(WATCH) ‘Cheap Politics’: Rand Paul Puts Fauci On Blast During Heated Senate Showdown (VIDEO)
While testifying before the Senate Health Committee on Tuesday, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) ripped into Dr. Anthony Fauci, accusing him of exploiting his position to aid in the public slander of epidemiologists with whom he disagreed.
Senator Paul, referencing an email exchange started by former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, said Fauci support Collins’ “takedown” of “fringe” epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford and Stanford.
The senator said, “Dr. Fauci, the idea that a government official like yourself would claim unilaterally to represent science and that any criticism of you would be considered a criticism of science itself is quite dangerous.” He then accused Fauci of “ruling by mandate.”
Paul continued, “In an email exchange with Dr. Collins, you conspire, and I quote here directly from the email, to ‘create a quick and devastating published takedown’ of three prominent epidemiologists from Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford.”
Fauci angrily responded and said he did not write the email, but Collins did. Paul objected, saying that Fauci should have responded differently and not let the “takedown” continue.
“A published takedown, though, you know doesn’t exactly conjure up the image of a dispassionate scientist. Instead of engaging them on the merits, you and Dr. Collins sought to smear them as ‘fringe’ and take them down — and not in journals, in lay press. This is not only antithetical to the scientific method, it’s the epitome of cheap politics, and it’s reprehensible, Dr. Fauci.”
The Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), the statement which led Collins to call for a takedown, advocated for a different approach to COVID-19, extremely different from the Biden administration and Fauci’s approach. The GBD discouraged the use of federal lockdowns and mandates.
The GBD says:
Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.
Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.
Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.
As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for any updates.
