By Dan Murphy
While all of America sits and waits for the COVID-19 pandemic to end and for normalcy to return, there’s one person we look for on television or on the radio to give us the unabashed truth and advice about the virus; his name is Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Before the Coronavirus, you probably heard of Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. As some people like Andrew Cuomo, others don’t; and as some people like President Trump, others don’t. The same is true for the infamous doctors.
But the one medical professional that I think all of us agree we can trust in this time of crisis is Dr. Fauci, who has a Westchester connection that brings pride to anyone who knew him back in the day.
“Mr. Murphy, please look into the fact that CDC Director Dr. Anthony Fauci was raised in Larchmont,” wrote Phyllis Catelli recently. “His father was also a doctor, and they were one of the first Italian-American families in Larchmont. He is my second-cousin-in-law from my marriage and we are all very proud of him.”
Feedback continued with another email from one of our readers: “After we have all survived and moved on from the Coronavirus, many years from today, I hope that a plaque will be placed at 90 Chatsworth Ave. in Larchmont for Dr. Anthony Fauci, who grew up there,” wrote Anthony Pellegrino.
“When the house was built in the 1950s, it did not look like the colonials and Tudor-style homes in the neighborhood. It was a modern red wood home that sits on the corner of Chatsworth Avenue and Vanderberg Avenue. Today the home blends in with the overgrown trees on the property, providing a great deal of shade for the home and street corner.
“I looked it up. The 3-bedroom, 2½-bathroom home sits on a small quarter-acre lot and last sold for $372,500 in 1996. It is now worth $1.3 million. All of us in Larchmont knew about Dr. Fauci, from his work on the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and the Ebola virus more recently. Those of us who are proud Italian-American are also proud of the fact that Dr. Fauci and his family called Larchmont home. I would even call for Chatsworth Avenue to be renamed ‘Dr. Anthony Fauci Street.’”
Dr. Fauci’s biography doesn’t mention much about Larchmont, or his childhood. Born in Brooklyn, Dr. Fauci’s father was a pharmacist where the family worked also in Brooklyn. The young Fauci attended the prestigious Regis High School in Manhattan, and his first doctorate was from Cornell University Medical College in 1966, where he was ranked first in his class.
Dr. Fauci was appointed director of NIAID in 1984. He oversees an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose and treat established infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis and malaria, as well as emerging diseases such as Ebola and Zika. NIAID also supports research on transplantation and immune-related illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies.
Dr. Fauci has advised six presidents on HIV/AIDS and many other domestic and global health issues. He was one of the principal architects of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a program that has saved millions of lives throughout the developing world.
Dr. Fauci has made seminal contributions to the understanding of how HIV destroys the body’s defenses, leading to its susceptibility to deadly infections. Further, he has been instrumental in developing treatments that enable people with HIV to live long and active lives. He continues to devote much of his research to the immunopathogenic mechanisms of HIV infection and the scope of the body’s immune responses to HIV.
In a 2019 analysis of Google Scholar citations, Dr. Fauci was ranked the 41st most highly cited researcher of all time. According to the Web of Science, he ranked eighth out of more than 2.2 million authors in the field of immunology by total citation count between 1980 and January 2019.
On Oct. 16, 2014, in a U.S. congressional hearing regarding the Ebola virus crisis, Dr. Fauci – who, as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had been discussing the importance of screening for weeks – testified that NIAID was still some distance away from producing sufficient quantities of cures or vaccines for widespread trials.
Dr. Fauci’s role for the American people has sometimes put him at odds with President Donald Trump. “You should never destroy your own credibility,” he said. “And you don’t want to go to war with a president. But you got to walk the fine balance of making sure you continue to tell the truth.”
At age 79, Dr. Fauci continues to serve his country. “I feel like I’m 45 and I act like I’m 35,” he said. “When I start to feel like I don’t have the energy to do the job, whatever my age, I’ll walk away and write my book.”
We are glad you didn’t walk away into retirement yet, Dr. Fauci. We thank you for your service, and the people of Larchmont are proud to call you a hometown hero.
