Monday, June 15, 2020

Global – 7,700,000/428,000 USA – 2,100,000/116,000; Governor’s call today at WH and I was not invited. BARDA requesting FDA to pull back the EUA for Hydroxychloroquine and Chloroquine, I was always against the EUA for HC and Ch since I did not believe that it fulfilled the criteria (some indication of efficacy) for an EUA: see link below. Also, this is the issue that Rick Bright has blown the whistle on, i.e. saying that he was pressured into recommending to FDA (when he was head of BARDA) to issue the EUA. Got call from Michael Caputo today asking if I thought that the POTUIS should cancel his campaign rally. I told him definitely yes. https://www.fda.gov/media/138945/download Call from Jeremy Berg at Pitt sending me as Cell Host & Microbe by a Chinese group Shi-Hui Sun et al: A mouse model of SARS-CoV-2 Infections and Pathogenesis. 28: 1- 10, July 8, 2020 (Online first) indicating that the Chinese were making CRISPR.Cas9 knockin mice for ACE-2 that were made 30 weeks ago, which would be August, 2019. Why would they be doing that last summer??? They could have been studying SARS, but they already had mouse models. Possible they just wanted to use a better technique (CRISPR) OR they knew that SARS-CoV-2 already existed and the outbreak was already ongoing. Spoke with Howard Zucker, Commissioner of Health for NY State. He wanted advice about a possible National Policy for opening up universities. I referred him to CDC, but also to Silvia Burwell to see what she is doing with AU. PRESS: NEJM Poodcast about our HIV paper in the series for the 50th Anniversary of NAM;