Friday, August 8, 2014

Frenzy continues. Press includes WTOP Radio, WNYC Brian Lehrer Radio, Fox Business TV, NPR Los Angeles. Gaza + Ebola – now ISIS is taking over Iraq and the USA in now bombing their advance to a Kurdish city where American diplomats are holed up. The USA wants to avoid another Benghazi. Because of this the White House is not allowing any government people to go on Sunday AM TV and so I had to cancel invitation from This Week with George Stephanopoulos and “Face the Nation”. White House is in the controlling the message mode.

(Saturday) - Having daily Secretary and NIH (Collins) call. Issue is that we are trying to expedite going into phase 1 trials of interventions that have only been in pre-clinical. These include zMapp, the Canadian VSV vaccine, the VRC ChimpAd3 vaccine. Emory is making “side deals” with Mapp for zMapp and Canada for VSV to get pre-exposure prophylaxis for doctors at Emory. Potential problem is an “optics” problem in that USG is helping Westerners get interventions that Africans cannot get. This is all getting very intense and similar to the Anthrax issues from 2001. Sylvia is starting to see more clearly what I can do regarding leadership on the phone calls.