Biden Administration Announces Doctor Who Offered COVID-19 Misinformation as Fauci Replacement

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 17, 2022. Shawn Thew/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

An Alabama doctor and university researcher who has offered misinformation about COVID-19 has been selected to succeed Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo has been selected to become director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which Dr. Fauci headed for decades until he retired in December 2022.

Dr. Marrazzo is currently the director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s (UAB’s) Division of Infectious Diseases.

She will become director in the fall, according to the National Institutes of Health. NIAID, one of the institutes, has an annual budget of $6.3 billion.

“Dr. Marrazzo brings a wealth of leadership experience from leading international clinical trials and translational research, managing a complex organizational budget that includes research funding and mentoring trainees in all stages of professional development,” Dr. Lawrence Tabak, acting director of the National Institutes of Health, said in a statement.

UAB President Ray Watts and Anupam Agarwal, senior vice president of medicine at UAB, said in a joint statement: “This is a great opportunity for Dr. Marrazzo to make a big difference to the country, and it is indicative of the high regard that exists for both her and UAB. While we are sad to see her go, we are delighted that Jeanne has been called to this national service and we are proud to count her as one of us at UAB.”

Dr. Marrazzo has a number of degrees, including a medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America and is past chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Council.

Offered Misinformation

Dr. Marrazzo has decried doctors for supposedly spreading misinformation about COVID-19, and ABIM has said that spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines might result in the revocation of certifications.

However, a review of Dr. Marrazzo’s statements shows that she herself has spread misinformation.

In November 2020, for instance, she falsely claimed that 10 percent of people who contracted COVID-19 died.

“It’s somewhat callous to say that 90 percent are going to survive because you are completely disregarding the 10 percent of people who didn’t survive,” she said at the time.

Dr. Marrazzo didn’t cite a source, and a spokesperson for the doctor told The Epoch Times in an email that she wasn’t accepting media requests until she becomes director of the NIAID.

The National Institutes of Health and the NIAID didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The risk of death for even the highest-risk group—the elderly—was significantly lower than 10 percent, many studies at the time indicated.

In another briefing, Dr. Marrazzo falsely said that those who recovered from COVID-19 would lose virtually all of their protection, known as natural immunity, within months.

“By six months, people are pretty much done. There’s almost nothing there to protect you,” she said. While natural immunity does go away after a period of time against the newer variants, protection against severe disease remains strong, according to studies.

Dr. Marrazzo has repeatedly promoted papers that weren’t peer reviewed and were in favor of mass vaccination from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—which has been consistently pro-vaccine. She has also encouraged vaccination after recovery from COVID-19, despite numerous studies that found that people who have recovered enjoy strong immunity that is superior to that from vaccination.

Syringes and vials of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are prepared to be administered at a drive-up vaccination site by Renown Health in Reno, Nev., on Dec. 17, 2020. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

More on Vaccines

Dr. Marrazzo initially said that the vaccines would be “a way out of this pandemic,” and later updated that to “the only way out.” Both claims were references to the concept that if enough people were vaccinated, it would eliminate transmission and infection. The trials didn’t show that the vaccines prevented transmission or infection, though they estimated high efficacy against symptomatic infection.

Health officials and doctors, including Dr. Marrazzo, gradually stopped referencing the herd immunity concept as data confirmed that the vaccinated could get infected and spread COVID-19.

Her only reference on social media to myocarditis—the sometimes-fatal heart inflammation that the vaccines can cause—was in 2021, when the CDC estimated that the benefits of vaccination outweighed risks such as myocarditis.

“Vaccination benefits outweigh the extremely small risk of any adverse reaction, even when you consider myocarditis, and we really need to recognize that going forward,” Dr. Marrazzo said at the time. That position on the risk-benefit calculus was always questionable for some people, including those most at risk of experiencing myocarditis, according to some experts.

In November 2021, Dr. Marrazzo acknowledged that the protection the vaccines bestow wasn’t durable and backed boosting the vaccinated to try to restore the lost shielding.

Since then, U.S. authorities have replaced the original vaccines because they underperformed against newer variants, and they plan to roll out another round of shots in the fall, as data indicate the updated vaccines also don’t have a long protection period.

Dr. Marrazzo has also promoted the unproven new shots, which were authorized without clinical trial data and have largely been underwhelming in observational studies.

Like many vaccine proponents, Dr. Marrazzo hyped the shot from Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen when it was authorized, but hasn’t alerted people that the vaccine has been pulled off the market.

Since 2016, Dr. Marrazzo has received about $180 million from pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, GlaxoSmithKline, and Janssen. Most of the funds supported research.

Other Stances

Dr. Marrazzo was a member of a COVID-19 task force that advised Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey to declare a state of emergency; close schools, restaurants, and beaches; prohibit most visitors at nursing homes; and bar large gatherings at which social distancing couldn’t be maintained.

Dr. Marrazzo said during a briefing on May 8, 2020, that she understood the lockdowns were painful and causing job losses, but that she believed they were important to help to avoid hospitals becoming overwhelmed.

She urged Americans not to gather with more than several people at Thanksgiving in 2020, alleging that doing so would lead to COVID-19 transmission.

Dr. Marrazzo has also promoted wearing masks and claimed that masks have helped curb the spread of COVID-19 and influenza despite a lack of studies providing support for this stance. She even suggested wearing masks at home when with certain people.