NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Sen. Rand Paul pinned blame for thousands of monthly coronavirus deaths on Dr. Anthony Fauci over his bias toward vaccines.
“I would venture to say that thousands of people die in our country every month now from COVID because [Fauci’s] deemphasized the idea that there are therapeutics,” Paul, who is also a physician, said in an interview on the Ron Paul Liberty Report published Monday.
Paul explained that Fauci has a long history of a “bias” toward vaccines, stretching back to his work on AIDS.
“I think Fauci is of the philosophy that vaccines are incredibly successful and are the way to go versus therapeutics, for example. So with regard to AIDS, he was involved as the AIDS epidemic came up, he wanted to develop a vaccine,” he continued in the interview with his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul.
“There’s nothing wrong with that. He wanted to develop a vaccine. Vaccines can be great for polio or smallpox or wonderful. It didn’t actually work for AIDS.”
FAUCI SAYS MANDATING VACCINE FOR DOMESTIC TRAVEL IS SOMETHING THAT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED
Paul has previously said that monoclonal antibodies “are one of the most promising treatments for the virus” after a person has been infected, but that misinformation on the antibody treatment plagues “government bureaucrats.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington on Dec. 1, 2021. Fox News defended Jesse Watters on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021, after he used the phrase “kill shot” in a speech urging young conservatives to confront Fauci in public with a hostile interview. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
“Recent data showed that monoclonal antibody treatment cuts the risk of death and hospitalization by 70% in high-risk patients and reduces the chance of infection among a household by 80%,” Paul wrote in a September op-ed. “Monoclonal antibodies have only just begun to be mentioned by the mainstream media, and misinformation still plagues government bureaucrats when discussing this scientifically-backed treatment.”
Fauci has previously noted that monoclonal antibodies are a “much underutilized intervention” for COVID-19, but such therapies are often dwarfed by his focus on vaccines.
RAND PAUL ACCUSES DR. FAUCI OF LYING ABOUT NATURAL IMMUNITY BECAUSE IT FOILS HIS VACCINATION PLANS
Just on Monday, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert floated implementing a federal requirement for vaccines for domestic flights in order to increase the number of vaccinated people in the U.S.
“That’s another incentive to get more people vaccinated,” he said during an appearance on MSNBC. “If you want to do that with domestic flights, I think that’s something that seriously should be considered.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) questions National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci during a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee about the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on November 04, 2021 in Washington, DC. Using unverified and dubious data, Paul called on Fauci to resign and accused him of lying about the work done in a lab in Wuhan, China. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) ___ Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, adjusts his glasses during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Paul and Fauci have long sparred over the handling of the pandemic, and Paul has accused Fauci of lying about the effectiveness of natural immunity because it “foils his plans to get everybody possible vaccinated.”
“The reason he [Fauci] won’t bring up natural immunity is because it foils his plans to get everybody possible vaccinated. He thinks it might slow down vaccination. And I’m for people getting vaccinated, particularly people at risk, but the thing is, if you ignore naturally acquired immunity then you’re saying we don’t have enough people, you have to force it on younger people,” Paul said on FOX Business’ “Kudlow” in October.
