(The Center Square) – Dr. Anthony Fauci is taking criticism after his recently published paper cast doubt on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines.

Joel Zinberg, a Competitive Enterprise Institute senior fellow, blasted Fauci for pushing for strict mandates despite the concerns with the vaccine.

“Dr. Anthony Fauci recently acknowledged that there had always been good scientific reasons to believe that vaccines against the respiratory virus that causes COVID-19 – SARS-CoV-2 – would provide limited protection against infection and only for a short time,” Zinberg told The Center Square. “That is precisely what happened: it quickly became apparent that protection against transmission lasted just a few months and effectiveness declined as each new viral variant proved more contagious than its predecessor. Yet Dr. Fauci persisted in insisting that repeated vaccines were needed for everyone and until recently pushed for vaccine mandates.”

Fauci, who left his role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases last year, made the comments in a recent medical journal piece that he co-authored. The piece makes clear that developing long-term vaccines for respiratory conditions like COVID-19 is very difficult and a problem that still needs to be overcome, something researchers have known for years.

From the published article in Cell Host and Microbe:

Considering that vaccine development and licensure is a long and complex process requiring years of preclinical and clinical safety and efficacy data, the limitations of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 vaccines remind us that candidate vaccines for most other respiratory viruses have to date been insufficiently protective for consideration of licensure, including candidate vaccines against RSV, a major killer of infants and the elderly, parainfluenzaviruses, endemic coronaviruses, and many other ‘common cold’ viruses that cause significant morbidity and economic loss…

Taking all of these factors into account, it is not surprising that none of the predominantly mucosal respiratory viruses have ever been effectively controlled by vaccines. This observation raises a question of fundamental importance: if natural mucosal respiratory virus infections do not elicit complete and long-term protective immunity against reinfection, how can we expect vaccines, especially systemically administered non-replicating vaccines, to do so? This is a major challenge for future vaccine development, and overcoming it is critical as we work to develop ‘next-generation’ vaccines.

The paper and other research have shown that Fauci was mistaken or deceptive in his promises about the effectiveness of the vaccine while pushing for it on behalf of the federal government. For example, Fauci said in May 2021 that “when you get vaccinated, you not only protect your own health and that of the family … But also you contribute to the community health by preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community. And in other words, you become a dead end to the virus.”

The latest research shows vaccinated people can still spread the virus.

The economy nosedived because of pandemic-era shutdowns and countless Americans lost their jobs.

From nurses to Navy SEALS, those who refused vaccination were forced out of their jobs. Elected leaders also publicly attacked vaccine skeptics.

As time goes on, more research and papers like Fauci’s have emerged, either casting doubts on the effectiveness of the vaccine and in some case, highlighting the adverse side-effects.

“Thousands of workers who were, perhaps ill-advisedly, willing to risk severe illness themselves, were fired even though vaccines would protect neither them nor their co-workers from infection. Essential personnel including firefighters, police and the military have been lost,” Zinberg said. “Fauci’s prolonged reluctance to acknowledge the predictable shortcomings of COVID vaccines has undermined trust in public health authorities. Even with government efforts to censure ‘misinformation,’ the decreased effectiveness of vaccines in stopping transmission became public knowledge. When the next pandemic comes, people may have little faith in the advice they receive, with potentially disastrous consequences.”