My interview subject was soon to die of AIDS after surviving for 11 years. Michael Callen, whom I’d known since the 80s had become an historic figure in the people with aids movement and knew his time was up. Facing the end, his big questions weren’t about the meaning of life and death but rather about the moral landscape inhabited by Tony Fauci. He recalled a desperate meeting at the NIH a few years before. Michael and his doctor begged Fauci to smooth the way for Bactrim – a simple sulpha drug being used off-label successfully to stave off a catastrophic pneumonia that often meant the end.
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