they had an unsatisfying document. Recently generated by the Department of Health and Human Services, it laid out plans, in the event of a pandemic, to speed up the production of vaccines and stockpile antiviral drugs. That was the reason for the Oval Office meeting: Bush had read it and hated it. “The president said, ‘This is bullshit,’ ” Rajeev recalled. “ ‘It’s just health. We need a whole-of-society plan. What are you going to do about foreign borders? And travel? And commerce?’ ” And how were you going to stop hundreds of thousands of Americans from dying while they waited for even a
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