UPDATED: January 24, 2025
Welcome to the Healthy Living Is Good Medicine Newsletter, a totally free, health education publication covering a wide variety of topics with original articles intended to help people lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.
On January 20, 2025, in a rare move just prior to his departure from office, President Biden issued a preemptive pardon for Dr. Anthony Fauci to protect him from any potential revenge actions by the incoming regime. Trump had spoken about a list of enemies who had crossed him politically or tried to hold him accountable for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat and the role he played in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Saying that he doesn’t care what happens to Dr. Fauci, Trump ended the doctor’s federal security detail despite ongoing threats.
Dr. Fauci is a world renown physician, scientist, medical researcher, and expert in the field of infectious diseases. He is Board-certified in three different specialties; Internal Medicine, Allergy and Immunology, and Infectious Disease. He is also a patriot, and not the kind that makes a show of hugging the flag. A true patriot is someone who defends their country against its enemies. In his case, the enemies are diseases that threaten American lives, such as HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. Dr. Fauci has been instrumental in leading the research on their prevention and treatment.
Dr. Fauci served as the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 until his retirement at the end of 2022. In July, Dr. Fauci joins the faculty of Georgetown University School of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases. The vigorous and mentally sharp 83-year-old is a wonderful example of how having a positive mental attitude, spending a lifetime doing what you love, and helping others, can have a salutary effect on a person's health and longevity.
Turning down seven-figure salary offers in the private sector, Dr. Fauci devoted himself to public service for more than a half-century, for which he deserves our utmost respect and admiration. Not everyone feels that way. Despite all the good that he has done for his country, some miscreants have made credible death threats against him. Both he and his family still require security details for their protection. Contrary to how the far-right's smear campaign has portrayed him, Dr. Fauci did not make any public health policy decisions.
The good doctor has been in the news a lot lately, talking about his memoir, "On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service." His many interviews offer a wonderful insight into the man and his career. In stark contrast to the appreciation shown by his interviewers, we have witnessed the spectacle of Republican legislators who, on June 3, 2024, grilled and verbally abused Dr. Fauci during a special House hearing about the government’s responses to the pandemic emergency.
Let No Good Deed Go Unpunished
Despite any all-too-human mistakes, Dr. Fauci has done far more for his country than any of the despicable Representatives who publicly denigrated him. Among the worst was the unhinged attack by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who shouted at Dr. Fauci, "That man does not deserve to have a license. As a matter of fact, it should be revoked, and he belongs in prison." Oblivious to the rules of decorum and the fundamentals of civil discourse, the infamously toxic MTG has come to symbolize a malady afflicting Congress and crippling its productivity; placing obstructive partisan politics, personal interests, and sheer lunacy ahead of what's best for the American people.
Headlines in the press and on social media, taken from the hearing’s sound bites without context, and deliberately manipulated to produce click-bait, are misguidedly blasting public health policies in general. That does not bode well for our country, especially while facing the inconvenient truth that COVID-19 is still with us, and we’ll inevitably need to confront another pandemic in the not-too-distant future. For an in-depth analysis of what the media got so wrong about the "Fauci Hearing," see this post.
Responsible journalism and legitimate Congressional hearings do have a role when it comes to investigating what went wrong with the country’s response to a novel pathogen that caused over a million American deaths. One could reasonably expect that inquiries will be conducted with the intention of seeking solutions that could guide future pandemic responses, rather than simply castigating individuals.
It seems that the Republicans at the Fauci hearing overlooked the slow roll-out of accurate diagnostic tests. Perhaps that’s because it was Trump who said, “When you do testing… you’re going to find more cases. So, I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please!’” Trump also opposed mandating vaccinations and face masks, which would have helped to blunt the social and economic impact of the pandemic.
A recently published analysis of excess deaths indicates that stringent pandemic restrictions such as mandatory masking were associated with substantial decreases in mortality. These findings contradict claims that COVID-19 masking mandates were ineffective. At the same time, the study found that school closings probably had minimal effects in preventing infections.
A systemic government problem was that even when the science became clear, public health policies often lagged behind. The fastest and most effective way to get ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the least costly economic impact, would have been to mandate the widespread public use of high-efficiency face masks, such as the N95 or its equivalents. Making those masks widely available, without cost, would have been a far better alternative to the closures and lockdowns.
Fauci's Faux Pas
Perhaps Dr. Fauci's biggest mistake was raising his profile by communicating with the public about the government’s efforts to halt COVID-19’s rising death toll. Although he considers himself to be an effective communicator in his meetings with fellow scientists, Dr. Fauci's self-assurance and expertise did not go over well when it came to communicating with the public via his television and radio appearances. He was simply unable to “dumb down” his explanations, and many people found it difficult to understand him.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone who doesn’t live in an ivory tower that a great many people won't have a big enough vocabulary to understand the “highfalutin” words and medicalese that Dr. Fauci used when addressing the public. He seemed to be communicating on a different wavelength. Even though I knew what he was saying, the way he said things sometimes made me uncomfortable.
People tend to resent those who talk “over their heads,” and are quick to dismiss things that they don't understand. As the public’s "face of the pandemic," Dr. Fauci's talks drew a lot of flak. He was (and still is) unfairly blamed for the vaccine and mask mandates, school closures, and business lockdowns, none of which were his doing. All he did was try to explain, according to the limited knowledge available at the time, why those measures were considered necessary in order to protect the public.
Let me pause for a little self-reflection: Yes, I use big words and medical terms, but I'm communicating with my readers digitally. They can always use their computer, smartphone, or tablet, connected to the Internet, to look up any words or concepts that they don't quite understand, and I provide numerous links in my articles that will help to explain things. The purpose of this newsletter is to educate people. I believe that if someone is taking time to read this, there's no need to dumb things down for them. Please correct me if I'm wrong!
The Dumbing Down of America
On modern Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests, a raw quotient is translated into a normalized distribution, graphically represented as a bell-shaped curve. The IQ distribution curve is based on a mean (arithmetical average) score being 100, with a standard deviation of 15. An IQ of 85 is one standard deviation below the mean, and an IQ of 115 is one standard deviation above the mean.
About 68% of the population will have an IQ that falls within one standard deviation of the mean; about 95% within two standard deviations; 99.6% within three standard deviations; and 99.8% within four standard deviations. If we do the math, it shows us that two-thirds of the population will have an IQ that’s less than 107.
Thanks to the dumbing down of America, the average IQ is now actually 98, not 100, while in Singapore the average IQ is 108. Although many people with an average or below average performance IQ tests won’t go to college, many of them can still excel in non-academic pursuits. In our democracy, even people who have a limited problem-solving ability still get to vote.
Critical Thinking
Even smart people can make decisions that are based purely on emotion, instead performing a rational analysis of the evidence and applying logical reasoning to reach conclusions. Healthy skepticism is considered the default mode for scientific inquiry and critical thinking, but it doesn’t come naturally and needs to be cultivated. Part of that process involves recognizing our own cognitive biases, as this article explains:
Everyone can benefit from using critical thinking skills in their daily life, in order to discern truth from all the falsehoods with which we are barraged. From double-speaking politicians to claims about herbal remedies, dietary supplements, and cancer cures, almost all commercials and ads are full of hogwash and baloney.
America’s public education system has failed students of all ages by not teaching them critical thinking skills. The result has been a widespread crippling of people’s ability to recognize baloney (BS) when they encounter it. In marked contrast, Finland’s educational system gets an early start when teaching school children how to recognize misinformation:
Without thinking critically, people will continue to believe what they want to believe, disregarding any evidence to the contrary, and will typically double-down when their cherished beliefs are challenged. Fortunately, there is a “Baloney Detection Kit” available to remedy this problem:
Stupid Decisions
The Dunning–Kruger effect describes a cognitive bias in which highly competent people tend to underestimate their abilities, while those who lack competence are likely to overestimate their talents, skills, or intelligence. According to two nationally representative surveys, 65 percent of Americans believe that they have above average intelligence.
Ego, and a lack of accurate self-assessment, might help to explain the large number of unqualified people who run for office or accept appointments to important political positions. You know who they are. The ability to lie convincingly does more for advancing someone’s political career than being honest, intelligent, and able to reason critically.
The irrational beliefs, conspiracy theories, and stupid decisions of those in public office and holding positions of power can impact many people’s lives, and thereby do a great deal of harm. Our voting populace needs to wake up and vote them out, or demand their resignations! Without insisting upon accountability, there are likely to be dark times ahead.
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