STORIES

If you’re like most Americans, you probably first learned about Dr. Anthony Fauci in connection with COVID-19 when he served on the Trump White House Coronavirus Task Force. Fauci later served as Chief Medical Officer under the Biden Administration, until he left government at the end of 2022.

His tenure working with Trump was filled with controversy with the President, other Republican politicians, and the right-wing media and its followers. This was not Tony Fauci’s first brush with controversy, however. For over three decades, Fauci was at the center of public and private battles over public health research and policy.

In 1984, Tony was at the forefront of US scientific research for HIV and AIDS medication as the new Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD).

I’m Peter Staley. I first met Tony Fauci in 1989 at the International AIDS Conference in Montreal where the AIDS activist group I was a member of, ACT UP, rushed and took control of the stage during the opening session and disrupted various scientific presentations. We demanded faster access to experimental AIDS drugs.

Fauci was familiar with ACT UP by then. He had been quietly meeting with ACT UP members for the prior two years. The AIDS epidemic was killing thousands of our friends and loved ones in America each year and infecting many thousands more. On top of facing death, fear and homophobia in the 1980s and the first half of the ‘90s, those of us with HIV or AIDS had to confront the sky-high cost of approved AIDS drugs, and the slow drug trial and approval process.

We were denied access to experimental drugs. As patients, we were excluded from advocating for ourselves during the process of researching and developing drugs. ACT UP was fed up.

We blocked New York City streets during rush hour. We seized control of the FDA building and stormed the campus of the National Institutes of Health where Fauci worked. We stopped trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. We disrupted Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We covered anti-gay Senator Jesse Helms’ house with a giant inflatable condom. ACT UP co-founder Larry Kramer called Fauci a murderer in an essay in the Village Voice.

Yet as controversial and critical as we were, Dr. Fauci sat down with us, even inviting us to frequent dinners at the home of his deputy. Days after our takeover of the AIDS conference in Montreal, we met with Dr. Fauci to hammer out details of a new program that expanded public access to experimental drugs. As I was led away in handcuffs after climbing the portico at the NIAD building where I was tackled by police, Tony spotted me and asked me if I was OK.

He cared enough about us and those we spoke for to listen to us, both our criticism and our suggestions. That led to a new policy where patients affected by HIV and AIDS, and all other diseases thereafter, were given a seat at the table to advocate for themselves and those like them during the scientific research process.

He was the driving force in designing President George W. Bush’s game-changing policy called the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has saved over 25 million lives worldwide. Perhaps Tony’s empathy, dedication to science, and willingness to persevere in the face of relentless criticism were strengthened because, outside of public view, he cared for hundreds of AIDS patients participating in clinical trials at the NIH hospital during the 1980s and early ‘90s, and continued to do rounds there until he left government at the end of 2020.

As I wrote in a guest essay in The New York Times on Fauci’s final day in government service:

“We draw hope from the progress of science. We are blessed with heroes willing to stand up for truth, unbowed by withering assaults. On behalf of all of us, thank you, Tony Fauci.”