Fauci to retire by end of Biden’s term
WASHINGTON (AP) – Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said Monday he plans to retire by the end of US President Joe Biden’s term in January 2025.
Fauci, 81, was appointed director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984, and has led research in HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, Ebola, Zika and the coronavirus. He has advised seven presidents and is Biden’s chief medical adviser.
In an interview with Politico, Fauci said he hoped to “leave behind an institution where I have picked the best people in the country, if not the world, who will continue my vision.”
Asked Monday on CNN when he planned to retire, Fauci said he does not have a specific retirement date in mind and hasn’t started the process. He said he expects to leave government before the end of Biden’s current term, which ends in January 2025.
“By the time we get to the end of Biden’s first term, I will very likely (retire),” Fauci said. He added: “it is extremely unlikely – in fact, for sure – that I am going to be here beyond January 2025.”
Fauci, long a prominent figure of the government’s response to infectious disease, was thrust even more into the spotlight at the height of the coronavirus pandemic under former US president Donald Trump.
As the pandemic response became politicized, with Trump suggesting the pandemic would “fade away,” promoting unproven treatment methods and vilifying scientists who countered him, Fauci had to get security protection when he and his family received death threats and harassment.