Dr. Anthony Fauci has responded to those who want to see him prosecuted for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The now-retired Fauci, 82, called his accusers “crazy” during an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta on Saturday.
He said he and his family continue to receive death threats because of his response to the 2020 pandemic, months after he left his post as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Acosta also asked Fauci about Elon Musk’s December tweet mocking transgender pronouns while calling for criminal charges. The message read: ‘My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.’
‘What is your response to that?’ asked the host.
‘There is no answer to that madness, Jim. Prosecute me for what? What are you talking about? I wish I could find out what the hell they’re talking about. I think they are just going crazy,” criticized the country’s top infectious disease expert.
Dr. Anthony Fauci lashed out at his critics during an interview with Jim Acosta on CNN on Saturday.
“It just doesn’t make any sense to say something like that, and it’s actually irresponsible,” he criticized.
Speaking about how his family deals with the negative publicity surrounding his administration of the pandemic, Fauci said it was “difficult.”
I mean, they don’t like that I get death threats all the time. Every time someone stands up and says nonsense that is misinformation, misinformation and outright lies, someone somewhere decides they want to hurt me or my family,” she said.
‘That’s the part that’s really unfortunate… The rest is just crazy, the things they’re saying. But it has a negative effect when people take it seriously and take it out on you and your family.
The doctor described the view that it was ‘unacceptable’ to have a ‘political view on a public health problem’ as these issues create a ‘common enemy’.
During his time in office from 1984 to 2022, Fauci tackled the thorny issues surrounding health crises, from HIV/AIDS to bird flu and Ebola.
The veteran immunologist has served as an adviser to seven US presidents starting with Republican Ronald Reagan and has had more than 50 years of public service.
At the time of Musk’s tweet, the White House expressed its full support for Fauci.
“They are disgusting and divorced from reality, and we will continue to denounce that and be very clear about it,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters afterward.
Speaking about how his family deals with the negative publicity surrounding his handling of the pandemic, Fauci said it was “difficult.”
On Friday, the House voted unanimously to declassify US intelligence on the origins of COVID-19, a broad show of bipartisan support near the three-year anniversary of the start of the deadly pandemic.
The 419-0 vote was the final passage of the bill by Congress and sent it to the desk of President Joe Biden. It is unclear if the president will sign the measure into law, and the White House said the matter was under review.
“I haven’t made that decision yet,” Biden said Friday night when asked if he would sign the bill.
The House debate was short and to the point: Americans have questions about how the deadly virus started and what can be done to prevent future outbreaks.
The vote passed 419-0 on Friday, with all members of Congress backing the offer to make public the links to the Wuhan lab and documents about the start of the virus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Biden COVID adviser who retired from government last year, has said he still believes it was probably a natural occurrence.
“The American public deserves answers to all aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
That includes, he said, “how this virus was created, and specifically whether it was naturally occurring or the result of a laboratory-related event.”
Led by Republicans, the focus on the origins of the virus comes as the House launched a select committee hearing earlier in the week to delve into theories about how the pandemic began.
It offers a rare moment of bipartisanship despite often heated rhetoric about the origins of the coronavirus and questions about the response to the virus from US health officials, including Fauci.
Pictured: The Wuhan Institute of Virology, where Chinese scientists erased crucial data
House Republicans have been using their new majority power to investigate all aspects of the pandemic, including its origin, as well as what they say were officials’ efforts to hide the fact that it leaked from a lab. in Wuhan.
Days earlier, the GOP released emails showing that Fauci commissioned a February 2020 paper to refute the possibility that COVID originated in a laboratory, before releasing the study at a White House news conference weeks later.
In February, Republicans sent letters to Fauci, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Health Secretary Xavier Beccera and others as part of their investigative efforts.
The letters do not require the cooperation of the recipients. But in announcing the GOP staff report in December, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, chair of the virus subcommittee, said lawmakers would issue subpoenas if potential witnesses didn’t cooperate.
Republicans accused Fauci of lying to Congress when he denied in May that the National Institutes of Health funded “gain-of-function” research, the practice of enhancing a virus in a laboratory to study its potential impact in the real world, in a virology lab. in Wuhan.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, even urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Fauci’s statements.
At the time, Fauci called that criticism “nonsense.”