Fauci plans to step down in December after half a century in government
-
Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s preeminent infectious-disease expert who achieved unprecedented fame while enduring withering political attacks as the face of the coronavirus pandemic response under two presidents, plans to step down in December after more than a half-century of public service, he announced Monday.
Fauci, 81, has led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. He joined the parent agency, the National Institutes of Health, in 1968 as a 27-year-old doctor who had just finished medical residency and was quickly identified as a rising star. Most recently, Fauci has also served as President Biden’s chief medical adviser since the start of his administration.
Fauci’s tenure as director of the infectious-diseases institute made him an adviser to seven presidents and put him on the front lines of every modern-day scourge, including AIDS, the 2001 anthrax scares, Ebola, Zika and the coronavirus pandemic. During the nearly four decades Fauci led the agency, it grew from a little-known institute with a $350 million annual budget to a globally recognized powerhouse with a budget exceeding $6 billion.
“Because of Dr. Fauci’s many contributions to public health, lives here in the United States and around the world have been saved,” said Biden, who as vice president worked with Fauci on the nation’s response to Ebola and Zika during the Obama administration. “Whether you’ve met him personally or not, he has touched all Americans’ lives with his work.”
While Fauci is one of the most cited researchers of all time and has been widely known in scientific circles for decades, it was the coronavirus pandemic that catapulted him to worldwide fame — and ignited criticism from some Republican politicians and threats from the public.
Anthony Fauci is up against more than a virus
Fauci, who spoke about his impending departure in a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, had been a lightning rod before, most notably during the early days of the AIDS crisis when activists clamored for a swifter government response as they watched friends die. But the coronavirus pandemic arrived in a strikingly different era, with social media pouring fuel on the criticism and baseless conspiracy theories leveled at Fauci and others presiding over the federal government’s response.
The veteran scientist acknowledged missteps: In the early weeks of the pandemic, Fauci and other government scientists said Americans did not need to wear masks, which President Donald Trump seized on toward the end of his presidency to criticize Fauci and to question his expertise. And, like many other disease detectives, Fauci did not recognize early on that asymptomatic people were prime spreaders of the virus.
https://www.footboleros.com/profile/one-piece-film-red-full-online-adtiogali-123movies/profile
https://www.footboleros.com/profile/one-piece-film-red-full-2022-online-adtiogali/profile
https://www.footboleros.com/profile/one-piece-film-red-full-online-adtiogali-now/profile
https://www.footboleros.com/profile/watch-one-piece-red-2022-free-online-on-123movies/profile
https://www.footboleros.com/profile/watch-one-piece-film-red-full-movie-online-adtiogali/profile
Fauci conceded that he and other government scientists were wrong about masks in the beginning. He said they were worried about having enough face coverings for overwhelmed health-care workers and did not yet see evidence that masks were effective in preventing infection outside of hospitals, which later became clear, particularly as scientists realized the virus was airborne.
Those factors “led the surgeon general of the United States, the CDC and me to say, right now, you really don’t need to wear a mask and all of a sudden, it became Tony Fauci is the mask guy,” Fauci said. “Since I am the primary target of the far right, when the far right says you got it wrong, it isn’t that everybody got it wrong — it’s that Tony Fauci got it wrong.”
The last 2½ years marked some of the most rewarding and challenging times of his career, Fauci said. His public contradictions of Trump over unproven covid-19 treatments and the threat posed by the pandemic and his advocacy of mitigation measures made Fauci a villain to the political right.
“It was one of the most important challenges that we have had to face, and I believe my team and I — and let history be the judge of that — have made a major contribution,” Fauci said. “We didn’t do it alone, but we played a major role in the development of the vaccines that have now saved millions of lives.”
But Fauci said the pandemic, which has claimed more than 1 million lives in the United States, proved “extremely stressful.”
He attributed that to the combination of dealing with a novel virus that has shown a remarkable propensity to infect people and mutated with breathtaking speed and the politically charged environment in which the government had to run a response. That, coupled with his fame and the attention given to his public statements, made making mistakes and communicating changing scientific guidance to the public immensely harder, he said.
In the interview, Fauci said he wanted to step down from his government post while still healthy, energetic and passionate about his field and enthusiastic about the next stage of his career.
He also reflected on anti-science sentiments that have proliferated, mistakes he and other scientists made during the pandemic, deep national divisions infecting politics that have put democracy at risk, and lessons learned from the government and national response to the coronavirus.
Fauci emphasized that he is not exiting the public square. He said he hopes to teach, lecture, write — perhaps a book, along with essays and other types of writing — and use his experience to inspire and teach a younger generation of scientists.
“I love everything about this place. … But even with that, I said I’m going to have to leave some time,” Fauci said. “I don’t want to be here so long that I get to the point where I lose a step.”
News Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/08/22/fauci-retiring/