ABOVE: Dr. Anthony Fauci (L) and President Joe Biden in May 2022. (Photo by Adam Schultz/White House)
Dr. Anthony Fauci announced during an interview July 18 that his five decades as arguably America’s best-known public health official will come to an end by or before the conclusion of President Joe Biden’s first term in office, Jan. 20, 2025.
Biden’s chief medical advisor and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Fauci’s government service began with the emergence of HIV/AIDS just before he took the helm of NIAID in 1984, where he has served now under a total of seven different presidential administrations.
Though he encountered some criticism from activist groups like ACT UP over what they perceived as his (and the government’s) anemic response to the AIDS crisis as gay men were dying in droves, the physician and scientist would later earn their admiration and respect for his career-long dedication to finding cures.
Today, Fauci is best known for being the public face of the American government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a position where he was often caught in the political headwinds, clashing with the Trump administration and Congressional Republicans who often sought to undermine him.
Responding to news of Fauci’s plans to retire, Equality California Managing Director of External Affairs Samuel Garrett-Pate told the Los Angeles Blade by phone Monday that “From the AIDS crisis to COVID-19 to the monkeypox outbreak we’re experiencing, Dr. Fauci has dedicated his life to improving health and wellbeing of all Americans, especially the LGBTQ+ community.”
“What’s really notable about his leadership in times of crisis,” Garrett-Pate said, “is his willingness to acknowledge when our public health agencies have fallen short of their mission and continuously working to improve.”
Fauci, who is 81, vowed last year that attacks from Republican lawmakers would not force him into an early retirement, adding that when it’s time to step down, he expects to find a publisher for a memoir he’s been writing.
In addition to his work during the early days of HIV/AIDS — some of which was chronicled in Fauci’s extensive interview published in 2007 by the Edward M. Kennedy Institute — a memoir would likely cover the ways in which Fauci was drawn into political battles over measures designed to curb the spread of COVID-19 and step up vaccination rates.
Highlights from the decades in between AIDS and COVID-19 are worthy fodder for a memoir, too, as Fauci was battling other viruses during this time such as SARS, the Swine Flu, MERS, Ebola and Zika.
