A documentary on Dr. Anthony Fauci, the man who has been the medical advisor to seven US Presidents
You all must have come across the name Dr. Anthony Stephen Fauci during the pandemic times. Better known as Dr. Tony Fauci, he is an American-Italian physician, scientist and immunologist who was the director of USA’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022. He also served as the chief medical administrator to the President from 2021 to 2022 under Donald Trump.
But that is not why he is trending on the news and the internet recently. Instead, it is because American broadcasting company PBS has released a documentary on him. Called American Masters: Dr. Tony Fauci, it offers a glimpse into the life and works of the man who was responsible for advising seven of the US Presidents. While Fauci hopes that the documentary inspires more public servants to follow in his footsteps, it has once again raised the question of how much Dr. Fauci was involved in spreading of AIDS in the 1980s or Covid-19 in the 2020s. In fact, the highlight of the documentary has been a handmade sign held up by a protestor outside the White House that reads: “ Dr. Fauci, You Are Killing Us.”
Disregarding it, Dr. Fauci has been quoted saying to several media sources, “I just felt that there needed to be a story of people understanding what public health officials go through, but also I hope as a source of inspiration for young people who are either in science or interested in going into science.”
The documentary that is now airing on PBS will later be streamed on the web. It was filmed in close association to Fauci as the film’s crew followed him around for the past two years. The emphasis on the documentary has been on Fauci’s career and its back-to-back public health crisis, especially with respect to the corona pandemic and how it was tackled by the Trump administration.
Directed by American documentarian Mark Manucci, it lays emphasis on different public health crisis that Fauci had to deal with in his career. It has excerpts from many important people in his life, starting with his wife, his assistants and also his security personnel who too handled many threats to Fauci’s life. The filmmaker has also said that his latest documentary sheds light on some of the darkest truths about the USA and how a single person devoted his entire life to the causes of public health hazards and infectious disease control. The executive producer Michael Kantor echoed a similar thought and shared how Fauci has been pivotal to the American life for decades and needed to be documented, despite all the controversies, opposition, and threats.
Prior to Covid-19, the other health concerns tackled by Fauci have been HIV, SARS, MERS, Ebola, and the 2001 anthrax attack. Interestingly, the documentary ends on a positive note where Fauci pledges that he has always tried his best to remain on the right side of science and will continue to do so. Moreover, apart from 23 months, Fauci also devoted 10 long sit downs with the documentarian and his crew to give them a idea of who he was, is and how his life has been – the reality above all.