Dr. Fauci speaks, in audio project
‘America’s doctor’ sticks to facts and science
It’s hard not to know who Dr. Anthony Fauci is.
The 79-year-old director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases whose face has been on television repeatedly for COVID-19 briefings and interviews has been named one of Time’s 100 most influential people of 2020. A Change.org petition signed by more than 27,000 people seeks to make him “People’s “Sexiest Man Alive.” Not to mention he has a bobblehead in his likeness, is on a Topps baseball card and has a drink named for him at a Washington, D.C., bar called the “Fauci Pouchy.” His face is also plastered on T-shirts and stickers and candles – the list goes on.
Despite that, not many of us know the man who has become known as “America’s doctor” beyond his presence as one of the top scientists in the country and an influential member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force with a penchant for sharing scientific fact – often contradicting the president.
But “FAUCI,” an audiobook by New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter (Pushkin Industries) that’s available from Audible seeks to change that by focusing on Fauci through the years, including bits in Fauci’s own voice.
Specter has been covering global health care and Fauci for more than 30 years, so he knows Tony – the name by which everyone calls Fauci, except President Donald Trump, according to the audiobook – well. And now, he’s offering the public a chance to learn about him in a unique format.
Here are four of the most interesting things USA TODAY learned about Fauci and his achievements from the audiobook:
1. COVID-19 isn’t Fauci’s first rodeo
Or his second or his third. He has faced a parade of viral epidemics head on. Among them: HIV, SARS, swine flu, Zika, Ebola and avian influenza.
It also isn’t the first time he’s faced rampant public criticism or attacks.
During the AIDS crisis, Fauci also was attacked by many in spite of the efforts he was making to focus on research, engage with activists and create a new sector of the NIAID dedicated to AIDS as so many suffered. With COVID-19, however, his wife, Christine Grady, says on the audiobook, that it’s harder on him now than it was before because of politically motivated criticism that he receives.
2. He’s a big baseball fan, but his allegiance has changed
It made headlines when Fauci threw the first pitch of the modified 2020 MLB season at the Washington Nationals-New York Yankees game in
July, but his love for baseball goes way back.
In “FAUCI,” Specter reveals that his subject’s first interest wasn’t actually science. Instead, it was sports – in particular, baseball, which has been a constant passion throughout the course of his life.
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, where “baseball was the social glue,” according to Specter, Fauci was a Yankees fan, thanks to his father.
He eventually shifted his allegiance to the Washington Nationals, making that first toss on July 23 even more special – even though it wasn’t exactly the perfect pitch.
3. Like Fauci, his father was a ‘doctor’ to all
Fauci was born on Christmas Eve in 1940 to Stephen and Eugenia Fauci and grew up in Bensonhurst, a neighborhood in Brooklyn.
The family ran a pharmacy while living in an apartment above the shop, which was across from a church. A young Tony Fauci served as a delivery boy, carrying prescriptions on his Schwinn, a route he kept until he hit
high school.
Not unlike his son, Stephen, known by all as “Doc,” became more than just a pharmacist to his community.
“He was really almost like the surrogate doctor for the neighborhood where he was a combination shrink, physician and pharmacist of people,” Fauci says in the audiobook. “He just wanted to do things to serve the community where his drugstore was.”
4. He doesn’t get political. Period.
Fauci has worked with many politicians during his 36 years leading NIAID. And public health can sometimes get tied up in politics as the U.S. has seen amid the COVID-19 pandemic. But Fauci refuses to let politics get in the way of his work, even when interacting with politicians themselves.
Specter includes a moment in the audiobook from an interview he conducted with Fauci.
“What I’ve learned to do over the years is go to my favorite book of philosophy, ‘The Godfather,’” he says amid laughs. “Say, ‘It’s nothing personal, it’s strictly business.’ ”
He has a job to do. Plain and simple. “You stay completely apolitical and non-ideological, and you stick to what it is that you do,” he continues. “I’m a scientist, and I’m a physician. And that’s it.”