U.S. Sen. Johnson: Senators Johnson, Paul release email showing top FDA official expressing concern over COVID-19 vaccine adverse events

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a new email obtained from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s government email which was produced by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The newly released email shows that on May 27, 2021, Dr. Janet Woodcock, the then-Acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), wrote to Drs. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins regarding reports she had received directly from individuals, including “healthcare professionals,” of adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination. 

Dr. Woodcock wrote, “The symptoms do not fit together into a distinctive syndrome and most are not easily quantifiable or evaluated with standard laboratory testing.” She went on to write that “These problems are not the sort that a system like VAERS would be able to detect, or even a more sophisticated population-based active followup [sic] such as CDC has, or a medical record based system such as BEST [an FDA safety surveillance system].”

Dr. Woodcock wrote that she thought health officials should conduct a study, adding, “I doubt the industry would support, for obvious reasons. But my experience is, that if you let a problem fester, then it will come back to bite you later and you are not prepared.”

The day after receiving Dr. Woodcock’s email, Dr. Fauci forwarded it to Dr. Collins, writing: “Janet [Woodcock] asks what we think of this? We cannot ignore her. We should probably bring in CDC and see what Rochelle [Walensky] thinks.”

Based on information reviewed to date, it is unclear if Walensky was ever consulted.

Dr. Woodcock’s May 27, 2021 email below:

By the end of May 2021, when Acting Commissioner Woodcock wrote this email, there were already 440,025 worldwide adverse events and 8,650 deaths associated with the COVID injection reported to VAERS, with 3,350 (39%) of those deaths occurring within 2 days of injection. CDC used a contractor, General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), to input reports into VAERS. The 440,025 adverse events exceeded GDIT’s December 2020 worst-case scenario of 1,000 reports per day by a factor of approximately 2.6.

As Chairman Johnson’s April 29, 2026 report details, three months before Woodcock’s May 27, 2021 email, on March 1, 2021, Dr. Peter Marks, Director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), was warned by Dr. Ana Szarfman that the algorithm FDA was using to evaluate VAERS was masking/hiding safety signals. The email we are releasing coincides with monthly data runs by Dr. Szarfman using a new algorithm showing dozens of safety signals including sudden cardiac death, pulmonary infarction (which Dr. Fauci suffered in June 2021), cerebral artery occlusion, basal ganglia stroke, agonal rhythm, and Bell’s palsy. 

Unfortunately, FDA officials ignored Dr. Szarfman and the safety signals, told her to cease and desist, and continued to use the algorithm they knew was masking safety signals. 

Also, beginning in March 2021, National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Dr. Avindra Nath was leading a team of doctors and researchers who were diagnosing and treating individuals severely injured by the COVID injections. The injuries and symptoms being treated were similar to those being described and reported directly to then-Acting Commissioner Woodcock. 

Was Acting Commissioner Woodcock aware of Dr. Nath’s diagnosing and treatment of COVID injection injuries at NIH and/or what senior FDA officials had been told and shown about safety signals when she wrote her May 27, 2021 email? If so, why did she hide that knowledge from the public? If not, why was she kept in the dark?

Dr. Woodcock wrote that she thought health officials should conduct a study, adding, “I doubt the industry would support, for obvious reasons.” What are those obvious reasons? 

The day after receiving Dr. Woodcock’s email, Dr. Fauci forwarded it to Dr. Collins, writing: “Janet [Woodcock] asks what we think of this? We cannot ignore her.” That is an odd statement as it indicates they sure would like to ignore her and the reports of injection injuries.