The attack on Tony Fauci beggars belief

August 7, 2026

As a fellow immunologist and clinician scientist who has followed Tony Fauci’s stellar career for more than 40 years, I endorse every aspect of John Dwyer’s analysis of the disgraceful treatment of Fauci by Republican politicians in the USA and in the right wing media, including in our country, as evidenced by the publication last week in The Australian of an opinion piece from the Institute of Public Affairs titled “Anthony Fauci was no ‘voice of science’”. Such a claim in a major newspaper beggars belief.

In 2008, President George W Bush awarded Tony Fauci the highest civilian honour in America, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for his national and global leadership in the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Fauci approached the coronavirus epidemics with the same clear-minded leadership, scientific rigour and evidence-based public health policy advice. Tony Fauci hadn’t changed; America has changed with the growth in influence of sovereign citizen ideology, conspiracy theories and repudiation of facts that don’t suit a preconceived narrative.