No one on the international scientific scene has a bad word for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief physician who this week hung up his robe after announcing his retirement, not retirement, in August.
Under seven administrations of both signs since that of Ronald Reagan, this epidemiologist of Italian descent, born in Brooklyn (New York) 81 years ago, has contributed to establishing the dimension of public health in a country where the public tends to be viewed on suspicion of intrusion into privacy or famine, if not both.
But, unlike what happens abroad, in the US he has become, in the last stretch of his career, a target for Republicans and characters difficult to ascribe such as Elon Musk.
Republicans abhor the presence of the State even in crises such as the covid, which has claimed more than a million lives in the US. The restrictions provoked their complaints, including disqualifications from then-President Donald Trump.
But no one has gone as far as Elon Musk, who this week dedicated a tweet to the doctor that caused discomfort.
“My pronouns are: Process / [a] Fauci,” Musk wrote, with a parallel criticism of the widespread use of pronouns, not just binary ones, in digital profiles.
The head of Tesla and Twitter rounded off his broadside: "The truth rumbles."
The White House fired back on Monday: “These are dangerous and disgusting messages, and they are far from reality.
We will continue to report them and be very clear about it.”
Musk's umpteenth controversy failed to silence Fauci's official farewell, with an emotional biographical account in
The New York Times
and an interview on CNN.
His restraint was highlighted when referring to the tycoon's outburst.
"I'm not going to answer.
I'm not going to pay any attention to it because it's just a distraction.
If you get into that, you do it in a cesspool of interactions, with no added value, that doesn't help at all,” he said during the CNN interview.
Fauci had defended himself just as well against insults from Trump, who called him an idiot and threatened to fire him: with scientific asepsis.
"The great advantage of Anthony Fauci's solidity is that he had no problem facing the powerful government at the right time (...) The knowledge he has given us has been useful not only for the United States, but for the whole world," he said. the specialist in contagious diseases Hugo Pizzi.
According to Professor Michael Sparer, director of the Columbia University School of Public Health, “he has worked for presidents across the political spectrum providing leadership based on evidence, wisdom and scientific insights.
Fauci is a true icon in the field of public health;
in fact, it is difficult to imagine the public health community without his thoughtful and pragmatic leadership,” Sparer told EL PAÍS.
The pandemic caught him tanned.
As an epidemiologist, heading the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and his laboratory since 1984, he had directed the response to successive public health crises: AIDS, which he contributed to destigmatizing;
the avian flu, Ebola, Zika —whose management he undertook by diverting funds from cancer research, as he confessed in 2016— and, finally, the coronavirus.
That is why the attempt to politically instrumentalize his figure has not come to fruition, although he did not escape receiving death threats for this reason.
Joe Biden has repeatedly glossed over his 24-hour availability, even on early-morning calls.
Such dedication may explain his late marriage, at age 44, a union from which three daughters have been born.
A fan of long-distance running and with several marathons behind him, his calls to adopt social hygiene rules that curb contagion made him both a hero for many and a villain for the most recalcitrant right.
But for all without exception, he established himself as an unprecedented celebrity among career civil servants, accustomed to an invisible and silent role.
Three characteristics have made him the czar of public health in the US: scientific excellence, his probity as a public servant and his expertise as a manager of crises as mediatic — and as alarming — as those mentioned.
With regard to covid, the US, which failed in the first instance to contain the virus, proved to be at the forefront of vaccine research and development, and in the immunization campaign, thanks to its leadership.
Fauci has waited to hang up his robe to see the pandemic on track as "a new stable reality."
He will be 82 years old on Christmas Eve.
When she announced in August that she was retiring to embark on the next chapter of his life (“although I am leaving my current position, I am not retiring”), many wondered what she can do that he hasn't tried.
Among other things, say those close to him, collaborating with the hypothetical commission on the management of the pandemic that Congress could establish, similar to the one that investigated 9/11.
Or defend his performance before the new House of Representatives, with a Republican majority, most of the usual suspects who have already threatened to go after him in the campaign, as if they had it sworn to him.
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