In light of news that a planned museum exhibit on Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been defunded by the Department of Government Efficiency, it’s worth considering how far “America’s doctor” has fallen from grace.
Not long ago, Fauci was celebrated as something like a savior, a luminary, and a rock star, all wrapped up in one.
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the diminutive doctor enjoyed wide acclaim across American life. Actress Julia Roberts called him her “personal hero.” Jon Stewart, Rosie O’Donnell, and Michael Moore all referred to him as “Saint Anthony.” Even conservatives spoke of him in glowing terms.
“He’s been around a long time. He’s a very serious person,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on an episode of Fox News’s Hannity in April 2020. “He’s very honest.”
Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan echoed Gingrich that same month: “Dr. Fauci is one of the top public health experts in the world. We should all be listening to his advice.”
Time magazine selected “Fauci and Frontline Health Workers” for its “Guardians of the Year” distinction in 2020, and TV host Jimmy Kimmel wrote the blurb: “[Fauci] delivers the truth, as difficult as it may be to hear, earnestly and with one goal: to save lives. His courage and candor have earned our trust. We are all fortunate to have a man of his wisdom, experience, and integrity to help us navigate these difficult waters.”
But in the subsequent five years, one revelation after another dispelled Fauci the legend and revealed Fauci the man.
As it happens, the real Fauci is not courageous, competent, or candid. Rather, he is a reflexively dishonest operator who used his lofty status to bully critics and pursue self-interest.
Consider a few of the “noble lies” Fauci has admitted to telling the public during the pandemic. In March 2020, Fauci assured the public that wearing a mask was pointless.
“There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,” he told CBS’s 60 Minutes. “When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is.”
But only one month later, Fauci shifted his recommendation on masks from “not necessary” to “highly recommended.” The reason for the shift? At the time, Fauci said it was because of evolving science. But a year later, he admitted to CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell that he initially advised against masking because of a mask shortage among healthcare workers. When pressed to square the discrepancy, Fauci offered a nonsensical explanation: “I don’t regret anything I said then because, in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct.”
Only a man who believes himself to be synonymous with “science” could say this with a straight face. It was no surprise to learn later that his other primary recommendation, to reduce the risk of infection through “social distancing” by keeping 6 feet away from others, had a completely arbitrary number with no scientific basis.
Fauci also misled the public regarding a possible “endgame” to the virus. In an interview with the New York Times in December 2020, Fauci admitted to initially lowballing the percentage of the population that would need to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. The number, he admitted, was not based on science, however, but on polls that showed the percentage of Americans who were likely to take the vaccine.
“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70% to 75%,” he said during the interview. “Then, when newer surveys said 60% or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”
So much for delivering the truth.
But the most egregious of Fauci’s numerous lies is the cover-up he orchestrated to prevent the public from learning of the virus’s origins — which he appears to have played a key role in. At the behest of Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins, former director of the National Institutes of Health, several doctors, most notably Dr. Kristian Andersen, authored a paper in Nature Magazine titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” that argued for a “natural origin” of the virus. The contents of the paper, which, according to emails, Collins believed were necessary to “put down this very destructive conspiracy” that COVID-19 emerged from a lab, passed through the hands of Fauci before publication. Soon after, Andersen received an $8.9 million grant from Fauci’s NIAID.
And then, once it was published, Fauci proceeded to cite it during a White House press conference as if it were independent evidence of the virus’s natural origin.
We are still learning the motives behind the frantic cover-up of the lab leak origin of COVID-19, which is now the accepted theory of the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Energy’s elite “Z Division” that tracks foreign weapons of mass destruction. Evidence strongly suggests that Fauci played a role in funding the research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that led to the creation of the virus and that he very likely perjured himself on the matter before Congress.
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We eagerly await further investigation into the matter.
For now, cutting the funding that was designated toward honoring the man is a good start in correcting the record about this dubious figure in history.