Dr. Anthony Fauci:
Well, it was an enlightening experience because the activists were right.
The rigor of the scientific approach, the clinical trial process of inclusion and exclusion criteria in clinical trials, the understandably rigorous regulatory process that takes so long to get an intervention approved, all of these worked extremely well for decades for a disease that was not like HIV/AIDS, which was a group of mostly young gay men who had or were at risk of getting a disease that was going to kill all their friends within 10 to 12 months of the onset of symptoms.
They wanted to be at the table, they wanted some input into the design of the trials to get broader access, and they don't want to wait seven years for the drug to be approved.
What is understandable, but unacceptable, is that the scientific community and regulators are saying, “We know best for you. We are the scientists. We have the experience.”
And they kept saying no, no, no. We really want a seat at the table. When we didn't listen, they became theatrical, iconoclastic, disruptive, confrontational. As John Lewis used to say, there's good trouble and bad trouble. They were getting good trouble in health because they wanted a seat at the table.
One of the best things I've ever done in my career was to put the hyperbole aside and listen to what they had to say, because what they were saying made perfect sense, and I remember telling myself that if I were in their shoes, I would do exactly the same thing.
