The first time I thought I'd really like to talk to Demetri Daskalakis was nearly 10 years

ago.

I'd read about the work he was doing in the newspaper.

A reporter had followed him around at an after-hours gay sex club in New York City called

Patials in the morning.

Back then, bacterial meningitis was tearing through the gay community in New York.

A handful of people had died in this outbreak.

Dr. Daskalakis didn't have an official role.

He was just an attending physician at a public hospital.

Dr. Dmitry was becoming a familiar face at New York's bath houses and leather clubs.

It started out with me with a backpack and some rapid tests that I would end with and did

some tests. Found out that 13 percent of the people that I tested had undiagnosed HIV.

Wow. So it already kind of been the bathhouse HIV testing doctor.

You were that guy. That was that guy. And so we already had this sort of infrastructure,

but then it's one thing to sort of stick someone's finger and it's another thing to be like,

I'm going to give a vaccine in a sex line. After the meningitis outbreak subsided,

Dr. Dostolakis went on to lead HIV AIDS prevention for the city health department.

Fast forward to today and his work has taken him all the way up to the White House,

which is where he's helping lead the Biden administration's fight against monkey pox.

He's the deputy coordinator for the White House response. Like a decade ago, you went where the

government couldn't because you had cred. You showed up in another jacket. You were fine not

wearing a shirt. You got tattoos. Now you are the government. I saw it by now wearing a shirt.

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