FAUCI DIARY ARCHIVE — Thursday, July 29, 2021
https://faucisdiary.com/diary/2021-07-29

Text below is verbatim from the released PDFs, with the original line breaks.
==============================================================================

DIARY ENTRY — Thursday, July 29, 2021
Source: Tony's Diary Package, pp. 827–830 of 2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf
Words: 1032
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are a lot of important things going on that I do not have a chance to comment on in
my daily diary. Some of these are the continual conversations that I have been having with Jeff
about who should be the FDA Commissioner. Jeff and Ron Klain continue to run by me names
of potential candidates. Today for example, David Kessler came to me with a surprising request
that I float his name to Ron as a possible candidate. David is currently the head of the
countermeasure acceleration group (CAG) of HHS. He is a former FDA commissioner and
would likely do a very good job. I will float his name and see what happens.

In another vein, I continue to get harassed by letters from far-right congressmen and
senators who are cherry picking my FOIA’d emails and trying to establish that I have lied under
oath when I said that the NIH has never done gain of function research at the Wuhan institute of
virology. In addition, Tucker Carlson and others at Fox News continue to attack me virtually
every night. Carlson saying multiple times that I created the virus. This is an extremely stressful
situation but I will have to push on with the job that I have as director of NIAID and as chief
medical advisor to President Biden.

Another issue that is percolating it's a growing discontent with the CDC and with Rochelle’s
difficulty in clearly articulating their somewhat shifting positions such as that of masking
indoors. I do not believe that it is Rochelle’s fault but it is a fundamental lesion in the CDC. One
of the problems is the typical CDC mentality that antedated Rochelle. Rochelle and the CDC are
hesitant to show anyone data that backs up their policy because it is supposedly “embargoed. The
problem is that the embargo relates to the MMWR, which is the CDC's own publication.
Therefore it seems that if they wanted to break the embargo they could easily do it. Again, this is
a recurrent problem with the CDC keeping data close to their vest and making policy without
allowing outside experts to weigh in.

It was an evolving situation here. Got a call from Jeff just now reading a sentence from the
President's speech that he will give today in which he said that children do get infected, but a
serious outcome is “extremely, extremely rare”. In my meeting with my office team this
morning someone pointed out that in Arkansas on Wednesday there were 24 infections in
children; seven of them wound up in the ICU and two of them are on respirators. I had originally
told Jeff to get rid of one of the “extremelies” and just say “extremely rare”. After hearing about
the infections in Arkansas I called back Jeff and told him to get rid of both “extremelies” and just
say “rare “. We actually do not know the full impact of this virus on children at this point and so
we really need to be careful about what we say and what we allow the POTUS to say.

We are on a similar track as UK but a few weeks behind (as is usually the case):

Very important essay by Peter Hotez:

PLoS Biol/Hotez: Mounting antiscience aggression in the United States
https://bit.ly/3lbsKXF

We had a briefing today from the house Select Committee on COVID-19 chared by
representative Clyburn. It was supposed to be limited to a discussion on the delta variant.
However, it was clear that when the Republicans were allowed to ask questions they went off
the subject and started to ask questions about infections coming over the border from Mexico. In
typical fashion Jim Jordan asked me if I was a member of the P3CO oversight committee when
in fact there is no such a thing as a P3 CO oversight committee. We have an executive committee
of which I am not a member. Fortunately, even though I did not know what he was talking about,
I said that I was not a member. He then asked for a list of the members. Since I really didn't
know what he was talking about I said that I would get him that list. As it turns out, this is a list
that HHS does not want to make public. HHS will get back to him and explain that to him.
Obviously, he will make a big deal about this publicly.

  The Republicans in the Congress as well as Fox News continue to attack me viciously. I
was particularly disappointed today to read Newt Gingrich whom I have always liked and
respected came out and said that it was time for me to retire. He said that although I have had an
illustrious career, I am trying to defend the indefensible. I am really not sure what he meant by
that. Did he mean that I was defending gain of function research or did he mean that I was
defending the CDC's masking guideline? As Peter Hotez said in the article above, no one is
stepping up in the scientific community to defend me since they are afraid of being threatened by
this extreme group that seems to be very well organized.

Went to a book signing party add the home of Adrienne Arsh. The book is “I alone can fix it “
bye Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig. The Super a list from Washington DC was there. It was a
little bit uncomfortable since I was wearing a mask with the new guidance from the CDC and
almost everyone else was without a mask. When they saw me with a mask , several of them put a
mask on.

One of the things for discussion in the book for this time frame is the extraordinary confidence
that the president, Ron Klain, and especially Jeff is placing in me. When I briefed the
president before his speech a couple of days ago , Jeff did not want Rochelle to brief the
president even though the discussion was strictly about CDC guidelines.

PRESS: South African TV – Bhekisisa Center for Health Journalism with Mia Malan;
Ken Jeong Instagram; WTOP Radio; NBC LX TV;