Fauci, 80, will continue with TV appearances after retirement says doctor behind anti-lockdown

Dr. Anthony Fauci is slated to retire as the nation’s top doc later this month – but one of his harshest critics fears we haven’t seen the last of him yet. 

Dr. Phil Magness, the man behind an anti-lockdown scientific case which Fauci branded ‘nonsense’ told Fox News Digital he believes 80-year-old Fauci ‘is going to continue to play the media game’ because of his ‘love of the spotlight.’

‘That seems what he likes to do is to get in front of the camera,’ said Magness, who is the director of The American Institute for Economic Research.

Magness spearheaded the Great Barrington Declaration, a group of infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists, that promoted ‘herd immunity’ also referred to as ‘focused protection’ – and criticized the COVID-19 pandemic policies and lockdowns in an October 2020 open letter.

Fauci called the declaration ‘very dangerous’ despite the alleged harm the lockdowns caused the public after the letter’s publication. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House chief medical advisor, is seen here during a COVID briefing at the White House on November 22, 2022 encouraging the public to get their booster shots and vaccines

Dr. Phillip Magness and Fauci critic (pictured) coordinated with the Great Barrington Declaration, a group of infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists that promoted ‘herd immunity’ what they described as ‘focused protection’ and criticized the COVID-19 pandemic policies and lockdowns 

Magness countered that Fauci has ‘a great contempt for democratic governance.’

He added: ‘There is a deep authoritarian extreme from what he has approached with the pandemic.’

In March 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic in the U.S., Fauci originally advised against the use of masks when he appeared on 60 Minutes. 

He also warned Americans about the ‘unintended consequences’ of mask-wearing – that people could catch the virus by touching their faces more as they fiddled with their masks.

But he then began to advise the public to mask up and even went on to say how challenging it was for people to continue to cover their faces in public.

In 2021, he appeared to undermine the use of vaccines – in April he claimed Americans couldn’t completely resume normal life until they were vaccinated, but in October he was still unable to predict when people could go mask-free indoors even though vaccines had been available for months.

Though Fauci has been called out by his critics who oppose his rhetoric there are many admirers including, the late Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, who described Fauci as ‘the greatest public servant’ he’s ever known. 

Several news organizations including, CNN and MSNBC have given Fauci valuable airtime as he spoke about COVID and most recently his upcoming retirement after  more than 40 years in service. 

Magness claims that the media’s love for Fauci is mutually beneficial claiming that Fauci ‘gathers what he thinks the media wants to hear and than goes on TV and repeats it back to him.’

They’re like, ‘oh Fauci has spoken. This is a matter of fact now,’ Magness said,’ but he is only repeating their own talking points.’ 

 He also spoke about Fauci’s relationship with the media that dates back to the 80s and when the nation was dealing with the AIDS epidemic.  

Magness took to Twitter on December 19  to air his grievances. ‘One year ago this week the world learned that Anthony Fauci and Francis Francis Collins waged a ‘take down’ campaign against scientists who disagreed with their lockdown policies,’ with a photo of the tweet he sent out on December 17, 2021.

He continued, ‘Now Fauci is lying about his role in this campaign. It’s time to release the FauciFiles.’ 

On Friday, Magness tweeted again stating that ‘Fauci is the most anti-science figure in our entire government. If we’re living in an anti-science era, it’s the direct result of his 40-year reign at the NIH and his nakedly political behavior therein.’ 

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A tweet Magness sent out on Friday claiming that ‘Fauci is the most anti-science figure in our entire government’