Texts show Fauci, surgeon general, CDC chief worried about miscarriage after 2nd COVID vaccine dose

From the first week of the Biden administration, public health officials including Dr. Anthony Fauci privately expressed concern that pregnant women who take both doses of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines early in pregnancy could miscarry, according to a text chain recovered from Fauci's government-issued cellphone, released Monday by GOP Sens. Ron Johnson and Rand Paul.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy asked Fauci, then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky whether they had "any data or theoretical reason why vaccinating early vs late in pregnancy would be preferred." 

Murthy said he was telling pregnant women there was no "evidence of concerning adverse outcomes in the trials" while acknowledging the number of pregnant women in the COVID vaccine trials were "likely [...] limited." Fauci reminded him that "pregnant women were not allowed" in the trials.

Within two hours of telling Murthy there was a "misperception" even from "female health care professionals" that vaccination "very early in pregnancy" could be harmful, Fauci told the chain he "asked around a bit more." He was warned that the "significant cytokines storm and fever" that commonly follow the second dose "theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester."

Walensky and Murthy both agreed the second-dose concern was a "good point," and Walensky added that she had heard concerns about "mRNA causing mutations in the developing fetus as well."

The next day, Murthy was panicking about the World Health Organization recommending pregnant women not take the Moderna mRNA vaccine "unless they are at risk of high exposure." He called it "potentially quite damaging to public confidence among pregnant women," and Walensky agreed.

Fauci reassured them that "more than 10,000" pregnant women had been vaccinated by that point after emergency use authorization: "No issues have arisen."

The newly revealed text chain is more evidence that Fauci had the same concerns as others who were "being told that we were anti-vaxxers and that we were liars" who were "trying to cause people to die from COVID," Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told Just the News, No Noise on Monday night.

Anyone "on the ground" could see these "rampant and pervasive" problems, including Murrill, whose son went to the ICU with myocarditis for a week after his COVID vaccine, she said. 

"Parents were being told 'vaccinate your kids'" as young as 5, "that there's no side effects [..] that myocarditis is not severe and that they bounce back within a few days," which is "just frankly not true," Murrill said. "I think pediatric cardiologists know this" but they faced threats to their medical licenses if they told parents.

The Louisiana AG suspects the now-retired Fauci invoked the 5th Amendment more than 100 times in his recent congressional testimony because "he knows he has exposure in the states" including hers.

Murrill has brought a criminal case based on Fauci's recently revealed contemporaneous notes, which allegedly contradict his deposition testimony in Louisiana's lawsuit against federal pressure on social media to censor disapproved narratives such as COVID treatments.

"We're looking at, I'm looking at what Fauci did in the context of our litigation to see whether he lied and whether there are potentially perjury charges that could arise from that," she said.

Restoring public trust after the revelations that public officials were saying different things about COVID in public and private starts with transparency, Murrill said. "I think the public needs to hear the truth" and "we need people to be able to question the science without threat of retaliation from the government."