FAUCI DIARY ARCHIVE — Wednesday, July 16, 2014
https://faucisdiary.com/diary/2014-07-16

Text below is verbatim from the released PDFs, with the original line breaks.
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DIARY ENTRY — Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Source: Diary Prequel, p. 348 of 2026.07.27_Diary-Prequel-.pdf
Words: 390
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The situation is heating up considerably with regard to the three
infractions that have occurred in HHS concerning potentially lethal microbes. The first
was the finding of the smallpox vials in the FDA building (29A) on the NIH campus. The
next was the egregious dysfunction of the teams involved in dealing with selective select
agent research down at the CDC and third was the contamination at the CDC of a highly
pathogenic influenza virus (H5N1) with a nonpathogenic influence virus (H7N9). This
has been all over the media in a very intense way. The White House as well as the
Department of Health and Human Services is involved. Francis Collins and I received a
letter from Nobel laureates Paul Berg and Richard Roberts to discuss how we might
address this escalating issue. They have been consistently against gain-of-function
research, especially on influenza. In addition Francis and I together with Peggy Hamburg
and Tom Frieden were called to a meeting this evening at HHS with Secretary Sylvia
Burwell to discuss the HHS plan as well as the fact that Sylvia will be meeting with the
POTUS on Friday, July 18 to discuss the matter and she needed to be briefed by us. I
have suggested to Francis and he agrees that we call a temporary moratorium on all gain
of function research on influenza and the MERS virus involving increasing pathogenesis
and increasing transmissibility by the respiratory route. Also, Francis and I brought up
(clearly my idea for some time now) to re-invigorate the NSABB and get them much
more in the mix of recommendations and involvement. We had a good meeting with
Sylvia Burwell in her office tonight that lasted from 7 PM to 9 PM. Francis and I will be
talking over the phone tomorrow with Richard Roberts and Paul Berg about a plan for the
future. Also, today Barry Bloom called me from the Harvard School of Public Health to
ask whether or not he could help us in addressing this new and emerging political
problem. In addition, I received a call from Michael Osterholm to warn me, as he is often
doing, that there will be problems “for me” that he wants to help. I get concerned when
Michael wants to “help” me. He generally gets hysterical about microbial threats and
loves to be in the press.