IN THIS SECTION

New Human Species?

Animals in Space

Lost River of Paris

Feather Forensics

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VOL. 24 0 NO. 5

EXPLORE

ILLUMINATING THE MYSTERIES—AND WONDERS—ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY

I

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC INTERVIEWED ANTHONY FAUCI ABOUT HIS
PERSONAL HISTORY, HIS CAREER, AND HIS ROLE IN HEALTH CRISES
FROM HIV/AIDS TO COVID-19. THE RESULTS: A BOOK (EXCERPTED HERE),
WITH PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT CONSERVATION, AND A DOCUMENTARY.

Dr. Fauci: His

Life and Work

Excerpts from the National Geographic book Fauci—Expect the

Unexpected: Ten Lessons on Truth, Service, and the Way Forward

I WAS BORN ON Christmas Eve, 1940. As my father tells

the tale ... the obstetrician who was taking my mother

through her pregnancy happened to have been at a

black-tie cocktail party. And when my mother went

into labor, apparently it was pretty quick. My father

brought her to Brooklyn Hospital, and he remembers

the doctor walking in with a tux on. He had to get into

the delivery room very quickly, so he just washed his

hands and put the scrubs over the tux ... We always

joked about it at home: Just how much had he had

to drink before he actually came in to deliver me?

Anthony Fauci was almost five years old in 1945 when

the United States detonated atomic bombs over the

cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, unleashing cat-

astrophic damage and spurring Japan’s surrender

to the Allies.

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