To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, I hereby request the following records:

Any non-exempt records dated between December 1, 2019 and December 1, 2022 created or naming the following individuals:
Dr. Anthony S Fauci (Director)
Dr. Cristina Cassetti (Deputy director, div microbiology and infectious diseases)
Roshawn Treadwell-Hyde (Dr. Cassetti's assistant)
Lerner, Andrea Office of Clinical Research Resources
Dr. Seema Nayak, Director, Office of Clinical Research Resources
Melinda Haskins, Chief, Office of Communications and Government Relations
Courtney Billet, Director, Office of Communications and Government Relations
Cynthia Fabry, Deputy, Director Office of Communications and Government Relations

....for records that contain the terms "filter", "filters", "air filtration", "air filter", "air filters", "purification", "purifier ", "purifiers ", "air purifier", "MERV", "liability", "liable", "legal", "CO2", "carbon dioxide", "indoor air", "shared air", "airborne", "airborne transmission", "aerosolized droplets", "droplet nuclei", "ultrafine droplets", "entrained droplets", "beyond 6 feet", "beyond 6ft", "beyond 2m", "transmission via infectious aerosols".

This is a resubmission of 60878, but with only 8 individuals and slightly fewer search terms. Please inform me if that is insufficiently narrow.

I apologize for the waste of your time with the earlier broad request. It is hard for an outsider to know a priori which individuals might be most relevant, and how many records each individual person or term may return a priori - so I often cast a very broad net to begin with.

The requested documents will be made available to the general public, and this request is not being made for commercial purposes.

In the event that there are fees, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 20 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

ALEXANDER RICCIO

I am merging some of the language into this request from a request that I am withdrawing due to insufficient specificity, request 60889.

My limited understanding of the workings of NIAID records management is that it appears that I cannot query for communications from outside sources without specifying an NIAID "custodian". This is disappointing, but not something I can change. For reference, the following language is from withdrawn request 60889:

---

"Emails to or from drtedros@who.int, or any other communications to or from Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the WHO. Similarly for the following email addresses and individuals:

vankerkhovem@who.int, Maria Van Kerkhove of
greint@who.int (Dr Thomas Grein)
ryanm@who.int (Mike Ryan)
Jeremy Farrar - chief scientist at the World Health Organization, may not be using who.int email address in official capacity
sterng@who.int (Gabriellea Stern)

Additionally, broadly, any individuals and email addresses associated with the who.int top level domain."

---

I would like to amend this current request (60900) with the following language to prebut certain redactions:

In the government's response to several other FOIA requests, hundreds and hundreds of pages of responsive records originating from the WHO were redacted under exemption (b)(5).

For example, an attachment in one such request titled "WHO Confidential Situation Report, Saturday, 13 June 2020", in an email from moffettd@who.int, sent on Saturday, June 13, 2020 4:24 AM.

Countless other examples abound in the responsive records for other requests. GORAN call notes. Slide decks. Various reports and drafts of reports.

In Lucaj v. FBI, No. 16-1381 (6th Cir. 2017), The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled:
"Key to answering this question is the Supreme Court’s admonition that “the first condition of Exemption 5 is no less important than the second; the communication must be ‘inter-agency or intra-agency.’” Klamath, 532 U.S. at 9. Indeed, the first condition here is all-important. However broad the term agency can be, see Anne Joseph O’Connell, Bureaucracy at the Boundary, 162 U. Pa. L. Rev. 841 (2014), FOIA offers, for our purposes, a more limited definition: “‘agency’ means each authority of the Government of the United States.” 5 U.S.C. § 551(1), cited in 5 U.S.C. § 552(f)(1) (elaborating that “‘agency’ as defined in section 551(1) of this title includes any executive department, military department, Government corporation, Government controlled corporation, or other establishment in the executive branch of the Government (including the Executive Office of the President), or any independent regulatory agency”). So, to be inter-agency memorandums or letters, the RFAs must have been sent from an authority of the Government of the United States to an authority of the Government of the United States. The OIA, undoubtedly an authority of the Government of the United States, sent the RFAs to the Central Authority of Austria and an unnamed country, undoubtedly not authorities of the Government of the United States. The RFAs’ recipients having failed to meet
FOIA’s definition of agency, we hold that the RFAs from the OIA to the Central Authority of Austria and the unnamed country are not inter-agency. And given that the RFAs are not intra-agency either, they may not be withheld under Exemption 5."

...and later in the ruling:
"But in the end, Congress chose to limit the exemption’s reach to “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters,” 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5), not to “memorandums or letters among agencies, independent contractors, and entities that share a common interest with agencies.” In view of our responsibility to “narrowly construe[]” FOIA’s exemptions, see Schell, 843 F.2d at 937 (quoting Dep’t of the Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 361 (1976)), our response today echoes that of the Supreme Court and Congress: however important it may be for the OIA to have frank communications with the Central Authority of Austria and an unnamed foreign government, however common the interest between the OIA and its international partners, the Central Authority of Austria and an unnamed foreign government are not, so far as Congress has defined the term, agencies. Therefore, the RFAs from the OIA to these countries are not “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters” within the scope of Exemption 5."

In accordance with this, all responsive communications to and from agencies of *foreign* governments must be released under the law, they may not be redacted or withheld under (b)(5). According to the court opinion, this applies no matter if they're deliberative, predecisional, or redactable under any (b)(5) privilege. If the NIH FOIA officers cannot provide a superseding court decision, they will be in violation of law. I am willing at this point to retain legal counsel.

This should include all manner of foreign documents previously incorrectly redacted or withheld under (b)(5), including but absolutely not limited to GORAN call notes, slide decks, various reports and drafts of reports, emails that were sent to many other recipients in addition to being to or from the NIH, and anything similar.

To my great surprise, several responsive records in the aforementioned FOIA request (and other, similar, requests) appear to have been withheld entirely under (b)(4). GORAN call notes are one such record.

The Department of Justice Guide to the Freedom of Information Act explains of exemption 4:

"The exemption also affords protection to those submitters who are required to furnish commercial or financial information to the government by safeguarding them from the competitive disadvantages that could result from disclosure.4 The exemption covers two distinct categories of information in federal agency records, (1) trade secrets, and (2) information that is (a) commercial or financial, and (b) obtained from a person, and (c) privileged or confidential"

(And)

"The D.C. Circuit's decision in Public Citizen represented a distinct departure from what until then had been almost universally accepted by the courts -- that a "trade secret" encompasses virtually any information that provides a competitive advantage. In Public Citizen, a "trade secret" was more narrowly defined as "a secret, commercially valuable plan, formula, process, or device that is used for the making, preparing, compounding, or processing of trade commodities and that can be said to be the end product of either innovation or substantial effort."8 This definition also incorporates a requirement that there be a "direct relationship" between the trade secret and the productive process.9"

I find it highly questionable that the GOARN call notes - about an ongoing disease outbreak - contain entirely "commercial or financial" text. I also find it wildly unlikely that the GOARN calls were only ever about the implementation of specific manufacturing techniques.

Ok, I suspect there's some confusion because I may see a more organized view of the different requests and the communication history on MuckRock than you may on your end. Lemme see if I can clear this up in a minute.

1. NIAID Email Custodians:
Dr. Anthony S Fauci (Director)
Dr. Cristina Cassetti (Deputy director, div microbiology and infectious diseases)
Roshawn Treadwell-Hyde (Dr. Cassetti's assistant)
Lerner, Andrea Office of Clinical Research Resources
Dr. Seema Nayak, Director, Office of Clinical Research Resources
Melinda Haskins, Chief, Office of Communications and Government Relations
Courtney Billet, Director, Office of Communications and Government Relations
Cynthia Fabry, Deputy, Director Office of Communications and Government Relations

Ideally, I'd like emails exchanged with any email addresses associated with the who.int top level domain, but if you need specific addresses:
drtedros@who.int
vankerkhovem@who.int
greint@who.int
ryanm@who.int
sterng@who.int
moffettd@who.int

2. Search terms:
"airborne"
"Indoor air"
"Not to be distributed"
"GOARN"

3. Date range
December 1, 2019 and December 1, 2021

I do not wish to drop the broad term "airborne". This is about an issue of intense controversy in the scientific community:
https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/

I know with certainty that there are at least some historically relevant records with the term "airborne". There are probably thousands more… hopefully narrowing it to those who.int email addresses and a narrower date range keeps it narrow enough to be fulfillable.

Ok. And the per-page $0.10 duplication fee applies even if I only want digital copies?

I understand the need to accept payment before beginning the search - but how can I decide how much to budget for without knowing roughly how much of the responsive records it would cover?

If I were to budget $100, and there were still more documents, could I simply pay more instead of needing to repeat the request?

In the event that I otherwise do not receive any information about how much I'd need to budget to retrieve every responsive document, assume a budget of $230.

I would still like to know more, but I wanted to get a position on the record in case I forget to follow up further! It's happened before 🤣🤦‍♂️

To Whom It May Concern:

Please find enclosed a check for $230.00 to satisfy the fee associated with the attached public records request.

Thank you.

I would like to inform you that I've attempted to send a payment, but am having some odd issues with the FOIA management platform. Tomorrow is the ninth, so I'm up against the deadline. Please don't reject it tomorrow because you don't have a payment yet :)

If you do not receive the payment in the next several days (I believe it goes by mail!) let me know and I will follow up.

Hello Qianna,

Thank you for your continued partnership on this request.

Please know that Alexander Riccio had submitted payment on November 8th with email receipt: ch_2OAEvRtU5ovL4Hc40Z0nLKA1. You had stated on the 9th that he should wait to send payment until you send an invoice. However, he had already completed the payment on his end, which has been deducted from his bank. Additionally, we have not yet received an invoice from your offices at this time.

We had attempted to contact your agency by phone on a couple of occasions and had left voicemail messages in attempts to resolve this issue. Please advise at your earliest convenience.

Thank You,

MuckRock Staff

Can you confirm with me that the search is in progress?

Hi,

Thanks so much for your help with this request! I really appreciate it.

Sincerely,
ALEXANDER RICCIO

Hey there, still going through review?

It's possible my last message got lost in the weeds. I'd like to follow up on the status of my request. I believe it is FOIA Request No. 60900.

I'd like to follow up on the status of my request. I believe it is FOIA Request No. 60900. Last I heard documents had been located and were under review?

Thanks.

Is there, I don't know exactly what, an estimated completion date for the review process?

Ah, yes, sorry! I'm managing a few dozen of these right now 🤣🤦‍♂️

Can you provide me with an update on the status of my request?

Can you provide me with an update on the status of my request? I believe it is FOIA No. 60900 in your system.

I also believe the FOIA management platform that I'm using sent a request for a status update by mail for some reason on January 17.

Can you provide me with an update on the status of my request? I believe it is FOIA No. 60900 in your system.

I also believe the FOIA management platform that I'm using sent a request for a status update by mail for some reason on January 17.

Hello,
Can you provide me with an update on the status of my request? I believe it is FOIA No. 60900 in your system.

Is there some kind of administrative or political hold on this request? It has been a month since I last heard documents had been located and were under review.

I believe it is FOIA No. 60900 in your system.

Can you provide me with an update on the status of my NIAID FOIA request? I believe it is FOIA No. 60900 in your system.

It has been a month since I last heard documents had been located and were under review, nhlbifoiarequest@nhlbi.nih.gov seems unresponsive.

Is there some kind of administrative or political hold on this request? It has been a month since I last heard documents had been located and were under review.

I believe it is FOIA No. 60900 in your system.

Can you provide me with an update on the status of my NIAID FOIA request? I believe it is FOIA No. 60900 in your system.

It has been a month since I last heard documents had been located and were under review, nhlbifoiarequest@nhlbi.nih.gov seems unresponsive.

NIAIDS has failed to update this request (FOIA No. 60900, I believe it is in your system) for nearly two months, and has yet to even provide an estimated date of completion.

I am appealing on grounds of constructive denial.

Agencies must not merely let requests languish ad infinitum.