Dr. Anthony Fauci, public face of the federal government’s coronavirus response and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Thursday that American “anti-science bias” has presented great difficulty in curbing the pandemic. “One of the problems we face in the United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people...just don't believe science and they don't believe authority,” he said in the Department of Health and Human Services podcast “Learning Curve.” “So when they see someone up in the White House, which has an air of authority to it, who's talking about science, that there are some people who just don't believe that—and that's unfortunate because, you know, science is truth.” He cited anti-vaxxers as examples of the phenomenon. Fauci frequently appears alongside President Donald Trump in White House press conferences on the coronavirus, where the president has made outlandish suggestions for treatment, such as injecting bleach.