Anthony Fauci: The Face of War against Corona in America
The United States has left Italy behind in the highest number of deaths due to corona virus worldwide. But a top US health official, Dr Anthony Fauci, said the US could have “saved lives” if it had taken steps to stop the covid-19.
Dr. Anthony is the chief officer of the task force on the Corona virus in the White House. But after his statement, he became the target of many people in America. Time to #FireFauci started trending on Twitter.
Trump also retweeted a tweet containing this hashtag and made it clear that he did not agree with Fauci.
But the White House later denied in a press conference that the president’s gesture was to remove Fauci from office.
A spokesman said such things in the media are nonsense. He said, “Dr. Fauci has been a trusted advisor and will continue to be so.”
Face of war against corona
Dr. Fauci has become the face of America’s fight against the Corona virus. He is seen sitting with President Trump during the daily updates from the White House.
But both have been expressing very divergent opinions from each other on many issues. Dr. Fauci recently said in an interview to CBS that he adopts a scientific approach, while President Trump “has a hopeful attitude like the common man.”
Due to his attitude, Dr. Fauci has been targeted many times.
In his five-decade long career as a medical researcher, Anthony Fauci has seen his effigy burn, heard himself calling the demonstrators “murderers”, and even thrown smoke bombs outside his office window. .
But he has also been praised as the most popular doctor in America, and he was seen as a person who helped America to face public health crisis, otherwise it would have been even more difficult.
Epidemic has come even before
79-year-old Dr. Fauci is not facing such a challenge for the first time,. He was the head of immunology at the National Institute of Health during the HIV / AIDS epidemic in 1980.
Now, as President Trump has said, the US is in a “war-like state” to counter the Kovid-19 epidemic, where Dr. Fauci has again become a frontline warrior.
Son of a ‘doctor’
Born on Christmas day 1940 in a family of Italian immigrant pharmacists in Brooklyn, Dr. Fauci told the Holy Cross College alumni magazine in 2002, “I’ve been writing prescriptions ever since I came of age to ride a bike.”
In 1966, he graduated from First Class at Cornell Medical School. After postgraduate training in 1986, he joined the National Institute of Health during the war.
He says that the turning point in his career came decades later, when a report reached his table on 5 June, 1981. The report wrote that one healthy patient died of strange pneumonia, which is often seen in cancer patients.
Shortly after, another report came in which 26 deaths were mentioned. All were gay.
Dr. Fauci said, “I remember the time when I read that report. For the first time in my medical career, I got goosebumps. Something was terribly wrong. It was some kind of new bacterium which was working like sexually-transmitted disease.
Medicine Man and ‘killer’
Dr. Fauci’s work on the human immune system as a physician was credited with helping to identify how the HIV virus damages the body’s ability to fight. He led the first clinical trial of antiretroviral drugs to treat zidovudine and AIDS.
It became an epidemic in the United States in the 1980s. However, he came under attack from activists who were angry with the silence of the administration of the then President Ronald Reagan and the lack of novel medicines.
The protesters stood outside the government offices carrying posters that said: “Dr. Fauci, you are killing us” and activists on television were condemning them.
Playwriter and Gay Right activist Larry Kramer also produced a play against him.
Dr. Fauci recalled those days in an interview in 2011, “I remember I was looking through the window and people were throwing smoke bombs standing on the lawns of the NHI. The police were about to arrest them, but I refused saying bring those people to my office so that I can talk to them. “
His sympathy for those suffering from AIDS was praised, and he was also credited with persuading regulators to relax restrictions on clinical trials for new medicines.
The New York Times wrote for him, “The government’s leading AIDS celebrity” – the special thing is that he still does his research work.
In 2008, he was awarded America’s most prestigious civilian honor, The Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In 1984, he was appointed director of the Allergy and Infection Diseases Division of the National Institute of Health. He is still in this position.
Second Epidemic
The research division he leads, there is a study on everything from AIDS to Ebola and then asthma.
Dr. Fauci has so far been an advisor to six presidents. He helped George W. Bush’s US government start the AIDS Initiative in Africa. Now, during Trump’s tenure, he is working for the public as an Explainer-in-Chief amid the outbreak of Kovid-19.
For Americans, he is a reliable man standing on the podium of the White House, who explains the steps of the US government, explains the science behind it and at times corrects President Trump’s talk. When Trump made an optimistic claim that the drug would be made soon, he corrected it and said that it would take at least one and a half years for the vaccine to be made.
The current American leader, Trump, who does not like challengers, has also been seen to praise Dr. Fauci fiercely. Trump said the researcher was “a big TV star.” However, US watchers say they have some difficulty in working with the White House because of their habit of correcting the president’s claims.
Dr. Fauci’s interview given to Science Magazine has been shared a lot in which he is seen saying, “As far as giving correct information to the public is concerned, I am trying my best. But I cannot do impossible things.”
“I can’t get down by jumping in front of Mike and pushing him (President Trump). Okay, he said it. Next time we’ll try to fix it.”
