Paul said he would introduce an amendment breaking Fauci’s job into three separate roles with five-year terms
Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul announced he’s introducing an amendment on Monday to boot Dr. Anthony Fauci out of the job he’s held since 1984, accusing the medical expert of ‘abusing’ his power during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s the latest move in a war of words between the two arch-rivals that’s lasted nearly the entire pandemic since it began in March 2020.
‘We’ve learned a lot over the past two years, but one lesson in particular is that no one person should be deemed “dictator in chief.” No one person should have unilateral authority to make decisions for millions of Americans,’ Paul wrote in a Fox News op-ed.
‘To ensure that ineffective, unscientific lockdowns and mandates are never foisted on the American people ever again, I will introduce an amendment to eliminate Dr. Anthony Fauci’s position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and divide his power into three separate new institutes.’
Paul said the amendment to the United States Code would be voted on as soon as this week.
‘Each of these three institutes will be led by a director who is appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for a five-year term. This will create accountability and oversight into a taxpayer-funded position that has largely abused its power and has been responsible for many failures and misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic,’ he explained.
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed more than 960,000 Americans since it began.
Its two years have been marked by partisan battles over health mandates such as lockdowns, vaccine requirements and mask rules.
Paul, who has been among the loudest critics of broad public health orders, bashed Fauci as an ‘unelected bureaucrat with far too much power.’
Fauci and Paul have frequently clashed during the COVID-19 pandemic
‘No one person should have the sole authority to dictate science, especially when that one person wasn’t ever following the science. I’ve said that from the beginning, and I’ve been proven right over, and over, and over again. On masks, lockdowns, schools, natural immunity, all of it,’ the Kentucky Republican said.
He referenced a late November 2021 CBS interview that sparked GOP outrage, during which Fauci said his critics — who are all Republicans — were actually ‘anti-science.’
‘I’m just going to do my job and I’m going to be saving lives and they’re going to be lying,’ he said at the time.
Paul, who trained and practiced as an ophthalmologist before being elected to Congress, said on Monday: ‘I’ve been a physician for over 33 years. In all my years studying and practicing medicine, I had never encountered someone with the gall to proclaim himself “the science” and portray anyone opposing him as “attacking science.” That is, until Dr. Fauci became the COVID dictator-in-chief.’
‘If Fauci was simply one family doctor in Peoria, his mistakes would not be so catastrophic. But since Fauci is allowed to be a medical czar for the whole country, his errors are amplified throughout the land,’ he added.
‘When Fauci misinforms the public that cloth masks work, he risks the health of anyone who believes a cloth mask will protect them when caring for a spouse or relative with COVID.’
When the highly-contagious Omicron variant ripped through the US and other countries in late December and early this year, public health experts urged Americans to wear KN95 or N95 surgical masks rather than cloth varieties — claiming they did little for the new strain.
‘Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations. There’s no place for them in light of Omicron,’ CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen said late last year.
Fauci noted to the same outlet in mid-January, ‘I recommend you get the highest quality mask that you can tolerate and that’s available to you.’
‘Right now, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of the masks that were some time ago were not available. If you can tolerate an N95, do it. If you want to get a KN95, fine.’
For some time after the pandemic began, US health officials urged Americans to cover their faces with whatever they could fine, save for surgical masks that had been in short supply and were needed by hospital workers dealing with a deluge of COVID patients.
Since the strain on them eased the CDC amended its guidance to encourage people to find the best masks accessible.
Republicans seized on this to accuse US officials of flip-flopping based on their agendas rather than science.
In his op-ed Paul also reiterated accusations that Fauci allowed NIAID to fund controversial gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China, which he and other GOP lawmakers have blamed as the source of the pandemic.
When Fauci decides that he alone will define and fund dangerous “gain-of-function” research, his disregard for the possibility of a lab leak is felt worldwide,’ Paul wrote.
‘The biggest lesson we have learned over the last two years is that no one person should have this much unchecked power. And my amendment, which will get a vote this week, will finally force accountability and fire Dr. Fauci.’
COVID-19 cases nationwide are at their lowest level since last summer, when President Joe Biden’s promised ‘summer of freedom’ was derailed by the Delta strain.
The number of new cases recorded on Sunday was 6,382, according to the New York Times’ tracker.
The average rate of new cases plummeted 48 percent over the last two weeks.
Hospitalizations and ICU admissions saw similarly steep drops, 43 percent and 46 percent respectively.
Deaths dropped by nearly a third in the same window, 31 percent.
