Anthony Fauci visited gay saunas and bars to help understand how AIDS was spreading

PHOTO: Vanity Fair

By Patrick Kelleher | 5 February 2021

PINK NEWS — Anthony Fauci has said AIDS activists who protested outside his office in the 1980s and burned effigies of his body were “justified in their concerns”.

Fauci has worked at the forefront of the United States’ response to the coronavirus pandemic, but COVID-19 was far from his first experience dealing with infectious disease.

He served as director of the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases in the 1980s when the AIDS epidemic reared its head, killing swathes of queer people. He was heavily criticised at the time by activists such as Larry Kramer, who famously accused him of “murder”.

Speaking to Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air show on Wednesday night (3 February), Fauci said there is a “stark contrast” between COVID-deniers who have sent him death threats throughout the coronavirus pandemic and the AIDS activists who protested against him in the 80s.

“The activists were justified in their concerns that the government, even though they weren’t doing it deliberately, were not actually giving them a seat at the table to be able to have their own input into things that would ultimately affect their lives,” Fauci said. […]

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