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Battling
exhaustion
and
trolls,
Fauci
says
he's OK
By
MICHAEL
BALSAMO
and
AAMER
MADHANI
apnews.com
WASHINGTON
- Dr.
Anthony
Fauci,
the
country’s
top
infectious
disease
expert,
owns up
to doing
some
not-so-smart
things
as he
helps
lead the
White
House
effort
to stem
the
spread
of the
new
coronavirus.
Things
like
forgetting
to eat
and not
getting
enough
sleep.
The
blunt-speaking
Fauci
also has
had to
contend
with a
deluge
of
online
threats
and
uncomfortable
personal
encounters
with
admirers
as the
pandemic
consumes
his
every
waking
hour.
Nevertheless,
the
79-year-old
epidemiologist
insists
he’s
doing
just
fine.
“I’ve
chosen
this
life. I
mean I
know
what it
is,”
Fauci
said
Thursday
on NBC’s
“Today”
show.
“There
are
things
about it
that are
sometimes
disturbing.
But you
just
focus on
the job
you have
to do,
and just
put all
that
stuff
aside
and try
as best
as
possible
not to
pay
attention
to it.”
Still,
concerns
about
his
safety
are
serious
enough
that
Fauci
now has
security.
The
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
requested
the U.S.
Marshals
Service
authorize
special
agents
from the
HHS
inspector
general’s
office
as part
of
Fauci’s
protection,
according
to a
person
familiar
with the
arrangements.
The
Justice
Department
approved
a
request
to
deputize
nine
agents,
the
person
said,
speaking
on
condition
of
anonymity
because
there
has been
no
official
announcement.
Fauci,
who has
advised
every
U.S.
president
on
public
health
issues
dating
back to
Ronald
Reagan,
has been
put on a
pedestal
by Trump
critics.
They see
him and,
to a
lesser
degree,
White
House
coronavirus
task
force
coordinator
Dr.
Deborah
Birx, as
the
voices
of
science
who used
cold
data to
steer
Trump
away
from
opening
up the
economy
by
Easter
Sunday.
At
the same
time,
Fauci
has been
vilified
by some
conspiracy
peddlers
on the
far
right as
a part
of the
anti-Trump
deep
state.
Conservative
media
commentators
like Fox
Business
host Lou
Dobbs
and talk
show
host
Rush
Limbaugh
have
viewed
Fauci
with
suspicion
as the
plain-speaking
Fauci
hasn’t
shied
away
from
publicly
correcting
Trump’s
erroneous
statements
about
the
virus.
“President
Trump
seems to
have
profound
respect
for both
these
people,
so
that’s
fine,”
Limbaugh
said
during
his
Monday
broadcast
about
Fauci
and Birx.
“I just
can’t, I
can’t
erase
what
I’ve
seen
from the
so-called
Deep
State
and the
attempt
to
undermine
the
entire
election
of 2016.
“
Some
have
accused
Fauci of
playing
up the
threat
of
COVID-19,
while
others
have
pointed
to
emails
in which
he
praised
Democrat
Hillary
Clinton.
Still
others
have
dismissed
him as a
“deep
state”
operative
because
of his
36-year
leadership
of the
National
Institute
of
Allergy
and
Infectious
Diseases.
Anti-vaccine
groups
have
blasted
Fauci’s
long
support
for
immunizations
and
accused
him,
without
evidence,
of
talking
up the
value of
a
coronavirus
vaccine
to
enrich
pharmaceutical
companies.
Full
Coverage:
Virus
Outbreak
Asked
during
Wednesday’s
White
House
briefing
about
threats,
Fauci
demurred.
But
Trump
jokingly
chimed
in that
he was
not
overly
concerned
about
the
doctor’s
safety.
“He
doesn’t
need
security,”
Trump
said.
“Everybody
loves
him.
Besides,
they’d
be in
big
trouble
if they
ever
attacked.”
Trump
has
shown an
unusual
amount
of
deference
to Fauci
in
public,
even as
the
doctor
has
repeatedly
corrected
the
president
on his
faulty
science.
Last
month,
as Trump
continued
to
suggest
that the
virus
was
under
control,
Fauci
warned
Americans
that the
worst
was yet
to come.
As
administration
officials
repeatedly
assured
the
public
that
coronavirus
tests
were
rapidly
becoming
available,
Fauci
said at
a
congressional
hearing
that the
lack of
widespread
testing
was “a
failing”
of the
system.
And
when
Trump
heralded
a French
study
suggesting
that
hydroxychloroquine
plus
azithromycin,
a common
antibiotic,
might be
an
effective
treatment
for
COVID-19,
Fauci
reminded
people
that
there
was only
“anecdotal”
evidence
for the
idea.
At
another
briefing,
Fauci
set off
Trump
backers
on
social
media
when he
was
caught
by
cameras
looking
down and
rubbing
his
forehead
after
Trump
referred
to the
State
Department
as the
“Deep
State
Department.”
Fauci
has
acknowledged
to
reporters
that the
cadence
of the
rapidly
growing
disaster
has been
exhausting.
When
Trump
named
him to
the
coronavirus
task
force,
Fauci
was
initially
getting
three to
four
hours of
sleep.
Now he’s
trying
to get
at least
five
hours a
night.
In a
recent
interview
for
CNN’s
Dr.
Sanjay
Gupta’s
podcast,
the
doctor
acknowledged
that his
wife,
Christine
Grady,
who
heads
the
bioethics
department
at the
National
Institutes
of
Health,
has been
giving
him
sound
medical
advice
while
he’s
been
doling
out his
own
guidance
to Trump
and
Americans
during
the
crisis.
Grady’s
advice,
Fauci
acknowledged,
was
pretty
straightforward:
Eat,
Tony.
“I
would go
a whole
day
without
eating
anything
just
because
I was so
busy, I
just
didn’t
have
time to
eat,”
Fauci
said.
“And
then I
find
that at
the end
of the
day, I’m
feeling
hypoglycemic
and I
don’t
know
why. And
then my
wife
goes,
‘Duh,
you’re
hypoglycemic
because
you
didn’t
eat
anything.’”
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