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Two Senate Republicans released a set of early 2021 text messages that show Dr. Anthony Fauci and other federal health officials discussing how to “weigh the potential risks against the benefits” of pregnant women taking COVID-19 vaccines.
The 11 text messages that were made public Monday were among more than 34,000 that the Department of Health and Human Services recovered from Fauci’s government-issued phone, Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said in a statement. The two lawmakers have intensely criticized Fauci over the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic for years, with Paul recently releasing diary entries penned by Fauci during the height of the pandemic.
The newly released texts stem from late January 2021, several days after former President Joe Biden took office and more than a month after the first coronavirus vaccines — made by Pfizer and Moderna — were granted emergency use authorization and rolled out to the American public.
At the time, officials were still collecting data on pregnant women who chose to receive the vaccines. Since then, multiple studies have found no increased risk of miscarriage or other pregnancy complications after COVID-19 vaccination.
The text conversation began with then-Surgeon General nominee Dr. Vivek Murthy asking Fauci and then-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky if they knew of any information on whether pregnant women should get vaccinated earlier or later in pregnancy.
Walensky noted that the CDC was using a monitoring system called “V-safe” to track side effects of COVID-19 vaccines for groups of people who were not included in the vaccines’ initial trials, including pregnant women.
Fauci — the now-retired longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — then said there is “no data or theoretical reason to believe that vaccinating early versus later in pregnancy would be preferred,” according to the messages released Monday.
Fauci later mentioned reports of fevers or a condition called cytokine storm after patients take the second COVID-19 vaccine dose, which “theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.” Walensky and Murthy called Fauci’s comments a “good point.”
A day later, Fauci wrote that “in any vaccine in which data are lacking in pregnant women one must weigh the potential risks against the benefits,” noting that “COVID-19 can be a serious disease especially in pregnancy.” He added that more than 10,000 pregnant women had been vaccinated at the time, and “No issues have arisen.”
Seven months after the exchange between Murthy, Fauci and Walensky, the CDC explicitly recommended that pregnant women should get vaccinated against COVID-19, citing new data that showed “scientists did not find an increased risk for miscarriage.”
The CDC’s website states that in studies that include more than a million pregnant women, “COVID-19 vaccination before and during pregnancy did not increase health risks for pregnant women or their babies.” It also notes that the vaccines make people less likely to fall severely ill from COVID-19, which could pose health risks to pregnant women and their babies.
Last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the CDC would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists continued to recommend the vaccines.
CBS News has reached out to Fauci’s attorneys and to Murthy and Walensky for comment.
In a statement, Paul and Johnson said releasing more texts from Fauci’s phone will take some time, citing the “large volume of information” that must be screened.
The release of Fauci’s text messages could further rekindle a yearslong dispute between Fauci and congressional Republicans about how the federal government’s former top infectious disease expert responded to the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, Paul’s office released a trove of journal entries from Fauci that were retrieved from government servers in recent months. In those entries, Fauci discussed his views on the origins of the coronavirus — a topic Paul has accused Fauci of issuing misleading statements on, which Fauci has long denied. Fauci also tracked his media appearances, appeared bemused by his sudden fame and criticized Mr. Trump and some of his advisers.
Fauci was called to testify last month before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which Paul chairs. He invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to every question, leading the committee to later vote to hold him in contempt of Congress, arguing he needed to answer questions since he was protected from criminal prosecution by a Biden-era pardon. His attorney told CBS News that Fauci had “solid legal ground” to invoke the Fifth Amendment.