At the height of the health crisis, in front of the cameras, he corrected every evening the words of Donald Trump, who constantly downplayed the progression of the coronavirus.
Before being gradually put aside.
At 80 years old, the infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci is now very popular in the United States.
Except with conspirators.
Under the US Freedom of Information Act, CNN, the Washington Post and Buzzfeed obtained access to the doctor's emails between January and June 2020, the first six months of the Covid crisis in the United States. United.
A mind-boggling correspondence, with 3,234 pages of email exchanges that BuzzFeed has just made public.
Where do these documents come from?
It is not therefore a leak, or a leak of documents strictly speaking, but of emails legally obtained from the administration by Buzzfeed at the cost of a request to the courts.
"The elements obtained also represent an incomplete portion of what had initially been requested" inquires the American website.
In these emails, there are also many censored passages, especially those containing private messages.
What do these emails contain?
These exchanges provide a rare glimpse of how Anthony Fauci approached his work during the health crisis.
They show how the infectious disease specialist developed an effective strategy to limit the spread of the virus, despite his conflicts with the Trump administration.
The epidemiologist thus exchanged with Ezekiel Emmanuel, the former advisor to Barack Obama's team, perplexed about Remdevisir, a drug touted by Fauci.
"This is only a step before developing better treatments", he concedes, referring to the first experimental results which indicated at the time that the antiviral made it possible to reduce the time by a third. recovery in severe patients and improved their chances of survival.
Our story today captures a different set of Fauci emails covered by the WaPo, such as these Obama's former health advisor Emanuel Ezekiel sent Fauci and Fauci's response.
https://t.co/hySjVm8NbI pic.twitter.com/TdLLjqObyn
- Jason Leopold (@JasonLeopold) June 1, 2021
In another register, he exchanges with the boss of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, who offers his help to accelerate the development of a vaccine and tells him the efforts of his social network to inform its members about the health situation. More surprisingly, Fauci also responds to anonymous people worried about whether to wear a mask on the street, or even to stars, such as when he accepts actress Morgan Fairchild's proposal to use his Twitter account on his behalf.
"It would be great if you could tweet to your many followers that the American people should not be afraid, but be ready to mitigate an epidemic in this country through measures such as social distancing, telecommuting and the temporary closure of schools. ", He wrote at the beginnings of the pandemic in February 2020. And when health professionals write to him to severely criticize Trump's handling of the pandemic, he does not take the bait.
Instead, he responds with a "thank you".
Why is Professor Delfraissy at the heart of the controversy?
If the "Fauci Emails" make France talk today, it is above all because on page 1841, there is a discussion between Dr Fauci and Professor Jean-François Delfraissy, who chairs the scientific council.
“As you may know, we are currently facing a media buzz since the announcement made by Dr. Raoult on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine.
Its data are not particularly convincing, ”writes Professor Delfraissy on March 25, 2020, in reference to this treatment popularized by the Marseille infectious disease specialist, but whose effectiveness against Covid has never been proven.
"I have enormous political pressure to release access to hydroxychloroquine for everyone, but I resist," he continues.
A week later, the scientific council will issue a critical opinion on the Raoult protocol, having therefore visibly resisted these “pressures”.
When we see #Fauci's emails we get the feeling that Delfraissy on HCQ and treatments is more interested in the opinion of this American covidist rather than that of specialists like Pr Raoult and the doctors who treat!
Mind-blowing!
#FauciEmails pic.twitter.com/Ce4kEC9Vxn
- Florian Philippot (@f_philippot) June 3, 2021
The publication of these discussions has revived the endless debate on the use of this drug initially used against malaria.
"Would the health independence of the French be based on exchanges of emails with the main American adviser?"
“Asked France Soir on Thursday, a newspaper which takes conspiracy as its driving force, before Sud Radio devotes a special program on the subject in the presence of Didier Raoult this Friday.
What are the other elements that have fueled the controversy?
At the heart of the controversy is also the flurry of correspondence received by Anthony Fauci on the theory that the coronavirus has leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan.
One of these emails sent to Fauci on April 16, 2020 by Francis Collins, the director of the National Institute of Health, under the subject line "the plot is growing", contains a link to a report. highlighting a Fox News report supporting this allegation.
Fauci's response to Collins was completely erased by the administration.
Read also Covid-19: between lies and unspoken, the trail of the leak of a Chinese lab relaunched
It did not take more to relaunch more or less conspiratorial theses on social networks, this week hoisting the hashtag
#FauciEmails
among the most discussed subjects. However, if the exchanges show at most the interest of the immunologist for this thesis, nothing in these exchanges allows to suggest that the virus did indeed come out of the Chinese laboratory. "Here we have the perfect illustration of what is called the complosphere," says researcher Tristan Mendès France, specialist in online conspiracy. And to add: “It's a fairly classic scene, a kind of collaborative exploitation of snippets of information taken out of context to reinforce the pre-existing presuppositions in the mechanics of the plot. "
These reactions are also fueled by the fact that to date, the origin of the epidemic has not been precisely established. Many scientists are calling not to rule out the thesis of a virus that has escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, even if it is not generally considered the most likely.
