Dr anthony fauci biography of william

American immunologist (born 1940)

"Fauci" redirects here. For the 2021 documentary film, see Fauci (film). For other people sharing this surname, see Fauci (surname).

Anthony Stephen FauciForMemRS (FOW-chee; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022, and the chief medical advisor to the president from 2021 to 2022. Fauci was one of the world's most frequently cited scientists across all scientific journals from 1983 to 2002. In 2008, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, for his work on the AIDS relief program PEPFAR.

Fauci received his undergraduate education at the College of the Holy Cross and his Doctor of Medicine from Cornell University. As a physician with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Fauci served the American public health sector for more than fifty years and has acted as an advisor to every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan. During his time as director of the NIAID, he made contributions to HIV/AIDS research and other immunodeficiency diseases, both as a research scientist and as the head of the NIAID.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Fauci served under President Donald Trump as one of the lead members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. His advice was frequently contradicted by Trump, and Trump's supporters alleged that Fauci was trying to politically undermine Trump's run for reelection. After Joe Biden took office, Fauci began serving as one of the lead members of the White House COVID-19 Response Team and as Biden's chief medical advisor. Fauci stepped down at the end of 2022.

On January 20, 2025, just hours before he left office, President Biden pardoned Fauci

Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), served the American public for over five decades. A doctor, scientist, and infectious disease expert, he contributed to groundbreaking discoveries that saved countless lives. He retired from public service in December 2022. 

Over the years, Dr. Fauci spoke with NIH MedlinePlus Magazine about antibiotic resistance, vaccines and community immunity, and the COVID-19 pandemic. He sat down with us again to reflect on his long career with NIH, discuss the challenges of science communication, and share his advice with young people who are interested in a career in science. 

You’ve served the American public for over 50 years. What has this work meant to you?

I’ve had the privilege and opportunity to spend my entire professional career―a total of 54 years―at NIH. It has been an extraordinary and rewarding experience that has allowed me to wear many different hats over the years. I first came on as a trainee, where I learned fundamental basics that I would use for decades. I was introduced to the disciplines of infectious diseases and immunology and the interface between them. I gradually worked my way to senior investigator, to section head, to lab chief, and finally to the director of the institute.

It has meant everything to me; it’s been my entire life.

"I’ve learned that in any endeavor or aspiration in life, you will be more effective, accomplish a lot more, and feel better about what you do if you are passionate about it."

What is your favorite memory from your time at NIH?

There are so many memories, or landmarks, that come to mind when I think about my long career here at NIH. 

One that comes to mind is my early work on developing therapies for inflammatory vasculitis syndromes [a group of

Some fifty pages into his autobiography, “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service” (Viking), Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), describes a moment of horror when he and his colleagues realize that the scale of the epidemic they are dealing with is far greater than previously supposed: “Thousands and thousands of people had been getting infected before we knew that the disease existed, and they were passing the infections on to others long before they showed symptoms of the disease itself.” Later, as the government response—of which he is the “public face”—comes under fire, Fauci will be called a murderer.

The year is 1985, and a blood test for H.I.V. has recently become available. By the end of the year, it will be evident that, for each of the nearly sixteen thousand people in the United States suffering from AIDS, more than seven others are infected but asymptomatic.

Even if the COVID-19 pandemic had not occurred, Fauci’s career would still have been one of the most consequential and most prominent in American medicine in the past fifty years. But it was the pandemic that made him, as he writes, “a political lightning rod—a figure who represents hope to so many and evil to some.” Long renowned as a clinician, a researcher, and a public servant—George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008—he became demonized as a liar who hid evidence about the SARS-CoV-2 virus, funded dangerous laboratory studies, misled Congress, and was responsible for countless unnecessary deaths. So it is telling that his memoir is less dominated by recent events than one might expect. Although most readers will surely first turn to the part that relates Fauci’s dealings with the Trump Administration, the forty-fifth President is only one of six whom we meet in person, and AIDS gets more pages than COVID.

The book thus presents an implicit demand for us to see Fauci’s career whole,

2021 book by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Real Anthony Fauci is a 2021 book by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in which he denounces Anthony Fauci and his leadership of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In the book, Kennedy promotes HIV/AIDS denialism and misinformation about Fauci's role during the HIV epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The book was described as "controversial" by The Guardian and Publishers Weekly and a "conspiracy theory extravaganza" by Science-Based Medicine.

In response, Fauci called the book "unfortunate" and characterized Kennedy as "a very disturbed individual". Of a meeting he had with Kennedy to discuss vaccines early in his tenure with the Trump administration, Fauci would later recall "I don't know what’s going on in his [Kennedy's] head, but it’s not good.”

The book became a New York Times best seller, selling over one million copies.

Publication

The Real Anthony Fauci is a 480-page book written by anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The book was published by Skyhorse Publishing on November 16, 2021. It includes dustjacket blurbs by Tucker Carlson, Naomi Wolf, Oliver Stone, and Alan Dershowitz.

Synopsis

The book accuses American public health leader Anthony Fauci of 30 years of abuse of power, during both the HIV epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the book, Kennedy accuses Fauci of pulling off "a historic coup d’état against Western democracy" and promotes unproven COVID-19 treatments, including hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. The author shares his opinion that COVID-19 vaccines are not sufficiently safety tested, and likens vaccine mandates in the United States to living under the rule of Nazi Ger