Jun 17, 2024 07:39 PM
https://www.statnews.com/2024/06/16/anth...takeaways/
INTRO: Anthony Fauci spent 40 years in the top echelons of government. It was no accident.
To read the forthcoming memoir by the country’s former top infectious disease expert, “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service,” a copy of which was obtained by STAT, is to get a sense of his finesse while advising seven presidents. He strove, he writes, to speak with complete candor and stay out of politics, while remaining strategic in pushing for policies he considered vital to public health.
He maneuvered for more HIV funding in the Reagan administration; pushed George H.W. Bush to expand access to experimental AIDS medicines; worked with Bill Clinton to set up the National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center; and teamed up with George W. Bush, on whom he lavishes particularly effusive praise, to set up the global HIV medicine initiative PEPFAR and several biodefense efforts.
Separating science from politics was not always possible for Fauci, particularly in the latter years of his service, when he found himself being screamed at and taunted by former President Donald Trump.
Beyond that revelation, “On Call,” which is officially being released Tuesday, provides plenty of other insights into how Fauci, the longtime director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, managed his role and how public health was conducted over the past several decades. Below are top takeaways from the 455-page book... (MORE - details)
THE NINE TAKEAWAYS COVERED:
Of course, he would do things differently on Covid-19 if given another shot.
The U.S. response to the pandemic succeeded on science, and failed on public health.
Local health officials tried to warn Fauci, who tried to warn the White House, that contact tracing was failing.
Fauci grew increasingly concerned about the politicization of science during the 2015-2016 Zika outbreak.
But Covid was unlike anything else.
An HIV vaccine may be far, far off, if it’s possible at all.
He advocated for efforts on TB, HIV, and malaria that didn’t see the light of day.
Fauci turned down an offer, in 1989, to become NIH chief.
He tried to squeeze greater and greater funding for HIV out of administrations with a deft hand.
INTRO: Anthony Fauci spent 40 years in the top echelons of government. It was no accident.
To read the forthcoming memoir by the country’s former top infectious disease expert, “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service,” a copy of which was obtained by STAT, is to get a sense of his finesse while advising seven presidents. He strove, he writes, to speak with complete candor and stay out of politics, while remaining strategic in pushing for policies he considered vital to public health.
He maneuvered for more HIV funding in the Reagan administration; pushed George H.W. Bush to expand access to experimental AIDS medicines; worked with Bill Clinton to set up the National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center; and teamed up with George W. Bush, on whom he lavishes particularly effusive praise, to set up the global HIV medicine initiative PEPFAR and several biodefense efforts.
Separating science from politics was not always possible for Fauci, particularly in the latter years of his service, when he found himself being screamed at and taunted by former President Donald Trump.
Beyond that revelation, “On Call,” which is officially being released Tuesday, provides plenty of other insights into how Fauci, the longtime director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, managed his role and how public health was conducted over the past several decades. Below are top takeaways from the 455-page book... (MORE - details)
THE NINE TAKEAWAYS COVERED:
Of course, he would do things differently on Covid-19 if given another shot.
The U.S. response to the pandemic succeeded on science, and failed on public health.
Local health officials tried to warn Fauci, who tried to warn the White House, that contact tracing was failing.
Fauci grew increasingly concerned about the politicization of science during the 2015-2016 Zika outbreak.
But Covid was unlike anything else.
An HIV vaccine may be far, far off, if it’s possible at all.
He advocated for efforts on TB, HIV, and malaria that didn’t see the light of day.
Fauci turned down an offer, in 1989, to become NIH chief.
He tried to squeeze greater and greater funding for HIV out of administrations with a deft hand.