Dr. Anthony Fauci believes attacks and criticisms lodged against him are “dangerous to the entire field of science,” he told the Washington Post this week.
“The constant harassment in the form of ridiculous accusations and outright lies makes doing my job and that of my staff of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic all the more difficult,” Fauci told the Post. He gave details of the thousands of angry phone calls he received after reports surfaced of his division of the National Institutions of Health (NIH) partially funding cruel experiments on beagle puppies — from allowing hungry sandflies to eat them alive to allowing hundreds of ticks to feast upon them for days. However, Fauci’s division denies funding the former, and the Post deemed it a “false claim.” According to the Post, the supposed error “originated” with “scientists.”
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“Initially, the researchers mistakenly listed NIAID as a funder when they published a paper in a scientific journal in late July. The journal issued a correction Oct. 26, when the agency flagged the mistake to the researchers amid the deluge of angry phone calls,” the Post reported.
Notably, the White Coat Waste Project, which has exposed many of these cruel experiments, does not believe the NIAID’s denial, spokesman Justin Goodman calling the sudden correction “too convenient.”
However, once again, Fauci dismissed all criticisms, characterizing them as attacks on science itself.
“This attack on me, which clearly has political overtones to a nonpolitical scientist, I feel, is dangerous to the entire field of science and [shows] how people try to intimidate scientists,” he told the Post.
Indeed, Fauci has come under fire throughout the pandemic for a host of reasons — from flip-flopping on masks to lying about funding gain of function research in the Wuhan lab — the latter of which Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has confronted him about, prompting smug reactions from Fauci.
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This, however, would be far from the first time Fauci has suggested that attacks against him are attacks on science itself. During a June appearance on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, Fauci said that criticisms of him are “really very much an attack on science.” He doubled down on that belief weeks later, asserting that the people attacking him are “actually criticizing science” as he defended his flip-flopping on masking.
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