Will Dr. Fauci Finally Get Downsized?

Senator Rand Paul will introduce an amendment to eliminate Dr. Anthony Fauci’s position as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and establish three new institutes headed by presidential appointees, confirmed by the Senate, and serving a term of five years.

“We’ve learned a lot over the past two years, but one lesson in particular is that no one person should be deemed ‘dictator in chief,’” Paul wrote in a Fox News commentary. “No one person should have unilateral authority to make decisions for millions of Americans.”

Paul, a physician for more than 33 years, says he “never encountered someone with the gall to proclaim himself ‘the science’ and portray anyone opposing him as ‘attacking science.’ That is until Dr. Fauci became the COVID dictator-in-chief.” Paul mourns “those we lost to the crushing and overbearing lockdowns and mandates that were based on junk science.”

Anthony Fauci earned a medical degree in 1966 but if he ever practiced medicine it was only for a short time. In 1968, Dr. Fauci was hired on with the National Institutes of Health and he has headed NIAID since 1984. Dr. Fauci’s bio shows no advanced degrees in molecular biology or biochemistry. 

As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shows in The Real Anthony Fauci, the NIAID boss has authorized dangerous drug trials on unwilling subjects, including African American foster children in New York. With his NIAID budget of more than $6 billion, Fauci controls public health policy and medical research spending, a dangerous concentration of power. 

Dr. Fauci has reversed himself on many issues but now claims “I represent science.” Such a person is unfit to head a government agency dealing with public health. Kennedy makes a strong case that Fauci should have been shown the door decades ago. 

Like most government bureaucracies, Fauci’s NIAID is too failed to be big. As a way to start cutting NIAID down to size, Sen. Paul’s plan deserves serious consideration.

(Sen. Paul’s amendment can be read here)

K. Lloyd Billingsley is a Policy Fellow at the Independent Institute and a columnist at American Greatness.
Beacon Posts by K. Lloyd Billingsley | Full Biography and Publications
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