Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Fauci Says He's Calling It Quits By 2025
In recent months, the will-he-or-won’t-he-step-down conversation has dogged the 81-year-old Dr. Fauci — perhaps the best-known doctor in America. The issue comes and goes in direct proportion to how much Republicans are attacking the man who has been the top medical adviser to two presidents during the pandemic. (Gay Stolberg, 7/18)
Dr. Anthony Fauci plans to retire by the end of President Joe Biden's current term in office, which ends in January 2025, the government's top infectious disease expert tells CNN's Kate Bolduan. (7/18)
Fauci, Biden’s chief medical adviser, first joined the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as a clinical research fellow in 1968 and became the agency’s director in 1984. In that role, he has advised seven presidents through all manner of public health crises, including HIV/AIDS, the 2001 anthrax attacks, Ebola and Zika — though in recent years, he became a political lightning rod for his advice on the coronavirus. President Donald Trump in 2020 publicly criticized Fauci and told supporters he would consider firing him, while Biden heralded his decades in public service and made Fauci his chief medical adviser upon winning the presidency. (Abutaleb and Diamond, 7/18)
"My time is running out. I'm 81 years old," Fauci said in an interview on Australian radio station 3AW, in response to a question about whether he planned to stay at his post if former President Donald Trump won the 2024 election. (Tin, 7/18)
Fauci, 81, told NPR that does not have an exact date in mind for his decision but that it may come "sooner rather than later." As for what's next, he said he is not sure what he will do after leaving his position partially because he hasn't decided when he will be leaving. (Stein and Davis, 7/18)
