Thanks, Vinay. I wish you would restrain yourself with respect to verbal crudity, e.g., FOS. Yes, you reconfigure Fauci with humility and self-awareness. He is, in fact, a case study in arrogance, meeting the criteria of narcissism either as a personality trait (like 99% of politicians) or as a personality disorder. I favor the latter.
For the record, could someone please post the EVIDENCE for the lab leak theory. I'm happy to go with it if you provide evidence but so far, whenever I ask this question, everyone becomes mute.
I'm surprised how many people who subscribe to Sensible Medicine have drunk the anti Fauci cool aid. Like you would have done it better, I very much doubt it.
I agree with much of your column. Both scientists and politicians need to be more willing to admit when they were wrong; that is not the case in our country right now.
But one person who stands out as different is Dr. Francis Collins, head of NIH from 2009 to December 19, 2021. I heard him speak at a Braver Angels convention in Kenosha, WI 2 years ago. He admitted that he and other public health leaders were too narrowly focused on saving lives from COVID infection, while giving two little weight to the harms caused by restrictions like disrupted lives, economic damage, and especially children kept out of school. He has said elsewhere that decision makers attached "infinite value" to stopping disease, while giving "zero value" to the collateral damage. He also said that public health officials did a poor job of communicating uncertainty.
The current distrust in physicians and scientists can partly be attributed to those kinds of mistakes. It's time for a new era of transparency as exemplified by Dr. Collins. Hopefully it can restore some of the trust that has been lost.
Unfortunate piece whitewashing terrible crimes and terrible consequences for the whole world. After the apartheid years , the Truth and reconciliation commision focused on accountability , not excuses. It was not only the censorship but the persecution of doctors working in the trenches saving patients. Unlike these doctors he did not lose his livlihood but made plenty of money by captilizing on him being the science in covid . The Fauci diaries adds onto the portrait painted by the " Real Anthony Fauci". Deborah Owen in the comments praises him for his efforts with HIV , but just like Covid he pushed Remdesevier instead of Ivermectin , he pushed a drug that did not work and cost lives , but made money for big pharma. Then his war on repurposed drugs , the right of patients to decide together with doctors , with rigged trials and propganda . We remember who went against the doctors who were having success in the trenches in favour of rigged trials , moving goal posts . VP descibes the country as being polarized about Fauci , no - there are 2 sides , one that supports evil and the other side that demands accoutability and taking ownership. One side that ambivalent to the enermous suffering caused and the other side empathizing with those who have suffered.
It strikes me as naive for Fauci's critics to not consider the obvious possibility that Fauci could not raise the theory of "lab leak" at the outset without offending, and very likely stopping the cooperation of, the Chinese at a time when when we needed what they knew to gin up a response. Being an astute politician (consider his handling of the uproar over HIV), Fauci chose, and probably continues to choose, to do the diplomatic thing.
Way too kind—can’t apologize for masking toddlers and “wear 2 masks.”
OSHA for the past 30yrs would never accept “wear 2 masks” for airborne nanometer particulate at asbestos cleanup sites —endorsing a universal masking policy was criminal
He’s not sorry. He chose to do it. If he was really sorry, we would not now have Moderna MRNA flu vaccines. Now we have to dodge that crap. Developmentally disabled adults, living in supportive housing,etc, go to the doctor and just do what they are told. They don’t have a choice because they don’t know what to do. So, advocates have to freak out (like me) constantly reminding the carers NOT TO LET THE DOCTOR GIVE MRNA SHOTS. I thought we got through the covid hysteria and them pushing the shot but now we have a new annual freak out! I am quite sick of it.
Also, can we have a discussion on how doing research like this in a country that is essentially our enemy is treason? I mean China. Really???? What do you think could've been done with this if they'd had it under control? The only worse places to do it would've been North Korea and Russia..... Actually, I think I might trust Russia more than China with this.
Screw it. Just send him to jail. That's the only apology we need. He should never have done [funded/commissioned] the GOF research in the first place, and Biden shouldn't have pardoned him.
But if he really wants to apologize:
"I'm sorry that I broke the law and played God by doing Gain of Function research. I am personally responsible for killing your relatives, destroying your businesses, and permanently damaging your children psychologically. Some of them committed suicide, and I take responsibility for that. Now I will check myself into jail to atone for my sins instead of pleading the 5th all the time to cover my sorry ass."
Putting him in jail will not accomplish anything useful for America. He did NOT do GOF. His agency funded a group in North Carolina which in turn provided $600,000 to support GOF in Wuhan. He made the mistake of practicing epidemiology and public health, areas of medicine for which he had ZERO training.
Yes, views on Fauci are polarized . We can all agree on that. But to pile on with 20/20 hindsight at this point is shameful - both from you and Rand Paul who may have an MD after his name but otherwise doesn't deserve the appellation of healer. I suspect many people who read this column would be hesitant to share all their private musings with the public - take home lesson : if you keep a diary make sure no one knows about it and keep it in a safe deposit box. Yes , he suffers from vanity , as do we all at times- including people who seek a place in the spotlight by writing Substack columns . He made some wrong decisions, but so have most of us . I do not believe that his intent was bad- science is imperfect by it's nature . I don't blame him for taking the 5th - no one really wants a dispassionate discussion of what we did well, what we did poorly and how we can do better. All they want is to score political points .I remember Dr Fauci during the early days of HIV - he cared when no one else did . Most of the effort to teat HIV like a virus as opposed to a deserved punishment for marginalized groups came from him. I did not have the luxury of hiding out at home and working by ZOOM during the pandemic like a lot of armchair quarterbacks - I was in my 60's and commuting by plane to a job as an OB Hospitalist at a high risk unit where many pregnant women were desperately ill with COVID . We were all terrified we were going to die , and infect our families . I don't care if masks " didn't work" - I wear a mask a lot anyway in the OR so big deal . I don't care if we found out after that fact that vaccines didn't " halt transmission " - it was pretty clear that vaccines were imperfect, but the critically ill patients I saw were universally unvaccinated , the vaccinated ones had much milder self limited disease. That was good enough for me . Something worked for me - I never clinically came down with any kind of illness that whole time . In fact , I had zero upper respiratory infections for all those years - usually I get something in the winter . So all that masking may not have been as useless as everyone thinks - at least anecdotally. But I have heard the same from numerous health care workers .I was first in line for the vaccine - you do a perimortem cesarean on a dying woman in the ICU ( now a resuscitative hysterotomy ) and your views about risk and benefit change dramatically. It was a terrible , tumultuous time in most of our lives and millions died . Apparently we have learned nothing . Years later people who by and large were not caring for suffering and dying people seem to have all sorts of smug after-the-fact opinions -
"people who by and large were not caring for suffering and dying people"
Talk about vanity, smugness, hubris, and a god complex, you are one MD who suffers from all of that. Of course, you live in the Progressive Paradise of Washington. Thankfully at least males are immune from your treatment. Their female partners remain at risk.
I do not live in Washington - progressive paradise or not. I have lived in the reddest state in the union since George W Bush was president. You might be totally right about me , I will let my professional record speak for itself by people who know me- but ad hominum attacks and campaigns to place blame on one man when there were many moving parts and people making bad decisions does nothing to advance our ability to deal with the next pandemic . I think Dr. Prasad has many interesting and thought provoking ideas, even if I don't always agree with him . But on this topic I think we are better served by sober reflection , and analysis of the science and learn from this and do better next time . I don't consider myself a hero , I was just doing my job. But yes, there was suffering and dying - I don't what else to call it . It affected all of us .
I figured you couldn't take your medicine and go away quietly. Leftwing nut jobs are incredibly stubborn. Among other unattractive traits.
Your Substack profile - you wrote it, if you recall - claims you are a house doc - ObGyn in WA. You may live in Texas (though I have my doubts) but you are exposed to leftwing idiocy in WA.
But this gives me the opportunity to further expose your ignorance. Fauci started his public reputation scheme during the AIDs epidemic. He strove to cast himself as the hero of that disease problem. He said that gay men should stop having sex. Stop having sex. No sex? A basic human drive, among the most powerful there is. But Fauci, never having sat bedside with a patient, since in government its just other bureaucrats, obviously has no clue about the impacts of his "advice" on actual humans. Fauci kept up this "no sex" bullshit until Larry Kramer a noted gay rights advocate, publicly embarrassed and schooled Fauci. But therein was some insight into the man's biases and prejudices. He is ignorant of the human condition and in particular of his advice on actual people. If you were in your "sixties" during the pandemic, then likely you were just an ignorant college kid in the early 80s when AIDS started.
You asserted that Rand Paul doesn't deserve to be called "Doctor". Unlike you, Paul seems to be searching for truth, an uphill battle when people like you want to keep your head in the sand and "just move on". People like you, believing in false prophets and golden calves of public worship, are the problem. Maybe time for you to hang up your stethoscope. The rest of us want to get the full story out. So that we won't repeat the mistakes of the past few years.
Many seem to have an irresistible urge to personalize everything....Fauci did this, Trump did that, Biden was to blame, etc, etc. This only deflects objections to the institutional structures that facilitate this nonsense onto the "guilty" parties. As long as public health is regarded as a useful institution and given the power to cancel individual liberties, these problems will continue. If not Fauci, someone else that is equally adept at scaling the hurdles of bureaucracy will take up the next cause. Why would we believe anything Fauci or other government "leaders" say now?
Thanks, Vinay. I wish you would restrain yourself with respect to verbal crudity, e.g., FOS. Yes, you reconfigure Fauci with humility and self-awareness. He is, in fact, a case study in arrogance, meeting the criteria of narcissism either as a personality trait (like 99% of politicians) or as a personality disorder. I favor the latter.
For the record, could someone please post the EVIDENCE for the lab leak theory. I'm happy to go with it if you provide evidence but so far, whenever I ask this question, everyone becomes mute.
I'm surprised how many people who subscribe to Sensible Medicine have drunk the anti Fauci cool aid. Like you would have done it better, I very much doubt it.
Haha! Excellent!
Laughter is the best medicine.
Hopefully, America will one day be united in our ability to laugh at Fauci and our own (collective) foolishness for following him.
I agree with much of your column. Both scientists and politicians need to be more willing to admit when they were wrong; that is not the case in our country right now.
But one person who stands out as different is Dr. Francis Collins, head of NIH from 2009 to December 19, 2021. I heard him speak at a Braver Angels convention in Kenosha, WI 2 years ago. He admitted that he and other public health leaders were too narrowly focused on saving lives from COVID infection, while giving two little weight to the harms caused by restrictions like disrupted lives, economic damage, and especially children kept out of school. He has said elsewhere that decision makers attached "infinite value" to stopping disease, while giving "zero value" to the collateral damage. He also said that public health officials did a poor job of communicating uncertainty.
The current distrust in physicians and scientists can partly be attributed to those kinds of mistakes. It's time for a new era of transparency as exemplified by Dr. Collins. Hopefully it can restore some of the trust that has been lost.
Unfortunate piece whitewashing terrible crimes and terrible consequences for the whole world. After the apartheid years , the Truth and reconciliation commision focused on accountability , not excuses. It was not only the censorship but the persecution of doctors working in the trenches saving patients. Unlike these doctors he did not lose his livlihood but made plenty of money by captilizing on him being the science in covid . The Fauci diaries adds onto the portrait painted by the " Real Anthony Fauci". Deborah Owen in the comments praises him for his efforts with HIV , but just like Covid he pushed Remdesevier instead of Ivermectin , he pushed a drug that did not work and cost lives , but made money for big pharma. Then his war on repurposed drugs , the right of patients to decide together with doctors , with rigged trials and propganda . We remember who went against the doctors who were having success in the trenches in favour of rigged trials , moving goal posts . VP descibes the country as being polarized about Fauci , no - there are 2 sides , one that supports evil and the other side that demands accoutability and taking ownership. One side that ambivalent to the enermous suffering caused and the other side empathizing with those who have suffered.
Well said.
It strikes me as naive for Fauci's critics to not consider the obvious possibility that Fauci could not raise the theory of "lab leak" at the outset without offending, and very likely stopping the cooperation of, the Chinese at a time when when we needed what they knew to gin up a response. Being an astute politician (consider his handling of the uproar over HIV), Fauci chose, and probably continues to choose, to do the diplomatic thing.
Way too kind—can’t apologize for masking toddlers and “wear 2 masks.”
OSHA for the past 30yrs would never accept “wear 2 masks” for airborne nanometer particulate at asbestos cleanup sites —endorsing a universal masking policy was criminal
He’s not sorry. He chose to do it. If he was really sorry, we would not now have Moderna MRNA flu vaccines. Now we have to dodge that crap. Developmentally disabled adults, living in supportive housing,etc, go to the doctor and just do what they are told. They don’t have a choice because they don’t know what to do. So, advocates have to freak out (like me) constantly reminding the carers NOT TO LET THE DOCTOR GIVE MRNA SHOTS. I thought we got through the covid hysteria and them pushing the shot but now we have a new annual freak out! I am quite sick of it.
😂😂😂😂
Beautiful and fair
Also, can we have a discussion on how doing research like this in a country that is essentially our enemy is treason? I mean China. Really???? What do you think could've been done with this if they'd had it under control? The only worse places to do it would've been North Korea and Russia..... Actually, I think I might trust Russia more than China with this.
Screw it. Just send him to jail. That's the only apology we need. He should never have done [funded/commissioned] the GOF research in the first place, and Biden shouldn't have pardoned him.
But if he really wants to apologize:
"I'm sorry that I broke the law and played God by doing Gain of Function research. I am personally responsible for killing your relatives, destroying your businesses, and permanently damaging your children psychologically. Some of them committed suicide, and I take responsibility for that. Now I will check myself into jail to atone for my sins instead of pleading the 5th all the time to cover my sorry ass."
Putting him in jail will not accomplish anything useful for America. He did NOT do GOF. His agency funded a group in North Carolina which in turn provided $600,000 to support GOF in Wuhan. He made the mistake of practicing epidemiology and public health, areas of medicine for which he had ZERO training.
Yes, views on Fauci are polarized . We can all agree on that. But to pile on with 20/20 hindsight at this point is shameful - both from you and Rand Paul who may have an MD after his name but otherwise doesn't deserve the appellation of healer. I suspect many people who read this column would be hesitant to share all their private musings with the public - take home lesson : if you keep a diary make sure no one knows about it and keep it in a safe deposit box. Yes , he suffers from vanity , as do we all at times- including people who seek a place in the spotlight by writing Substack columns . He made some wrong decisions, but so have most of us . I do not believe that his intent was bad- science is imperfect by it's nature . I don't blame him for taking the 5th - no one really wants a dispassionate discussion of what we did well, what we did poorly and how we can do better. All they want is to score political points .I remember Dr Fauci during the early days of HIV - he cared when no one else did . Most of the effort to teat HIV like a virus as opposed to a deserved punishment for marginalized groups came from him. I did not have the luxury of hiding out at home and working by ZOOM during the pandemic like a lot of armchair quarterbacks - I was in my 60's and commuting by plane to a job as an OB Hospitalist at a high risk unit where many pregnant women were desperately ill with COVID . We were all terrified we were going to die , and infect our families . I don't care if masks " didn't work" - I wear a mask a lot anyway in the OR so big deal . I don't care if we found out after that fact that vaccines didn't " halt transmission " - it was pretty clear that vaccines were imperfect, but the critically ill patients I saw were universally unvaccinated , the vaccinated ones had much milder self limited disease. That was good enough for me . Something worked for me - I never clinically came down with any kind of illness that whole time . In fact , I had zero upper respiratory infections for all those years - usually I get something in the winter . So all that masking may not have been as useless as everyone thinks - at least anecdotally. But I have heard the same from numerous health care workers .I was first in line for the vaccine - you do a perimortem cesarean on a dying woman in the ICU ( now a resuscitative hysterotomy ) and your views about risk and benefit change dramatically. It was a terrible , tumultuous time in most of our lives and millions died . Apparently we have learned nothing . Years later people who by and large were not caring for suffering and dying people seem to have all sorts of smug after-the-fact opinions -
"people who by and large were not caring for suffering and dying people"
Talk about vanity, smugness, hubris, and a god complex, you are one MD who suffers from all of that. Of course, you live in the Progressive Paradise of Washington. Thankfully at least males are immune from your treatment. Their female partners remain at risk.
I do not live in Washington - progressive paradise or not. I have lived in the reddest state in the union since George W Bush was president. You might be totally right about me , I will let my professional record speak for itself by people who know me- but ad hominum attacks and campaigns to place blame on one man when there were many moving parts and people making bad decisions does nothing to advance our ability to deal with the next pandemic . I think Dr. Prasad has many interesting and thought provoking ideas, even if I don't always agree with him . But on this topic I think we are better served by sober reflection , and analysis of the science and learn from this and do better next time . I don't consider myself a hero , I was just doing my job. But yes, there was suffering and dying - I don't what else to call it . It affected all of us .
I figured you couldn't take your medicine and go away quietly. Leftwing nut jobs are incredibly stubborn. Among other unattractive traits.
Your Substack profile - you wrote it, if you recall - claims you are a house doc - ObGyn in WA. You may live in Texas (though I have my doubts) but you are exposed to leftwing idiocy in WA.
But this gives me the opportunity to further expose your ignorance. Fauci started his public reputation scheme during the AIDs epidemic. He strove to cast himself as the hero of that disease problem. He said that gay men should stop having sex. Stop having sex. No sex? A basic human drive, among the most powerful there is. But Fauci, never having sat bedside with a patient, since in government its just other bureaucrats, obviously has no clue about the impacts of his "advice" on actual humans. Fauci kept up this "no sex" bullshit until Larry Kramer a noted gay rights advocate, publicly embarrassed and schooled Fauci. But therein was some insight into the man's biases and prejudices. He is ignorant of the human condition and in particular of his advice on actual people. If you were in your "sixties" during the pandemic, then likely you were just an ignorant college kid in the early 80s when AIDS started.
You asserted that Rand Paul doesn't deserve to be called "Doctor". Unlike you, Paul seems to be searching for truth, an uphill battle when people like you want to keep your head in the sand and "just move on". People like you, believing in false prophets and golden calves of public worship, are the problem. Maybe time for you to hang up your stethoscope. The rest of us want to get the full story out. So that we won't repeat the mistakes of the past few years.
Your sense of humor is unparalleled 😆. I sure wish to meet and befriend you one day.
Many seem to have an irresistible urge to personalize everything....Fauci did this, Trump did that, Biden was to blame, etc, etc. This only deflects objections to the institutional structures that facilitate this nonsense onto the "guilty" parties. As long as public health is regarded as a useful institution and given the power to cancel individual liberties, these problems will continue. If not Fauci, someone else that is equally adept at scaling the hurdles of bureaucracy will take up the next cause. Why would we believe anything Fauci or other government "leaders" say now?