Dr. Anthony Stephen Fauci

Former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Chief Medical Advisor to the President of the United States.

Annenberg found 67% of Americans had confidence in career scientists working inside federal health agencies, compared with only 43% who expressed confidence in the leaders of those agencies.

That is an extraordinary gap.

Americans seem to be saying: We haven't completely lost faith in the scientists. We have much less faith in the people running the system.

And distrust extends across administrations.

During the Biden years, Fauci and federal health agencies became targets of intense criticism from the political right. Under President Trump's second administration, distrust of federal health leadership has increasingly appeared on the political left as well. Annenberg found confidence in the CDC, FDA and NIH fell from roughly 74–76% in February 2024 to 60–62% in February 2026.

In other words, political control changes—but institutional distrust remains.

Public health entered the political battlefield

COVID-19 didn't invent America's political divisions. It drove public health straight into the middle of them.

• Masks became political.

• Vaccines became political.

• Lockdowns became political.

• School closures became political.

And inevitably, the scientists explaining those policies became political figures themselves.

Fauci was transformed from a longtime government infectious-disease specialist who had served presidents of both parties into something much larger: a cultural symbol.

The partisan divide became enormous. In January 2022, Annenberg found 88% confidence in Fauci among Democrats and Democratic leaners, compared with just 36% among Republicans and Republican leaners.

It becomes difficult to evaluate scientific officials purely on scientific grounds when the public already knows which political "team" is supposed to like or dislike them.

But government institutions bear some responsibility too

It would be too convenient to blame everything on politicians, partisan media or misinformation.

Public-health institutions also have to examine themselves.

During a rapidly evolving pandemic, recommendations inevitably changed as scientists learned more. Changing guidance in response to new evidence is not necessarily evidence that science failed; that is partly how science works.

But communication was sometimes confusing. Distinctions between what was known, what was suspected, what was precautionary and what remained uncertain were not always communicated clearly enough.

And when officials speak with greater certainty than the available evidence supports, later corrections can look to the public like dishonesty rather than scientific revision.

Trust is difficult to build and remarkably easy to lose.

The media environment made everything worse

Americans increasingly consume completely different information worlds.

Annenberg's earlier research found enormous differences in confidence in Fauci depending upon people's primary media sources. In January 2022, confidence stood at 39% among heavier consumers of conservative media, compared with 85% among heavier consumers of mainstream broadcast and print news.

People weren't merely reaching different conclusions.

They were often beginning with entirely different sets of information.

Social media added another problem: algorithms tend to reward material that generates attention and engagement. Nuanced explanations of scientific uncertainty don't always travel as quickly as outrage, accusations and conspiracy theories.

And now the distrust can change political direction

This may be the most important lesson.

Distrust of public health is not permanently owned by Republicans or Democrats.

When one party controls Washington, supporters of the opposing party may become more suspicious of the institutions controlled by that administration. Indeed, Annenberg reported in 2025 that declining confidence in federal health agencies after Trump's return to office was being driven particularly by declines among Democrats.

That should concern everyone.

A CDC trusted only when your preferred president occupies the White House isn't a fully trusted CDC.

Neither is an FDA, NIH or HHS whose credibility rises and falls primarily with presidential elections.

There is one encouraging number

Amid all this distrust, Americans still overwhelmingly trust someone.

Their own healthcare professionals.

In the February 2026 Annenberg survey, 86% of Americans expressed confidence in their own doctor, nurse or other primary healthcare provider—higher than confidence in federal agencies, agency leaders, career government scientists or major professional organizations.

That may tell us something important.

Trust becomes easier when healthcare has a human face—when patients can ask questions, challenge an explanation and receive an answer from someone who knows them.

So, was Fauci a hero or a villain?

Perhaps that question itself illustrates the problem.

Public health shouldn't require heroes.

And scientists shouldn't automatically become villains because their conclusions inconvenience our politics.

Fauci's decisions and statements should absolutely be scrutinized. So should those of his successors, the CDC, FDA, NIH, HHS, pharmaceutical companies, politicians, journalists and everyone else wielding enormous influence over public health.

But scrutiny is different from tribal loyalty—and different from tribal hostility.

America needs institutions capable of admitting uncertainty and mistakes. It needs scientists who can explain what they know and what they don't know. It needs politicians willing to resist turning every medical disagreement into a partisan weapon. And it needs citizens willing to judge evidence without first asking which political side produced it.

Because another pandemic will eventually come.

When it does, the most dangerous shortage may not be masks, vaccines, hospital beds or ventilators.

It may be trust.

The bigger surprise isn't Fauci

Look beyond Fauci and something even more interesting appears.

Few names in American public health trigger reactions as quickly as Dr. Anthony Fauci.

To his supporters, Fauci became the face of science during one of the most frightening public-health emergencies in modern American history. To his critics, he became a symbol of government overreach, shifting recommendations, institutional arrogance, and unanswered questions surrounding the COVID-19 response.

But years after the height of the pandemic, an interesting question remains:

Is America’s argument really about Dr. Fauci anymore?

Perhaps not.

The deeper story may be about something much bigger. It might be the collapse of trust in the institutions and people Americans depend upon to tell them what is safe, what is dangerous, and what science actually says.

Fauci remains remarkably polarizing

Recent polling illustrates just how difficult Fauci is to summarize with a single number.

YouGov's current public-opinion tracker shows about 40% of Americans have a positive opinion of Fauci, 31% a negative one, and 17% neutral.

But ask a somewhat different question—whether Americans have confidence that Fauci provided trustworthy public-health information—and the result is considerably higher. A February 2026 Annenberg Public Policy Center survey found 54% expressing confidence in Fauci's guidance.

That distinction matters.

Favorability is not the same thing as trust. Someone may dislike Fauci personally or disagree with decisions made during COVID while still believing much of the medical information he provided was trustworthy. Likewise, someone may admire his career without agreeing with every recommendation.

So polls using different questions shouldn't be treated as though they measure exactly the same thing.

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