Dr. Anthony Fauci Changed Medicine In America Forever, Long Before Covid-19
Long Before COVID-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci 'Changed Medicine In America Forever', Dave Davies, NPR, April 16, 2020.
President Trump's daily briefings on the COVID-19 pandemic have introduced millions of Americans to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. At times, the specialist in infectious diseases has differed with the president during the briefings, correcting him on the seriousness of the virus or on the timeline for developing a vaccine. That's fueled speculation that Fauci's tenure might be cut short.
But New Yorker writer Michael Specter doesn't think Fauci needs to worry about job security. "Trump can't fire him," Specter says. "He can kick him off the coronavirus task force ... but he can't fire him from his job."
Specter has known Fauci for decades covering his work and the way he's handled the role of presidential adviser through six different U.S. presidents and the AIDS epidemic. Specter chronicles those ups and downs in the New Yorker article, "How Anthony Fauci Became America's Doctor."
"He's always taken an open-minded approach to the problems that he's faced," Specter says. "He's never been one, even in the early days, to say, 'This is how we do it and we're never going to do it a different way.' "
-- President Trump's daily briefings on the COVID-19 pandemic have introduced millions of Americans to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Specter notes that in the 1980s, during the height of the AIDS epidemic, Fauci worked with activists to amend the way the government handles clinical drug trials. The policy shift increased the number of patients who had access to experimental HIV/AIDS treatments and saved countless lives.
"This new system [for AIDS treatment] basically forced people to realize that you can't run drug trials and decide what to do with patients without ever consulting patients," Specter says. "I think it changed medicine in America forever."
Fauci continues to be forward-thinking in his approach to COVID-19, Specter says: "He wants to make a difference. He sees his job as marshaling evidence and presenting it to the people who need to know what he's talking about."
- Interview Highlights
On how Fauci's studies in humanities may have influenced the kind of physician he became
Fauci spent a lot of his life studying Latin and Greek and romance languages and philosophy. He was very deeply concerned with the humanities. He wasn't a guy just saying, "What are the English courses I need to take to graduate so I can go to medical school?" It was pretty much the inverse. He was saying, "What are the science courses I need to take to go? Because these other things are also very important." ...
More, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/04/16/834873162/long-before-covid-19-dr-tony-fauci-changed-medicine-in-america-forever
napi21
(45,806 posts)sure throw away any chance for re-election! Fauci is the one single person everyone listens to and trusts on that task force. We all could deal with & probably be happy if DT dropped off of it because all he does is campaign, but the others are necessary and give us all good information about this mess we're in.
appalachiablue
(41,177 posts)SheltieLover
(57,073 posts)Dr. Fauci is quite likely the only honest, realistic intellectual in dump' orbit. This article speaks volumes about why med schools and other professional schools want "well-rounded" applicants, as the liberal arts are key to extrapolating raw data to the human population.
Kudos to Dr. Fauci!