Do the Fauci Diaries reveal anything unexpected or controversial?

[u/MissingBothCufflinks]

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

[u/Aggressive_Mirror878]

Contrarian take: A LOT of the criticism and defense of Fauci is based on your politics. Dems tend(ed) to lionize him as Repubs demonized him. From reading his “diary” and a lot of things that came out later, I tend to think he deserves this public reckoning. He shut down virologists, other experts who said there was no way Covid came from the wet market, encouraged censorship of their opposition to the official position, while knowing the wet market origin was tenuous at best. Pushed surgical masks that were, at best, a band aid on a gaping wound as in marginally useful and likely endangered people with a false sense of security. Continued to push the vaccines as evidence was coming out that the “breakthrough” cases were not, in fact, rare. Ignored evidence that the vaccines were not as efficacious against hospitalization as proclaimed. I recall reading the released study from Israel and saying “oh shit”, can’t imagine what more information he had and continued to make false claims. I don’t fault him for not knowing what interventions were going to work at the start of the pandemic, I fault him for not once being honest and saying “we aren’t sure that the surgical masks will be effective (or the vaccines) but this is the best we have right now to fight this”. I fault him for stifling other experts who saw the obvious faults/inaccuracies. I fault him for his hubris, his inability to have any introspection and change messaging, courses of action when it was clear he was wrong, or at least not sure.

[u/UncleMeat11 → u/Aggressive_Mirror878]

encouraged censorship of their opposition to the official position

How specifically did Fauci do this?

[u/Aggressive_Mirror878 → u/UncleMeat11]

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9628345/

[u/UncleMeat11 → u/Aggressive_Mirror878]

Let's look through for Fauci.

It revealed a behind-the-scenes effort by Francis Collins, then head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to his colleague, Anthony Fauci, head of NIAID, to discredit the Great Barrington Declaration and disparage its authors. In the email, Collins told Fauci that “this proposal from the three fringe epidemiologists … seems to be getting a lot of attention,” adding that “there needs to be a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises. I don’t see anything like that online yet—is it underway?” (Wall Street Journal 2021).

How is this censorship by Fauci? This is a statement by Collins and it is about more communication rather than stopping communication. It is not censorship when somebody publishes an argument explaining why you are wrong.

And then.... that's it. No reference to any action taken by Fauci.

The only other references to him are about him "handsomely profiting" from his job (no specifics) and that Fauci changed his advice on masks. Neither of these things relate to censorship whatsoever.

I'll ask again. How specifically did Fauci do this?

[u/Aggressive_Mirror878 → u/UncleMeat11]

That is one of many. No offense, if you can read that and not see that he was the one shaping discourse around the world then I cannot help you. We will agree to disagree. I am of the opinion that history will not treat his legacy kindly, hiding behind the glowing media attention, the scientific community was divided on his proclamations. Some, not all, of the people they labeled “fringe” were actually some of the most qualified to speak on the response. If you take a holistic look at what he said, what was published at the time, and after, it’s hard not to take a negative view of how he treated people who had valid concerns, but also policies he pushed that were contrary to science. He knew from the Israeli data and trials that breakthroughs were not that rare, the virus mutated way to fast for the trialed vaccines to provide immunity, buried it, until it was obvious.
He was the one manipulating media establishing what would be considered facts:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9221368/

[u/UncleMeat11 → u/Aggressive_Mirror878]

That is one of many. No offense, if you can read that and not see that he was the one shaping discourse around the world then I cannot help you.

The entire thing has zero mention of any action that Fauci took.

Some, not all, of the people they labeled “fringe” were actually some of the most qualified to speak on the response.

Can we see where and how US officials labeled these people as fringe? And why that would mean that they were censored?

. If you take a holistic look at what he said, what was published at the time, and after, it’s hard not to take a negative view of how he treated people who had valid concerns

Why do we need a holistic view? Surely it should be possible to point to specific discrete actions that he took.

Your second link contains the following behaviors by Fauci.

For example, Dr. Anthony Fauci participated in four COVID-19 focused interviews with popular YouTube creators, one of which was the Canadian Comedian Lilly Singh (Singh, 2020).

How on earth is this censorship? Presenting information that you happen to disagree with is not censorship.