Top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, M.D., isn’t ready to fully step away yet.
The chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he may step down from his current position but shied away from stepping fully away from government.
Fauci said in an interview in Politico on Monday that he is leaving by the end of Biden’s first term in 2025. However, Fauci elaborated on Tuesday during a session at The Hill’s Health Summit that he may step down from his current position, most likely as the head adviser to Biden.
“I don’t know where the word retirement came in,” Fauci said of the fallout from the interview. “I’m not going to retire. I may step down from my position at some time."
Fauci said that he was asked whether he would work with former President Donald Trump in his current capacity if Trump wins back the presidency in 2024.
“Whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden’s second term, I don’t intend to be in my current position in January 2025,” he said.
Fauci did not elaborate on whether that meant he would also step down from his position as the director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases or just the White House position.
“The one thing I do know is I have other things I want to do in a professional way that I want to have the capability while I still have the energy and the passion to do them,” he said.
Fauci also bemoaned the impact the pandemic has had on public health, especially with divisions surrounding the use of vaccines and masks.
“When people start writing the history of this there will be the scientific history and the public health history,” he said. “Unfortunately, the public health history has been severely marred by the political divisiveness in this country.”