FAUCI DIARY ARCHIVE — Wednesday, May 23, 2012
https://faucisdiary.com/diary/2012-05-23

Text below is verbatim from the released PDFs, with the original line breaks.
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DIARY ENTRY — Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Source: Diary Prequel, pp. 287–288 of 2026.07.27_Diary-Prequel-.pdf
Words: 732
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Had a great and moving evening at the Annual Sons of Italy National
Education Leadership Awards Gala at the National Building Museum. I presented a
scholarship to a student who will be going to Harvard next year. Various awards went to
different people. Hillary Clinton got if for a Lifetime of Public Service and responded
by video. Most moving moment of the night was when Tony Odierno (son of Gen. Ray
Odierno), who lost his left arm in Iraq due to an RPG presented an award to Gen. Peter
Pace, who is a Brooklyn boy and with whom I received the Presidential of Freedom and
so I know him. Pete told the story of his first soldier whom he commanded who was
killed in action in Viet Nam when Pete was a 22 year old 2nd Lieutenant. His name was
Lance Corporal Guido Farinaro. Pete was incredibly moving and mentioned how
throughout his entire military career he carried a picture of LCP Farinaro with him.
Also, a little drama at the dinner. I was called to see and take care of the famous tenor
Michael Amante who sings often at the Galas. Mike had recently (3 months) lost his
wife to a cerebral hemorrhage. Mike is 49 years old. He is left caring for 3 children –
9, 7, and 5 years old. He is overwhelmingly stressed, did not sleep the night before and
was clearly dehydrated. He is on several meds for hypercholesterolemia and high BP.
He felt woozy and “spaced out”. I tanked him up with fluids and he responded quickly
and well. He resting heart rate went from 88 to 70. He then sang beautifully and at the
end of the medley he pointed his finger at me (seated at a Table in the front).

May 24, 25, 26, 2012 – Drove up to Princeton with Chris to watch Ali compete in the
Women’s NCAA National Championships. Ali had recently been promoted from the 2V
boat to rowing Stroke for the 1V Eight boat!!!! Stanford had a mishap in the first heat
when their rudder broke. Ali and her team were not to be put aback. They had the
opportunity to row again in the reportage race and came out 1st among 7 boats and so
entered the semi-finals. Their time of 6 min. 47 seconds was their best time yet this

year. Unfortunately, they missed out in the semis even though they broke their own time
record by rowing a 6 min. 22 second race. They were in a heat with the top 3 teams in
the country – Virginia, Cal, and USC. She rows tomorrow in the “petite final”.

May 30-31, 2012 – Went to NYC to give Commencement Address at Brooklyn College
and receive an honorary degree. Bright sunny day. I lot of déjà vu driving from
Manhattan to Brooklyn through Atlantic Avenue and then Bedford Avenue. God bless
Brooklyn College, they tried (for the first time in their history) have all 1600 graduates
from all of their schools come on the stage to shake the hand of the President – Karen
Gould. My co-recipient of an honorary doctorate was the jazz legend Cecil Taylor, a
feeble old man, but very gentle. Sen. Chick Schumer came and said a few words to the
graduates. Brooklyn Borough President gave a hilarious speech about Brooklyn. Had
dinner with Jenny the night before. Went to Kefi restaurant on 85th and Columbus
Avenue. I never really appreciated the West Side of Manhattan when I lived for so many
years on the East Side. Jenny is an amazing young woman who is trying to figure out
who she is and what she wants in life. She is currently a graduate student at Teachers
College of Columbia University getting a Masters in Developmental Psychology.

On May 30 right before I left for NYC, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer’s producer called and said
that Wolf wanted me on CNN Situation Room to discuss a recent paper by Peter Hotez
(formerly of GW and now at Baylor) who wrote a paper in PLoS journal saying that
Chagas disease was the new HIV/AIDS. I like Peter, but I had to contradict this
potentially misleading statement. I could not appear live and so CNN did a telephone
interview and showed me testifying at a Congressional Hearing at the same time that they
played my voiced interview. Nice trick.