Before COVID-19, it was rare for an immunologist to become a household name. But in 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci—then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)—quickly became one of the U.S.’ most recognizable symbols of the fight against the pandemic. He was the face of the “Stop the Spread” campaign, urging people to get the vaccine (which some affectionately dubbed the “Fauci ouchie”), and was the subject of a documentary film in 2021.
Almost five years after COVID first spread through this country, Fauci is still fighting anti-science misinformation, including COVID denialism and vaccine skepticism.
In Ms.’ first On the Issues podcast episode of 2025, Fauci joined host and Ms. Studios executive producer Michele Goodwin to talk about his time fighting vaccine misinformation, his hopes for the future and how his life changed in the public spotlight during COVID-19, including the toll that the often-troubling attention took on his family.
“We’re Still in an Anti-Vax Era”
“We are in an unfortunate anti-science, anti-vax era, right now,” Fauci told Goodwin, and “we’re seeing it very intensely in the United States.” Equally concerning, he said, is the fact that this skepticism surrounds vaccines, which he describes as one of the most life-saving as well as cost-effective medical interventions in history.
RFK, Jr.—Trump’s pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services—has no background in medicine or public health. He also has a history of spreading dangerous anti-vaccine rhetoric (including leading to a deadly and preventable measles outbreak in Samoa, where he actively discouraged people from getting vaccinated against the disease). Trump announced RFK, Jr. as his choice for HHS secretary in November, adding to Trump’s millionaire- and billionaire-stacked Cabinet, but Kennedy still needs votes from senators to be officially confirmed. Even Republicans have expressed concern over his anti-vaccine stance with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) telling Fox News, “Vaccinations, he’s wrong on, and so I just look forward to having a good dialogue with him on that.”
Vaccines have saved tens of millions of lives worldwide, including 3 million to 5 million lives in the U.S. during COVID. Fauci said vaccine skepticism is “troublesome” not only in the wake of COVID, “where we could’ve saved many more lives if people accepted the vaccine more readily,” but even more so when we think about the future and trying to prepare for the next pandemic.
Vaccine skepticism in the U.S., Fauci believes, can be traced back to an anti-authority libertarian spirit in this country, as well as a rising trend of people using their pro- or anti-vax identity to try to join a specific group. (Polls in June 2020 showed that people who intended to vote for Donald Trump were 35 percent less likely to get a COVID vaccine.) People choosing not to get vaccinated as part of a conservative ideology, he said, is an example of the “unfortunate but profound divisiveness” that exists in this country’s politics, as we see people taking sides “that have no rational reason in science.”
“It’s unfortunate, almost inexplicable, to say how someone who lives in a red state doesn’t want to get vaccinated, whereas someone who lives in a blue state is much more likely to get vaccinated,” Fauci said. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Attacked for Talking About Science
Fauci has spent his career showing that “health is not a political issue.” Still, during his years of testifying before the House and Senate about COVID, he’s faced pushback (often aggressive) and partisan attacks from politicians and the general public. In a hearing in June 2024, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) told Fauci that he signed off on “disgusting and evil” scientific experiments during his time as director of the NIH and that he represents an “abhorrent” type of science. She also accused him of making up “the COVID rules,” including six-feet social distancing and wearing masks. Fauci clarified that the guidance came from the CDC, was based on research and saved lives. These attacks also took shape on social media, including unfounded accusations of lying and corruption.
After multiple threats against his life over the last few years (including at least two instances where individuals were arrested), Fauci now walks around with a security detail. He told Goodwin that this level of vitriol is unprecedented in most of his 30-year career, and seems to be a manifestation in just the last couple of years.
COVID wasn’t the first time there were disagreements about how the federal government handled a national health emergency. During the ‘80s and ‘90s, activists were concerned about the government’s lack of prioritization when it came to handling the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Still, he said, “it was never to the extent of [us] and the government feeling unsafe.”
Fauci also pointed out that the HIV activists protesting the government’s choices were demanding more medical intervention, not less. “I think one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life was to go past the demonstrations and the provocative behavior and listen to what the activists were saying, [and] what they were saying was making perfect sense,” he said of the health-related protests of his early career. (While Fauci faced early criticism for his handling of AIDS research programs, he got to know many activists through meetings and hosting dinners with the activists at his home while also working with President George W. Bush to start the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief or PEPFAR. The program has saved the lives of more than 20 million people.)
The HIV activists merely wanted to gain attention for their cause so the federal government could listen to their stories, Fauci said. But this model of activism was “entirely different from what we’re seeing now” from COVID denialist protesters Fauci has encountered. Now, the hate and anger isn’t just trying to get his attention; “it’s trying to really hurt you.”
The Personal Toll
Over the last few years, Fauci has noticed a direct correlation between rises in death threats against him and public figures making accusations against him with COVID-19 conspiracy theories. In 2024, he told CNN that whenever someone in Congress or the media “gets up and makes a public statement that I’m responsible for the deaths of X number of people because of policies or some crazy idea that I created the virus—immediately you can, it’s like clockwork—the death threats go way up.”
In 2022, a man in West Virginia was sentenced to three years in prison for making gruesome, graphic threats against Fauci and his family.
“I would not be totally honest with you if I said it wasn’t a personal toll,” Fauci said, adding that the constant attacks on him and his work have also negatively affected his wife and three daughters. The most grating part, he said, is that “the things that they’re accusing you of are completely made up, with no foundation whatsoever in reality,” and often amplified by social media misinformation. He describes the situation as “the perfect storm of divisiveness amplified by a normalization of untruths.”
In his memoir On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service (published by Viking in June 2024), Fauci discusses his own life serving others and his belief that everyone, no matter their job, “should have at least an awareness of what they can do, not only for themselves and their family, but to make the world a better place.” For Fauci, serving others has meant continuing to raise awareness about the importance of vaccines and public health, even when he faces hate and anger for it.
Along with his optimistic “firm confidence in the fundamental goodness of people,” Fauci is still keeping sight of one of the COVID-19 pandemic’s few silver linings: the unprecedented accomplishment of developing a safe, highly effective vaccine in fewer than 11 months.
“It happened, and that is truly unbelievable. When you look at all of the great vaccines that we’ve had that have been life-saving, the average was seven to 10 or more years to get the vaccine, and we did it in 11 months.” he said. “That’s a real silver lining about what science can do.”
