How to Talk to Anti-Vaxers
If you run into a left-leaning “consultant” these days, there’s a fairly good chance they used to work for the Obama administration. Scores of federal officials and bureaucrats have resigned or been fired since President Trump’s inauguration, some after realizing their goals were not in line with the new president’s.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, wasn’t one of them. In fact, he seemed surprised at the suggestion that he might do something other than what he’s been doing since he began leading the institute in 1984—trying to protect people from diseases like Ebola, Zika, and HIV.
This is despite the fact that some of Trump’s policy proposals seem to directly contradict his efforts. Trump has proposed cutting funding for a program that provides HIV drugs to people in poor countries by 17 percent. Not long after, six members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS resigned, citing "a president who simply does not care.”
Repealing the Affordable Care Act—a move Trump has supported—would cut a key infectious disease fund in half. And Trump’s decision to reinstate a law that withholds global-health funding from organizations abroad that “perform or actively promote abortion” could hamper AIDS-relief efforts, as my colleague Joseph Frankel reported. As if that weren’t enough, Trump has also aired anti-vaccine views.
I asked Fauci if
