The last few years haven’t done any favours to the status of public health experts. Ongoing revelations from Anthony Fauci’s personal notes emphasize their eroded stature. Once the face of America’s response to COVID-19, the former director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has been revealed by the publication of his “diary” as thin-skinned, intolerant of dissent, dishonest and obsessed with fame. To those of us who were already dismayed by authoritarian restrictions imposed by government during the pandemic, the exposed memos and emails confirm our worst suspicions about the nature of the thinking behind those policies.