Text messages from Anthony Fauci's government-issued cellphone show he warned colleagues that the second COVID-19 vaccine dose "theoretically could be associated with miscarriage", yet days later told the public there were "no red flags" for pregnant women.
Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky released a redacted text chain this week from Fauci's government phone, revealing a January 25, 26, 2021, conversation among Fauci, former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, and former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. The exchange centered on one question: whether the COVID-19 vaccine posed a risk to pregnant women in their first trimester. Fauci's own words, typed into a group text with the nation's two other top public-health officials, answered that question more candidly than anything he said on camera.
The gap between what these officials said privately and what they told expectant mothers publicly is now documented, not by critics, not by speculation, but by the officials' own words on a government device.
On January 25, 2021, Fauci texted Walensky and Murthy with a warning. As the released text chain shows, Fauci wrote:
"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 second dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester."
A cytokine storm, a severe immune overreaction in which the body floods itself with inflammatory proteins, can be life-threatening. The Cleveland Clinic describes it as a "severe complication" that "happens when your immune system makes and releases large numbers of cytokines." Fauci was not citing an obscure hypothetical. He was flagging a known biological mechanism and connecting it to a specific risk for women in early pregnancy.
Murthy responded directly: "That's a really good point re the cytokine storm post second dose." Walensky agreed it was "definitely a good post, esp after dose two." Neither pushed back. Neither questioned the concern. Both treated it as credible.
Nine days later, on February 3, 2021, Fauci went before the public and struck a different tone entirely. He said the FDA had "found thus far and we have to be careful but thus far no red flags about that, about pregnant women." The qualifier, "we have to be careful", was buried inside a sentence designed to reassure.
The distance between Fauci's private warning and his public posture only widened with time. By August 30, 2021, he was no longer hedging at all. He told the public that "10s and 10s and 10s of thousands of women" had been followed by the CDC after vaccination during pregnancy, and that there was "no indication whatsoever" of increased adverse outcomes. His conclusion was unequivocal: "It's pretty clear that pregnant women should get vaccinated."
A month later, in September 2021, the CDC, then led by Walensky, issued an even stronger directive. The agency "strongly recommends COVID-19 vaccination either before or during pregnancy because the benefits of vaccination outweigh known or potential risks," the New York Post reported.
Murthy followed the same trajectory. More than a year after the January 2021 text conversation in which he called Fauci's miscarriage concern "a really good point," Murthy went public with the opposite message. "It's all the more important for you to get vaccinated if you are pregnant or if you are trying to become pregnant," he said. He added that data showed "anytime during your pregnancy is actually fine" to receive the shot.
That statement flatly contradicted the private exchange. In the same January 2021 text chain, Murthy had acknowledged that the number of pregnant women in clinical trials was "likely" limited and that he had been telling expectant mothers there "hasn't been evidence of concerning adverse outcomes in the trials", a careful hedge that conceded the data was thin. The public version dropped the hedge and kept only the reassurance.
The January 2021 text chain also reveals that the World Health Organization had issued its own announcement advising against pregnant women taking the COVID vaccine. Murthy described the WHO statement as "strong" and "potentially quite damaging to public confidence among pregnant women." His concern, based on the texts, was not that the WHO might be right. It was that the WHO's warning could undermine the public-vaccination campaign.
Fauci, for his part, acknowledged in the same thread that pregnant women had not been included in the vaccine trials. He noted that "following the EUA a large number", more than 100,000, of pregnant women had been vaccinated, and that "no issues have arisen." He also stated that animal toxicology studies "did not raise any red flags" and that the FDA, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists were "all permissive for pregnant women to have a choice."
But Fauci also wrote something else that undercuts the idea he dismissed the risk. He noted that "even female health care professionals" felt "concerned about injecting a 'genetic' vaccine very early in pregnancy." He called the worry that mRNA could "get into your genes" a "misperception," but he added: "When the misperception gets extend to an early developing fetus, the anxiety heightens." He acknowledged that "in any vaccine in which data are lacking in pregnant women one must weigh the potential risks against the benefits."
That framing, weighing risks against benefits, acknowledging limited data, recognizing legitimate anxiety among health-care workers, never made it into the public message. What the public got instead was "no red flags," "no indication whatsoever," and "pregnant women should get vaccinated."
The miscarriage text chain is a single thread from a device that contains over 34,000 text messages and 522 voicemails. Senators Johnson and Paul have stated that they and their staff are still reviewing the contents. Only three formal contact names exist on the phone, a detail that raises its own questions about how Fauci used the government-issued device. Staff have not yet been able to determine whether any data was deleted from the phone.
Johnson signaled that the released texts are just the beginning. "While I've been conducting oversight for years, now that we have the documents and Fauci's government-issued phone, my investigation has only just begun," he said. A press release from his office stated that the text chain "could have an immediate impact on public health and the principle of informed consent," the Washington Examiner reported.
The legal exposure may extend beyond congressional oversight. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said Fauci "knows he has exposure in the states" and noted that he invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during congressional testimony. "We're 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," Murrill told Just The News.
Walensky, in the same text chain, had asked whether she should flag the miscarriage concern for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which had a meeting scheduled for the following day. "Agreed. Sorry was driving and missed this. ACIP meeting tomorrow. Shall I flag it for them?" she wrote. The texts do not show whether she followed through, or what, if anything, the committee was told.
The broader pattern surrounding pregnancy and public-health policy has drawn increasing scrutiny in recent years, as cases involving pregnancy-related charges and contested medical decisions continue to raise questions about informed consent and institutional accountability.
Under President Trump's leadership, the CDC formally removed the COVID-19 vaccine from the recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and healthy pregnant women. That decision reversed the very guidance that Fauci, Walensky, and Murthy had championed publicly while expressing private doubts in their own text messages.
None of the three officials, Fauci, Walensky, or Murthy, have publicly responded to the release of the text chain. Whether they will is an open question. What is not open to question is what they wrote. The words are on the government phone, in their own names, timestamped and preserved.
Pregnant women deserved the same candor their government gave itself behind closed doors. They got talking points instead.
