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Fauci Says He Will Step Down in December to Pursue His ‘Next Chapter’

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who has advised seven presidents and spent more than half a century at the National Institutes of Health, will leave government service by the end of the year.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci in Washington last year. He joined the National Institutes of Health in 1968 and has advised every president since Ronald Reagan.Credit...Jason Andrew for The New York Times

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci said on Monday that he intended to leave government service in December to “pursue the next chapter” of his career, and that he would step down as President Biden’s top medical adviser and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he has led for 38 years.

The announcement by Dr. Fauci, 81, was not entirely unexpected. He has hinted for some time that he was thinking of retiring, saying last month that he would “almost certainly” do so by 2025. In an interview Sunday evening, he said he was “not retiring in the classic sense” but would devote himself to traveling, writing and encouraging young people to enter government service.

“So long as I’m healthy, which I am, and I’m energetic, which I am, and I’m passionate, which I am, I want to do some things outside of the realm of the federal government,” Dr. Fauci said in the interview, adding that he wanted to use his experience and insight into public health and public service to “hopefully inspire the younger generation.”

In a statement on Monday, Mr. Biden thanked Dr. Fauci, whom he called a “dedicated public servant and a steady hand with wisdom and insight.”

“Because of Dr. Fauci’s many contributions to public health, lives here in the United States and around the world have been saved,” the president said.

But some Republicans who consider Dr. Fauci a symbol of the Covid-19 restrictions that they have resisted vowed on Monday to investigate him — even in retirement — if they win control of Congress in November. They said they would examine his response to the coronavirus pandemic, citing research that his institute funded at a virology institute in Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus emerged in late 2019.

“It’s good to know that with his retirement, Dr. Fauci will have ample time to appear before Congress and share under oath what he knew about the Wuhan lab, as well as the ever-changing guidance under his watch that resulted in wrongful mandates being imposed on Americans,” Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 House Republican, said in a statement.

Few scientists have had as large or as long-lasting an impact on public policy. Dr. Fauci joined the National Institutes of Health in 1968, when Lyndon B. Johnson was president; he was appointed the director of its infectious disease branch in 1984, when the AIDS epidemic demanded attention.

Dr. Fauci has advised every president since Ronald Reagan — seven in all — and has been adept at navigating the nexus of science and politics. Among his proudest accomplishments, he said, was his work with President George W. Bush in developing a global program to combat H.I.V./AIDS, known as PEPFAR, which has saved an estimated 21 million lives. Mr. Bush — whose father, George Bush, called Dr. Fauci a hero during a 1988 presidential debate — awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008.

But Dr. Fauci, who catapulted into the spotlight when the coronavirus began spreading in 2020, could not escape the politicization of the Trump era. President Donald J. Trump toyed openly with the idea of firing him (though that would have been difficult because Dr. Fauci is not a political appointee).

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President George W. Bush honored Dr. Fauci with a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008.Credit...Ron Edmonds/Associated Press

His response to the pandemic has drawn criticism, and he also conceded that it was not perfect. Early in the outbreak, he told Americans that there was no need to wear masks to protect against infection from the novel coronavirus; that turned out to be incorrect. He has said that he offered that advice because masks were in short supply at the time.

Dr. Fauci was a ubiquitous figure on television, which prompted his critics to accuse him of seeking fame or hogging the spotlight. He has said he did television interviews because his voice was needed to deliver public health messages in a time of crisis.

His high profile came at a cost. He and his family received death threats and required a security detail. In December, the authorities in Iowa arrested a California man who had an assault rifle and ammunition, as well as a “hit list” that named Dr. Fauci and Mr. Biden, among others.

Dr. Fauci clashed bitterly with Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, who publicly accused him of lying about research his institute was funding in China. He also once muttered under his breath that Senator Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas, was “a moron” after the senator suggested that Dr. Fauci’s financial disclosure forms were not public.

Mr. Paul is among the Republicans who have said they would investigate Dr. Fauci if they win control of Congress in the fall. There had been speculation that he would retire to avoid that possibility.

Dr. Fauci dismissed that idea as “nonsense” and also said that he had no intention of going to work for the pharmaceutical industry, as some of his critics have suggested. He said he considered stepping down after Mr. Trump left the White House, but felt he could not refuse a request from Mr. Biden.

“So I stayed on for a year, thinking that at the end of the year, it would be the end of Covid, and as it turned out, you know, that’s not exactly what happened,” Dr. Fauci said. “And now it’s my second year here, and I just realized that there are things that I want to do.”

Dr. Fauci did not set a specific departure date (he will turn 82 on Dec. 24). He said he hoped that by staying through the fall and into early winter, the United States would “get closer to living with” the coronavirus “in a steady state,” though there are no guarantees.

“I’m not happy about the fact that we still have 400 deaths per day,” he said. “We need to do much better than that. So I don’t think I can say that I’m satisfied with where we are. But I hope that over the next couple of months, things will improve.”

While he has been working on a memoir, Dr. Fauci said he did not yet have a publisher. In an interview last year, he said he was precluded from contracting with a publisher while he was still employed by the government.

Before the coronavirus, Dr. Fauci was best known for his work on H.I.V./AIDS. He was polarizing then as well, a target of activists who accused him of being responsible for the deaths of gay men by not moving quickly enough to push new treatments through the approval process.

Over time, he befriended many of those activists. In an email message on Monday, one of them, Peter Staley, recalled “parading an effigy of his bloody head on a stick in front of his building at the N.I.H.” But “he still never closed his door to us,” Mr. Staley said, adding, “I’ve never met a more decent human being.”

Dr. Fauci was profoundly affected by caring for AIDS patients in an era when nearly all of them died. In a documentary released by National Geographic last year, he recalled arriving at the bedside of an AIDS patient who suddenly no longer recognized him; the man had lost his vision.

As Dr. Fauci told the story, his voice cracked. The filmmakers asked why it was affecting him all these years later. He paused to gather himself. “Post-traumatic stress syndrome,” he said, pausing again. “That’s what it is.”

Dr. Fauci became a household name in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. His face was commemorated on sweatshirts, socks and mugs. A petition to name him People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” garnered more than 28,000 signatures.

When asked in an interview this year about why he had become such a polarizing figure, Dr. Fauci pointed to some of Mr. Trump’s aides, who, he said, sought to pillory him by insisting that everything he said was wrong. He did not take issue directly with Mr. Trump.

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Dr. Fauci catapulted into the spotlight during briefings at the White House when the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the United States in 2020.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

“Instead of throwing me out, they tried to discredit me,” Dr. Fauci said. Referring to the aides, he said, “If you are propagating lies, the person who is telling the truth based on science all of a sudden becomes the adversary.”

In a formal statement announcing his departure, Dr. Fauci said he would use his remaining months in government to “continue to put my full effort, passion and commitment into my current responsibilities” and to help prepare his institute for a leadership transition.

“N.I.H. is served by some of the most talented scientists in the world,” he said, “and I have no doubt that I am leaving this work in very capable hands.”

Sheryl Gay Stolberg is a Washington Correspondent covering health policy. In more than two decades at The Times, she has also covered the White House, Congress and national politics. Previously, at The Los Angeles Times, she shared in two Pulitzer Prizes won by that newspaper’s Metro staff. More about Sheryl Gay Stolberg

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: Fauci’s ‘Next Chapter’ To Start in December. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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