On July 29, the United States Senate held a hearing to examine testimony from Dr. Anthony Fauci. Dr. Fauci’s response? He showed up for the hearing and then declined to answer any questions about his conduct during the COVID-19 pandemic. He pleaded the Fifth, a choice that spoke volumes. What it didn’t do was close the books.
I tuned in for a simple reason: I wanted accountability. As a doctor, I have spent my career understanding that, along with the privilege that comes from making decisions that affect people’s lives, comes the expectation that I answer for the consequences of those decisions. Dr. Fauci hasn’t lived up to that responsibility.
I wanted him to own up to his gamesmanship on gain-of-function research. To admit that sticking to the wet market explanation for the source of the outbreak was a mistake. To acknowledge that the National Institutes of Health had funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan for years, and that it was wrong to dismiss the scientists who raised the possibility of a connection between that work as the source of the pandemic. The American public deserved to know whether their taxpayer dollars had supported experiments that had led to the creation of more dangerous pathogens. What we got were word games and evasion.
I wanted answers on masking. I wanted him to admit that the science on masking, especially for healthy people (let alone toddlers), always was weak. Lacking any basis in science, is it any wonder that masking became a moral imperative, a litmus test that you were on the side of right, and that if you didn’t comply you should be reported to the relevant authorities.
I wanted him to take accountability for his role in the lockdowns. I wanted him to admit to the contacts he had with leadership at all levels, from the president to mayors of major cities, conversations that drove school closures, led small businesses to shutter, and left people to die alone.
I wanted him to acknowledge that by the summer of 2020, there was strong evidence that continued school closures weren’t just unnecessary for community protection but would likely cause lasting harm to our children. To acknowledge that it was a mistake not just to refuse to listen to competing scientific voices warning about those trade-offs, but also to actively suppress that information. The operating assumption appeared to be that his was the only point of view that should matter, and that dissent would not be tolerated.
I wanted him to explain his basis for the shifting thresholds for herd immunity. At a time when Dr. Fauci and others repeated the mantra, “Follow the science,” he publicly embraced an unscientific approach to vaccination. Herd immunity is grounded in epidemiology and biology, but he admitted to changing his recommendations on how many people needed to be vaccinated for community protection in response to opinion polling results. And when not enough people lined up for the jab, what was his response? That we should “clamp down” on their right to go to school or work if they weren’t willing to get vaccinated voluntarily.
But what I wanted to hear most was an apology. An actual acknowledgment that he has made decisions that have caused lasting damage. Physicians are trained to own their mistakes in individual patient care because people’s lives depend on their trust. When they take roles in public health, that trust is even more essential.
The hearing ended without that acceptance, and the record remains incomplete. Accountability delayed is accountability denied. But make no mistake, the costs of that denial are still being borne by millions of Americans who were hurt by his decisions but didn’t have the luxury of taking the Fifth.
***
Dr. Monique Yohanan, MD, MPH, is director of the Center for Better Health at Independent Women.
.png)
.png)
