KY Senator Rand Paul blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci for conspiring to ‘take down’ of three prominent epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford and Stanford because their reports disagree with him. Fauci first tried to deflect but then snapped blaming Paul for a recent alleged assassination attempt on him.
By the end of their exchange, Fauci was accusing Paul of twisting the information in a personal attack against him.
“In an email exchange with Dr. [Francis] Collins, you conspire, and I quote here directly from the email, to ‘create a quick and devastating published takedown’ of three prominent epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford,” Paul said, referring to the recently retired National Institutes of Health director.
Paul went on to cite the email exchange, in which Collins was discussing the Great Barrington Declaration, which opposed large-scale lockdowns as a response to the pandemic in favor of “focused protection” and herd immunity.
In response, Fauci sent Collins articles from Wired and The Nation that had already slammed this position. While Fauci himself had not penned those pieces, Paul accused him of going along with Collins’ effort to smear the doctors behind the Great Barrington Declaration.
“Instead of engaging them on the merits, you and Dr. Collins sought to smear them as fringe and take them down, and not in journals in lay press. This is not only antithetical to the scientific method, it’s the epitome of cheap politics, and it’s reprehensible, Dr. Fauci.”
Fauci’s first tried to dismiss Paul and explained that the email was to him from Collins. The doctor scoffed but Paul quickly corrected him explaining that he was in agreement with Collins in the email.
The NIAID director then accused Paul of “distorting everything about me,” which he said is Paul’s “usual fashion.”
Paul, who is also a doctor, went on to allege that this was not the only time that Fauci has “conspired” when it comes to messaging about the pandemic. He pointed to an article from Nature Medicine in 2020 from several doctors that went against the idea that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab, despite the authors being part of a conference call days earlier in which the lab leak theory was discussed as a possibility.
That article, and Fauci’s communications with the authors, were noted in a letter sent earlier Tuesday morning from Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, to Health and Human Services Director Xavier Becerra.
Fauci agreed that he spoke to the person in the email in private but when Paul asked him if he agreed that the virus came from the Wuhan lab, Fauci deflected.
“You keep coming back to personal attacks on me that have absolutely no relevance to reality,” Fauci said.
Fauci then spoke of the effect the attacks have had on him and his family, stating that he has received “obscene phone calls” and “threats upon my life” all “because people are lying about me.”
The doctor then recalled a man who was arrested in Sacramento who allegedly claimed he was on his way to kill Fauci:
“And they asked the police to ask him where he was going, and he was going to Washington, D.C., to kill Dr. Fauci,” Fauci said.
Dr. Fauci seemed furious he wasn’t allowed to have the last word. He did successfully avoid answering any of Paul’s questions which is disappointing but to be expected.
Erica Carlin is an independent journalist, opinion writer and contributor to several news and opinion sources. She is based in Georgia.
