Tony's Diary Package — page 49

answers the questions -- he not only gives the science, but then he says, let me explain this in pedestrian language -- is Dr. Fauci." Then again, this is not the first time Fauci has found himself in the position of having to navigate a public health crisis fraught with political land mines. A renowned international expert on the immune system, Fauci took over NIAID in 1984, barely a year and a half after scientists had identified a mysterious retrovirus that was killing thousands of people. It would be nearly another year before President Ronald Reagan would publicly utter the name of the disease it produced: AIDS. Reagan's sluggish handling of the epidemic left one of the deepest scars on his legacy. In 1986, Reagan's surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, produced a report that described in graphic terms the potential toll of AIDS, projecting that 270,000 Americans might contract it by 1991. The report used explicit language, explaining that the disease was transmitted through "semen and vaginal fluids" and during "oral, anal and vaginal intercourse." Conservatives approved of some of what was in Koop's document: It warned against "freewheeling casual sex," and asserted that the surest means of preventing AIDS were through abstinence and monogamy. But they weren't so happy with the surgeon general's recommendation that condoms be used as a fallback. Koop was concerned that his findings were being buried by the Reagan administration, so two years later, he and Fauci cooked up a bold idea: mailing an abridged version of his report to every single one of the 107 million households and postal boxes in the country. The problem, however, was that the surgeon general lacked the budget to do it. As Fauci recounted to me during a 2018 interview, he told Koop: "You know, there is a mechanism called an interagency transfer." Fauci had the authority to provide funds to get the project off the ground, because combating AIDS related to his own agency's core mission. Congress picked up the idea and ordered the largest mass mailing in U.S. history. It also stipulated that the seven-page brochure be "distributed without necessary clearance of the content by any official, organization or office" -- in other words, that it not be edited to suit anyone's political agenda. In addition to being printed in English and Spanish, "Understanding AIDS" went out in Chinese, Portuguese, Haitian-Creole, Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian and Braille. It debunked many myths about the disease, for instance stating unequivocally that AIDS is not spread by mosquitoes, and could not be caught through casual contact with saliva, sweat or toilet seats.