Is it time to fire Fauci?

So, the other day Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green introduced legislation to “Fire Fauci and ban vaccine passports.” I quote the press release announcement below.

Fire Fauci Act will:

• Remind the American public that Dr. Fauci is the highest paid ($434,312) of all 4 million federal employees, including the President.
• Cite numerous findings about Dr. Fauci’s evolving and contradictory advice on COVID-19.
• Reduce Dr. Fauci’s salary to $0 until a new NIAID Administrator is confirmed by the Senate.
• Direct GAO to conduct a study about the correspondence, financials, and policy memos inside the NIAID before COVID through the end of this year. This will allow us to see what Fauci and the NIAID knew, when they knew it, what they spent money on, and how the agency responded to the virus.

This is VERY interesting to say the least because it underscores the distrust and disdain so many Americans have for Dr. Fauci. Why? Mostly because he flip flops a lot. (A lot.) Consider some of his greatest hits, courtesy of The Gateway Pundit [article date: April 30, 2020].

1) Dr. Fauci says he warned Trump in January that the US was in real trouble but that is not what he said publicly. In January 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci told Newsmax TV that the United States “did not have to worry” about the coronavirus and that it was “not a major threat.”

"This is not a major threat…"

WATCH 🔊: Dr. Anthony Fauci's original thoughts about the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak are revisited from a January interview with Newsmax TV's @gregkellyusa. pic.twitter.com/0KmHxxkeBp

— Newsmax (@newsmax) April 3, 2020

2.)  Dr. Fauci warned of an apocalyptic coronavirus pandemic — then just weeks later he later compared the coronavirus to a bad flu.

3.) Dr. Fauci based all of his predictions on garbage IHME models that were OFF BY MILLIONS and then told reporters this past week, “You can’t really rely on models.”

4.) On March 20th Dr. Fauci jumped in and “corrected” the president during a press briefing on hydroxychloroquine treatment for coronavirus saying, “You got to be careful when you say ‘fairly effective.’ It was never done in a clinical trial… It was given to individuals and felt that maybe it worked.”

Exactly two weeks later hydroxychloroquine was deemed the most highly rated treatment for the novel coronavirus in an international poll of more than 6,000 doctors.

5.)  Dr. Fauci pushed these garbage models every step of the way.

Three weeks ago Dr. Fauci claimed 1 million to 2 million Americans would die from coronavirus. Then he said 100,000 to 200,000 Americans will die from the virus. Then last week he agreed 81,766 Americans would die from the coronavirus. Then by Wednesday the experts cut the number of deaths to 60,415 projected deaths.

6.)  On Sunday Dr. Fauci said President Trump should have shut down the economy in February…That’s not what Dr. Fauci said ON FEBRUARY 29th!! (Below is a quote from a now deleted tweet.)

But in late February Fauci told the TODAY Show on February 29 that you don’t need to “change anything you’re doing.”

(And I will add to the list 2 more recent examples because they just popped in my head. Fauci admitted a few weeks ago that there was no science behind the continued lockdown and after pushing people to wear 2 masks, he flip flopped and said it really made no difference. This was especially ironic due to the fact that he initially said on 60 Minutes that masks were unnecessary to begin with. And to be fair, he was not the only one to flip flop numerous times on mask usage. But I digress.)

Dr. Fauci has been blasted constantly by political pundits who debunk his statements constantly. While none of them, to my knowledge, have a background in epidemiology, their logic seems sound in several cases. This RedState article – “One Chart Shows How Useless Dr. Fauci’s Advice Is” being one example.

Of course, Fauci’s expertise is highly debatable. Yes, he has the credentials, but credentials hardly make someone right when they start opining on things that may lack good answers. That’s never been more true than the coronavirus, where Fauci has flipped and flopped on numerous issues while being shown to be outright wrong on others. Despite his checkered record, he still chooses to target red states like Florida while celebrating dumpster fires like New York.

This morning, I stumbled across a chart that shows how truly useless Fauci’s “advice” is. Take a look. Why, it’s almost as if Fauci’s chosen prescriptions of lockdowns and mask-wearing (and until recently, closing schools) aren’t having the effect he said they’d have.

It’s been a while since I updated the chart of Florida, Fauci’s favorite target for criticism, vs. all the states that blindly follow his advice

Shockingly, nearly 3 months after he said Florida was “asking for trouble”, they’re still having the best results pic.twitter.com/f8yHPgRz1Z

— IM (@ianmSC) December 22, 2020

So, how does Dr. Fauci feel about being criticized. Well, he pushes back. For instance, on the podcast “Learning Curve” he defended himself this way. (HT: Independent Sentinel)

“One of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people are — for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable — they just don’t believe science and they don’t believe authority,” he said.

“That’s unfortunate because, you know, science is truth,” he said. “It’s amazing, sometimes, the denial there is.”

“I think the people who believe are people who understand and who have trust in someone who has a very, very long track record of always speaking the truth based on evidence,” he said, “and I’ve done that through six administrations.”

(You can hear the quote in its entirety here.)

Maybe its me, but that comes off as a bit arrogant; as if his experience makes him the sole authority that can never be questioned. I do not fault his confidence. He certainly has the track record to be confident. However, to posture yourself as being beyond error is too much hubris. You can clearly see it, I think, in the feud Dr. Fauci has with Senator Rand Paul.

Senator Rand Paul has publicly challenged Dr. Fauci with medical research data that seems to irk Dr. Fauci. In one exchange, Paul said to Fauci in a Senate hearing:

“There’s virtually zero percent chance you’re going to get it and you’re telling people that have had the vaccine who have immunity — You’re defying everything we know about immunity by telling people to wear masks who have been vaccinated.”

Its important to note that Senator Paul is a medical doctor as well. You can watch them exchange quips in this video clip. Despite Senator Paul’s logic, Dr. Fauci has since doubled down on his position, even suggesting that the world needs to continue wearing masks until 2022 and that children should be wearing them in order to play together, even until they are all vaccinated from the age of 6 months. (HT: Summit News) This is why Senator Rand Paul trolls Dr. Fauci with science whenever possible. 2 examples:

Paging Dr. Fauci:

paging Dr Fauci:  please end the mask theater now that cdc admits evidence that the vaccinated do not carry the virus. https://t.co/ux2vcVHdnd

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 31, 2021

Great news:

Dr. Fauci, great news! T cell immunity after natural infection shown to include variants. Do we still need to wear multiple masks after we’ve recovered or been vaccinated?https://t.co/sSsE66wJbs

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) March 31, 2021

And one more thing, as I get to my point because I do have one. The NY Post reported that 2,000 migrants entering the USA illegally were not tested for Covid. The Department of Homeland Security won’t test thousands of migrants either before releasing them into the USA. Texas Governor Greg Abbott sharply criticized the federal government, claiming an unknown number of migrants caught crossing the border illegally had been allowed to travel freely after being diagnosed with Covid-19.

And now, the point of all these facts.

• Dr. Fauci is well credentialed but, has been proven wrong with data on numerous occasions resulting in catastrophe to our society and economy.
• Dr. Fauci seems to refuse scientific research that goes contrary to his opinion and indeed, doubles down due to (presumably) ego.
• And now, with thousands upon thousands of immigrants surging our border with extremely high potential for Covid-19, he is silent on the public health ramifications. I assume to shield the missteps of the Biden Administration.

I think the “Fire Fauci” legislation by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is timely and sensible. I hope it is successful and that Fauci is replaced with someone who is as qualified (or better), someone who is willing to change his position based on new information and above all places public health above politics and ego.