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Newly released National Institutes of Health (NIH) emails show top agency officials in 2021 privately voicing alarm over a colleague’s research into neurological symptoms following COVID-19 vaccination — not because the findings were unsound, but because of how publishing them might affect public confidence in the shots.
The emails, obtained by the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, document discussions among four high-level government officials about how the research should be handled — and whether it should see daylight at all.
The officials are: then-NIH Director Francis Collins, then-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak, and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Director Walter Koroshetz.
The discussion began after Dr. Avindra Nath, NINDS clinical director, circulated a draft manuscript he intended to submit to the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) describing 24 patients who developed peripheral neuropathy after COVID-19 vaccination.
On April 10, 2021, Nath sent Koroshetz a draft paper describing 32 patients evaluated by his team. According to the manuscript, “the main message is that early recognition and treatment with corticosteroids can reverse the symptoms.”
Koroshetz forwarded the paper to Fauci, and in an email wrote:
“FYI — There have been steady slow stream of reports to me of post vaccination neurologic conditions, seem to be mostly peripheral nerve disorders — single nerve, brachial plexus, distal axonal neuropathy, attached report), maybe an occasional spinal cord issue.
“Avi has been collecting a bunch. He has a report sent out to publish. Hard to know not due to chance but are timed to the vaccination.”
After the NEJM declined to publish the manuscript, it was circulated to Collins and Tabak.
“What do you make of this?” Collins wrote in response. “The draft letter doesn’t explain how these 32 patients were referred — leaving one to wonder whether this is common or rare.”
Koroshetz replied that numerous reports had been submitted to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and that Nath had received referrals after discussing neurological complications on the “Neurology Podcast”.
He also noted that both Nath and another NINDS investigator had suffered tinnitus after receiving the shot.
‘I don’t understand why Walter does not shut this down’
Koroshetz also cited many other cases of vaccine injury. “What I have heard are isolated cases suggestive of brachial plexitis, mononeuritis multiplex, tinnitus +- hearing loss, POTS-like symptoms. Avid knows of one transverse myelitis case with positive MRI. Two cases in last week admitted to hospitals.”
Collins questioned whether the case series met scientific standards for publication.
“Collecting anecdotes and then trying to build a case isn’t scientifically compelling — and will have the main consequence of feeding vaccine hesitancy and social media overreaction,” Collins wrote.
In a separate email to Collins, Tabak added, “I don’t understand why Walter does not shut this down.”
The correspondence does not show Collins, Fauci or Tabak directing Nath to halt his research or withdraw the manuscript. However, they do show multiple top officials at NIH concerned about the possible circulation of the information and citing cases they were aware of — including among NIH employees — of vaccine injury.
ICAN said the emails raise questions about whether concerns over vaccine confidence influenced NIH leadership’s response.
“While the emails do not prove that Collins, Tabak, or Fauci expressly ordered Nath to abandon the manuscript, they raise serious questions about whether NIH leadership viewed its potential effect on vaccine confidence as a compelling reason to suppress its publication,” ICAN said in its press release.
The manuscript was never published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. Instead, it was posted as a preprint in May 2022, more than a year after Nath first shared it internally.
Study’s suppression constituted ‘medical and scientific negligence’
Dr. Joel Wallskog, a Wisconsin orthopedic surgeon who was injured by a COVID-19 vaccine and is now co-chair of React19 — an advocacy group for vaccine-injured people — told The Defender that the revelations in the emails were “no surprise to the COVID-19 vaccine injured community.”
He said that he, along with colleagues at React19 who participated in Nath’s study, knew the information was suppressed. He called the suppression “a true tragedy” that constituted “medical and scientific negligence.”
The paper’s conclusions showed that early treatment could have significant therapeutic benefits, he said. “Not releasing this information directly led to the lack of treatment of thousands of COVID-19 vaccine injured.”
The emails reveal the NIH officials were concerned that documenting COVID-19 vaccine injury case series could fuel vaccine hesitancy, he said, but their decision backfired.
Wallskog said:
“Their arrogance in suppressing real cases of vaccine injury ironically only increases public distrust of our federal health agencies and our health care systems in general. This is a tragedy that demands justice. If there is no accountability, the actors in this cover-up will ironically only have increased vaccine and healthcare hesitancy.”
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‘That help never came’
People who participated in the study were told not to discuss it, and reassured that it would be published and the findings would be communicated to the public.
“I did everything they asked,” Brianne Dressen, React19 co-chair who was injured in the AstraZeneca clinical trial, told The Defender. “We stayed quiet and waited, believing the NIH would disclose what they knew, to recognize these conditions and develop treatments for the people we knew who were suffering. That help never came.”
Dressen said that for years, participants wondered what led to the study being shut down. When the emails were released, she said, “We saw Francis Collins write that vaccine hesitancy and social media were factors. That told us everything we needed to know.”
“It didn’t appear to be a decision driven by scientific evidence. It appeared to be a decision driven by protecting a narrative,” she added.
Dr. Danice Hertz, React19 board member and retired gastroenterologist who says she developed severe neurological problems after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 was evaluated by Nath’s team. She told The Defender the correspondence reinforced concerns she had held for years.
Hertz said that when she became ill, Nath’s invitation to enroll in the NIH study was “a lifeline” to her and others who were suffering without access to care.
She said they promised to inform the public and the medical community. “This never happened. It was quite distressing for all of us to be abruptly dismissed from their care without explanation in the late summer of 2021.”
“I always suspected that Dr. Fauci and the other heads at the NIH were behind this. Reading that my suspicions were true was very upsetting,” Hertz said in an email statement after reviewing the emails.
“As a physician, I find this abandonment of very sick patients and the coverup of serious adverse reactions of the covid vaccines shameful. There needs to be a reckoning,” she said.
Related articles in The Defender
- 1 in 10 Adults Seriously Injured by a COVID Vaccine, New Survey Says
- ‘Some Will Die Without Care’: Agency Rejects Requests to Make COVID Vaccine Injuries Eligible for Disability Benefits
- Congress Asked Fauci at Least 111 Questions — Fauci Refused to Answer at Least 111 Times
- CHD Sues NIH Over Failure to Comply With FOIA Request for Correspondence With COVID Vaccine Injury Victims
