Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Today was most extraordinary day. Began with a presentation that I made together with Debbie Birx (PEPFAR) at the Russell Senate office building. We made a dual presentation in celebration of world AIDS Day to a group of Senate and House staffers. It went over very well. I rushed back to the NIH in time to do an interview with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC about the successful phase 1 Ebola vaccine trial conducted here at NIH that was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. When I got back to NIH we began the preparation for the 4:00 PM visit by Pres. Obama. It was an extremely successful visit. I led him on a tool of the Vaccine Research Center, gave him a brief introduction of the history of the center, telling him the story about my conversation with Pres. Clinton in December of 1996 when Clinton promised me that he would have a vaccine center built for us on the NIH campus. Nancy Sullivan presented to him on the 2nd Floor of the VRC her work on the development of an Ebola vaccine. We then took him to the 5th floor where Mario Roederer showed him the intricacies of the FACS machine. The President was very relaxed, warm, and highly complementary of me and the NIH. Following the tour of the VRC, I rode with the president in the presidential limousine from the VR across campus to Building 10 where he addressed an overflow crowd of the entire NIH community in Masur auditorium. He thanked me specifically several times during the talk and he thanked various components of the NIH community for their work on Ebola and other important diseases. He specifically gave a shout out to the VRC people, the people who conducted the phase 1 trial, and to the nurses and staff who took care of in October. During his talk to the NIH community, the president gave me many compliments and shout outs. In particular he joked about how had told me how to use FaceTime. In addition, he joked that "Tony and I were findly reminiscing about SARS and H1N1". He then said after a big laugh "that's what these guys do for fun". The President mentioned my name multiple times during the talk. It was a great day for NIH. Following the visit, I rushed downtown to the Mellon Auditorium on 13th St. and Constitution Avenue to participate in the dinner given by the Friends of the Global Fight, chaired by Mike Gerson (Washington Post). On the panel with me were Mark Dybul and Deborah Birx. I ran into many people who I know and like at the dinner. These include Peter Staley who I am very fond of from our many experiences over the years in the activist days. Peter looked bright and alert but rather thin and drawn likely due to his many years of being on antiretroviral therapy. They showed a short clip of his icon speech at the International AID Meeting in San Francisco in 1990 when he said that someday people will speak of the deadly plague and how some stood up to confront it. I cry every time I hear that speech. In 1990, I gave a speech at the meeting right after Peter. Former Sen. Chris Dodd gave me several shout outs about the work that I have done over decades, calling me a national hero. Nancy Pelosi gave a talk in which he mentioned several times our extraordinary relationship over the years in fighting HIV AIDS. All this praise was quite moving and gave me an added perspective about the many years (decades) that I have been involved in this struggle. All in all it was a great evening. The following day the story with my picture (with the POTUS, Nancy Sullivan, and Sylvia Burwell) were in the Washington Post and New York Times as well as on the Evening News programs.