Fauci Transcribed Interview — House COVID Subcommittee, Part 2 (9 Jan 2024) (Part 2 of 3)

Cameron asked me to come to the Executive Office Building and was just asking me 12
scientific questions, and I remember that.   13
There may have been other times when I was asked by people in the White  House 14
framework of security.  15
But the one  -- the thing that I do remember is the briefing of Beth Cameron and 16
her team in the Security Council.   17
Q A whistleblower came forward to this committee, and according to him, you 18
visited CIA headquarters and assisted the CIA in their investigation.   19
A Right.  20
Q Have you ever been to the CIA headquarters?  21
A I have been to the CIA headquarters several years ago, I believe during either 22
the anthrax attacks or something.  And I went there, I believe, with one of the other 23
scientists.  I forgot who it was.  Joshua Lederberg, I think, and I went, I'm pretty sure.  24
But it was decades ago, decades ago.   25

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Q But not since 2020?  1
A No.  No.   2
Q Okay.  Thank you.   3
My final  -- maybe final origins question and then a couple other questions.  4
You said numerous times here, numerous times publicly you keep an open mind, 5
to mean  -- and you've also said that the evidence that you've seen pushes you towards 6
natural evolution.   7
Open mind, at least in my mind, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, means 8
there's a part of you that thinks a lab leak is possible, which I guess you kind of touched 9
on.  It's not a conspiracy theory.   10
A Right.  11
Q It's definitely a possibility.   12
So I'm interested in  -- I think I know what papers you're referring to in Nature.  13
You've talked about Dr.  Worobey, Dr.  Pekar, obviously proximal origins.   14
A Right.  15
Q But why the open mind about the possibility of a lab leak?  16
A Because the authors themselves said that we have not had  definitive proof.  17
They said that in both of those papers.  They said they believe the heavy weight of 18
evidence points towards a natural occurrence.   19
And the way I think about things scientifically, unless you have a definitive proof 20
scientifically of something, you can have a strong opinion that it is a natural origin, but if 21
you really want to keep an open mind, we may find out that some lab that we don't even 22
hear of, we don't even know about, somewhere in Wuhan or in a place close to Wuhan, 23
actually was playing with a virus and it leaked.   24
So in my mind, I keep that open.  That often gets conflated with a specific grant 25

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that we're funding, et cetera.   1
So those things  -- I mean, my open mind is that it certainly could've been 2
something else.  I don't know what it is.  And I've said that if evidence accumulates 3
that definitively proves it's something else, then I will, you know, accept that definitive 4
evidence.   5
Q What would be  -- we know the kind of stereotypical zoonotic evidence, 6
finding an intermediary host, finding a virus in the wild.   7
A Right.  8
Q What would be evidence, in your mind, to kind of move the needle towards 9
a lab origin?  10
A I think we would need much, much cooperation from the Chinese to be able 11
to do that, yeah.   12
Q Do you think  -- we're 4  years and 9  days post pandemic beginning, post virus 13
coming out.  Do you think we'll ever know?  14
A Given the relationship and the tension and the back -and-forth -type 15
accusations that have gone on, I think that makes it less and less likely that we'll ever 16
know.   17
Q I'm going to shift gears and talk about  --  18
Q Fauci: Mitch, before  -- I just -- I apologize, because it's going back to the 19
WHO 2021 trip.   20
So understanding, you know, if you have the choice, if they came to you and said, 21
"Dr. Fauci, whoever you name, pick two or three names, U.S. scientists to be on that trip," 22
who would you have picked?   23
A Fauci: You know, I know a lot of very, very brilliant people, several of whom 24
are Nobel laureates.  I probably would've picked one of those.   25

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Q Fauci: Just, I mean, one or two off the top of your head, I mean, specifically 1
given the particular issues, you know, in your consideration.   2
A Fauci: You know why I hesitate, because I could see those guys standing out 3
there saying, "Well, Dr.  Fauci, said such and such."  So I'm not going to go there with 4
you.   5
Q Mitch: You don't want any hurt feelings among your colleagues.   6
A Fauci: No.  I don't want to go there.  7
Q Mitch: I understand.  Okay.   8
A Fauci: Yeah.   9
Q Mitch: Fair enough.  10
Mr. Slobodin.   Do you recall  --  11
Mr. Benzine.   Could you identify yourself first?   12
BY MR. SLOBODIN:  13
Q Oh, I'm sorry.  Alan Slobodin with the House Energy and Commerce 14
Committee.   15
Dr. Fauci, do you recall attending a National Security Council meeting  -- this would 16
have been during the Trump administration, maybe September  2020, might have been a 17
meeting convened by Matt Pottinger  -- do you have any recollection?  18
A No, I don't recall.  I mean, I've spoken to Matt a bunch of times.  He hangs 19
around the White  House.  He was part of the group.  But I don't recall specifically a 20
National Security Council meeting with Matt.  It could've happened, Alan, but I don't 21
recall it.   22
Q Is it possible  -- just trying to see if this might help refresh any kind of 23
recollection  -- at such a meeting you remember Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette being 24
in attendance?  25

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A No, don't recall.   1
Q Okay.  Thank you.   2
A No, I don't recall.  3
Mr. Benzine.   I want to shift gears and talk about some of the policies and 4
mitigation measures and various aspects that went into those dynamics.  And as we're 5
going through this, we are trying to figure out kind of what worked, what went wrong, 6
what went well, and how we may apply those aspects in the future.   7
At a task force briefing on April  13th, 2020, you said that you recommended travel 8
restrictions be instituted at  -- I believe, at that point, they had been instituted to China, 9
Europe, and the U.K.  Did you recommend instituting travel restrictions in response to 10
the pandemic?   11
Mr. Barstow.   I'm going to step in here.   12
Mr. Benzine.   On what grounds?   13
Mr. Barstow.   On you're asking about recommendations as part of the 14
White  House task force.  We have executive branch confidentiality interests in that -- in 15
that discussion.   16
BY MR. BENZINE:  17
Q Dr. Fauci, in your opinion, are travel restrictions a good public health tool?  18
A It's context and circumstance dependent , and it depends on what's  -- in 19
general.  I'm talking generically.  I'm not talking about your question.   20
It depends on at what stage of the outbreak you do it.  It depends on the level of 21
the particular infection in question that is already in your country.  It depends on the 22
efficiency of the transmissibility of a particular infection, because if you have people in 23
your country that are already infected and it's highly transmissible, it doesn't make a lot 24
of sense to restrict.   25

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But in a very, very precise period of time when you have virtually nothing in there, 1
you may want to have a temporary restriction to give you time to prepare.  That's one of 2
the things that we did.   3
Q Did you agree with the President's decision to restrict travel from China?  4
A I did, and I said there were caveats to restrictions.  I agreed with it, but I 5
said that we've got to be careful because sometimes when you do restrictions they have 6
negative consequences in that you don't have open access to help or even information.   7
But fundamentally I agreed at that time, since we had almost no infections that 8
we knew of in our country, that at least a temporary restriction would be important.  9
Q Did you also agree with the EU travel restriction?  10
A I agreed with the suggestion that that be done, yes.  11
Q Did you agree with the U.K. travel restriction?  12
A Yes, I did.  13
Q Does immigration, legal or illegal, influence America's public health during an 14
outbreak of a respiratory virus?  15
A Again, it goes right back to what I said, Mitch.  It's really very much context 16
dependent, like what is the level of infection elsewhere, what is the level of infection in 17
the country, what is the degree of transmissibility.  18
Q Since  -- well, for a while now, but particularly since 2021, we've seen an 19
influx of immigration at the southern border, both legal and illegal.  Did you have any 20
conversations with anyone in the White  House regarding the conditions at the southern 21
border?   22
Mr. Barstow.   I'm going to step in here again.   23
Mr. Benzine.   On what grounds?   24
Mr. Barstow.   Executive branch confidentiality interests in potential White  House 25

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discussions.   1
Mr. Benzine.   I didn't ask if he was recommending  -- like what specific grounds?   2
Mr. Barstow.   Can you ask your question again?   3
Mr. Benzine.   Did you have any conversations with anyone in the White  House 4
regarding the conditions at the southern border?   5
Mr. Barstow.   He can ask -- or answer whether he had discussions but not reveal 6
the substance of those.  7
Mr. Benzine.   All right.  8
Dr. Fauci.   I don't really recall having discussions about the southern border 9
that -- I might have.  But, you know, I generally tend to stay away from those kinds of 10
discussions.   11
But it's possible that when we were in the task force meeting that somebody 12
brought it up and I made a comment about that, but I don't recall the content of it.   13
Dr. Wenstrup.   Can I jump on that for just a second?   14
Were you concerned at all, like I was, that people were coming across the border 15
by the thousands, for one thing, but they weren't getting tested or vaccinated?   16
Dr. Fauci.   Well, it depends, Mr.  Chairman, at what points they were coming 17
over.  I mean, if you have  --  18
Dr. Wenstrup.   Well, they've been coming over for 3  years.   19
Dr. Fauci.   No, no, no, no.  I mean, if you're talking about people coming over 20
from the border when we already are having thousands and thousands and thousands of 21
infections of a highly transmissible agent in our own country, to think that someone 22
coming into the country is going to make it any worse is probably not the case.   23
What I would think would be important, it would be great if we could, when 24
people come in, provide them with care and vaccination and treatment if necessary.   25

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Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah, but we weren't doing that.   1
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, but that would be nice if we did.  Yeah.   2
Dr. Wenstrup.   Thank you.   3
Dr. Fauci.   You're welcome.   4
BY MR. BENZINE:  5
Q Thank you, sir.   6
I'm going to shift again, and you've talked about masks a little bit, but talk about 7
masks a little bit more.   8
At the beginning of the pandemic, did you support universal masking?  9
A In the beginning of the pandemic, no, I did not.  10
Q Why not?  11
A Well, there were three reasons, and I've said that many times, but let me 12
repeat it for the record, and I'll do it as succinctly as possible.  13
Q Thank you.   14
A All right.  The three reasons were, A, it was clear to us at the time, and it 15
was made clear to us in the task force, that there was already or would be a shortage of 16
masks since PPE for our healthcare providers was in scarcity.  And there was a concern 17
that if you told everybody to get a mask that the masks would be completely and very 18
quickly used up in a non -medical setting that would therefore endanger our healthcare 19
workers, point number one.   20
Point number two, it was  -- first of all, also this is point 1A, this is 1B  -- is that that 21
was also recommended by the Surgeon General under the Trump administration and the 22
CDC under the Trump administration, that we don't wear masks early on.   23
So point number two, there was not any good evidence that outside of the 24
hospital setting that a mask is effective in preventing the acquisition or transmissibility.   25

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And number three, we did not fully appreciate at the time that a substantial 1
proportion, 50 to 60  percent of the people in the country who were transmitting, were 2
asymptomatic.   3
So those three things we didn't know.  I know you didn't ask it, but I hope you 4
do, that that changed as the months went by.  We learned the answers to those three 5
questions, which had me change my position about the importance of masks, otherwise 6
referred to some as flip -flopping.  But I didn't flip -flop.   7
Q So before I introduce exhibits and ask specific things, you reviewed data 8
throughout the pandemic that then changed your perspective on things.   9
A Right.  10
Q Is that fair?  11
A Yeah.   12
Q Okay.   13
A Yeah.   14
Q I want to introduce majority exhibit  29.   15
    [Fauci Majority Exhibit No. 29  16
    was marked for identification.]  17
BY MR. BENZINE:  18
Q And I'm sure you're aware of this email as it caught a lot of news when it 19
came out.   20
A Yes.  It's my -- I don't even have to read it.  21
Q Oh, okay.  Perfect.  Even better.   22
A This is my email to Sylvia.   23
Q We don't need to  -- he said we didn't need to read it.   24
A So, no, but let's read it so that everybody can hear it.   25

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Q Well, I just want to ask about  -- you pretty much just walked through -- you 1
walked through this in your original.   2
A Right.   3
Q One of the questions I have though, the typical mask you buy in the 4
drugstore is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass 5
through the material.  That didn't change throughout the pandemic, though, the size of 6
the fabric  --  7
A Right.  8
Q -- the weave in the mask  --  9
A Right.  10
Q -- nor the size of the virus changed.  How did  --  11
A No, no.  What it is that most people, if you look at it, who wear the masks 12
that you buy, they don't fit well, they're open on the side, and they often have tatters on 13
them that  -- so clearly you're not going to effectively keep virus out.  That's what I was 14
referring to, to Sylvia.   15
Q But that was the primary mask worn throughout the pandemic, was we 16
could just go to CVS and get surgical masks and they didn't fit and they had gaps.   17
A Right.  18
Q So I'm just trying to understand kind of like, we're going to get to it, but the 19
validity of, you know, mandating someone wear something that is not  -- does not work  --  20
A Yeah.   21
Q -- as well as maybe it could.   22
A But studies did come out  -- you might have them  -- that if you look at the 23
gradation of protection, that there's some protection with a cloth mask or a surgical 24
mask, there's better protection with a KN -95, and there's much better protection with an 25

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N-95.   1
So it isn't a question of all or none; it's the gradation of the degree of protection.  2
Q Were those studies double blind?  3
A I don't recall.  I'd have to  -- well, it's kind of tough to do a double -blind 4
study of something you're putting on your face.   5
Q You'd have to infect people, right?   6
A Yeah.  7
Q Like that'd be kind of hard.   8
A Yeah, let me try that one, double blind.   9
Q On April  3rd, 2020, the CDC recommended masks for people who were 10
confirmed or suspected to have COVID -19.   11
Were you involved in that recommendation?  12
A Say that again, Mitch, please.   13
Q It was April  3rd, 2020.  It was the first time the CDC recommended wearing 14
masks.  And it was  -- the recommendation was specific to those who were confirmed or 15
suspected to have COVID -19.   16
A I don't  -- I don't recall being involved in that recommendation.  I probably 17
heard about it.  Probably it was brought to the attention of the task force.  But I was 18
not involved in that decision or discussion to my recollection.   19
Q Do you recall any disagreements among the task force regarding masking?  20
Mr. Barstow.   I'm going to step in here.   21
Mr. Benzine.   On what grounds?   22
Mr. Barstow.   Again, you're talking about discussions at the task force level.  23
The executive branch has confidentiality interests in those conversations.   24
BY MR. BENZINE:  25

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Q Were you ever part of a discussion with anyone where they  -- anyone in the 1
Federal Government where they expressed disagreements or differing opinions on 2
masking?  3
A I don't recall those discussions, but I would be surprised.  I don't think 4
anybody fully has a hundred  percent agreement on anything.  So I would imagine that in 5
some discussions somewhere there were people who said that they didn't agree that 6
masks should be worn.   7
Q You talked briefly kind of the levels of protection, homemade probably being 8
the lowest, cloth and homemade, surgical, K -95, N -95.  Is that fair?  9
A Right.  10
Q You had said at one point that it became clear that we had enough 11
protective equipment and that cloth masks and homemade masks were as good as masks 12
that you would buy from surgical supply stores.   13
What did you mean?   14
A I'm sorry, are you quoting?  Can I see what you're saying?   15
Q Yes, I'm quoting you.   16
A Yeah.   17
Mr. Cooke.   And for the record, can you tell us where this quote comes from?   18
Mr. Benzine.   It was an interview that he did with InStyle magazine.   19
Mr. Cooke.   Is there a date?   20
Mr. Benzine.   I can tell you the date when I get it back.   21
Mr. Schertler.   July 15th, 2020.  22
Dr. Fauci.   It's July  15th, 2020.   23
Mr. Cooke.   Okay.  I just want to make sure the record is clear.   24
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, I'm not sure why  -- what made me say that at that time.  I must 25

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have been referring to something, but I'm not sure.   1
Mr. Benzine.   Okay.  2
Dr. Fauci.   That was 4  years ago or 3 and a half years ago.  3
Mr. Benzine.   No, I understand.   4
When  -- on the first day of the Biden administration he signed two executive 5
orders, one mandating masks in commercial travel, planes and trains, and one for Federal 6
employees.   7
Do you recall those orders?   8
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  I mean, I don't recall discussion about it, but I recall the 9
orders.  10
Mr. Benzine.   Were you involved at all in crafting those orders?  11
Dr. Fauci.   I wasn't involved in crafting them.   12
Mrs. Dingell.   Can you speak louder?  We can't hear down here.   13
Dr. Fauci.   I said, I wasn't involved in crafting the orders.   14
Mrs. Dingell.   Thank you.   15
BY MR. BENZINE:  16
Q The commercial mask mandate was struck down by a judge in Florida.  And 17
in response you said, "We are concerned about that, about courts getting involved in 18
things that are unequivocally a public health decision.  This is a CDC issue.  It should 19
not have been a court issue."   20
You also said, "I think it is unfortunate that a court order came in and I believe 21
superseded the authority of the CDC."   22
What were you basing those statements off of?  23
A I believe the CDC knows more about public health than most courts.   24
Q Do you believe that courts do not have jurisdiction over public health?  25

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A I believe that courts have jurisdiction over whatever it is they're supposed to 1
have jurisdiction of, and when a court makes an order then you obey the order of the 2
court.   3
But I was a little bit concerned that we were getting a judge who may or may not 4
have had any experience in health or public health overriding the order of the Centers for 5
Disease Control and Prevention.  6
Q You've been asked this before more combatively than I'm going to ask it 7
now.  I believe the exact quote before is  -- like is around the lines of, do you believe the 8
Constitution can be suspended in times of public health emergency?  I'm going to ask 9
more  --  10
A I've never -- other people have said the Constitution could be suspended.  I 11
haven't said that.   12
Q No, and I agree.  I'm saying you've been asked that before.   13
A Yeah.  Okay.   14
Q But I'm going to ask for the record today, do you believe that Americans 15
retain constitutional rights during public health emergencies?  16
A I believe strongly in the Constitution of the United States.  17
Q All right.  Thank you.   18
Another question that we get a lot in the masking space is the masking of children, 19
particularly kids down to 2  years old.   20
A Right.   21
Q The WHO recommended against masking children less than 5 because masks 22
are, and I'm quoting them, not in the overall interest of the child, and then against 23
children 6 to 11 from wearing masks because, and, again, quoting, of the potential impact 24
of wearing a mask on learning and psychological development.   25

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Was there ever a cost -benefit analysis done on the unintended consequences of 1
masking kids versus the protection that it would give them?  2
A Not to my knowledge.  3
Q Do you believe that masking children as young as 2 was necessary?  4
A I think it's context dependent.  It really depends on where you are.  I think 5
you were having a time like when you're having a tsunami of infections and you're 6
desperately trying to protect people from getting infected and dying to the point where 7
every one of our healthcare facilities are in danger of overrunning, you might want to do 8
something that might seem  -- what's the right word? --  excessive, whereas under most 9
other circumstances you won't.   10
And I believe the CDC felt at that time that that's what was needed given the 11
dire -- I would say the dire situation that we were in.   12
Q This was kind of, I won't say  -- it was definitely a novel virus, but new also in 13
kind of the way that it didn't affect children very much.  Like there were obviously kids 14
that caught it, there were obviously kids that transmitted it, and there was obviously, 15
sadly, kids that passed away.   16
A Well, I would just correct it a little bit, Mitch.   17
Q Okay.   18
A I don't think there is really strong evidence that it doesn't infect children as 19
well.   20
Q Affect.   21
A Yeah, affect in the sense of serious illnesses.   22
Children, compared to adults, which was a public health crisis of adults with all the 23
deaths we've had, didn't have as much likelihood of developing severe consequence 24
leading to hospitals and death.   25

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But there was, you know, a considerable number of children who have died 1
compared to something like influenza, multifold, right.   2
Q Do you recall reviewing any studies or data supporting masking for children?  3
A You know, I might have, Mitch, but I don't recall specifically that I did.  I 4
might have.   5
Q Since the  -- there's been a lot of studies that have come out since the 6
pandemic started, but specifically on this there have been significant on kind of like the 7
learning loss and speech and development issues that have been associated with 8
particularly young children wearing masks while they're growing up.  They can't see 9
their teacher talk and can't learn how to form words.   10
Have you followed any of those studies?  11
A No.  But I believe that there are a lot of conflicting studies too, that there 12
are those that say, yes, there is an impact, and there are those that say there's not.  I 13
still think that's up in the air.   14
I mean, I'm very sensitive to children.  I have children and I have grandchildren.  15
So I don't want to have anything that would do to harm them.   16
But I think that there was a conflicting discussion about the negative impact on 17
speech and formation of the bones of the face, and that I think was debunked pretty 18
easily.   19
Q Okay.  I appreciate that.   20
Do you think this  -- going forward that  -- I mean, obviously this hit our shores 21
quickly.  We had to react quickly.  The first little while you're just kind of like reading 22
and reacting, right?   23
A Right.  24
Q You're not  -- you don't have time to go read 15 studies and then make a 25

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decision.   1
A Correct.   2
Q Do you think going forward  -- like do you think it's important that public 3
health officials, as science and data come out, that they change their mind?   4
A Absolutely, that you go with the data.  And if the data essentially negates 5
your first decision -- and getting back to the question you asked me about 8  minutes ago 6
when I made my discussions about the use of masks, the three hypotheses that I put forth 7
were all disproven, and I changed my mind about masks, and I said we should be wearing 8
masks.   9
So I definitely agree that as data come out, that you should adjust your decisions, 10
your guidelines, your recommendations according to the data that comes out.   11
Q You also  -- and it was recently, I believe, this year made a statement that 12
kind of universal or mass masking works on the margins, is I believe your exact quote, 10 13
percent or something on the margins.   14
Do you recall that statement?  15
A No.  What was  --  16
Q I don't have it.   17
A Yeah.  Some  -- I don't  --  18
Q I don't have it in front of me.   19
A Okay.  20
Q But I was just wondering.   21
I'm going to shift gears and stick kind of in the children aspect of the pandemic.   22
Schools K through college closed pretty quickly.  And I think, and I have heard 23
numerous times, that it was probably the right thing to do the spring semester, like we 24
just talked about.  No one knew what was going on.   25

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A Right thing to do.   1
Q Right thing to do is to learn and come back.   2
Did you have any role in  -- obviously the administration was helping those 3
situations.  Did you have any role in that?  4
A I didn't make a decision to close the schools.  5
Q No, I'm not asking  that.  I'm  --  6
Mr. Schertler.   Could you just be clear, role in  -- 7
Mr. Benzine.   Did you -- were you a part of conversations where the topic of 8
initially closing schools came up?  9
Dr. Fauci.   Not specifically closing schools.  I was involved  -- and, again, I think 10
I'll have to turn to Kevin because of the decisions of when we were doing the 15 -day 11
pause and then the 30 -day pause, which, in fact, included schools, I believe.   12
Mr. Barstow.   He just answered that he was involved in conversations.   13
BY MR. BENZINE:  14
Q Okay.  And you just answered this, that at the beginning, because of all the 15
unknowns, supportive of closing schools in the beginning?  16
A Right.  17
Q In -- we then saw through the summer there was obviously some like 18
summer camp things and some infections at camps.  And then a lot of schools began 19
reopening going into the fall semester of 2021.   20
Do you recall any conversations regarding advocating for school reopening -- 21
A Yeah.  I -- 22
Q -- in the fall of 2020?  23
A Yeah.  I think if you  -- I'm surprised you haven't shown me something that I 24
said.  I have often said we need to open up the schools as quickly and as safely as 25

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possible, and I must have said that 500 times on TV.   1
Q I have it a couple times  --  2
A Yeah.  3
Q -- but I figured I'd just ask you.   4
A Yes.  Yes.  That was my sound bite to the world, we need to reopen the 5
schools as quickly and as safely as possible.   6
Q So that's been pretty consistent across the board, and we get different  from 7
like -- we've talked to CDC folks, obviously you, other public health professionals, but also 8
the unions and teachers and parents and kids, and everyone has a different definition of 9
what "safely" meant.   10
A Right.   11
Q What was yours?  12
A My -- it depends on where you were.  For example, if you had vaccines 13
available, you really want to make sure that you surround the children with people who 14
are vaccinated.  That you use the money that has been set aside to increase the 15
ventilation in schools.  You have some distancing.  You make sure that the people who 16
are driving the children to school.  You surround the children with a cocoon of safety.  17
That's one of the things that you could do.   18
Q You mentioned ventilation.  Was upgrading ventilation, in your mind, a 19
prerequisite for opening  --  20
A I thought it was very important.  I thought that  -- I know that there was a 21
considerable amount of money that was allocated to the CDC to enhance safety.  22
And I know it's difficult sometimes, particularly in some of the older schools, to 23
increase the ventilation.  But I felt ventilation was absolutely critical, particularly as we 24
got more information that the virus could be spread by an asymptomatic person.   25

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So a child could come to school feeling perfectly well, and then somebody sitting 1
right next to them is going to get possibly infected, whereas we know getting infected out 2
of doors is much, much less likely than indoors, and the more you ventilate the more you 3
approximate an outdoor situation.   4
Q Part of that answer was going to be my next question, and Dr.  Collins has 5
touched on this recently in an interview that he just did of public health determinations, 6
kind of not taking necessarily into account the practicality of those recommendations.  7
Like you mentioned difficult to increase ventilation in  older schools.  8
A Right.   9
Q Our understanding is it would also be difficult in poorer schools, inner -city 10
schools, those kinds of areas.   11
If school districts went strictly based off  -- if CDC recommended you can't reopen 12
until your ventilation is increased, I mean, I don't know a school district that would've 13
reopened regardless of how much money  Congress passed.   14
A Right.  15
Q Do you think it's  important --  16
A Well, that would've been almost an inherently impossible recommendation, 17
and I would doubt  -- I would think that would be foolish to make a recommendation like 18
that.   19
Q Do you think public health officials should take into account the practicality 20
of the recommendations that they're making?  21
A No.  I think public health officials should be sensitive to the negative 22
consequences, but public health officials should give information to the deciders as to 23
what the public health implications are, and the deciders should balance the other factors 24
that go with it.   25

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I don't think that a public health official should say, "Well, we think you should do 1
this and this, but, by the way, the economy will do this and the stock market would drop 2
that."   3
That's not what a public health official should do.  But that doesn't mean that a 4
public health official should be insensitive to the secondary effects of what they're talking 5
about, but they should give the information to the people who make the decision about 6
whether you're going to close this or whether you're going to recommend that.   7
Q And along those lines, and this is just me from my outside perspective, that 8
you would see  -- you would see that on the task force there was a makeup around the 9
board, like you had FEMA, you had you, you had domestic policy, you had national 10
security policy, you had economic policy all on the task force, and I think that continued 11
through to the response team, is the Biden administration one.  Is that right?  12
A Right.   13
Q But then  --  14
A Wait a minute, it wasn't as much.  I mean, the response team was mostly 15
medical people.   16
Q Okay.   17
A Yeah.  It was not multiple different agencies.  It was  --  18
Q So the task force had the  multiple.  19
A The task force had more non -public health people than public health people.   20
Q Okay.   21
A Whereas the response team under the Biden administration was almost 22
exclusively public health people, except for Jeff and then -- Jeff Zients and Ashish Jha.   23
Q So I guess my  --  24
A And Ashish Jha, by the way, was a public health person.  25

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Q Yes, he was.   1
I guess, my long -winded point is that you see kind of the flows of advice going to 2
the decisionmakers.  The decisionmakers go and then say what the decision was.  But 3
then some of the advisers would go and undermine the decision.   4
And I'm not blaming you, but various press conferences where the President 5
would say we're going to do this, excluding some of the more outlandish comments, and 6
then a reporter would ask you a question and you'd be like, well, that's not what I advise 7
for public health.   8
A Right.  9
Q Like, do you have concerns with that?  Do you think it should, like, for a 10
future pandemic should be  --  11
A Can you -- I'm sorry, Mitch, I don't mean  -- I don't suggest that you're tricking 12
me.    13
Q No, no, no.  I  --  14
A But give me chapter and verse of what I said.  15
Q It was more hypothetical.  So I'll frame it not in people that we know.   16
A Okay.   17
Q If you have a decisionmaker, the President of the United States, takes all the 18
advice into account and makes a decision, goes out into a press conference, has all his 19
advisers behind him, says the decision.   20
A reporter asks one aspect of it, so asks the economic person, you know, "What 21
did you advise?" and the economic person has said, "Well, I advised something different 22
than what the President just told you."  23
Do you think it's important in future responses to have kind of one voice leading 24
the public -facing response to a pandemic?  25

  143
A I think there should be one decisionmaker and that decisionmaker should 1
take in information from a number of sources and make their decision.   2
Q Okay.  In the time I have remaining, moving through schools still a little bit.   3
In December  2020, President -elect Biden announced that he wanted the majority 4
of schools to reopen within a hundred  days of his new administration.  Do you recall 5
that?  6
A I recall them saying that, yes.   7
Q At the time, what did you think about that promise?  8
A I thought it was a good idea if we could do it, and that's when I kept on 9
saying let's open the schools as safely as we possibly can.   10
Q At the  -- close to what you said at the time of that may not happen because 11
there may be mitigating circumstances, new variants  --  12
A Right.  13
Q -- various things like that.  Obviously, we were pretty early in the vaccine 14
rollout as well.   15
A Right.  16
Q A few days into office, President Biden walked it back in saying he didn't 17
mean all schools, he meant kindergarten through eighth grade, not high school.   18
Do you recall that?  19
A I didn't have any input into that delineation between one group or another.  20
That was mostly a CDC type of advice.   21
Q Did -- you've said here your kind of public advice, and I assume private 22
advice, has always been reopen the schools as quickly and safely as possible.   23
A Yes.  24
Q Did you advise the incoming transition team on COVID -19?  25

  144
A I was on  -- oh, the transition team?   1
Q Yes, sir.   2
A No, I spoke with the transition team, but I didn't advise them much on 3
anything.   4
Q Did you have any conversations with President Biden while he was 5
President -elect?  6
A I had  --  7
Mr. Barstow.   Dr. Fauci.   8
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  Sorry.   9
Mr. Barstow.   You're allowed to say whether you had conversations  --  10
Dr. Fauci.   I'm sorry.   11
Mr. Barstow.   -- but you shouldn't talk about the substance of those 12
conversations.   13
Mr. Schertler.   You can say you had conversations, but don't discuss the 14
substance.   15
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.   16
I don't recall conversations with the President.  I had conversations with Ron 17
Klain.   18
BY MR. BENZINE:  19
Q Okay.  Do you generally, without  --  20
A And,  now, let me just back off and say, I don't recall whether I had 21
conversation like a day before he was inaugurated or a day after he was inaugurated.   22
Q Okay.   23
A Okay?   24
Q No, that's fair.   25

  145
A But I didn't have a lot of conversations with the President.  I won't say what 1
I said.  But I didn't have multiple conversations with the President -elect.  I had a few 2
conversations with Ron Klain.   3
Q Generally, without getting into kind of any advice that you gave during those 4
conversations, do you recall the topics with either the President or Mr.  Klain?   5
A I think the topic might have been vaccination.  6
Q Did you have any  -- she was not CDC Director yet  -- but did you have any 7
conversations with CDC Director Walensky during the kind of post -election, 8
pre-inauguration timeframe?  9
A Yes.  10
Q Regarding what?  11
A That I was recommending her to be the Director of CDC.  12
Q Did you have any conversations with her regarding school reopenings?  13
A No.  14
Q And in the scope of this question, I understand that you have done events 15
with the American Federation of Teachers, so I'm not asking about conversations 16
regarding those events.  But have you had any conversations with Randi Weingarten 17
regarding school reopenings?  18
A I don't know whether it was regarding school reopenings.  I think I was on a 19
Zoom or podcast or something with her, but I didn't make any recommendations, in my 20
mind, that I can recall.  I don't recall recommendations of saying you should or should 21
not reopen schools.   22
Q Going  -- as we got further into 2021 and vaccines became more available, 23
was it ever your opinion that vaccination for students and teachers was a prerequisite of 24
reopening schools?  25

  146
A I don't recall that I would say it was a prerequisite.  I was very much in 1
favor of vaccinating the children who were eligible for vaccination and vaccinating the 2
teachers.   3
I don't recall whether I said anything about a prerequisite.   4
Q Same question.  But was it ever your opinion that mask mandates were 5
necessary or a prerequisite for reopening schools?  6
A Again, I think the operative word here, Mitch, is "prerequisite."  I don't 7
recall that I said "prerequisite."  I may have said, we really should get people wearing 8
masks in schools by both the teachers and certain children of a certain age.   9
Q But they didn't  -- like, it wasn't necessary to reopen the school?  10
A I don't recall that I said prerequisite.  I just don't recall.   11
Q No, that's  --  12
A I mean, you have a lot of discussions.  I just don't recall.   13
Q That's all I was asking.   14
Finishing out our hour really quickly, I think everyone in here will agree COVID -19 15
hit the elderly and nursing home population quite hard, both early on and throughout the 16
pandemic.   17
One of the decisions that we've been investigating was by, at that point, New  York 18
Governor Andrew Cuomo and the March  25th, 2020, order that directed nursing homes 19
to accept potentially or COVID -positive patients without testing them.   20
Do you recall any conversations regarding that order amongst the task force or in 21
your job?  22
A Not to my recollection, no.   23
Q Did you ever speak to Governor Cuomo during the pandemic?  24
A I spoke  -- I did, a few times.   25

  147
Q On what topics?  1
A A variety of topics, you know, vaccination, how were things going, you know, 2
what do you think about where we're going, what's  -- you know, just medical questions.   3
Q Did you ever have any discussions with him regarding nursing homes or that 4
order?  5
A No.  No.  6
Q Did you ever speak with New  York Health Commissioner Zucker?  7
A I know Howard.  I'm trying to remember if I spoke to him.  I don't recall, 8
but it would not be surprising to me if I did.  Yeah.   9
Q But just  -- so just for the record, you don't recall conversations, so therefore, 10
probably don't recall if the conversations were about the nursing home -- the nursing 11
home order?  12
A Right.  I don't recall any conversations about nursing homes with him.   13
Q Okay.  Do you recall  -- this came in the news pretty  -- around the summer 14
of 2020, and CMS Administrator Verma said some things.  We've talked to Dr.  Birx, and 15
she told us that she thought the Cuomo guidance violated CMS guidance at the time.   16
Do you recall any conversations about that?  17
A I didn't have conversations with that, no.   18
Q All right.  I have about 60  seconds left in my hour, so I'm going to try to tick 19
off two more questions.   20
One of the kind of interesting things that we heard is the different  -- and please 21
correct me if I'm like way off base on this  -- but the difference of dying from COVID or 22
with COVID and how that would affect the death statistics.   23
Do you have any knowledge or anything to share on that?  24
A I know that that was a topic of heated discussion and disagreement.   25

  148
Q When?  1
A Just pervasive.   2
Q Beginning in 2020?  3
A I don't know when it began, but I remember that topic came up.  If 4
somebody  -- you know, it  -- I'm going to dribble around here and run the clock out, but 5
I'm not going to  --  6
[Laughter.]  7
A I'm not trying to run the clock out.  I'll even give you an extra minute or so.   8
But the fact is that it's a complicated issue, because if someone comes in who 9
is -- has COVID and nothing else wrong with them and they die from COVID, that's a clear 10
COVID death.   11
If someone comes in who got hit by a car and had his head crashed in but happens 12
to test positive, that's not a COVID death.   13
But if someone comes in with significant aortic valve dysfunction and bad flow 14
congestive heart failure and they get COVID and get febrile and get a pneumonia, yeah, 15
that's a COVID death even though they died of congestive heart failure.   16
Q So there's kind of  --  17
A You agree?   18
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah.   19
BY MR. BENZINE:  20
Q Kind of three  buckets there.  A very, very clear nothing wrong with you, 21
which I'm sure maybe zero  percent of the population  --  22
A Right.  23
Q -- has nothing wrong with them, got COVID, died.  24
A very, very clear had COVID, didn't, like, maybe knew, maybe didn't, got in a car 25

  149
accident and died.   1
A Right.  2
Q And then the underlying condition COVID exacerbated and then died.   3
A And the person would not have died if they didn't get COVID.   4
Q Okay.   5
A I mean, that's the way I would say it.   6
Dr. Wenstrup.   But both conditions should be listed as to why.   7
Dr. Fauci.   Well, I think if someone  --  8
Dr. Wenstrup.   So it wasn't just respiratory.   9
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  I mean, yeah, if somebody has congestive heart failure that's 10
barely compensated and they get COVID and get a COVID respiratory infection and die, 11
that's a COVID death.  I think you should list that as a COVID death.   12
Dr. Wenstrup.   Well, they both contributed.   13
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.  Yeah.   14
BY MR. BENZINE:  15
Q My last question, and I appreciate not entirely dribbling out the clock on that 16
one.   17
The same kind of thing happened with case counts.  So if I  -- everybody going to 18
the hospital was tested for COVID.  If they tested positive they were listed as a COVID 19
hospitalization.   20
And very much agree with testing everybody that goes into the hospital for COVID 21
so you get a good idea of case counts.   22
But do you think there should've been a better  -- like, if I broke my leg and went 23
into the hospital and got tested, should I have been  --  24
A That should not be considered a hospitalized COVID case, in my opinion as a 25

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physician.  1
Q Okay.   2
A I mean, if a person is  -- you know, breaks their leg and goes in, and is a 3
19-year -old person who broke their leg in a football game, and they put a cast on and 4
they walked out, and that person happened to test positive for COVID, that's not a COVID 5
hospitalization.   6
Q Perfect.   7
A That's a COVID case but not a COVID hospitalization.   8
Mr. Benzine.   Perfect.  Thank you very much.   9
We can go off the record.  10
[Recess.] 11

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[3:23 p.m.]  1
  We can go on the record.  2
I just want to start off this next hour with a few housekeeping items.  I first want 3
to revisit quickly two items that Congresswoman Castor introduced for the record last 4
round and register them into the record.   5
The first is the letter from Dr.  Marks to Florida Surgeon General Dr.  Ladapo.  This 6
is going to be exhibit U.  7
    [Fauci Minority Exhibit U  8
    was marked for identification.]  9
  And then the second exhibit is going to be the L.A. Times article 10
that the Congresswoman referenced.  This is going to be exhibit V.  11
    [Fauci Minority Exhibit V  12
    was marked for identification.]  13
  And then while we're passing those around, we have a new 14
member who's joined us.   15
Congresswoman Ross, could you introduce yourself for the record?  And if 16
there's anything you'd like to say at the start of the round, please do.  17
Ms. Ross.   Thank you.   18
Dr. Fauci, thank you so much for your patience, but, most importantly, thank you 19
for your service -- 20
Dr. Fauci.   Thank you.  21
Ms. Ross.   -- to our country and to public health.  My father is a physician, and I 22
know it's not easy providing all the answers under uncertain circumstances.   23
Dr. Fauci.   Thank you.   24
Ms. Ross.   I represent the Research Triangle area of North Carolina.  In fact, 25

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Dr. Mandy Cohen is my constituent.   1
And I just want to share  -- I know I'm coming late to this party, but I do want to 2
share how important it has been to my area of the country to really follow the science 3
and take care of the most vulnerable.  We have a very 4
science/technology/medical -oriented district.  We were one of the only places in the 5
country that provided free testing from the very beginning of the pandemic.  We had a 6
lab, which is in my district, that had come up with early testing.   7
Every time I drove  -- and I drive from North Carolina here, and, of course, I had to 8
do it during the pandemic  -- I would stop at the hospital, in the most compromised area 9
of my district, in the parking lot and get my test.   10
And I want to applaud you for following the science as you found it; for making 11
sure that we always focused on the most vulnerable populations.  Because, of course, 12
when vaccines were available, people who had access to physicians and means and could 13
get different places, they could get what they needed, but you always paid attention to 14
the most vulnerable.   15
My district, the State of North Carolina, we followed your advice, and North 16
Carolina had better outcomes because of it.  And I know that the most vulnerable 17
people in my district had better outcomes because of your advice and your service.   18
So I know it's been a, you know, kind of interesting couple  days for you, but I want 19
you to know toward the end of the process how much the people of this country and my 20
district appreciate your service.   21
Dr. Fauci.   Thank you.  Thank you.   22
  With that, I will turn it over to Congresswoman Dingell.   23
Mrs. Dingell.   So I want to return to the subject of the masks, which we can all 24
agree is a point of contention, but I think that there are some facts that we need to make 25

  153
sure we really are getting on the record.  I want to discuss both the efficacy and the 1
effectiveness of masking.   2
First, Dr. Fauci, could you please explain for us the different kinds of masks or face 3
coverings that were used during the pandemic?  Were some better at protecting people 4
from COVID -19 than others, and why?  You got into it a little, but can we expand on 5
that?   6
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  There are, as I mentioned, let's say, four separate classes.   7
There's a cloth mask.  And that really, really varies, because people make their 8
own cloth masks -- different people, different companies.  So that's one level.  That's 9
probably the most inconsistent in its protection, and it's probably relatively less than the 10
others.   11
The next is the surgical mask you buy in the store.  That is the next level, a bit 12
more, but not as good as the next two, which is a KN95, which is quite good, but the one 13
that's the state of the art is the N95, which is very good at protecting both the person 14
who might be acquiring it as well as the transmission to someone else.   15
Mrs. Dingell.   How did our understanding of the importance of masks and 16
mask -wearing evolve over the course of the COVID -19 pandemic?   17
Dr. Fauci.   Well, it evolved because of what we realized.  As I mentioned in 18
answer to a prior question, that in the beginning there was not a lot of enthusiasm or 19
recommendation for wearing masks for I said three reasons but there's probably a fourth 20
reason, because at the time when we had few cases in this country, when, retrospectively 21
thinking, would've been a time when people should've been wearing masks, because it 22
was sort of the silent virus underneath the surface spreading throughout the country.   23
But the other three reasons were this understanding, which turned out to be a 24
misunderstanding, that there was such a shortage of masks that if you wore masks in the 25

  154
general public you could take away from the masks that were available for the people 1
who really needed it, who were the healthcare providers taking care of people in the 2
healthcare setting.   3
Next, the data which accumulated over a period of months to years about the 4
effectiveness or not of masks in preventing acquisition versus transmission.  We didn't 5
have any information that outside of the hospital setting masks were pretty protective.  6
We knew that in the hospital setting, that when you're dealing with a tuberculosis patient 7
in the tuberculosis ward, they clearly were good.  We didn't know that, whether that 8
applied to the general population.   9
And, thirdly, we didn't realize  -- even though there was hints of it, we didn't 10
realize the rather substantial proportion of people who were transmitting in an 11
asymptomatic way.   12
So the reason that's important is that it would be, well, I'm in a room here and 13
there's nobody that's coughing or sneezing, and, by the syndromic approach to viral 14
transmission, you'd say, why should you really wear a mask?  There's nobody sick here.   15
But then when we realized that, in fact, 50 to 60 percent of the people who are 16
transmitting are asymptomatic, that negated the first  -- the third hypothesis.   17
The second hypothesis was negated by the fact that, when studies were done 18
sequentially, finally, over time, it became clear that masks had a significant degree -- they 19
weren't 100 -percent protective, but they had a significant degree of protection outside of 20
the setting of a hospital, namely people in the community.   21
And then, third, it became  -- third or fourth, it became clear that there wasn't a 22
PPE shortage among healthcare providers with regard to masks, that if you went out and 23
got a K95 or an N95, you were not preventing a nurse somewhere from getting it.   24
When those three things coalesced, then it became clear that masks really needed 25

  155
to be used, because they were effective.  1
Mrs. Dingell.   I'm going to argue that point with you in a minute -- 2
Dr. Fauci.   Okay.  3
Mrs. Dingell.   -- because I remember the supply chain.   4
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  5
Mrs. Dingell.   But I want to stay on this right now, just because I can remember 6
being on the phone with people in China having to check the quality of masks, and nurses 7
that were microwaving masks or rewearing.  And I want to ask if we're ready for the 8
next time.   9
But the consensus of the medical and scientific community is that wearing a 10
well-fitting mask reduces the threat.  That has been.  I think there are multiple studies 11
that I could quote now.   12
But could you explain a few examples of the scientific studies that demonstrate 13
why masks are effective at preventing COVID -19 and how they did evolve?   14
Dr. Fauci.   Well, they evolved, for example, when you had one particular cohort 15
that's maybe a school or a workplace where they were able to demonstrate that, when 16
you compare a place that regularly used masks or required masks versus a place that 17
didn't have mask use at all, there was clearly a difference in the infection.  That was the 18
standard type of study that was used.   19
Other studies were more specific, where you would actually in  a controlled 20
situation show that a mask protected against a particular infection.   21
So there were controlled studies and there were cohort studies.   22
Mrs. Dingell.   So, in epidemiology and public health, there is a distinction 23
between the concepts of efficacy and effectiveness.  Could you explain this distinction?   24
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.   25

  156
Mrs. Dingell.   Would you?   1
Dr. Fauci.   I will.   2
So efficacy is the capability of a particular intervention to prevent and/or treat a 3
particular disease, let's say.   4
And let's talk about health, because there's efficacy and effectiveness of things 5
that have nothing to do with health.  But in the arena of health, efficacy means that you 6
have shown, usually in a clinical trial, that if you have a well -controlled experiment that 7
this is better than nothing or this is better than that.  That is the efficacy of that in 8
intervention.   9
The effectiveness is, in the real world, what does that particular intervention, 10
which may have been shown to be quite efficacious -- is it effective?  A typical 11
simple -to-understand explanation of that is that, if you have an intervention that in a 12
controlled clinical trial is very efficacious but nobody uses it, nor do they use it properly, 13
then it is not an effective intervention, even though in a clinical trial it's efficacious.   14
Mrs. Dingell.   So, in your assessment, is this distinction relevant for 15
mask -wearing to reduce the threat of COVID -19?   16
Dr. Fauci.   It is absolutely relevant.  For example, if you have a mask that is 17
properly worn and properly fitted and used all the time when you're in a risk situation, 18
that mask could be very efficacious.   19
If that same mask is worn intermittently, not properly fitted, and loosely used, 20
then that mask that is efficacious in a trial can be completely ineffective.   21
And I think what you're getting to is the importance that sometimes studies say, 22
"Well, masks didn't work," and they didn't work because they were not properly used or 23
they weren't fitted well or people used them 30 percent of the time or people say, "Well, 24
I wore a mask all the time except when I went into a crowded restaurant and had a meal, 25

  157
and I got infected; therefore, masks don't work."  No.   1
Mrs. Dingell.   So you got ahead of me --  2
Dr. Fauci.   I'm sorry.  3
Mrs. Dingell.   No, no, but that's exactly where I was going to go.  And in some of 4
the instances, a lot of the critics of mask -wearing pointed to studies that suggested that 5
the mask -wearing initiatives were ineffective.  But, as you just said, your assessment is 6
that that's wrong.   7
So is there anything you want to say to elaborate that for the record so that we 8
really do get the difference between the two?   9
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  You know, my comment would be that, when you're 10
evaluating a study, you've got to make sure if there are any confounding variables in the 11
study.  And if a confounding variable is that a person uses the mask 50  percent of the 12
time, that, to me, negates a conclusion on whether something does or does not work, 13
that you have to have the conditions that adequately evaluate the effectiveness of the 14
mask, not the efficacy of the mask.  15
Mrs. Dingell.   And I have one  -- this was not your area of responsibility per se, 16
but the supply chain did have issues at the beginning.  I remember going  and getting 17
garbage bags from neighbors to take to nursing homes and the nurses that would cry in 18
tears.  It was bad in some of the hospitals.  And, as you say, we were  -- I became a 19
supply -chain expert, with our Governor, trying to get stuff at the beginning.   20
Are we doing what we need to do if there's another pandemic, in your opinion?  21
Not that it was your responsibility, but I'm just curious.   22
Dr. Fauci.   I would have to say that I have been out of government and off the 23
coronavirus response team for now a year and 4 days --  24
Mrs. Dingell.   How many minutes?   25

  158
Dr. Fauci.   -- and I can't answer that question adequately.  But the one thing I 1
do know, we really need to be doing more.   2
Mrs. Dingell.   Is there anything else that you want to elaborate on in this area?   3
Dr. Fauci.   No, I think it's really important, and I think that I'm glad you brought 4
up that particular issue, which is rarely brought up in discussions, of the disparity that 5
people have in their appreciation of whether something works or does not work.   6
And I think that really leads to a lot of confusion, because every time you have a 7
study that shows one thing, somebody will read a study that shows another thing, and it's 8
not really a valid study.  That doesn't mean the investigators are bad investigators, but 9
it's not a valid study.   10
Mrs. Dingell.   Thank you.   11
I'll turn this back over to  12
BY  13
Q So, Dr. Fauci, I would like to just briefly revisit a topic that my majority 14
colleagues discussed in the last hour.  That was the process of resuming in -person 15
learning safely here in the United States.   16
And so, when COVID -19 took hold in March of 2020, a number of in -person 17
activities that were a routine part of our everyday lives were suspended in an effort to 18
slow the spread of the virus, and one of these activities was in -person learning in 19
classrooms across America.   20
So, Dr. Fauci, just for the record, can you remind us, at that period in time in 21
March 2020, what we knew and what we didn't know about the virus and how it spread 22
at the time when in -person learning was suspended in communities?   23
A At that time, when the 15 -day "flatten the curve" followed by the 30 -day 24
extension was put into effect, it was crisis in the United States.  It was at a time where 25

  159
New York was just on the cusp of getting overwhelmed, when there were freezer trucks 1
outside of Elmhurst Hospital and New York Hospital and the hospitals in Boston, that 2
something needed to be done very, very quickly.   3
There were things we didn't know about the virus except that it was spreading 4
widely in the population.  And it was at that point that the decision was made that we 5
needed to do something to flatten that curve, because if the curve continued to do that, 6
we would run out of hospital beds.   7
Q And we've discussed this at a few points over the past day and a half; 8
Congresswoman Dingell brought it up just now.  But, at that point in time, what 9
challenges were we experiencing with critical supplies of PPE, with testing, with other 10
necessary resources, that further impeded the ability to learn safely in person?  11
A It was really a crisis, because we didn't have enough masks, we didn't have a 12
vaccine, and the virus was spreading rapidly throughout our society, which was the 13
fundamental reason why it was important, even though it was aware that there were 14
going to be consequences of it, to just do something quickly to stop this exponential 15
increase.   16
Q And so, digging a little bit more into the decision -making process that 17
communities undertook with respect to in -person learning, just to be clear, you, Dr.  Fauci, 18
were not a single person who enacted policies that suspended in -person learning across 19
the United States.   20
A The answer to that is, absolutely true.  And I know I should just answer 21
"yes" or "no," but that is the big misperception, when people are out there saying, "Fauci 22
closed the schools."  Fauci did not close the schools.   23
Q Is there anything more you would like to say, just while we're on the topic, 24
about how Fauci did not close -- 25

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A No. 1
Q -- the schools?  2
A I did not close the schools.  And it became the widespread situation where I 3
became a political target.   4
In fact, I just  -- yesterday, the New York Post had one of their usual misleading 5
stories and had as one of the hyperlinks "How Fauci Shut Down the Schools and Hurt Our 6
Children," something along the line of that.  It was yesterday, after this hearing.   7
Q And this may sound redundant, but you, yourself, Dr.  Fauci, were not a 8
person with the authority to decide if and when schools across the country resumed 9
in-person learning.  Is that correct?  10
A That is correct.   11
Q In fact, that process, the process by which communities suspended and 12
resumed in -person learning, was largely decided at the State and local levels of 13
government.  Is that correct?  14
A That is correct.  15
Q And so the Federal Government's role in the resumption of safe in -person 16
learning was largely an advisory and support function for State and local 17
governments -- for example, things like ensuring adequate supplies of mitigation 18
measures, like we just discussed, tests and PPE, as well as developing roadmaps and 19
guidance documents for schools to reopen safely.   20
Does that sound right?  21
A That is correct.   22
Q And did the Federal Government experience issues with fulfilling these 23
responsibilities throughout 2020?  24
A The States sometimes did not respond, right.   25

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Q But the Federal Government with respect to the discrete issues of, let's say, 1
ensuring that there's an adequate supply of mitigation measures, like tests and PPE, 2
getting those to States and communities  --  3
A Oh, I misunderstood your question.  Yeah, I mean, as I told you, one of the 4
things that I did to try and get a good feel for what was happening in the trenches, I 5
had -- maybe every couple of weeks, I would get on a phone with local health officials in 6
L.A., Chicago, New Orleans, Washington, New York City, and I would say, what's going on?  7
Do you have enough tests?  Are you being able to adequately identify, test, contact 8
trace, et cetera?  What about PPE?  Do you have enough PPE?   9
And the universal response was, "No, we don't."  And yet there would seem to 10
be a discussion that there was enough, and there wasn't enough.   11
Q Right.  12
And on the, sort of, second tranche of Federal responsibilities as it relates to 13
in-person learning and a resumption of in -person learning, do you have a view on 14
whether or not, in calendar year 2020, the Federal Government was doing a sufficient job 15
in putting together guidance documents, roadmaps, equipping community policymakers 16
with the resources that were necessary in order to successfully implement safe in -person 17
learning?  18
A What I was hearing  -- I mean, I didn't evaluate it myself, but what I was 19
hearing at the local level, that they were not.   20
Q In July 2020, former President Trump tweeted that he was considering 21
cutting off Federal funding if schools were not, quote, "open."   22
About a week later, then -Education Secretary Betsy DeVos echoed these 23
sentiments during a "Fox News Sunday" interview, stating, and I quote, "If schools aren't 24
going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn't get the funds."   25

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In your view, Dr. Fauci, would cutting off Federal funding from public schools 1
during the summer of 2020 have undermined or helped efforts to safely resume 2
in-person learning in the United States?  3
A Well, I think you'd have to say, if you cut off funding to the schools, it's going 4
to certainly impede their ability to open up safely.   5
Q And so, shortly after the Biden administration began its work in 2021, the 6
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an operational strategy that offered 7
comprehensive guidance for schools to safely resume in -person learning.  This 8
document was complemented by additional roadmaps that were put out by the 9
Department of Education.   10
Did Federal guidance documents of this nature play a role in facilitating the 11
process of resuming safe in -person learning in communities across the country?  And, if 12
so, how?   13
A Well, I don't know if I can comment about the details of that.  But certainly 14
it was generally felt that if you had Federal guidelines and resources to allow you to fulfill 15
those guidelines that that would be a big step in the right direction of getting schools 16
open.   17
But I wasn't involved in that much of the detail.  That was much more of a CDC 18
issue than my issue.   19
Q And, then, on the flip side to a question I had asked just a bit earlier, shortly 20
into 2021, Democrats in Congress and President Biden passed and signed into law the 21
American Rescue Plan, which included comprehensive investments across the board in 22
public health and in our education infrastructure, in part to ensure the resumption of safe 23
in-person learning.   24
For example, the American Rescue Plan allocated $122  billion in Federal funding 25

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to the ESSER program that's operated out of the Department of Education.   1
Is it your view that this influx of Federal funding would've supported the goal of 2
getting kids back in classrooms for safe in -person learning?   3
A Yes.   4
Q Great.   5
And, to your recollection  -- and this is a discrete statistic, but we have seen and we 6
have heard from our witnesses here in the select subcommittee that when President 7
Biden took office the number of students who were learning safely in classrooms in 8
person was about 46 percent, kindergarten through middle school.  A year into the 9
Biden administration, that number hit 95 percent.   10
Does that sound familiar -- 11
A Yes. 12
Q -- or roughly correct to you?   13
A Yes.  14
Q Great.   15
With that, I will turn it over to my colleague, .   16
BY : 17
Q Thank you, Dr. Fauci.   18
During the last hour, you were asked whether you recall visiting the CIA 19
headquarters during the pandemic.  And just to make sure I had it correct, your answer 20
was no.  You recall during a prior time, perhaps during the anthrax scare, but not during 21
the COVID -19 pandemic.   22
Is that correct?   23
A That's correct.   24
Q Okay.   25

  164
So the select subcommittee had sent a letter on September 26, 2023, to the 1
Inspector General of HHS.  Are you generally aware of that, of what I'm talking about?  2
A No.  3
Q Okay.  I can give you some context.   4
So there was a letter sent to the Inspector General from the select subcommittee.  5
This was a public letter.  And I'm just going to read to you from a key paragraph here.   6
"According to information gathered by the select subcommittee, Dr.  Anthony 7
Fauci, then -Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, played a 8
role in the Central Intelligence Agency's review of the origins of COVID -19.  The 9
information provided suggests that Dr. Fauci was escorted into Central Intelligence 10
Agency, CIA, headquarters without a record of entry and participated in the analysis to 11
'influence' the Agency's review."   12
So that is part of -- that is an allegation in a letter that was sent on September 26, 13
2023.   14
So you were not aware of that letter?   15
A I had heard that there was an accusation that somehow I got into the CIA 16
without anybody knowing about it, a.k.a.  Jason Bourne.   17
Q So that is  -- that's the origin of, I think, that allegation, is  --  18
A I didn't know what the origin of it was, but I had heard the fantastical 19
accusation that somehow I got into the CIA without there being a record.  And having 20
gone into the CIA when the anthrax situation was, anybody who knows anything about 21
the CIA knows that that's about as impossible as you can get, is to sneak into the CIA.  22
Q Well, we've put one origin to rest here today, which is good.   23
So, just so you know, I mean, that letter was public, and it accompanied a press 24
release that sort of recapped the allegations in here.   25

  165
And, I guess, given some of the things that we talked about, particularly earlier 1
this morning, does it concern you that, you know, this allegation is made publicly, that 2
you somehow surreptitiously or with the cooperation of the CIA entered without a record 3
and, you know, intended to influence improperly the intelligence community's analysis on 4
the origins of COVID?  Do you find that concerning?   5
A Well, it's really concerning, because it made me go home and say, maybe I 6
somehow went into a fugue state and went into  -- but then I realized that you can't get 7
into the CIA without the CIA knowing about it.   8
So it did concern me.  I mean, any real falsification of reality regarding me gets 9
back to what we said before.  It has been an extraordinary couple of years of complete 10
fabrications about me.  This is just one of a large number of fabrications, all of which 11
have been debunked.  And, you know, you may have heard about them.  And I don't 12
even want to bring them up, but they're really bizarre.   13
Q So that actually brings  me to a good question.  Do you think it's fair to you 14
that allegations  -- we'll just take this one  -- that this allegation was made in a letter that 15
was made public, along with a press release, and that your answer, your response, to 16
both majority staff's one or two questions on this and then my questions here, that those 17
answers might remain behind closed doors if the transcript of this interview is not 18
released?  Is that concerning to you?  19
A Yes.  20
Q Do you think that's fair?  21
A It's unfair, and it's concerning.  22
Q Okay.  Thank you.   23
Mrs. Dingell.   Back to me?  Okay.  24
We've discussed quite a bit yesterday and today the importance of scientific 25

  166
processes and how data and robust studies are essential to making informed decisions 1
about public health, including treatments.   2
I'd like to talk with you about the risk to the public when treatments are promoted 3
that have not received rigorous analysis.   4
In the spring of 2020, President Trump began promoting hydroxychloroquine as a 5
treatment for COVID.  I'd like to walk through the timeline and your reaction to the 6
events that happened.   7
First, at a Coronavirus Task Force press briefing on March 18, 2020, Dr.  Birx 8
received a question about some work that French researchers had done with 9
hydroxychloroquine and whether that might be a therapeutic in the U.S.   10
Dr. Birx responded, in part, that the President asked for a critical briefing on that 11
today and also that there's always anecdotal reports and we're trying to figure out how 12
many anecdotal reports equal real scientific breakthroughs.   13
Do you generally agree with what Dr.  Birx appeared to be saying here, that it's 14
important to not take anecdotal evidence as dispositive and, instead, take the step, 15
where warranted, and subject a potential treatment to solid, methodological, scientific 16
scrutiny to test if it really works as a reliable process?   17
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.  And I've said that myself many, many times.   18
Mrs. Dingell.   The next day, again, at a COVID Task Force press briefing that was 19
on March 19, 2020, President Trump said the following:  "Now, a drug, 20
chloroquine -- and some people would add to it hydroxy, hydroxychloroquine.  So 21
chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine.  Now, this is a common"  -- this is President Trump 22
saying this.   23
"This is a common malaria drug.  It is also a drug used for strong arthritis, if 24
somebody has pretty serious arthritis.  Also use this in a somewhat different  -- they also 25

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use it in a somewhat different form.  But it is known as a malaria drug, and it's been 1
around for a long time, and it's very powerful.   2
"But the nice part is, it's been around for a long time, so we know that if things 3
don't go as planned it's not going to kill anybody.  When you go with a brand -new drug, 4
you don't know what's going to happen.  You have to see and you have to go long test.  5
But this has been used in different forms, very powerful drug in different forms.  And it's 6
shown very encouraging -- very, very encouraging early results.   7
"And we're going to be able to make this drug available almost immediately.  8
And that's where the FDA has been so great.  They've gone through the approval 9
process.  It's been approved, and they did it.  They took it down from many, many 10
months to immediate.  So we're going to be able to make the drug available by 11
prescription for States."   12
So, first, just so we are clear on this, chloroquine  -- for you, Dr. 13
Fauci -- chloroquine and hydroxychloro --  14
Dr. Fauci.   Hydroxychloroquine.   15
Mrs. Dingell.   -- thank you -- are two different, distinct drugs, right?   16
Dr. Fauci.   They are.  The chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are used for 17
malaria.  For the people who have rheumatoid arthritis, you would prescribe 18
hydroxychloroquine 200 milligrams twice a day at first and then bring it down to 200 19
milligrams a day.  20
Mrs. Dingell.   So it's actually two distinctive drugs.  21
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  Yeah.  But they're related.  They're related.  22
Mrs. Dingell.   So -- but we've gone in one day from Dr.  Birx saying that there are 23
some anecdotes that may lead to  more rigorous examination of this drug as a treatment 24
to President Trump saying that the FDA has approved that treatment.  Is that correct?   25

  168
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  But I think  -- can I  --  1
Mrs. Dingell.   You might as well tell me your reaction.   2
Dr. Fauci.   Okay.  So there's a couple of things there.  3
Just because a drug has been used for one disease in a population at a certain 4
dose does not mean that it's effective  -- that doesn't mean it's effective for another 5
disease in which there's only anecdotal information that it works.   6
And as you probably know, you may get to, I was asked a similar question by a 7
reporter at a press conference, in which President Trump said that, hydroxychloroquine, I 8
don't know, I have a good feeling about it, I think it works, you know, why not this, et 9
cetera, et cetera.  I got up and said, "No, it's anecdotal, and I would only use a clinical 10
trial to make a decision about that."   11
And I think the problem here is that there was a confu - -- not a confusion, but 12
there was a statement that, yes, it's been approved by the FDA for rheumatoid arthritis, 13
malaria, and other autoimmune diseases, but it was not approved for COVID.  And what 14
we needed was randomized, controlled clinical trials to show that it was safe and 15
effective, and they were not done.   16
And people were individually giving the President anecdotes that it worked, and I 17
was saying that anecdotes are not the final say when you make a decision about a drug 18
for someone.   19
And, as it turned out when the studies finally came in, it showed to be not only 20
ineffective but actually not particularly safe.   21
Mrs. Dingell.   So -- I was going to paraphrase you, so you did a great job of 22
paraphrasing yourself.   23
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  24
Mrs. Dingell.   But it seems to me that what you're saying here is pretty 25

  169
compatible with what Dr.  Birx was saying in the first press briefing.  You received 1
anecdotal evidence, and maybe, as a result of that, something is put into the pipeline for 2
rigorous study.  Do you agree with that?   3
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.  Anecdotes should suggest doing a clinical study.  But 4
continued anecdotes are not the definitive answer.   5
Mrs. Dingell.   And if --  6
Dr. Fauci.   So you could have a friend tell you it worked in them and another 7
friend said it worked in them and another friend said it worked in them.  That's not a 8
clinical study.   9
Mrs. Dingell.   And if you'll recall, the President at the time said it's giving people 10
hope.   11
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  12
Mrs. Dingell.   But hope can have consequences if it's not  -- can have 13
consequences.  And I know that because my stepson took it and doctors told me he may 14
not live.  He was in the hospital for weeks.   15
But can you talk about the potential harm about just hoping that a treatment will 16
work and giving it to patients without that clinical assessment, without the  --  17
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, I think that's quite risky.  And, in fact, a study came out 18
yesterday or the day before from multiple different countries which showed that if you 19
do look at people who have received hydroxychloroquine, that a modeling study showed 20
that that likely led to up to 16 - to 17,000 deaths.   21
Mrs. Dingell.   On March --  22
Dr. Fauci.   These are COVID patients.   23
Mrs. Dingell.   Yeah, no, I know that.  That's what my stepson took for COVID.   24
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  25

  170
Mrs. Dingell.   On March 28th, the FDA issued  -- of that year -- issued an 1
Emergency Use Authorization for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to be used in 2
hospitals under certain conditions, including that they be placed on careful heart 3
monitoring.   4
What was your reaction to that decision?  And were you involved in it at all?   5
Dr. Fauci.   I was not involved in the decision.  And I was a bit perplexed that it 6
was -- because I still felt you needed more information before you gave it an Emergency 7
Use Authorization.   8
Mrs. Dingell.   So I'm going to ask you, do you think that the narrow 9
circumstances for this were properly communicated, for the Emergency Use, by the FDA?   10
Dr. Fauci.   Well, the FDA's  -- what am I trying to say?  The FDA's criteria for an 11
Emergency Use Authorization is that there's at least a hint of efficacy and very unlikely to 12
be any toxicity associated with it.   13
So, again, I wasn't particularly happy that it would be widely used without a study.   14
Mrs. Dingell.   And knowing that the President communicating that would 15
probably have other people  -- my stepson is a very strong supporter of the former 16
President and, because he said it, took it.   17
So I don't want to get you too political here today, but how do we make  -- do you 18
have any comments about how we keep things scientific and don't  --  19
Dr. Fauci.   It's easy.  Just keep things scientific.   20
Mrs. Dingell.   There you go.   21
And as an apparent consequence of this treatment, there were several 22
unintended but foreseeable events.  There were instances of individuals becoming 23
poisoned with non -medicinal chloroquine.  One man died in Arizona, you may 24
remember, for example, due to the ingestion of non -pharmaceutical chloroquine, which 25

  171
is used to clean fish tanks, and others who took this drug off -label experienced heart 1
problems, as we discussed.   2
As a result, FDA issued a warning on April 24, 2020, less than a month after the 3
EUA, that concluded the following:  "The FDA is aware of reports of serious heart 4
rhythm problems in patients with COVID -19 treated with hydrochloric"  -- I don't know 5
why I'm having such a problem today  -- "hydroxychloroquine or"  --  6
Dr. Fauci.   Just say "HC."  7
Mrs. Dingell.   -- "HC or C, often in combination with erythromycin or other 8
QT-prolonging medicines.  We are also aware of increased use of these medicines 9
throughout patient prescriptions.  Therefore, we would like to remind healthcare 10
professionals and patients of the known risks associated with both HC and chloroquine.  11
We will continue to investigate risks associated with the use of HC and chloroquine for 12
COVID -19 and communicate publicly when we have more information."   13
They have not been shown to  -- and they said then that it had not been shown to 14
be safe and effective for treating or preventing COVID -19.   15
On June 15, 2020, FDA revoked the EUA altogether.  FDA stated that, "We made 16
this determination based on recent results from a large, randomized clinical trial in 17
hospitalized patients that found these medicines showed no benefit for decreasing the 18
likelihood of death or speeding recovery.  This outcome was consistent with other new 19
data, including those showing the suggested dosing for these medicines are unlikely to kill 20
or inhibit the virus that causes COVID -19."   21
So, when we went from one anecdotal study being discussed on March 18th to an 22
FDA EUA on March 28th, an FDA warning on April 24th, and a revocation on June 15th, 23
does that seem like a rather rapid rise and fall for the use of a drug?   24
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.   25

  172
Mrs. Dingell.   And then you are aware, because you brought it up.  Are you 1
aware of a recently published study that estimates the number of deaths that appear to 2
be caused by off -label -- 3
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  4
Mrs. Dingell.   -- which is a different study?  "This meta -analysis examined 5
numerous reports across 6 countries and estimates that over 12,000 individuals in the 6
U.S. may have died as a result."   7
But since we're trying to learn from the pandemic, what are the lessons you think 8
we should take away from this particular episode?  Do you think that it's dangerous for 9
political pressure to dictate scientific decisions?   10
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.   11
Mrs. Dingell.   Do you think it is dangerous to rely on anecdotal evidence to make 12
large -scale health policy decisions?   13
Dr. Fauci.   I think that anecdotal data should trigger a clinical trial and should not 14
be used to make broadly applicable health decisions.   15
Mrs. Dingell.   And do you think it's especially important for political and public 16
health leaders to ensure that their guidance is sound and evidence -based when people 17
are particularly scared and need help?   18
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.   19
Mrs. Dingell.   And, with that, I turn it back to    20
Ms. Castor.   Can I ask one thing?   21
I just want to make sure, this is the February 2024 Biomedicine and 22
Pharmacotherapy article.  Just for the transcript purposes, that we ought to put in there 23
that the use of hydroxychloroquine during COVID led to an estimate of 17,000 24
unnecessary deaths in the 6 countries analyzed.  Is that the  --  25

  173
Dr. Fauci.   Yes, that's the paper.   1
Ms. Castor.   Thank you.  2
3

  174
 1
Mrs. Dingell.   Do you have anything else?   2
BY  3
Q So, Dr. Fauci, I just wanted to quickly touch on a topic that my majority 4
colleagues covered briefly at the tail end of the last hour, and that is COVID -19 in nursing 5
homes and congregate care facilities.   6
I think a key takeaway from the COVID -19 pandemic is the importance of 7
bolstering infrastructure that's in place to protect medically vulnerable populations, 8
particularly people who are elderly, particularly people with disabilities.  And this is 9
particularly important for nursing homes, it's important for assisted living facilities, and 10
it's important for other congregate care facilities.   11
Dr. Fauci, just briefly, why are residents of congregate care facilities at particular 12
risk when it comes to respiratory infections like COVID -19?   13
A Well, when you go into a facility like that, you have people who mostly are 14
compromised, either because of a medical condition or age or a medical condition plus 15
age.  So, inherently, they're already susceptible to any infection that they might get.   16
When you're in a closed situation where there's not the ability to move around 17
and are congregated together in rooms like this or in rooms that are adjacent to each 18
other, a respiratory illness in that circumstance can spread rapidly.   19
And that's historically very, very clear when you see influenza outbreaks in nursing 20
homes or intermediate care homes.  And the typical prototype of that is influenza, but 21
we saw that very clearly with COVID when it happened.   22
Q And so my next question was going to be, are there specific or unique 23
features of COVID -19 compared to other respiratory diseases that made it particularly 24
dangerous for residents in congregate care facilities?   25

  175
A Yeah.  It was  -- it's much  -- particularly the most recent variants like 1
Omicron is highly, highly transmissible even when people don't have symptoms.  So you 2
could have a situation where a person seems reasonably well, goes to the common game 3
room of an intermediate facility, and could spread it very easily to the rest of the folks in 4
there.   5
But the critical issue of those types of facilities is the overwhelming proportion of 6
vulnerable people in those facilities.   7
Q And, then, looking back to March 2020, when COVID -19 first really struck 8
across the country, in your view, did nursing homes and other congregate care facilities 9
across the country have adequate infection -control measures in place to sufficiently 10
protect their residents and staff?   11
A You know, I believe it was even the opinion of Seema Verma at the time that 12
it wasn't; we didn't have enough, and we needed to do better.  And she was one that 13
was pushing that we needed better infection control in places.  14
Q And so, to the idea or the mission of doing better on infection control, what 15
lessons should we be taking away?  What policies, as a government, can we be pushing 16
or pursuing to better insulate congregate care facilities from the threat?   17
A Well, I think you should have better training, better ventilation, all the things 18
that we spoke about.  That might even be applicable to schools.   19
But one of the things that we spoke about that's important is that you should do it 20
before the fact, not chasing an outbreak.   21
So, right now, we should be -- lessons learned for the future -- and that's what I 22
believe this whole thing should be about, is lessons learned -- is that we should be now 23
preparing those facilities for the possibility of yet again another outbreak.  Speaking of 24
which, we are not finished with COVID yet.   25

  176
Q Right.  1
So, with the 10 or so minutes that remain in this round, I wanted to revisit a topic 2
and pick up where Congresswoman Castor left off in a previous round, that topic being 3
vaccine hesitancy.   4
Now, during the course of the COVID -19 pandemic, I think we saw a number of 5
different misrepresentations about the safety and efficacy of the COVID -19 vaccine.   6
Dr. Fauci, is it your view during the COVID -19 vaccine that vaccine hesitancy grew 7
or increased?  8
A It grew, yes.   9
Q And so Ms.  Castor, in her round, mentioned a few striking examples of these 10
misrepresentations.  Are there any others that you'd quickly like to address or add for 11
the record?  12
A Well, nothing specific, except that there clearly is a disparity of acceptance 13
of vaccines depending upon what State you're in, which I have found, as a nonpolitical 14
person who's been a nonpolitical person all my career, that it just is so painful to see that 15
people are not getting vaccinated on the basis of the political ideology of a State.   16
I mean, why should red States have more suffering and deaths than blue States 17
because of a lower level of vaccination?  I just think that's unfair to the citizens in those 18
States, to not get vaccinated by a vaccine that is safe and effective and life -saving.   19
Q And so, looking at vaccine hesitancy, I, personally  -- I believe you'll agree, but 20
for the record  -- believe that vaccine hesitancy has the potential to be one of the most 21
significant public health threats of our time, to undermine confidence in one of the most 22
integral tools we have to protect public health here in the United States and across the 23
world.   24
Do you agree with that?   25

  177
A I definitely agree with that.  And my concern is that vaccine hesitancy will 1
spill over from COVID to other vaccines, which would really be a problem.   2
I mean, for example, we know that whenever there's a diminution in the critical 3
level of people, children, who are vaccinated for measles, that you get measles outbreaks.  4
That's happened time and again.  Whenever you fall below the critical level in the 5
community of vaccinations with measles, children get vaccinated (sic).  And measles is a 6
very serious disease.   7
So vaccine hesitancy not only has a negative impact on health for COVID, but if it 8
spills over into other vaccines that have been proven to be life -saving for children and 9
preventing children from getting severe disease, then vaccine hesitancy is going to spread 10
to any of a number of other areas.   11
Q And so you mentioned measles.  Over the course of the past 2, 3, 4 years, 12
we, I think as a society, have seen an uptick in outbreaks of diseases, diseases that we had 13
previously thought eliminated.   14
Aside from measles, are there other diseases or outbreaks that have been  --  15
A Mumps, pertussis.  I think those are the two most important in addition to 16
measles.  17
Q And you mentioned that we are seeing a decline in vaccination rates for 18
routine vaccinations, such as vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella, as collateral to 19
some of what we've observed with respect to misrepresentations regarding the COVID -19 20
vaccine.   21
I want your perspective here.  Because sometimes these declines or these drops 22
in vaccination rates may be a tenth of a percent, 1 percent.  But what does that mean, 23
practically, for the number of children in this country or the number of people who are 24
getting vaccinated for diseases like measles, mumps, and rubella?   25

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A Well, it puts them at risk, I mean, because now you're talking about vaccines 1
that prevent the spread of infection.  So, when you wind up having people who go 2
below the critical level of protection -- we've seen examples.  This is not surmising 3
between you and I.   4
I mean, when there was the big outbreak at Disney World in California, it was from 5
a group of people, you know, who had  -- measles, you should have 90 -plus percent of the 6
population vaccinated.  When it goes down to in the low -80s, you wind up with an 7
outbreak.   8
They had a population in the Rockland section, a community just north of New 9
York City, where there was a major measles outbreak because one child came in from 10
Israel who had been infected with measles and mingled with the children in the 11
community, in which measles was under vaccinated , and there was a significant number 12
of cases in that community.   13
So it isn't hypothetical.  It's happened, and it will happen again.   14
Q And so, as we look to address the rise of vaccine hesitancy in the United 15
States and internationally as well, there is, as I believe it and understand it, a population 16
of people who are apprehensive about vaccines but could be convinced or could be, sort 17
of, persuaded otherwise to obtain the vaccine.   18
How should public health professionals approach -- 19
A Yeah.  20
Q -- this community of people and the goal of combating vaccine hesitancy?  21
A Yeah.  Yeah, that's a great question.  I'll try to be as succinct as possible.   22
Of the people who are not getting vaccinated, there are some people who are 23
hardcore anti -vax.  No matter what you do, they're not going to get vaccinated.  But 24
there are other people that are influenced by the anti -vax and say, "Well, if these people 25

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don't want to get vaccinated, there must be a reason."  So they're less anti -vax than 1
hesitant to get vaccinated.   2
And I think that what we need to do is not treat them all as the same and attack 3
people who are hesitant about vaccination because they need more information or that 4
they have a cultural reason to be concerned about something that's offered from the 5
government.   6
You've got to be reaching out to them and not condemn them for being hesitant 7
to be vaccinated.  Because, again, you've got to separate somebody who's propagating 8
"don't get vaccinated, don't get vaccinated" versus the people who are innocently 9
hesitant because they want more information.   10
You can convince a lot of those people to get vaccinated if you provide them with 11
the proper information and get them to understand that the misinformation that's being 12
propagated about vaccines -- like, we've heard the example with the Surgeon General in 13
Florida -- I mean, we've got to convince people that that's not true.   14
Q And you mentioned in our discussion over these past few questions the 15
notion that vaccines have become politicized.  In your view, how has the vaccine 16
become politicized, or vaccines writ large?  And what have the ramifications of that 17
been?   18
A Well, you know, it's a pretty complicated situation about how it's become 19
politicized, is because political leaders in general either don't promote vaccines or are 20
outright against vaccines.  And that's, I think, detrimental to the health of their 21
constituencies, as we've seen, under certain circumstances.  So, to me, that is something 22
that is really unfortunate.  23
  We have a few minutes left.  I want to make 24
sure -- Congresswoman Castor, Congresswoman Dingell, do you have any questions on 25

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either of these topics?   1
Ms. Castor.   Well, another vaccine comes to mind; that's HPV.  Because we 2
were kind of on an upswing before the pandemic, but I've noted that the vaccine uptake 3
for HPV has gone down.  And that's a cancer prevention  --  4
Dr. Fauci.   Right.   5
Ms. Castor.   -- vaccine.  And coming at it from a parent's point of view, if there's 6
a vaccine that would prevent my daughters from contracting certain cancers, I rushed to 7
make sure that they were vaccinated at the appropriate time.   8
So what does that mean -- with vaccine hesitancy growing and now we have a 9
drop -off of parents getting their children vaccinated for human papillomavirus, what does 10
that mean in the outer years for cancer in families?   11
Dr. Fauci.   No, I think it's pretty obvious what it'll mean.  The effect of the HPV 12
vaccine on HPV infection and subsequent cancers is pretty clear.  If you have people 13
who pull back and don't get vaccinated, you're going to wind up X  number of years from 14
now seeing an increase in that condition.   15
Ms. Castor.   It'll cost lives.   16
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.   17
.  So, Dr. Fauci, we do have -- just for the record, we have the study 18
we were talking about in terms of excess mortality that appears to be caused by 19
hydroxychloroquine worldwide.   20
Candidly, I was not necessarily going to introduce it as an exhibit, because I figured 21
you were too busy this past week, I think, when this came out to have read it.  And then 22
you spontaneously brought it up.  So, because you did and because you've obviously 23
read it, I'll just circulate it so everybody has a copy.   24
This is exhibit W, I think we're up to on the minority side.  This is exhibit W.  25

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    [Fauci Minority Exhibit W  1
    was marked for identification.]  2
BY  3
Q So this is a paper -- I think this was just the online publication -- that was 4
going to appear in Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy entitled "Deaths induced by 5
compassionate use of hydroxychloroquine during the first COVID -19 wave:  an 6
estimate."   7
And, as we discussed, it's a review of 44 different cohort studies across, I think, 6 8
different countries estimating the number of excess mortality caused by 9
hydroxychloroquine, including I think it's over 12,000 deaths in the United States.   10
So, if you have any additional comments on it, that's fine.  But, again, I didn't 11
want to put this in front of you and make you read it.  But you'd already read it.   12
A No, I have not read the complete paper.   13
Q Okay.  14
A I wanted to make sure for the record.   15
Q Okay.  16
A I heard about it, I pulled it up, and I looked at the abstract and just quickly 17
skimmed through it, and I just looked at what the results are.  I'm going to have to read 18
the paper carefully, but I have not read the paper carefully.  19
Q You got a copy now.   20
A But I was aware of it, and I read the abstract.  21
Q Okay.  22
Ms. Castor.   You know what struck me too?  Because I did read it, and I started 23
going into a couple of the footnotes, actually.  And one area ripe for, I would hope, a 24
select subcommittee like this or Energy and Commerce O&I is the fly -by-night online 25

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pharmacies that help push a lot of this misinformation that likely made off with millions 1
of dollars at the expense of the health of so many Americans, whether it's 2
hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin or some other.   3
I don't know if that's something you ever dove into as  --  4
Dr. Fauci.   No, I have not.  No, I have not.   5
Ms. Castor.   Thank you.   6
  And, with that, I think we can go -- 7
  Off the record, yeah.  8
  -- off the record.  9
[Recess.] 10

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[4:34 p.m.]   1
Mr. Benzine.   We can go back on the record.  2
BY MR. BENZINE:  3
Q I want to talk about a couple of other mitigation policies specific to COVID, 4
but then how we can apply them going forward.   5
There was a, obviously, big to -do about lockdowns and social distancing and all 6
that that kind of caused.  And you mentioned previously the 15 days to slow the spread, 7
30 days to slow the spread that we had seen at least in New York, like, on the tipping 8
point  --  9
A Right.   10
Q -- of being overwhelmed.   11
Our -- I'm going to use "lockdowns" colloquially -- but, obviously, we did not see 12
what we did -- what happened in Wuhan did not happen in the United States.  And I 13
think you've gone on record saying it probably wouldn't have worked very well in the 14
United States.  15
A Right.  16
Q It's just a different --  17
A We had significant social distancing as opposed to lockdown --  18
Q Yes. 19
A -- in a lockdown sense.   20
Q Do you recall when discussions regarding, kind of, the at -least -a-6-foot 21
threshold began?  22
A The 6 -foot in the school?   23
Q Six-foot overall.  I mean, 6 -foot was applied at businesses --   24
A Yeah.  25

  184
Q -- it was applied in schools, it was applied here.  At least how the messaging 1
was applied was that 6 -foot distancing was the distance that needed to be  --  2
A You know, I don't recall.  It sort of just appeared.  I don't recall, like, a 3
discussion of whether it should be 5 or 6 or whatever.  It was just that 6 -foot is --  4
Q Did you see any studies that supported 6 feet?  5
A I was not aware of studies that -- in fact, that would be a very difficult study 6
to do.  7
Q I know.  I'm just trying to figure out why 6 versus 3 or 4 or 5.   8
A Yeah.  Yeah.   9
Q Like, 6 is a significant distance.  I mean, you've testified here.  I think you 10
testified in front of Mr.  Scalise a couple times when I was working for him.  And recalling 11
the hearing rooms, instead of, like, seven members on the top of the dais, there's two, 12
and --  13
A Right.   14
Q -- it was just two staffers behind.   15
A Yeah.  Yeah.  I think it would fall under the category of empiric.  Just an 16
empiric decision that wasn't based on data or even data that could be accomplished.   17
But I'm thinking hard as I'm talking to you.   18
Q Uh-huh.  19
A I don't recall, like, a discussion of, "Now it's going to be" -- it sort of just 20
appeared, that 6 feet is going to be the distance.   21
Q We, some members of the staff, took visits to Los Alamos and Livermore 22
National Laboratories  --  23
A Yeah.  24
Q -- and met with some of their, like, high -throughput computing people and 25

  185
their epidemiologists.  And they said -- and I just want to get your opinion on this, and I 1
trust that what they're saying is a capability that they are able to do -- but that they could, 2
in essence, high -throughput compute and map a sneeze and determine the distance of 3
the germ spread to then kind of figure out what the distance needs to be.   4
Do you recall anything like that?  5
A I've seen in literature that I've read and passed through recently and even 6
some time ago, you know, the picture of somebody sneezing, and they show -- 7
Q Uh-huh.  8
A -- the spray and what the distance of the spray is.  But that doesn't take 9
into account aerosol.   10
Q Like, wind?  11
A Yeah.  Or particles that, even without wind, just hang around for a while.  12
Q Okay.  I didn't think that through, I guess.   13
But do you think that there are aspects to the government that could be better 14
leveraged in a future pandemic?  15
A That's a pretty broad question.  Like, what do you mean?   16
Q I guess, like, when we visited -- I'm going to use the labs specifically, but I 17
think there's, like, lots of aspects in the government beyond NIH and CDC that have 18
expertise that could try to attack a pandemic, this being one example.   19
A Yeah.  20
Q Do you think, kind of, going beyond just the public health aspect would be 21
better in attacking a pandemic?  22
A You know, I think the public health element should drive it, but they should 23
get input.   24
For example, you know, that "Gesundheit Machine" that is used, I think, at the 25

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University of Maryland or up at Hopkins?   1
Q Uh-huh.  2
A I think many of the people who are there are not officially public health 3
people but they have technical expertise.   4
Q Thank you.   5
I guess one of the things that we're evaluating is trying to leverage the 6
Department of Energy, the labs in particular, a little bit more.  They also  -- like, the -- I'm 7
dribbling out the clock now, so -- but they said they could use their, kind of, like, nuclear 8
expertise on the radiation clouds to map how things were going through the air  --  9
A Right.   10
Q -- and stuff like that.  So I think just  --  11
A Yeah.  12
Q -- for your own -- I don't know -- as we move forward, that that kind of stuff 13
is of interest.   14
A You know, I think the -- I actually, after a while, had some communications 15
with -- I wanted to learn more about aerosol, and there was a group that was doing an 16
aerosol study.  And it was really interesting to see that a lot of things that we thought go 17
quickly to the ground actually stay up much, much longer than they do.  And that would 18
be someone who's an aerosol expert.   19
Q Uh-huh.  20
A Yeah.   21
Q All right.  I want to talk about some specific things.  And, early on, you 22
talked about the 15 days to slow the spread.  What was the basis for 15 days at that 23
time?  24
A It was Debbie Birx who actually was the main driver of that.  And I'm not 25

  187
sure exactly why she picked 15.  I imagine she wanted to get a good start on it, I think, 1
knowing deep down that it was going to be more -- 2
Q Uh-huh.  3
A -- than 15, but let's try to get the President to agree to 15, and if he agreed 4
to 15, then maybe we, as a Coronavirus Task Force, could convince him to extend it to 30.  5
Because no one, I think, really believed that a pause for 15 days with an outbreak that's 6
doing this exponentially is going to be the final solution.   7
So I think it was an empiric choice on the part of Debbie.   8
Q The -- and, again, this is kind of for my own edification.  The goal of the 15 9
days wasn't necessarily to kill the outbreak but to get it to a point that we could 10
recuperate some PPE  --  11
A Yeah.  12
Q -- recuperate some hospital space.  Is that right?  13
A Right.  It was to flatten the curve, so that it wasn't necessarily geared at 14
decreasing the ultimate number of cases, but the number of cases that we could actually 15
handle.   16
It was very much triggered by a real concern that the hospitals were going to get 17
overrun.  And one of the things about hospitals getting overrun that was very, very 18
concerning is to put our healthcare providers in the position of having to decide between 19
two essentially equal people who is going to get the ventilator -- 20
Q Uh-huh.  21
A -- or who is going to get the intensive care unit bed.  That would've been 22
really devastating, to -- and, to me, as a physician, that would be a position I would never 23
want to be in.   24
Q Uh-huh.  25

  188
And then you said it was subsequently extended to 30  days --  1
A Thirty days, yeah.  2
Q -- I think, a little bit before the 15 was over?  Or was it on the 15?  3
A Yeah.  No, no, no, no.  I mean, it was clear that  -- the 30 -day proposal was 4
presented to the President while we were in the 15 -day period because it was clear that it 5
was not going to last.  6
Q Yeah.  And, again, the goal there wasn't -- it was to flatten the curve --   7
A Right.  8
Q -- to get to a point where we could have a manageable response.   9
A Right.  Exactly.  10
Q And at that point, and I guess probably never, the goal of these was not to 11
shut down the economy or, like, you know, kick people out of their jobs or anything like 12
that?   13
A That certainly wasn't the goal, to do that.  I think there was a realization on 14
the part of -- I don't know.  I'm talking about White House discussions, so I'm getting 15
nervous now.  So --   16
Mr. Barstow.   You're okay.   17
Dr. Fauci.   Am I okay?   18
BY MR. BENZINE:   19
Q Kevin will tell you if you're not doing okay.   20
A Okay.   21
So there was a discussion -- and that gets to what we were saying about who's the 22
ultimate decider.   23
You know, when Debbie presents -- so the way it went is that Debbie came up 24
with this plan.  She showed it to me, you know, relatively soon before she presented it, 25

  189
and then showed it to the Vice President, and it was agreed to go to the President.   1
And, then, when she made the presentation, there was a discussion by the 2
economy people, saying, you know, whoa, wait a minute, you know, what effect is this 3
going to have?  4
Q Uh-huh.  5
A And the ultimate decision was made, let's go with it for now and see what 6
happens.   7
So it wasn't directed because we wanted to hurt the economy --   8
Q Yeah, yeah.  9
A -- but the economic people weighed in and said, you know, we'd better at 10
least consider the economic implications of this.   11
Q So it's what we were talking about earlier, that  --  12
A Yeah.  13
Q -- there should be multiple people at the table during  --  14
A And there were --  15
Q Yes. 16
A -- multiple people, and the table was the Resolute  desk.    17
Q And I'm agreeing with you that  -- 18
A Yeah.   19
Q -- during a pandemic, that there needs to be multiple voices.  While, 20
obviously, their health and keeping people alive needs to be the primary driver  -- 21
A Right.   22
Q -- but taking into consideration other aspects.   23
I mean, we've touched on this very briefly, but, at that point, you know, 24
relationships with China were starting to be a little fraught, and, obviously, economic 25

  190
situations, school situations.   1
So, I guess, while we're preparing for the future, having a response that is 2
well-rounded is better than single -point -driven.  Is that correct?  3
A Yeah.  4
Q Okay.   5
We've talked a decent amount about vaccines, and I want to talk a little bit more, 6
particularly just COVID vaccines.  I think we can all agree that COVID vaccines saved 7
probably innumerable lives at this point, kept enumerable people out of the hospital, and 8
probably kept innumerable people from getting sick.   9
In April 2020 was when Operation Warp Speed was announced.  Were you 10
involved in, kind of, the planning process for that program, kind of like the brain trust that 11
says, if we put this on paper, we can do this?  12
A No, but -- and, if so, in a very minor way.   13
When we were talking about it, the concept that we were going to have to do 14
something that was really unprecedented in getting this vaccine done, my part was the 15
scientific part.   16
Q Uh-huh.  17
A You know, how quickly can you get something into clinical trial?   18
Operation Warp Speed was a bit more of an implementing function, as opposed to 19
getting the research to be translated to a vaccine.  So my responsibility, which I 20
discussed in detail before the group here, was to make sure that we got the vaccine work 21
started, we got it into a phase 1 trial, and we quickly did it the other.   22
Operation Warp Speed was a combination of making sure that companies knew 23
that we were going to pay and take all the risks financially -- because the companies 24
would not  -- for two ways:  the risks of the clinical trials, which they did not have to pay 25

  191
for, we paid for, "we" being the Federal Government, and to pre -purchase -- 1
Q Uh-huh.  2
A -- the vaccine before it was proven to be effective.  So the risk was that, if it 3
isn't effective, we, being the Federal Government, lost a lot of money, and the companies 4
wouldn't lose any money.   5
All of that I was not involved in.  What I was involved in was the scientific 6
component of it.   7
Q And maybe it was delineated more internally, but at least publicly, part of it 8
was kind of -- "loosening" regulations isn't the right word, but figuring out where we can 9
speed up the process --  10
A Right.   11
Q -- obviously, knowing a vaccine was important, where we can speed up the 12
trial process, the approval processes, that kind of stuff.   13
Were you involved in any of those discussions?  14
A I might've been.  And I'm trying to think about to what extent I was 15
involved with it.  It could've been something like, we want to make sure we speed it up 16
but we don't speed it up by compromising safety.  17
Q Uh-huh.  18
A And that's one of the things that I probably would've gotten in a discussion 19
in, as opposed to the logistics of getting all of these things done would be more  -- how 20
many people do we need on a clinical trial?  We need 30,000, you know, total, 15,000 21
prelim.  It's likely I got involved in that discussion of it.  It was more of something that 22
related very closely to the science and clinical trials.  23
Q Do you think the process of Operation Warp Speed, the, kind of, medical side 24
that you were talking about, but also when you were -- you probably saw the other 25

  192
aspects, right?  Like, you were  --  1
A No, I was there.  I definitely saw it.  2
Q -- at least in the room to talk about distribution and that kind of stuff?  3
A Oh, yeah.  Yeah.  Yes.  4
Q Do you think that kind of thought process could be scaled to other 5
pharmaceuticals?  6
A I think it can.   7
I mean, I don't think anybody would argue that Operation Warp Speed was a great 8
success.  No doubt about that.  I think that an Operation Warp Speed -like approach 9
could be applied -- and, I guess, when you talk about lessons learned for other diseases, it 10
could be applied to other diseases.   11
There was a great, I would say, social and almost emotional need to do this 12
because we were in the middle of a crisis.  I would like to see an Operation Warp Speed 13
approach of a great collaboration and synergy between industry and the Federal 14
Government and academia, the way it was, be done in situations that were not only 15
crises.  In other words, there are other diseases that we could do this on that are not in 16
a crisis mode.   17
And I think a lesson could be learned, how successful it is when you get good 18
partnership between the Federal Government and the private sector, which is essentially 19
what Operation Warp Speed was.  20
Q So maybe applying the thought process to target diseases to prevent a 21
future pandemic or at least attempt to prevent a future pandemic?  22
A Yeah.  Right.   23
Q On December 11, 2020, the FDA authorized a COVID vaccine  -- I think it was 24
Pfizer at that point --  25

  193
A Right.  1
Q -- for EUA.  Were you involved at all in the EUA process?  2
A You know, I know it sounds strange when I say, I don't recall.  But I 3
probably was involved in the discussion of, let's take a look at the data, and do these -- so 4
I would say, I can't say definitively -- 5
Q Uh-huh.  6
A -- but it is likely that I was involved in an analysis of the data.  7
Q When we talked to Dr. Birx, now, in 2021 -- October  2021 is when Dr. Birx sat 8
for a 2 -day interview, just like you -- she said that, at that point, she was having 9
discussions about compassionate use for the vaccine; that, I guess, the trials had shown 10
that it wasn't dangerous but not yet proven that it was effective, and that, at that point, 11
you know, you could apply for compassionate use.   12
Do you recall anything about that?  13
A I don't recall -- I don't recall at the time -- I don't recall that that's what she 14
was saying at the time.  But I know, after the fact, that that's what I think she had 15
mentioned.  She wrote it in her book or --  16
Q Yeah.   17
A Yeah.  I think that's where I remember it.   18
Q I want to -- and you've touched on it a little bit, some of the misinformation 19
and, kind of, things that surrounded the vaccine.  As I said in the beginning, like, it has 20
saved millions of lives, kept millions of people out of the hospital.   21
And a theme of the past 2 days, I think, across the aisle, has been:  Words of 22
people that are in at least perceived positions of authority and public faces matter, and 23
how you say things matters, and promises you make matter.   24
In March of 2021  -- and we asked Director Walensky about this before, too  -- but 25

  194
she was on TV and said, "Our data from the CDC suggests that vaccinated people do not 1
carry the virus and don't get sick."   2
I think, as I've just admitted and will admit time and time again, the vaccine was 3
wildly important, but there were breakthrough cases.   4
A Yeah.  5
Mr. Schertler.   I'm sorry.  What date was that, Mitch?   6
Mr. Benzine.   March 2021.   7
Mr. Schertler.   Okay.  Got it.  8
BY MR. BENZINE:  9
Q And saying, if you get vaccinated, the quote is, "You don't get sick."  That's 10
just not accurate, right?  11
A You know, I think she was speaking in generalities, and with every one of 12
those, there's exceptions.   13
What I believe that Dr.  Walensky was referring to is that, at the time when you're 14
protected -- you know, we know that the efficacy, or the effectiveness, as it were, 15
essentially wanes after X number of months.  I think what she was saying  -- that when 16
you're at a point of maximum protection, it is very unlikely that you're going to get sick.   17
And I think when public health people speak about "you're not going to get sick," 18
it means there's always an exception to that.  And I would imagine that Dr.  Walensky 19
had in mind that there would be exceptions to that.   20
Q You didn't go quite that far in one statement.  You said the vaccine made 21
you a dead -end for the virus.  Do you recall that statement?  22
A No, I don't.  23
Q It was May 2021.  "When you get vaccinated, you not only protect your 24
own health and that of the family, but also you contribute to the community health by 25

  195
preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community.  In other words, you 1
become a dead -end to the virus."   2
A Right.  That was at a time when the data had shown, at least with the 3
variance that we were talking about, that there was a significant degree of protection 4
against infection as well as against serious disease.   5
As I mentioned during one of the previous questions, as we develop different 6
variants, particularly the Omicron variant, the protection against actual infection, which 7
would protect you from getting infected -- 8
Q Uh-huh.  9
A -- and essentially make it a dead -end for you  -- not a dead -end for the 10
community, but a dead -end for you -- that was a correct statement.   11
But that statement really, as we got more and more information about the waning 12
of protection against infection  -- so, right now, I believe if you ask me  -- which you 13
will -- or anybody else, that, right now, vaccines do not necessarily protect very well at all 14
against infection, but the ability to protect you from getting into the hospital is still pretty 15
strong.  16
Q Uh-huh.  And, I mean, putting aside, kind of, the long -COVID symptoms, the 17
goal of most vaccines is to keep you from dying.  Is that accurate?  18
A Well, from getting sick.  I mean --   19
Q Yeah.   20
A -- I don't like to be in the hospital -- I don't know about you -- 21
Q Well, yeah.   22
A -- and walk out alive; I'd rather not go to the hospital.  But -- 23
Q Yeah.  That's fair.   24
A Okay.   25

  196
Q Along the same lines, in July of 2021, President Biden was giving a townhall, 1
and he said, "If you're vaccinated, you're not going to be hospitalized, you're not going to 2
be in the IC unit, and you're not going to die."   3
To my knowledge, President Biden is not a public health expert, so I'm not going 4
to -- he's not -- 5
A Yeah.   6
Q -- he doesn't have the benefit of speaking in generalities like you just said.   7
A Yeah.  8
Q That, to me  -- I mean, by July 2021, there were vaccinated people in the 9
hospital, correct?  10
A Right.   11
Q There were vaccinated people in the IC unit, correct?  12
A Yeah.  Unusual, but there were people, obviously, who -- I mean, much, 13
much, much, much -- 14
Q Yes.   15
A -- less of a chance than if you were unvaccinated.  But, yes, there were 16
vaccinated people who wound up getting sick and dying.  17
Q And vaccinated people had passed away by this point?  18
A Right.  Right.   19
Q I think we've talked a lot about misinformation.  Misinformation -- 20
A Yeah.  21
Q -- cuts both ways.   22
A Yeah.  But I believe, I believe sincerely, that the President meant "for the 23
most part," as opposed to "100  percent."  24
Q And I get that.  And I -- it's just, it's a recurring theme, not just with you, not 25

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just with the President, but that we see people -- this implies to the general public that if I 1
get a vaccine I'm good to go, I'm not going to get sick --   2
A Right.   3
Q -- I'm not going to die.  And while it's very accurate that you're way less 4
likely to die --  5
A Right.   6
Q -- it's not accurate to say you are not going to die.   7
A Yeah.  8
Q I mean, generally, do you think people need to be more wise with their 9
words when discussing these things?  10
A Yeah, I mean, I think it would be more accurate to say that if you get 11
vaccinated there's an overwhelmingly less chance that you're going to get sick or die.   12
But I think the President very likely meant that, but he said it in a way that seemed 13
a little bit more absolute.  I don't think he was -- in fact, I'm fairly certain that he wasn't 14
trying to fool anybody.   15
Q No, no.  And I'm not accusing him of trying to fool anybody.   16
All I'm saying is that we've seen people -- and I'm -- everybody is guilty of it on this 17
side of the table, and some on that side of the table too -- of parsing out statements and 18
nitpicking certain things.  And how we say things, especially in a public health crisis, 19
especially when talking about, you know, it's a vaccine, it's a very minor medical 20
procedure, it's still going to the doctor, it's still getting a shot  -- that we should be honest 21
with Americans and -- 22
A Yeah.  23
Q -- that words from the President of the United States matter.   24
A Yeah.  25

  198
Q And I can, like, feel my colleagues on the other side wanting to bring up 1
bleach, and I will say that words matter in that situation too.   2
A Yeah.  3
Q But -- I think this will be my last question on this -- like, do you think it 4
could've been reframed -- 5
A Yeah.  6
Q -- to be more accurate?  7
A But, again, you used a word, Mitch, that I would just push back on.  I don't 8
think the President was being dishonest with the American public.   9
I think, as a layperson, he was talking more in generalities than in, 100 percent, 10
this is sure.  He was saying that because, in his mind, vaccines work really, really well in 11
preventing you from getting infected and dying.  I don't believe for a second that there 12
was any degree of dishonesty in that.   13
Q Thank you.   14
I want to -- maybe not properly serving to the process of approving the vaccine, 15
but -- skip through the full approvals.  I imagine that was mostly FDA?  Is --   16
A Right.   17
Q -- that fair?  And move on to some of the policies that were implemented 18
after the vaccines got their full biologics approval.   19
Did you have any conversations with any schools, universities, or other 20
educational institutions regarding mandating vaccinations?  21
A I didn't go out to universities and say, "You should be mandating 22
vaccinations."  But I would occasionally get a phone call from a university president 23
saying, you know, "We really want to keep these kids safe.  We're thinking of making 24
sure that they get vaccinated.  Do you think that would be a reasonable idea?"  And I 25

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would say, "I think that would be a reasonable idea."   1
But I wouldn't all of a sudden, you know, go on a speaking tour -- 2
Q Uh-huh.  3
A -- to colleges, saying, "You should be mandating."  But when they suggest, 4
would that be a way to safeguard everybody, I would say yes.   5
And then, also, there's always an out for people who don't want to get vaccinated, 6
that they should wind up getting tested frequently enough to be safe.   7
Q The off -ramp?  8
A The off -ramp, right.   9
Q Same kind of question, and if it's the same answer, just tell me it's the same 10
answer.   11
Any conversations with major corporations  -- Amazon, Facebook, others  -- about 12
mandating vaccinations for employees?  13
A Well, you just gave two -- social media.  I don't talk to social media.   14
Q No, not in, like, social media ways.  I mean, did you have conversations with 15
major corporations about --  16
A Yeah, I'm trying to think, and I don't -- I do remember conversations with 17
university provosts -- 18
Q Uh-huh.  19
A -- and presidents, but I don't recall -- it is entirely conceivable that I did, but I 20
don't specifically recall.   21
Q You were interviewed for a book written by Michael Specter, and it's just 22
entitled "Fauci."  I don't know if you remember that interview.   23
A I do.  It wasn't a book; it was an article, wasn't it?   24
Q I think it was a -- 25

  200
A Yeah.  1
Q -- book.  You were interviewed by Michael Specter.   2
A Yeah.  It was, I think, for The Atlantic or something like that -- or the New 3
York -- New York Magazine.   4
Q That might be it.   5
There was a recorded portion of this interview that he released recently, well past 6
the book, or article.  And in the recorded portion -- and I'm happy to play it, but I can 7
just read it to you -- 8
A Tell me.  9
Q -- if that's easier.   10
You said, "Once people feel empowered and protected legally, you are going to 11
have -- schools, universities, and colleges are going to say, 'You want to come to this 12
college?  Buddy, you're going to get vaccinated.  Lady, you're going to get vaccinated.'  13
Big corporations like Amazon and Facebook and all of those others are going to say, 'You 14
want to work for us?  You get vaccinated.'  And it's been proven that when you make it 15
difficult for people in their lives, they lose their ideological bullshit and they get 16
vaccinated."   17
Do you recall making that statement?  18
A No.  I mean, I'm sure you are going to play it, but I don't recall making that 19
statement.  20
Q Okay.  I don't have to play it -- 21
A Yeah.  22
Q -- if it's not going to  --  23
A Yeah.   24
Q But he recently released the recording.  25

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A Right.  1
Q Since you don't recall, I'll skip over what did you mean by "ideological 2
bullshit"?  I presume it's some of the partisan politics surrounding vaccines.   3
A Yeah, I mean, I think if I used -- which I'm sure I did, if you're going to play 4
it -- if I used the word "ideological bullshit," it refers to my concern that I mentioned an 5
hour or 2 or 3 ago, that it's very painful for me, as a physician, to see somebody who's in a 6
Republican State not get vaccinated and die because they happen to have an ideological 7
reason not to get vaccinated, whereas someone who doesn't have an ideological reason 8
against vaccination gets protected and lives.  I think that's unfair.   9
Q Uh-huh.  10
A That's what I mean by "ideological bullshit."   11
Q Putting aside the ideological reasons, are there reasonable objections to 12
receiving a vaccine?  13
A Yeah.  There are medical reasons that people, you know, might have a 14
condition.  For example, a live -attenuated vaccine for someone who's 15
immunocompromised -- 16
Q Uh-huh.  17
A -- that's a very good reason not to get vaccinated.  18
Q We saw -- and I don't have it in front of me, but  -- some mandates that 19
businesses and stuff didn't have religious exemptions or medical exemptions.   20
Do you think those kinds of objections to receiving the vaccine are valid?  21
A They're valid if they're not abused.  And there have been a lot of abuses of 22
the exemption by people who have no reason at all and say, I have a medical reason or a 23
psychological reason.   24
Q Uh-huh.  25

  202
A I think if you have a broad psychological reason, then there's every reason in 1
the world for you not to get vaccinated.  2
Q That's fair.   3
On August 24, 2021, Secretary of Defense Austin announced a policy of mandatory 4
vaccination for all servicemembers.  Were you involved in that?  5
A No.  6
Q On September 9, 2021, the President announced an executive order 7
requiring Federal employees to be vaccinated against COVID -19.  Were you involved at 8
all in that?  9
A I wasn't involved.  I mean, he was always talking about getting people 10
vaccinated.  I wasn't involved in that decision.   11
Q And then on November 4, 2021, the President outlined COVID vaccine 12
mandates issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Centers 13
for Medicare and Medicaid Services.   14
Were you involved in either of those?  15
A Those were decisions that were above me.   16
Q And then on November 30, 2021, the Office of Head Start at HHS required 17
COVID -19 vaccination for all Head Start staff.  Were you involved at all in that?  18
A No.  I didn't even know that happened, actually.   19
Q We've talked about some of the consequences of vaccine hesitancy.  Do 20
you think mandating vaccines can result in some hesitancy?  21
A You know, I -- if I can switch over to -- and I'm not dribbling around the 22
court --  23
Q Uh-huh.  24
A -- just to switch over to lessons learned, I think one of the things that we 25

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really need to do after the fact, now, to -- you know, after -the-game, after -the-event 1
evaluation of things that need to be done, we really need to take a look at the psyche of 2
the country, have maybe some social -type studies to figure out, does the mandating of 3
vaccines in the way the country's mental framework is right now, does that actually cause 4
more people to not want to get vaccinated, or not?  I don't know.  But I think that's 5
something we need to know.   6
Because, in general, the mandating of vaccines -- forget all the political stuff, and 7
forget COVID, and go back -- that mandating for things in our country were very 8
well-accepted before the mindset that we have right now.  The idea of mandating 9
vaccines for children in school was something that was easily and widely -- 10
Q Uh-huh.  11
A -- accepted.  Now, there's a lot of question about that.   12
So I think you need to at least raise the question of whether or not 13
mandating -- with all the positive aspects of controlling an outbreak, which it 14
does -- whether or not that's something that you need to relook at.  I -- anyway.   15
Q Yeah.  No, I appreciate that.  I think that's very important.   16
I'm going to touch very briefly on the VAERS system, and then I know the 17
chairman has some questions.   18
A Sure.   19
Q Generally, VAERS is used to track adverse events  --  20
A Right.   21
Q -- to vaccines?  And I'm not going to ask about -- like, I think there's lots of 22
problems with the VAERS system, that I can go report things.   23
A It's very misleading.  24
Q It's very misleading.  But, generally  -- and we're going to have, I'm sure, 25

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further discussion on reforming VAERS in order to get better for  --  1
A Right.   2
Q -- tracking this kind of stuff.  And with a baseline of it is misleading and I 3
agree with you, is it important to track and monitor adverse effects of vaccines?  4
A It is important -- 5
Q Okay.  6
A -- to track and monitor adverse events, for sure.   7
Mr. Benzine.   I know the chairman has some questions.   8
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah.  Thank you.  I have quite a few things.   9
You know, I look back at the very beginning of this, and I think the trials were done 10
tremendously well.  Thirty - to 40,000 people.  I mean, I applaud the Americans that 11
volunteered themselves, you know, to get into these trials with so many unknowns.  I 12
thought that was a great thing.   13
In Cincinnati, I tried to get in Moderna.  When I got there, I had given blood 2 14
weeks before, they said, no, you can't get in.  And then when we hit 4 weeks, they said, 15
you know, you're not who we're after, actually.  We want people from higher -risk 16
categories.  And I said, that's fine.  Makes sense to me.  That makes for a better 17
study.   18
You know, again, I believe you saved hundreds and hundreds of thousands of 19
lives.  But it didn't prevent.  And I think that that was one thing -- we knew from the 20
trials that the people that got vaccinated could still get COVID but they were less likely to 21
get sick, less likely to get hospitalized.   22
I don't think we shared that very well as a country.  I don't think our messaging 23
was good enough.  I mean, I was trying to tell people this all the time.  I was out giving 24
vaccinations, especially during emergency use, and what I saw were the people that I 25

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thought looked like they were the high -risk people based on what we knew.   1
And I do hear, you know, even within this committee, you know, Members saying, 2
no, these things are safe, they're effective.  Well, that's up to interpretation.  You even 3
said, you can't ever say something is completely safe.   4
You know, I'm not violating any HIPAA rules, but Debbie Dingell has told us how, 5
you know, when she got a vaccine when she was younger, she got Guillain -Barre.  So she 6
was very nervous about this one or any one she might get.  That's fair.  She went and 7
talked to her doctor about it, and she ended up getting vaccinated.   8
And that's the same with effectiveness.  It's not 100 -percent effective, right, 9
because people still get it.  It's not like the polio vaccine, which has a much greater 10
effectiveness of ever getting it with getting vaccinated.   11
So, when Americans do hear, you know, "Get vaccinated, no ICU, no death," that's 12
dangerous, because people interpret  -- just like people thought -- I didn't think President 13
Trump was serious about injecting bleach.  I thought he was being sarcastic.  But other 14
people interpreted it differently.  You've got to be careful with how we do that.   15
And, you know, I did a thing with some people that were hesitant, and when I 16
talked to them about the vaccine, explained it to them, explained what their risk might 17
be, explained the benefits of this  -- these were all hesitant people  -- they said, well, we 18
just want to be educated, not indoctrinated, okay?  And then they said they were more 19
inclined to maybe get the vaccine.   20
And so, you know  -- and I've said the same thing to Mandy Cohen.  When you 21
make CDC recommendations, please explain why you're making this recommendation so 22
people understand.   23
But you go to the mandates  -- and this is the problem I have, as a physician, with 24
medicine in America.  That mandate was being heard from a politician.  And that, I 25

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think, was the wrong messenger, all the way across.  And there's no doctor involved.  1
It's, "Do this, or you're fired."  And it's not like, "Go sit down with your doctor."  Every 2
other medicine, every drug that runs an ad, they've got to say, "Talk to your doctor, and 3
these are the side effects."  We weren't doing that.   4
Americans don't do well -- to what you were saying, Doctor, the psychology of 5
America  -- they don't do well with, "Because I told you so."  They want to be educated.  6
They want to know.  These are the types of things that I think we can do well.   7
And I think, you know, it's always stoic with patients.  Just say what you don't 8
know.  Be honest with patients, you know?  I know I remember hearing, "Oh, this may 9
go away in the summer."  Well, it didn't.  Well, some people thought that because 10
other coronaviruses do.  This one didn't.   11
So that's just my take on that point with vaccines.  And I'd love to offline 12
sometime talk to you more -- 13
Dr. Fauci.   Sure.  14
Dr. Wenstrup.   -- about it  --  15
Dr. Fauci.   I'd be happy to.  16
Dr. Wenstrup.   -- to get a better policy.  17
But I do have another thing I want to bring up.  You pointed out that vaccines 18
usually take about 7 years.  And I'm just looking at this -- I was looking back at stuff 19
coming out of China.  Yusen Zhou had a patent for a SARS -CoV-2 vaccine in March of 20
2020.  March 19th is the date I have.  Zhengli Shi announced the sequence January 21
20th of 2020.   22
So we're saying from January 20th to March, 2 months later, he had a vaccine.  23
That struck me as odd.   24
Dr. Fauci.   Hmm.  25

  207
Dr. Wenstrup.   Does that strike you as odd?   1
Dr. Fauci.   Well, I don't know if he had a vaccine.  What I'm hearing --  2
Dr. Wenstrup.   He was seeking a patent on the vaccine.   3
Dr. Fauci.   No, he was seeking a patent  -- and, again, I  -- 4
Dr. Wenstrup.   I could be wrong.   5
Dr. Fauci.   You might be, and I might be.  But let me -- 6
Dr. Wenstrup.   Okay.   7
Dr. Fauci.   But let me tell you, when I heard that, I was trying to figure out what 8
that meant.  And you could have a patent for an idea without even having a vaccine in 9
your hand that you've tested.   10
For example, if there were cases in China at the end of December, which we knew 11
there were, and they isolated the virus  -- they may not have sequenced it yet, but they 12
isolated the virus, and they did some simple tests.  Like, they took the virus, they 13
inactivated it, they put it in a mouse, and they found out that if you infect the mouse --  14
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yes. 15
Dr. Fauci.   And then they get a pattern, which is really  --  16
Dr. Wenstrup.   I understand --   17
Dr. Fauci.   -- a conceptual pattern.   18
Dr. Wenstrup.   I understand the process.   19
Dr. Fauci.   So I think you can get a patent in March -- 20
Dr. Wenstrup.   Okay.  21
Dr. Fauci.   -- for something that you had in December and January.  22
Dr. Wenstrup.   Well, I think that's something we should look into, but it -- 23
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  24
Dr. Wenstrup.   -- might not be this subcommittee.  It might be downstairs.   25

  208
Dr. Fauci.   No, actually, it would be a good idea to do that.  Because when I 1
heard that and people were saying, understandably, how could you get a pattern so 2
quickly  --   3
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah.  4
Dr. Fauci.   -- it depends on what kind of patent you need.   5
Dr. Wenstrup.   Okay.  That may be something we have to  look --  6
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  It's a good idea.  7
Dr. Wenstrup.   -- into through the Intelligence Committee  --  8
Dr. Fauci.   Well --  9
Dr. Wenstrup.   -- because I don't think he's going to answer our calls.  10
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, no, I don't think so.  11
Dr. Wenstrup.   Thank you.   12
Dr. Fauci.   You're welcome.  Thank you.   13
BY MR. BENZINE:  14
Q I want to, in the time remaining, try to get through our last few topics.  And 15
so, if I cut you off or ask for a brief answer, I apologize.   16
A I will shoot the jump shot as soon as you give me the ball.   17
Q Awesome.  18
A Okay.  Right.  19
Q I want to talk about natural immunity for a minute.  In general, is natural 20
immunity a real thing?  21
A Well, if you mean, "natural immunity,"  the immunity that you get after you 22
get infected  --  23
Q Yes, sir.   24
A Let's establish that's what we mean.  25

  209
Q Yes, sir.   1
A Because natural immunity could also be innate immunity -- 2
Q Oh, no, no.  3
A -- that has nothing to do  --  4
Q The infection -acquired immunity.  5
A Natural immunity post -infection, got it.  Okay.  6
Q Yes. 7
A It's a real thing.  8
Q All right.   9
And my understanding of the way out of a pandemic is through what -- it's now 10
been kind of villainized  -- but herd immunity, either via infection -acquired or 11
vaccine -acquired immunity.  Is that generally right?   12
A It is generally right depending on the pathogen.  And this is critical, Mitch.  13
It's critical.  So -- and I've written about this, okay?   14
Q Uh-huh.  15
A If you have a vaccine or an infection in which you're dealing with a pathogen 16
that does not change  -- and I'm really not dribbling.  I think -- 17
Q No, no.  18
A -- it is important for the committee to hear this.   19
For example, I got infected with measles when I was a child because I'm old 20
enough not to have been vaccinated for measles, okay?  The post -infection natural 21
immunity from measles -- you're dealing with measles.  The same measles that infected 22
me is exactly the same measles that's infecting children in the developing world.  The 23
virus has not changed.  Point number one.   24
Point number two, that the immunity that you get from either infection or 25

  210
vaccination is measured minimally in decades and generally for a lifetime.  So, when you 1
have an infection like measles or, in some respects, polio and you get infected, natural 2
immunity is as good as it gets, because you have as good protection as you can get from 3
anything.  4
Q Uh-huh.  5
A When you have a pathogen where the infection itself gives you immunity 6
that does not last more than months to a year, and you have a pathogen that starts off as 7
the initial strain and then becomes Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Omicron, and then 8
subgroups of Omicron, the whole concept of natural immunity is the same problem we 9
have with vaccination.  It doesn't last forever.   10
So that, I think, is the question -- 11
Q Yes. 12
A -- you're going to get to  --  13
Q Yeah.   14
A -- is that, when people have been infected, why would you want to vaccinate 15
them?  Because a vaccinated infected person is better off than just an infected person.   16
Q And I agree.  And I think studies have come out that hybrid is, like, kind of, 17
the best.  But, of course  -- 18
A The best.   19
Q -- you don't want to go out and, like, go out and get sick.   20
A No, you don't want to get infected just for the sake of getting protected.  21
That's sort of a little backwards.  22
Q What you just said, kind of -- a little bit of it struck me.  So we've 23
seen -- and you've mentioned it today -- kind of, the vaccine -induced immunity waning 24
too, so that's why boosters have come out.   25

  211
A Right.   1
Q So that phenomenon, the mutating virus harms vaccine -acquired immunity 2
in the same way that it harms -- 3
A Exactly.  4
Q -- infection -acquired immunity.   5
A Exactly.  6
Q Okay.  7
I'm not going to introduce it, and I'm going to go through it quickly because I think 8
you've talked about it before.  You're generally familiar with the Great Barrington 9
Declaration?  10
A I am.  11
Q Dr. Collins sent you an email calling the authors "fringe epidemiologists" and, 12
in essence, requesting, I think he used, "devastating takedown" of the Great Barrington 13
Declaration.  14
A Yes. 15
Q To your knowledge, did NIAID publish anything or act on that instruction?  16
A Act on the instruction to take it down?   17
Q Uh-huh.   18
A No.  No.  19
Q Are you aware of the Federal Government publishing any papers that was an 20
intentional takedown of the Great Barrington Declaration?  21
A You know, they may have, but I don't think so.  I mean, I'd be happy to talk 22
to you about the Barrington Declaration if you'd like.   23
Q If I had some more time, I would, but -- 24
A No, I could even do it with a quick jump shot.   25

  212
Q No, well, we'll move on.  I'm more worried -- 1
A Okay.  All right.  2
Q -- about, kind of, the debate process in this.  3
A Okay.  4
Mr. Benzine.   I know -- sir, do you want to ask treatment questions, or do you 5
want --  6
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah, if we can.  Thank you.   7
I mean, I think we recognize that the golden standard of things is to have a 8
double -blind study to support any treatment or before any approval of treatments.   9
You know, look, there were no golden standards of treatment when we really had 10
no tests and we had no definitive treatment, we had no vaccines.  I mean, I think golden 11
standards are ideal, but when nonexistent, it isn't always real.   12
And, you know, in war, you don't always have everything you want.  You know, I 13
spent a year in Iraq.  A lot of times, you don't have everything you want.  The 14
equipment may break.  You may be out of certain medicines.  You try something else.  15
Whatever you do.  And I think February 2020 felt like we were at war, that's for sure, at 16
least on the medical front.   17
So I'm curious, before we had approved COVID tests, what tests did you order to 18
try and diagnose a COVID patient?  With COVID, that is.  19
Dr. Fauci.   Before there were any tests?   20
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah.     21
Dr. Fauci.   I think the clinical situation would be pretty easily identifiable.   22
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah.  23
Dr. Fauci.   And I'm sure you've taken care of and I've taken care of COVID 24
patients.  If you have somebody that comes in that doesn't have influenza and doesn't 25

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have everything else and you're in the middle of a COVID outbreak, it's pretty easy to 1
make a diagnosis.  2
Dr. Wenstrup.   Well, yeah, just by the symptoms.   3
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  4
Dr. Wenstrup.   There were other things, too, that I thought were interesting.   5
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  6
Dr. Wenstrup.   An increase in IL -6.  Of course, all the inflammatory markers --  7
Dr. Fauci.   Loss of taste and smell.  8
Dr. Wenstrup.   All those things, yeah.   9
Dr. Fauci.   Okay.   10
Dr. Wenstrup.   So that's where we were at that time.  And so, you know, there 11
weren't necessarily double -blind studies, but these were the things we were picking up 12
and employing into our thought process.   13
So, I mean, when you were bedside -treating COVID patients, especially, you know, 14
ones that were really failing, you know, what did you prescribe?   15
Dr. Fauci.   What did we prescribe?   16
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah.  17
Dr. Fauci.   We prescribed just supportive care.  18
Dr. Wenstrup.   Like what?   19
Dr. Fauci.   Supportive care.   20
Dr. Wenstrup.   What?   21
Dr. Fauci.   Maintaining fluids, maintaining  blood pressure, maintaining oxygen 22
flow.  That's what we did.   23
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah.  [Inaudible.]  24
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.   25

  214
Dr. Wenstrup.   And it turned out that wasn't necessarily the best for everybody.  1
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  2
Dr. Wenstrup.   And did your treatments vary depending upon, I guess, the level 3
of symptoms?   4
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  Yeah.  I mean, obviously, you'd be very aggressive if you had 5
somebody with a pulse ox that's in the 70s.   6
Dr. Wenstrup.   I guess what I'm saying is, I'm trying to feel for those that were in 7
that situation  --  8
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  No, I understand what you're saying.   9
Dr. Wenstrup.   -- caring for patients, and, like, holy cow -- 10
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  11
Dr. Wenstrup.   -- you know, what else can we do?   12
And, you know, I think as we move forward, maybe there's other things we can do 13
that maybe could be better next time, especially with a similar type of thing.   14
Like, you mentioned earlier, we talked about the furin cleavage site and how furin 15
cleaves the site and subsequently makes SARS -CoV-2 more infectious to humans.  I think 16
we agree on that, right?  And this was the first SARS virus published or known that had a 17
furin cleavage site.  18
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.   19
Dr. Wenstrup.   So I just wonder, have we scientifically established what patients 20
typically have higher furin levels?  Because it seems to me, the more furin you have, the 21
more infectious this can become.   22
You know, was it diabetics?  Is it obesity?  Age?  COPD?  CHF?  I mean, have 23
we scientifically looked into this?   24
Dr. Fauci.   I don't know if they've looked in furin levels, but I know there's a lot of 25

  215
system biology looking at what's going on  -- not only with COVID, but with long COVID, as 1
to what's going on.   2
You mentioned a couple of them.  Like, what does the D -dimer do?  What does 3
IL-6 do?  What does some of the other inflammatory markers do?  Yeah.  That really 4
does need -- it's being done, but it's still a mystery.  5
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah.  From the beginning with some of our colleagues, 6
cardiologists were really interested in D -dimers --  7
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.   8
Dr. Wenstrup.   -- and what's going on there.   9
So, I mean, what occurs to me  -- and I'm just seeking an opinion on this.  I know 10
there is some research.  Maybe we can accelerate treatment sometime, like Operation 11
Warp Speed.  12
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  13
Dr. Wenstrup.   It was accelerated.  We accelerated treatments because people 14
still got COVID and they were going to need treatment.   15
So what if we were testing furin  inhibitors or something along that line?   16
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  17
Dr. Wenstrup.   Does that seem a reasonable thing to pursue?   18
Dr. Fauci.   Well, I'm not an expert in what other implications furin  has in the 19
system, because you've got to be careful -- 20
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah.  21
Dr. Fauci.   -- that if furin is involved in an enzymatic involvement of a lot of good 22
body functions, you don't want to get too much or too little furin, so -- 23
Dr. Wenstrup.   You don't want to rob Peter to pay Paul, right?   24
Dr. Fauci.   Exactly.  Exactly.   25

  216
Dr. Wenstrup.   And there are studies I want to dig into a little bit more because 1
I'm curious.  2
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  3
Dr. Wenstrup.   Just trying to think of, you know, what kind of process we can 4
have to enable  -- like you were just saying, maybe some things besides just the crisis can 5
we look into, and maybe do the public -private partnerships.  You know, you mentioned 6
monoclonal antibodies, antivirals.  You know, zinc was being recommended, vitamin D.  7
I got on it.   8
Dr. Fauci.   There's a lot of things that you're alluding to.  But one of them I think 9
you'd be interested in, I'm sure, is that one of the really concerning things was that, when 10
you didn't identify after -- remember, when you were taking patients -- when we were, 11
patients would go 6 or 7 days deteriorating slowly, slowly, slowly, and then they would 12
crash and then they would go to the ICU.   13
Raul, I know you know that.  You're an emergency medicine person.   14
That would happen, and then there would be no identifiable virus.  And you 15
would say, why are they having such problems in their lungs and in their kidney and in 16
their brain?   17
We now know that -- there is a study that just came out that, if you look at 18
autopsies, there's evidence of virus in multiple organ systems, which means it is not just 19
confined to the upper airway.   20
Dr. Wenstrup.   Uh-huh.  21
Dr. Fauci.   Even when you look in the lung and you don't see virus, there's likely 22
remnants of virus there that are triggering an immunologic and inflammatory response 23
that's responsible for the pulmonary failure, which we're just finding out now, like, years 24
after the beginning of the outbreak.   25

  217
Dr. Wenstrup.   Just a couple other thoughts in the line of treatments.   1
You know, I know, early on, we were making the call, "If you had COVID and you 2
recovered, donate your plasma."  And patients in Cincinnati, I know, were getting 3
convalescent plasma and doing pretty well.  I think we could've maybe continued to 4
hype that a little bit, when other things weren't working especially.   5
And, you know, the natural immunity is interesting to me, because I got Pfizer, 6
both doses, in early -- what was it  -- January or February.  August, I got COVID.  And the 7
only reason I knew?  I was cooking and I couldn't smell garlic salt.  Okay?  And that 8
was the only way that I knew.   9
Dr. Fauci.   That's a tragedy, if you can't smell garlic.   10
Dr. Wenstrup.   I know.  I'm Italian, too.  Anyway.   11
So I said to my wife, I said, I had COVID.  Remember last week I had a chill, right?    12
So then I was going to Germany, and they said, well, you've got to get a booster 13
before we go.  I said, can we check my antibodies and T cells first?  They said, well, we 14
can do antibodies here.  So I got my results, and it said a strong number was 40, and my 15
number was 821.  So I questioned whether I should be getting a booster.   16
And what I'm saying is, we need to get back to personalizing medicine so you have 17
a conversation with your doctor.  This is a time where who knows who was saying I had 18
to have a booster to do this.   19
So -- and I think those are the things that are twisting people's minds in America.  20
They want that personal medicine.  I think we've got to keep that in mind going forward.   21
And then just one other thing with the vaccines.  I've been doing some reading 22
on mucosal vaccines, and I think, for this, this may be the next step.  Would you agree?   23
Dr. Fauci.   Absolutely.  I mean, to get the virus blocked at its point of entry, now 24
you're really talking about preventing infection.   25

  218
Dr. Wenstrup.   Yeah.  1
Well, listen, I thank you.  My points I'm trying to make are:  a more organized 2
message, a better message, more clarity, we can do better in those regards and pursue 3
every one of those avenues.   4
Dr. Fauci.   Right.  I agree.  5
Dr. Wenstrup.   Thank you.   6
Dr. Fauci.   Thank you.  7
BY MR. BENZINE:   8
Q We have about 5 minutes left in our hour, I think, and I want to ask one, kind 9
of, very high -level question on royalties before concluding.   10
I know you have said that you've donated your royalties, and I'm not going to ask 11
about individual royalties.   12
A Right.  13
Q But current NIH policy is that royalties are just part of your income and, 14
therefore, it doesn't need to be disclosed?   15
A Yeah.  16
Q I think we've heard some concerns that, because of the things NIH 17
employees are working on and then possibly advising on, that not having public disclosure 18
of royalties could hide, for lack of a better word, a conflict of interest.   19
A Yeah.  20
Q Do you think that that needs to be changed?  21
A You know, I don't know if you want to change it, but it just goes -- Mitch, I've 22
said every time and I'll say it again for the record:  I'm always in favor of a great deal of 23
transparency, always.   24
Q Thank you.   25

  219
A Yeah.  1
Q My last, kind of, conclusory statement is, like I said, I worked for Mr. Scalise 2
when he was ranking member of this committee.  You testified a few times back then.  3
And I actually remember, the first hearing in the Oversight Committee on the pandemic 4
was, like, late February or something.  You testified on that too.   5
And you actually had to -- you and Dr. Redfield and, I think it might've been 6
Admiral Giroir at the time, had to leave halfway through because you got called to the 7
White House, and then you came back the next day.  And that's just kind of engrained in 8
my memory.   9
A Right.   10
Q But at one of these hearings, you were asked by Mr.  Jordan about, kind of, 11
the threshold that would need to be met in order for mitigation measures to be lessened.  12
And I have your answer, but the answer doesn't really matter.   13
At the time, you were being filmed by PBS in part of the documentary that -- 14
A Yes. 15
Q -- they released on "American Masters."  And I want to read what you said 16
after you got back in your car after that hearing.   17
"One of the things I've learned from hearings like this, even though in some 18
respects it's a show, the fact is, I found, even when people act like jerks, sometimes there 19
is a kernel of truth in what they say.  And it may be advantageous to say, okay, should 20
we be a little bit more flexible in telling people, okay, fine, here's the recommendations 21
that we say, where you can go and what you can do after you've been vaccinated.  22
However, if you want to take the risk, take the risk."   23
To me, that seems like the path forward here, that in future outbreaks it would be 24
better to inform the American public of what they can do, what their relative risk is, and 25

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then let the public make the decision based on that risk profile.   1
Do you agree, disagree, or have any comments on that?  2
A No, I mean, I -- you know, again, just to get back to that, Congressman 3
Jordan was really -- 4
Q Yes.   5
A -- pestering me about that, you know?  And, you know, I felt bad, I said -- in 6
fact, I said, I think you're ranting.   7
And I felt badly when I got in the car, because I said that, you know, even though 8
he was acting in a very aggressive way to me -- he wasn't giving me the opportunity to say 9
a word.  When I got in the car, I said, you know, despite the fact that he was being very, 10
very aggressive  -- 11
Q Uh-huh.  12
A -- that there was a kernel of truth in what he was saying, and I think that we 13
should keep an open mind to, you know, listening to when people have an objection to 14
what you're doing.   15
I think it just confirms what I told you 4 minutes ago, that I am a transparent type 16
of person.  I want to at least honor everybody's opinion enough to at least consider it.  17
Q No, I appreciate that.  18
Mr. Benzine.   And, with that, I want to thank you again for being here voluntarily 19
for both days, 14 hours, potentially, total.   20
And we can go off the record.  21
Dr. Fauci.   Thank you.  22
[Recess.] 23

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[5:48 p.m.]   1
  We can go back on the record.   2
Before we begin this final round of questions, I just want to have Congressman 3
Dr. Ruiz, Ranking Member Ruiz, who just joined us, introduce himself for the record and 4
give any comments he'd like to.   5
Dr. Ruiz.   Congressman Dr.  Raul Ruiz, ranking member for the Select 6
Subcommittee on the COVID Pandemic.  Nice to meet everybody.   7
Dr. Fauci.   Thank you.   8
Mr. Schertler.   Likewise.  9
Dr. Fauci.   Good to see you.   10
Dr. Ruiz.   It's always wonderful to see you and even more pleasurable to hear 11
you speak in the interplay between the art and science of medicine and of public health.  12
It is poetry to my ears.  And I appreciate you, your knowledge, your wisdom, and the 13
enormous amount of contributions that you have given to our Nation.   14
As I've said before in previous hearings in the Energy and Commerce Committee, 15
you are the doctor's doctor.  And many medical students today still aspire to make such 16
an impact not only for our country but for the world as you have done in your career.  17
And we recognize it, we see it, and we wholeheartedly appreciate it.   18
Dr. Fauci.   Thank you.   19
Dr. Ruiz.   I also want to say that I am truly sorry for the incredible negative 20
experience that you have undergone through the intimidation, the threats, the political 21
violence on you and your family.   22
I think it's important that we share the humanity and the lack thereof of these 23
type of inquiries and agenda -pursuing crusades that really cause distress, not only for the 24
individual that's being targeted but for their entire family.   25

  222
And so I see it, and I empathize.  And I want to make sure that you're okay, your 1
family is okay, and that you continue to be the wonderful Dr.  Fauci that you are for 2
humanity.  And I appreciate that.   3
Dr. Fauci.   Thank you.   4
Dr. Ruiz.   I have some questions that are in the line of health inequities and some 5
questions on the current uptick of COVID -19 cases that we're currently seeing.   6
As you know, the Democrats on our committee have been laser focused on 7
putting people over politics and finding real solutions with thoughtful questions that can 8
actually lead to preventing and preparing for the next pandemic, which is inevitably going 9
to happen.   10
And so we want to be able to really align ourselves with the true intent of our 11
purpose, which is to save lives, and through a lessons learned, and not pursue an extreme 12
partisan crusade vilifying individuals like yourself and other public health officials for 13
partisan political gain.   14
So looking back on the most severe period of the COVID -19 pandemic, it is 15
abundantly clear that the virus took a heavier toll on different communities across our 16
population.  For example, people of color, people with less income, people with 17
disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, and other marginalized populations experienced greater 18
morbidity and mortality from COVID -19.   19
So I'd like to discuss these health inequities in more detail.   20
What do we know about the pandemic's disproportionate impact on communities 21
of color in the United States?  And how and why was this the case?   22
Dr. Fauci.   There were two reasons for that.  One was the initial risk of getting 23
infected.  The other  -- well, actually, probably three reasons.  The initial risk of getting 24
infected.  The inequities of access to healthcare.  And the underlying conditions that 25

  223
people of poor economic status and people who are in disenfranchised groups, such as 1
some of the minorities.   2
If you take point number one, that if you look at the  -- you know, it's dangerous to 3
generalize, but this, I think, is a generalization that helps you to understand the situation, 4
that people of color and somewhat more less economically privileged people generally 5
have jobs that necessitate for their economic survival that they are out in the community.  6
They have essential jobs.  They can't sit behind a computer and continue to do their job 7
virtually.  So they are the ones that are out there getting infected more.   8
Then, when they do get infected, when you have people of color and other 9
individuals who are less fortunate to have access to healthcare, that when they do get 10
sick they don't have the immediate access of getting the kind of care that you would 11
expect them to get, and often they don't get the care until they have an advanced 12
disease.   13
Then the third one is that there are underlying conditions that African Americans 14
and some Latinos and certainly some Native Americans and others have a higher 15
incidence of the underlying conditions, that when you do get infected it makes you 16
statistically more likely that you're going to have a poor outcome with hospitalizations 17
and deaths.   18
To name a few, you have obesity, you have hypertension, you have chronic renal 19
disease, you have chronic lung disease, you have cardiovascular disease, all of which 20
disproportionately, due to the social determinants of health, are in individuals not 21
because of their race or their ethnic origin; it has to do with the social determinants of 22
health that have not allowed them to have proper diet, to have proper healthcare when 23
they were younger, a whole variety of things.   24
So three compelling and conflating reasons why the results that you talk about are 25

  224
true.   1
Dr. Ruiz.   And one of those that comes to mind, given that my first home was in a 2
trailer park, is overcrowded housing with multifamilies  --  3
Dr. Fauci.   Right.   4
Dr. Ruiz.   -- living due to issues of poverty, et cetera.  And so that increased the 5
risk of transmissions within households of people of lower income.   6
And so how about, do you have other examples of this disparity in people with 7
less income despite race?   8
Dr. Fauci.   Oh, yeah.  I mean, of an individual with less incomes, I think you 9
mentioned one of them, housing.  And you're not going to have somebody that has their 10
own apartment with two bedrooms; you're going to have somebody that's living with 11
their grandparents, with their parents, and with their children.   12
And that is one of the reasons why when you have a multigenerational home that 13
that's almost like a perfect storm for getting a lot of different people infected.   14
Also, they may not be able to afford tests.  They may not be able to afford any of 15
the things that are not available to be free.  So whenever you get away from 16
government supplying things free, you're going to wind up who's going to suffer the most 17
from them and those who are less economically privileged.   18
Dr. Ruiz.   Another example that comes to mind is people who cannot afford 19
internet.   20
Dr. Fauci.   Right.   21
Dr. Ruiz.   And when you have to register online to get your vaccine dose or for an 22
appointment, they're at a disadvantage to get that, those services.   23
So how about people with disabilities, can you discuss some of their barriers and 24
risks?   25

  225
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  I mean, disability is just access.  I mean, how do you  have 1
somebody to get you to a drugstore, to get you to a clinic.  Again, it's all part of the 2
constraints on equal access, and people with disabilities, in many respects, don't have 3
equal access.   4
Dr. Ruiz.   And LGBTQ+ people?   5
Dr. Fauci.   Well, that's stigmatization, and stigmatization is the enemy of public 6
health.  So the LGBT community suffers from that.   7
Dr. Ruiz.   By not being  -- can you elaborate more on the stigmatization?   8
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  I mean, there are some physicians, unfortunately, healthcare 9
providers who don't want to treat individuals who are LGBT.  So that makes them often 10
not even wanting to come out and open as to who they are because of the stigma 11
associated with it.   12
Dr. Ruiz.   Okay.  Are there other marginalized populations who bore the brunt 13
of the pandemic that we haven't addressed?   14
Dr. Fauci.   I think we've covered most of them, yeah.   15
Dr. Ruiz.   Okay.  And how have COVID -19's disproportionate impacts on 16
marginalized communities compared to those of other outbreaks and pandemics?  So 17
how did this elucidate the disparities in death and morbidity compared to other 18
pandemics?  Were they similar in previous pandemics, or was this more pronounced?   19
Dr. Fauci.   You know, I think that this was more pronounced because of the 20
magnitude of it and the issues that are associated with access to healthcare was rather 21
almost a tsunami of that, as opposed to a much less impactful outbreak.   22
There always was an underlying lack of access.  I'll give you an example that I 23
know you're familiar with.   24
When you were thinking about HIV, where you have, you know, 13  percent of the 25

  226
population is African American and 45  percent of all the new infections are among African 1
Americans, they don't have access for a number of reasons.  2
One, LGBTQ status is not as much accepted in the African American community as 3
it is in the general population.  There's an incredible amount of discrimination against 4
people that makes them not seek out healthcare.  They live in  usually an economically 5
less privileged group.   6
So I think when you look at AIDS disproportionately affects ethnic groups more, it 7
has a lot more to do than differences in sexual behavior for sure.   8
Dr. Ruiz.   And so what kinds  -- I know this is a big, big question  -- but what kinds 9
of systemic reforms to the U.S. healthcare system are necessary to reduce the threat of 10
future outbreaks and pandemics to historically marginalized communities?   11
Dr. Fauci.   Well, I think it's building up of the health  -- the local healthcare 12
system, particularly in those areas that are populated predominantly by people of color.   13
I mean, we were discussing at yesterday and maybe even part of today the 14
importance of the attenuation of the healthcare infrastructure locally.   15
And many of the neighborhoods that people of color live in, they don't have good 16
healthcare infrastructure to begin with, and when you have an attenuation of healthcare 17
infrastructure it affects that population even more.   18
Dr. Ruiz.   Can you be a little more specific in terms of healthcare infrastructure 19
just for the record?   20
Dr. Fauci.   I'm talking about health clinics.   21
Dr. Ruiz.   Clinics.   22
Dr. Fauci.   I'm talking about clinics, clinics, pharmacies that are in neighborhoods.   23
Dr. Ruiz.   Okay.   24
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.   25

  227
Dr. Ruiz.   Infrastructure can also be interpreted as human capital  --  1
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.   2
Dr. Ruiz.   -- the providers and nurses and  --  3
Dr. Fauci.   When I said infrastructure I mean not only clinics and pharmacies but 4
the people who are out there who go into the community to help.   5
Dr. Ruiz.   So when people that go out there that go into the community to help, 6
you're referring to community health workers?   7
Dr. Fauci.   Yes.   8
Dr. Ruiz.   Okay.  And so how can we incorporate, in your thoughts, how can we 9
incorporate community health workers into our healthcare system to prevent the 10
disparities not just in a future pandemic but even now?   11
Dr. Fauci.   To support them.  To support them.  To give them status that 12
would attract people to that particular avocation as opposed to making it not an 13
attractive occupation.   14
Dr. Ruiz.   Okay.  And now to bring a big question even bigger, what about 15
system reforms outside of our healthcare system, such as reforms to our economic 16
systems, transportation systems, and more?   17
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.   18
[Laughter.]  19
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, I mean, transportation is one important one.  If you look at the 20
ability of somebody to get to a doctor's office or to get to a clinic, to get to a testing site, 21
it is much less likely that a population that we're referring to now, people of color and 22
others, that they don't have the capability or the resources to get to where they need to 23
get to get the proper healthcare.   24
Dr. Ruiz.   What about the concept of taking the care to the people?   25

  228
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  That's what I  -- one of my favorite topics is to go into the 1
community and to support financially and resource -wise actually getting clinics and 2
physicians at the community level.   3
And you can incentivize at multiple levels.  You know that all, but I'll say it for the 4
record.  You could incentivize from the level of medical school and post -medical school 5
training to make it much more attractive for people to go into community work as 6
opposed to, you know, having an office on K Street.   7
Dr. Ruiz.   Yeah.   8
So now I'll talk about the uptick in COVID -19 cases, the current one.  As we have 9
observed in the past year, the U.S. is currently experiencing a seasonal uptick in 10
COVID -19 cases.   11
Could you explain the reasoning for this trend of higher case numbers during the 12
late fall and winter season?   13
Dr. Fauci.   Any respiratory infection is always much more likely to occur in a 14
situation where you have cold weather that brings people in together in a room where 15
the ventilation is not particularly good.   16
I think, if you superimposed upon that, is that COVID, even without seasonal blips, 17
is present all the time.  It's  -- you know, we would've assumed incorrectly that it was a 18
seasonal virus from the beginning, expecting that maybe it would go away.  That turned 19
out -- the first glimpse of warm weather in April and May proved to be absolutely not the 20
case.   21
But when you start off at a higher baseline and then you go into a winter season, it 22
does this [indicating].  And if you look at the end of the summer, the number of cases 23
per day  -- the number of deaths.  I don't think we can count cases, because the case 24
counts are all off because tests are no longer reported.  So you can measure it from 25

  229
wastewater for cases and hospitalizations and death.   1
Then we had a low level of less than a hundred deaths per day, it was like 70, 50, 2
something like that.  It's now over 200 as of yesterday.  So here we are in January and 3
it's gone way up.   4
Thankfully, it hasn't gone up to what it was at the peak of the outbreak, when it 5
was 4,000 to 5,000 per day.   6
Dr. Ruiz.   So I understand the need to coalesce in warmer venues to be out of the 7
cold, and therefore the proximity of individuals increases the potential for transmission.   8
Is there anything innate in the virus itself that thrives more in cold and wet 9
weather?   10
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  Yeah.  I mean, viruses generally, in the survival of the aerosol 11
and what have you, do much, much better in cold, dry weather than they do in warm, 12
moist weather.  That's just a function of most respiratory viruses.   13
Dr. Ruiz.   Okay.  And is this a trend we should continue to expect annually?   14
Dr. Fauci.   Yes, I think that's the case.  Again, but just with the caveat, Raul, 15
that, yes, you could expect it, but don't expect that in the summer COVID is going to go 16
away.   17
Dr. Ruiz.   Yes, correct.   18
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, right.   19
Dr. Ruiz.   And what steps should the Federal Government be taking annually to 20
prepare for the trend of seasonal upticks?   21
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  I think that one is, you know, continue the supply of testing, 22
making sure that we don't have a diminution in accessibility of testing.   23
But also, as we mentioned yesterday and today, I think we've got to really take 24
seriously ventilation, so that when people are indoors in the cold weather there's a 25

  230
degree of ventilation, you know.  That's both natural ventilation of getting good air flow 1
as opposed to confined, but also things like HEPA filters in places that are classrooms or 2
assembly halls or what have you.   3
Dr. Ruiz.   And what is your assessment of the risk of this current uptick poses to 4
Americans?   5
Dr. Fauci.   You know, I don't think that you're going to see the kind of 6
Armageddon -type approach that we saw back when we were having 5,000 deaths per 7
day, but I think you're going to see deaths and hospitalizations that should be 8
troublesome to us.   9
One of the things about COVID or any disease that you have for a long time past 10
the -- we're now in our fifth year of COVID.  I mean, we were talking over the last 2  days 11
about the unprecedented nature of certain things, the speed of vaccines, et cetera.   12
It is unprecedented to have a 5 -year season, is what we've had.  You know, we 13
have influenza seasons, you know, it starts at the end of November, peaks in January, it 14
goes away in March, and then you're good for the rest.  That's not the case.   15
So what I'm concerned at is that there's a complacency around that we're done 16
with COVID.  But when you look at the fact that you have now almost 200 or more 17
deaths per day, and you do the math on that and you compare it, that the mortality is 18
much greater in COVID than it is with influenza.   19
And influenza itself, as you know as a physician, is a bane in the existence of the 20
elderly, the infirm, et cetera.  You multiply that multiple -fold, and we still have to worry 21
that the vulnerables are going to get into trouble.   22
The other thing is that you always got to factor in long COVID, because people say, 23
well, you know, I'm 30  years old, I'm fine, I can get infected, no problem, I'll get a sore 24
throat, I'll blow my nose, and I'll be okay.  You could still wind up getting long COVID.   25

  231
So the idea that we have this much COVID going on right now is troublesome to 1
me.   2
Dr. Ruiz.   So in addition to that, now that the public health emergency has 3
concluded, what adjustments are necessary for the Federal Government to respond to 4
these seasonal upticks?   5
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.  You know, that's not my lane as a physician.  But I think the 6
things that disappear when you have an emergency go away, there are still people who 7
were depending on the things that you got from an emergency who still are dependent 8
on them, drugs, tests, or what have you.   9
Dr. Ruiz.   Right.  So one of the more apt metaphors I've heard when it comes to 10
COVID -19 mitigation measures are the comparison between a light switch that just turns 11
on and off and a light switch that brightens and dims, which is to say that there will be 12
times Americans should consider taking greater precautions, such as masking, to reduce 13
the threat of COVID -19.   14
When we observe upticks in cases due to changing seasons or new variants, what 15
steps should Americans take to protect themselves and their loved ones?   16
Dr. Fauci.   I think we're starting to see it right now, as we were having no masks 17
that are required in medical centers until now, if you look across the country, it's sort of 18
like a domino effect of the facilities.  They're requiring, if you're going to come into a 19
healthcare facility with people at risk, you're going to wear a mask.   20
And I think we need to realize that we're not talking about, you know, draconian 21
measures, but we're talking about just what you said, as you get an uptick in cases, you've 22
got to adjust accordingly.   23
Dr. Ruiz.   Thank you.   24
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.   25

  232
  I believe Congresswoman Dingell had a discrete item.   1
Mrs. Dingell.   I have one question.   2
One of our colleagues tweeted that you've had the best year of your life this last 3
year, after you left here.  And I looked at them and said, "He's been living in hell."   4
Would you care to comment?   5
Ms. Castor.   It was COVID was the best year of your life.   6
Mrs. Dingell.   Was it COVID?  I didn't even see the actual tweet.  But they said 7
you've been living the best year.   8
I think your life has been a living hell.  Do you care to comment on that tweet?   9
Dr. Fauci.   Are they talking about this past year, or are they talking about the 10
year  -- the COVID year?  Why were they saying it was the best year of my life, because I 11
somehow  --  12
Ms. Castor.   You got a lot of media attention.   13
Dr. Fauci.   So that's what they're referring to.   14
Ms. Castor.   I'm not sure.   15
Mrs. Dingell.   Is that media attention  --  16
  There was a tweet suggesting that your salary increased during 17
the year that COVID -19 took hold, 2020, and that it was the highest it was in 2020, and 18
that that was therefore a predicate for  it being the best year of your life.   19
Dr. Fauci, do you believe that 2020 was the best year of your life?   20
Mr. Schertler.   Can you tell us who tweeted?   21
  Congressman Michael Cloud.   22
Mrs. Dingell.   And my actual reaction was, "His life has been a living hell."   23
Dr. Fauci.   Well, it was.  I mean, 2020 was one of the worst years of my life.  I 24
think it was comparable to the first few years of HIV.   25

  233
Mrs. Dingell.   Which I remember.   1
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah.   2
Mrs. Dingell.   Why don't you elaborate on that just so we can have it on the 3
record, so everybody knows what  -- yeah.   4
Dr. Fauci.   No, I mean, for months and months I was sleeping  4 hours a day.  My 5
wife was on me all the time about making sure you drink water and you go to sleep and 6
you eat.   7
That was really tough, because of the burden of seeing this emerging outbreak 8
that you were responsible for developing a vaccine and you had to do it and you had to 9
do it right.   10
And then I was also  -- my clinical responsibilities was also  -- I didn't see as many 11
patients as I used to see when I was more on the wards than as running an institute.  12
But also, we had patients that were, you know, obviously people who were  -- and all 13
healthcare providers were similarly traumatized by that.   14
But then what really put the cap on it is with the point that you brought up, is that 15
in the middle of all this, all of a sudden I became the villain number one of the extremists 16
in the population.   17
So to say that it was the best year of my life is completely crazy.  And I don't 18
know what they're talking about my salary.  My salary is not determined by me.   19
And that was another thing that was ridiculous, the attacks that I had on me that, 20
you know, I made money out of the  -- what are they talking about?  Does anybody know 21
anything about the government?  How do you make money out of an outbreak?   22
So, yeah, it was one of the worst years of my life.   23
Mrs. Dingell.   And I do know you.  I first met you  -- I don't want to say how long 24
ago because it was a long time ago  -- when you were working on HIV/AIDS, and I was 25

  234
working at Children's Inn at NIH, and the young patients.  I remember the tears in your 1
eyes as you were worried about children dying.   2
And there was  -- you gave people hope when there was no hope.  When I first 3
met you people were dying.  It was a death.  And I remember your reaction.  So I 4
just -- and I remember how bad that was.   5
So I wanted you to comment on that.  Thank you.   6
Dr. Fauci.   A Congress man tweeted that?   7
Ms. Castor.   Yeah.   8
Dr. Fauci.   Jesus.   9
BY   10
Q Dr. Fauci, if you will bear with me, I just want to quickly revisit the topic of 11
vaccine requirements and the different kinds of immunity just to make sure the record is 12
comprehensive there.   13
On numerous different occasions the select subcommittee has examined the issue 14
of COVID -19 vaccine requirements.   15
Briefly, could you just explain for us the premise of COVID -19 vaccine 16
requirements and how they were implemented across the country?  17
A How they were implemented?   18
Q Yes.   19
A I want to make sure I understand your question.   20
Q Yes.   21
A Could you just say it again?  22
Q Yes.  So with respect to vaccine requirements, as I understand it, 23
oftentimes people were given an opportunity to either get the vaccine or take other 24
mitigation measures to ensure that they could reenter common spaces  --  25

  235
A Right.  1
Q -- safely and reduce the risk of transmitting the virus.  Is that consistent 2
with your understanding?   3
A Yes, that was.   4
Q And across the board, as we look at the different vaccine requirements that 5
were put into place in 2021, could you just briefly describe for us how successful those 6
were in encouraging uptake of the COVID -19 vaccine?  7
A They were successful.  I mean, a lot of people got vaccinated that perhaps 8
would not have gotten vaccinated.   9
Q We've heard suggestions in the select subcommittee that vaccine 10
requirements were not evidence -based and that they were in defiance of the 11
patient -physician relationship.   12
Dr. Fauci, you are a trained physician, and you, yourself, have practiced medicine.  13
As a trained physician, what do you make of the criticism that vaccine requirements 14
interfered with the patient -physician relationship?  15
A Well, first, I believe strongly that a patient -physician relationship is very, very 16
important.  But I think that it's not incompatible with a patient -physician relationship 17
under certain circumstances to require vaccinations.   18
I mean, I think, if you look at the success of protecting our children in school 19
where there's a requirement for vaccination in school, I don't think that every single child 20
who gets vaccinated gets a permission, as it were, from somebody to get vaccinated.  21
The physicians accepted that and accepted it readily, and it led to the saving of a lot of 22
disease in children.   23
So I don't think they're in  -- they're not  -- I mean, it isn't all or none.  It isn't as if 24
you do that then you're destroying the patient -physician relationship.  I don't think that 25

  236
that's necessarily the case.   1
Q Great.   2
In various cases examining different vaccine requirements, major medical 3
societies filed briefs demonstrating their support for vaccine requirements.  For 4
example, in BST Holdings v. OSHA, the American Medical Association filed an amicus brief 5
warning that halting enforcement of Federal vaccine requirements would, quote, 6
"severely and irreparably harm the public interest," end quote.  And the AMA also filed 7
similar briefi s in Kentucky v. Biden and Georgia v. Biden.   8
Dr. Fauci, does the AMA's support for these policies suggest that the physician 9
community generally supported vaccine requirements?  10
A I believe that it does indicates that, yes.   11
Q And would you characterize COVID -19 vaccine requirements as 12
evidence -based policies?   13
A You know, historically when you require  -- I mean, I just gave you an 14
example of it, so that's for the record, was the school.  I mean, the children are 15
protected.  You don't  -- when the vaccines of a certain disease like measles go down, 16
you have outbreaks and children suffer.  17
Q And just quickly on the  --  18
Dr. Ruiz.   Can I  follow up on that?   19
  Of course, please.   20
Dr. Ruiz.   Are there studies that demonstrate States that had vaccine 21
requirements versus States that don't  -- didn't have vaccine requirements and the 22
difference in reducing transmission and reducing mortality from COVID?   23
Dr. Fauci.   Yeah, mostly hospitalization and mortality, yeah.  It's a little bit more 24
tough to demonstrate

Summary:
Official transcript, Part 2 of Anthony Fauci's transcribed interview before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Excerpt: Cameron asked me to come to the Executive Office Building and was just asking me 12  scientific questions, and I remember that.   13  There may have been other times when I was asked by people in the White  House 14  framework of security.  15  But the one  -- the thing that I do remember is the briefing of Beth Cameron and 16  her team in the Security Council.   17  Q A whistleblower came forward to this committee, and according to him, you 18  visited CIA headquarters and assisted the CIA in their investigation.   19  A Right.  20  Q Have you ever been to the CIA headquarters?  21  A I have been to the CIA headquarters several years ago, I believe during either 22  the anthrax attacks or something.  And I went there, I believe, with one of the other 23  scientists.  I forgot who it…