Former Trump adviser claims to ?expose unvarnished truth? of Covid in new book

In a new book, former Trump adviser Scott Atlas blames Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci for "headline-dominating debacles" about quack cures for Covid-19 - but omits to mention the chief proponent of snake-oil treatments, including hydroxychloroquine and disinfectant, was the US president he loyally served.

Atlas, a radiologist, is a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, California, specializing in healthcare policy. He became a special adviser to Donald Trump in August 2020, five months into the pandemic, but resigned less than four months later after a controversial spell in the role.

His book, A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop Covid from Destroying America, will be published on 7 December. Its publisher is Bombardier Books, an imprint of PostHill Press, a conservative outlet that will also publish a memoir by Kayleigh McEnany, Trump's fourth press secretary.

Birx, an army physician, is a longtime leader in the fight against Aids. Fauci has served seven presidents as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Both were senior members of Trump's Covid taskforce. Atlas's book is replete with attacks on both.

Describing the fight against Covid before he came to the White House, Atlas accidentally sideswipes Trump when he writes: "Birx and Fauci stood alongside the president during headline-dominating debacles in the Brady Press Room about using hydroxychloroquine, drinking disinfectant, ingesting bleach and using UV light to cure the virus. They were there as the sole medical input into the taskforce, generating the entire advisory output to the states."

Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial, was touted as a Covid treatment by non-governmental voices including two billionaires, Elon Musk and Larry Ellison.

Fauci said repeatedly such claims should be treated with caution. But Trump himself proved an enthusiastic advocate, disagreeing with his senior scientist and asking the public: "What do you have to lose?"