Dr. Anthony Stephen Fauci is a well-respected member of the medical community who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984.  As a physician with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Fauci has served American public health in various capacities for over 50 years, and has been an advisor to every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan.  He has made contributions to HIV/AIDS research and other immunodeficiencies, both as a scientist and as the head of the NIAID at the NIH, and from 1983 to 2002 was one of the world’s most-cited scientists in scientific journals.

Here is a list of Dr. Fauci’s awards and honours through the years:

• 1979: Arthur S. Flemming Award
• 1993: Honorary Doctor of Science, Bates College
• 1995: Ernst Jung Prize (shared with Samuel A. Wells, Jr.)
• 1995: Honorary Doctor of Science, Duke University
• 1996: Honorary Doctor of Science, Colgate University
• 1999: Honorary Doctor of Public Service Degree, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
• 2002: Albany Medical Center Prize
• 2003: American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award
• 2005: National Medal of Science
• 2005: American Association of Immunologists Lifetime Achievement Award
• 2007: Mary Woodard Lasker Public Service Award
• 2007: George M. Kober Medal, Association of American Physicians
• 2008: Presidential Medal of Freedom
• 2013: UCSF medal
• 2013: Robert Koch Gold Medal
• 2013: Prince Mahidol Award
• 2015: Honorary Degree, Johns Hopkins University
• 2016: John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award
• 2018: Honorary Doctor of Science, Commencement Speaker, American University
• 2018: Honorary Doctor of Science, Boston University

Dr. Fauci is a member of the National Academy of Sciences; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the National Academy of Medicine; the American Philosophical Society; and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters; as well as other numerous professional societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation; the Infectious Diseases Society of America,; and the American Association of Immunologists. He serves on the editorial boards of many scientific journals; as an editor of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine; and as author, coauthor, or editor of more than 1,000 scientific publications, including several textbooks.

In contrast …

Donald Trump is, according to his former lawyers, biographers, and nearly anyone who has ever had business dealings with him, a racist, liar, conman, and cheat, to name just a few.  He has received no notable awards or honours, has written no books (those that carry his name were ghostwritten). His father bought his degree in Business from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  He has been involved in more than 5,000 lawsuits and has been accused of sexual misconduct more than twenty times.

Which one of these two are you going to entrust with your life?

Dr. Fauci has a long record of telling the truth, while it has been documented that Donald Trump has told the people of this nation more than 20,000 lies since January 2017.

From the very beginning of this pandemic, Dr. Fauci has issued warnings that Donald Trump did not, on behalf of the nation, heed.  Today, we are paying the price for Trump’s perfidy.  And yet …

Donald Trump and his cadre of White House clowns have publicly sought to undermine Fauci in at least five separate instances over the past four days, even as the coronavirus surges across the US, with the death toll now above 140,000 and 3.6 million cases.  Rather than address the problem, they have decided to go into attack mode against one man:  Dr. Fauci.  They published what they refer to as an “opposition research paper”, listing a number of instances — on community transmission, asymptomatic transmission and mask wearing in particular — where Dr. Fauci’s views have shifted over time.

Given the unique nature of the coronavirus, there is no perfect information available even today, but certainly in the early days, perfect information was not available and the health experts, including Dr. Fauci, used their best judgement based on their knowledge and the data available.  As more data and research has become available, it is natural that their views will shift.  But Trump & Co have decided to use this as a weapon to discredit the man who is probably the most knowledgeable of any in the nation, to discredit Dr. Fauci.

The question is:  why???  Because it gives Trump a scapegoat for his own horrific failure in containing and controlling the virus.  If there was a misstep to be made in this entire pandemic, Trump has made it.  He has put our lives and the lives of our children at risk and continues to do so even today with his ‘demands’ that schools re-open and that we send our children into the lion’s den.  Trump has lost followers even within his own party as a result of his bungling response to the pandemic.  So, he needs somebody to blame, somebody to publicly shame.

Even the two-faced Lindsey Graham, typically a Trump sycophant, had this to say …

“Has he been right all the time? No. We don’t have a Dr Fauci problem, we need to be focusing on doing things that get us where we need to go. So, I have all the respect in the world for Dr Fauci. I think any effort to undermine him is not going to be productive, quite frankly.”

For Graham, that is a strong statement of support for Dr. Fauci.  And Dr. Fauci is stronger than many may have thought.  Although he doesn’t get down and wallow in the mud with Trump & Co, he makes himself heard in an interview with The Atlantic in which he responded to Trump’s criticisms …

“I cannot figure out in my wildest dreams why they would want to do that. I think they realize now that that was not a prudent thing to do, because it’s only reflecting negatively on them.  I stand by everything I said. Contextually, at the time I said it, it was absolutely true … [The White House document] is totally wrong. It’s nonsense. It’s completely wrong. The whole thing is wrong. The whole thing is incorrect. I just want to do my job. I’m really good at it. I think I can contribute. And I’m going to keep doing it.”

Now I pose the question again.  Which of these two, Donald Trump or Dr. Fauci, do you trust with your life and the lives of your loved ones?