OPINION:
The godfather of lockdowns answered for his public health recommendations before a congressional panel on Monday. Dr. Anthony Fauci insisted under oath that he always had an “open mind” about the possibility that COVID-19 was a human-engineered virus that leaked from a laboratory.
This is a rather stunning bit of revisionism from the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who became the point man for mandatory masking, school closings and forced vaccinations as the pandemic panic took hold.
Using the power of hindsight, it is important to review Dr. Fauci’s policy prescriptions so that we’ll be better able to judge how to handle the next widespread outbreak of flu-like symptoms. The slow drip of documents released under the Freedom of Information Act continues to raise questions about how the good doctor’s devoted fans invoked his name to advance agendas of their own.
Under direct pressure from the White House, for example, Big Tech silenced anyone who questioned the value of masking children or the vaccination of people who had already caught and recovered from the disease. Renowned experts such as immunologist and mRNA vaccine pioneer Robert Malone were banned from Twitter for “spreading misinformation” about the vaccine, even though Dr. Malone was far more qualified to speak on the subject than Dr. Fauci.
The heaviest censorship of all was reserved for those who dared to suggest the COVID virus was fashioned by scientists in Wuhan, China. To “debunk” this lab leak theory, a team of researchers dependent on government funding wrote a then-celebrated paper asserting that the virus came from bats.
“The accusation that I influenced these scientists to change their mind, bribing them with millions of dollars in grant money, is absolutely false and simply preposterous,” Dr. Fauci testified, adding, “I have always kept an open mind to the different possibilities.”
There is reason to be a little skeptical that we are hearing the whole truth. Top scientists at NIAID violated agency policy and evaded public records obligations by conducting official business on private email services. They knew what they were doing was wrong.
“I forgot to say there is no worry about FOIAs,” top Fauci adviser David Morens wrote in a 2021 email to collaborator Peter Daszak. “I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.”
Dr. Fauci tossed his underling under the bus Monday, insisting, despite the latter’s title of senior adviser to the NIAID director, that Dr. Morens wasn’t his adviser. Dr. Fauci also denied being aware of the document destruction. “I didn’t know about it until it was a done deal,” he explained.
Leftists crafted a cult of personality around Dr. Fauci, and we are now learning that, aside from his own role, there were a lot of bad actors in his orbit. The self-appointed guardians of “the science” who colluded with social media companies to eliminate dissenting voices ended up being the ones promoting misinformation — at a great public cost.
The suppression of free speech had catastrophic consequences for society. That’s a mistake that should never be repeated.
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