Guess the critics were wrong again, as usual. Ron Johnson is an idiot.
Wall Street Journal Editorial
August 13th
Anthony Fauci undermined his credibility by obfuscating and stretching the truth. Now his critics are doing the same by spinning Dr. Fauci's newly released text messages, claiming he covered up the Covid vaccines' alleged risks to pregnant women.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and Kentucky's Rand Paul this week published text messages obtained from Dr. Fauci's government phone, and specifically an exchange from January 2021 in which Biden officials discussed whether Covid vaccines should be recommended for pregnant women. Trials for the vaccines, as for most medicines and immunizations, excluded pregnant women.
So there was uncertainty at the time about whether they should be recommended for pregnant women, and if so, at what stage of gestation. The texts show Dr. Fauci and company were sensitive to even hypothetical risks.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy asked when "more robust data" on vaccine risks for pregnant women might be available. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky said the agency had a registry to track pregnant women for at least a year after their inoculations. Dr. Fauci chimed in: "There are no data or theoretical reason to believe that vaccinating early versus later in pregnancy would be preferred."
Hours later he added: "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." He's referring to the flu-like inflammatory response that some people experience after vaccination.
But Dr. Fauci also wrote in the same thread: "A large number (more than 10,000) pregnant women have been vaccinated. No issues have arisen." This was very early data, without follow-up. But he supported weighing risks against the benefits since Covid "can be a serious disease especially in pregnancy."
President Trump's CDC still agrees. Covid vaccination "has not been linked to increased health risks for pregnant women or babies," it says. Yet pregnant women who get sick with Covid are likelier to experience severe illness, including "increased risk of complications that can affect your health and the health of your baby."
Sen. Johnson says the CDC's recommendations relied on a flawed New England Journal of Medicine study from June 2021, which reported a 12.6% rate of miscarriage, similar to the baseline risk, for a group of vaccinated women whose pregnancies had been completed. He claims the data actually documented a 82% rate, which is false.
That study was sloppy. It mainly consisted of women inoculated during the third trimester. Since miscarriage by medical definition is before 20 weeks, the reported rate was misleading. Mr. Johnson adjusts the denominator by removing the third-trimester women. But this is also misleading because the study's data covered completed pregnancies. His calculation leaves out women who were inoculated early and were still pregnant.
After a researcher noted the study's flaw in 2021, the authors acknowledged it and posted an updated analysis of women inoculated early in pregnancy, which showed a similar risk of miscarriage (12.8%). Other studies have come to a similar conclusion.
Vaccine skeptics claim Dr. Fauci misled pregnant women. But there's no contradiction between his texts in early 2021 and his later public statements citing no evidence of increased risks. Dr. Fauci's critics are confusing the issue, and probably also pregnant women.
Wall Street Journal Editorial
August 13th
Anthony Fauci undermined his credibility by obfuscating and stretching the truth. Now his critics are doing the same by spinning Dr. Fauci's newly released text messages, claiming he covered up the Covid vaccines' alleged risks to pregnant women.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and Kentucky's Rand Paul this week published text messages obtained from Dr. Fauci's government phone, and specifically an exchange from January 2021 in which Biden officials discussed whether Covid vaccines should be recommended for pregnant women. Trials for the vaccines, as for most medicines and immunizations, excluded pregnant women.
So there was uncertainty at the time about whether they should be recommended for pregnant women, and if so, at what stage of gestation. The texts show Dr. Fauci and company were sensitive to even hypothetical risks.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy asked when "more robust data" on vaccine risks for pregnant women might be available. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky said the agency had a registry to track pregnant women for at least a year after their inoculations. Dr. Fauci chimed in: "There are no data or theoretical reason to believe that vaccinating early versus later in pregnancy would be preferred."
Hours later he added: "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." He's referring to the flu-like inflammatory response that some people experience after vaccination.
But Dr. Fauci also wrote in the same thread: "A large number (more than 10,000) pregnant women have been vaccinated. No issues have arisen." This was very early data, without follow-up. But he supported weighing risks against the benefits since Covid "can be a serious disease especially in pregnancy."
President Trump's CDC still agrees. Covid vaccination "has not been linked to increased health risks for pregnant women or babies," it says. Yet pregnant women who get sick with Covid are likelier to experience severe illness, including "increased risk of complications that can affect your health and the health of your baby."
Sen. Johnson says the CDC's recommendations relied on a flawed New England Journal of Medicine study from June 2021, which reported a 12.6% rate of miscarriage, similar to the baseline risk, for a group of vaccinated women whose pregnancies had been completed. He claims the data actually documented a 82% rate, which is false.
That study was sloppy. It mainly consisted of women inoculated during the third trimester. Since miscarriage by medical definition is before 20 weeks, the reported rate was misleading. Mr. Johnson adjusts the denominator by removing the third-trimester women. But this is also misleading because the study's data covered completed pregnancies. His calculation leaves out women who were inoculated early and were still pregnant.
After a researcher noted the study's flaw in 2021, the authors acknowledged it and posted an updated analysis of women inoculated early in pregnancy, which showed a similar risk of miscarriage (12.8%). Other studies have come to a similar conclusion.
Vaccine skeptics claim Dr. Fauci misled pregnant women. But there's no contradiction between his texts in early 2021 and his later public statements citing no evidence of increased risks. Dr. Fauci's critics are confusing the issue, and probably also pregnant women.