The Atlantic

Protect Dr. Fauci

Congress should act to ensure that directors of the various parts of the National Institutes of Health—of whom Anthony Fauci is one—cannot be fired for dissenting from the president’s views.
Source: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / Getty

President Donald Trump’s coronavirus briefings are nothing if not confusing. One day, it’s “It will go away,” and another, it’s “This is a tough one because it spreads so quickly, like nothing we’ve seen.” In contrast with these mixed messages have been the candid assessments of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci has dissented from Trump’s projected timetable of for vaccine development and his promotion of the antimalarial drug chloroquine as a potential treatment for COVID-19 despite the lack of clinical trials. —“not for nothing,” as Tony Soprano would say—whether Fauci’s candor would result in his being muzzled or fired at Trump’s behest. have become routine in the

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