In a recent interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci stated that he has been contemplating resigning from the post he has occupied since 1984.
During a March 18 podcast, Fauci, the longstanding head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), was inquired if he was thinking about retiring or shifting to a less-demanding role.
“I certainly am because I’ve got to do it sometime,” Fauci, 81, said.
“I can’t stay at this job forever, unless my staff is going to find me slumped over my desk one day. I’d rather not do that,” he added.
During the Reagan administration, Fauci was assigned to his current job in 1984.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was unable to gain backing for a proposal named Fauci Amendment which would abolish the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and replace it with three new institutions.
Fauci has now become a “dictator-in-chief,” according to Paul, who has tangled with him during repeated congressional hearings.
“No one person should have unilateral authority to make decisions for millions of Americans,” Paul, a doctor, said.
Requests for statement on the measure were not returned by Fauci or his agency.
Paul and other critics of Fauci have questioned how the doctor deceived the public about his agency’s financing for a Chinese lab near the very first COVID-19 case scenarios, his endorsement for drastic measures throughout the disease outbreak, and his acknowledgment that he made false statements about the efficacy of masks because he had been concerned there wouldn’t be enough for healthcare personnel.
Fauci, who has been making preparations for the investigations Republicans have promised into the COVID-19 reactions, has labeled Paul a partisan whose allegations are unfounded.
Without bringing up Paul, the podcast host asked Fauci if he planned to relinquish his post eventually in the recent interview, highlighting that, in addition to Dr. Francis Collins, who stepped down as director of the National Institutes of Health in late 2021, Jeffrey Zients was going to step down as White House COVID-19 response coordinator.
“I have said that I would stay in what I’m doing until we get out of the pandemic phase, and I think we might be there already,” Fauci said. “If we can stay in this, then we’re at a point where I feel that we’ve done well by this. But I don’t have any plans right now to go anywhere, but you never know.”
In addition, the doctor stated that he did not have many preferences beyond medicine.
“I unfortunately am somewhat of a unidimensional physician-scientist-public health person. When I do decide I’m going to step down—whenever that is—I’m going to have to figure out what I’m going to do,” he said. “I’d love to spend more time with my wife and family. That would be nice.”
