Fauci expects to retire by end of Biden's current term

LA Times
·2 min read
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FILE - Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, holds his face mask in his hands as he attends a House Committee on Appropriations subcommittee hearing on about the budget request for the National Institutes of Health, May 11, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, says he plans to retire by the end of President Joe Biden's term in January 2025. Fauci, 81, became director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984 and has advised seven presidents. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, holds his face mask at a congressional hearing about funding for the National Institutes of Health. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, said Monday he plans to retire by the end of President 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 advisor.

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. However, he said he expects to leave government before the end of Biden’s current term, which ends in January 2025.

"I don’t anticipate I’ll be in this job at the end of the first term of President Biden, which is January 2025," Fauci said. He added: “Sometime between now and January 2025, you can guarantee I’ll step down."

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 COVID-19 pandemic under then-President 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.

Fauci testified repeatedly to Congress about the virus, and he and some Republicans, including Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, engaged in heated exchanges over the origins of the virus.

Fauci said Monday his decision eventually to leave his role was unrelated to politics.

“It has nothing to do with pressures, nothing to do with all of the other nonsense that you hear about, all the barbs, the slings and the arrows. That has no influence on me,” he said.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.