Dr. Anthony Fauci’s longtime No. 2 is set to succeed him and assume the mantle of acting director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Surgeon Hugh Auchincloss will ascend to acting director of NIAID, a post that Fauci held for nearly four decades, a presentation from the National Institute of Health’s advisory committee to the director revealed. Auchincloss has served as the NIAID’s principal deputy director since 2006.
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Fauci has not publicly specified his last day but claimed his departure will come at the end of the month. He will also step down from his role as President Joe Biden‘s chief medical adviser, capping off over 50 years of working in government.
As principal deputy director, Auchincloss is tasked with managing NIAID’s strategic planning and has worked to make its research endeavors more flexible. NIAID has a budget of about $6.3 billion, which is second to the National Cancer Institute.
Critics of Fauci bristled at the news of the appointment. Justin Goodman, senior vice president of advocacy and public policy for the White Coat Waste Project, accused him of enabling experimentation on animals.
“Hugh Auchincloss is also an animal experimenter who has lobbied to build more risky biolabs and has been Fauci’s right-hand man for the last 16 years,” he said in a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner. “Surely the NIH can find a better steward of NIAIDs $6 billion budget than entrenched white coat Hugh Auchincloss.”
Throughout his tenure, Fauci presided over efforts to curtail the HIV-AIDS epidemic and other outbreaks over the decades. Having long enjoyed bipartisan praise, Fauci was catapulted into the political crossfire during the COVID-19 outbreak in which he championed measures to suppress the virus, drawing flak from conservatives in particular.
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Ahead of his exit, Fauci has been on a press tour, reflecting on his decades of government service and chiming in on pressing issues such as the origins of the virus, a topic on which insists he keeps an “open mind.” He has also implored people to get the latest booster vaccine.
Fauci announced his forthcoming retirement over the summer and has bemoaned the political polarization over the pandemic.
