Dr. Anthony Fauci, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director who had denied his agency's links to coronavirus funding despite glaring evidence, is accusing Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Trump administration ex-official Peter Navarro of "killing people" because of their alleged "lies" about the COVID pandemic. The 80 year old infectious diseases expert hit back at them for their criticism over how he had been handling public health policies over the last two years.
"I'm not in it for a popularity contest," Dr. Fauci claimed during an interview with MSNBC, as reported by WND. "I've devoted my entire professional career of 50 years to try and essentially safeguard and preserve the health of the American people."
Dr. Fauci, who has led the NIAID since 1984, argued that "as an infectious disease doctor who deals with outbreaks, that gets really extended to the rest of the world." He added that both the "praise" and the criticism that comes with his job are all "irrelevant." He concluded, "I do what science drives you to do," even if real science actually shows the opposite of what he is advocating.
Dr. Fauci said he is simply "trying to save lives, and the people who weaponize lies are killing people" and that "When you show Tucker Carlson and Peter Navarro criticizing me, I consider that a badge of honor."
The NIAID director claimed that both Carlson and Navarro make "ridiculous statements" by telling people to "do things that they're going to die from" and telling him, the White House Chief Medical Advisor, to go to jail.
Navarro remains a strong critic of Dr. Fauci, as he recently recounted in his book "In Trump Time, A Journal of America's Plague Year" that the NIAID director did "more damage to this nation, President Trump and the world than anyone else this side of the Bat Lady of Wuhan."
Navarro also accused Dr. Fauci of being involved in the "Wuhan lab gain-of-function catastrophe" and the campaign against low-cost COVID treatments such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin in favor of COVID vaccines that are costly and tyrannical.
Navarro went on to criticize Dr. Fauci for not informing former President Donald Trump of the gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in the Wuhan lab, where COVID is believed to have originated. According to the Huffington Post, Navarro, who was the former director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy and has no background in public health, went on a tirade to say that Dr. Fauci should have been "[strangled]...in his crib."
But Navarro and Carlson are not Dr. Fauci's only biggest critics. According to Newsweek, Dr. Martin Kulldorf, epidemiologist, biostatistician and professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of Health Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine, outlined Dr. Fauci's key issues in which he had made errors.
This include natural immunity, which Dr. Fauci continues to downplay, the "thousand-fold difference in mortality risk" between the elderly and the young and healthy, school shutdowns due to fear of transmission among the youth, face masks for children, and contact tracing.
The doctors added that medical doctors who oppose the NIAID director are also fearful of losing their jobs or research grants, knowing fully well that "Dr. Fauci sits on top of the largest pile of infectious disease research money in the world."
