On Call

July 15, 2024
Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, debuts with a revealing, if restrained, look back on his career in public service. Readers hoping Fauci would return fire against those who turned him into a political punching bag will largely be disappointed; he remains impressively even-keeled (if sharply critical) throughout the passages devoted to the Covid-19 pandemic, delivering a candid portrayal of the Trump administration’s erratic, highly politicized approach to the coronavirus, which led to Fauci getting death threats, including a dramatic anthrax scare. The book’s most gripping and personal section recounts the devastating AIDS crisis and Fauci’s “complex” relationship with activist and playwright Larry Kramer, who once labeled Fauci a “murderer” in an op-ed (the two famously found a way to work together toward their common goal, and became close friends). Infusing the narrative with tender details from his private life (he starred on the basketball court at New York City’s prestigious Regis High School, lost his mother to cancer while in medical school, and met his wife, Christine, in the trenches of the AIDS fight), Fauci closes with an urgent warning about what has him worried today: an “impending... crisis of truth” that will make disasters like pandemics “so much worse.” It’s a rich account of a life dedicated to keeping Americans safe.

August 1, 2024
The long-anticipated memoir. Fauci served as director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease for 38 years. He was widely known and admired within his profession but not to the general public until the Covid-19 epidemic. A talented researcher, he did groundbreaking work on immune and infectious diseases at the NIH and then became NIAID director at age 43. Except for a rare nod toward his family, Fauci confines himself to his professional life, delivering an illuminating, expert account of our government's encounters with infectious diseases over the past 50 years--stories that involve as much politics as science. Almost as soon as he took office in 1984, AIDS emerged as a worldwide catastrophe that dominates the book, later joined (but not superseded) by Covid-19. Along the way readers learn about battles against SARS, Ebola, Zika, malaria, tuberculosis, bioterrorism, and even influenza. Well before Covid-19, Fauci appeared in the media regularly, giving many the impression that he directed America's public health policy. In fact, that's the responsibility of the CDC in distant Atlanta (NIAID supports research), but Fauci was on hand in Washington, so reporters and officials regularly sought him out. President Trump assumed that Covid-19 would disappear after a few months. As it worsened and Fauci kept delivering bad news while others told the president what he wanted to hear, Trump and his staff began accusing Fauci of disloyalty and then incompetence. Quickly falling in line, congressional Republicans peppered Fauci with invective and investigations. The author describes several Trump aides as obnoxious; others were supportive; Trump himself gets off fairly lightly as often charming but bombastic and deeply ignorant. Fauci could not have led and expanded NIAID without the considerable political acumen he exercised under seven presidents, but he leaves no doubt that Trump tried him sorely. Most readers will appreciate this evenhanded account, though probably not unforgiving Trump supporters.

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