Rep. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Monday introduced an amendment to eliminate Dr. Anthony Fauci's position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"We’ve learned a lot over the past two years, but one lesson in particular is that no one person should be deemed "dictator-in-chief." No one person should have unilateral authority to make decisions for millions of Americans," Paul said in a statement issued Monday.
"To ensure that ineffective, unscientific lockdowns and mandates are never foisted on the American people ever again, I’ve introduced this amendment to eliminate Dr. Anthony Fauci’s position as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and divide his power into three separate new institutes. This will create accountability and oversight into a taxpayer funded position that has largely abused its power, and has been responsible for many failures and misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic."
Paul, one of Fauci's harshest critics during the COVID-19 pandemic, wrote in a Fox News opinion column that his motivation to act resulted not just from many Americans dying from COVID, but also due to people lost "to the crushing and overbearing lockdowns and mandates that were based on junk science."
"We lost more than individuals. We lost our freedoms. Our liberties. Our vibrant small town Main Streets. Our children's growth and learning," Paul wrote for Fox News. "For two years our lives were held captive by petty tyrants and power-hungry bureaucrats.
"We've learned a lot over the past two years, but one lesson in particular is that no one person should be deemed 'dictator in chief.' No one person should have unilateral authority to make decisions for millions of Americans."
Paul said his amendment would create accountability and oversight into a taxpayer-funded position "that has largely abused its power and has been responsible for many failures and misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic."
"If Fauci was simply one family doctor in Peoria, his mistakes would not be so catastrophic," Paul wrote on Fox News. "But since Fauci is allowed to be a medical czar for the whole country, his errors are amplified throughout the land."
Paul in November urged Fauci to resign for misleading the public about NIH's role in funding potentially dangerous gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China.
The congressman also blasted President Joe Biden's top medical adviser in a Newsmax opinion column for the way unvaccinated people were encouraged to get COVID shots.
"If Fauci and his authoritarian lap dogs really wanted to persuade the unvaccinated to choose the vaccine, they might have tried honesty, admitted that naturally acquired immunity works and advised Americans to get tested for previous infection," Paul wrote for Newsmax on Jan. 26. "If antibodies from a previous infection were detected then a vaccine provides little additional advantage.
"But if your antibody status to previous infection is negative, a vaccine lessens your chances of hospitalization by 20-fold. This information, given to a person who was hesitant to be vaccinated, could be very persuasive.
"But alas, honesty is not one of Fauci's recognizable attributes. So, instead, he insisted on bullying and mandating vaccines on everyone regardless of previous infection and regardless of a risk assessment for children.
In his Fox News column, Paul said Fauci did not follow the science "on masks, lockdowns, schools, natural immunity, all of it" after the pandemic began two years ago.
"A rational person might ask, how in the world did it take us so long to get to the truth? Why did we spend two years not following the science?" Fauci wrote for Fox News.
"Well again, that's what happens when 'the science' is dictated by one man, an unelected bureaucrat with far too much power."
The congressman has attacked Fauci and the mainstream media for promoting mask mandates.
"When Dr. Fauci said that cloth masks worked, I was truly concerned because that's not what the science demonstrated," Paul wrote on Fox News. "Misinformation can cost lives if the government convinces 80 year olds to wear useless cloth masks while taking care of spouses with COVID.
"Dr. Fauci and his friends worked diligently to silence opposing views. The media amplified his efforts. We were branded conspiracy theorists and anti-science for simply asking questions and presenting alternatives to what had been delivered to the American people as 'fact.'"
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