Fauci

“Prejudices are what fools use for reason”     

 Voltaire

In 1614, Galileo was accused of heresy for his support of the Copernican theory that the sun was at the centre of the solar system. This was revolutionary at a time when most people believed the Catholic Church’s teaching that the earth was in this central position. In 1616, he was forbidden by the Church from teaching or advocating these theories. In 1632, he was again condemned for heresy and condemned to life imprisonment, later modified to house arrest.

A tragic example of a brilliant mind who spoke the truth savaged by the powers of the day who felt threatened by challenges to the status quo.

Another more recent example is what happened in the U.S. House of Representatives this week.

The Republican run House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Pandemic grilled Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former government scientist, for hours on end. Republican member Marjorie Taylor-Greene, known for her nonsensical public statements on a wide variety of issues, refused to call him Doctor, and stated outright that Fauci should be in jail for crimes against humanity.

The crime?

The session tried to address allegations that Dr. Fauci provided the Chinese with the COVID virus in a research exchange, that this, instead of an animal to human transmission, was the cause for the pandemic, and that he tried to hide it.

Fauci firmly denied this, citing scientific data against these politically motivated charges. In an occasionally testy appearance, Dr. Fauci read aloud an email from February 2020 in which he urged a prominent scientist who was then suspicious about a lab leak “to determine if his concerns are validated” and if so, “very quickly” report them to the F.B.I.

“It is inconceivable that anyone who reads this email could conclude that I was trying to cover up the possibility of a laboratory leak,” Dr. Fauci testified.

Dr. Fauci is a highly respected retired immunologist who enjoyed a stellar fifty year career in the U.S. public health service.

According to the New York Times, Democrats painted Dr. Fauci as an American hero, with Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat from Michigan, disparaging the Republican-led inquiry as “a witch hunt.”

Republicans blamed Fauci for school closings, the imposition of masks in schools, and other “invasive” policies. In fact, these policies helped mitigate the spread of the disease and limit the number of deaths.

The Republican house investigation into Fauci misses the point – it goes after the scientist based on prejudices but doesn’t investigate the evil perpetrated by former President Trump.

Upon coming to office in 2017, the Trump Administration disbanded the White House pandemic response team, The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) epidemiologist embedded in China’s disease control agency left the post, and the Trump Administration eliminated the role.

In 2020, Trump said “Looks like by April, you know in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… the Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

“You are not going to die from this pill...I really think it's a great thing to try."[Trump promoting Hydroxychloroquine, not an FDA approved medication, to treat coronavirus].” The pill has no medicinal value against COVID.

"I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that." This prompted Reckitt, the makers of Lysol, to issue a warning, “under no circumstances” should this be done. As he said this, the expert sitting by the side of the room rolled her eyes but knew better than to contradict Trump in public.

“So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said, that hasn't been checked but you're gonna test it. And then I said, supposing it brought the light inside the body, which you can either do either through the skin or some other way.

“This is going to go away without a vaccine. It is going to go away.  We are not going to see it again.”

By May of 2020 the death toll had already reached 230,000 and over nine million Americans were infected.

Yet Trump continued on his ego-fueled rants rather than listen to scientific advice, make rational statements and recommendations, and avoid promoting unproven “cures” that in fact may have wound up actually killing many more.

To top it all off, Trump’s major excuse for his failure wss a gem: “We have more cases because we have more testing!”

In my view, these are the criminal acts of irresponsibility that contributed directly or indirectly to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the United States.

And yet, Trump is nowhere near being subpoenaed to testify about his cynical lack of action and boldface lies with which he “managed” the pandemic.

Expecting instant excellent results negates the fact that sometimes it takes decades of scientific research to come up with the truth.

Research based on fact rather than wishful thinking or imagination.

In the meanwhile, you deal with what you have, as Dr. Fauci did, and base it on science, not whim.

Trump iognored science, preferring to engage in hyperbole and base his recommendations on whim — to the detriment of Americans who suffered real illness and death.

Trump’s hatred of competence and his prejudice towards the competent led directly to this egregious situation.

Voltaire would have been dismayed to see his idea validated in so tragic a manner.