Anthony Fauci: A besieged American doctor
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On Saturday, February 1, 2020, at almost 6:45 p.m., Dr. Anthony Fauci threw out an email that could have led to one of America’s most prominent public scientists leading to the biggest debate of its time.
“Thank you Kristian. Talk to you soon and keep up the good content. ”
Although the response was detrimental, the context was explosive. Kristian Andersen, a professor of immunology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, explained to Fauci, head of the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, that there were indications that she had been manipulated by the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic. in a laboratory.
Andersen’s post was released this week 3,000 pages Early emails from Fauci’s pandemic have helped reinforce the theory that the disease began after a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Andersen later refuted this theory.
Email exchanges have escalated as Fauci has publicly underestimated the possibility of escaping the lab, even though he has been in talks with other scientists about his potential merits.
Now the man nicknamed “Doctor of America” is facing calls to step down and many critics of the right have stressed that the pandemic surely has its roots in wild animals, rather than in the Chinese laboratory.
“There are a lot of questions that Dr. Fauci needs to answer,” said Donald Trump, a former president who served as Fauci’s advisor after posting emails. Trump supporters, many of whom complain about the excessive severity of the Fauci pandemic, have gone further. Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, asked Fauci to resign on Friday.
Fauci himself admits that he is worried. But not about the coup, but about what he says about America. “I’m worried about what he’s saying about this country,” he told the Financial Times.
“Emails show someone who is being valued as data evolves. But people selectively take out emails to distort what the reality is.”
Fauci, 80, is one of America’s most well-known and respected doctors.
After advising all presidents from Ronald Reagan, he gained a great reputation in the scientific world for his work on HIV in the 1980s, when he was one of the first doctors to sound the alarm about a strange new disease identified among gay men. He won the respect of gay activists after he helped change the way medical tests were conducted so that more people could have access to life-saving treatments.
“Tony revolutionized how clinical trials against HIV are conducted,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Research and Policy on Infectious Diseases at the University of Minnesota and a longtime friend of Fauci. “He’s a great doctor, but he’s also a natural leader, and he knows how to get things done.”
Fauci played a significant role in the U.S. response to the 2014-16 outbreak of Sars, Mers, and Ebola, due to his response to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“There was a time when the CDC was being unfairly attacked,” said Tom Frieden, the CDC’s director at the time. “In that situation a lot of people would stop or quietly pile up, but Tony did just the opposite. He sided with us inside and sided with us, publicly. He’s a man.”
Fauci has been one of the most prominent faces of the US Covid response. He has become famous for his frequent television appearances, as he discusses the severity of the pandemic in a clear way and with a broad New York accent.
Trump’s willingness to oppose the claims, confirming that Covid-19 is similar to the flu, won him an army of fans.
Signs in gardens in Washington, DC and elsewhere say, “Thank you, Dr. Fauci.” The rating approved since February was 60 percent higher than that of Joe Biden, the president who works as chief medical adviser.
Others, however, believe Trump is weakening for political reasons. Paul Mango, former deputy minister of health in the Trump administration, said: “Tony Fauci is a good man and a great scientist, but unfortunately he has made a political identity for himself, which has led to a loss of credibility.”
Fauci denies this: “Sometimes what I had to contradict [Trump] because what he said was not correct. To do this there seem to be radical people around who think I am the enemy. I’m not the enemy, I’m trying to get the truth out. “
The reputation of being truthful is what is now under threat.
He has been accused of helping fund a dangerous research at the Wuhan lab through a $ 600,000 grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health for work on bat coronaviruses. And critics say the issue that the disease’s origins probably lie in wild animals is no more a reflection of the evidence than a desire to protect its organization.
Fauci he told FT He believes it is an “absolute probability” that the Sars-Cov-2 virus has been transferred from animals to humans.
But he also acknowledges that some of the work done at the Wuhan lab using NIH money could violate safety regulations – although the responsibility for this lies with the EcoHealth Alliance, the non-governmental group that carried out the work.
“We need to go back and look at that,” he said, because some coronavirus work was done at the biosafety level, similar to what was done in a dentist’s office. “But that’s something the EcoHealth Alliance should control.”
The EcoHealth Alliance has not responded to requests for comment.
Fauci continues to respond to emails late at night, from professionals, journalists and the public. “Right now I’m sleeping four hours,” he said.
Friends are worried that in the face of this arduous work and the constant threat of attack from Trump supporters, he may soon decide to step back from public life. But he insists that will not happen.
“I never stop thinking about it,” he said. “I’ll have enough when we’ve nailed and crushed this appearance.”
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