The real disease is the whole maga germ. If only we used our vaccine for eliminating hate, lies, corruption, complicity, corruption, etc. That vaccine has been around longer than all others. It is called Impeachment! Remember the cleansing of that vaccine?????
How we are so easily entertained by scapegoating by others’ destruction.
Accountability is also a fine vaccine for healing !❤️🩹
I would definitely take a vaccine against “hate, lies, corruption, complicity, and corruption”! Until then I think the best we have is education, science literacy, poetry, spirituality of some sort, and cheesesteaks with Wiz and fried onions.
Cheers to accountability and justice some day, like real justice, as in rule by law. Thanks Jean!
I fear that humanity is devolving. Higher education, especially in the STEM areas, is disparaged--unless, of course, it's a tech-bro with morbid affluenza. (I recently put my own webpage live, and the blog section which my friends have reacted to most is the post I titled "Enough" which is about Musk being a trillionaire. But I realize I am preaching to the choir.)
People seem to have forgotten the meat truck morgues, as well. Maybe we should have instead erected funeral pyres in the parking lots of the hospitals. Leave the melted asphalt as a memorial.
I recently read of a university which is creating a major for "entrepreneurial influencing". Yep--be an influencer. I could bang my head against the keyboard. Recall Andy Warhol's phrase of "everyone will be famous for 15 minutes"?? Such a culture of "me me me me" we have created. I am so tired of politics/government by meme.
Thanks for this enlightened rant Miselle, and I mean that in the best sense of the word/genre! So much of our culture and modern society has been ruined by algorithms, attention hacking, glorification of narcissism, and outrageous greed. It’s beyond biblical proportions. Keep resisting dehumanization when you can, know that you are not alone in your awareness.
Thank you for putting this all together. People like you and Dr. Fauci and others who have the intelligence, the patience and the fortitude and self control to present a clear and balanced view of events and human efforts - honest or devious - make the world a better place, and create space for hope.
Thank you so much Gemma. Though I failed to reign in the word count as I typed this on a 5 hour plane ride (wearing an N95 of course 😜), I did mostly succeed in reigning in my anger and disgust at what I read about this hearing. The first draft was pretty hot, so I slept on it before cooling and pressing send! Your warm compassion and easy demeanor make scenes like this, and stone casters like this, appear ugly, mean, and ridiculous. Thanks for being your wonderful self in this world full of wonder and hate.
History will likely view it about how we view the McCarthy hearings and the red scare, if anyone is still alive after the next pandemic. Then as now there was pandering to irrational fears and profiting politically, and it is a shame. In almost 40 years as a physician, I saw HIV go from a death sentence to a chronic illness. That was a stellar achievement in itself even without the massive advances that have been made in science by the NIH with Dr Fauci and others like him. I fear a bitter harvest awaits us with the resurgence of preventable illness, and RFK and Paul will be on an island counting their money.
You make a lot of good points, Nell. The undercurrent of fascism/authoritarianism has really been with us since at least WW2, and the depth of the McCarthyism phenomenon was really well presented in Maddow's podcast series "Ultra." I never knew how bad that was. The current stuff is really marked by a blend of cruelty, corruption, and lack of shame that is breathtaking. Formerly impeachable offenses occur weekly. I dread that bitter harvest you are referring to as infectious diseases increasingly have an open door right now, too. We have to refuse to normalize, right?
I am grateful for your words here, and I am grateful for you. I remember your observation some time back that we have been through a collective trauma. What a tragedy that now, instead of leadership that has the capacity to lift us all up and help to bring us together, those in charge are insistent on finding scapegoats and tearing us apart.
Agreed. To be honest I'm personally OK with burying the trauma for a while longer, and just trying to live in the present ... but bringing fresh rage, blame, and conflict 6 years later is unforgivable. They are not going to be constructive about lessons learned, or even respectful of the trauma aspect, or respectful of the dead.
Among your many fine attributes, your overall attitude to life, as expressed here, is immensely well-balanced. For me (not so well-balanced as you, I must admit!), it’s living in the past that’s been helpful . . . well, only a certain kind of past: eg 19th C French art (BTW, I just looked up Philly’s holdings: 11 Pissarro paintings—I can’t tell how many are on view from the website, but I bet the number is greater percentagewise than for the Met! https://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/2026/08/02/desperately-seeking-pissarro-at-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art/
Another performative show for the mid-terms elections with no substance or evidence. If one really read the dairy and not the cherry picked to suit their narrative. All part of the regime "saving face" over the mishandling of the pandemic.
"Malignant forms of bureaucratic politics flourish and organizational logjams persist when leaders (or their surrogates) fail to create a transparent interagency decision‐making process, cut through the red tape, or set constructive norms for policy discourse (Rosati, 2000). Donald Trump and his top officials failed to provide scientifically informed, normative leadership, resulting in fierce infighting between multiple power centers, blame‐shifting, ambiguity regarding who was in charge, and a delayed, disorganized response to the pandemic.
Finally, from an agenda‐political perspective, although others may be more or less skillful in securing access and making their cases for preferred policies, the buck stops in the Oval Office. The definitive duty for setting the political and policy agenda rests with the White House. When the executive initially suggests that the stock market and not public health is of the utmost importance and makes it clear that bad news is unwelcome, shifting priorities and rapidly responding and adjusting to new information becomes difficult. At the end of the day, presidents are responsible for (although not entirely in control of) the political agenda."
How will history view this in 100 years? If humans survive this deplorable time, I hope it will be with greater insight than those who are bashing this great humanitarian.
Very true, Celeste. If civilization can make it though the AI, climate change, nuclear, and pandemic bottlenecks currently threatening our demise... I think there could be a complete reengineering of society. We can only hope biological humans are a part of it!
Thank you for this clear-headed, balanced, post! Fauci should never have been the target! He was the hero & a life-saver! Please consider submitting this as an op-ed to the New York Times so many others can read it! One truly wonders who would ever again choose public service in this crazy mixed up climate our country is mired in. Heaven help us.
It is really farcical that they have conspired to make a towering figure the fall guy, but such is the modus operandi. Would be fun to clean this up for NYT or another publication, thanks for that. Although this feels like an opinion piece, I was really trying to keep it factual. But when the facts and reason are so heavily skewed to one side, it ends up sounding partisan by default. Heaven and fellow Americans help us indeed!
Hi Julie, and yes, there is a constant sense of the circus showman, the slick magician, holding our attention with yet another "look over here" as the incredible corruption picks our pockets, takes away healthcare from millions, lets measles and cyclospora run rampant, spends hundreds of billions in another Middle East quagmire... great clip, thank you!
Thank you, Dr. McCormick, for your thoughts, facts and insight on the Fauci debacle. Gotta tell you, though, that it gave me a headache--especially your last few paragraphs under the heading "Most importantly, for all Americans....". God help us!!
Thank you for expressing the rage so many of us feel about how Dr. Fauci was treated, an example of how the people controlling the Administration and the Congress continue to relentlessly foster and condone distrust, threats, and hatred among people in the U.S. We will all end up suffering due to these ongoing attacks on scientists and people in the medical profession--not to mention the disregard for the rule of law and our Constitutional rights.
In March 2020 states were outbidding each other on PPE, and hospital workers reusing them for days (via a labeled brown paper bag rotation method for safety).
Civilians in community settings had to improvise.
We could blame the virus.
We could blame the supply chain disruption that led to "you don't need one" followed by an abrupt 180 without any thought to where people would procure one from.
Grassroots groups formed to fill the need, expecting the cavalry to arrive any moment with a consumer standard for high quality PPE for various face shapes in a variety of colors and sizes, and taught simple fit checks. That never happened.
We are all we had. Then, once the dust settled, negative energy was put into witch hunts and tearing down the effectiveness of flimsy blues or homemade PPE, and demonizing anyone in public health who tried to help in good faith -- all instead of innovating towards something better.
Too many people just preferred to hate each other instead of the virus.
Another informative post, thanks. My knee-jerk reaction to the continuing Paul/Fauci drama would be to call Paul unhinged and Fauci heroic. However, I find myself agreeing with Paul about the dangers of gain in function research and about the NIH's poor supervision of the research it helped fund at the Wuhan lab. The lab leak theory was immediately condemned by many in the scientific community and was even labeled as being racist by politicians and media figures. Now there is credible evidence that the SARS CoV virus originated in the Wuhan lab though the proof of this is not definitive. While Dr. Paul's criticism of Dr. Fauci may have some merit, such as the lax oversight at NIH and Dr. Fauci's sticking to the precise definition of GOF research versus the common definition used by most virologists (according to Claude), his blaming Dr. Fauci for millions of deaths due to the pandemic is absurd and dangerous. Republican policies are undermining public health in our country and around the world, not Dr. Fauci.
It's good to hear your thoughtful, non "knee jerk" reaction to this issue. And your conclusion is even better - Fauci is not the problem, Republicans are.
So troubling, but hardly surprising in the context of decimation of public health institutions in this country. It's also worth noting that Dr. Fauci's successor, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, was fired for speaking out about risky government policies. She is a former colleague at UAB, and now serves as CEO of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
The real disease is the whole maga germ. If only we used our vaccine for eliminating hate, lies, corruption, complicity, corruption, etc. That vaccine has been around longer than all others. It is called Impeachment! Remember the cleansing of that vaccine?????
How we are so easily entertained by scapegoating by others’ destruction.
Accountability is also a fine vaccine for healing !❤️🩹
Well spoken!!
I would definitely take a vaccine against “hate, lies, corruption, complicity, and corruption”! Until then I think the best we have is education, science literacy, poetry, spirituality of some sort, and cheesesteaks with Wiz and fried onions.
Cheers to accountability and justice some day, like real justice, as in rule by law. Thanks Jean!
Dr. Fauci responded to the vile attacks by Republicans senators with professionalism and integrity that those senators lack.
100%
His composure was something to emulate and admire.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
I fear that humanity is devolving. Higher education, especially in the STEM areas, is disparaged--unless, of course, it's a tech-bro with morbid affluenza. (I recently put my own webpage live, and the blog section which my friends have reacted to most is the post I titled "Enough" which is about Musk being a trillionaire. But I realize I am preaching to the choir.)
People seem to have forgotten the meat truck morgues, as well. Maybe we should have instead erected funeral pyres in the parking lots of the hospitals. Leave the melted asphalt as a memorial.
I recently read of a university which is creating a major for "entrepreneurial influencing". Yep--be an influencer. I could bang my head against the keyboard. Recall Andy Warhol's phrase of "everyone will be famous for 15 minutes"?? Such a culture of "me me me me" we have created. I am so tired of politics/government by meme.
Thanks for this enlightened rant Miselle, and I mean that in the best sense of the word/genre! So much of our culture and modern society has been ruined by algorithms, attention hacking, glorification of narcissism, and outrageous greed. It’s beyond biblical proportions. Keep resisting dehumanization when you can, know that you are not alone in your awareness.
Thank you for putting this all together. People like you and Dr. Fauci and others who have the intelligence, the patience and the fortitude and self control to present a clear and balanced view of events and human efforts - honest or devious - make the world a better place, and create space for hope.
So, thank you!
Thank you so much Gemma. Though I failed to reign in the word count as I typed this on a 5 hour plane ride (wearing an N95 of course 😜), I did mostly succeed in reigning in my anger and disgust at what I read about this hearing. The first draft was pretty hot, so I slept on it before cooling and pressing send! Your warm compassion and easy demeanor make scenes like this, and stone casters like this, appear ugly, mean, and ridiculous. Thanks for being your wonderful self in this world full of wonder and hate.
History will likely view it about how we view the McCarthy hearings and the red scare, if anyone is still alive after the next pandemic. Then as now there was pandering to irrational fears and profiting politically, and it is a shame. In almost 40 years as a physician, I saw HIV go from a death sentence to a chronic illness. That was a stellar achievement in itself even without the massive advances that have been made in science by the NIH with Dr Fauci and others like him. I fear a bitter harvest awaits us with the resurgence of preventable illness, and RFK and Paul will be on an island counting their money.
You make a lot of good points, Nell. The undercurrent of fascism/authoritarianism has really been with us since at least WW2, and the depth of the McCarthyism phenomenon was really well presented in Maddow's podcast series "Ultra." I never knew how bad that was. The current stuff is really marked by a blend of cruelty, corruption, and lack of shame that is breathtaking. Formerly impeachable offenses occur weekly. I dread that bitter harvest you are referring to as infectious diseases increasingly have an open door right now, too. We have to refuse to normalize, right?
I am grateful for your words here, and I am grateful for you. I remember your observation some time back that we have been through a collective trauma. What a tragedy that now, instead of leadership that has the capacity to lift us all up and help to bring us together, those in charge are insistent on finding scapegoats and tearing us apart.
Agreed. To be honest I'm personally OK with burying the trauma for a while longer, and just trying to live in the present ... but bringing fresh rage, blame, and conflict 6 years later is unforgivable. They are not going to be constructive about lessons learned, or even respectful of the trauma aspect, or respectful of the dead.
Among your many fine attributes, your overall attitude to life, as expressed here, is immensely well-balanced. For me (not so well-balanced as you, I must admit!), it’s living in the past that’s been helpful . . . well, only a certain kind of past: eg 19th C French art (BTW, I just looked up Philly’s holdings: 11 Pissarro paintings—I can’t tell how many are on view from the website, but I bet the number is greater percentagewise than for the Met! https://prufrocksdilemma.wordpress.com/2026/08/02/desperately-seeking-pissarro-at-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art/
Another performative show for the mid-terms elections with no substance or evidence. If one really read the dairy and not the cherry picked to suit their narrative. All part of the regime "saving face" over the mishandling of the pandemic.
I'm guessing the prime reason there was no 9/11 commission is because of the massive mishandling. This analysis was quite interesting:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9115435/#padm12843-sec-0012
"Malignant forms of bureaucratic politics flourish and organizational logjams persist when leaders (or their surrogates) fail to create a transparent interagency decision‐making process, cut through the red tape, or set constructive norms for policy discourse (Rosati, 2000). Donald Trump and his top officials failed to provide scientifically informed, normative leadership, resulting in fierce infighting between multiple power centers, blame‐shifting, ambiguity regarding who was in charge, and a delayed, disorganized response to the pandemic.
Finally, from an agenda‐political perspective, although others may be more or less skillful in securing access and making their cases for preferred policies, the buck stops in the Oval Office. The definitive duty for setting the political and policy agenda rests with the White House. When the executive initially suggests that the stock market and not public health is of the utmost importance and makes it clear that bad news is unwelcome, shifting priorities and rapidly responding and adjusting to new information becomes difficult. At the end of the day, presidents are responsible for (although not entirely in control of) the political agenda."
It was pointed out in the early days that the script was written for the POTUS to look good while hiding the mismanagement and dangers.
How will history view this in 100 years? If humans survive this deplorable time, I hope it will be with greater insight than those who are bashing this great humanitarian.
Very true, Celeste. If civilization can make it though the AI, climate change, nuclear, and pandemic bottlenecks currently threatening our demise... I think there could be a complete reengineering of society. We can only hope biological humans are a part of it!
Thank you for this clear-headed, balanced, post! Fauci should never have been the target! He was the hero & a life-saver! Please consider submitting this as an op-ed to the New York Times so many others can read it! One truly wonders who would ever again choose public service in this crazy mixed up climate our country is mired in. Heaven help us.
It is really farcical that they have conspired to make a towering figure the fall guy, but such is the modus operandi. Would be fun to clean this up for NYT or another publication, thanks for that. Although this feels like an opinion piece, I was really trying to keep it factual. But when the facts and reason are so heavily skewed to one side, it ends up sounding partisan by default. Heaven and fellow Americans help us indeed!
Vile, vicious, inexcusable. As they hide what they are doing, this is another 'Look Over Here' gimmick. Clip from MSNOW, Lawrence O'Donnell gives factual overview. https://www.ms.now/the-last-word/watch/lawrence-republicans-attacking-anthony-fauci-is-one-of-the-darkest-days-in-our-senate-s-history-2508974147615 We have been living under the tyranny of the current administration which repeatedly exercises the spectacle of power over truth while simultaneously destroying both the future and the past. VOTE THEM OUT 💪 ⚖️ 🗽
Here is the O'Donnell coverage from substack:
https://substack.com/@politicsusa46/note/p-209073716?r=bbbzb
Hi Julie, and yes, there is a constant sense of the circus showman, the slick magician, holding our attention with yet another "look over here" as the incredible corruption picks our pockets, takes away healthcare from millions, lets measles and cyclospora run rampant, spends hundreds of billions in another Middle East quagmire... great clip, thank you!
Thank you for this link, it provides important back ground
Thank you, Dr. McCormick, for your thoughts, facts and insight on the Fauci debacle. Gotta tell you, though, that it gave me a headache--especially your last few paragraphs under the heading "Most importantly, for all Americans....". God help us!!
Thank you for expressing the rage so many of us feel about how Dr. Fauci was treated, an example of how the people controlling the Administration and the Congress continue to relentlessly foster and condone distrust, threats, and hatred among people in the U.S. We will all end up suffering due to these ongoing attacks on scientists and people in the medical profession--not to mention the disregard for the rule of law and our Constitutional rights.
MSNOW Lawrence O'Donnell coverage (here on Substack)
https://substack.com/@politicsusa46/note/p-209073716?r=bbbzb
In March 2020 states were outbidding each other on PPE, and hospital workers reusing them for days (via a labeled brown paper bag rotation method for safety).
Civilians in community settings had to improvise.
We could blame the virus.
We could blame the supply chain disruption that led to "you don't need one" followed by an abrupt 180 without any thought to where people would procure one from.
Grassroots groups formed to fill the need, expecting the cavalry to arrive any moment with a consumer standard for high quality PPE for various face shapes in a variety of colors and sizes, and taught simple fit checks. That never happened.
We are all we had. Then, once the dust settled, negative energy was put into witch hunts and tearing down the effectiveness of flimsy blues or homemade PPE, and demonizing anyone in public health who tried to help in good faith -- all instead of innovating towards something better.
Too many people just preferred to hate each other instead of the virus.
We are so cooked for the next one.
Another informative post, thanks. My knee-jerk reaction to the continuing Paul/Fauci drama would be to call Paul unhinged and Fauci heroic. However, I find myself agreeing with Paul about the dangers of gain in function research and about the NIH's poor supervision of the research it helped fund at the Wuhan lab. The lab leak theory was immediately condemned by many in the scientific community and was even labeled as being racist by politicians and media figures. Now there is credible evidence that the SARS CoV virus originated in the Wuhan lab though the proof of this is not definitive. While Dr. Paul's criticism of Dr. Fauci may have some merit, such as the lax oversight at NIH and Dr. Fauci's sticking to the precise definition of GOF research versus the common definition used by most virologists (according to Claude), his blaming Dr. Fauci for millions of deaths due to the pandemic is absurd and dangerous. Republican policies are undermining public health in our country and around the world, not Dr. Fauci.
It's good to hear your thoughtful, non "knee jerk" reaction to this issue. And your conclusion is even better - Fauci is not the problem, Republicans are.
So troubling, but hardly surprising in the context of decimation of public health institutions in this country. It's also worth noting that Dr. Fauci's successor, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, was fired for speaking out about risky government policies. She is a former colleague at UAB, and now serves as CEO of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.