Newly released government-phone texts show Dr. Anthony Fauci privately raised a first-trimester miscarriage concern while federal officials were debating COVID vaccination for pregnant women.
The exchange took place in January 2021 between Fauci, then-CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and Dr. Vivek Murthy, who would soon become Joe Biden’s surgeon general.
Fauci’s warning was carefully worded. He described a theoretical risk tied to fever after the second dose, not data proving that the shots caused miscarriages.
Sen. Ron Johnson published the original text image Monday after he and Sen. Rand Paul obtained Fauci’s government-issued phone:
NEW: Dr. Fauci was concerned in January 2021 that the second dose “theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.”
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) August 10, 2026
The distinction between a private concern and a proven adverse effect is medically important.
So is the difference between acknowledging uncertainty behind closed doors and projecting certainty to millions of Americans.
Sen. Ron Johnson’s office says the Department of Health and Human Services produced Fauci’s government cellphone on August 5 in response to an oversight request. Johnson and Paul released the four-page text chain on August 10, identifying the participants as Fauci, Walensky and Murthy.
Murthy opened the discussion by asking whether pregnant women had any theoretical reason to receive the vaccine early or late in pregnancy. He noted that pregnant women had not been included in the clinical trials and asked when stronger safety data would become available.
Walensky responded that the available information was data-free but said the CDC had created a pregnancy registry and that more than 15,000 pregnant women had enrolled in its V-safe monitoring system.
As Sen. Ron Johnson’s office documented, Fauci initially said there was no data or theoretical reason to prefer early vaccination over later vaccination, an answer to Murthy’s original timing question that did not identify a miscarriage issue. Hours later, after asking around for more information, Fauci returned to the group with a separate warning that had not appeared in his earlier response:
“I asked around a bit more and another issue came up that you need to be aware of. Since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the 2nd dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, January 25, 2021 text released by Sens. Johnson and Paul
Walensky replied: “Definitely a good point, esp after dose two.”
Murthy said he had also heard concerns about mRNA vaccines causing mutations in a developing fetus. He called Fauci’s point about the post-second-dose cytokine response “really helpful.”
The timestamps sharpen the sequence. Fauci sent the miscarriage warning at 6:45 p.m. on January 25.
Walensky answered roughly two minutes later, and Murthy responded about 40 minutes after that. The next afternoon, Murthy returned to the same thread with the World Health Organization’s newly announced position on Moderna vaccination during pregnancy.
Those are not the words of officials who believed every question had already been settled.
Johnson later contrasted the private exchange with Fauci’s public position seven months afterward, when Fauci said it was “pretty clear” that pregnant women should be vaccinated.
Johnson put the private concern beside Fauci’s later public position:
Fauci on August 30, 2021: “it really is pretty clear that pregnant women should get vaccinated.”
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) August 10, 2026
The full exchange contains facts that should not be omitted.
On January 26, Murthy alerted the group that the World Health Organization was advising against the Moderna vaccine for pregnant women because of limited data. Fauci answered that officials had to weigh possible vaccine risks against COVID-19, which he described as especially serious during pregnancy.
Fauci also noted that pregnant women had been excluded from the vaccine trials, that more than 10,000 pregnant women had already received shots after emergency authorization and that animal toxicology studies had not raised red flags.
The texts therefore do not establish that COVID vaccination caused miscarriages. They establish that the nation’s most influential public-health officials were privately discussing unresolved questions about pregnancy, fever, fetal development and timing while the rollout was underway.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development reported in 2023 that an NIH-funded study of more than 1,800 women planning pregnancies found no increased miscarriage risk among vaccinated women. The agency also said several studies found no higher miscarriage risk from COVID vaccination early in pregnancy.
That later evidence did not validate Fauci’s theoretical concern as a proven causal risk.
It also does not erase the public’s legitimate interest in knowing what officials were privately considering before the reassuring public statements hardened into mandates, employment ultimatums and censorship of dissent.
Informed consent requires more than a favorable recommendation. It requires an honest account of what is known, what is unknown and what experts are still debating.
The released chain is only the first piece of a much larger archive.
Johnson said investigators recovered more than 34,000 text messages and 522 voicemails from Fauci’s phone, spanning 2014 through the final days of his NIH tenure. Only three contacts were identified by name, leaving investigators to sort most communications by phone number.
Johnson described the scope of the review before the first text chain was released:
We have already recovered 34,000 text messages, 522 voicemails, and 3 contacts — spanning from 2014.
— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) August 8, 2026
The senators said they will protect unrelated personal communications while releasing records connected to Fauci’s public-health work.
That review needs to be thorough, fair and public.
Americans were asked to trust federal health officials with decisions affecting their jobs, families and unborn children. They are entitled to see the complete record behind the certainty they were sold.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
