Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, texted Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky about the possibility that a "significant cytokines storm and fever" from the COVID vaccine could theoretically be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester. More than 10,000 pregnant women had already been vaccinated by the time that text exchange happened.
Despite privately acknowledging the increase risk to pregnant women Fauci refused to change public guidance.
Newly released text messages show the three most powerful public health officials in the country privately worried about the very thing they were publicly telling Americans not to worry about. Fauci raised the cytokine concern. Murthy responded that acknowledging it would be "potentially quite damaging to public confidence among pregnant women." And Walensky chimed in with her own concern about "mRNA causing mutations in the developing fetus."
The texts surfaced through litigation led by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, who noted that anyone who raised these same concerns publicly was branded dangerous. "We were anti-vaxxers and we were liars," Murrill said, describing the treatment critics received. They were accused of "trying to cause people to die from COVID" — for saying out loud what Fauci was texting to his colleagues in private.
The World Health Organization, to its credit, actually recommended against using Moderna's vaccine for certain groups during this same period. So there was an international health body flagging the concern in real time. Fauci and company had that data. They had their own instincts, clearly, given the texts. And they chose silence.
When Fauci later sat for congressional testimony, he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times. One hundred times. For a man who spent years insisting he had nothing to hide, that's a remarkable amount of hiding.
GOP Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul have pushed for further investigation into the disconnect between private communications and public messaging during the vaccine rollout. The texts make it harder — not easier — to dismiss their concerns as partisan overreach. These weren't leaked memos from a mid-level bureaucrat. These were the top three health officials in the federal government, talking to each other about risks to unborn children.
The standard defense will be that the benefits outweighed the risks, that the situation was evolving, that public messaging in a pandemic requires simplification. Which might hold up if they had said "we're monitoring a potential risk and here's what we know so far." They didn't. They said there were no issues. Fauci himself said "no issues have arisen" regarding vaccinated pregnant women — while his own texts told a different story.
This is the pattern that eroded trust in public health faster than any Facebook meme ever could. Not the uncertainty — uncertainty is forgivable. The certainty. The absolute, unwavering, televised certainty delivered by people who were privately uncertain enough to text each other about it.
