Senator Releases Text Messages

Newly released text messages from Anthony Fauci’s government-issued phone are raising fresh questions about the difference between what senior health officials were discussing privately during the early days of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and what they were saying publicly.

Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky released one exchange they say could have an immediate impact on the public’s understanding of how vaccine safety concerns were handled.

The messages involve Fauci, then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, and former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. The discussion centered on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and pregnancy.

In a January 25-26, 2021 exchange, Fauci wrote that the second vaccine dose “theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester” because of the fever and cytokine response that could follow vaccination.

That is not exactly a minor concern.

What makes the exchange especially noteworthy is what happened afterward. Fauci and other federal health officials continued publicly encouraging pregnant women to get vaccinated, repeatedly emphasizing that available evidence showed the vaccines were safe.

A little more than a week after the text exchange, Fauci appeared on the JAMA Network and addressed questions about vaccination during pregnancy.

“The FDA,” Fauci said, “has found, thus far — and we’ve got to be careful — but thus far, no red flags about that, about pregnant women.”

That wording now deserves another look.

If Fauci privately believed there was at least a theoretical possibility that the immune response caused by a second dose could contribute to miscarriage during the first trimester, it is fair to ask why that concern was not more clearly discussed in public at the time.

By August 2021, Fauci’s public language had become even more confident.