Dr. Anthony Fauci examining an early-stage AIDS patient at NIH, 1987
Photo: NIAID
Dr. Anthony Fauci has served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984 and is now the Chief Medical Advisor to the President. He has been at the forefront of America’s medical response efforts since the height of the HIV / AIDS epidemic and has continued as another deadly viral pandemic has set in.
He talked about the comparisons and contrasts between AIDS and COVID-19 before, but now he revealed that he had to visit gay bars and saunas at the height of the HIV / AIDS epidemic to see how it was decimating the LGBTQ community.
Related: Trump blocked Dr. Fauci from going to Rachel Maddow’s show “for months”. Biden has already left him.
In a meeting with NPRTerry Gross for the Fresh Air podcast, Dr. Fauci spoke at length about the treatment of HIV and coronavirus during his tenure, from the 1980s to today. He argued that seeing saunas and clubs with his own eyes helped him become a better immunologist.
“Those were the first years of the outbreak,” he started. “We were seeing a large number of men, mostly gay, who were doing well before, who were being devastated by this terrible and mysterious disease. And I was so focused on the gay community that I really wanted to get an idea of what was going on there that would lead to this explosion of a sexually transmitted disease. “
“So I did. I went to the Castro district [of San Francisco]. I went down to Greenwich Village and went into the bathrooms to see essentially what was going on. “
There, Dr. Fauci said he found the “insight” he needed to start tackling the epidemic properly.
“I went to the bathrooms to see essentially what was going on, and the epidemiologist in me said, ‘Oh my God, this is a perfect setting for an explosion of a sexually transmitted disease.’ It’s the same thing going to gay bars and seeing what was going on, and it gave me a great insight into the explosion of the sexually transmitted disease outbreak. “
Gross asked Dr. Fauci if the president at the time, Republican Ronald Reagan, made his job difficult. “Reagan was supported by the religious right, which had a very anti-gay agenda,” noted Gross, “and that was very central to his political agenda. Do you think it interfered with the type of funding you needed to research AIDS? “
“You know, I think so,” replied Dr. Fauci, although, he said, “I think the president himself didn’t feel that way inherently.”
Dr Fauci added: “I believe that, as a large part of his constituency was like that, what he did not do was not to use the presidential pulpit to gain support and attention for what was happening right in front of everyone’s eyes. “
Gross then began asking Dr. Fauci about becoming the target of gay HIV / AIDS activists, and just as when the coronavirus pandemic started in 2020.
“I think you were burned to an effigy … and there was an image of your head on a stake. Were these threats that you had to take seriously in the same way that you had to take them seriously now? Asked Gross.
“No, absolutely not,” Dr. Fauci replied immediately.
Reporting once that he went to “the middle of Greenwich Village to meet what must have been, you know, anywhere from 50 to 100 activists in this meeting room” essentially on his own, Dr. Fauci adds, “neither for a second it did I feel physically threatened to go down there, not even close. I mean, that was not the nature of the protest. One of the things about this is that not only were they not threatening violently, but ultimately were on the right side of the story. ”
He specifically mentioned Larry Kramer’s famous article calling him “a killer” for not paying attention to the concerns of the LGBTQ community at the time.
“I’ll never forget about this. He wanted to get my attention. And he certainly caught my eye, ”recalls Dr. Fauci of the late legendary activist.
Dr. Fauci expressed that he learned two important things in dealing with the AIDS epidemic: “One is the importance of involving the community and dealing with the community and its special needs … if you look at the incidence of infection and the incidence of serious illnesses, including hospitalization and deaths, browns and blacks suffer disproportionately more than whites.
“We also learned the importance of basic fundamental science in finding solutions,” he explained. “In the early days, being infected with HIV was a virtual death sentence for the overwhelming majority … it was the fundamental basic science of targeted drug development that allowed us to develop drug combinations … which, in the final analysis, completely transformed the lives of people living with HIV. “