[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 126 (Monday, August 3, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Page S4403]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Dr. Anthony Fauci

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, when I think about the issue of public 
health, I remember a time in my childhood when one of my friends didn't 
show up for school. I asked people: Where did she go?
  They shook their heads and said: Polio.
  When she finally returned, she couldn't walk without heavy leg 
braces. I will never forget the agony I saw in her eyes.
  Sadly, in my childhood, that story was common. For decades, a kid 
could go to school healthy and be paralyzed before the end of the day.
  But suddenly--suddenly--it all changed. Dr. Jonas Salk created the 
polio vaccine. Dr. Sabin came up with a form that didn't require a 
needle. By 1979, polio was eradicated in America. A disease that would 
strike fear in the hearts of everyone was a distant memory.
  I think there is a special place in history reserved for researchers 
and scientists like Dr. Salk and Dr. Sabin, who devoted their lives to 
saving others--people like Norman Borlaug, Edward Jenner, Madame Marie 
Curie, and Albert Calmette.
  There is another person whose name could be on that list as well--
someone who has saved millions of lives, both in America and around the 
world, through his lifetime of public service. His name: Dr. Anthony 
Fauci.
  Dr. Fauci worked for the National Institutes of Health for 54 years, 
38 of which he served as Director of the National Institute of Allergy 
and Infectious Diseases. He has advised seven Presidents, of both 
parties, and seen our Nation through countless public health crises--
from SARS to avian flu, swine flu, Zika, Ebola, and on and on.
  Aside from his work against COVID-19, Dr. Fauci may be best known for 
his work on HIV/AIDS. Dr. Fauci's tireless efforts on HIV/AIDS, both 
domestically and worldwide, through the creation of PEPFAR--the 
President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief--is the main reason why this 
horrible disease is no longer a death sentence. In recognition of his 
achievement, Dr. Fauci was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 
2008, our Nation's highest civilian honor, by then-President George W. 
Bush.
  Dr. Fauci is an example of American excellence, a brilliant 
scientific mind, and yet the Republican Party has chosen to make this 
doctor who has saved countless lives a political target.
  Last week, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental 
Affairs subpoenaed Dr. Fauci, in front of the Congress, for a hearing 
with the express goal of humiliating and vilifying him. For nearly 3 
hours, my Republican colleagues berated, cursed, and insulted a man who 
has dedicated his life to protecting the health of American families.
  This behavior is below the dignity of the Senate. Put simply, it was 
an embarrassment.
  If my colleagues had genuine concern for America's public health, 
they would turn their attention instead to the destruction wrought by 
this administration's anti-science agenda.
  Listen to this rollcall. Measle cases are at a 35-year high in the 
United States of America. Whooping cough has resurged. Our response to 
the hantavirus and cyclospora outbreaks has been abysmal. And hundreds 
of thousands of people have died due to the administration's vaccine 
skepticism and public health cuts.
  If my Republican colleagues want to hold hearings, perhaps they 
should hold one on the impact of President Trump's cuts to NIH research 
funding, which has slowed research into heart disease, cancer, and 
Alzheimer's; or they can investigate how the FDA has lost 20 percent of 
its staff under this administration, deeply damaging food safety 
efforts. If they were truly concerned for America's health, they would 
hold hearings on the fact that ACA premiums are doubling for many 
families across the United States because of the Republicans' Big 
Beautiful Bill.
  These are the real health crises of the day--all entirely of this 
administration's own making. But my Republican Senate colleagues have 
chosen to ignore real life-and-death issues to relitigate COVID 
conspiracy theories--not in an effort to find out what might have gone 
wrong or how to prepare for the next pandemic, instead, to try and tear 
down a man who has devoted his entire life to lifting others up.
  Dr. Fauci deserves an apology for the way he was treated by my 
colleagues, and the American people deserve better than the pitiful 
display we saw in the Senate last Wednesday.