We’re getting new insight into the process that went into deciding whether to widely recommend the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021. Two Republican senators have released text messages between former Director of National Health Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top U.S. health officials.
Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., released 11 text messages out of the more than 34,000 that the Department of Health and Human Services recovered from Fauci’s government-issued phone after he retired in 2022. The texts were reportedly written in January of 2021, after Pfizer and Moderna’s coronavirus vaccines were earlier approved by the Trump administration for emergency use.
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What Fauci said
The newly released texts specifically appear to revolve around a discussion over the safety of the vaccine for pregnant women. In one of the screenshots released, Fauci appears to raise concerns over whether the vaccine could cause miscarriages.
At the time of the texts, health officials were still collecting data on the vaccines.
Then-Surgeon General nominee Dr. Vivek Murthy asked, “For pregnant women considering getting the vaccine, are you aware of any data or theoretical reason why vaccinating early vs late in pregnancy would be preferred?”
Rochelle Walensky, who was the CDC director at the time, responded, saying the CDC was using a monitoring system to track side effects of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant women, according to the released screenshots. Fauci said there was “no data or theoretical reason to believe that vaccinating early versus later in pregnancy would be preferred,” in his reply.
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The CDC announced last year it would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children.
Later on, Fauci said there had been reports of fevers or a condition called cytokine storm after getting the second dose of the vaccines. Fauci allegedly said that “this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.”
Walensky responded, “Definitely a good point, esp after dose two.”
A day after that, Fauci said that “in any vaccine in which data are lacking in pregnant women one must weigh the potential risks against the benefits,” adding, “COVID-19 can be a serious disease especially in pregnancy.” He also noted that “no issues have arisen” after more than 10,000 pregnant women had already been vaccinated.
Multiple studies have shown since then that there is no increased risk of miscarriage or other pregnancy complications linked to the shots.
Investigating Fauci
The two Republican lawmakers are leading panels investigating Fauci. They accuse him of covering up the National Institutes of Health funding coronavirus research in Wuhan, China, before the virus was first detected there.
Fauci has called their claims “preposterous” and invoked the Fifth Amendment during testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last month.
“The only conclusion that I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything, that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars,” Fauci said during the hearing.
Senators on the committee voted last week to hold Fauci in contempt. They argue that Fauci has no reason to invoke the Fifth Amendment since former President Joe Biden already granted him and others a blanket pardon for any wrongdoing during the period in question.
Alabama, Florida and Louisiana have also launched state-level inquiries into Fauci after he refused to answer the committee’s questions.
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