(CNN) — “Don’t let those bastards wear you out.”
This phrase, instilled in Dr. Anthony Fauci while he was a student at the Jesuit-run Regis High School in New York City, has become something of a motto for his professional life.
Though he chose a career focused on science, medicine and public health, controversy has always assailed him, and he has often found a way to redirect the simmering buzz into something constructive by actively examining his positions.
Fauci chronicles many such moments in his new memoir, “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey as a Public Servant.”
Fauci was already in the public eye as the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. But he She truly became a household name at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the White House coronavirus task force tasked with monitoring and mitigating the spread of the virus.
Fauci frequently addressed an anxious and confused American public at government news conferences, offering updates and guidance on topics like masks, social distancing, school closures, hospitalization rates and, eventually, vaccines. Many credit his medical expertise, calm demeanor and distinctive, raspy, Brooklyn-esque voice with helping the nation navigate the uncharted waters of the coronavirus crisis.
At the same time, Fauci was dealing with his own political headwinds, including from his boss, former President Donald Trump, who tried to downplay the threat of SARS-CoV-2 even as he launched Operation Warp Speed, a more than $10 billion public-private partnership focused on rapidly developing a vaccine and treatments.
Additionally, many coronavirus deniers, conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers have personally blamed Dr. Fauci for his struggles over school closures, mask mandates and vaccination recommendations, and he recently testified that he still faces death threats.
The pandemic isn’t the first time Fauci has found himself caught in the middle of a political and medical battle. He also found himself in a tough spot during the 1980s HIV/AIDS crisis, when he spearheaded his agency’s efforts to combat the spreading epidemic. HIV/AIDS activists criticized him and the entire medical community for not doing enough or acting quickly enough to help those infected with the virus.
But throughout his career, Fauci has seemed to take public criticism in stride and use it to make something better — an attitude he learned as a child.
“Jesuit priests, when suddenly they think the whole world is attacking you, will say, ‘Illegal carborundum.’ “It means, ‘Don’t let the bastards wear you out,’ which is a very relevant saying these days,” Fauci told CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta.
“It doesn’t interfere with my work, but it is exhausting,” he added.
Dr. Fauci recently sat down with Dr. Gupta, one of many they have had over the years, to discuss his life’s work and his legacy. These excerpts have been edited for length and clarity. (Listen to the rest of the conversation on the podcast, “Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta,” here.)
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Dr. Sanjay Gupta: You talk about an interesting press conference that you did, this was in March of 2020, where you had to correct the record even though the president was speaking. How difficult was that?
Dr. Anthony FauciI said to myself, “I have a responsibility to my own personal integrity and a responsibility to the American people.” … So when I stepped up to the podium, I said, “Let’s get started!”
For me, it was painful to have to do it, but there was no question that I had to do it. I mean, it wasn’t like, “Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn’t.” There was no question that I had to do it, because I would actually be abdicating responsibility. And the President wasn’t as upset about it as the people around him were. Really I was upset.
But then one day, he called me into his office to ask me another question, and he looked at three different TV shows and he said, “Oh my god, these ratings are amazing. They’re better than cable. They’re better than the networks.”
The president — and this is no secret — I’m not going to give away any secrets about the president — was very concerned about his image and his ratings, and he thought the attention that was being given to the press conference was really great.
And he commented, “Wow, are you looking at these ratings?” And I was like, “The ratings are in the middle of a pandemic.”
Gupta: I want to talk about your 54 years of public service — almost 40 years as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as you mentioned. Go back to June 5, 1981. You mention that date a number of times in the book. What does that date mean?
Fauci: I was in my office at the NIH Clinical Center on June 5th. [issue of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which described five cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia among five gay men in LA] And I looked at that and I said, “Oh, how interesting. It’s weird that they’re all gay men.” But maybe there was talk of them using poppers or drugs to enhance their sexual experiences, which may have had the side effect of suppressing their immune systems in some way.
But I was wondering. To be infected with Pneumocystis, the immune system needs to be significantly suppressed. [a serious lung infection caused by a common fungus]… So I just said, “It’s probably just a coincidence and it’ll go away quickly,” and put it aside.
The real change came a month later, in July 1981, when the second MMWR came: this time, bizarrely, 26 young, otherwise healthy gay men, not just from LA but from San Francisco and New York City, with not only Pneumocystis but Kaposi’s sarcoma and multiple other opportunistic infections.
When I look back and try to evaluate different milestones in my life and my career, I can say that reading that MMWR completely changed my professional life, because at that point I made a decision. Even though I had had a very successful career up to that point, I said, “This is a brand new disease. I don’t know what it is, but I’m sure it’s an infectious disease… and it seems to be wreaking havoc on the immune system.” And I took my internal medicine exam, my infectious disease exam, my clinical immunology exam. I said, “If there’s one disease I need to study, it’s this one.”
Gupta: I think a lot of people who know you during this time of COVID don’t realize that you also experienced a similar challenge in many ways before with HIV/AIDS — not just the new disease, but the search for new treatments and the activism. What was that part of your life like?
Fauci: Well, naturally people ask what the differences and similarities are between standing up to me and my government over HIV and standing up to my government and me as the face of COVID… It’s as different as peanuts and watermelon.
It’s very different. [HIV/AIDS] Activists were trying to make the case to officials, scientific and regulatory authorities that their time-tested approach to developing treatments for new diseases was ineffective against illnesses that were rapidly killing them, their friends and loved ones.
So they wanted a seat at the table. … So their confrontation with us was based on good. It reminds me of John Lewis’ “good trouble” and “bad trouble.” They wanted us to put ourselves in their shoes, so they made good trouble for us. …
Again, one of the best things I’ve done in my career so far has been, rather than running from them, as most of the scientific community has done, I said to myself, “This isn’t going to work, so I’m going to put aside the theatricality and confusion and listen to what they have to say.”
What they were saying made perfect sense to me. And I thought, “If I were them, that’s exactly what I’d do.” So I brought them in, sat down with them, and said, “Let’s start talking.” … They’ve become important parts of the community’s scientific efforts to solve HIV with treatment, prevention, and regulation, and they’re now on all of our advisory committees. They’re in the discussions. And frankly, many of them have turned out to be some of my best friends.
Gupta: But just to emphasize this point, did you feel the way you do now, 40 years ago? That is, did you feel like, “Look, maybe there’s something to be gained from these conflicts”?
Fauci: What drove me was empathy. Empathy has been my motivation in medicine and everything I’ve done, and it goes back, as I write in the book, to my family – my parents and my training in the Jesuit schools. There is empathy for people who are in trouble and who are suffering.
Combine that with empathy and listening to them, forget about yelling and screaming and just listen to what they have to say. And I have to say, that makes perfect sense to me. So how I interact with them and how I respond to them, I get asked a lot, is nothing like when someone accuses you of murder without any evidence or what happened with Marjorie Taylor Greene at the hearing. No, it’s, [HIV] What the activists were doing.
Gupta: What legacy do you want to leave? How do you want people to think of Dr. Anthony Fauci?
Fauci: I’ve thought about it, and when I think about legacy, I really, honestly, I’m going to let other people decide. I know what I’ve done — developing a cure for HIV, developing a vaccine for COVID. I know that, but it’s [for me to] “I want to leave this as a legacy,” because different people interpret it differently…
But I do believe that what I want as my legacy is that I’ve given 100% every day. To use a sports analogy, I would say I’ve always given it my all and left it on the court. I’ve never slacked off. I’ve given the best I can for my fields of science, medicine and public health. it is What is the legacy I want to leave behind?
Listen to the full episode of “Chasing Life” here. Join us next week for our podcast, where we’ll explore the relationship between exercise and happiness.
