Americas Challenges

Anthony Stephen Fauci ( /ˈfaʊtʃi/; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician and immunologist who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984. Since January 2020, he has been one of the lead members of the Trump Administration’s White House Coronavirus Task Force addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Fauci is considered one of the most trusted medical figures in the country.^[1]^[2]

Fauci is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on infectious diseases.^[3]^[4] As a physician with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Fauci has served American public health in various capacities for over 50 years, and has been an advisor to every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan.^[3] He has made contributions to HIV/AIDS research and other immunodeficiencies, both as a scientist and as the head of the NIAID at the NIH.

Early life and education

Greta Van Susteren interviewed Fauci in 2018 (38:18 minutes)

Fauci was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to Stephen A. Fauci and Eugenia Abys Fauci, owners of a pharmacy. His father was a Columbia University-trained pharmacist, his mother and sister Denise worked the register, and Fauci delivered prescriptions. The pharmacy was located in the Dyker Heights section of Brooklyn, directly beneath the family apartment.^[5]

Fauci’s paternal grandparents, Antonino Fauci and Calogera Guardino, were from Sciacca, Italy. His maternal grandmother, Raffaella Trematerra, from Naples, Italy, was a seamstress. His maternal grandfather, Giovanni Abys, was born in Switzerland and was an artist, noted for landscape and portrait painting, magazine illustrations (Italy) as well as graphic design for commercial labels, including olive oil cans. His grandparents emigrated from Italy to the United States in the late 19th century. Fauci grew up Catholic.^[5]^[6]^[7]

Fauci attended Regis High School in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where he captained the school’s basketball team and graduated in 1958.^[8]^[9] He then went to the College of the Holy Cross, graduating in 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts in classics. Fauci then attended medical school at Cornell University Medical College where he graduated first in his class with a Doctor of Medicine in 1966.^[5] He then completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, now known as New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine.^[9]

Career

External video

Q&A interview with Fauci on his life and career, January 18, 2015, C-SPAN

Fauci discusses his work in 2020 (4 minutes)

In 1968, Fauci joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a clinical associate in the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation (LCI) at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.^[10] In 1974, he became Head of the Clinical Physiology Section, LCI, and in 1980 was appointed Chief of the Laboratory of Immunoregulation. In 1984, he became director of NIAID, a position he still holds as of 2020.^[4] In that role he has the responsibility for an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research on infectious and immune-mediated illnesses.^[10] He has turned down several offers to lead his agency’s parent, the NIH, and has been at the forefront of U.S. efforts to contend with viral diseases like HIV, SARS, the 2009 swine flu pandemic, MERS, Ebola and COVID-19.^[11]

He played a significant role in the early 2000s in creating the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief^[12] and in driving development of biodefense drugs and vaccines following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.^[13]

Fauci has been a visiting professor at many medical centers, and has received 30 honorary doctorates from universities in the U.S. and abroad.^[14]

Medical achievements

President Bill Clinton visits the NIH in 1995 and hears about the latest advances in HIV/AIDS research from Fauci

Fauci poses for a photo with President George W. Bush in 2007

Fauci has made important scientific observations that contributed to the understanding of regulation of the human immune response, and is recognized for delineating the mechanisms whereby immunosuppressive agents adapt to that response. He developed therapies for formerly fatal diseases such as polyarteritis nodosa, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, and lymphomatoid granulomatosis. In a 1985 Stanford University Arthritis Center Survey of the American Rheumatism Association, membership ranked Fauci’s work on the treatment of polyarteritis nodosa and granulomatosis with polyangiitis as one of the most important advances in patient management in rheumatology over the previous 20 years.^[15]^[16]

President Barack Obama greets Fauci in June 2014

Fauci has contributed to the understanding of how HIV destroys the body’s defenses leading to the progression to AIDS. He has outlined the mechanisms of induction of HIV expression by endogenous cytokines.^[16] Fauci has worked to develop strategies for the therapy and immune reconstitution of patients with the disease, as well as for a vaccine to prevent HIV infection. His current research is concentrated on identifying the nature of the immunopathogenic mechanisms of HIV infection and the scope of the body’s immune responses to HIV.

In 2003, the Institute for Scientific Information stated that from 1983 to 2002, “Fauci was the 13th most-cited scientist among the 2.5 to 3 million authors in all disciplines throughout the world who published articles in scientific journals”.^[9]

HIV/AIDS epidemic

Fauci was one of the leading researchers during the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s. 1981 was the first he heard of the virus and after he and his team of researchers began looking for a vaccine or treatment for this novel virus, though they would meet a number of obstacles such as the F.D.A. On October 1988 protesters came to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci, who had become the institute’s director in 1984, bore the brunt of the anger from the LGBTQ community, who felt ignored by the government.^[1]

Larry Kramer, leading AIDS activist attacked Fauci relentlessly in the media. He called him an “incompetent idiot” and a “pill-pushing” tool of the medical establishment. Fauci did not have control over drug approval though many people felt he was not doing enough. Fauci did make an effort in the late 1980s to reach out to the gay community in New York and San Francisco to find ways he and the NIAI could find a solution.^[1]

Though Fauci was first admonished for his treatment of the AIDS epidemic, his work in the community was eventually acknowledged and even Kramer, who spent years hating Fauci for his treatment of the HIV/AIDS epidemic now calls him “the only true and great hero” among government officials in the AIDS crisis.^[1]

Ebola Congressional hearing

On October 16, 2014, in a United States Congressional hearing regarding the Ebola virus crisis, Fauci, who, as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) had been discussing the importance of screening for weeks,^[17] testified that NIAID was still some distance away from producing sufficient quantities of cures or vaccines for widespread trials.^[18] Specifically, Fauci said, “While NIAID is an active participant in the global effort to address the public health emergency occurring in west Africa, it is important to recognize that we are still in the early stages of understanding how infection with the Ebola virus can be treated and prevented.” ^[18]

Fauci also remarked in the hearing: “As we continue to expedite research while enforcing high safety and efficacy standards, the implementation of the public health measures already known to contain prior Ebola virus outbreaks and the implementation of treatment strategies such as fluid and electrolyte replacement are essential to preventing additional infections, treating those already infected, protecting healthcare providers, and ultimately bringing this epidemic to an end.”^[18]

COVID-19 task force

Fauci speaks to the White House press corps on COVID-19 in March 2020

Fauci is a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force established in late January 2020, under President Trump, to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.^[19]^[20] He said that the final case fatality rate of those who are infected will likely be closer to 1% than the 3.4% estimated by the World Health Organization, which is ten times the 0.1% reported rate for seasonal flu.^[21]^[22]

Fauci has been a “de facto” public health spokesperson for the office of the President during the pandemic^[23]^[24] and strong advocate of ongoing social distancing efforts in the United States. On March 29 he argued for the extension of the initial 15-day self-isolation guidelines, issued by the executive office, to at least until the end of April 2020.^[25] Due to his disagreements with Trump, Fauci has been criticised by right-wing pundits and received death threats that resulted in the need for a security detail.^[26]^[27]^[28] While there have been disagreements, Trump has also praised Fauci.^[29]^[30]^[31]

Personal life

Fauci married Christine Grady, a nurse and bioethicist with the NIH, in 1985, after they met while treating a patient. Grady is chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. The couple has three adult daughters: Jennifer, Megan, and Alison.^[32]