Since he was first thrust into the spotlight during the early days of the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been a controversial figure.
Last year, President Donald Trump described Fauci as a “fraud.”
The Real Anthony Fauci author Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. calls Fauci the J. Edgar Hoover of public health.
For his part, the late actor, singer and songwriter Hoyt Axton has also penned a suitable description for the Biden advisor.
Anthony Fauci earned a medical degree in 1966 but if he ever practiced medicine it was only for a short time.
In 1968, to avoid treating wounded American soldiers in Vietnam, Fauci took a cushy “yellow beret” job with the National Institutes of Health.
Fauci’s bio shows no advanced degrees in biochemistry or molecular biology, yet in 1984 he became director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and headed up the government’s response to AIDS.
Fauci’s favored remedy was azidothymidine, also known as AZT and marketed under the names Zidovudine or Retrovir.
The drug has toxic effects but in the summer of 1989 Fauci announced clinical trials of AZT on pregnant mothers with HIV.
As UC Berkeley molecular biologist Peter Duesberg explained in Inventing the AIDS Virus, “a drug that interferes with growth can lead only to physical deformities in babies developing in the womb.”
The toxicity of AZT also drew warnings from AIDS researcher Dr. Joseph Sonnabend.
Fauci was undeterred, and in 1992 NIAID provided funding for drug trials at the Incarnation Children’s Center (ICC) in New York.
The city’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) offered up children, nearly all of them African American, for trials involving AZT and other drugs. As the BBC’s 2004 “Guinea Pig Kids” documented, the children suffered untold agonies and some 80 of them died.
Fauci lied about funding dangerous gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and in early 2020, the NIAID boss opposed President Trump’s ban on travel from China.
When COVID-19 began to spread, Fauci strongly opposed the use of drugs such as hydroxychloroquine, available in abundant supply.
Fauci wanted the injectable vaccines produced by drug companies he knew well, despite unknown risks of side effects. In early December, the FDA asked a judge to grant 75 years to produce data concerning the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, a full 20 years more than a previous request.
Fauci has reversed himself many times but now claims “I represent science.”
The humble white coat supremacist qualifies as the kind of person Hoyt Axton described in “The Pusher,” written after a friend died from a drug overdose, and a hit for Steppenwolf in 1968.
“You know, I’ve seen a lot of people walkin’ ’round with tombstones in their eyes,” the song explains, “but the pusher don’t care if you live or if you die.”
Axton’s refrain of “God damn the Pusher,” is an invocation, not a blasphemy. The bereaved songwriter, who refers to “my bible,” simply wants the deity to bring down justice.
“The pusher is a monster,” the tune explains.
“Good God, he’s not a natural man.”
The pusher will “ruin your body,” and “leave your mind to scream.”
All of which took place with the “guinea pig kids” and who knows how many others around the world.
If Fauci had any second thoughts, they did not emerge in public testimony.
Fauci was the primary backer of the lockdowns that caused untold suffering and loss.
Statements from Fauci expressing sympathy for embattled Americans are hard to find, and like Ian Holm’s science officer Ash in “Alien,” Fauci has a certain robotic quality.
The Biden adviser does excel at telling Americans what to do, such as disinviting unvaccinated relatives to their homes for Christmas.
Fauci also warns those vaccinated and boosted to stay away from gatherings of more than 30 people, so maybe the drugs he is pushing aren’t that effective.
As his advocacy of AZT confirms, effectiveness is not a major concern for the man who claims to represent science.
“Well, now if I were the president of this land,” Axton wrote, “you know, I’d declare total war on the pusher man.”
That is understandable, but there’s a problem.
Anthony Fauci has never been called to account, though politicians have solid grounds for going after him.
Any serious investigation is unlikely under Joe Biden, who recently said, “look who’s president, Fauci.”
On the other hand, Americans are starting to ignore the J. Edgar Hoover figure, the deep-state fraud, and the pusher man.
On Christmas Day, countless Americans visited relatives and attended sporting events across the country.
Such open defiance of Fauci may portend brighter days in 2022 and beyond.
As Hoyt Axton said in his most famous song, a 1971 hit for Three Dog Night, “Joy to the World.”
