2003

Another meeting at the White House in Andy Card’s office (he was not there). Met with all of the above (Jan. 13/14) plus Patrick Aylward and minus Amy Jensen, Jim Capretta, and Richard Falkenrath to continue discussion…

Just heard from Ken Bernard at the WH that the President has decided to include Project Bioshield in the SOTU address. Also, he plans to visit the NIH on Feb. 3 to roll out the plan.

Another important meeting in the White House with the same people as on Jan. 17 plus Amy Jensen, Ginger Loper. Putting the final touches on the 3 Bills (a) Permanent and indefinite authority, b) Special FDA…

More activity back and forth with Gary Edson, Jay Lefkowitz and me on the AIDS issue. It is still alive. They now want me to bring back Peter Mugyenyi from Uganda to meet with Mitch Daniels (and me).

Peter M. arrives from Uganda and Mark Dybul and I prep him for the White House visit. We have late lunch-early dinner at Mark;s house to brief Peter. SuperBowl Sunday.

We (Peter and I) meet with Mitch Daniels. Mitch seems genuinely moved by Peter’s description of AIDS in Africa and is very deferential to Peter and me. Gary and Jay ask that I plan to spend the entire day at the White…

One of the most amazing and important days of my life! Spent the entire day (11 hours) at the White House. I arrive at the White House and Gary Edson and Jay Lefkowitz inform me that the President has decided to adopt…

Testified to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee Hearing chaired by Arlen Specter. Also present were Sens. Harkin and Murray Hearing on Smallpox vaccination plan. Julie Gerberding and I testified. Concern on the part…

Testified at the Senate HELP (Health Education Labor and Pensions) Subcommittee Hearing with Julie Gerberding again on the subject of smallpox vaccine plan. Issue of compensation came up again. At the Hearing was Sens…

Spent most of day at DHHS and the WH. President gave absolutely wonderful speech at the WH to the PACHA (Presidential Advisory Committee of HIV/AIDS) and the African Ambassadors. He truly reflected his commitment and…

Another magical day! In the AM, I brief the POTUS on Project BioShield. Place = Roosevelt Room of the WW. Present are POTUS, VP Cheney, Tom Ridge, Tommy Thompson, Scooter Libby, Condi Rice, Karl Rove, Josh Bolten…

The world knows that the President’s Plan came from me and I am briefing many people. The WH refers all questions about Project BioShield and The President’s AIDS Plan to me Got a call from Richard Feachem, President of…

Snow storm in DC. Went out to dinner with Stew Simonson and driving back home from Etrusco’s restaurant on DuPont Circle I hit a patch of ice on Cathedral Ave., spun around twice and broad sided a telephone pole. No…

Delivered Plenary lecture at the 10th Conference on Retroviruses and OIs in Boston. Spoke on Role of viremia in host abnormalities. Very well received; it was hard core basic science, which was in sharp contrast to the…

Had dinner with Senator Bill Frist in his Majority Leader’s Office in the Capitol. He regularly (on Mondays) brings together people with whom he likes to discuss various topics. This time it was bioterrorism. Besides me…

Conference call with me connected to about 50 industry people organized by John Kelly of PhRMA to explain BioShield to them. Always a concern about anti-trust laws and so the General Counsel for PhRMA (Ken Ewing) made…

Gala St. Patrick’s Day dinner and Award Ceremony from The Ireland American League at the National Building Museum. Humanitarian Award to Bono. Chris and I sit at Bono’s Table as his guest. Bono recognizes me in his…

Senate passes Project BioShield Bill. I hold meeting on Medical/Chemical Biodefense Research at the Bethesda Hyatt as a sequel to February 26 meeting on Radiological Biodefense. I am trying to frame the landscape of…

Bombing of Iraq begins. Mar. 19-28, 2003 – Major focus on war. Push towards Bagdad; massive precision bombing; Iraqi irregulars have executed GIs on El Azeera TV to the horror and anger of USA; SARS is getting out of…

I gave a talk on Bioterrorism at the American Dental Association meeting in DC on March 28. The last person to come to the microphone to ask a question after my talk said that he had waited many years to publicly…

Big day! US army captures Iraq International Airport. I testify before the House Government Reform Committee on the subject of Project BioShield. Mark McClellan testifies with me. The House (Shays, Waxman, Chairman Case…

Wonderful day. Went with Chris ( my father, Denise and Jack Scorce were also there) to Ellis Island to receive the Ellis Island Family Heritage Award. Other awardees included Yogi Berra, Bob Hope, Cicely Tyson, Abie…

Just an unrelated historical note to put all of this in perspective. My daughters are doing marvelously well in school and sports. All 3 are virtual straight As (an occasional A-). Megan and Ali excel in gym and Jenny…

Amazing day!!! Spoke at a Republican leadership lunch at the Senate together with VP Cheney. We were there to promote S-15 (the legislation for BioShield). I was extremely warmly received by the Senators with many…

Did “Field Hearing” in Harrisburg, PA for Sen. Specter on SARS. He is running for re-election and clearly wanted to impress his constituents. It worked.

Great evening. I received the “Golden Plate Award” of the Academy of Achievement. It was a Gala affair at the Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. I was on a panel chaired by Mike Wallace of “60 Minutes” during the day…

Historic day. President Bush signs the Authorizing legislation for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in the Dean Acheson Auditorium of the State Department. Again, he specifically thanked me in his speech…

Extraordinary feature article on me in The Financial Times with full page picture and complimentary story.

Feature story on me in the nationally syndicated Parade Magazine of The Washington Post. June 8-18, 2003 – Continued activity and briefings, conference calls concerning the Bioshield Legislation. White House still…

Went to West Wing of WH to brief General John Gordon the new Director of the WH Office of Homeland Security and Special Assistant to the President for Terrorism. I briefed him on what the NIH Biodefense Research Agenda…

Appeared on a panel at the Council of Foreign Relations with Ted Koppel (Chair), Patti Stonesifer (Gates) and Senator Durbin to discuss “Are we prepared to deal with global pandemics?”.

Appeared on CNN’s Lou Dobbs show to discuss emerging and re- emerging diseases.

Attended White House ceremony for the announcement of Randall Tobias as the Coordinator of the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief. Randy is former CEO of Lilly. Pres. (as usual) mentioned me and said that it…

Attended meeting in Situation Room of the White House chaired by Richard Falkenrath. Attending were Deputies of all of the relevant agencies, Carol Kuntz, Ken Bernard, Jorge Tavel, Bob Kadlac etc. Purpose was to agree…

Visited new AIDS Coordinator for the Plan (Randall Tobias) at the State Dept. and briefed him on how the President’s Plan came about and how I suggest he implement it. I strongly suggested that he get Mark Dybul to work…

Briefing at the White House. Two parts to the briefing. Jorge Tavel and Heather Wingard of CIA briefed on threat assessments and I briefed on Countermeasure Development. Present at briefing were: Carol Kuntz, Stewart…

Power back finally.

White House meeting with Jay Lefkowitz, Gary Edson, Mark Dybul, Joe O’Neill, Carol Thompson to discuss the controversy regarding $2 Billion versus $3 billion in FY ’04 for the President’s $15 billion, 5 year plan. Bono…

White House meeting on Bioshield with the usual suspects – Stewart Simonson, Jorge Tavel, Ken Bernard, Bill Winkenwerder, Larry Kerr, etc. We are getting ready for finalizing the legislation. After the meeting in the…

Briefing in the Situation Room of the White House for Andy Card on the Craig Venter issue of synthesizing microbes. Also at the meeting were: Tommy Thompson, Spencer Abraham (Secr. Of DoE), Dan Bartlett; General Gordon…

Went to White House ceremony (President’s speech) and reception to commemorate Columbus Day. The President specifically greeted me in his remarks saying how proud he was of how I was the General in the Global War on…

Had breakfast (at his invitation) with Jay Lefkowitz at the White House Mess to say goodbye. He is leaving as Director of Domestic Policy Council to return to his law firm in its NYC branch. He will likely return after…

Went to going away reception in Indian Treaty Room of EEOB at White House in honor of Jay Lefkowitz. Great time just talking to the White House crew and others that I have gotten to know over the past 2+ years: Jay…

Met with Sen. Barbara Mikulski to try to convince her not to support Rep. Chris Van Hollen’s attempt to block the construction of the biodefense building (Bldg. 33) on the NIH campus and move it to Ft. Detrick. He keeps…

Had biodefense strategizing meeting at Wye River Conference Center run by Richard Danzig. Discussed issues related to dealing with mass casualties. The usual suspects were there – DA Henderson, Julie Gerberding, David…

Had a Policy Coordinating Committee for an “end-to-end” analysis of biodefense responsiveness at the White House EEOB. Meeting run by Ken Bernard and Bob Kadlec. Attended by all the usual suspects from each agency –…

Met with Ray Gilmartin (CEO of Merck) and Adel Mahmoud (Merck) to discuss ways that Merck can collaborate with NIAID in AIDS and in biodefense. Great meeting. Also, discussed how Merck can interact with BioShield…

Carol Kuntz informed me that the Vice President wants me to brief him on what we are doing with Rad/Nucl research and countermeasures. This is tough since this is not really my issue; however, the VP wants it and so we…

Meet in my conference room with Israeli Ambassador to the USA – Daniel Ayalon to discuss potential for collaborations with Israel. We got along very well; he is quite engaging. We discussed scientific collaboration as…

Meeting at the EEOB (White House) to discuss how I will brief the VP on

Still sorting out the likely anthrax contaminant at the Anacostia Post office. Met in my office today with the South African activist who last year refused to be treated with ART for his HIV because the S. African…

Met with the PCC (Policy Coordinating Committee) regarding the response to the Fink report. The PCC adopted for the most part the responses of the DHHS to the Fink report. We (Stewart Simonson, Stuart Nightingale, Amy…

Continual conference calls regarding the ricin incident. It turns out that someone crushed some castor beans and stuck crude material into an envelope to blackmail the Dept. of Transportation. Letter was also sent to…

VP wants me to take care of the Nucl/Rad countermeasure situation since he does not have confidence in the scattered others. Issue is that this is not my primary area of expertise. He wants me to do it anyway. Nice…

Briefed the Vice President today with Scooter Libby, Stewart Simonson, Carol Kuntz and Jorge Tavel in attendence. I spoke about Nuclear/Radiological countermeasures and our need for a strategic plan and the need for…

Significant Influenza A activity already with a variant strain (Fujian) that is not contained in current vaccine. This is quite early for heavy burden of influenza cases. 4 deaths of children in Colorado. Concern…

Major scandal at NIH with article in L.A. Times that shows that high NIH officials including Steve Katz, John Gallin and others have made hundreds of thousands of dollars consulting for pharmaceutical and biotech…

Saddam Hussein captured by US Army outside of Tikrit, Iraq!!

Went to dinner reception at the home of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs William Winkenwerder in honor of Dr. Khudair Abbas, Health Minister of Iraq. Present among others were Kristen Silverberg (who…