Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Had an interesting day of H1N1 flu “stuff”. Harvey Fineberg and I constituted a panel that discussed the lesson of the Swine Flu affair in 1976 and its relationship to what is going on today with the swine H1N1 2009. Sponsored by CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) and Kaiser with Steve Morrison and Jennifer Kates presiding. Held in Room B339 in Rayburn Building. Standing room only crowd. Went quite well. Later in the afternoon, went to the Roosevelt Room of the White House to have a similar discussion of lessons learned from 1976. Present were John Brennan (HSC), Sec. Sebelius – (finally got a chance to chat with her and she congratulated me on my honorary doctorate from Harvard a few weeks ago, Apparently, she was in the audience at Commencement since her son graduated from the Business School); Jane Lute (Deputy Sec. – DHS), Arne Duncan (Sec. Educ.), Peggy Hamburg (FDA), Ann Schuchat (CDC), David Senser (former director of CDC who was fired in 1977), Harvey Fineberg, David Matthews (Sec. HEW during 1976), David Hamburg, Walter Dowdle (old friend from CDC), Peter Orszag (Director, OMB). President Obama joined the group for about 30 minutes. He clearly recognized me and greeted me warmly. The entire discussion went from 3:30 to 5:10 PM. Warm, humid summer day in DC