Fauci on the “Politicization of Science”

He doesn’t want to “name names,” but has no problem smearing Peter Duesberg

The following piece, which appeared as a video interview accompanied by a transcript, appeared yesterday in MedPageToday and features Fauci being as smug as ever, including slinging mud at Peter Duesberg right out of the gate. This is interesting, because as we know, the legacy media have been largely silent on anything even mentioning the possibility that critics of HIV AIDS even exist any longer.

Fauci on the Politicization of Public Health

Fauci was interviewed by Dr. Jeremy Faust. Here is the very first excerpt:

Faust: You did something where you not only debated people who were pushing you to do more -- you were debating your own side in a way, which was advocacy -- but you also debated AIDS denialists, people who really had some far-out-there views.

Should we be debating people at that extreme who exist today in other areas? Or is it more like, no, those people are unreachable, let's consolidate people who actually have a little bit clearer of a view of the world?

The term “denialist” is so troublesome because, unlike other ad hominem slurs that are commonly thrown around, I can’t see any way to “reclaim” the term, which of course is precisely why they do use it. This opening question is full of information. From the intimation at the beginning of the early difficulties Fauci had with AIDS activists, to the ad hominem attacks on anyone that criticizes any of their pet theories, to the implicit suggestion that scientists in the in crowd ought not to “debate” with us but just ignore us. (Also, a public debate is not the orthodox way of progressing in science as it does not represent the scientific method; however, since all funding was cut off to critics of HIV AIDS from its inception, a public debate—as much as a debate is entertainment before it is anything approaching science—may be the best hope for dissenting scientists to get our voices heard at all.) Curious that Dr. Faust (!) opened with this question. Let’s see how Fauci answers:

Fauci: I think debating them is not necessarily going to change their viewpoint. I mean, Peter Duesberg... no matter what you told Peter Duesberg, he was going to deny that HIV was the cause of AIDS. The reason that I debated him sometimes publicly on TV was because I wanted to let anyone who was listening to see how ill-founded his claims were when you look at data.

Debated him sometimes publicly on TV? This makes it sound like there was a lively series of discussions between Fauci and Duesberg, and that they were televised. We all know this alleged series of debates never happened, but Fauci implied they did, effectively painting a veneer over this situation that the controversy over HIV AIDS was legitimately, publicly dismantled. In fact, I’m not sure Fauci ever debated Duesberg publicly. He certainly backed out of a planned appearance on Good Morning America in 1988, as documented on page 379 of RFK Jr’s The Real Anthony Fauci.

He then goes on to say: “So we should be debating them to point out the falseness of their claims; I don't think we're going to change their mind.” Okay, that actually sounds great, because it’s better than no debate at all, although I’m not convinced it will ever happen. If it is so important to Fauci to debate “denialists” with the express intention not of changing their minds, but of showing to the world just how crazy our ideas are, why is he not appearing on large platforms demolishing any of us or our ideas and the information we disseminate? In fact, I’ll offer myself—if Fauci wants to debate me, not to change my mind, but to humiliate me and put the final nail in the coffin of “HIV” denialism for the world to see, I’m sure he has the connections to make this as public as possible. Moving on.

Fauci then predictably continues by pointing out that Duesberg’s ideas were responsible for “hundreds of thousands” of South African deaths. We’ve heard this argument many many times, so I won’t bother repeating it.

Fauci then moves on to Covid, in which he inadvertently supports my theory that the HIV AIDS playbook fiasco was absolutely the clinical trial for the catastrophic Covid response.

I think the point I made in the book -- and it became clear when you went from one chapter to another -- that the anti-vax movement has resulted in the avoidable hospitalization and deaths of a considerable number of people. And the interesting thing is that the analogy and the comparability of some of the denialists were scientists with very good credentials from Berkeley and Stanford.

You know, Peter Duesberg was from Berkeley, a PhD, National Academy of Sciences, and yet he was way, way off track on what he was saying. We see the same things with COVID when you have people from very established and highly ranked universities who have doctoral degrees, usually in an area that's not the area that we're talking about -- you get economists and other people start talking about viral epidemiology and they're a little bit out of their lane -- but because of their degree and the institution they come from they often get believed, which is unfortunate and can lead to dire circumstances.

“Don’t pay attention to anyone’s credentials or institutional affiliation because they mean nothing unless they agree with us.” Faust then asks Fauci why he thinks it is that “people who ought to know better” sometimes “get this wrong.” Fauci’s reply is, for lack of a better word, very weird.

Fauci: You know, it's difficult to explain, Jeremy. I can't get into their head, but what you see sometimes is that there's a certain heady wine about having your name in the newspaper or getting on TV a lot. And you know when you say something outlandish, all of a sudden everybody's clicking on that. The next thing you know, you're being quoted as the person who stands for this.

And sometimes people say, "This feels good. I like having my name in the newspaper every week or being on whatever TV show you're on." And they say things that, you're right, they should know better. You would imagine that they should know better. And yet they're saying things that seem to be patently wrong by anybody's imagination

There was no period at the end of that last sentence in the piece, so I’m not putting it there. But this analysis of why scientists are raising questions about Covid or AIDS is really wild—there is a “certain heady wine about having your name in the newspaper every week or being on whatever show you’re on?” It’s certainly news to me that such critics are being highly sought after by anyone in the legacy media, let alone sufficiently frequently as to intoxicate them with the sheer power of said media appearances. Nice try, Fauci, but you missed the mark here.

The interview continues with a discussion of the many private conversations Fauci had with scientists (I assume during Covid for the most part, but he never says this) whose names he doesn’t want to name because “I don’t want to get into that.” That says a lot, especially since he had no problem whatsoever naming Duesberg’s name in his very first response.

He then discusses his experience helping to treat Ebola patients, in order to support the notion that he is or ever was somehow a full time practicing clinical physician rather than a bureaucrat with a medical degree. We’re almost done; let’s see what Fauci thinks we ought to do regarding the politicization of science, as though he weren’t one of the top offenders.

Fauci: I'm just thinking now as we're talking about this, I think the culmination -- not the culmination, but one of the culminations of it was right now trying to figure out what are lessons learned from COVID? The questions you asked me in the beginning of the interview. What are some of the things that we've learned that we could do better the next time? What worked? What didn't work?

All you had to do is take a look at that congressional hearing that I testified at a few weeks ago with Marjorie Taylor Greene going off the rails there. I mean, was that a "Let's see how we can do better," or was that an ad hominem vitriolic gotcha. That's where we've arrived at, which is very unhelpful, to say the least.

Okay, I remember that particular exchange; I believe it was the one in which Ms. Greene (correctly) called him out for his unfortunate treatment of beagles in scientific experiments. How is that an ad hominem vitriolic gotcha?

Unfortunately, this piece doesn’t really address the question posed in the title; it seems to be a scenic tour of every pandemic Fauci presided over, if I can judge from this piece, since at this point, they steer directly into—wait for it—Zika. No comment.

They conclude with the standard question, what would you tell someone that is considering working in public health or public health research? His reply is just what you would expect it to be.

You know, Jeremy, I would encourage them strongly to do it if they're thinking about it, because the gratification and the feeling of accomplishment that you can have in the arena of public health in general and public service, which is intimately connected to public health, is worth the difficulties that we face.

It would be nice if we didn't have that, but it would not discourage me from strongly encouraging younger people, even though they see some of the slings and arrows that we get subjected to by people who should know better. I still think the end game, the end of the day of what you can get out for yourself and for others, and the feeling of gratification you get about helping others in public health totally... all of life, Jeremy -- I don't want to get too philosophical -- is a risk-benefit ratio. You take risks, and what's the benefit? What's the risk? And the benefit of pursuing your career in public health far outweighs, in my mind, the risks.

It’s too bad that he leaves the obvious part out, which is that if you want a career in public health, you’d better fall in line and refuse to question the theory du jour. What a total joke. As always, let me know what you think in the comments.

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