The director of the National Institutes of Health said that he has not been asked to reconsider Dr. Anthony Fauci’s role within the agency.
Dr. Francis Collins said that Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is not being considered for a demotion or termination from his position, despite President Trump’s public criticisms over Fauci’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Collins said firing Fauci would be “unimaginable.”
“Nobody has asked me to do that, and I find that concept unimaginable,” he said.
Collins said that he does not even consider himself to be Fauci’s boss. Instead, he said Fauci’s career lies in the hands of Dr. Christine Grady, head of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. Grady also happens to be Fauci’s wife.
“I am amused that everybody’s calling me Dr. Fauci’s boss because his real boss is his wife, Christine Grady, and she might have something to say about that,” he said.
On Sunday, Trump told Fox News that he has a “good relationship” with Fauci, even though he believes the doctor is a “little bit of an alarmist.”
