After the Senate Homeland Security Committee voted to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, US Senator Ron Johnson argued that warnings about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines had been withheld from the public.
Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, said correspondence he published with Senator Rand Paul showed that senior experts were aware of potential risks as early as January 2021. Johnson alleged that officials did not disclose these concerns in order to avoid increasing vaccine hesitancy; he also argued that some people had suffered lasting health problems or died.
Message about the first trimester of pregnancy
Among the correspondence cited by Johnson was a message that he said John Mascola, then director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, sent to Anthony Fauci.
Johnson argued that the message said early research indicated higher miscarriage rates during the first trimester of pregnancy and that vaccination should be avoided during that period.
The senator also raised an email that he said Janet Woodcock sent to Fauci in May 2021. Johnson said Woodcock wrote that she had received personal reports from some patients about adverse events that were difficult to classify.
Investigation into Fauci
Johnson questioned why the public had not been warned about these concerns and challenged the ethical basis of the vaccine mandates that followed. He said he hoped the officials named in the correspondence would cooperate in the future to clarify the meaning of the private messages.
Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had refused to answer questions during an earlier contentious hearing and repeatedly invoked his rights under the Fifth Amendment.
The hearing also addressed gain-of-function research and possible coordination with the intelligence community. Fauci's legal team described the investigation as a “pathological vendetta process” previously led by Senator Paul.
