaker), author Joan Didion, religious historian Wendy Doniger, legal philosopher
Ronald Dworkin, anthropologist Sarah Hrdy, engineer Robert Langer, musician Wynton
Marsalis, and political scientist Sidney Verba. The night before the ceremonies (June 3)

we had a festive banquet in Annenberg Hall. I remember when Chris and I first delivered
Jenny to Harvard for her 1st year, we walked through Annenberg Hall. It looks like the
great hall from Harry Potter books.

June 16-17, 2009 – Gave Keynote Address at the Pacific Health Summit in Seattle on TB
research. It went over extremely well. Many people said that the talk was “historic” and
“transforming”. I gave a passionate plea for pushing research on TB into the 21st Century
and making it transforming and not just incremental. Patty Conrad came with me to
Seattle to help out with the press and she enjoyed the trip greatly. Her first trip with me
in 2 years since she began working at NIAID.