At this point, most Americans have an opinion of Dr. Fauci. Half of the country seems to regard him as a hero, others see him with suspicion. Regardless, Fauci was a top voice in President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 task force and today, he was honored with the Dan David prize for his role in public health and apparently for “speaking truth to power.”
According to NPR, Fauci received a 1-million-dollar Israeli prize established by the late Italian Israeli philanthropist Dan David. The award sets aside 10% of the prize money for academic scholarships in each winner’s field, and Fauci gets to determine the nature of the scholarships.
In a statement, the awards committee said that Fauci is “the consummate model of leadership and impact of public health.”
“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 statement continues.
Then they go on to say: “In addition, he has been widely praised for his courage in speaking truth to power in a highly charged political environment.”
The statement on the award seems to be a jab on President Trump, whom Dr. Fauci has publicly criticized.
In a statement to the New York Times in January, Fauci claimed he had to contradict Trump at times in order to supposedly “avoid the spread of false information”.
“It isn’t like I took any pleasure in contradicting the president of the United States,” Fauci told the Times. “I have a great deal of respect for the office. But I made a decision that I just had to. Otherwise, I would be compromising my own integrity, and be giving a false message to the world. If I didn’t speak up, it would be almost tacit approval that what he was saying was OK.”
The Israeli Prize annually awards 3 prizes of $1 million to honor contributions to knowledge of the past, to present society, and advances for the future. This year specifically, the awards focused on health and medicine.
Historians Alison Bashford of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Katharine Park of Harvard University and Keith Wailoo of Princeton University are sharing a $1 million prize for studying the history of health and medicine. Zelig Eshhar of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science, Carl June of the University of Pennsylvania and Steven Rosenberg of the NIH National Cancer Institute are sharing a $1 million prize for pioneering anti-cancer immunotherapy.
Did Fauci deserve this prize despite his countless contradictions when it comes handling the Coronavirus? Comment below…
