Monday, June 15, 2015

had dinner over my house with Eric Goosby and Chris – the now traditional sausage and rigatoni dinners that I have had with Eric, Harold Varmus, and Gary Nabel over the years. Eric is in town for and IOM workshop. He also is seeking my assistance in obtaining a grant from the DDCF and also NIH now that he is out of government and pursuing global health issues. Of note, he has recently been appointed as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for TB. Tom Frieden is balking at supporting the proposal for the IOM Study on lessons learned in the Ebola response. I will be supporting the study with NIAID funds. Tom still is not really on the same page with me about what went on during the response. He is still fixating on have the IOM study focus on “alternative clinical trial designs” instead of the RCT. Also, he is still against Cliff trying to extend the RCT to Guinea. Tom feels that the Guineans will react badly to a trial and be paranoid that we are trying to kill them. This conflicts with the fact that the WHO is already doing a ring vaccination (poor design) study in Guinea. Anyway, conversation with Tom are still very cordial and I like him – just disagree with him sometimes.