Dr. Fauci wins $1 million Dan David prize for 'defending science':
Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden's chief medical advisor, won one of the three Dan David Prizes, Israeli awards that each grant $1 million ( £720,440, AU$1.29 million) to recipients. The international awards are given in the categories Past, Present and Future, with Fauci winning the Present award, given for "achievements that shape and enrich society today."
[...] "The Dan David Prize recognizes and encourages innovative and interdisciplinary research that cuts across traditional boundaries and paradigms," the official website for the award says. "It aims to promote scientific, technological and humanistic achievements that advance and improve our lives and our knowledge of the world."
Fauci was praised for "courageously defending science in the face of uninformed opposition during the challenging COVID crisis.
"In addition to traditional vaccine methods, he and his team recognized the value of novel vaccine approaches, such as mRNA vaccines, and quickly moved them into clinical development," the Dan David Foundation said on its site. "Several of these vaccines have gained approval and are now being widely distributed to inoculate millions of people worldwide against the coronavirus."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday February 17 2021, @07:37AM (6 children)
It's nice and all, but my main objection to these sorts of prizes is that by the necessity of performing and producing enough to merit them, the recipients no longer need the money as they have made their millions in the course of their work. I'd rather see money go towards those who are hurting. Don't know Dr. Fauci's personal financial situation, but he's famous now, and, I should not be surprised, already a millionaire.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Socrastotle on Wednesday February 17 2021, @08:24AM (1 child)
He's the highest paid out of all 4million federal government employee. He earns even more than the president. Last year he earned $417,608 [forbes.com]. A quick search yielded this [documentcloud.org] highly redacted disclosure of his finances which also suggests millions of dollars in investments across a wide range of ventures.
Suffice to say, yeah he's loaded.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @10:41AM
Which really isn’t a lot. There are doctors at the State level making 700k+.
Here’s hoping fauci throws the money at a nice international fund or a bond allocation. The 20’s are ripe for stagnant domestic economy, given the growing bubble and the trend for the domestic market to fall flat every other decade since the 60’s.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @05:17PM (3 children)
This is how the rich get richer
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @05:46PM (2 children)
Troll. Fauci is obviously talented and there on merit.
Let's talk about the Jared Kushers of the world and the Nobel Peace Prize nominations. Son of a rich guy that got appointed senior advisor to the President by his father-in-law. Why can't I hear your outrage?!?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @06:43PM (1 child)
Got there on merit? Did you see how he handled the AIDS virus when it was breaking out in the 80s? He was completely wrong about how it would spread to the general public, and he hyped it as a disease everyone should fear. Hmm, just like COVID. This bullshit fearmongering is used to inflate his own importance, but it does nothing to address the people who are actually at high risk of a disease.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @09:57PM
Let's inject this guy with AIDS, obviously he is one of those that doesn't need to fear it!
Jesus Christ can you ignorant fucks keep your mouths shut ever?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @07:46AM (28 children)
He is a lying cocksucker. After he lied to everyone telling us we don't need to wear masks, while Chinese nationals were hitting every store shore to shore buying them out, I basically stopped listening to EVERYTHING the government said about this pandemic. I realized they are lying sacs of shit, no better than the party of the country I had come from.
Here is your proof you down voting nazi fucks: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fauci-says-he-doesnt-regret-telling-americans-not-to-wear-masks-at-the-beginning-of-the-pandemic/ar-BB16P84e [msn.com]
Here is best quote: "I don't regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs,"
Not he doesn't say there was no reason for people to wear it. So instead of saying "Look, it would help but we have to ration it" he just went on and lied to our faces.
Here is next excellent quote: "And also, it soon became clear that we had enough protective equipment and that cloth masks and homemade masks were as good as masks that you would buy from surgical supply stores,"
Best part of this? Now apparently the cloth masks are not good enough. Total fucking shit show. And you want him to get $1 million from some think-tank slushfund for what? Trying to make his incompetence rub off on Trump? Sure keep milking the Orange Man.
FUCK FAUCI
(Score: -1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @08:03AM (16 children)
knew you cockroaches would come out to complain, what double speaking bullshit you assholes spew
glad this award brings you pain, fitting for a chin diaper maga moron
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @08:32AM (15 children)
I doubt it brings pain so much as validation. If you think somebody is corrupt and then seeing them handed large sums of perfectly legalized money, it tends to affirm that belief. Do you think Wallstreet was giving Obama millions of dollars for short little speeches for some marvelous insight they couldn't get from having him on speed dial? Or might it have been related to him refusing to prosecute or hold anybody accountable for reckless, and very possibly illegal, behaviors on Wallstreet that nearly took down the world economy? Not to just pick on Obama. The same was, of course, true of Bush, Clinton, and Bush Sr.
As an interesting tangent, this whole thing of President's taking millions of dollars for speeches after leaving office didn't happen before we kept regularly electing crooks. The first president to do it was Gerald Ford [thoughtco.com]. Before, presidents obviously had the option but always rejected it because they felt the practice was exploitative and would give the appearance of corruption. Now a days? Our politicians are corrupt to the bone, we all know it - but we pretend it's always just "the other side."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @08:59AM (7 children)
Fauci is not elected and was given the prize for doing his best to help people in an overwhelmingly hostile environment. Crying corruption here makes no sense except to a Q addled brain. The main complaint from the OP was about the changing mask advice. People like that need to grow up and put down the kool-aid. Corruption sucks but doesn't enter into this situation.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @09:18AM (4 children)
I don't know why he was given the prize, but it certainly wasn't for "defending science." He has lied constantly throughout this event, which undermines faith in science. The facemask issue was an example of this. He wasn't telling people not to wear masks because he thought it was medically sound advice, he was saying it because there was a shortage of masks and he didn't want people hoarding. And it's a similar story with his discussions about herd immunity. He constantly lied with artificially low numbers, because he claimed that he didn't want to discourage people from being vaccinated after realizing it's unlikely we'll ever achieve herd immunity.
These sort of behaviors are not "defending science" - they're him regularly lying which, in turn, drives skepticism and doubt. Even his vaccination is something I'm now somewhat skeptical of. He's certainly a smart guy and knows these experimental vaccines are indeed quite experimental. Watch this [youtube.com] video where he talks about some soreness in his arm after the vaccination, yet he points to a different arm than he was vaccinated in. All lies have justifications, but it doesn't change the fact that they're lies. Beyond the fact he's a liar I don't have much of an opinion on him. But the fact he's now being handed a million bucks, makes me suspect he's probably also corrupt, which was the impetus for my comment. Because again, whatever you might think of him - some noteworthy "defender of science" he isn't.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @10:23AM (1 child)
Ivy league schools... They are taught to look down on normal people. Go read Hobbes or Plato and see what they are teaching up there.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @12:49PM
Haha, it's quite ironic that you're now talking with one of those evil Ivies. And no, though perhaps things have changed since I graduated, the focus on our learning was never on *what* to think, but rather *how* to think. Incidentally, Plato happens to be one of my favorite authors. But what he speaks of is not in support of, but specifically a critique of what society is becoming. This [mit.edu] is a section of "The Republic."
What the section is essentially saying is that the freedoms democracies offers are a good thing, but as people come to gradually take these freedoms for granted - they demand ever more. And the politicians who will bend to demands, no matter how unreasonable or how damaging to society, will be those that find themselves in power. And over time as the whims of society become ever more outrageous, the system itself begins to begins to degenerate and ultimately implode.
Part of the reason I've started to turn away from democracy is precisely because many of these critiques, written literally thousands of years ago, describe what's happening to our society as if they were written by a contemporary critic reflecting with hindsight bias. The final paragraph in particular above is particularly goosebump inducing and most certainly worthy of repetition:
If not for the archaic language, you'd simply never believe this was written 2400 years ago because it sounds literally exactly like the state of society we are currently living through. And I suspect the ending to our story will likely be no different, either.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @04:41PM
Fauci endured so science could prevail. He most certainly DID defend science, the real question is if Trump should at least get a certificate or something for helping make that display of heroism possible. 🤡
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @05:14PM
Maybe it was for funding the lab that developed the virus. [nypost.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @07:55PM (1 child)
"Fauci is not elected and was given the prize for doing his best to help people in an overwhelmingly hostile environment."
stfu, you dumb bitch. The Jews paid him for doing their bidding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @03:34AM
QED
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @09:28AM (3 children)
If you demand a saint, willing to work almost for free, you'll get a crook. We have a saint shortage and we need to accept this reality.
A decent person (non-crook, non-saint) of high skill sees the $400,000 pay and decides that being a CEO is a better idea. We have many CEOs getting 100 times as much pay, and Elon Musk getting 1250 times as much pay. The CEO doesn't face constant harassment. The CEO doesn't even have anywhere near the responsibility: no nukes, not millions of employees, etc.
A crook looks at the job and sees power which can be used to get bribes. He can relax China tariffs, killing many American jobs, and his crackhead son gets miraculous investment success and high-paid jobs. If the son then gives the father 50% of that as a gift, well that's just family being nice, not possibly a corrupt payback.
The USA, with the biggest economy in the world, literally pays less than Ireland and Iceland. A non-corrupt person would be better off running one of those countries.
If you look at that on a per-GDP basis, the situation is absurd. There is no normal nation on the entire planet that pays less than the USA. Not normal: Vatican (pope works for free), North Korea (unreported GDP), Saudi Arabia (pay is not a concept when you just own the country and even the people), and other weird shit. For all the proper nations though, with GDP reporting and a more-or-less elected leader who gets paid, the USA is the one paying the least on a per-GDP basis.
Well, you get what you pay for, generally. We might occasionally get a billionaire who becomes president mainly to carve his name in the history books, but as a general rule we're going to just get the most corrupt.
It's congress too, of course. They might not deserve any pay, but we need to give it to them. Anything else invites corruption. China gets what China wants, because bribes are dirt cheap in the USA.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday February 17 2021, @09:36AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @09:46AM
The problem with this is that you're taking a model of outsiders bribing insiders. For the most part, they are the exact same people. Eric Holder, who refused to pursue charges against anybody involved on Wallstreet, returned right back to his highly paid firm primarily representing the same companies he chose to not hold responsible for anything, no doubt with a tidy bonus awaiting him.
The thing is in a democracy you need to reach out to tens of millions of people. And in general the only way you can do that is through mass media. Yet who controls mass media? The exact same corporations that are responsible for much of the corruption in America today. For instance, since I think many still do not know, Disney owns ABC, AT&T owns CNN, Comcast owns NBC, and so on for various other media outlets. So if you play ball with the corporations, they'll get their media to paint a loving picture, give you millions of dollars in perfectly legal "speaking fees" after your office term, and you can do no wrong. And if you don't play ball with corporations, they'll paint you as Literally Hitler in their media, and do absolutely everything they can to destroy you from day 0.
By the time somebody makes their way into office, they've already sold their soul. This problem is something more fundamental to democracy itself, and I'm not sure there is any solution.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Wednesday February 17 2021, @04:23PM
If this means we get fewer slimy CEO types as President, I think I'm okay with this idea...the question then is whether the alternative is better or worse.
If you paid the president more until he was comparable with other CEOs, then you're attracting people to the position for the money *and* the power. Back at the beginning of the U.S. they had this principle called something like* "enlightened disinterest" that said, if you're wealthy enough to basically forgo a salary, and not permitted to make a profit from being president by benefiting your outside business interests (cough), you should be more free to dispassionately and objectively help the republic. But obviously that idea has fallen by the wayside over the years (if not been directly taken out back and shot).
Like how you put these sentences right next to each other. I get that you're saying "we should stop electing crooks", but how many of them are crooks already when they get elected, vs getting corrupted by the office? "Just don't elect crooks" in the latter case is kind of like saying "just jump in that lake and don't get wet".
--
*wasn't it great when Google used to just serve you search results literally, from what it found, instead of massaging the fuck out of anything you search on, so you can't find any fucking thing you're looking for anymore unless 900 million other people are also searching for it?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday February 17 2021, @04:12PM (1 child)
Heh...umm, okay, your theory and evidence here don't work together. We didn't *elect* Gerald Ford; he's famously the only U.S. president to *not* be elected either VP or P. He was the Speaker of the House, Nixon's VP resigned, then Nixon resigned.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @03:56AM
So what you're saying is that Ford being at that place at that time was *precisely* because the voters had elected a crook.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday February 17 2021, @07:46PM
Out of curiosity, have you ever used the word 'feelz'?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Insightful) by helel on Wednesday February 17 2021, @03:30PM (6 children)
Have you ever thought one thing and then learned some new piece of information that changed your mind? That is what happened to Fauci.
Previous studies on the flue have failed to show much, if any, effect of wearing masks to combat community spread. That was the scientific data on mask use a year ago. COVID is a different disease and over the corse of the last year new research revealed that masks are more effective at slowing it's spread. And so Fauci changed his recommendations based on this new information.
The cloth mask vs surgical mask thing is more open to debate. They were never as effective but there was still a shortage of PPE to contend with. As a public health official you can recommend the most effective masks and make the shortage worse for those people that need it most or recommend the lesser option to get some benefit out to society at large while keeping the best protection available for the doctors and nurser exposed to COVID every day. Neither option is ideal, you just have to pick the one you hope will do the best to curb the pandemic.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @04:48PM (1 child)
The article clearly states he lied out his ass.
Also, opwrating under "new evidence" just means you can never be wrong. You can contradict yourself everydat, seemibgpy without qny reprecautions, while sgeeple follow you off the cliff. Meanwgile real leaders, who had a position from day one that was correct are consdered "crazy conspiracy theorists."
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @05:19PM
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @05:17PM (3 children)
I don't know where you are gathering information but just about everything you said is wrong.
1) Fauci is a liar. Fauci admitted to lying, multiple times. Then he defended his lying and lies.
2) Masks have been known to reduce transmission of viruses pretty much since the discovery of viral transmission itself. Seriously, even during the Spanish Flu people knew to wear masks and that was only shortly after we learned viruses even exist.
And as a peer comment mentioned, "evidence based" is mostly bullshit. It pretends that other people are simply basing their ideas on a magic 8 ball. Everybody bases their views and values on evidence. What is debatable is the quality and veracity of the evidence. Somebody who claims an "evidence based" approach, keeps making definitive statements, and keeps being wrong over and over - is, at best, an idiot. And I mean that quite literally because one of the key components of coming to any judgement is an understanding of the certainties and risks. Making definitive statements shows an inability to grasp either probability, or the veracity (or lack thereof) of your "evidence"; both of those factors being critical to be in any position to say pretty much anything.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday February 17 2021, @05:39PM (2 children)
🙄
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @05:36AM (1 child)
Providing a link to the research you based your comment on would make you look a little less insufferable.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday February 18 2021, @05:48AM
What research do you want me to show you that's too hard to Google?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday February 17 2021, @03:31PM (2 children)
It's almost as if situations can change as better information and data becomes available.
It's also almost as if people would be rational and not immediately run out and hoard important supplies like masks and sanitizer (and less important stuff like TP), but guess what? They did! Nevermind the assholes that bought all that up to re-sell at a massive markup.
Grow the fuck up. The world isn't a nice, neat, easy to understand thing that lends itself to black and white decision making that can be forever carved in stone and never change.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @04:50PM (1 child)
Did you even read? He admits to lying to the plebs. He fucking lied, he knew there was not enough to go around, so he told people to fuck off and take their chances with unknown danger. Vut idiots like.you defend him like ge is a saint. Just like you defend Cuomo who murdered elderly people.
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday February 17 2021, @09:54PM
Evidence suggests that you have a conservative bent, so I'm just going to wager that the only time you have a problem with lies are when they come from the "wrong" team.
Fauci is not a saint, whatever that means. He's a human being, who was operating with limited information with a boss who hamstrung him at every turn. He is an expert with infectious diseases; however at the time there was no such thing as an expert with COVID19.
And I will not defend Cuomo for putting COVID patients in nursing homes as I think that was as stupid a decision as anyone's.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @05:15PM
That's right, Fauci is a lying cocksucker.
(Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Wednesday February 17 2021, @07:57AM
But does it help?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by shrewdsheep on Wednesday February 17 2021, @12:03PM (3 children)
I believe this is one of the examples where a prize wants to ride the wave of current popularity. While Fauci did oppose certain views of Trump, he tolerated quite some shit, enough so that he had to mumble "I know, I know, but he's the president" all day long when going back to the office. He simply struck the most convenient balance between having to deal with the president and retaining standing with his colleagues. No personal sacrifices on his part.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @12:28PM (2 children)
I think people tend to forget that this issue of the internet creating a sort of mass balkanization of society isn't just happening to the plebs. This award can now probably be safe piled on top of the Nobel Peace Prize, Hugo, and other awards that are all becoming far less about merit than about appealing to the biases, none of which are related to the merits of the prize, of the societies awarding such things.
At least for now we have the Fields Medals, and the Nobel prizes in the hard sciences - but how long until they too start to become more about the opinions of the nominees rather than their objective merit related to the field at question? Would James Watson still be awarded the Nobel Prize in today's society? Undoubtedly one of the most profound and relevant discoveries of all time, but he says stuff that's not politically correct. That it is a genuine question whether he would be awarded the prize is a condemnation not only of the Nobel Prize but of the current direction of society as a whole. How long before we become Saudi Arabia where appeals to, and signaling support of, a certain top-down imposed creed become more relevant than literally any other aspect for public discourse?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @04:53PM (1 child)
Heh. I like how you're asking how long it is until someone does something horrible that ruins it for everybody but you've phrased it to suggest that when they misbehave it's already somehow someone else's fault. 🙄
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @05:20PM
Society may push people in terrible directions, but in the end it's up to people to decide whether or not they go along with it.
Be this [rarehistoricalphotos.com] guy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @05:15PM (1 child)
From the man who said quote "two masks are more effective than one. It's just common sense" with no fucking science to back it up whatsoever.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @05:24PM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @05:54PM (1 child)
I gotta go pinch off a Dr. Fauci...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 17 2021, @07:57PM
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday February 17 2021, @10:05PM (2 children)
Doesn't it seem strange that nobody has ever seen both Dr. Fauci and the "Now do ass-to-ass" guy [youtube.com] from Requiem for a Dream in the same room at the same time?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 18 2021, @10:01PM (1 child)
I bet you've never been arrested for your internet activity because every person that sees what you've been looking at shoots themselves in the head.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday February 18 2021, @11:02PM
Who do you think I am, Joe Biden?