WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci was told privately in January 2021 that early COVID-19 vaccine studies had not enrolled women in the first trimester of pregnancy because of concerns tied to miscarriage risk, according to newly released text messages made public by Sens. Rand Paul and Ron Johnson.
“I am corrected on pregnancy studies. Initial Studies [sic] avoid vaccination in first trimester due to possible fever and higher rates of miscarriage in first trimester,” Dr. John Mascola wrote to Fauci in a Jan. 25, 2021, text message.
At the time, Mascola led the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, commonly known as NIAID.
The broader context surrounding the exchange remains limited, and news reports at the time had already noted that the initial vaccine trials did not include testing among women in early pregnancy.
In response to Mascola’s message, Fauci described a possible theoretical concern that vaccination during pregnancy could be linked to miscarriage if it triggered fever.
“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.
A cytokine storm is a severe immune reaction in which the body releases an excessive amount of infection-signaling proteins, potentially causing the immune system to damage its own tissues.
Several days later, during a Feb. 3 livestreamed question-and-answer session with the Journal of the American Medical Association, Fauci said the FDA had “found thus far… no red flags about… pregnant women.”
US officials allowed pregnant women to get the vaccine starting in late 2020, deferring to consultation between them and their doctors, while other countries such as the United Kingdom were initially more cautious.
However, it wasn’t until later in 2021, after more research was conducted, that pregnant women were actively encouraged to get the vaccine.
There have since been numerous studies, including a British analysis in 2022 and another one in 2023, that looked at tens of thousands of pregnancies and found no strong link between the vaccine and miscarriage.
Notably, there are studies indicating that contracting COVID-19 during the early stages of pregnancy can increase the risk of miscarriage.
The message from Mascola came while Fauci and other officials were discussing concerns about pregnant women receiving the jab.
Then-Surgeon General Vivek Murthy had asked whether there was “any data or theoretical reason why vaccinating early vs late in pregnancy would be preferred.”
Fauci and then-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky both indicated it was “data free” at the time.
That’s when Mascola chimed in that there hadn’t been first-trimester studies yet.
Johnson (R-Wis.), who chairs the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, had sought Fauci’s government-issued cellphone, which the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) forked over on Aug. 5.
Fauci’s phone had over 34,000 texts and 522 voicemails on it.
Last month, Paul (R-Ky.), Fauci’s arch-nemesis in the Senate, dragged him before the upper chamber’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to grill him on his response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ultimately, Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination over 100 times, drawing a contempt vote against him, which was approved by the committee and turned over to the Justice Department.
Last week, Fauci declined to appear before Johnson’s subcommittee.
In addition to the new texts from Mascola, Johnson and Paul also divulged an email from Dr. Janet Woodcock, the then-Acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, to Fauci and Francis Collins about adverse COVID-19 events.
Woodcock noted in her May 27, 2021 email that she had received complaints from healthcare professionals, including ones she knew, about adverse effects from the vaccine.
She also warned that patients said nobody was taking their concerns seriously.
“The symptoms do not fit together into a distinctive syndrome and most are not easily quantifiable or evaluated with standard laboratory testing,” Woodcock wrote.
“…These problems are not the sort that a system like VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] would be able to detect, or even a more sophisticated population-based active followup such as CDC has, or a medical record based system such as BEST [an FDA safety surveillance system].”
She called for a study of those individuals, warning that in her “experience is, that if you let a problem fester, then it will come back to bite you later and you are not prepared.”
Fauci forwarded her missive to Collins, writing, “We cannot ignore her. We should probably bring in CDC and see what Rochelle [Walensky] thinks.”
It’s unclear what happened after that exchange.
