[Letter to Donald S. Burke from Shepherd Smith]

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AS I recall from the parts of the memo read to me, Dr. Lucey
wrote his memo nearly immediately after the call was made,
indicating that Dr. Vahey conveyed all the information Dr. Lucey
had to go on. Therefore, it is heresay at best, but should
reflect Maryanne's memo as well. Any discrepancies between the
two should indicate a lack of veracity of either one or both of
the parties (Vahey and/or Lucey).
Again, I go back to the extremely unusual reaction to the call.
I have made literally hundreds of these calls to government
officials over the years, and never experienced anything like
this. My questions were very simple and straightforward. They
concerned two basic points: 1.) Had the non-responders been
compared to the responders, and 2.) was patient #1 an anomaly.
To a lesser degree, I felt it important to have some form of
comparison in data available to average folks like me since
Salk's presentation in Amsterdam with no comparative data was
basically useless.
The take-away by Dr. Vahey and Dr. Lucey, however, seemed quite
different at least by Dr. Lucey's portrayal of it. Here is my
opinion of his points as I recall them:
1.) I never suggested anyone report on any specific number of
patients as Dr. Lucey stated. That is absurd. I could care
less; nor was that the point of my call. Two patients, four
patients, seven patients, etc. may have value if they show a
trend over time, but to suggest I wanted certain patients
presented is totally false since I have virtually no knowledge of
what the patient data base looks like. I have only recently seen
the August 20 memo he referenced in the beginning of his memo
more than two months later. (That, incidentally, meant Dr.
McCarthy was giving broad distribution to his memo immediately
after it was written, which I personally believe to be
inappropriate under the circumstances.) If Dr. Vahey raised the
issue of presenting all patients I may have asked "why?" out of
curiosity, but not for any other reason as Dr. Lucey seems to
insinuate. Again, I was unaware that that was a major issue at
that time to Vahey, McCarthy, Lucey, and Burke.
2.) Clearly, I conveyed my favorable impression of the WRAIR
program. I have testified before Congress to the fact that I
think NIH is behind in its response to studying vaccine therapy.
I have told Dr. Fauci the same thing in face-to-face meetings. I
also shared that the closer this got to potentially proving
efficacy, the more pressures would come on folks associated with
the trial and gave encouragement to hang tough. I made similar
encouraging statements to everyone at WRAIR when I spoke at Ed
Tramont's retirement dinner a year or so earlier. Little did I

know my words to Dr. Vahey would be prophetic for Dr. Redfield
with the exception that I didn't believe the bulk of the assault
would come from within.
3.) Dr. Lucey made one particular totally untrue statement when