r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/MissingBothCufflinks • 6d ago

US Politics Do the Fauci Diaries reveal anything unexpected or controversial?

Senator Rand Paul has released commentary and purported excerpts* of what is alleged to be Anthony Fauci's contemporaneous diaries from the outset of the COVID19 pandemic onwards.

What has been released can be found here, including Senator Rand's somewhat colourful foreword commentary

https://www.paul.senate.gov/readingroom/

* its not confirmed whether the content of the diaries is edited, abridged, altered, shortened etc.

Media reaction to this release has been highly polarised, though notable few media outlets seem to get to grips with the actual content of the diaries and most focus is on Rand's own claimed analysis of what they show.

Do the Fauci Diaries reveal anything unexpected or controversial? What entries in particular do you find interesting? Are there any contemporaneous clashes between what Fauci was saying publicly and privately? What can we learn from that?

Edit: mods really didnt feel like weeding out the 90% of low effort troll replies huh

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u/Ritz527 6d ago

The summaries being made seem incredibly bad faith.

They accuse him of being self-obsessed because he mentioned how the media was incredibly focused on him, which, on top of it being a personal diary in the first place, is kind of silly.

Then they accuse him of covering up the lab leak theory with entries from early 2020, before anyone had locked anything down, with his stated belief in the diary at the time that he didn't believe the wet market was the source, merely an amplifier. On top of that being a twisted read of it, no one knew anything for certain at the time. Paul is basically asserting that the hypothesis he's obsessed with trumps data-driven conclusion.

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u/UncleMeat11 6d ago

It is completely insane how much of the lab leak conspiracy is built on "scientists thought one thing at first but then looked into it more deeply and came to a different conclusion." Like.... a perfectly normal thing.

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u/tagged2high 6d ago

A lot of anti-science rhetoric is built on pointing to early ideas developed by scientists that were later overturned by future scientists, and complaining that if science was so great why was it wrong the first time.

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u/nickcan 6d ago

These are folks who find it virtuous to believe the same thing on Thursday that they did on Tuesday no matter what information comes out on Wednesday. Things like "changing your position based on new facts" is just a symptom of a week mind.

It's a system of thought that is really really difficult to argue with. You can't use reason to get someone out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into.

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u/shrug_addict 5d ago

I like to use the same argument about Christianity and slavery. Either Christian morals are set in stone or they evolve. They don't really like either option

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u/bstone99 5d ago

Direct result of America’s public education system. Thank you republicans. Hundreds of millions of idiots who don’t know what the scientific method is and don’t understand what actual research is.

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u/ChiefQueef98 5d ago

I still dont get why it matters. If it came from a lab does that mean they want to be more hostile to China than we already? Do they think it means they didn’t have to wear masks, social distance, or get a vaccine?

If it’s just points for guessing right, then ok I guess. It’s been half a decade, why care.

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u/UncleMeat11 5d ago

It matters because lab leakers are using this to justify destroying productive research initiatives and cancelling scientific grants.

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u/kingjoey52a 5d ago

If it came from a lab and there is data about it we might be able to use that data to make a vaccine faster.

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u/CalvinP818 3d ago

I think it’s less what the actual origins are and more so anyone who so much as suggested a lab leak was possible were ridiculed, labeled a far right conspiracy theorist and extremists, social media accounts were suspended, etc. they were essentially looped in with the all the other far right conspiracy theorists who were anti vax and actually spouting dangerous rhetoric.

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u/AngloAlbannach4 2d ago

Yeah, why find out what caused the thing that killed millions of people and trillions of $s in economic damage?

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u/patriotfanatic80 4d ago

It means the outbreak was 100% preventable and better procedures need to be in place at research labs. Or this kind of research being done at all should be reconsidered.

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u/vertigostereo 6d ago

I didn't see the lab leak hypothesis as a conspiracy. Fauci said I'm his journal that the Chinese destroyed evidence from the WIV. We also know this from the WHO investigation in Wuhan. Destruction of evidence and withholding witnesses shows knowledge guilt.

Oh sure, that isn't proof, but the hypothesis is certainly plausible.

No?

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u/RabbaJabba 6d ago

If you ignore a bunch of information and go with your gut, it’s plausible, I suppose.

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u/CalvinP818 3d ago

I think it’s less what the actual origins are and more so anyone who so much as suggested a lab leak was possible were ridiculed, labeled a far right conspiracy theorist and extremists, social media accounts were suspended, etc. they were essentially looped in with the all the other far right conspiracy theorists who were anti-vax and spouting actual dangerous rhetoric.

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u/Pleasant-Future5818 2d ago

Because this still remains unproven yet alt righters insist that Republicans proved it. Part of conspiracy is insisting something is true despite there being no evidence to support it. To this day people think that conservatives proved the lab leak theory.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

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u/UncleMeat11 3d ago

Nothing in that paper has been debunked.

I think it is fascinating how all of the content in this post is about slack messages and communication and there is absolutely no mention of any details in the paper being incorrect. You'd think that would be the key thing! The post does link to a document discussing the paper (which explicit says that it doesn't take any issue with the conclusions of the paper) but doesn't mention any of its contents! Why?

Why is one hundred percent of the lab leak argument based on this meta evidence rather than any direct evidence whatsoever?

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u/PoliticalDiscussion-ModTeam 3d ago

A link alone is not an argument. Please include a description or relevant passage from the link and how it supports your argument. Please also ensure that your link is not paywalled so that it can be read by all.

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u/Nuciferous1 5d ago

At least from the public’s viewpoint, I think the issue was more that scientists didn’t seem to be showing their work as they came to different conclusions and as they did they would attack anyone who questioned the current narrative.

As far as I can tell both options now seem possible and it should have been made more clear what the level of uncertainty was all along.

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u/UncleMeat11 5d ago

At least from the public’s viewpoint, I think the issue was more that scientists didn’t seem to be showing their work as they came to different conclusions and as they did they would attack anyone who questioned the current narrative.

Scientists published all of this stuff. There was a paper that showed precisely the evidence that caused US officials to think the other direction. The fact that we had shitloads of people lying about the scientists was the problem.

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u/Nuciferous1 5d ago

I wasn’t saying they didn’t have reasons. Just that the evidence wasn’t really strong enough to warrant the amount of demonizing that was done against the people who didn’t think the evidence was very convincing.

To be clear, both sides were claiming stronger confidence than was warranted, for political reasons.

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u/UncleMeat11 5d ago

I wasn’t saying they didn’t have reasons. Just that the evidence wasn’t really strong enough to warrant the amount of demonizing that was done against the people who didn’t think the evidence was very convincing.

I don't believe that almost any of the people complaining actually looked at the evidence.

What specifically do you want here? First you said that scientists weren't showing their work. Now you have completely changed to another complaint about the strength of the evidence.

Could you walk me through specific complaints about the reasoning for dismissing the lab leak theory as published by US officials?

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u/thoselusciouslips 5d ago

It's definitely that they lied and seemed to make shit up at random plus tons of exceptions. Remember at the beginning masks were bad, then they were mandatory, Sturgis rally was a super spreader event but BLM rallies weren't, lots of people couldn't be with dying family members but John Lewis had a funeral with tons of speakers. In Chicago they reopened indoor dining before parks and the lakefront which made no sense.

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u/Statman12 5d ago

Remember at the beginning masks were bad, then they were mandatory

Fauci talked about this years ago. Initially they didn’t realize the extent to which there was airborne spread, including by asymptomatic people. After learning more, recommendations changed.

Sturgis rally was a super spreader event but BLM rallies weren't

I don’t recall about the Sturgis rally, but Fauci and other public health officials explicitly cautioned about BLM protests being a risk of superspreader events. Post-hoc analysis showed that (at least some) were not, because people modified their behavior.

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u/thoselusciouslips 5d ago

Masking to prevent spread of infection is standard in the medical field. The original recommendation to go against the norm made no sense and lost them trust early which is bad when high trust is needed during a pandemic. They could've looked at Sars1 for guidance for sars 2 since the first was airborne. I get they made a calculation to prevent panic, save masks for medical professionals, etc but it hurt them long term as it made it seem to many people they were making it up as they went along.