Dr. Fauci wins $1 million Israeli prize for 'defending science'

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Superb communication skills and lifelong  infectious disease public health advocacy helped  Dr. Fauci win this award.  Karen

 

ABC News 2/15/2021

Fauci wins $1 million Israeli prize for 'defending science'

Quote

 

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Dr. Anthony Fauci has won the $1 million Dan David Prize for “defending science” and advocating for vaccines now being administered worldwide to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The Israel-based Dan David Foundation on Monday named President Joe Biden's chief medical adviser as the winner of one of three prizes. It said he had earned the recognition over a lifetime of leadership on HIV research and AIDS relief, as well as his advocacy for the vaccines against COVID-19....

...“As the COVID-19 pandemic unraveled, (Fauci) leveraged his considerable communication skills to address people gripped by fear and anxiety and worked relentlessly to inform individuals in the United States and elsewhere about the public health measures essential for containing the pandemic’s spread,” the foundation's awards committee said, praising Fauci for "speaking truth to power in a highly charged political environment.”...

 

 

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Fauci was treated disgracefully by politicians and the public.  Even a nurse once told me "he's an *** and has to go".  

He was never forgiven for saying at first we don't need to mask to changing with the scientific knowledge to recommending wearing masks.  He was blamed for suggestions that might have hurt businesses but he stuck with what he thought was true even when it wasn't what the public wanted to hear. He predicted the Winter surge and people didn't want to listen and did what they wanted to do and spread the disease rampantly.

I admire his ability to stick to what was currently known from a science perfective, admit when he was off the mark, and to seek the scientific truth in the interest of the public first and foremost. 

That he had to "defend science" and explain science to an ignorant and unsupportive American public really falls back on our failure as a country to educate.  We see this in this climate change denial for example.  

[amoLucia]

Now still awaiting for the Nobel Prize for Medicine to be awarded!

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

https://nypost.com/2021/01/24/Dr-fauci-needs-to-be-held-responsible-for-mistakes-devine/

An example of what I'm talking about.  He's being held accountable for what he said a year prior to this article, and again with the masks.  

Most of these issues have been dealt with and discussed by him honestly as time has gone on.   But they can't let go and cling to the past bringing up a few issues.

 Science is never exact, evolves and changes as information is gathered,  and he's admitted when he was wrong or off track.  So I'm not quite sure what she means "holding him accountable".  

 But still even a year later people want to dig up bones.  

I think at this point Americans all know about Covid, what do to about and we ourselves are not acting responsibly.  It's not any fault in leadership, it's our own stubborn ignorance. 

[turtlesRcool]

On 2/16/2021 at 2:19 PM, Tweety said:

https://nypost.com/2021/01/24/Dr-fauci-needs-to-be-held-responsible-for-mistakes-devine/

An example of what I'm talking about.  He's being held accountable for what he said a year prior to this article, and again with the masks.  

Most of these issues have been dealt with and discussed by him honestly as time has gone on.   But they can't let go and cling to the past bringing up a few issues.

 Science is never exact, evolves and changes as information is gathered,  and he's admitted when he was wrong or off track.  So I'm not quite sure what she means "holding him accountable".  

I think the public in general doesn't really understand (or want to understand) how science works.  In middle and high school we do "experiments" where the result is already known. You learn a theory, and then do the lab, and you either get the expected result or figure out where you went wrong in the process that you missed getting the expected result. Most of our science classes don't focus on doing anything that is actually experimental.  

People don't understand how messy science is.  We learn about scientific discoveries as if they were these logical landmarks on the path to progress. We don't learn about all the things that were wrong.  We don't learn about how scientists build on other scientists' mistakes. No, on the occasions we learn about a breakthrough that challenges the accepted thinking, the discoverer is treated as the smart one, and the discredited theory is sort of derided as backward and closed-minded, instead as being understood as a product of intelligent people working within what was known at the time. You can't have germ theory until you develop the technology capable of seeing microorganisms.

So when we had a new coronavirus spreading, with no real data about that particular virus, it was logical to start with what we know about the transmission in other coronaviruses like MERS.  Asymptomatic and presymptomatic transmission is a NEW facet that is not seen in MERS, so it's logical that no one thought "healthy" people should wear masks to prevent COVID transmission, just in  case. Once we had the data that showed asymptomatic and presymptomatic people could spread COVID, mask recommendations were changed to reflect our updated understanding.  

When you have a public with a poor understanding of science plus humans with a built-in predilection towards anchoring bias (over reliance on the first piece of information you hear and using that as a benchmark to evaluate subsequent information), you have set the stage for people to be suspicious of any changes, even ones based on emerging evidence.