Dr. Anthony Fauci has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. At the age of 80, he is essentially the face of the federal government and medical community when it comes to how Americans should combat the COVID-19 pandemic, and he has been since the spread began early last year. He is also the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden. However, many details of Fauci’s life are not well known. For instance:
1. Fauci’s father was a Columbia University pharmacist who owned his own pharmacy.
2. Fauci’s major at College of the Holy Cross, where he graduated in 1962, was classics. He did take courses, however, that helped him move on to medical school.
3. He has turned down the prestigious job of running the National Institutes of Health several times.
4. Fauci has been accused of favoring some medical startup companies by awarding them NIH grants.
5. Fauci has been a major force in treatments for rheumatic diseases.
6. He was given the American Association for Clinical Chemistry Lectureship Award in 1998, in part because he “developed effective therapies for formerly fatal diseases such as polyarteritis nodosa, Wegener’s granulomatosis, and lymphomatoid granulomatosis.”
7. In a USAToday interview on February 17, 2020, Fauci described the threat of COVID-19 as minuscule. “Fauci doesn’t want people to worry about coronavirus, the danger of which is ‘just minuscule,'” the reporter wrote.
8. On December 2, 2020, Fauci accused the United Kingdom of irresponsibility in testing the vaccine, saying it “really rushed through that approval” of the Pfizer version. The next day he apologized on the BBC.
9. Fauci met his wife, Christine Grady, a nurse who he married in 1985, while they were both treating a patient.
10. All three of Fauci’s daughters graduated from prestigious universities. Alison graduated from Stanford, where she majored in computer science. Jennifer graduated from Harvard, where she majored in social studies. Megan graduated from Johns Hopkins with a pre-med degree.
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