Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Saw “Normal Heart” again at Arena Stage. Wonderful play. Many people in audience recognized me and thanked me for my work. July 9-18, 2012 – Went to Martha’s Vineyard (MV) for the “Big” meeting of the editorial Board of HPIM-19 with the McGraw-Hill people. Great meeting, great weather. Chris and Megan came for 2 days on July 14-15. Went sailing with Dennis Kasper on his boat on July 14. Great time. Democratic National Committee also has meeting on island. Met and chatted a few times with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). Good guy. I know him for years. Left 1 day early. July 18, 2012. Good that I did since at the airport at MV I got a call from CNN that Wolf Blitzer wanted me on the show tonight to discuss the FDA approval of Trivia as Prep I accepted and had a scare since the plane took off late from MV and then circled DCA for 25 minutes before landing. I had intended to go home and change first from my casual clothes to TV clothes. However, there was no time and CNN send limo to airport to pick me up and go directly to CNN studio for the live shot. Had just a few minutes to change into shirt and tie. All went well. Also did WTOP News, local Channel 9 TV, and ABC radio. Looking forward to IAS meeting in DC this coming week. July 20 – 28, 2012 – Most amazing week leading up to and during the XIX International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference. 25,000 people attended (largest AIDS meeting in history). I am including as an attachment my schedule for this week and I will comment below on some salient issues. ASF DC 2012 FINAL Schedule - July 27.do Truly amazing. The theme of the meeting was “Turning the Tide Together”. I Delivered the Opening Scientific Plenary Lecture on Monday, July 23, the morning after the Opening ceremony (see below). My talk was entitled: “Ending the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: From Scientific Advances to Public Health Implementation”. The DC Convention Center main lecture hall was packed with approximately 10,000 people. It was one of the best Plenary Lectures that I have ever given and I have spoken as a main speaker at every one of the 19 IAS meetings. The number of kudos I got regarding my talk was incredible. The amount of press coverage of the event was astounding. Jon Cohen did a feature on me in Science that came out right before the meeting started and everyone was talking about it. It was a story he wrote after spending an entire day with me at NIH. In addition, there were several articles that I wrote (usually with Greg Folkers) that came out right before or during the meeting such as a piece in Health Affairs, JAMA, JAIDS, etc. In a separate piece in Health Affairs, John Donnelly wrote a history of PEPFAR and described my involvement. He also interviewed Mark Dybul and Mark made it seem that he played a greater role at the White House level than he really did although Mark’s role behind the scene was incredibly important during the creation of the blueprint for PEPFAR. But, who cares? It was a good article although Gary Edson got pissed off at it when he saw it since he knows exactly how PEPFAR happened. Gary sent me an e-mail saying there were only 2 important people for PEPFAR – me and pres. Bush. There was major Press and very interesting and entertaining social events. A few comments on my Press appearances: CNN with Wolf Blitzer (The Situation Room) on July 16 (days before the meeting started) associated with the FDA approval of Truvada for PrEP; Diane Rehm Show on July 24 (day after my Plenary); Op-ed by me in the Washington Post on the last day of the meeting (Friday July 27); MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell on July 27; Bloomberg News on July 24. Also, about 30 appearances on blog videos. Also, multiple radio interviews (CBS, ABC, NPR, etc.) Mentioned in NY Times Editorial the day after the meeting. On Tuesday, July 24, spoke at panel at Washington Post for 1 hour. With regard to the social events, it was amazing. At a ONE –sponsored event at the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center on July 21 (night before the opening of the meeting), I was asked to give a few remarks from the stage concerning an AIDS-Free generation. I paired up with Kay Warren, wife of Rick Warren the pastor of Saddleback Church. Others who presented to the audience and whom I interacted with and talked backstage were: Alysia Keyes, Annie Lennox, Herbie Hancock, Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, among many others. Annie Lennox gave a smashing rendition of her classic song “Sweet Dreams”. Right before that, I was invited to an Awards Dinner hosted by AMFAR for Bill Gates (I also had a 1-on-1 meeting with Bill on Monday, July 23). At the dinner, I met and chatted with Anderson Cooper, Sharon Stone among others. During the Opening Plenary Session, I led it off, followed by Phill Wilson of Black AIDS Institute, followed by Hillary Clinton. Big deal social event (July 24) that I really enjoyed was reception given by Open Society Foundation and Syringe Access Fund at the Open Society Foundation D.C. Headquarters in honor of Elton John. I had never met Sir Elton, but he specifically requested that I introduce him at the reception together with his partner David Furnish who is Chairman of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Got great pictures of Elton and me and he was very moved by my introduction. I had just finished reading his new book :Love is the Cure” focused on how his relationship with Ryan Whyte turned Elton’s life around for good as he was at the time an egregious cocaine addict and alcoholic and bulimic. He has been clean for 22 years. Really nice guy who clearly understands what I have done. Signed Letter of Intent with the French (Jean Francois Delfraissy and Yves Levy) for collaboration on a “cure” on Monday, July 23. Parenthetically, the cure people at the meeting were really egregiously promoting their results with “flushing out the virus” (David Margolis from UNC and Steve Deeks from UCSF). Margolis used to be at NIAID and he really in barely mediocre and is using the enthusiasm for a cure as a means to get new money. Their over-exaggeration is really pissing me off. Thursday, July 26 – called to White House by Heidi Avery for a different issue. I am going to NYC for the Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (CEIRS) meeting of influenza scientists to discuss the lifting or not of the moratorium on gain-of-function work on transmissibility/pathogenesis of H5N1 (see above). White House, including the POTUS is concerned about a misleading story by Nell Greenfield Boyce of NPR that said that I was going to expedite the lifting of the moratorium at the NYC meeting and the White House is worried that people will react to my “rushing” things. I told Heidi that this was nonsense and that in the NPR interview I meant that I wanted to expedite a conversation among the flu scientists to try to make their case, but they are not the only voice. We need input from the general public, other non-flu scientists, biosecurity and biosafety people and the global community before we again embark on experiments that some in the rest of the world may perceive could endanger them without input from them. Bottom line is that I told Heidi that I was going to recommend to the CEIRS scientists NOT to lift the moratorium. I suggested she tell the WH staff and the POTUS not to worry and that I will not sanction lifting the moratorium, Also on July 26, Pres. Obama held a reception at the White House East Room for HIV/AIDS “players” and stakeholders. I went straight from Heidi’s office to the East Room. Obama gave his usual pep talk. Of note, he thanked the usual people (Pelosi, etc.) and also Eric Goosby (clearly deserved it) and Grant Kolfax the new WH AIDS coordinator who has been on the job for a couple of months. The POTUS speechwriter clearly is out of touch since he did not call me out is his speech to the amazement of many in the room. However, as Obama looked around the room as he was talking from notes, he saw me and clearly recognized me, but obviously could not remember my name and so stuttered a bit apart from his notes and thanked “people from NIH for their good work”. I do not blame him for forgetting my name but his staff clearly is out of it. Speaking of names, Bush never would have forgotten. Just shows Obama’s weak connection to the AIDS issue. But, to his credit, as he walked the “line” shaking hands afterward, he shook my hand and pointed to me saying “nice job”. Whatever…. All in all a truly amazing week. Weather was sunny and hot all week. No rain; typical sunny, hot DC week.