Thursday, July 14, 2005

Lots of stuff going on. Had more Congressional Hearings. Today had Hearing on success or failure of Project BioShield. Testified before House Government Reform Committee chaired by Tom Davis (R-VA) and Henry Waxman as Minority. Also, Chris Shays there and Congressman Issa, Davis, Issa, Cummings. I testified with Stewart Simonson, and Joe Vitko (DHS). Interesting issues around current BioShield (BS) legislation. The original Bill for BS was strong and contained indefinite authority to purchase for stockpile as well as other strong incentives for industry. Remember when I went around to the House and Senate at the behest of the VP to push BS, several Senators and Members, particularly Sen. Byrd tried to neuter the Bill since they did not want to give big Pharma too much. Now we have a Hearing where the Congress is chiding us since we have not gotten enough products through BioShield. The reason is that the big companies do not see any major advantage since they have no liability protection, no tax incentives and no patent advantages, and not a big pot of money. This is an amazing irony. Went to White House for a regularly scheduled (have not been reporting on these) PCC on Pandemic Flu Preparedness. Co-Chaired by Rajeev Venkayya (HSC) and Lance Leggitt (DPC). Reps were there from every cabinet department, CIA, etc. I presented that we actually had a vaccine sine the results of the dosing shows a clear dose-response curve for the prime-boost. We tested 7.5, 15, 45, and 90 ugm and clearly 90 gave a good protective response after 1 dose and an amazing response after 2 doses. Now we have to figure out the right dose sparing (adjuvant) strategy and/or the right combination of prime/boost. On the way out of the WH, ran into Bob Woodward. Of note, I had just read his new book “Secret Man” about Deep Throat Mark Felt. I congratulated Bob on the book and discussed it a bit. Reauthorization language for the NIH has been circulating for comment. It is incredible. It give all of the power to the NIH Director by eliminating individual appropriations and by creating an IC within the NIH to “carry out” research. Importantly and I must put this in the book. Chairman Barton has threatened to a group of constituency groups who had come to him objecting about the bill that if any NIH IC Director publicly opposes the Bill, he will open an investigation of that IC until the person begs for the legislation. This is after they had “asked for comments”. This is a clear case of blackmail and in my mind is unethical, and possibly illegal. I was told this over the phone by his Committee Staffer Cheryl Jaeger. July 14-22, 2005 – Looks like the Reauthorization Bill is getting some opposition from constituents; however, Barton is trying to ramrod it through. Zerhouni testified at House Hearing. It is still unclear how specifically he orchestrated this. My sense is that Zerhouni inadvertently created this monster in that he declared the NIH “broken” when he came in as Director. All he wanted was a little more power and some money to “be somebody”. However, Barton seized on this to “be somebody” by radically changing the NIH. Zerhouni may now be left with unintended consequences of his early attempts at getting a bit more power. July 25 – 29, 2005 – One of the most extraordinary weeks that I have experiences (see below)