Fauci Mural Removed at National Institutes of Health

Five years after the COVID-19 lockdowns began, a mural at the National Institutes of Health that celebrated Dr. Anthony Fauci, widely seen as the face of the pandemic, along with an inspirational quote from him, is gone.

The mural, which read that "science is telling us that we can do phenomenal things if we put our minds and our resources to it," was cut away from a larger mural during the first weeks after President Donald Trump took office, three current NIH staffers, providing photographs of the missing mural, told The Washington Post.

An empty patch of wall remains to remember Fauci, who ended a career spanning 50 years at the agency in December 2022.

The NIH did not explain why the mural was gone or answer questions about its removal, but it lines up with other actions the Trump administration took toward Fauci, a longtime infectious-disease expert.

Five years ago, on March 16, 2020, Trump, then in his first term in office, announced his "slow the spread" initiative, a two-week campaign of measures and guidelines aimed at slowing down the advance of the deadly disease. He and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, which Fauci led, said the health guidelines, mainly centering around social distancing, would be effective in fighting back against the disease.

But since then, Trump and his advisers have blamed COVID shutdowns, school closures, and vaccine mandates on guidance he received from Fauci.

Elon Musk, the tech billionaire leading Trump's government efficiency efforts, in November called the doctor a "freaking demon" and alleged that he funded virus research in China that started the pandemic, a claim Fauci and his colleagues have repeatedly denied.

And one of the last acts former President Joe Biden did while in office was to grant a preemptive pardon to Fauci to protect him from prosecution under the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, the NIH has been a focus of Musk's DOGE efforts, with research funding dwindling to the alarm of current and former agency officials.

"It’s a profound threat to scientific progress in America," Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said at a rally outside the NIH last week. "This is the jewel of the scientific establishment … and Elon Musk and DOGE have brought their slash-and-burn tactics right to its doorstep."

But the White House is defending its NIH actions, saying the funding will steer money toward scientific research and away from administrative costs.

"Americans are no longer interested in blind faith adherence to demonstrably fallible ‘experts’ like Anthony Fauci," spokesman Kush Desai said. "The Trump administration will continue to restore transparency, accountability, and confidence in our healthcare apparatus to Make America Healthy Again while being a good steward of taxpayer dollars."

Raskin also slammed the administration's efforts to hide Fauci's work, after DOGE canceled an exhibit that would have honored the doctor's long career.

Several NIH officials said the exhibit was almost complete and that there would be little savings by canceling it.

The NIH also pulled back on an invitation to have Fauci return to the halls of the agency where he worked for decades as part of an NIH Grand Rounds series, the 84-year-old doctor told The Post.

"This is the kind of treatment that scientists get in totalitarian societies like Stalinist Russia if they don’t toe the political line of the leaders," Raskin commented.

But Fauci, who enjoyed a high profile as a sign of hope at the beginning of the pandemic, soon became political fodder, with Republicans promising to investigate him or even prosecute him.

And Americans weary of vaccine mandates and school closures started to blame Fauci, who also acknowledged mistakes as new data came forward.

Megan Ranney, the dean of Yale University’s public health school's career was defined by his engagement with critics, including HIV activists who attacked him in the 1980s only later to champion his efforts.

"Did he make mistakes during COVID? Absolutely — everyone did," she said. "We can and should engage in real inquiry about what went well and what didn’t … erasing someone is not a productive solution."