Earlier this week, Anthony Fauci said he would “retire” at the end of the year after at least a half a century as the Head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci has served as the Head of NIAID under more than a few past presidents. At 27, he joined the NIH, the National Institute of Health. His experience as a top health official includes the AIDS crisis in the 1980’s, Anthrax, Ebola, and most recently the coronavirus pandemic. It was during the pandemic that his expertise came under scrutiny for mistakenly saying masks were ineffective against spreading the virus, and contradicting misinformation from then president Donald Trump and conservative Media.
Via press release, Fauci announced that he would soon be moving on from his current positions as Head of the NIAID, and medical advisor to the White House, but would not actually retire.
I am announcing today that I will be stepping down from the positions of Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Chief of the NIAID Laboratory of Immunoregulation, as well as Chief Medical Advisor to president Biden. I will be leaving these positions in December of this year to pursue the next chapter of my career..."
In a statement from the White House Monday, Biden spoke fondly of Dr. Fauci and his dedication as a public servant.
"During my time as Vice President, I worked closely with Dr. Anthony Fauci on the United States' response to Zika and Ebola. I came to know him as a dedicated public servant...
"Dr. Fauci has served under seven Republican and Democratic president's during his career, beginning with Ronald Reagan. He was awarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008 under president George Bush. For almost four decades he has served as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, helping our country navigate health crises ranging from HIV to COVID. Because of Dr. Fauci's many contributions to public health, lives here in the United States and around the world, have been saved..."
Partisan Republicans have targeted Fauci as a threat to public safety, rather than as someone who was attempting to keep the public safe. Conservative media pundits and politicians seized on his remarks on masks in the early stages of the pandemic, as evidence of his deceit. Other criticisms were that he was a narcissist, seeking to put himself in the spotlight and overriding the president’s authority.
Partisans, such as Rand Paul, have accused him of collaborating with Chinese scientists to create the virus and unleash it on unsuspecting Americans for…some reason…and are anticipating the day that they can finally hold him accountable in enforcing all of those tyrannical lockdowns and vaccine mandates that were really responsible for all those deaths.
“It’s good to know that with this retirement, Dr. Fauci will have ample time to appear before Congress and share under oath what he knew about the Wuhan virus, as well as the ever-changing guidance under his watch that resulted in wrongful mandates being imposed on Americans,” Representative Steve Scalise said in a statement.
It wasn’t the fact that so many Americans died from a new virus that was an issue. It wasn’t the fact that the Trump administration’s lackluster response to the pandemic that was an issue. It wasn’t the fact that government officials and media pundits promoted hack cures and treatments that were an issue. It wasn’t the fact that government officials and media pundits mislead the public on the pandemic itself and the vaccines that followed that most likely resulted in the deaths of so many more Americans dying than otherwise would have, had they been responsible.
The real issue, the real crimes, were the lockdowns and the vaccine mandates that actually saved lives.
Sources: The New York Times, The Washington Post, WhiteHouse.gov., NIH.gov.
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