Political Memes

Fauci was one of the younger scientists working on AIDS research at NIAID at the time, and Staley said ACT UP members began to get to know him. “All the older scientists thought we were crazy,” he said. “But Fauci wanted to hear what we had to say.”

“We liked Tony personally. He’s a brilliant scientist, a brilliant fighter of epidemics,” Staley said.

“I was becoming friends with some of them, like Peter Staley and Mark Harrington,” Fauci agreed. “I felt very strongly that we needed to get them into the planning process because they weren’t always right, but they had very, very good input.”

Fauci attended an ACT UP meeting in October 1989. After that, some of the group’s leaders on its Treatment and Data Committee would meet the NIAID chief and his deputy, Jim Hill, for dinner at Hill’s townhouse on Capitol Hill.

Fauci said he urged the scientific community and his own staff to include ACT UP members in the drug trial process. “I was pushing and pulling these people and screaming, ‘Hey, we have to deal with them,’ ” he said. “I was in a difficult position because I was trying to convince the establishment that ACT UP had something to offer.”

... did you even read your own fucking source