Fauci announces impending retirement

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, announced Monday that he will retire from federal service in December. The 81-year-old has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and chief of the institute’s Laboratory of Immunology since 1984. He said he won’t retire from the medical field, but he wanted to leave his government position with enough energy to travel, write, and mentor younger generations. 

What is his role in medical research? Fauci served seven Republican and Democratic presidents during his career, beginning with Ronald Reagan. He joined the National Institutes of Health(NIH) in 1968 after he finished his medical residency at 27 years old, and then he moved to lead the NIAID 16 years later. In 2008, former President George W. Bush awarded Fauci the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work fighting HIV and AIDS as the director of the NIAID. During the recent pandemic, Fauci and former President Donald Trump disagreed publicly over the need for strict pandemic lockdowns across the country to prevent COVID-19 from spreading. Fauci also faced questions about whether the NIH funded research in Wuhan, China, where the virus that causes COVID-19 was first discovered.

Dig deeper: Read John Dawson’s report in Beginnings on how the response to COVID-19 may have eradicated some influenza strains.