Summary:

Text messages recovered from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s government-issued phone and released in August 2026 show that in late January 2021 the former NIAID director, then-CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and incoming Surgeon General Vivek Murthy privately discussed a theoretical risk that the second dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines could be associated with first-trimester miscarriage because of cytokine storm and fever. The exchange followed a message from the head of NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center noting that initial studies had avoided first-trimester vaccination for related reasons. In the months that followed, public statements from the same officials and the CDC assured pregnant women that no safety concerns had been observed and strongly recommended vaccination. During the same period, reports of miscarriage and stillbirth submitted to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System rose sharply. The communications form part of material obtained by Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul as their investigation into pandemic decision-making and informed consent continues.

 

Detailed Report

 

1. Senate Release of Fauci’s Private Communications

In August 2026 Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul released selected text messages recovered from the government-issued cellphone used by Dr. Anthony Fauci while he served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The device, produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, contained more than 34,000 text messages and 522 voicemails. The senators stated that the volume of material would require careful review and that further relevant records would be made public as the investigation progressed. One of the first batches centred on an exchange from 25–26 January 2021 concerning COVID-19 vaccination of pregnant women.

 

2. The January 2021 Private Discussion

On 25 January 2021 Vivek Murthy asked Fauci and Rochelle Walensky whether there was any data or theoretical reason to prefer vaccination earlier or later in pregnancy. Walensky replied that her understanding was that the question remained data free. Fauci agreed, writing that there were no data or theoretical reason to believe that vaccinating early versus later in pregnancy would be preferred.

Later that afternoon Fauci received a text from Dr. John Mascola, then director of the NIAID Vaccine Research Center, stating that he had been corrected on pregnancy studies and that initial studies avoided vaccination in the first trimester “due to possible fever and higher rates of miscarriage in first trimester.” Phone records show Fauci read the message at 6:42 p.m. Three minutes later he returned to the group chat and wrote that he had asked around a bit more and that another issue had arisen of which they needed to be aware: “Since many people have significant cytokine storm and fever after the second dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.” Walensky responded that it was “definitely a good point, especially after dose two.”

In further discussion the following day Fauci noted that more than 10,000 pregnant women had already been vaccinated and that no issues had arisen, while emphasising that potential risks still needed to be weighed against benefits.

 

3. Public Assurances That Followed

Nine days after the private exchange, on 3 February 2021, Fauci told a Journal of the American Medical Association audience that the FDA had found “thus far no red flags about that, about pregnant women.”

On 23 April 2021 CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated at a White House briefing: “Importantly, no safety concerns were observed for people vaccinated in the third trimester or safety concerns for their babies.”

On 30 August 2021 Fauci said it was “pretty clear that pregnant women should get vaccinated,” adding that tens of thousands of women followed by the CDC who had been vaccinated while pregnant showed “no indication whatsoever that there’s any increase of any adverse issues.” By September the CDC had issued a strong recommendation that pregnant people receive COVID-19 vaccination because the benefits outweighed known or potential risks. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy later stated that the data showed the vaccines were safe during the various stages before and during pregnancy and that vaccination at any time during pregnancy was fine.

 

4. VAERS Reporting and Early Published Data

OpenVAERS data show that reports coded to miscarriage or stillbirth remained at low annual levels through 2020 before rising sharply in 2021, with more than 3,500 reports recorded that year, and remaining elevated in 2022.

Pfizer’s cumulative analysis of post-authorisation adverse event reports through 28 February 2021 recorded 270 unique pregnancies. Outcomes were provided for 32 of those cases; among the known outcomes a substantial proportion were reported as spontaneous abortion or related losses, while no outcome was listed for 238 pregnancies.

A preliminary analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2021 examined 827 completed pregnancies in the CDC’s v-safe registry and reported a spontaneous-abortion rate of 12.6 percent. Critics later observed that the large majority of those completed pregnancies involved vaccination in the third trimester and therefore could not have experienced first-trimester loss, so that the figure did not reflect risk among women vaccinated earlier in pregnancy.

 

5. Later Studies and Contested Safety Findings

The later published record contains both large observational studies that found no increased risk of miscarriage and a series of papers that raised greater safety concerns and frequently met rapid institutional challenge.

Subsequent large cohort studies and meta-analyses reported rates of spontaneous abortion among vaccinated pregnant women that were consistent with historical background levels. A Scottish national matched-cohort study published in Nature Communications found an adjusted odds ratio of 1.02. A 2023 meta-analysis in Human Reproduction covering more than 149,000 women reported a risk ratio of 1.07. Other registry-based and Vaccine Safety Datalink analyses likewise reported no elevated risk.

Papers that raised greater concern about vaccine safety frequently encountered rapid challenge. In June 2021 the journal Vaccines published a paper by Harald Walach, Rainer Klement and Wouter Aukema calculating roughly two deaths caused by vaccination for every three prevented. Multiple members of the editorial board resigned in protest. The paper was retracted within days; the authors disagreed with the decision. A 2021 analysis by Jessica Rose and Peter McCullough of myocarditis reports in VAERS was withdrawn by the publisher after temporary removal. A 2022 reanalysis by Joseph Fraiman, Peter Doshi and colleagues of serious adverse events of special interest in the original Pfizer and Moderna trials was published in Vaccine after controversy and continued to face methodological criticism. Dr. Robert Malone, who contributed to early work on mRNA delivery technology, publicly highlighted data gaps in pregnancy studies, the denominator problem in the initial NEJM v-safe analysis, and theoretical reproductive risks during the same period. He was deplatformed from major social-media platforms at the time.

Taken together, the published record contains both large studies finding no increased risk of miscarriage and a series of papers that raised safety concerns and encountered rapid institutional challenge.

 

6. Platform Moderation of Side-Effect Reports

In the same period, records associated with the Virality Project, a research effort linked to the Stanford Internet Observatory, treated true personal stories and anecdotes of vaccine side effects as narratives to be flagged to platforms. Internal Facebook material from the Facebook Files shows that the company demoted content it itself described as “not false information” about negative side effects or questions concerning vaccine mandates. These measures were discussed in calls involving the Surgeon General’s office and were justified on the grounds that such posts created a “vaccine negative environment.” The practices formed part of a wider effort to shape the public information environment around COVID-19 vaccination at the same time senior officials were privately recording theoretical risks while publicly offering strong safety assurances.

 

Conclusion

The January 2021 text messages document a private discussion among senior U.S. health officials of a theoretical first-trimester miscarriage risk associated with the second dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Public statements issued in the following months assured pregnant women that no safety concerns had been observed and that vaccination was recommended. During the same period VAERS recorded a sharp rise in miscarriage and stillbirth reports, while major platforms actively managed discussion of side effects, including true accounts. The communications form part of an ongoing Senate investigation into pandemic decision-making and the principle of informed consent. Additional material from Fauci’s phone continues to be reviewed.