Dr. Anthony Fauci had to strip naked and get hosed down 'in what looked like a kiddie pool' after being mailed a white powder he feared was deadly ricin.
The White House COVID adviser turned chief medical adviser, 80, has said he thought was at risk when he opened the envelope on August 27, 2020, at his office at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC, and mystery white powder blew into his face and chest.
Fauci's ordeal is explained in the new book, 'Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration's Response to the Pandemic That Changed History,' written by Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta.
Fauci, who is the director of the National Institutes for Health, said he believed the substance was one of three things: a prank to scare him, anthrax or ricin. If it was anthrax, he’d survive albeit be very ill. If it was ricin, he would be dead.
‘Over the next few hours, his team hosed him down to his skivvies in a chemical lab, making him stand naked in what looked like a kiddy pool as they awaited the results of tests on the substance,’ reads an excerpt of the book published by Politico’s Playbook. ‘He called his wife to warn her before breathing a sigh of relief a few hours later when the findings came back negative for both deadly substances.’
Anthony Fauci had to strip naked and get hosed down 'in what looked like a kiddie pool' after being mailed a white powder during the height of the COVID crisis, a new book has revealed. Fauci, right, Dr. Deborah Birx, left, listen as President Donald Trump speaks on March 20 last year
He received a mysterious envelop at his office at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, DC, pictured, and the white powder blew into his face and chest
The details of Fauci's poison scare are revealed in a new book by Washington Post reporters Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, Nightmare Scenario
Fauci first revealed the details of the poison scare to The New York Times in January, though he left out the experience of being hosed down naked. Fauci added that he doesn't know if former President Trump even knew about the incident and he never told anyone in the administration about it.
The book also details the death threats Fauci received during Trump's presidency amid the ebbing pandemic. He angered Trump and his supporters by disagreeing with the ex-president, often in public, moments after Trump had spoken.
Fauci said he received his first death threat on March 28, 2020, adding: 'They knew where my kids work, where they live,’
