Dr Fauci - Sworn testimony vs. his publication

Review of the 2023 Cell Host & Microbe paper in light of his Congressional Testimony

In his congressional hearing on June 3, 2024, Dr Fauci said things that do not align with the testimony of others, independent findings, but also his own work. Against this backdrop, this note reviews a publication of his that he wrote just before his retirement. 

The apparent contradiction

During the June 3, GOP Oversight Hearing with Dr Fauci, in his opening statement, he praised his accomplishments at the NIH, specifically saying:

“I was deeply involved in the scientific and public health response to several infectious diseases outbreaks… under my leadership, we were well positioned to respond to COVID-19.

“For at least two decades prior to the COVID outbreak, we at NIAD had invested billions of dollars in research on mRNA technology and immunogen design, both of which led to the swift development of COVID vaccines less than 11 months after the identification of this new virus.

“Safe and highly effective vaccines were widely available,  an unprecedented accomplishment in the history of vaccinology….”

Thus, during the hearing, he strongly pushed the “safe and effective” mantra. There were no caveats at all.

Yet, in his publication, “Rethinking next-generation vaccines for coronaviruses, influenza viruses, and other respiratory viruses,” published in Cell Host & Microbe only in 2023, Fauci, along with his co-authors Morens DM, Taubenberger JK, said something completely different:

Referring to SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses, they admit that these viruses (throughout, emphasis mine)

“have not to date been effectively controlled by licensed or experimental vaccines.”

And further, specifically for the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines:

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid development and deployment of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines has saved innumerable lives and helped to achieve early partial pandemic control.12 However, as variant SARS-CoV-2 strains have emerged, deficiencies in these vaccines reminiscent of influenza vaccines have become apparent. The vaccines for these two very different viruses have common characteristics: they elicit incomplete and short-lived protection against evolving virus variants that escape population immunity.”

The paper gives a very clear message. Past vaccines for these respiratory viruses have not been effective. Ironically, even though they, referring to flawed models early in the pandemic, mention that these technologies had saved lives, the rest of the paper paints a much less rosy picture.

(As an aside: even though the fallacy of the false narrative was already known much earlier, as I documented in my book, meanwhile there is rather strong evidence. For example, a recent study published in BMJ Public Health that investigated all-cause mortality reports from ‘Our World in Data,’ found that COVID-19 vaccines may have contributed to the rise in excess deaths.)

They frankly admit the vaccines did not deliver, despite the long time and the enormous resources devoted to them, as Fauci highlighted during the hearing. The paper acknowledges that

“development and licensure is a long and complex process requiring years of preclinical and clinical safety and efficacy data.”

It is unclear how the Warp-Speed policies fit into this. I guess, overall, the point is merely that the development of the mRNA vaccines, over the decades, has been a very expensive undertaking.

But now, in 2024, Fauci reiterate the success of the COVID vaccines. Did he forget that in the 2023 paper, they wrote

“Durably protective vaccines against non-systemic mucosal respiratory viruses with high mortality rates have thus far eluded vaccine development efforts,”

and that

“Past unsuccessful attempts to elicit solid protection against mucosal respiratory viruses and to control the deadly outbreaks and pandemics they cause have been a scientific and public health failure that must be urgently addressed.”

The 2023 paper is clear and succinct, laying out numerous issues with those vaccines, and concluding they have been a failure.

Nonetheless, by 2024 Dr Fauci seems to have forgotten everything he and his coauthors had written in their paper.

Perhaps it should not be surprising that the publication has not received much attention. It really does not fit the narrative too well.

Fauci et al.’s previous admission of problems and unknowns

The paper by Fauci et al. provides specific reasons for the “failure” of the vaccines in question. For example, SARS-CoV-2 and related RNA viruses tend to replicate in the mucosal tissue. They do not cause viremia and therefore

“do not significantly encounter the systemic immune system or the full force of adaptive immune responses.”

Thus, the authors in their 2023 paper conclude:

“Taking all of these factors into account, it is not surprising that none of the predominantly mucosal respiratory viruses have ever been effectively controlled by vaccines,” 

and that

“Attempting to control mucosal respiratory viruses with systemically administered non-replicating vaccines has thus far been largely unsuccessful, indicating that new approaches are needed.”

Surprisingly, they ask an honest question:

“if natural mucosal respiratory virus infections do not elicit complete and long-term protective immunity against reinfection, how can we expect vaccines, especially systemically administered non-replicating vaccines, to do so?”

In the 2023 paper, Fauci and colleagues give a detailed list of problems related to the vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 and related viruses.

• Their limited ability to trigger protective immune responses for these viruses. Specifically, “mucosal and systemic immunity only partially protects against infection with mucosal respiratory viruses.”

• The incomplete immune response and its waning quickly.

• The rapid evolution of those viruses and new variants with altered antigenicity – which have complicated their “control through current vaccination strategies.”

• Tolerance development: “Natural infections with mucosal respiratory viruses may not be fully controlled by human immune responses because the human immune system has evolved to tolerate them during very short intervals of mucosal viral replication.”

In other words: we cannot expect a strong, sterilizing immune response (the vaccines are leaky), the virus escapes quickly, and immune “protection” may turn negative. Note the contrast to what Dr Fauci had to say about the vaccines only a few days ago.

The paper also admits foundational unknowns –  1.5 years before the hearing where Fauci is silent about them all:

• Various aspects related to antibody-mediated immunity for non-systemic mucosal respiratory viruses are not fully understood.

• The ‘‘crosstalk’’ between upper respiratory, lower respiratory, and systemic immune systems is insufficiently understood.

• Numerous “Vaccine-related questions of route of administration, antigen configuration, adjuventation, and association with adjunctive therapy” need to be resolved for next-generation vaccines.

• Questions regarding immunity to specific conserved epitopes as opposed to more complex and variable antigen presentations

• Cross-immunity between different viruses - “What are the viral and immunologic bases of these powerful, cross-protective phenomena” and (how) can they be replicated with mucosal respiratory vaccines?

• Can “one-size-fits-all vaccines or vaccines targeted to key risk groups” be useful and benecitial?

• “Immune correlates of protection against mucosal respiratory viruses are incompletely understood, vary between viral strains and subtypes, with viral drift, and they exhibit inter-individual variation.”

Moreover, the paper also acknowledges substantial gaps in how the performance of the vaccines is evaluated:

• “Serum antibody titers to various viral epitopes may only indirectly correlate with protection.”

• Specifically, serum antibody titers may “be statistically valid in large studies, but imperfect in the context of individual variation, rapid viral evolution, and waning titers.”

• “Vaccinated hosts and host risk groups are many and heterogeneous.”

Shockingly, this radically contradicts the numerous studies based on Ab measures, most notably those using relative risk reduction measures. These cannot predict the overall effect on the population at large, let alone to individual’s benefits and risks.

The paper values public acceptance, but Fauci aimed to ‘make life difficult’ so people would drop ‘their ideological bullshit.’

Finally, the paper also stresses public acceptance of the vaccines, emphasizing

“Public health considerations relating to next-generation respiratory vaccines must contribute to shaping vaccine design, including vaccine schedule, role of boosting, frequency of vaccination and duration/completeness of protection, side effects, and public acceptance.”

What a contrast to what Dr Fauci had said previously! Specifically, during the congressional hearing (starting at timestamp 2 hr 45 min), Dr McCormick played an interview that Dr Fauci had given in 2020. As pointedly analyzed by DrMobeen Syed, these revelations are extremely upsetting. Dr Fauci’s intention was, in his own words, to “make life difficult for people.” The relevant part of the audio clip played during the hearing is as follows:

“Once people feel empowered and protected legally you are going to have schools, universities, and colleges going to say, ‘You want to come to this college buddy, you're going to get vaccinated! Lady, you're going to get vaccinated! Big corporations like Amazon and Facebook and ... and ... and all of those others are going to say, ‘You want to work for us, you get vaccinated!’ And it's been proven that when you make it difficult for people in their lives they lose their ideological bullshit and they get vaccinated.”

Final Thoughts

The paper in Cell Host & Microbe is a notable piece of scientific work in a radically different tone. It makes me wonder which of the authors was/were mostly responsible for the content. Was it David Morens – who Fauci tried to throw under the bus during the hearing, Jeffery K. Taubenberger, or indeed all of them? In the latter case, I find it truly astonishing that Fauci does not seem to have any recollection of this work. Can he have forgotten? Or is it, as many believe, that Fauci and others are mere actors with the puppet masters still in disguise?

On the other hand, I believe, the hearing just confirmed something I find very intriguing. Dr Fauci seemingly wants to be remembered as a hero, as someone who never did anything less than perfect.

Even though the paper contains some seemingly politically motivated phrases such as “During the COVID-19 pandemic, the rapid development and deployment of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines has saved innumerable lives,” the remainder strongly contradicts this by the astonishing admission that these technologies are an utter failure. It reflects the traditional essence of science. As things change, things previously deemed true may require radical revisions.

But not so for Dr Fauci, despite being one of the authors. He seems darn convinced that whatever he is saying right now is the Gospel truth!

Somehow, this thought has captured me in recent days. What if the rest of us just adopted a small portion of his attitude? Would we have One Health, the AI revolution, and one global narrative?

In this sense.... perhaps we can indeed learn something from Dr Fauci, after all?!