Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Raj Shah (Administrator of USAID) called me at 1:30 PM to get a better feel of my position on treatment as prevention. I thought that he would have a problem with it, but he was really asking if it was better to target people with very early infection since they are most likely to spread infection. I explained to him that although this was the case, they represent a relatively small fraction of infected people and they are very difficult to identify at this early stage. I found out later in the day from Cheryl Mills (Chief-of –Staff to Hillary Clinton) that Bill Gates had told Hillary that treatment as prevention was a waste of money and would not work. Hillery (HRC) heard from Eric that Bill Gates is probably the only person in the world who felt this way and that is exactly what I told Cheryl (see my breakfast with Bill Gates above). It seems that HRC is to meet with Raj today to get his opinion and so that is why Raj called me. Also, HRC will come to NIH on my suggestion to give speech on this subject on Nov. 8. I helped drafting her speech.