New Evidence from Fauci’s Diary Raises Questions About Pandemic Policies

Recent diary entries from Anthony Fauci, a former official at the National Institutes of Health, challenge the public perception of him as an unbiased scientist and apolitical public servant during the COVID-19 pandemic. The entries suggest that his decisions were influenced by personal views rather than purely scientific reasoning.

Senator Rand Paul made public a set of documents containing Fauci’s diary entries spanning from 2015 to 2019. During the height of the COVID crisis, media narratives often painted Fauci as “America’s doctor,” a nonpartisan figure who worked for both Democrats and Republicans and prioritized public health over personal political beliefs. However, these private writings reveal a different story; Fauci openly expressed strong opposition to then-President Donald Trump.

In one entry from January 2019, Fauci described Trump as increasingly “bizarre” and suggested that he should be impeached, noting that Democrats were hesitant to act because they feared it might energize Trump’s supporters.

The diary also indicates that Fauci may have misled the public regarding an Ebola vaccine during an outbreak in West Africa. The World Health Organization had announced in July 2015 that its Ebola vaccine showcased “up to 100% efficacy,” a claim that Jeremy Farrar, then the Wellcome Trust Director, heralded as a triumph of global cooperation. However, Fauci’s private notes reflected skepticism, highlighting “multiple flaws in the design and the analysis of the data” regarding the vaccine candidate.

Despite his doubts, Fauci publicly praised the vaccine in various media appearances, including on CNN and the New York Times. He noted that while the data was “not statistically significant,” he deemed the vaccine inherently good and effective, largely without explaining his rationale for this belief.

According to his entries, he dealt with concerns raised by Phil Krause, the Director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review, about the study’s design. Krause later resigned amid conflicts over the Biden administration’s push for COVID-19 booster shots. Fauci supported this move, which suggests he faced pressure to navigate challenging public health communications.

The documents indicate a struggle within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) over messaging. Fauci expressed frustration that HHS officials were trying to control what he said in public forums. He reached out to Leslie Dach, a high-ranking official, for permission to speak freely on television.

Dach now chairs a Democratic advocacy group that campaigns against changes to Medicaid and promotes public health messaging, reflecting ongoing tensions in public health policy discourse.

As chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Paul continues to investigate the origins of the pandemic and Fauci’s role in stifling debate about a possible laboratory leak. Documents released previously by Paul’s committee revealed that U.S. military research in 2016 found concerning results regarding primates vaccinated against Ebola, further complicating the narrative surrounding the vaccine’s efficacy.

While the documents do not specify which vaccine candidates were tested, they do reference a study that raised earlier concerns about vaccine-induced lung injury, hinting at a complex and perhaps contentious history in vaccine research.