Experimental Vaccines Had Surprise Side Effect During Ebola Outbreak. Fauci Panicked.
As health officials grappled with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the military learned experimental Ebola vaccines caused an unexpected side effect that spooked embassies in Africa and rattled Anthony Fauci, newly released documents reveal.
Emily Kopp · Sep 29, 2026 · 5 min read
As health officials grappled with the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the military learned experimental Ebola vaccines caused an unexpected side effect that spooked embassies in Africa and rattled Anthony Fauci, newly released documents reveal.
Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chair Rand Paul released the documents Monday as part of his ongoing investigation into Fauci and the origins of the COVID virus. They were first reported by Just The News.
The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick in Maryland conducted the experiments in late November 2015. They tested the efficacy of four experimental vaccines against filoviruses, the family of viruses to which Ebola belongs. Aerosolized Ebola virus killed nearly all of the primate research subjects, vaccinated or not, Fauci’s notes show. But autopsies showed the vaccinated primates demonstrated “necrosis, inflammation and fibrin in the lungs” that the unvaccinated group did not.
The November 2015 experiments compared four unnamed experimental vaccines in four primates each. The documents do not clearly name the precise vaccine candidates tested. They do indicate that a study a few months earlier in June 2015 had uncovered the same worrying vaccine-induced lung injury in a vaccine made by Profectus.
The documents also refer to Crucell, now Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine, which codeveloped an Ebola vaccine with Fauci’s institute.
The drugmakers and Fauci did not respond to requests for comment.
The documents suggest that the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Division of Clinical Research (DCR) informed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of the finding.
By the spring of 2016, the finding set off alarm bells in the embassies of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, where clinical trials for Ebola vaccines were getting underway.
“The embassies in West Africa (Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone) as you might expect went bonkers since it looks like we’re going to [vaccinate] people with the [dangerous] vaccine,” Fauci said in a March 9, 2016, diary entry.