A post about this was published on August 11 by a Facebook user. “This is catastrophic… – he reacted. – Recently released messages from January 2021 from Dr. Fauci’s government-issued phone show that he was concerned that the second dose of the COVID vaccine ‘could theoretically be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester of pregnancy.’
At about the same time, many large Facebook groups were active, where tens of thousands of women reported that after the vaccine their menstrual cycle became very irregular, and in many cases they experienced miscarriages. Facebook closed these groups. <…>”
The post then quotes Robert Redfield, who led the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2018-2021. At that time, A. Fauci was the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
R. Redfield allegedly said: “I think some individuals, including A. Fauci, made joint efforts to withhold any information from the public that could discourage people from getting vaccinated. Tony believed he knew better what was good for you than you yourself. So he made the decision for you.”
The post recalls that in January 2021, A. Fauci sent a “chain message” to then CDC director Rochelle Walensky, indicating that vaccination, especially the second dose, “may be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester of pregnancy.”
34 thousand messages
It was precisely on the days when the Facebook user published this post that a commotion arose in the US over old A. Fauci correspondence. Republican senators Rand Paul from Kentucky and Ron Johnson from Wisconsin released the first batch of messages from the former official’s mobile phone on August 10. These two lawmakers have for many years intensely criticized Dr. A. Fauci for the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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There were 11 text messages out of 34 thousand that the Department of Health and Human Services received from his government phone. The correspondence shows that A. Fauci was involved in discussions with federal health officials about the possible risks and benefits of COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women.
It took place at the end of January 2021, more than a month after the emergency authorization of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines in the US. At that time, officials were still gathering data on pregnant women who chose to get vaccinated. Since then, several studies have not shown an increased risk of miscarriage or other pregnancy complications after COVID-19 vaccination.
The discussion heated up when Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy asked A. Fauci and R. Walensky (who had just become CDC director) whether pregnant women should get vaccinated earlier or later during pregnancy.
A. Fauci replied that “there is no data or theoretical reason to believe that preference should be given to early vaccination compared to later in pregnancy.” He later mentioned reports of fever and so-called cytokine response after the second vaccine dose, which theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester.
Some time later, A. Fauci reminded that, as with any vaccine lacking data on pregnant women, the potential risks and benefits must be weighed. However, he emphasized that COVID-19 can be a serious disease, especially during pregnancy.
COVID-19 more dangerous
The release of the messages revived old falsehoods about the dangers of COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women and alleged miscarriages caused by them. At the time of the quoted correspondence, data was still being collected on pregnant women vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2. Later various studies did not show an increased risk of miscarriage or other pregnancy complications after vaccination.
Nevertheless, senators accused A. Fauci of deceiving the public about the safety of vaccines during pregnancy. “We will never know how many babies died from miscarriage because of Fauci’s lies,” R. Johnson commented on the social network X the day after the messages were published.
The politicians’ claims of deception lack important context about what A. Fauci said and how information about vaccine safety for pregnant women developed over the following months.
“By January-February 2021, we knew that COVID infection during pregnancy increased the risk of fetal loss and other pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia,” said Victoria Male, a reproductive immunology lecturer at Imperial College London, to the US fact-checking website FactCheck.
However, the modest evidence about the safety of coronavirus vaccines during pregnancy, according to her, was reassuring and quickly accumulated. “Current data continue to show no increased risk of miscarriage (or other pregnancy complications) associated with COVID-19 vaccination,” the scientist noted.
US health agencies have monitored outcomes since the start of vaccination. As of February 28, 2021, 35,691 pregnant women had been vaccinated, and reports in the special Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) showed no safety concerns.
In April 2021, an article by CDC officials published in the New England Journal of Medicine (New England Journal of Medicine) noted that preliminary findings “did not show obvious safety signals” among vaccinated pregnant women. In other words, there was no unusual number of adverse events, but the authors acknowledged the need for further research.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also does not mention increased risks from COVID-19 vaccination for pregnant women.
Seven months after the cited text message exchange, the CDC recommended that pregnant women get vaccinated against COVID-19. This recommendation was based on new data showing that scientists found no increased risk of miscarriage.
Pregnant women are generally not included in vaccine clinical trials. The CDC website states that studies of more than a million pregnant women vaccinated against coronavirus worldwide have not shown increased risks of complications – miscarriage, preterm birth, etc. – while warning of the opposite danger – that COVID-19 itself can pose risks to women and their babies.
The false claim that A. Fauci was worried about the dangers of coronavirus vaccines for pregnant women and tried to hide it was also debunked by the US fact-checking website Snopes, CNN television, and AFP news agency.
15min verdict: lacks context. It is not true that old A. Fauci messages reveal he was concerned that COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous for pregnant women.
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