Two Senate Republicans released a series of text messages from early 2021 showing Dr. Anthony Fauci and other federal health officials discussing how to “weigh the potential risks against the benefits” of pregnant women taking COVID-19 vaccines. The 11 text messages made public Monday were among more than 34,000 that the Department of Health and Human Services recovered from the Fauci administration-issued phone, Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said in a statement. The two lawmakers have been intensely critical of Fauci over the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic for years, and Paul recently published journal entries written by Fauci during the height of the pandemic. The newly published texts come from late January 2021, several days after former President Joe Biden took office and more than a month after the first coronavirus vaccines, made by Pfizer and Moderna, received emergency use authorization and were introduced to the American public. At the time, officials were still collecting data on pregnant women who opted to receive the vaccines. Since then, multiple studies have found no increased risk of miscarriage or other pregnancy complications after COVID-19 vaccination. The text conversation began when then-Surgeon General candidate Dr. Vivek Murthy asked Fauci and then-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky if they knew any information about whether pregnant women should get vaccinated earlier or later in pregnancy. Walensky noted that the CDC was using a monitoring system called “V-safe” to track the side effects of COVID-19. vaccines for groups of people who were not included in the initial vaccine trials, including pregnant women. Fauci, the now-retired director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, later said there is “no data or theoretical reasons to believe that it would be preferable to vaccinate early or later in pregnancy,” according to messages posted Monday. Fauci later mentioned reports of fever or a condition called cytokine storm after patients receive the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, which “could theoretically be associated with first-trimester miscarriage.” Walensky and Murthy called Fauci’s comments a “good point.” A day later, Fauci wrote that “any vaccine with missing data in pregnant women must weigh potential risks against benefits,” noting that “COVID-19 can be a serious illness, especially during pregnancy.” He added that more than 10,000 pregnant women had been vaccinated at that time and “no problems have arisen.” Seven months after the exchange between Murthy, Fauci and Walensky, the CDC explicitly recommended that pregnant women get vaccinated against COVID-19, citing new data showing that “scientists found no increased risk of miscarriage.” The CDC website states that in studies including more than one million pregnant women, “COVID-19 vaccination before and during pregnancy did not increase health risks for pregnant women or their babies.” It also notes that vaccines make people less likely to get seriously ill from COVID-19, which could pose health risks to pregnant women and their babies. Last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the CDC would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists continued to recommend vaccines. CBS News has reached out to Fauci’s attorneys and Murthy and Walensky for comment. In a statement, Paul and Johnson said releasing more text messages from Fauci’s phone will take some time, citing the “sheer volume of information” that needs to be vetted. The release of Fauci’s text messages could further reignite a years-long dispute between Fauci and congressional Republicans over how the former federal government’s top infectious disease expert responded to the coronavirus pandemic. Last month, Paul’s office released a trove of Fauci’s diary entries that were recovered from government servers in recent months. In those entries, Fauci discussed his views on the origins of the coronavirus, a topic on which Paul has accused Fauci of issuing misleading statements, which Fauci has long denied. Fauci also followed his media appearances, appearing bewildered by his sudden fame and criticizing Trump and some of his advisers. Fauci was called to testify last month before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which Paul chairs. He invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to each question, prompting the committee to later vote to hold him in contempt of Congress, arguing that he needed to answer questions since he was protected from criminal prosecution by a Biden-era pardon. His lawyer told CBS News that Fauci had “sound legal grounds” for invoking the Fifth Amendment. More from CBS News Go deeper with The Free Press
