Tuesday, June 23, 2015

I had a very nice breakfast meeting at the American City Diner with Bill Schultz who is the general counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services. I met with Bill at the suggestion of Pulitzer Prize winning author and close friend of mine Rick Atkinson. Rick was concerned if I got involved with Don Fehr, who offered to be an unofficial agent for me and read over my manuscript as well as tell me how to write a book proposal for an editor, that this informal arrangement could spell out to the a legal issue later. This arrangement might also be something that is frowned upon by the department. And so Rick recommended that I meet with Bill and get his legal advice. My meeting with Bill was terrific. He was extremely encouraging to me about writing my book. He agreed with Rick that I should hold off making even any informal arrangements with anyone and I should just go ahead and continue to write my chapters and when I am ready to leave the government to then put together my proposal and “shop” it around to different publishers and agents. I will take his advice and go that way. This evening I gave a presentation to the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) annual meeting at the Renaissance Hotel Downtown at 999 – 9th Street Northwest. The talk was very similar to what I gave to the HPTN/IMPAACT group.