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Anthony Fauci, America’s foremost infectious disease expert, has reacted strongly to right-wing criticism and growing conspiracy theories related to the publication of thousands of his emails under freedom of information laws, media reports .
“‘Fauci has blood in his hands’, are you kidding? Chief medical adviser to US President Joe Biden said Monday in an interview with The New York Times.
“Here’s a guy whose whole life was spent saving lives, and now you’re telling me he’s like Hitler?” You know, come on, guys. Be real.
Fauci, who was also on former President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force, argued that those attacking him “are in fact critical of the science.”
A Guardian newspaper article said that since publishing his emails earlier this month, mostly innocuous correspondence, Fauci has faced a growing number of harsh and conspiratorial right-wing criticism.
Some of those critics have focused on his advice, at the start of the pandemic, against wearing masks.
Others focused on a series of partially-worded emails, from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who reached out to Fauci to thank him for his leadership and invite him to participate in a question-and-answer session in line.
In his interview with The Times, Fauci pushed back.
“It is essential as a scientist that you evolve your opinion and recommendations based on the data as it evolves,” he said.
“And that’s the reason I say the people who then criticize me about it are actually criticizing the science.”
“People who give ad hominems say, ‘Ah, Fauci has misled us. First he said “no masks”, then he said “masks”. Well let me give you a flash. This is how science works. You are working with the data you have at the time, ”he added.
He described the email exchange with Zuckerberg as “about as friendly and innocent of an email as you can imagine,” and called the review of the correspondence a “total conspiracy theory. and total fancy flight ”.
When asked how he felt when he realized his emails needed to be made public, Fauci said: discrediting me, I thought to myself, ‘Chances are, I know that. you can extract sentences from emails or take emails out of context or take a perfectly innocent email followed by an explanation and only show one aspect of it. “
Fauci has served seven presidents since 1984, but the pandemic and the chaotic response of the Trump administration have propelled him to new fame.
He also told The Times that he gave “very little weight to adulation and very little weight to the madness of condemning me.”
Fauci remains skeptical of claims Covid-19 originated from a lab leak in Wuhan, according to the report.
I think, like the overwhelming majority of scientists with knowledge of virology and evolutionary biology, that the most likely explanation is a natural jump from animal to human, ”he told The Times.
He described the theory as a “very, very remote possibility” but said “I keep an open mind.”
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