"I am a clinical scientist who has been extremely careful to only ask for voluntary testing and counseling." (Anthony Fauci, 1981)
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(LAB107)--Way back in April, when the pandemic became a credible threat to the American public, so too did threats emerge directed at the White House task force point immunologist, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. The doctor hasn't come right out and given any specifics on the content of the threats. At this point, it would be of interest to examine the doctor's archival footprint that might be of some use as to the profile of those responsible for the intimidation.
Of course, the usual suspect is the online troller who doesn't have a good thing to say about anyone and has the opportunity to bash individuals using available social media resources. Those are easy enough to trace. There may be others, with long standing grudges against the doctor for something he might have said during his career in public service, where statements were made that, at the time, may have been misconstrued.
During the AIDS epidemic, for instance, in 1978, Dr. Fauci, while employed by the National Institutes of Health, made a comment in the Pennsylvania Indiana Gazette related to a vaccine in development as a possible cure for the disease;
" 'This is a preventive approach, he explained. If an AIDS vaccine is developed, 'people should learn to change their behavior and if, as in human nature, they slip,' they could hope the vaccine they had taken had "decreased their chances of getting infected.' " (1)
Considering the AIDS epidemic was related to a generally unacceptable alternate lifestyle at the time, or at least created a homophobic backlash across the nation, a statement from an immunologist about people needing to "change their behavior" might well have created indignance and animosity in the gay community. Again, with respect to AIDS, still in the news in 1981, columnist Mike McManus asked Dr. Fauci rather pointed questions regarding the epidemic;
"Since there are now drugs to help those who may be infected, do you favor 'contract tracing' in which state or local health departments interview AIDS patients, asking who their sexual partners have been, so that these people can be contacted and tested confidentially?" (2)
Apparently McManus meant "contact tracing," a method used in the current pandemic to locate the source of the infected person, or it was misprinted in the article. The inquiry was met with boos and Dr. Fauci had to "wave the 400-500 people quiet." Again, the reference went back to the gay community and the unfair association the virus had with it. Dr. Fauci's reply in that particular conference, which McManus datelines to Washington was;
"I am a clinical scientist who has been extremely careful to only ask for voluntary testing and counseling."
That reply seemed a bit out of step with his comment in 1978 about those who were infected should "change their behavior." By 1983, the transmission of AIDS, according to Dr. Fauci, might be linked to personal contact among family members where he was quoted in the Palm Beach Post as saying, "then AIDS takes on an entirely new dimension." (3) In relation to that comment was a study done at the time and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), relating to children who had contracted the virus from adults in their families. That study apparently made no mention of the common perception of the time that the virus was related to;
"...adults with known AIDS risk factors such as intravenous drug abuse, homosexuality or Haitian origins. There was no evidence the children (of eight New Jersey families) had been sexually abused or given illicit drugs." (4)
Clearly, the opportunity to categorize those with certain lifestyles or ethnic backgrounds isn't anything new as found in the precedent set during the AIDS era. The association, however, was inferred by the JAMA article that the families were comprised of gay black islanders who abused their kids and fed them heroin. It set the stage for the "stigma syndrome," in other words, extra baggage Dr. Fauci inherited just by being a part of the medical profession at the time and carried over that resentment into the next century, and the present coronavirus pandemic. Not only that, the bold new revelation by the director of the National Institutes of Health deflected animosity the heterosexual white majority held against the gays and blacks and placed the illness in the lap of that very highly critical majority. Whether he was aware of it or not, Dr. Fauci wasn't helping himself out at all in a popularity contest similar to the one today where his poll ratings go up and down in relation to the charts behind him in the White House press briefing room. What is also astonishing about the immunologist's current predicament is that something that is so innocuous is so obvious.
No wonder that about the same time Dr. Fauci's stigma syndrome first began to develop during the AIDS era, an article in the International Summaries of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service published in 1978, titled "The Effects of Imprisonment of the Self-Image of 'Lifers'," actually described symptoms of the Group I stigma syndrome;
"The subject feels uncertain and helpless in many situations, the subject has difficulty meeting the demands of his occupation," (5) among others.
In the Group II category, when the "lifer" attempts to reintegrate into society, the subject "represses a great deal and often cannot really voice his opinion." Unfortunately, Dr. Fauci finds himself that very lifer, a cellmate bunkie to a hostile pandemicized society where he takes the blame instead of gay Haitians, and translated to modern standards, the communist Chinese.
By late Fall of 1983, Dr Fauci appeared to have reversed course on the transmission of the deadly HIV virus as reported in the Maryland Star Democrat;
"Meanwhile, also on Monday here, a national authority on the ailment said medical information does not show that AIDS is spreading to the nation's general population. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, chief of the laboratory of communal regulators at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said AIDS continues to be confined to homosexual and bisexual males, intravenous drug users, Haitians and hemophiliacs." (6)
Again, the immunologist appeared to have reversed course, possibly to head off controversy although that is questionable. It is, however, a similar pattern in the current medical emergency where the doctor has found himself either contradicting his own findings or under criticism from leadership. A month later in 1983, Dr. Fauci was reported to have stated that AIDS was tapering off in New York, but the statement was challenged by other experts who said it "may simply be differences in reporting." (7) That appears to be a sticking point in optimistic forecasts of today's pandemic outlook as well. Hysteria over the spread of the Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome had boiled over in the media with so-called experts blaming "African AIDS" in men spreading it to prostitutes who infected heterosexual men who then took it home to their wives. In late 1984, Dr. Fauci said;
"Africans may have other diseases that expose people to AIDS. That probably will not happen in the United States, he says." (8)
That episode in the controversial life of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci eventually drew to a close but another one waited on the horizon, with similar circumstances. Today he is saddled with repeating history, facing the same challenges and shortcomings, suffering the same stigma syndrome he had to endure during the AIDS era of the last century. Adding to that is a new one brought about by the information technology age, that of the death threat, for himself and his family. We don't know who is making the threats, the doctor and is family have adequate security. Considering this one chapter in his life, it just goes to show what he had to go through and who were his patients, his subjects, and perhaps his hidden enemies in the ranks.
There is one lingering thought. That of the "facilitator" who is aware of the immunologist's controversial status during the AIDS era and is deliberately using it (as a tactic) to undermine the current effort by Dr. Fauci to end the coronavirus pandemic.
Cited
(1) AIDS Vaccine, Indiana (PA) Gazette, 14 July 1978, Page 4
(2) Contract tracing, Indiana (PA) Gazette, 24 Feb 1981, Page 2.
(3) Family contact, Palm Beach Post, 06 May 1983, Page 97.
(4) JAMA study, The Galveston Daily News, 08 May 1983, Page 16.
(5) Lifer, International Summaries, Volume 2, 1978 (Pages 150-153)
(6) HIV Confined, Maryland Star Democrat, 19 Oct 1983, Page 3.
(7) New York cases, Steve Sternberg, Miami Herald, 15 Nov 1983, Page 122
(8) African AIDS, The Shreveport Journal, 27 Nov 1984, Page 7.
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