Dr. Anthony Fauci was alarmed at the results of a trial involving exposing vaccinated primates to Ebola, and he did not know the agency he headed at the time funded the research, a newly released portion of Fauci’s diary shows.
Fauci wrote in the diary on March 7, 2016, that he had learned about a trial carried out by the U.S. military that involved vaccinating nonhuman primates with a vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) Ebola vaccine, erroneously calling it a Zika vaccine, and exposing them to an aerosolized Ebola virus. Sixteen of the 20 vaccinated primates died, he said, while both of the controls, or primates who were not vaccinated, perished.
“The US Embassy and the Liberian and Guinea and Sierra Leone officials are going [expletive] because we are planning to do vaccine studies there and use the VSV as [a] ring vaccine if other outbreaks occur,” Fauci wrote. The experiment “never should have been done in the first place,” he said. Fauci, who was head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022, had to brief to the National Security Council on the matter the following day.
Fauci said in an email to a subordinate that personnel with the Department of Defense, now known as the Department of War, presented data during the briefing. White House officials asked the personnel who funded the study. The military said it did, along with NIAID. “No one followed up on that, but I almost fell off my chair,” Fauci said.
After the briefing, Fauci wrote in his diary that the two control animals did not have any inflammation in the lungs, but that the vaccinated animals had necrosis, inflammation, and fibrin. He said the experiment was stupid.
The experiment was done because previous testing showed that vaccinated animals had more inflammation in their lungs, according to Fauci.
“The current experiments were done to find out if this was a real phenomenon and if it was relevant. Again, I believe all of this is important for bio defense, but has little to do with naturally emerging Ebola outbreaks,” Fauci said. “Nonetheless, the idea that the vaccine can do harm is now causing people a great deal of concern.”
The records were released on Sept. 28 by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who previously made public other emails and diary entries from Fauci.
Fauci did not respond to a request for comment by publication time. The Department of War declined to comment. NIAID referred a request for comment to its parent agency, the National Institutes of Health, which did not immediately reply to an email.
Discussions
In a separate email chain released by Paul on Monday, a U.S. Army official around the same time discussed with an NIAID official setting up a working group that would be focused on increasing protection from vaccines in aerosol studies while reducing the respiratory disease seen in vaccinated primates.
The group would be co-led by the Department of Defense and NIAID, the Army official proposed.
The official later reached back out and said a scheduled meeting would need to be canceled. A department official only described as Sina “got out ahead of our … meeting and has stirred the pot the whole way to the white house,” the official, Nicole Kilgore, wrote. “You may hear more about it from your chain of command. Tony Fauci was on the line and not happy.”
The emails were later distributed to other NIAID workers. Dr. Michael Kurilla, one of them, said that the military had “finally acknowledged a close held unreported finding that we very recently confirmed that vaccinated [primates] suffer severe lung pathology when challenged by aerosol exposure.” He added, “There are some (in DOD, such as Sina) who fear this may derail filovirus vaccines permanently.”
‘Paradigm Is Gutted’
Dr. Clifford Lane, the subordinate whom Fauci emailed, conveyed to two researchers on March 10, 2016, that they should not move forward on any experiments “in this area until a bit of dust settles (if it does).”
He said that the experiments in question might fall under dual-use research of concern (DURC), or testing that the government says “could be used to cause harm.”
“Please do not get into discussions outside the two of you until we have a chance to talk,” Lane said.
Peter Jahrling, one of the researchers, said he understood but said he had concerns about labeling the testing as DURC.
“If aerosol challenge studies are considered DURC then the entire [medical countermeasure] development paradigm is gutted,” he later told Lane in an email.
Jahrling’s LinkedIn page says he’s still with the government, but he is not listed in the Department of Health and Human Services employee directory. He could not be reached for comment.
Reporting to the White House
Fauci, meanwhile, was preparing to go to another meeting to brief the White House, he told Kurilla on March 11, 2016, in an email copied to Lane.
He asked Kurilla for specifics, including whether NIAID had funded aerosolized challenge studies.
“Do not tell me what you think I want to hear or hold back what you think will upset me. No one will get hurt if they made a mistake, but then they told me the truth,” Fauci wrote.
“If someone does not tell me the truth and I find out they did not, then they are gone.”
Kurilla’s direct response does not appear to be part of the records Paul released. He later sent Fauci a timeline of NIAID involvement with studies involving aerosolized viruses and confirmed NIAID funded some of them.
“Americans deserve to know what kind of risky research their taxpayer dollars are funding,” Paul said in a statement. “It is clear additional oversight is needed into what Dr. Fauci’s institute was paying for long before COVID.”
Dr. Steven Quay, a doctor and scientist, said on X he reviewed the documents.
“It really is shocking to imagine that, while we American’s were going about our day and enjoying our family and friends in March, 2016, our government was making Ebola, a 50% lethal virus, massively more transmissible,” he wrote.