Republican Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin released 11 text messages Monday from early 2021 showing federal health officials discussing the use of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant women. The messages, sent between Dr. Anthony Fauci, then-Surgeon General nominee Dr. Vivek Murthy, and then-CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, detailed internal deliberations regarding the weighing of vaccine risks against benefits during a period when clinical data for this specific group was limited.
The exchange occurred in late January 2021, approximately one month after the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines received emergency use authorization. At that time, pregnant women had not been included in initial clinical trials. The Department of Health and Human Services recently recovered these messages, along with more than 34,000 others, from a government-issued phone previously used by Fauci, who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
In the messages, Murthy asked if vaccines should be administered at specific stages of pregnancy. Fauci responded that while there was no data-driven reason to prefer one stage over another, he noted that fevers or cytokine storms—immune reactions sometimes seen after a second dose—could "theoretically be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester." Fauci later texted that in the absence of data, one must "weigh the potential risks against the benefits," while noting that over 10,000 pregnant women had been vaccinated at that point with no reported issues.
For the public and federal employees, these developments clarify the internal process used by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and other agencies to develop public health recommendations. A person following this guidance would have seen a shift from the initial "weighing of risks" in early 2021 to a formal recommendation for vaccination seven months later. However, recent policy changes have introduced new variables: last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the CDC would stop recommending the vaccine for pregnant women and healthy children, a move that diverged from the continued recommendations of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The release also sets a precedent for the disclosure of private communications from high-ranking federal officials. Senators Paul and Johnson stated that the process of screening and releasing the remaining 34,000 recovered messages will continue, which may provide further details on the government's pandemic response. This ongoing inquiry follows a recent Senate committee vote to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress after he invoked the Fifth Amendment during testimony. The next steps involve the continued review of the recovered phone data by congressional offices, though no specific deadline for the completion of this review was reported.