AIDS Activist Recalls Dr. Fauci Joining the Fight

[+ Lucky]

From nytimes.com:

Opinion

Guest Essay

Anthony Fauci Quietly Shocked Us All

Dec. 31, 2022, 9:00 a.m. ET

 

Dr. Fauci meets with ACT UP members at New York City’s LGBT Center on Oct. 19, 1989. Left to right: Peter Staley, Jay Funk, Mark Harrington, Simon Watney, Peggy Hamburg (assistant director of NIAID), Anthony Fauci, Richard Elovich, and Charlie Franchino.Credit...Tracey Litt

•  

By Peter Staley

Mr. Staley is a political activist and was an early member of ACT UP.

The first time I met Dr. Anthony Fauci was at the International AIDS Conference in Montreal during the summer of 1989. ACT UP, the AIDS activist group I was a part of, had scared the bejesus out of conference organizers by seizing the stage during the opening session, then made things worse by disrupting various scientific presentations. Many, if not most, AIDS researchers wanted us hauled away and never heard from again. Little did they know that Dr. Fauci, who was leading the response at the National Institutes of Health, had been meeting with members of ACT UP since shortly after our founding two years earlier.

The regular meetings he had with an ACT UP member, Bill Bahlman, continued even after Larry Kramer, one of the group’s founders, wrote an open letter to Dr. Fauci in The Village Voice calling him a murderer and comparing him to the Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann. But there Dr. Fauci was, meeting with me and my comrades, branded radical homosexuals, to discuss our policy proposal for upending longstanding Food and Drug Administration strictures against public access to drugs before they are approved.

Mr. Kramer had labeled him our enemy, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that as the head of our government’s AIDS research efforts, Dr. Fauci had my life in his hands. Only four years earlier, at the age of 24, I was diagnosed with AIDS-related complex, considered a certain death sentence at the time.

Days after the conference, I found myself in Dr. Fauci’s office, along with the ACT UP members Mark Harrington and Jim Eigo, hammering out the final details of our parallel track program, which would allow thousands of people to obtain experimental drugs outside of traditional clinical trials. Within days, a New York Times front page headline about Dr. Fauci read, “AIDS Researcher Seeks Wide Access to Drugs in Tests.” The F.D.A. quickly fell in line. ACT UP had scored its first major victory, with Dr. Fauci’s help.

But then we turned our focus to the myriad problems with Dr. Fauci’s AIDS clinical research program at the N.I.H., biting the hand that had just fed us. Our meetings were upgraded to long dinners at the home of Jim Hill, the deputy director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (Mr. Hill, who was not openly gay, later tested positive for H.I.V.) Over multiple bottles of wine, Dr. Fauci tried to placate us with what I called “the full Fauch,” an optimistic friendliness with a Brooklyn-smarts spin and a love of lively debates. Two opposing truths confronted us: We couldn’t help but love the guy, but his research program sucked. “Tony,” I said, “you’re a great scientist but a lousy administrator.”

Within months, hundreds of ACT UPers were surrounding his building at the N.I.H., and I was the first one arrested, after climbing onto its portico. Cops wrestled me down, bound my hands behind me with a zip tie, then hauled me through the building to a police van. The burly cop pulling my shoulder was dumbfounded when a familiar short man in a white lab coat walking toward us down the hallway yelled, “Peter, are you all right?” Laughing, I replied, “I’m fine. Just doing my job. How about you, Tony?”

. Fauci soon caved on one of our primary demands: adding people with H.I.V. to all the committees overseeing his AIDS research programs. Those patient advocates slowly but surely got results, vastly improving a research network that was more recently used to enroll thousands of people in the initial Covid-19 vaccine trials. It was the birth of a patient advocacy model that all disease groups use today, fully embraced by the research establishment. And it’s a tradition that I hope will continue after Dr. Fauci’s retirement on Dec. 31.

Over the years, the dinners to hash out unfinished AIDS work continued. After Mr. Hill tragically died in 1997, Dr. Fauci and his wife, Christine, started hosting the activist dinners at their house. Dr. Fauci shocked all of us, quietly working with President George W. Bush to start the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, the most effective international public health program in our nation’s history, saving the lives of 20 million people thus far.

Dr. Fauci walked through the fire with us, and his friendships with AIDS activists deepened with time, bound by a shared trauma. In those early years, while some in our community were accusing him of not caring enough about AIDS, he didn’t tell us about the hundreds of gay men he had tried to save under his care at the N.I.H. hospital. Until this month, he still did rounds there, a clinician above all else.

When Covid hit and the rest of the world got to know Dr. Fauci, he leaned on us for guidance. David Barr, another ACT UP veteran, set up and hosted weekly calls with him and health officials from various frontline cities, allowing Dr. Fauci to counter the rosy spin from other members of the White House task force with a well-informed “That’s not what I’m hearing.” I’ve always been a politician among the activists, and it’s been the honor of my life that he leaned on me hard during his tumultuous year navigating “team normal” and “team crazy” in President Donald Trump’s orbit.

Like all of us, Dr. Fauci has his flaws, but I’ve never met a man more willing to let a friend rip into him. Our conversations are filled with F-bombs. His willingness to give absolutely everyone the benefit of some shared humanity — “I just met Jared, and he seems like a good guy” — is almost freakish but has come in handy over his stretch of working for seven presidents.

Because he crossed Mr. Trump, Dr. Fauci was turned into a villain for the MAGA crowd, providing fodder for those who thrive on conspiracies and hate. There has rarely been a larger gap between a mob’s viciousness and its target’s decency.

Beyond today’s frightening anti-science minority, there’s a majority that spans the world. Among them are H.I.V.-positive gay men like me who survived the earliest plague years — now, amazingly, aging into our 60s and 70s. We belong to a much wider community of people living with H.I.V. in America today, most of whom are people of color. And beyond our borders, we are bound to millions of men, women and children in sub-Saharan Africa whose lives have been saved by science and advocates for public health.

Our majority includes millions of Americans who listened to Dr. Fauci’s advice during that first scary year of Covid and kept listening as we got ourselves vaccinated and boosted, and we survived this plague. We draw hope from the progress of science. We are blessed with heroes willing to stand up for truth, unbowed by withering assaults.

On behalf of all of us, thank you, Tony Fauci.

Mr. Staley is the board chair of PrEP4All, a leading H.I.V.-prevention advocacy group. His memoir, “Never Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism,” was published last year.

******

Thanks from this HIV survivor too!

Lucky

(Just a note from Lucky: This tribute to Dr. Fauci's work on AIDS and the gay lives he helped save is separate and apart from anything you think he did wrong later in life. That would be a separate thread and I would appreciate keeping the tenor of this thread as is. Thanks!)

Edited December 31, 2022 by Lucky

[Marc in Calif]

A fine tribute to Dr. Fauci.

The remark about Larry Kramer only hits the tip of the iceberg that was Kramer's huge ego and destructive behavior.

[+ nycman]

I have no doubt that Dr. Fauci saved my life several times over. 

It was an honor to weather two pandemics with him leading the way.

I did what he told me to do, and despite all odds, I escaped unscathed. 

I shudder to think what the third one will be like without him. 

[mike carey]

18 hours ago, Lucky said:

On behalf of all of us, thank you, Tony Fauci.

I'm not crying, you're crying!

[Luv2play]

America was indeed fortunate to have Dr. Fauci around in the 1980's and 2020's. While it stumbled at the beginning of each viral pandemic, in each case the world was facing an unknown disease. That's when you want to have someone in charge who uses their intellect and judgment to advise and to warn those in power in governments. Fauci fit the bill.

[pubic_assistance]

What isn't discussed here is that Anthony Fauci suppressed all funding for HIV cures and consistently favored HIV drug therapy, which is far more profitable for the pharmaceutical industry.

My very good friend who's a leading immunologist noticed on the 1980s that some gay men were exposed to HIV frequently but did not become infected. In the laboratory there was some evidence that a B cell response was being made rather than a T cell response ( which HIV actually uses to spread ). Research in inducing a B cell response would have effectively prevented HIV infections with a vaccine.

The research was not funded because drug therapies were the priority. Billions have been made off that research to instead produce a daily pill instead of a single vaccine.

More than one scientist also proposed CURES for HIV and Fauci consistently shot down every proposal in favor of the more profitable drug therapy route.

So I always find this propaganda about Fauci disturbing. People are so easily fooled into believing people who are profiting off of their misery are somehow a hero.

 

[GTMike]

On 12/31/2022 at 2:00 PM, Lucky said:

From nytimes.com:

Opinion

Guest Essay

Anthony Fauci Quietly Shocked Us All

Dec. 31, 2022, 9:00 a.m. ET

 

Dr. Fauci meets with ACT UP members at New York City’s LGBT Center on Oct. 19, 1989. Left to right: Peter Staley, Jay Funk, Mark Harrington, Simon Watney, Peggy Hamburg (assistant director of NIAID), Anthony Fauci, Richard Elovich, and Charlie Franchino.Credit...Tracey Litt

•  

By Peter Staley

Mr. Staley is a political activist and was an early member of ACT UP.

The first time I met Dr. Anthony Fauci was at the International AIDS Conference in Montreal during the summer of 1989. ACT UP, the AIDS activist group I was a part of, had scared the bejesus out of conference organizers by seizing the stage during the opening session, then made things worse by disrupting various scientific presentations. Many, if not most, AIDS researchers wanted us hauled away and never heard from again. Little did they know that Dr. Fauci, who was leading the response at the National Institutes of Health, had been meeting with members of ACT UP since shortly after our founding two years earlier.

The regular meetings he had with an ACT UP member, Bill Bahlman, continued even after Larry Kramer, one of the group’s founders, wrote an open letter to Dr. Fauci in The Village Voice calling him a murderer and comparing him to the Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann. But there Dr. Fauci was, meeting with me and my comrades, branded radical homosexuals, to discuss our policy proposal for upending longstanding Food and Drug Administration strictures against public access to drugs before they are approved.

Mr. Kramer had labeled him our enemy, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that as the head of our government’s AIDS research efforts, Dr. Fauci had my life in his hands. Only four years earlier, at the age of 24, I was diagnosed with AIDS-related complex, considered a certain death sentence at the time.

Days after the conference, I found myself in Dr. Fauci’s office, along with the ACT UP members Mark Harrington and Jim Eigo, hammering out the final details of our parallel track program, which would allow thousands of people to obtain experimental drugs outside of traditional clinical trials. Within days, a New York Times front page headline about Dr. Fauci read, “AIDS Researcher Seeks Wide Access to Drugs in Tests.” The F.D.A. quickly fell in line. ACT UP had scored its first major victory, with Dr. Fauci’s help.

But then we turned our focus to the myriad problems with Dr. Fauci’s AIDS clinical research program at the N.I.H., biting the hand that had just fed us. Our meetings were upgraded to long dinners at the home of Jim Hill, the deputy director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (Mr. Hill, who was not openly gay, later tested positive for H.I.V.) Over multiple bottles of wine, Dr. Fauci tried to placate us with what I called “the full Fauch,” an optimistic friendliness with a Brooklyn-smarts spin and a love of lively debates. Two opposing truths confronted us: We couldn’t help but love the guy, but his research program sucked. “Tony,” I said, “you’re a great scientist but a lousy administrator.”

Within months, hundreds of ACT UPers were surrounding his building at the N.I.H., and I was the first one arrested, after climbing onto its portico. Cops wrestled me down, bound my hands behind me with a zip tie, then hauled me through the building to a police van. The burly cop pulling my shoulder was dumbfounded when a familiar short man in a white lab coat walking toward us down the hallway yelled, “Peter, are you all right?” Laughing, I replied, “I’m fine. Just doing my job. How about you, Tony?”

. Fauci soon caved on one of our primary demands: adding people with H.I.V. to all the committees overseeing his AIDS research programs. Those patient advocates slowly but surely got results, vastly improving a research network that was more recently used to enroll thousands of people in the initial Covid-19 vaccine trials. It was the birth of a patient advocacy model that all disease groups use today, fully embraced by the research establishment. And it’s a tradition that I hope will continue after Dr. Fauci’s retirement on Dec. 31.

Over the years, the dinners to hash out unfinished AIDS work continued. After Mr. Hill tragically died in 1997, Dr. Fauci and his wife, Christine, started hosting the activist dinners at their house. Dr. Fauci shocked all of us, quietly working with President George W. Bush to start the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, the most effective international public health program in our nation’s history, saving the lives of 20 million people thus far.

Dr. Fauci walked through the fire with us, and his friendships with AIDS activists deepened with time, bound by a shared trauma. In those early years, while some in our community were accusing him of not caring enough about AIDS, he didn’t tell us about the hundreds of gay men he had tried to save under his care at the N.I.H. hospital. Until this month, he still did rounds there, a clinician above all else.

When Covid hit and the rest of the world got to know Dr. Fauci, he leaned on us for guidance. David Barr, another ACT UP veteran, set up and hosted weekly calls with him and health officials from various frontline cities, allowing Dr. Fauci to counter the rosy spin from other members of the White House task force with a well-informed “That’s not what I’m hearing.” I’ve always been a politician among the activists, and it’s been the honor of my life that he leaned on me hard during his tumultuous year navigating “team normal” and “team crazy” in President Donald Trump’s orbit.

Like all of us, Dr. Fauci has his flaws, but I’ve never met a man more willing to let a friend rip into him. Our conversations are filled with F-bombs. His willingness to give absolutely everyone the benefit of some shared humanity — “I just met Jared, and he seems like a good guy” — is almost freakish but has come in handy over his stretch of working for seven presidents.

Because he crossed Mr. Trump, Dr. Fauci was turned into a villain for the MAGA crowd, providing fodder for those who thrive on conspiracies and hate. There has rarely been a larger gap between a mob’s viciousness and its target’s decency.

Beyond today’s frightening anti-science minority, there’s a majority that spans the world. Among them are H.I.V.-positive gay men like me who survived the earliest plague years — now, amazingly, aging into our 60s and 70s. We belong to a much wider community of people living with H.I.V. in America today, most of whom are people of color. And beyond our borders, we are bound to millions of men, women and children in sub-Saharan Africa whose lives have been saved by science and advocates for public health.

Our majority includes millions of Americans who listened to Dr. Fauci’s advice during that first scary year of Covid and kept listening as we got ourselves vaccinated and boosted, and we survived this plague. We draw hope from the progress of science. We are blessed with heroes willing to stand up for truth, unbowed by withering assaults.

On behalf of all of us, thank you, Tony Fauci.

Mr. Staley is the board chair of PrEP4All, a leading H.I.V.-prevention advocacy group. His memoir, “Never Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism,” was published last year.

******

Thanks from this HIV survivor too!

Lucky

(Just a note from Lucky: This tribute to Dr. Fauci's work on AIDS and the gay lives he helped save is separate and apart from anything you think he did wrong later in life. That would be a separate thread and I would appreciate keeping the tenor of this thread as is. Thanks!)

Thanks @Lucky for sharing a bit of history. You might also appreciate this interview from 2020.

https://www.ajmc.com/view/fauci-countless-lives-have-been-saved-but-a-vaccine-and-cure-remain-elusive

[Marc in Calif]

1 hour ago, pubic_assistance said:

What isn't discussed here is that Anthony Fauci suppressed all funding for HIV cures and consistently favored HIV drug therapy, which is far more profitable for the pharmaceutical industry.

What types of cures were even conceivable in the 1980s or 1990s? What cures could or could not be funded?

Or did you actually mean that Dr. Fauci "suppressed all funding for [research into] HIV cures"?

Or are you thinking specifically about HHV6 research?

Edited January 2, 2023 by Marc in Calif

[NJF]

36 minutes ago, Marc in Calif said:

What types of cures were even conceivable in the 1980s or 1990s? What cures could or could not be funded?

Or did you actually mean that Dr. Fauci "suppressed all funding for [research into] HIV cures"?

Or are you thinking specifically about HHV6 research?

Your reactions are too mild to those conspiracy nonsense. 
The fact is millions have been spent on hiv vaccine research. It failed for a variety of reasons. But suppression by Tony Fauci is not one of them.

Edited January 2, 2023 by NJF

[Marc in Calif]

26 minutes ago, NJF said:

Your reactions are too mild to those conspiracy nonsense. 

I always like to ask for verified evidence and definitions of terms. It helps clarify a commenter's viewpoint and biases. 😇

As you say, there have been huge amounts spent on research into an HIV vaccine cure. Current vaccine studies are based on ongoing funded research that led to new discoveries in immunology, mRNA, different types of T-cell responses, and much more that were impossible to achieve in the 1980s and early 1990s because of limitations in our knowledge and laboratory techniques. 

But the most amazing result of all the HIV vaccine advances and research has been the fairly rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccines. The steady advances in mRNA research since 1987 were the key. And yes, Dr. Fauci can be thanked for that, too -- but won't be by the conspiracists. 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Marc in Calif

[EZEtoGRU]

2 hours ago, pubic_assistance said:

What isn't discussed here is that Anthony Fauci suppressed all funding for HIV cures and consistently favored HIV drug therapy, which is far more profitable for the pharmaceutical industry.

My very good friend who's a leading immunologist noticed on the 1980s that some gay men were exposed to HIV frequently but did not become infected. In the laboratory there was some evidence that a B cell response was being made rather than a T cell response ( which HIV actually uses to spread ). Research in inducing a B cell response would have effectively prevented HIV infections with a vaccine.

The research was not funded because drug therapies were the priority. Billions have been made off that research to instead produce a daily pill instead of a single vaccine.

More than one scientist also proposed CURES for HIV and Fauci consistently shot down every proposal in favor of the more profitable drug therapy route.

So I always find this propaganda about Fauci disturbing. People are so easily fooled into believing people who are profiting off of their misery are somehow a hero.

 

Conspiracy theory much?  Take these sort of comments to the politics forum (which should be open again now).

Fauci deserves praise over and over for his contributions during the AIDS crisis and later for his work during the COVID crisis.  I am in awe of and grateful for Dr. Fauci.  He will be missed greatly now that he is retired.

Newsflash: There's still no cure for AIDS...how many decades later?  

[pubic_assistance]

We are discussing the pharmaceutical industry ...not politics. And it's not a theory. I am sharing facts.

 

[Todd Jenkins]

1 hour ago, pubic_assistance said:

We are discussing the pharmaceutical industry ...not politics. And it's not a theory. I am sharing facts.

 

IMO, Tony Fauci is a horrible, evil man. Most likely the reason we even HAVE COVID!

[mike carey]

Moderator's Note

Gentlemen, the topic of this thread is a recollection of the role Dr Fauci played in the then-emerging HIV-AIDS pandemic. Please keep it there and don't launch into commentary on the politics of his more recent roles.

[Luv2play]

I know we should all respect free speech but the last two posts before Mike's are examples of the poisonous nonsence we witness on social media from the delusional amongst us.

[Todd Jenkins]

10 hours ago, mike carey said:

Gentlemen, the topic of this thread is a recollection of the role Dr Fauci played in the then-emerging HIV-AIDS pandemic. Please keep it there and don't launch into commentary on the politics of his more recent roles.

If you are referring to my comment, no politics were inferred or commented on. I was taking into account his HIV/AIDS work and his work funding the research that led to COVID. These are facts. 

10 hours ago, Luv2play said:

I know we should all respect free speech but the last two posts before Mike's are examples of the poisonous nonsence we witness on social media from the delusional amongst us.

So, we are delusional because we think about things differently or we read things and pay attention to things? MANY people are critical about Fauci's work with HIV/AIDS and there is massive amounts of evidence with COVID/Fauci that is concerning, to say the least.

What is TRULY poisonous are statements likes yours - calling others delusional.

[Todd Jenkins]

hey @Luv2play, is Larry Kramer delusional? You DO know who Larry Kramer is, righ? Playwright and outspoken AIDS activist?

This is what he had to say: 

"You are responsible for all government funded AIDS treatment research. In the name of right, you make decisions that cost the lives of others. I call the decisions you are making acts of murder."
- Larry Kramer "An Open Letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci" San Francisco Examiner, June 26, 1988

Read more here: https://aep.lib.rochester.edu/node/49111

[Guest]

17 hours ago, pubic_assistance said:

What isn't discussed here is that Anthony Fauci suppressed all funding for HIV cures and consistently favored HIV drug therapy, which is far more profitable for the pharmaceutical industry.

My very good friend who's a leading immunologist noticed on the 1980s that some gay men were exposed to HIV frequently but did not become infected. In the laboratory there was some evidence that a B cell response was being made rather than a T cell response ( which HIV actually uses to spread ). Research in inducing a B cell response would have effectively prevented HIV infections with a vaccine.

The research was not funded because drug therapies were the priority. Billions have been made off that research to instead produce a daily pill instead of a single vaccine.

More than one scientist also proposed CURES for HIV and Fauci consistently shot down every proposal in favor of the more profitable drug therapy route.

So I always find this propaganda about Fauci disturbing. People are so easily fooled into believing people who are profiting off of their misery are somehow a hero.

I can tell you have a deep admiration for this "good friend" of yours, but sometimes admiration, especially for one person, can lead to excessive trust in their utterances. Fauci wasn't perfect, but I will give him credit for the most part in being able to see the "big picture." HIV is a retrovirus, which means that it functions by inserting its genetic material into the host's cells' nucleus. In other words, once a person is infected by HIV, that virus's genetic material actually becomes a part of that person's own DNA. "Curing" someone of HIV would necessitate actually removing that portion of the DNA from every single cell the virus infected--and it's not just T-cells. While there may be a number of theories as to how that may be done, this has never been done for any virus which inserts its genome into the host's, even in animal models. 

What has been developed successfully is a number of anti-viral therapies, and thankfully that's also happened quite successfully for HIV. This has resulted in turning this illness from a usually fatal one into one which allows most infected to live fairly normal lives. I don't know how much influence Fauci had in directing where research dollars went, but if he has responsibility in assigning HIV medication funds to where they went, then he clearly saved millions of lives. Had the funds gone mostly into basic/theoretical research, countless people would have been lost. Any possibility of cures is probably years away. 

Some people have a very strong talent in certain areas, but this doesn't necessarily translate into other areas of life. This appears to be the case for your friend. A good example which comes immediately to mind is Linus Pauling. He obviously was a genius in the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology, and was justly awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry. However, he was a doofus when it came to medicine, and strongly suggested lots of useless therapies, and refused to acknowledge he was wrong, even after multiple studies proved his errors. Most famously, he promoted large doses of vitamin C to treat colds and cancers, among other silly ideas, and many were swayed by his ideas simply because they gave blind trust to a man they admired because of other work.

Edited January 2, 2023 by Unicorn

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Todd Jenkins said:

...What is TRULY poisonous are statements likes yours - calling others delusional.

Well, it would certainly be more polite and sophisticated to call those peoples' statements misguided than to call a poster delusional. Some members are more susceptible to emotionalism and insulting behavior than others. 

[Todd Jenkins]

Just now, Unicorn said:

Well, it would certainly be more polite and sophisticated to call those peoples' statements misguided than to call a poster delusional. Some members are more susceptible to emotionalism and insulting behavior than others. 

Except, there is evidence that points to us NOT being misguided or delusional. 

There is MASSIVE criticism of Fauci on both the HIV/AIDS and COVID. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Todd Jenkins said:

Except, there is evidence that points to us NOT being misguided or delusional. 

There is MASSIVE criticism of Fauci on both the HIV/AIDS and COVID. 

Well, obviously anyone can criticize. The purpose of my post which you quoted is to encourage rational dialog rather than name-calling. Name-calling does not make the poster look clever or sophisticated--just angry and emotional. 

[Todd Jenkins]

3 minutes ago, Unicorn said:

Name-calling does not make the poster look clever or sophisticated--just angry and emotional. 

Agreed. 

[Guest]

57 minutes ago, Unicorn said:

I can tell you have a deep admiration for this "good friend" of yours, but sometimes admiration, especially for one person, can lead to excessive trust in their utterances. Fauci wasn't perfect, but I will give him credit for the most part in being able to see the "big picture." HIV is a retrovirus, which means that it functions by inserting its genetic material into the host's cells' nucleus. In other words, once a person is infected by HIV, that virus's genetic material actually becomes a part of that person's own DNA. "Curing" someone of HIV would necessitate actually removing that portion of the DNA from every single cell the virus infected--and it's not just T-cells. While there may be a number of theories as to how that may be done, this has never been done for any virus which inserts its genome into the host's, even in animal models. 

What has been developed successfully is a number of anti-viral therapies, and thankfully that's also happened quite successfully for HIV. This has resulted in turning this illness from a usually fatal one into one which allows most infected to live fairly normal lives. I don't know how much influence Fauci had in directing where research dollars went, but if he has responsibility in assigning HIV medication funds to where they went, then he clearly saved millions of lives. Had the funds gone mostly into basic/theoretical research, countless people would have been lost. Any possibility of cures is probably years away. 

Some people have a very strong talent in certain areas, but this doesn't necessarily translate into other areas of life. This appears to be the case for your friend. A good example which comes immediately to mind is Linus Pauling. He obviously was a genius in the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology, and was justly awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry. However, he was a doofus when it came to medicine, and strongly suggested lots of useless therapies, and refused to acknowledge he was wrong, even after multiple studies proved his errors. Most famously, he promoted large doses of vitamin C to treat colds and cancers, among other silly ideas, and many were swayed by his ideas simply because they gave blind trust to a man they admired because of other work.

Thank you very much for explaining this so clearly and kindly. You really drew for us the big picture yet outlining several insightful nuances. I gather you’re a scientist or professor yourself.

it is so important to understand  that even people who are brilliant and knowledgeable in a particular field can be plainly ignorant or just misguided when venturing into areas outside of  their research. True intelligence lies in acknowledging one’s limitations beyond a chosen field of expertise. No matter how much of a genius someone might be, it’s not humanly possible to know everything even within their  own field. 

[pubic_assistance]

2 hours ago, Todd Jenkins said:

MANY people are critical about Fauci's work with HIV/AIDS and there is massive amounts of evidence with COVID/Fauci that is concerning, to say the least.

What is TRULY poisonous are statements likes yours - calling others delusional.

Thank you.

It's sad when people work to shut down facts they don't want to hear, as they spin a Disneyland version of reality.

Anthony Fauci is WELL KNOWN to always do whats best for the Pharmaceutic Industry. Calling that a conspiracy theory is dangerous because it attempts to shut down critical thinking and blur the effects of corporate greed.

 

Edited January 2, 2023 by pubic_assistance

[Todd Jenkins]

25 minutes ago, pubic_assistance said:

Thank you.

It's sad when people work to shut down facts they don't want to hear, as they spin a Disneyland version of reality.

Anthony Fauci is WELL KNOWN to always do whats best for the Pharmaceutic Industry. Calling that a conspiracy theory is dangerous because it attempts to shut down critical thinking and blur the effects of corporate greed.

 

And, bingo was his name-o!