Two more things. Some argue that Fauci was ‘just doing his job as best he could’.
Almost none of what Fauci did falls under the job of NIAID director. He volunteered repeatedly to take the work of the CDC, white house and other parts of HHS. His diary reveals a compulsion to get more and more limelight, reveling that a beer was named after him and that he had a bobble head doll.
If I walk into a restaurant, go into the kitchen and take over the work of chef: commanding others to add more salt to the meals, actually no salt, wait, no double salt! then I shouldn’t be surprised to see a Yelp review saying the food was terrible.
Two: the NYtimes says there was no evidence research Fauci funded set off lab leak. I think many people confuse biologic evidence for intelligence.
If someone says a waiter peed in the soup, you can try to run a mass spectrometer to find evidence of pee. And you can debate the reading and the rates of urea. But if another waiter saw him peeing in the soup you may conclude he peed in the soup. This is precisely the evidence CIA showed Fauci and the basis for intelligence determinations.
I just can't get over the cognitive dissonance of Fauci defenders among the corporate media, Democratic party, and everyday people. Seriously, what more evidence do you need at this point to realize that the man was an incompetent, unethical, petty, lazy, and narcissistic government bureaucrat? He literally says in his own words that he doesn't believe what he is saying in public!
Fauci was wrong on most aspects of the Covid response. Upon that we can agree. But how about all those who should have known better (and did) but just rolled over and followed the “rules”: Physicians, certification boards, state boards of medicine, hospital medical staffs and executive committees, and local health departments. If there had been any degree of solidarity to not just say NO but HELL NO, much of this pain, suffering, and death could have been avoided. Even now there is nothing but dead silence from colleagues who now know they were wrong. That concerns me for the future. When we meet the new boss who is the same as the old boss, they will all fall in line if they have anything to lose.
I’m still angry about all of this. I work in healthcare. Never missed a day of work nor did I want to. Yes, things were uncertain initially. I was afraid, but by the time it came to extended school closures and masking my daycare aged toddler, I knew it was dubious advice at best. It sickens me what kids missed during formative years (while bars and restaurants were open). As you say, scientists make mistakes all the time and mistakes are part of the process. Just own up to it.
The masking thing was especially annoying. They literally did nothing beneficial. The only result was litter and a lot of slurping of moist, CO2 saturated air. Sure, they're good for dust, pollen, that sort of thing. I looked at A LOT of studies--many dozens of them--looking at every conceivable situation, and there was always zero benefit. Except, of course, for the manufacturers. They made BANK. And I still have friends and family who believe they work. No evidence gets through. It's a religion.
You forgot to include in the reasons he is hated: He made himself filthy rich on the suffering and death of others. He should be known as Doctor Doom, or Thanos. He's a Marvel villain-level villain.
Absolutely noone on the left has proven to me what exactly Fauci did to "lead" us through the pandemic. Their only argument is Fauci is a scapegoat and they love him because he clapped back at Trump.
Fauci was one example on the national scale. Deborah Birx is another. She was attempting to distance herself from Fauci in an interview last night. There are many tyrants at the state and county level. Alabama's state health tyrant was a Fauci/CDC parrot. He is still employed and got a 7% raise recently. 🤬🤬
Yes, yes, yes, Donnie! I’ve been saying that about Deborah Birx! She along with Frances Collins, Rochelle Walensky, Ralph Baric, Peter Daszak and many others need to be hauled in front of Senate committees and then referred to the DOJ for prosecution. It’s way past time.
I have real anger at the dentist of Alabama too. I have no idea who set these arbitrary standards. During Covid, my normal dentist had me wash my hands before teeth cleaning but no mouthwash. My orthodontist has me gargle with mouthwash but no hand washing. But the idiotic masking at both. An oral surgeon didn’t require masks, mouthwash, or hand washing. 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
I understand, Donnie. We were all trying to do what we thought was best. In my office we had handwashing, then mouthwash due to the high volume of aerosols in dentistry( we abandoned the mouthwash after things were better understood and we weren’t under a microscope so much), plus masking ( which was required by our local health department in order to stay open as a business so we complied while discussing openly with those who would listen the reasons why this made no sense). It was a very stressful and challenging time to be operating a small business with so many depending on me for their livelihoods, after returning to a limited schedule after being forcibly closed for seven weeks, having to furlough your employees, and not being sure what the County’s rules were as they changed periodically. Optics became important if you wanted to survive as a business. My business partner required all of her employees to get the shots. I didn’t so the County required us to test once per week if we wanted to work so I brought in a nurse every week and paid for everything for eighteen months (CA was ridiculous as usual) at $60 per employee per week, until that rule was abolished. I know it was inconsistent and frustrating but I am going to go out on a limb and say that the offices were all probably trying to do their best under the circumstances.
So sorry you had to go through that. Very unnecessary and inappropriate behavior. Nerves were frayed during that time which isn’t an excuse at all. Humans don’t behave appropriately all the time.
I am sorry you had to deal with idiots forcing you to do arbitrary things. And as you say optics were a main driver which is not science. The same mentality of the dental assistant was everywhere. A COSTCO clerk denied my ADA rights even though Alabama’s mask mandate had a clear exemption for hearing impaired people. Officious store clerks felt they could grade the quality of masks worn by my sister. California was among the worst and Florida was among the best. Alabama’s is a supposed supermajority Republican state but the medical industry has an outsized influence on state government.
I still do not know what was done during my orthodontic treatment because I could never understand what the masked orthodontist was saying. Luckily everything turned out well.
CA where I lived full time back then, was definitely one of the worst led by our horrible, also narcissistic, governor. Many really lost all forms of common sense during that time. No, optics are not science at all, but if you want to keep your business open in a situation like that, and I did, you make choices.
I do not know. It isn’t lack of information or anger, it is lack of political will. The U.S. House issued the report “After Action Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward” toward the end of 2024. Many states and countries have held hearings. Florida issued a grand jury report. Canada had a citizens inquiry. Idaho passed the Idaho Freedom Act. In Alabama, the medical industry donations and power along with a doctor being the state senate healthcare chairman has stymied any hearings or corrective actions. Plus, the Alabama governor was just as guilty as the state health tyrant in violating civil liberties.
Oh the ones who argue the loudest against him now are likely the ones who supported his BS the most. Basking in reflected glory of others’ fame should no longer be important after 40! And here Fauci was like a school girl Beatles fan…
Did you notice, Jim, that a comment of yours was placed in substack “jail” for lack of a better term on Vinay Prasad’s site. I’ve written comments about this twice now. I don’t think he looks at comments so not sure if you know what can be done about this. Apparently some new policy substack has that the author has to opt out of?
I noticed also that none of the comments I read seemed to warrant placement in that section. I noticed today that AMDoctor’s site has the same section.
remember when he said something about people giving up their "ideological bullshit" if you just made their lives difficult enough? well, I lost my job of 40 years, the job which had shaped my entire life and influenced every decision that I made since 1980. still, I gave up that job rather than compromise my "ideological bullshit."
how strongly do I feel about Dr. Fauci? I would travel far to be a witness at his public hanging, which is the only thing that will make me happy
That sentiment is shared by countless people, Carolyn, but remember what the madman Nietzsche said about staring into the abyss.
I was sharing some experiences with a retired professor of abnormal psychology, about how dealing with dark triad personalities in business, induced me to out-Machiavelli them to stop their harm to myself and others.
She asked me "didn't you feel good about winning those conflicts?" I answered "no, every experience was a horror from beginning to end, the last thing I want is to express any bit of those traits myself, for any reason. I felt terrible, even though "winning" stopped an ongoing series of very destructive acts."
She smiled and said "then you're okay. If you felt good, you'd be at risk of becoming a psychopath yourself. These people may have a predisposition, but they don't behave that way in isolation."
You were harmed by the actions of a psychopath, and lost almost everything but your own soul. Justice is better regarded with grim satisfaction than pleasure, lest the abyss that looks back, command us evermore.
Now I have to remind myself of that, because I've shared your sentiment myownself and can claim no superiority for working to end Fauci's power over my own internal processes. That said,
thank you for taking the time to answer so compassionately. don't get me wrong- that was said with a large degree of hyperbole (although I would enjoy the justice of it).
no one touches my soul. I am a generally calm and happy person. I have a wonderful old house that we are designing and renovating ourselves (we're old crafty theater people with lots of skills), a partner who loves me, 3 cats who we adore, a vegetable garden in the back yard (nothing is as good for the soul as growing things in healthy soil) and a front yard that I have planted fully and densely so that my beloved never has to mow a lawn! we give our extra vegetables away to our neighbors. in the evenings, after a day of sweating in the garden, we take a dip in our pool and thrill when we see bats flying overhead. we made a greenhouse out of salvaged doors and windows which I use in the winter.
I have a sewing room and do alternations for locals so I can use my lifetime of sewing and earn a bit of cash. I own 2 other houses, which supported me during the lockdowns even though the government interfered with private contracts. my good tenants paid their rents; otherwise I would have lost my houses.
I just turned 73 but can pass for mid 40's. I've never had a mammogram or a colonoscopy and only had the vaccines that were given to kids born in 1953. my cousin's wife took the swine flu shot in 1976 and spent the next year in a wheelchair which pretty much put the nail in the coffin for me and conventional medicine. I'm on medicare but I only go to doctors who don't participate in the insurance system. we have an acupuncturist/ naturopath. my partner just had some PRP to deal with an arthritic hip rather than submitting to hip replacement surgery. I've just started working with a homeopath, hoping I can shrink the polyps in my sinuses rather than have surgery.
I source all our food from local pastured grass farmers, we guzzle raw milk and I do all the cooking. I stay away from doctors unless I get hit by a car (I did in February of 2020). the surgeon tried to tell me that my bones were crappy and wanted to put me on a lifetime of bisphoshonates after I had two broken bones- I was thrown 10 feet off my bike for god's sake!
most doctors just want to suck you in and make you into a recurring revenue source. better to skip the doctors, avoid medications, eat foods that you cook, work outside in a garden and lift some weights. don't let any doctor try to convince you that your body is going to turn on you!
Fear and Greed drive the market. Unfortunately, it also drove HealthCare policy at a time when the whole world was vulnerable. All perpetuated by lies and non-science. No one should feel sorry for this guy, nor defend him.
The media is known to be thoroughly corrupt. The only problem is that people don't hate NYT enough.
However, the bigger question is why do millions of people in health care (doctors, nurses, researchers, etc.) not see Fauci as the devil that he was, and still is.
He deserves ALL the blame for ALL the bad policies. He alone could have stood up and said stop this nonsense, but he didn’t. He started it and propagated it.
I agree that he was the mouthpiece and pushed for a lot of the horrible policies, but there are others who deserve to be put under a microscope as well. The field had some depth.
Fauci was a useful idiot & his massive ego made it easy for his handlers. This was a DARPA funded military event that hid behind public health. Fauci does not appear to be a decent or intelligent scientist/doctor but an egomaniac who loved being the face of it as long as he was deluded into believing his greatness & made filthy rich. Seriously why else would this moron survive every administration for the past 50 years - they stroke his ego while he does what he’s told.
This is an eye-opening article that should be read by every physician so they can see the benefit benefits and risks of pun you without evidence or data to support it
Two more things. Some argue that Fauci was ‘just doing his job as best he could’.
Almost none of what Fauci did falls under the job of NIAID director. He volunteered repeatedly to take the work of the CDC, white house and other parts of HHS. His diary reveals a compulsion to get more and more limelight, reveling that a beer was named after him and that he had a bobble head doll.
If I walk into a restaurant, go into the kitchen and take over the work of chef: commanding others to add more salt to the meals, actually no salt, wait, no double salt! then I shouldn’t be surprised to see a Yelp review saying the food was terrible.
Two: the NYtimes says there was no evidence research Fauci funded set off lab leak. I think many people confuse biologic evidence for intelligence.
If someone says a waiter peed in the soup, you can try to run a mass spectrometer to find evidence of pee. And you can debate the reading and the rates of urea. But if another waiter saw him peeing in the soup you may conclude he peed in the soup. This is precisely the evidence CIA showed Fauci and the basis for intelligence determinations.
If I could give this post a thousand likes, I would. Welcome back, Dr. Prasad. Thank you for capturing what so many of us felt then and now.
I just can't get over the cognitive dissonance of Fauci defenders among the corporate media, Democratic party, and everyday people. Seriously, what more evidence do you need at this point to realize that the man was an incompetent, unethical, petty, lazy, and narcissistic government bureaucrat? He literally says in his own words that he doesn't believe what he is saying in public!
Completely agree, WHS Jr! This article is excellent! I have shared it quite a bit already.
Fauci was wrong on most aspects of the Covid response. Upon that we can agree. But how about all those who should have known better (and did) but just rolled over and followed the “rules”: Physicians, certification boards, state boards of medicine, hospital medical staffs and executive committees, and local health departments. If there had been any degree of solidarity to not just say NO but HELL NO, much of this pain, suffering, and death could have been avoided. Even now there is nothing but dead silence from colleagues who now know they were wrong. That concerns me for the future. When we meet the new boss who is the same as the old boss, they will all fall in line if they have anything to lose.
Remember the three imperatives of American medicine. In order of priority:
1) Profit
2) Legal Defense
3) If there's any time left, provide some medical service
This is so true, but there are exceptions like public health.
I’m still angry about all of this. I work in healthcare. Never missed a day of work nor did I want to. Yes, things were uncertain initially. I was afraid, but by the time it came to extended school closures and masking my daycare aged toddler, I knew it was dubious advice at best. It sickens me what kids missed during formative years (while bars and restaurants were open). As you say, scientists make mistakes all the time and mistakes are part of the process. Just own up to it.
The masking thing was especially annoying. They literally did nothing beneficial. The only result was litter and a lot of slurping of moist, CO2 saturated air. Sure, they're good for dust, pollen, that sort of thing. I looked at A LOT of studies--many dozens of them--looking at every conceivable situation, and there was always zero benefit. Except, of course, for the manufacturers. They made BANK. And I still have friends and family who believe they work. No evidence gets through. It's a religion.
You forgot to include in the reasons he is hated: He made himself filthy rich on the suffering and death of others. He should be known as Doctor Doom, or Thanos. He's a Marvel villain-level villain.
Absolutely noone on the left has proven to me what exactly Fauci did to "lead" us through the pandemic. Their only argument is Fauci is a scapegoat and they love him because he clapped back at Trump.
Always expect Vinay to cut to the chase.
The failure of mainstream media outlets to cover Fauci impartially is a great reminder that mainstream media outlets can’t be trusted.
In Fauci, the unstoppable force of enraged citizens meets the immovable object of our society’s academic narrative machine.
Fauci was one example on the national scale. Deborah Birx is another. She was attempting to distance herself from Fauci in an interview last night. There are many tyrants at the state and county level. Alabama's state health tyrant was a Fauci/CDC parrot. He is still employed and got a 7% raise recently. 🤬🤬
Yes, yes, yes, Donnie! I’ve been saying that about Deborah Birx! She along with Frances Collins, Rochelle Walensky, Ralph Baric, Peter Daszak and many others need to be hauled in front of Senate committees and then referred to the DOJ for prosecution. It’s way past time.
I have real anger at the dentist of Alabama too. I have no idea who set these arbitrary standards. During Covid, my normal dentist had me wash my hands before teeth cleaning but no mouthwash. My orthodontist has me gargle with mouthwash but no hand washing. But the idiotic masking at both. An oral surgeon didn’t require masks, mouthwash, or hand washing. 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️
I understand, Donnie. We were all trying to do what we thought was best. In my office we had handwashing, then mouthwash due to the high volume of aerosols in dentistry( we abandoned the mouthwash after things were better understood and we weren’t under a microscope so much), plus masking ( which was required by our local health department in order to stay open as a business so we complied while discussing openly with those who would listen the reasons why this made no sense). It was a very stressful and challenging time to be operating a small business with so many depending on me for their livelihoods, after returning to a limited schedule after being forcibly closed for seven weeks, having to furlough your employees, and not being sure what the County’s rules were as they changed periodically. Optics became important if you wanted to survive as a business. My business partner required all of her employees to get the shots. I didn’t so the County required us to test once per week if we wanted to work so I brought in a nurse every week and paid for everything for eighteen months (CA was ridiculous as usual) at $60 per employee per week, until that rule was abolished. I know it was inconsistent and frustrating but I am going to go out on a limb and say that the offices were all probably trying to do their best under the circumstances.
And I will never forget a barely out of high school dental assistant barking at me to put my mask back on. 🤬
So sorry you had to go through that. Very unnecessary and inappropriate behavior. Nerves were frayed during that time which isn’t an excuse at all. Humans don’t behave appropriately all the time.
I am sorry you had to deal with idiots forcing you to do arbitrary things. And as you say optics were a main driver which is not science. The same mentality of the dental assistant was everywhere. A COSTCO clerk denied my ADA rights even though Alabama’s mask mandate had a clear exemption for hearing impaired people. Officious store clerks felt they could grade the quality of masks worn by my sister. California was among the worst and Florida was among the best. Alabama’s is a supposed supermajority Republican state but the medical industry has an outsized influence on state government.
I still do not know what was done during my orthodontic treatment because I could never understand what the masked orthodontist was saying. Luckily everything turned out well.
CA where I lived full time back then, was definitely one of the worst led by our horrible, also narcissistic, governor. Many really lost all forms of common sense during that time. No, optics are not science at all, but if you want to keep your business open in a situation like that, and I did, you make choices.
Fauci has a pardon, but there are many who were almost as bad as him who don't have. Why are those not prosecuted?
I do not know. It isn’t lack of information or anger, it is lack of political will. The U.S. House issued the report “After Action Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward” toward the end of 2024. Many states and countries have held hearings. Florida issued a grand jury report. Canada had a citizens inquiry. Idaho passed the Idaho Freedom Act. In Alabama, the medical industry donations and power along with a doctor being the state senate healthcare chairman has stymied any hearings or corrective actions. Plus, the Alabama governor was just as guilty as the state health tyrant in violating civil liberties.
Oh the ones who argue the loudest against him now are likely the ones who supported his BS the most. Basking in reflected glory of others’ fame should no longer be important after 40! And here Fauci was like a school girl Beatles fan…
Did you notice, Jim, that a comment of yours was placed in substack “jail” for lack of a better term on Vinay Prasad’s site. I’ve written comments about this twice now. I don’t think he looks at comments so not sure if you know what can be done about this. Apparently some new policy substack has that the author has to opt out of?
I’ve been off Substack for quite awhile but did re-sub to Vinay. Nothing about ANY media social or otherwise surprises me anymore.
I noticed also that none of the comments I read seemed to warrant placement in that section. I noticed today that AMDoctor’s site has the same section.
remember when he said something about people giving up their "ideological bullshit" if you just made their lives difficult enough? well, I lost my job of 40 years, the job which had shaped my entire life and influenced every decision that I made since 1980. still, I gave up that job rather than compromise my "ideological bullshit."
how strongly do I feel about Dr. Fauci? I would travel far to be a witness at his public hanging, which is the only thing that will make me happy
"the only thing that will make me happy"
That sentiment is shared by countless people, Carolyn, but remember what the madman Nietzsche said about staring into the abyss.
I was sharing some experiences with a retired professor of abnormal psychology, about how dealing with dark triad personalities in business, induced me to out-Machiavelli them to stop their harm to myself and others.
She asked me "didn't you feel good about winning those conflicts?" I answered "no, every experience was a horror from beginning to end, the last thing I want is to express any bit of those traits myself, for any reason. I felt terrible, even though "winning" stopped an ongoing series of very destructive acts."
She smiled and said "then you're okay. If you felt good, you'd be at risk of becoming a psychopath yourself. These people may have a predisposition, but they don't behave that way in isolation."
You were harmed by the actions of a psychopath, and lost almost everything but your own soul. Justice is better regarded with grim satisfaction than pleasure, lest the abyss that looks back, command us evermore.
Now I have to remind myself of that, because I've shared your sentiment myownself and can claim no superiority for working to end Fauci's power over my own internal processes. That said,
No Amnesty
thank you for taking the time to answer so compassionately. don't get me wrong- that was said with a large degree of hyperbole (although I would enjoy the justice of it).
no one touches my soul. I am a generally calm and happy person. I have a wonderful old house that we are designing and renovating ourselves (we're old crafty theater people with lots of skills), a partner who loves me, 3 cats who we adore, a vegetable garden in the back yard (nothing is as good for the soul as growing things in healthy soil) and a front yard that I have planted fully and densely so that my beloved never has to mow a lawn! we give our extra vegetables away to our neighbors. in the evenings, after a day of sweating in the garden, we take a dip in our pool and thrill when we see bats flying overhead. we made a greenhouse out of salvaged doors and windows which I use in the winter.
I have a sewing room and do alternations for locals so I can use my lifetime of sewing and earn a bit of cash. I own 2 other houses, which supported me during the lockdowns even though the government interfered with private contracts. my good tenants paid their rents; otherwise I would have lost my houses.
I just turned 73 but can pass for mid 40's. I've never had a mammogram or a colonoscopy and only had the vaccines that were given to kids born in 1953. my cousin's wife took the swine flu shot in 1976 and spent the next year in a wheelchair which pretty much put the nail in the coffin for me and conventional medicine. I'm on medicare but I only go to doctors who don't participate in the insurance system. we have an acupuncturist/ naturopath. my partner just had some PRP to deal with an arthritic hip rather than submitting to hip replacement surgery. I've just started working with a homeopath, hoping I can shrink the polyps in my sinuses rather than have surgery.
I source all our food from local pastured grass farmers, we guzzle raw milk and I do all the cooking. I stay away from doctors unless I get hit by a car (I did in February of 2020). the surgeon tried to tell me that my bones were crappy and wanted to put me on a lifetime of bisphoshonates after I had two broken bones- I was thrown 10 feet off my bike for god's sake!
most doctors just want to suck you in and make you into a recurring revenue source. better to skip the doctors, avoid medications, eat foods that you cook, work outside in a garden and lift some weights. don't let any doctor try to convince you that your body is going to turn on you!
Fear and Greed drive the market. Unfortunately, it also drove HealthCare policy at a time when the whole world was vulnerable. All perpetuated by lies and non-science. No one should feel sorry for this guy, nor defend him.
The media is known to be thoroughly corrupt. The only problem is that people don't hate NYT enough.
However, the bigger question is why do millions of people in health care (doctors, nurses, researchers, etc.) not see Fauci as the devil that he was, and still is.
He deserves ALL the blame for ALL the bad policies. He alone could have stood up and said stop this nonsense, but he didn’t. He started it and propagated it.
I agree that he was the mouthpiece and pushed for a lot of the horrible policies, but there are others who deserve to be put under a microscope as well. The field had some depth.
Fauci was a useful idiot & his massive ego made it easy for his handlers. This was a DARPA funded military event that hid behind public health. Fauci does not appear to be a decent or intelligent scientist/doctor but an egomaniac who loved being the face of it as long as he was deluded into believing his greatness & made filthy rich. Seriously why else would this moron survive every administration for the past 50 years - they stroke his ego while he does what he’s told.
This is an eye-opening article that should be read by every physician so they can see the benefit benefits and risks of pun you without evidence or data to support it