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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, when I think about the issue of public health, I remember a time in my childhood when one of my friends didn't show up for school. I asked people: Where did she go?

They shook their heads and said: Polio.

When she finally returned, she couldn't walk without heavy leg braces. I will never forget the agony I saw in her eyes.

Sadly, in my childhood, that story was common. For decades, a kid could go to school healthy and be paralyzed before the end of the day.

But suddenly--suddenly--it all changed. Dr. Jonas Salk created the polio vaccine. Dr. Sabin came up with a form that didn't require a needle. By 1979, polio was eradicated in America. A disease that would strike fear in the hearts of everyone was a distant memory.

I think there is a special place in history reserved for researchers and scientists like Dr. Salk and Dr. Sabin, who devoted their lives to saving others--people like Norman Borlaug, Edward Jenner, Madame Marie Curie, and Albert Calmette.

There is another person whose name could be on that list as well-- someone who has saved millions of lives, both in America and around the world, through his lifetime of public service. His name: Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Dr. Fauci worked for the National Institutes of Health for 54 years, 38 of which he served as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He has advised seven Presidents, of both parties, and seen our Nation through countless public health crises-- from SARS to avian flu, swine flu, Zika, Ebola, and on and on.

Aside from his work against COVID-19, Dr. Fauci may be best known for his work on HIV/AIDS. Dr. Fauci's tireless efforts on HIV/AIDS, both domestically and worldwide, through the creation of PEPFAR--the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief--is the main reason why this horrible disease is no longer a death sentence. In recognition of his achievement, Dr. Fauci was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008, our Nation's highest civilian honor, by then-President George W. Bush.

Dr. Fauci is an example of American excellence, a brilliant scientific mind, and yet the Republican Party has chosen to make this doctor who has saved countless lives a political target.

Last week, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subpoenaed Dr. Fauci, in front of the Congress, for a hearing with the express goal of humiliating and vilifying him. For nearly 3 hours, my Republican colleagues berated, cursed, and insulted a man who has dedicated his life to protecting the health of American families.

This behavior is below the dignity of the Senate. Put simply, it was an embarrassment.

If my colleagues had genuine concern for America's public health, they would turn their attention instead to the destruction wrought by this administration's anti-science agenda.

Listen to this rollcall. Measle cases are at a 35-year high in the United States of America. Whooping cough has resurged. Our response to the hantavirus and cyclospora outbreaks has been abysmal. And hundreds of thousands of people have died due to the administration's vaccine skepticism and public health cuts.

If my Republican colleagues want to hold hearings, perhaps they should hold one on the impact of President Trump's cuts to NIH research funding, which has slowed research into heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer's; or they can investigate how the FDA has lost 20 percent of its staff under this administration, deeply damaging food safety efforts. If they were truly concerned for America's health, they would hold hearings on the fact that ACA premiums are doubling for many families across the United States because of the Republicans' Big Beautiful Bill.

These are the real health crises of the day--all entirely of this administration's own making. But my Republican Senate colleagues have chosen to ignore real life-and-death issues to relitigate COVID conspiracy theories--not in an effort to find out what might have gone wrong or how to prepare for the next pandemic, instead, to try and tear down a man who has devoted his entire life to lifting others up.

Dr. Fauci deserves an apology for the way he was treated by my colleagues, and the American people deserve better than the pitiful display we saw in the Senate last Wednesday.

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