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NY Times Op Ed: "Anthony Fauci’s Retirement Marks the End of an Era" - but the stupid goes on [1]
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Date: 2022-08-23
Dr. Anthony Fauci at a congressional hearing, holding print outs showing how Senator Rand Paul was raising money by attacking him.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has announced his retirement. He plans to step down in December after decades of dealing with infectious disease outbreaks, starting his career in 1984. The NY Times has an editorial tribute by Dr. Gregg Gonsalves, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, who is a longtime AIDS activist and a 2018 MacArthur fellow.
The link should allow full access to the Op Ed piece, but here’s an excerpt:
I came of age in the 1980s — the age of AIDS — but in a way, this was the beginning of the age of Tony, as many call him, because he’d be there through all of it, for each and every one of the nation’s adventures with infectious diseases. The telegenic, calm guide with the unmistakably Brooklyn accent took heat from AIDS activists as they descended on the National Institutes of Health’s Building 31 in 1990. He hugged Nina Pham, a Dallas nurse, in front of cameras after she recovered from Ebola, to soothe a nation’s fears about the virus in 2014. He was deadpan presence in the background of President Donald Trump’s news conferences on Covid-19. He advised presidents since Ronald Reagan on what to do in the face of these scourges.
It’s a laudatory tribute, but it also acknowledges some grim realities while complaining about politics versus science.
..As Dr. Fauci prepares to retire at the end of this year, one has to wonder if this is the end of an era as well. Don’t get me wrong: No one I know thinks that our gains on AIDS and the progress we’ve made in other areas of infectious disease control — particularly on vaccine-preventable diseases — are trivial accomplishments. But with Covid-19, something has changed. it tested a fundamental equilibrium among science, public health and politics in America. Most administrations, I argue, simply don’t care much about science and public health; it’s not a priority for them. On AIDS, Mr. Reagan ignored it, and Bill Clinton paid lip service to it. George W. Bush came the closest to making it a priority, with the establishment of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, but by the time of Barack Obama, activists were protesting again about an administration’s neglect. But Covid-19 caught the attention of politicians, and not in a good way. For decades, Dr. Fauci and other scientists could advise presidents, even sway them for good on occasion, because so little was at stake politically for these leaders. But with Mr. Trump and President Biden, too much was riding on their short-term political fortunes to indulge scientific and public health evidence and advice too much or for too long.
Dr. Gonsalves is underplaying the nature of the situation if anything, and who is the real problem. Lumping Biden together with Trump as putting politics above science ignores the larger Republican campaign against Fauci and the damage it continues to do. Not to mention the larger Republican war on reality. We do underfund basic science and healthcare in this country — but never forget who puts their political agenda above all other concerns.
Republicans have been promising if they regain power in Congress they are planning to hold hearings to ‘hold Fauci to account’ for all of the imaginary crimes they have ascribed to him. They’ve raised funds by attacking him. He and his family have been subjected to death threats.
While the comments on the Op Ed piece largely applaud Fauci for his service, this comment from aptly-named Florida Man gives a taste of the right wing disinformation campaign against Fauci and some of the conspiracy theories out there:
When Republicans get control of congress, I expect there will be detailed and long hearings about why Fauci funded Coronavirus research in China that was outlawed in the USA because it was too dangerous. Why he did the research in a lab in Wuhan with a poor safety record. Why researchers changed the Coronavirus to make it more transmissible to humans? Why does Lancet (#2 medical journal in the world) believe it is likely the pandemic started with the escape of virus from the Wuhan lab. We need to dig deep. If it turns out Fauci is legally responsible for the manslaughter of millions around the world, he needs to die in jail.
The campaign against wearing of masks as an infringement of freedom, the embrace of quack cures, the fear-mongering about vaccines, the trust in right wing media like Fox News — all of that coming from the right wing continues to make Covid a threat and is responsible for the deaths of thousands in the U.S.
The pandemic of malevolent weaponized stupid afflicting this country is one for which we desperately need a vaccine.
Thank you for your service Dr. Fauci and good luck. We’re all going to need it.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/23/2118281/-NY-Times-Op-Ed-Anthony-Fauci-s-Retirement-Marks-the-End-of-an-Era-but-the-stupid-goes-on
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