New Evidence Emerges Regarding Vaccine Link To Miscarriage
Newly released text messages from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s government-issued cellphone are raising fresh questions about how he discussed possible COVID-19 vaccine risks in private compared with what he said publicly during the early months of the vaccine rollout. Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky released a collection of Fauci’s messages […]
Newly released text messages from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s government-issued cellphone are raising fresh questions about how he discussed possible COVID-19 vaccine risks in private compared with what he said publicly during the early months of the vaccine rollout.
Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky released a collection of Fauci’s messages Monday, saying the material came from a government-issued phone used while Fauci was serving as one of the country’s most prominent public health officials.
One message in particular has attracted attention because it involved pregnancy and the possibility of miscarriage.
In a Jan. 25, 2021, text to then-CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Fauci said he had been asking around about vaccine-related concerns and raised a theoretical issue involving pregnant women.
“I asked around a bit more, and another issue came up that you need to be aware of,” Fauci wrote.
He then pointed to the fever and strong inflammatory responses that some people experienced after receiving a second vaccine dose.
“Since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the 2nd dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester,” Fauci wrote.
Walensky reportedly responded that it was “definitely a good point,” particularly after the second dose.
Paul seized on the exchange as evidence that Fauci’s private concerns were more serious than his public comments suggested.
“Once again, Anthony Fauci was saying one thing in public and something completely different in private,” Paul wrote on X.
Paul went further, accusing Fauci of failing to be candid with the public about possible risks to pregnant women while encouraging Americans to receive the vaccine.
The timeline, however, is important.
Fauci’s Jan. 25 message described the possible connection as theoretical. A little more than a week later, on Feb. 3, he appeared in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association and discussed the available safety information involving pregnant women.
Fauci said the Food and Drug Administration had, “thus far,” found no red flags involving pregnancy, while also adding that officials needed to remain careful in interpreting the available information.
As more data became available, Fauci became more definitive. He later said that tens of thousands of vaccinated pregnant women had been followed by the CDC and that officials had not found evidence showing an increase in adverse outcomes compared with pregnant women who had not been vaccinated.
He argued on that basis that the evidence supported vaccination for pregnant women.
Another newly released message shows that government officials were also discussing how public warnings from international health organizations could affect vaccine confidence.
According to the New York Post, Murthy wrote in a Jan. 26, 2021, message that he was surprised the World Health Organization had issued a strong statement saying it did not recommend the Moderna vaccine for pregnant women at the time.
“That’s a strong statement to make and potentially quite damaging to public confidence among pregnant women,” Murthy wrote.
The newly released messages are part of a much larger collection. Johnson and Paul said Fauci’s government phone contained more than 34,000 text messages and 522 voicemails.
The senators have indicated that they intend to continue reviewing the material.
Johnson said in a post on X that he has been conducting oversight of Fauci and the federal government’s COVID-19 response for years, but argued that obtaining the phone and its records opens a new phase of the investigation.
“While I’ve been conducting oversight for years, now that we have the documents and Fauci’s government-issued phone, my investigation has only just begun,” Johnson wrote.
The central question now is how the private conversations should be interpreted.
Fauci’s defenders could argue that the messages show officials doing exactly what public health officials are supposed to do behind the scenes: considering theoretical risks, discussing incomplete evidence and monitoring possible safety concerns before stronger data are available.
His critics see something very different. They argue that the messages show Fauci privately considering risks that were not emphasized to the public while federal officials were working to reassure Americans about vaccine safety.