Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the White House, is defending his past remarks about the pandemic and reiterated that the criticism aimed at him is essentially an attack on science.
What he said: “It is essential as a scientist that you evolve your opinion and your recommendations based on the data as it evolves. … And that’s the reason why I say people who then criticize me about that are actually criticizing science,” Fauci told New York Times writer Kara Swisher’s podcast, “Sway,” according to Axios.
“[T]he people who are giving the ad hominems are saying, ‘Ah, Fauci misled us. First he said no masks, then he said masks,'” Fauci said on the podcast, which drops tomorrow. “Well, let me give you a flash. That’s the way science works. You work with the data you have at the time.”
“It was not a change because I felt like flip-flopping. It was a change because the evidence changed, the data changed … it isn’t a question of being wrong. It’s a question of going with the data as you have, and being humble enough and flexible enough to change with the data.”
Fauci also said he puts “very little weight in the adulation, and very little weight in the craziness of condemning me.”
“The more extreme they get, the more obvious how political it is … ‘Fauci has blood on his hands,’” the infectious diseases expert said of his critics. “Are you kidding me? … Here’s a guy whose entire life has been devoted to saving lives, and now you’re telling me he’s like Hitler? You know, come on, folks.”
How we got here: Fauci, who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, drew a backlash in a recent interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd where he said that those attack him because of his change in stance on various issues regarding the pandemic are “quite frankly” attacking science.
“Because all of the things I have spoken about consistently, from the very beginning have been fundamentally based on science,” Fauci told Todd. “Sometimes those things were inconvenient truths for people and there was pushback against me, so if you are trying to, you know, get at me as a public health official and a scientist, you’re really attacking not only Dr. Anthony Fauci, you’re attacking science, and anybody that looks at what is going on clearly sees that.”
He made similar remarks on MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show.”
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