Outgoing National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that the threats he and his family get were a “manifestation of how bizarre our society has gotten.”
Mitchell said, “Your life has been threatened. There have been death threats against your family, your wife, your children. What’s it like to live under that when you know that what you’re trying to do is advance public health and save lives?”
Fauci said, “It seems rather paradoxical that that is the situation. Obviously, it is not at all pleasant. Yes, my life is being threatened. The thing that bothers me most is the preposterous nature of harassing and threatening my wife and my children. What kind of a coward does that? To threaten and harass the children, the innocent children of a person who’s a health official in, the wife of a person to what end? It really is a manifestation of how bizarre our society has gotten.”
Mitchell said, “Do you think that lives were lost because of the way all of this became so polarized?”
Fauci said, “When I say things like that, it gets thrown out of proportion, the soundbites. But the fact is vaccines save lives. If you say something or do something to dissuade people from getting vaccinated, then lives will unnecessarily be lost. That’s just a fact.”
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