I will never forget my experience, nor the countless COVID-19 patients I treated in the following three years of the pandemic. But it seems congressional Republicans have.
Three key takeaways from Fauci’s diary
White House correspondent Joey Garrison breaks down three key takeaways from Anthony Fauci’s diary.
I will never forget the first time I treated a patient with COVID-19.
Rounding in the hospital, I admitted a 36-year-old photographer whose only health conditions were being mildly overweight and diabetic. The day before he had been out in nature taking landscape portraits, but by the time he reached the hospital there wasn’t enough oxygen I could provide to keep him safe.
Within hours, he was intubated on a life support machine. I had heard vague reports of COVID-19 spreading in Asia, but witnessing its fast-moving devastation in front of me was horrifying.
I will never forget that experience, nor the countless COVID-19 patients I treated in the following three years of the pandemic. But it seems congressional Republicans have forgotten this time, and the 1 million Americans who died of this virus, as they tried to rewrite history and vilify Dr. Anthony Fauci during the recent Senate committee hearing led by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky.
Rewriting COVID history has, and will, cost lives
This kind of rhetoric will sow incredible distrust and skepticism of science and public health experts.
Shame on Sen. Paul, and shame on his fellow GOP colleagues who would recharacterize the heroic actions of this public health leader who guided us through that time of uncertainty and rising death tolls.
There were so many unknowns during the start of the pandemic that, as frontline physicians, it often felt like we were flying blind to keep our patients alive. Public health officials, like Dr. Fauci, kept us informed and up to date with the latest recommendations.
They certainly didn’t get everything right (i.e., taking too long to advise masking and unclear lockdown guidance), but when the death rate is exponentially climbing, recommendations need to be quick and must change with the latest available evidence.
Dr. Fauci provided just that in seemingly good faith, and as a fellow physician who believes in data-driven science, I cannot stand by and watch as our elected leaders relitigate and harass this public health hero over and over again.
Critics claim Dr. Fauci was obsessed with his fame, though anyone in his position would be amazed at the sudden attention. We forget the anxiety and fear of this time, and that the nation needed a calming presence and expert authority, which Dr. Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, provided. So who else was going to step up to fill this role?
Dr. Fauci’s demonization shows how lost America is on public health
President Donald Trump stole the limelight but proved his incompetence in all things medical, putting reckless and dangerous ideas like injecting bleach into the national conversation.
Would we have Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lead the national COVID-19 dialogue? We can see his incompetence on full display, systematically dismantling the Health and Human Services department by firing longtime public health experts, overseeing the greatest surge of measles cases in recent American memory and the poor handling of the current Cyclospora diarrhea debacle.
Both Kennedy and President Trump continue to push disproven links between vaccines and autism.
In his opening statement to the Senate committee hearing, Dr. Fauci noted that Sen. Paul has an “unhinged obsession” with putting him “behind bars.” This kind of attack on public health officials who operate in good faith should concern all Americans, as it breeds and lends credence to the distrust and the conspiracy theories that shake the pillars of sound science.
Politicizing a public health response to a public health emergency is not only dangerous – it can be deadly.
This kind of reaction led to misinformation and many not accepting the COVID-19 vaccines. A study estimated that from 2021 to 2022, more than 300,000 American deaths from the virus could have been prevented with improved vaccination rates.
Dr. Fauci has proved himself a true American and a champion for this nation’s health time and again. He guided the United States through the HIV and Ebola epidemics and brought that same science-centered work ethic to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a dishonor to the millions of Americans who died to turn our back on those who prevented that number from being even higher.
Dr. Fauci deserves better than being harassed, and we deserve better than having our congressional representatives leading such an embarrassing witch hunt.
Dr. Thomas K. Lew is an assistant clinical professor of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and an attending physician of Hospital Medicine at Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley. All expressed opinions are his own. Follow him on X: @ThomasLewMD