Last month, Republicans on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Blown up Dr. Anthony Fauci supported mask and vaccine mandates, lockdowns and school closures.
They alleged that Fauci, who served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022, concealed U.S. government funding for research at the laboratory in Wuhan, China that created the COVID-19 virus, and ignored Fauci’s assertion that it was “molecularly impossible” for such results to come from this particular project.
After the subcommittee hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said: Declared “Fauci should be in jail. He should be tried for genocide and crimes against humanity,” Green said. There are so many people who hate him. Added“Because he’s a jerk and a liar.”
Green’s attack is not unusual. In a July 2020 op-ed, Peter Navarro, the Trump administration’s director of trade and manufacturing policy, wrote: Maintained Fauci said he was “wrong on everything,” specifically referring to the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID. Admitted He said Navarro’s claims did not meet the “fact-finding standard.”
In November 2020, Steve Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, posted a video. suggestion He called for Dr. Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray to be beheaded: “I would put their heads on a pike as a warning to the federal bureaucracy: Follow this plan or you’re gone.”
In 2021, a Maryland man named Thomas Patrick Connolly Jr. sent the emails using an anonymous, encrypted account. swear To make Fauci “pay for your sins with the blood of our children”; and pull He threw Dr. Fauci out onto the street, broke every bone in his body “with a crowbar and a sledgehammer,” and set him on fire. In 2022, Connally was sentenced to three years in prison.
Fauci also appeared, “Hit List He was a man “commanded by God to fight the devil” and was carrying an assault rifle, ammunition and a bulletproof vest when he was arrested. Death threats against Fauci became so frequent that a team of special agents was brought in to escort him. wherever He went.
The demonization of Dr. Anthony Fauci is a powerful indicator of how partisan polarization, contempt for expertise, crudeness, cruelty, and a cult-like penchant for conspiracy theories and violence have entered the American mainstream.
Judged by any reasonable standard, Fauci was an exemplary public servant. Over his 50-year career at NIAID, Fauci wore multiple hats, often simultaneously: researcher, physician for individual patients, administrator providing direction and support to thousands of infectious disease specialists, and advisor to federal policymakers, including seven presidents, on a range of infectious disease threats, including COVID-19. He was the primary person briefing the American public on prevention measures, vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics.
From 1983 to 2003, Fauci was the most Quote Researchers around the world. Dr. Fauci discovers how to re-administer cancer drugs Transformed He has improved the 98% mortality rate for patients with vasculitis, an autoimmune inflammatory disease, to a 93% remission rate. NIAID research spearheaded by Fauci has led to the development of drugs that can help HIV-positive patients live long, productive lives without transmitting the virus to their sexual partners.
Fauci believes the United States has a “moral responsibility as a wealthy nation to make sure that people don’t suffer and die because of where they live and the circumstances of their birth.” Driving force His PEPFAR program distributed HIV medications across Africa, saving millions of lives, and in 2007, President George W. Bush awarded Dr. Fauci the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, for his contributions to public health.
Americans were clearly deeply divided on how to respond to the pandemic, and remain so. That said, Fauci’s critics should acknowledge that he tried to follow the science in a fast-paced crisis where reliable information was in short supply. NIAID provided key scientific and logistical support. support He helped develop a COVID-19 vaccine through Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s highly successful effort. Fauci did not have the authority to mandate mask wearing or vaccinations, or to order lockdowns or school closures. And he was right that COVID-19 wasn’t going away anytime soon.disappearHydroxychloroquine is effective And ingest bleaching It doesn’t work “just like cleaning.”
Fauci could have made tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in the pharmaceutical industry. Instead, he remained a civil servant. His maximum annual salary was $480,654, with federally mandated increases, mostly due to his tenure as director of NIAID. Instead of profiting from vaccines, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has suggested, Fauci makes less than $200 a year from royalties. Fauci and his wife still live in the modest home they bought in 1977.
Voter registration records confirm that he is neither a Democrat nor a Republican.
Anthony Fauci should be celebrated for his enormous contributions to public health, not demonized.
Glenn C. Altshuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies Emeritus at Cornell University.
