Fauci, Paul clash over accusations of ‘cheap politics’ regarding alleged ‘takedown’ of other scientists

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Dr. Anthony Fauci got into a heated exchange marked with personal attacks during a Tuesday hearing dealing with the response to COVID-19 variants.

Paul, a fierce critic of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases director, accused Fauci of playing a role in smearing doctors from Harvard, Oxford and Stanford who had positions different from his own.

“In an email exchange with Dr. [Francis] Collins, you conspire, and I quote here directly from the email, to ‘create a quick and devastating published takedown’ of three prominent epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford and Stanford,” Paul said, referring to the recently retired National Institutes of Health director.

Paul went on to cite the email exchange, in which Collins was discussing the Great Barrington Declaration, which opposed large-scale lockdowns as a response to the pandemic in favor of “focused protection” and herd immunity.

In response, Fauci sent Collins articles from Wired and The Nation that had already slammed this position. While Fauci himself had not penned those pieces, Paul accused him of going along with Collins’ effort to smear the doctors behind the Great Barrington Declaration.

“Instead of engaging them on the merits, you and Dr. Collins sought to smear them as fringe and take them down, and not in journals in lay press. This is not only antithetical to the scientific method, it’s the epitome of cheap politics, and it’s reprehensible, Dr. Fauci.” – READ MORE