Overview
Anthony Stephen Fauci (OMRI) (Born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022, and the chief medical advisor to the president from 2021 to 2022.[4]
Highlights
As a physician with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Fauci has served the American public health sector in various capacities for more than fifty years and has acted as an advisor to every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan.[5]
During his time as director of the NIAID, he made contributions to HIV/AIDS research and other immunodeficiency diseases, both as a research scientist and as the head of the NIAID.[6]
From 1983 to 2002, Fauci was one of the world's most frequently cited scientists across all scientific journals.[6][7]
In 2008, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, for his work on the AIDS relief program PEPFAR.[8]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he served under President Donald Trump as one of the lead members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
After Joe Biden took office, Fauci began serving as one of the lead members of the White House COVID-19 Response Team and as Biden's chief medical advisor.[9][10] Fauci stepped down on December 31, 2022.[11]
In 2021, he was named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.[12]
Political commentator Helen Andrews defended Fauci's actions during the A.I.D.S epidemic in a article, writing:
The idea that Fauci was "wrong" about A.I.D.S., which some of his contemporary opponents repeat, is unfair. His most notorious error was a 1983 paper suggesting "routine close contact, as within a family household," might spread the disease, but it was an understandable mistake given what was known at the time and he corrected it within a year, lightning speed by the standards of academic publishing. He behaved more responsibly than some of his peers when it came to speculating about a heterosexual A.I.D.S. epidemic around the corner. He was not one of the hysteria-mongers—though he did benefit from the hysteria when negotiating budgets with Congress.[36]
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