Contact: Adam Ortega, adam.ortega@treatmentactiongroup.org
August 11, 2026 – Treatment Action Group (TAG) calls for recognition of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci as a public health hero who has helped lead the global research and public health responses to multiple pandemics including HIV/AIDS, SARS, Ebola, MERS, Zika, and SARS-Cov-2/COVID, and joins the chorus of outrage directed at the Republican U.S. senators pursuing an ignorant and dishonest persecution of the former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). [1] The depraved, bullying fantasists of the Republican caucus made plain their intent for the recent Senate committee hearing, with Sen. Rand Paul stating in an interview that their goal was to create grounds for a perjury charge.
Dr. Fauci, an award-winning, dedicated public servant for more than 50 years, accepted legal advice that the best response to this bad-faith show trial was to plead the Fifth Amendment. Deprived of the opportunity to try and trump up a false charge, Senator Rand Paul and colleagues have instead tried to paint Dr. Fauci as in contempt and made a criminal referral directly to the corrupted U.S. Department of Justice (not to the entire Senate, as is the typical procedure).
The Senate committee’s hearing was appallingly abused by Republican members to continue to propagandize their false claims about the COVID-19 pandemic, including conspiracy theories and debunked misinformation about the virus emerging from a laboratory and the insulting pretense that COVID wasn’t as severe as it was. America’s AIDS denialist Secretary for Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., followed the hearing by lying on national television, falsely stating that the U.S. had the highest death rate and “there were ICUs that were empty all across the country, including in New York, at the height.”
The Senate hearing reportedly boosted sales for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,’s 2021 book that attacks Dr. Fauci and heavily promotes the lies of AIDS denialism. In the book, the HHS Secretary acknowledges the help of two AIDS denialist writers, John Lauritsen and Celia Farber. The latter once sued a TAG employee for libel for writing that she and Dr. Peter Duesberg are “liars and frauds”; the case was dismissed on summary judgement (and two appeals rejected) after the court was provided examples of Farber and Duesberg misrepresenting and deliberately misquoting the scientific literature on HIV. This demonstrates the credibility of the people Secretary Kennedy Jr. chooses to believe over actual scientific experts like Dr. Fauci.
The debacle of the Senate committee hearing highlights the consequences of politically motivated disinformation run wild. Not coincidentally, the current US administration has stopped research into, and efforts to combat, scientific and public health disinformation. COVID is but one example of right-wing politicians demanding that people reject reality and accept their false characterizations instead.
TAG fully supports the Stand Up For Science petition urging Congress to immediately rescind the contempt resolution referral to the Justice Department and urges all who care about truth, justice, and the future of science to sign.
TAG staff are among the 155 physicians, scientists, and public health advocates who signed an open letter calling on Congress to end the harassment and persecution of Dr. Fauci and other scientists.
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About TAG: Treatment Action Group (TAG) is an independent, activist and community-based research and policy think tank fighting for better treatment, prevention, a vaccine, and a cure for HIV, tuberculosis, and hepatitis C virus. TAG works to ensure that all people with HIV, TB, and HCV receive lifesaving treatment, care, and information. We are science-based treatment activists working to expand and accelerate vital research and effective community engagement with research and policy institutions.
- Yamey G, Titanji BK. Fauci’s Senate hearing riled up the MAGA base-but at the cost of damaging public health. BMJ. 2026 Aug 7:394:e100529.