Wednesday, July 22, 2009

I rolled out the NIAID plan for the clinical trials of H1N1 vaccine to be performed in the NIAID’s VTEUs. We will start in early August and do trials on healthy adults, elderly, children to determine immediate safety, immunogenicity, dosage and number of doses, and sequence of administration vis-à-vis seasonal flu vaccine. Much press associated with this, i.e. appearances on ABC Evening News, CNN Situation room with Wolf Blitzer, (on July 23) much print and radio (NPR, etc). July 24, 25, 26, 2009 – Went to the Aspen Health Forum where I gave talks and served on 4 panels: 1) Sex and health, 2) ARRA funds and how we spend them; 3) Swine flu; and 4) Vaccines. My brief talks and panel appearances were extremely well received. I mostly “ad-libed” and they loved it. Typical Aspen scene with many terrific people to interact with: Tom Daschle, Walter Isaacson, Billy Tauzin, Mehmet Oz, Rick Stengel (managing editor of Time), Jeff Kluger (senior editor of Time), Susan Denzler, Nancy Synderman of MSNBC and a host of others. Excellent discussion, setting and exposure. Beautiful place. Also had dinner at the Mr. and Mrs. Greenwald.