A MUST READ INTERVIEW, IN MY VIEW but I am glad to share a particular extract from the script:
[ https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2300938 ]
‘In this episode of “Perspectives, Intention to Treat,” Anthony Fauci), sits down with host RachelGotbaum to discuss his long career in infectious disease and public health, what has motivated him, and the lessons he has learned and taught along the way. (youremember him?-- ‘Dr.Anthony Fauci. Fauci left the NIH in December after 54 years there. He has worked in seven U.S. administrations, and he’s been a major force in the fight against infectious diseases. We sat down with him to find out what has driven Anthony Fauci all these years. It turns out, it all starts and ends with his patients’. KEY message for scientists and professional - 'STICK WITH THE SCIENCE'!
Rachel Gotbaum: Welcome to “Intention to Treat” from the New England Journal of Medicine. I’m Rachel Gotbaum.
Rachel Gotbaum: The AIDS epidemic marked the beginning of your role, really, in the political world. You advised seven presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan, who, by the way, didn’t mention the word HIV or AIDS for much of his presidency. What did you learn about advocacy in working politically to make real changes happen among those that held the most power?
Anthony Fauci: Yeah, the first thing is to stick with the science. You’re a scientist. You’re going to get involved in policy, but don’t get involved in politics. There’s a big difference between policy and politics. Stay out of that realm of politics. Ifyou’re going to be successfully advising seven presidents, and they’re not all going to be Democrats and they’re not all going to be Republicans. You’re going to have to deal with both sides of the aisle at the executive level. I stuck with the science and I stayed out of any ideology. Everything I did, every advice I gave to whether it was Ronald Reagan, or George H.W. Bush, or Clinton, or George W. Bush, or Obama, or Trump, or Biden, or any of the others, it was just give them the advice based on science, knowing full well that when you’re dealing with a moving target like HIV, or a real moving target like Covid, the science is going to direct you to change your opinion, change your recommendation, change your advice according to what the current scientific approach towards a particular disease is showing you with regard to evidence and data.
Rachel Gotbaum: But I guess what I’m wondering, when you went to the White House, if you will, and you’re hearing pushback, bad policy about to happen, people may be about to be hurt by it. How do you square with that, or how did you square with that?
Anthony Fauci: Just like I said, you stick with the science, because it was only in that very unique situation that I was in during one of the administrations that things were said that were not true, and they were not based on science. And I felt that I had a responsibility, for my own personal and professional integrity, to do something that was very uncomfortable. I have an extraordinary amount of respect for the office of the presidency. It’s not fun. It doesn’t feel good to have to get up at a press conference in front of many, many, many millions of people watching it and to essentially contradict the president. Because somebody sitting in the rows in the press asked you a question, you’ve got to give the right answer, even though it’s contradictory to what the president just said. I didn’t like that, but I had to do it, and I had to do it because of my responsibility to the American public. My responsibility is not to a political party and not to a president, it’s to the American public. That, obviously, created an extraordinary amount of enmity, even to the point of hate of me in certain segments in the population.’’(Credit: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2300938).
One feels privileged to have been alive and to have lived through height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and witnessed the episodes that Dr Fauci talked about, as I am sure we all feel with, Thanks to God.
Joseph Ana
Prof Joseph Ana
Lead Senior Fellow/ medicalconsultant.
Center for Clinical Governance Research &
Patient Safety (ACCGR&PS) @ HRI GLOBAL
P: +234 (0) 8063600642
E: info@hri-global.org
8 Amaku Street, State Housing, Calabar,Nigeria.
www.hri-global.org
HIFA profile: Joseph Ana is the Lead Senior Fellow/Medical Consultant at the Centre for Clinical Governance Research and Patient Safety in Calabar, Nigeria, established by HRI Global (former HRIWA). He is a member of the World Health Organisation’s Technical Advisory Group on Integrated Care in primary, emergency, operative, and critical care (TAG-IC2). As the Cross River State Commissioner for Health, he led the introduction of the Homegrown Quality Tool, the 12-Pillar Clinical Governance Programme, in Nigeria (2004-2008). For sustainability, he established the Department of Clinical Governance, Servicom & e-health in the Cross River State Ministry of Health, Nigeria. His main interest is in whole health sector and system strengthening in Lower, Low and Middle Income Countries (LLMICs). He has written six books on the 12-Pillar Clinical Governance programme, suitable for LLMICs, including the TOOLS for Implementation. He served as Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association’s Standing Committee on Clinical Governance (2012-2022), and he won the Nigeria Medical Association’s Award of Excellence on three consecutive occasions for the innovation. He served as Chairman, Quality & Performance, of the Technical Working Group for the implementation of the Nigeria Health Act 2014. He is member, National Tertiary Health Institutions Standards Committee of the Federal Ministry of Health. He is the pioneer Secretary General/Trustee-Director of the NMF (Nigerian Medical Forum) which took the BMJ to West Africa in 1995. Joseph is a member of the HIFA Steering Group and the HIFA working group on Community Health Workers. (http://www.hifa.org/support/members/joseph-0 http://www.hifa.org/people/steering-group). Email: info AT hri-global.org and jneana AT yahoo.co.uk