Yes, I'm a friend, but as a hugely important public figure, Tony Fauci is not above reproach. Michael Barbaro (NYT "The Daily" podcast) asked some strong questions of Fauci yesterday afternoon, especially around the travel bans. /1
Since COVID-19 was spreading in Washington State in late January, the bans were either too late and/or too narrow to make much of a difference. /2 nytimes.com/2020/04/02/pod…
His TV interviews have been strong, but often not strong enough. I heard him on CNN Tuesday night not willing to say what our governors should do. /3
He could have said, "well, the data from New York is showing that we didn't see the effects of social distancing until the governor started closing things, so if I were a governor of a state, I'd start doing more than just offering social distancing advice." /4
And sorry, Tony -- none of us are believing you when you say Trump understood the seriousness of this from the get-go. Trump's own words belie that claim. /5 washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/…
Since those early ACT UP T&D dinners, we've loved Tony Fauci, but it has always been based on our no-bullshit-exchanges with him (which went both ways -- we'd call out his shit, and he'd call out ours).
Dear @NewYorkStateAG@TishJames: why are you keeping an HIV+ Black man in prison 13 years after he completed a 12-year sentence for crimes committed in his teens? Remember how Rudy Giuliani branded NuShawn Williams back then? #FreeNuShawn
Most everyone alive in 1997 will remember NuShawn's story. Branded an "AIDS Monster" by the tabloids, he was arrested in upstate NY, alleged to have infected 13 women with HIV, including some after his diagnosis the year before (he thought the health officials were lying to him).
It's the most notorious HIV criminalization case in U.S. history. His teenage story is the kind that makes sympathy hard. The NYT described his "sprint into trouble — from a broken home to childhood thievery, from gangs to crack dens, from girl to girl." nytimes.com/1997/10/30/nyr…
If the CDC has increased their Delta Ro because of the Ptown cohort, then they are overstating it for the general population. The cohort was 85% male (WaPo and NYT have both failed to mention this). Hello, it was Bear Week. @apoorva_nyc rightly mentions packed bars, etc., but /1
... everyone is missing the horny bear in the room. Bears go to Ptown to have lots of fun which includes lots of sex. News flash, gay men KISS when they have sex. /2
If you asked an ID expert to suggest the most efficient way for an infected vaxd person to infect another vaxd person, she'd say "let them deeply kiss for half a minute."
Hoping CDC used other cohorts for their new Ro. Ptown's is skewed by (gay) boys being boys. /end
We did it! A small gang of Tony Fauci's HIV/AIDS comrades managed to surprise him yesterday with an 80th birthday Zoom. We had the @TAGTeam_Tweets boys: me, David Barr (+husband @SamAvrett), Mark Harrington, @gregggonsalves, @AgostoMoises and @jimeigo, ... /1
... along with Lawrence “Bopper” Deyton (+ husband Jeff Levi), one of the heroic, gay, frontline AIDS docs in the 80s, having helped cofound Whitman Walker Clinic in the 70s. Tony hired him in the late 80s (partly to handle the activists! see: hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magaz…) /2
Tony has mentored and been mentored by some of the most beloved women in the fight against AIDS, and getting these three on our Zoom felt like winning a trifecta: Doctors Wafaa El-Sadr (icap.columbia.edu/leaders/wafaa-…), Judy Auerbach (thewellproject.org/team-member/ju…), and ... /3
Dear mainstream media: if and when @realDonaldTrump starts his #COVID19 victory lap ("I stared it down and beat it back!"), please remember what actually happened. When his own life was in danger, ... /1
... he ditched all the conspiracy bunk he told his cult to use (HCQ, azithromycin), and stuff he forced the FDA to approve for political purposes (convalescent plasma), and latched on to the best science advice he could find. /2
Fascinating, this. The scientist he sidelined, Dr. Anthony Fauci, had trashed Trump's dangerous hyping of HCQ, but consistently pointed to remdesivir and mAb's as holding the most promise, the first things tried by our frightened president. /3
"Several officials who interact with the neuroradiologist expressed frustration that President Trump had put his trust in an individual who has little experience working on infectious disease outbreaks." /3
During my interview with Tony Fauci yesterday, I asked him about Scott Atlas's @SWAtlasHoover attempted takedown of @CDCDirector Redfield re how many Americans are still susceptible to #COVID19. Here's my question. /1
Here's Fauci's answer. "I thought it was extraordinarily inappropriate for [Atlas], in a press conference like that, to contradict the director of CDC... " /2
Needless to say, beyond those already previously infected, we have no evidence of widespread immunity via cross-immunity or CD4 cells. Atlas doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. A neuroradiologist shouldn't pretend he's an immunologist. /end instagram.com/tv/CFlEMt8Kg2B…