Anthony Fauci was hosed down, naked, 'in what looked like a kiddy pool' after being mailed mysterious white powder

Last summer, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief Anthony Fauci was reportedly sent mail containing white powder that "literally blew up in his face," Politico writes, per a preview of the new book Nightmare Scenario by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta.

Fauci believed the mysterious white substance to be one of three things: a prank "to scare him;" anthrax, which would make him "seriously ill but which he could probably survive;" or ricin, which would make him a "dead duck."

Luckily, chemical testing came back negative for both anthrax and ricin, but not before Fauci was hosed "down to his skivvies in a chemical lab," standing "naked in what looked like a kiddy pool" while his team awaited results, per Politico.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Previously reported excerpts of Nightmare Scenario revealed Trump once joked he hoped COVID-19 would "take out" former National Security Adviser John Bolton, and had even proposed the U.S. house COVID-19 patients at Guantanamo Bay. For his part, Fauci had detailed the white powder missive in an interview with The New York Times earlier this year, though he understandably left out the part about the kiddy pool.