He was one of the early researchers, not the only one, and most importantly for this topic he wasn’t involved in the development, testing, or review of the vaccines we’re using. The thousands of people who were have a much better claim than he does, and their work has been extensively peer-reviewed and monitored after mainstream approval. This isn’t some philosophical debate where nobody knows the answer, we can look at vaccine efficacy and safety data from around the world and see that they’re doing a great job.
You’re similarly misrepresenting Fauci’s positions and the degree to which he represented a scientific consensus and how that changed over time as conditions changed (vaccines have been a clear win since the early days; the best way to return to schools safely was not as clear cut and the idea that we had a year long lockdown in the United States is just absurd). If you find batting at strawmen entertaining, have at it, but I don’t see much value.
He wasn’t “the original inventor”. He’s one of many, many people who worked in the field (very early on) and has subsequently shown that he’s no longer willing to practice science by promoting antivax propaganda and offering patients false hope over ineffective treatments.
Fauci is far more credible because he’s talking about what many hundreds of researchers have confirmed. When he’s talking about vaccines, he’s not just making things up but summarizing peer reviewed studies which have been extensively analyzed. Malone now avoids the scientific process because he knows that his claims aren’t rigorous enough to survive it, and he can profit by telling people that’s censorship rather than admitting inadequacy.
Fauci is just a figurehead and the vaccines were developed privately. Don't confuse celebrity politicians and bureaucrats being involved with the actual issue at hand.
When he gets asked about what percentage of people need to get vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity he keeps pulling out different numbers from his ass until he's pressed to give a fully accurate and honest answer. The truth is that we can't know for certain, but we can use models from existing diseases in order to try and make guesses which gives us a range which will vary in magnitude depending on the accuracy and correctness of the underlying model and its parameters. I don't think it's such a complex concept that people would be incapable of understanding a high level overview. Then as more data comes in or newer models are developed, you can tweak the range while providing a simple explanation for why the newer changes are believed to be more accurate. Fauci is a bad faith science communicator.
Edit: He has also admitted to providing different numbers over time in order to get people more comfortable with the idea. He needs to cut that paternalistic bullshit and just be straight with us.
Yeah, sorry, don't really put much weight into that. Fauci is a dedicated civil servant and pretty much everything he does is seen by large numbers of people. Oh, look: https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-170254166936
If my goal was to cast fear, uncertainty and doubt into vaccines, I think I'd be able to weave a far more convincing web of lies that the folks worrying about a married NIH power couple.
I guess the way I look at Fauci is that he already proved his value in the HIV/AIDS crisis and it would be crazy not to trust somebody with that level of knowledge, levelheadedness, and connections.
There could be liars or foreign agitators among the anti-vaxxers. That's why scientists need to be extremely aboveboard, because if they can't be trusted then people will turn to charlatans. I am against mRNA vaccines and skeptical of some others, but I'm not against well-established vaccines in general.
>It’s bad for their personal reputations that they were caught lying, but their lies don’t change the underlying facts.
If your job is to advise the country about how to conduct research and how to deal with a pandemic, it's not just reputational damage. The lockdowns virtually destroyed the economy and cost more than WW2. Fauci lied about not doing gain of function research and the media has his back.
Fauci didn't make a fake vaccine but he certainly pushed vaccines in a very dishonest manner. He played a huge role in destroying my faith in the CDC and the FDA.
They've since edited their comment to remove what they had said when I replied, which was How much worse do you think it could have been? Fauci said we were getting close to herd immunity. Do you think as many people would have dies again next year? 1 in 250 when finished?
I don't understand why Fauci has made those choices and still find him plenty credible.
And then, his credibility isn't really an issue when the supposed statement is a complete misunderstanding of the actual situation (we are nowhere near herd immunity via infection or vaccination).
I mean but you can take this even further using your logic: Why even listen to Dr. Fauci, then? Is Fauci at Moderna right now actually making the vaccine? Get me the lab tech running the tests and I'll settle for nothing less!
He’s a former government official who openly changes his messaging based on polling data, not scientific evidence. It’s not unreasonable to discount his public statements.
> “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Dr. Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”
The quote I posted was contemporaneous with the quote from the parent comment, which claims Fauci prepped us for 50% VE but he later claimed herd immunity was possible which afaik implies far greater than 50% VE.
The parent comment asked "who sold these ideas [that vaccines prevent transmission] to the general public?" From the quote I posted, it certainly seems like Fauci did.
> “The chances of it being 98 percent effective is not great,” Fauci, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said at a Q&A with the Brown University School of Public Health in Rhode Island, according to CNBC.
> Instead, Fauci said, scientists are hoping for a vaccine that is 75 percent effective — but even a 50 or 60 percent success rate would be considered a win.
At the same time though we're still at >90% VE against severe disease and hospitalization through the persistence of T-cell immunity, but that just doesn't protect against initial infection since T-cells take a few days to get going in response to an infection. The vaccines can be largely credited with most of the "milder" Omicron wave keeping the infection-hospitalization-rate much lower.
So who exactly "sold" these ideas about the vaccines to the general public? Because it wasn't the leading public health expert not the pandemic.
How much did the public hear what it wanted to hear from media sources and self-appointed twitter experts?
You are missing the point. The CDC and WHO believed (incorrectly) that N95 masks did not provide any benefit to a healthy population when the number of infections were concentrated in healthcare facilities. You can't pick and choose only part of the message and claim maliciousness. The whole perspective is important.
I also was arguing with people on Facebook weeks before the CDC and who changed their position and I predicted masks would become mandatory. But that was my personal opinion and not proof that Fauci acted in bad faith. You and are I anecdotal data points with no responsibility to anybody
. Nobody got it "right" but the scientists were at least putting the effort in the right direction instead of right wing politicians.
Typing on a mobile without my glasses so autocorrect will have its day!
Fauci said we were getting close to herd immunity.
He didn't say that.
Not sure it matters when he recently admitted he was lying in stages about the percentages to encourage people to get vaccinated.
After that and his self-admitted lying in the masking debacle, I'm not sure why anyone still listens to him. Credibility is one of the most precious resources in public health, and our public health authorities including him have burned through a great deal of it.
Sorry, should have been more clear... I'll take Fauci's word over somebody on Youtube (regardless of that Youtuber's purported credentials). Fauci has a career in public health. Random Youtuber, I have no idea if they even have thee credentials they claim.
And there's a big difference between a scientist saying "people with previous COVID infections have more anti-bodies than those with vaccinations" and Joe Rogan saying "COVID is fake/just the flu".
The first is potentially true and most of us aren't qualified to either verify it or derive any course of action from it - regardless of it's truth, vaccination is probably the appropriate action for any individual (better safe than sorry). Using the statement as a argument to avoid vaccination is bad policy.
The second is on outright fabrication, yet we still have a significant portion of the population believing that crap.
> People who have to present a single number to summarize an entire body of scientific research for the general public always have to make a decision about how conservative of an estimate to give
You expect those people to make their estimate based on the scientific research, not based on what he thinks the people are "ready to hear".
He literally said that the motivation for saying 80, 85 was the fact that a poll showing how many people had already been convinced to take it.
It's just a fact - he was selling the vaccine. I'm not alleging a conspiracy, or shady financial motives. I'm not saying the vaccine is bad, because I think it's amazing. But Fauci gave numerical estimates that he did not believe to be accurate, for PR reasons.
I'm not sure what you're asking. Do you think vaccines won't work, just because Fauci is advising caution even after you get one? That's good advice until society has widespread immunity, and it has nothing to do with the efficacy of the vaccines.
Nonsense. That is not what was originally stated. I'm not sure if you're intentionally gaslighting here or what, but the original premise of the vaccine was to reach herd immunity. That is what Fauci was preaching every day last spring to convince the populace to get vaccinated. Once it was realized that the vaccine was not immunizing the population, the narrative changed to what you claim.
You’re similarly misrepresenting Fauci’s positions and the degree to which he represented a scientific consensus and how that changed over time as conditions changed (vaccines have been a clear win since the early days; the best way to return to schools safely was not as clear cut and the idea that we had a year long lockdown in the United States is just absurd). If you find batting at strawmen entertaining, have at it, but I don’t see much value.
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