Doctor, Director, and Distinctive Politician
This Wednesday, on an interview with NBC News’ Chuck Todd, an intransigent Dr. Anthony Fauci defended himself against his critics, who he claims are blasting “painfully ridiculous” and “preposterous” nonsense to discredit his mission as America’s chief virologist. But what was more captivating was the fact that he equated his figure to science itself. His words are the consensus so dissent is anti-science. Skepticism? Morally reprehensible.
“A lot of what you’re seeing as attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science, because all of the things that I have spoken about, consistently from the very beginning, have been fundamentally based on science.”
Aristotle, the first political scientist, noted that humans are political animals, and that who controls the narrative through rhetoric ultimately attracts power. Dr. Fauci might have dedicated his life to medicine, but as he increasingly faces the political sphere, his instincts exemplified by his power of words have taken the limelight — and revealed his inner politician. His structured image and precise language have allowed him to auto-proclaim himself the Czar of Science. To such an extent that in the heights of the pandemic, April 2020, a Quinnipiac poll revealed that 78 percent approved of his job, and a mere 7 percent disapproved.
His popularity comes as no surprise. As fear inundated American households, the yearning for a celestial authoritative figure — the one and only savior — who could express coherently what remained unknown was inevitable. Who else could we trust in the era of unlimited interconnection and massive disinformation? The experienced and supposedly apolitical U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director took the role. As times evolved, his face became a regular on national TV, and millions of Americans placed full trust on his character.
Now, as hundreds of pages of his emails were revealed under the Freedom of Information Act, and more than 3,200 pages have been made available by Buzzfeed News, it is only natural to start asking some questions. Might his dominance ensured the downplaying of inconsistencies, the ignoring of potential miscalculations, and the hinderance of desirable public discourse? In part, the contents of his emails suggest so, but that cannot be said when the media has already put him in a pedestal.
Of the dozens of eye-catching exchanges captured by the emails, one of the most fascinating revelations was that the same Dr. Fauci who now states that he is not convinced by the “COVID-19 developed naturally outside Wuhan lab” hypothesis exchanged emails being thanked for stating exactly the opposite. Peter Daszak, a zoologist with financial ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, thanked Fauci for pushing back against the now probable explanation and then definite conspiracy theory.
Dazak, who firmly rejects the controversial theory, funneled $3.4 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health through his organization, the EcoHealth Alliance. As reported by journalist Zachary Evans, the money was used to study bat coronaviruses between 2014 and 2019 in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. For those keeping up with current events, the plausibility of gain of function research escaping the premises, and the existing connections involved institutions have with American scientists makes the ability some figures have to reduce hostility with the Chinese Communist Party seem logical.
“I just wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin for COVID-19 from a bat-to-human spillover, not a lab release from the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Daszak wrote to Fauci.
As a logical reaction to such revelation, further questioning sounds like a no-brainer. But doing so has become incrementally difficult when the man who accumulated national trust can quickly label one ill-intentioned — and the mainstream media will quickly take his side.
In response to such, Senator Rand Paul, days before Fauci’s MSNBC interview, appeared on Fox News’ Sean Hannity’s show demanding a hearing with impartial scientists of similar experience who oppose gain of function research. A discussion which seems worth having, but one that Americans were denied from having when a very few decided that the risks were worth it in the name of science.
In the next weeks, congressional action will inevitably follow as a consequence of this controversy. What we ought to keep in mind throughout this process is that it is crucial to remain a skeptic, which scientists usually endorse. The God-like status acquired by Fauci and the connections his colleagues had with dangerous experimentation abroad must fill our heads with questions and inspire nationwide reflection — and not malice. But it should also motivate politicians into deeper investigation, a fight for increased accountability, and potential prosecution.
