When Trump made inaccurate information about Covid-19, White House health advisor Anthony Fauci did not hesitate to correct his words.

During his five decades as a medical researcher, Anthony Fauci, 79, witnessed his effigy burned, heard the screams of protesters calling him "the killer" and smoke bombs. outside the office.

But he was also hailed as the nation's most famous doctor, helping the United States make strides in the face of a medical crisis. As head of the immunology department at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) during the 1980s HIV / AIDS epidemic, Fauci is no stranger to disease campaigns.

Now, when President Donald Trump says the US is "in wartime conditions" against Covid-19, he is once again standing on the front line.

Fauci was born in 1940 into an Italian immigrant pharmacist family in Brooklyn, New York. He "delivered the prescription since he could ride a bike," Fauci told Holy Cross magazine in 2002. In 1966, he graduated valedictorian Cornell medical school and joined NIH in 1968.

A career turning point came to Fauci a few decades later, when a report was placed on his desk on June 5, 1981, describing a patient who died of a strange pneumonia that is only common in people with cancer. letters. Another report later described 26 similar patients, all of whom were gay.

"I have read it very carefully," he said. "This is the first time in my career that I 'm up the hair.' Something's wrong. It must be a new sexually transmitted virus."

As a clinician, Fauci's research on the human immune system is credited with helping to reveal how the HIV virus destroys the immune system. He led clinical trials for zidovudine, the first AIDS antiviral drug.

However, when HIV spread in the United States in the 1980s, he became the target of activists angry that patients had no access to new drugs and the indecisive reaction of the presidential administration of Ronald Reagan.

Protesters holding banners outside the government office wrote: "Doctor Fauci, you are killing us." Writer Larry Kramer, who supports gay rights, even took Fauci as a prototype for a villain in his play.

"When I looked out the window, I saw many people throwing smoke bombs on NIH's lawn," Fauci said in a 2011 interview. "The police were about to arrest them but I said, 'Don't do that. room for me to talk to "".

He was praised for his understanding of AIDS patients. Fauci is believed to have persuaded regulators to relax restrictions on clinical trials to allow patients to try new drugs.

The New York Times called him "the government's leading celebrity in anti-AIDS". They emphasize that he actually does the research himself, unlike many other experts who do it as assistants. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, in 2008.

In 1984, he was appointed director of the NIH's Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This department works from AIDS, Ebola to asthma. He advised six presidents, helped set up the AIDS Initiative in Africa, a program initiated by the George W. Bush administration to help countries fight the disease of the century.

Now, he is regarded by the American public as an "interpreter commander," appearing alongside Trump at press conferences at the White House, describing how the US Covid-19 is being dealt with, explaining scientifically and sometimes when "fixing the back" of the President's statements.

When Trump announced it would soon have a vaccine for nCoV, Fauci corrected that it would take at least a year and a half to do that.

When Trump said the popular anti-malarial drug could be used to treat Covid-19, a reporter asked Fauci again. His answer was very straightforward: "No, what you said is only verbal information that has not been verified."

Many Americans consider Fauci a reassuring factor. On March 23, when he did not appear next to Trump at a White House press conference, many people worriedly asked the question on Twitter: Will he be fired for correcting Trump's words? Or did he already have nCoV?

"The only person I want to hear is Fauci," Molly Jong-Fast, editor of Daily Beast, wrote on Twitter. The tweet received more than 22,000 likes and more than 2,800 shares.

Fauci later said he was fine and working as usual. "Questions from the online community show that the public is relying on the outspoken doctor from New York when the virus is widespread," Guardian journalist Lauren Gambino wrote. The US has become the largest epidemic region in the world with more than 85,000 infections and more than 1,300 deaths.

Trump paid attention to the popularity of Fauci, who responded in interviews and appeared on TV, a shop that even sold donuts of his portrait. The president calls the researcher "the big TV star". He does not seem to hold a grudge against Fauci even though they sometimes disagree. "I really like Mr. Fauci," Trump said on March 23.

Fauci told Science magazine that he tried his best to provide accurate information to the public but also had to behave sensibly. "I couldn't jump in front of the microphone, push the president to the side and disprove him immediately. All I can do is correct the information later."

Fauci insisted he would still try to give the public the right information and was not afraid to correct the president's words: "I have not yet been fired," he said.