The Trump versus Fauci contest
“Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine’, now in its 20th edition, was our favourite even in the 1980s. Amongst its multiple editors is a diminutive soft-spoken man who has had a remarkable career as an infectious disease scientist. He has also recently had the privilege of being ridiculed and threatened with dismissal by a bigoted president while speaking to a bunch of his rabble-rousing supporters. Anthony Fauci must be doing something right.
Sanjay Nagral
Nov 6, 2020, Mumbai Mirror
When medical students all over the world begin their interaction with patients there is a standard textbook recommended for a key subject. They are warned that the book is voluminous but a bible for reliable updated knowledge. “Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine’, now in its 20th edition, was our favourite even in the 1980s. Amongst its multiple editors is a diminutive soft-spoken man who has had a remarkable career as an infectious disease scientist. He has also recently had the privilege of being ridiculed and threatened with dismissal by a bigoted president while speaking to a bunch of his rabble-rousing supporters. Anthony Fauci must be doing something right.
Fauci, grandson of Italian immigrants, grew up in New York. As a student, he worked on construction jobs to fund his education. Once, he was assigned to a crew that was building a library at Cornell Medical College. “On lunch break, when the crew were eating sandwiches and making catcalls to nurses, I snuck into the auditorium to take a peek,” Fauci recalled in1998, at the centennial celebration. “I got goosebumps as I entered, looked around the empty room, and imagined what it would be like to attend this extraordinary institution. After a few minutes a guard came and politely told me to leave, since my dirty boots were soiling the floor. I looked at him and said proudly that I would be attending this institution a year from now. He laughed and said, ‘Right, kid, and next year I am going to be Police Commissioner’.”
Within a few years of graduating from Cornell, Fauci joined the National Institutes of Health, the premier US scientific institution. In 1984, he became the director of the National Institute for Allergy & Infectious Disease, a position he still holds. Outbreaks are not new to Fauci. In 30 years, he has researched HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola and America’s 2001 experience with anthrax bioterrorism. Fauci is particularly known for his work on the HIV virus and its immune mechanisms at a time when no one was studying it. He was also deeply involved in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a US government initiative to address the global HIV epidemic, and provided $ 80 billion for treatment, prevention and research, making it the largest global health program focused on a single disease. It is credited with helping save millions of lives in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Donald Trump’s bio is somewhat different. Born like Fauci in New York... the story diverges from there. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in economics from Wharton, he inherited his father’s real estate business in 1971, renamed it the Trump Organization, and expanded its operations to building skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. Trump and his businesses have been involved in more than 4,000 legal actions, including six bankruptcies. He owned the Miss Universe brand of beauty pageants from 1996 to 2015, and produced and hosted a reality television series. He went on to capture the Republican Party and then the Presidency of the United States.
Fauci and Trump are products of two different Americas with different definitions of success. Covid resulted in a collision of these worlds. As the pandemic unfolded, Trump wanted to manipulate it for strengthening his power and re-election chances. Running the US government like his corporation, he assumed that everyone will fall in line with the fear of authority and the lure of being on the right side of power. It’s a deadly concoction that many find difficult to resist. Fauci was polite but firm. He contradicted the President publicly. He criticised his populist policies on masks and claims on vaccines. Fauci and his family received death threats from Trump supporters. But he carried on nevertheless.
The conflict between science and state power is a very old one. History is replete with examples of scientists being bullied or subsumed by the agenda of those in command. This is also because power controls jobs, funding and even access to recognition. But there are also several sterling examples of those who resisted and stood true to their ideals. And suffered.
As I write this, President Trump is trying his best to keep the presidency by tactics he knows best, like bluster, bullying and deceit. That’s not surprising. But the elections have also shown that in spite of being responsible for some kind of a modern-day medical genocide, Trump still retains a strong base. One of which is even willing to overlook this misadventure.
There are many scientists like Fauci who have rejected sycophancy and stood up for science and facts in the face of bullying by strongmen in power. And there is no shortage of strongmen with constricted ideas of nationhood. Such battles are currently being waged in many countries.
The result of the Trump-Biden contest may change the political landscape in America, so desperately needed. But it is the winner of the Trump-Fauci contest of ideas that has deeper implications for the future of our planet and children. Though not as exciting, we should watch that race also.