<p><em>This analysis was generated by Profoundd's AI strictly from the Fauci Files — DNI Gabbard Release + Rand Paul Diaries (2026) primary record and the labeled commentary, news, and critiques indexed alongside it — every claim is drawn from those sources, not from outside knowledge.</em></p> <p><strong>Question examined:</strong> Do we have verified lies for Fauci in these files?</p> <h2>Verified Discrepancies Between Fauci's Private Diary and Public Positions</h2> <p><strong>Direct answer:</strong> The passages in this archive contain several specific instances where Fauci's private diary entries — released by Sen. Rand Paul's HSGAC committee — record thoughts, concerns, and actions that differ materially from his public posture. The archive also contains one CIA briefing document that bears on his public statements about COVID origins. Below is an enumeration of every record-engaging discrepancy or tension the passages support, with citations. These are presented as documented discrepancies for the reader to evaluate — not as verdicts.</p> <hr /> <h3>Enumerated Discrepancies / Tensions Between Private Record and Public Posture</h3> <p><strong>1. Private acknowledgment of CDC dysfunction vs. public unified-front messaging</strong></p> <p>The diary records: <em>"I don't know what I can do to get the CDC and particularly Rochelle to move away from that overly careful, slow, rigid approach that the CDC and the ACIP had been taking for so long; it leads to nothing but confusion."</em> [9] He then describes going on Sunday shows the same day and being <em>"very clear that we should not worry about 'should' or 'may' and that everybody who is 18 years of age or older whose been vaccinated absolutely should get a booster."</em> [9]</p> <p><strong>What the record shows:</strong> Privately, Fauci was frustrated with CDC leadership and described their approach as producing "nothing but confusion." Publicly, on the same day, he was delivering confident, unqualified booster guidance. The record does not contain a public statement where he disclosed his private assessment of CDC dysfunction. The gap between the two is documented in the same diary entry. [9]</p> <hr /> <p><strong>2. Private coordination with Obama to "go on the offensive" vs. public posture as a non-political scientist</strong></p> <p>The diary records a call from Barack Obama, arranged by Leslie Dach, in which Obama offered to call Jeff Zients to <em>"mobilize some of the people in the administration to proactively go out and defend me."</em> Fauci describes Obama saying they should <em>"actually go on the offensive and call out people who are allowing this to be said."</em> [1][6]</p> <p><strong>What the record shows:</strong> Fauci consistently presented himself publicly as a scientist above political combat. The diary records him actively soliciting and welcoming political mobilization on his behalf through back-channels involving a former president and White House chief of staff. The record does not show Fauci disclosing this coordination publicly. [1][6]</p> <hr /> <p><strong>3. Private description of the CIA briefing on COVID origins as "very strange" and "baffling" vs. public confidence about natural origins</strong></p> <p>The diary entry for what appears to be June 2021 records: <em>"Very important and very strange briefing of me by the CIA in the NIH SCIF this afternoon (5:00 PM). I received an extremely strange and unexpected briefing today by the CIA related to the origin of the virus... Beth Cameron from NSC was listening in on one of the other screens. And as it turns out she was as baffled as I was by the briefing."</em> [5]</p> <p>The DNI Gabbard release (Part 1) separately records that at a CIA briefing, Fauci cited a Tulane paper on two lineages as <em>"a clear indication of natural origins of COVID-19"</em> while also flagging key intelligence gaps on the three sick WIV researchers (medical records, blood cultures, whether China was asked). [13]</p> <p><strong>What the record shows:</strong> Privately, Fauci described CIA intelligence briefings on origins as "very strange," "unexpected," and leaving both him and an NSC director "baffled." [5] The DNI document shows him simultaneously using a single paper to assert natural origins while acknowledging major evidentiary gaps. [13] His public statements during this period consistently emphasized natural origins with greater confidence than these private records suggest was warranted. The record does not contain a public statement where he disclosed that CIA briefings left him baffled.</p> <hr /> <p><strong>4. Private awareness of deleted Wuhan sequences vs. no documented public disclosure</strong></p> <p>The diary records receipt of an email from researcher Jesse Bloom: <em>"I identified a data set of early Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 sequences that has been deleted from the NIH's Sequence Read Archive (SRA). I was able to recover the deleted files from the Google Cloud and analyze the sequences."</em> Bloom copied Francis Collins and Stephen (presumably Stephane Bancel or Stephen Hahn — the record does not specify) and flagged that <em>"it would be highly worthwhile to do a comprehensive analysis of SRA (and other NIH) data that might be relevant to this topic that could have been deleted or otherwise overlooked."</em> [7]</p> <p><strong>What the record shows:</strong> Fauci's diary documents that he was personally notified of deleted early Wuhan sequences from NIH's own database, with a pre-print attached, in June 2021. [7] The record here does not contain any public statement by Fauci disclosing this notification or its contents to the public. The record is silent on what action, if any, he took. Per editorial standards: silence in this record is not proof he did nothing — but the notification is documented and the public disclosure is not present in these passages.</p> <hr /> <p><strong>5. Private framing of Rand Paul's questions as politically motivated vs. public testimony characterizing them as "egregiously incorrect"</strong></p> <p>The diary records: <em>"Paul continues to look for trouble and this recently asked that the witnesses at the upcoming HELP hearing testify on the oath. He is obviously referring to me because he wants to be able to say that I lied under oath."</em> [15] Separately, the diary describes his Senate testimony: <em>"I closed the session by saying then I have a great deal of respect for the institution of the United States Senate, but in fact everything he said was 'egregiously incorrect'."</em> [6]</p> <p><strong>What the record shows:</strong> Privately, Fauci interpreted Paul's procedural request (sworn testimony) as a political trap. Publicly, he characterized Paul's substantive claims as "egregiously incorrect." [6][15] The diary entry frames the dispute in political/personal terms privately while the public testimony framed it in purely factual terms. The record does not resolve whether Paul's underlying claims about gain-of-function funding were correct or incorrect — that evidentiary question is not settled by these passages.</p> <hr /> <p><strong>6. Private acknowledgment that the Washington Post "fact checker" gave Paul only 2 Pinocchios on the GOF funding claim</strong></p> <p>The diary records: <em>"Washington Post 'fact checker' Glenn Kessler gives Rand Paul 2 Pinocchios in saying that I lied about funding GOF research."</em> [11] Fauci records this without apparent concern, alongside his characterization of Paul's claims as lies.</p> <p><strong>What the record shows:</strong> A "2 Pinocchios" rating from the Post's fact-checker — which Fauci himself recorded in his diary — means the Post found Paul's claim <em>partially</em> supported, not wholly false. (The Post's scale: 1–2 Pinocchios = some truth, some distortion; 3–4 = significant falsehood.) Fauci's diary records this rating while simultaneously characterizing Paul's position as "ranting lies" [6] and "slanderous lies." [6][1] The record does not contain Fauci publicly acknowledging the partial-validity finding of the fact-check he privately noted.</p> <hr /> <p><strong>7. Private coordination with a Washington Post reporter to investigate and discredit political opponents</strong></p> <p>The diary records: <em>"She [Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post] is getting very worked up about the fact that she realizes now that there is an organized effort to discredit me and she wants to use the investigative reporter capabilities of the Washington Post to try and find out if they can track funding for this effort to the Republican Party or to any other organization that is trying to discredit me."</em> [15] Separately, the diary notes Abutaleb working with <em>"Courtney Billet on gathering information connecting this activity with the far-right Republicans."</em> [11]</p> <p><strong>What the record shows:</strong> Fauci's diary documents an active, ongoing working relationship with a named Washington Post reporter directed at investigating his political critics. [15][11] His public posture was that of a scientist responding to attacks, not a participant in coordinating press strategy against opponents. The record does not show this relationship was disclosed publicly.</p> <hr /> <p><strong>8. Private description of the CIA's COVID-origins briefing as "disappointing" and consistent with prior unsatisfying intelligence</strong></p> <p>The diary records: <em>"It was very similar to some of the very disappointing briefings that I had previously received in prior years from the CIA."</em> [5]</p> <p>**What</p> <h3>Sources cited</h3> <ol><li>[1] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 8 of 10)</a></li><li>[2] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 1 of 10)</a></li><li>[3] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 10 of 10)</a></li><li>[4] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 3 of 10)</a></li><li>[5] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 6 of 10)</a></li><li>[6] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 8 of 10)</a></li><li>[7] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 6 of 10)</a></li><li>[8] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 6 of 10)</a></li><li>[9] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 8 of 10)</a></li><li>[10] (Record) <a href="https://www.congress.gov/118/chrg/CHRG-118hhrg55830/CHRG-118hhrg55830.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fauci Public Testimony — House COVID Subcommittee Hearing (3 Jun 2024) (Part 1 of 2)</a></li><li>[11] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 8 of 10)</a></li><li>[12] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 9 of 10)</a></li><li>[13] (Record) <a href="https://assets.newsweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/COVID-19-Release-DNI-Gabbard-6-18-Part-1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fauci Exposed Files — Part 1</a></li><li>[14] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 3 of 10)</a></li><li>[15] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 8 of 10)</a></li><li>[16] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 9 of 10)</a></li><li>[17] (Record) <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.24_Tonys-Diary-Package.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tony&#x27;s Diary — Fauci&#x27;s Private Diary vs. Public Statements (Sen. Rand Paul / HSGAC release) (Part 9 of 10)</a></li><li>[18] (Record) <a href="https://www.congress.gov/118/chrg/CHRG-118hhrg55830/CHRG-118hhrg55830.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fauci Public Testimony — House COVID Subcommittee Hearing (3 Jun 2024) (Part 1 of 2)</a></li></ol>

Authored by Maryanne Demasi via The Brownstone Institute, For months, a quiet battle has been unfolding inside the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It began with an analysis of child deaths after Covid vaccination, followed by strategic leaks to major media outlets, and has now erupted into the open with a memo from the regulator’s own vaccine chief. In September, it was reported that FDA officials had privately investigated 25 paediatric deaths following Covid vaccination — the first systematic review of such cases since the rollout began. The findings were meant to be presented to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). But the presentation never came. The meeting passed without a word. Something had happened behind closed doors. Now we know what. On 13 November 2025, STAT published an extraordinary insider account describing a tense internal meeting in which FDA scientist Dr Tracy Beth Høeg presented evidence of young people who had died after Covid vaccination. According to STAT, her findings triggered pushback from career FDA regulators who feared the implications of acknowledging fatal cases. Now, comes the explosive memo from FDA vaccine chief Dr Vinay Prasad, confirming — for the first time — that US regulators have formally attributed at least 10 of these children’s deaths to Covid vaccination. Prasad called it “a profound revelation” with far-reaching implications for American vaccine policy, adding that the true number is “certainly an underestimate.” Here, I’ll take you through the memo, the leaks, the internal rebellion at FDA, and what this means — not just for Covid vaccines, but for all vaccine approvals going forward. This story marks a turning point in US vaccine regulation. In early September, insiders at the FDA and CDC quietly told the New York Times and the Washington Post that the agency had begun investigating child deaths reported to VAERS. My reporting confirmed that Dr Tracy Beth Høeg, a senior adviser within the FDA’s vaccine division, had led the review — contacting families, gathering medical records, and obtaining autopsy findings. click image for story It was the first case-by-case evaluation of paediatric deaths conducted since the vaccines were authorised. The review identified twenty-five children whose deaths occurred following vaccination. Those findings were expected to be presented to ACIP on 18–19 September. Instead, without explanation, the discussion disappeared from the agenda. Even FDA Commissioner Dr Marty Makary had hinted at the findings on CNN, saying, “We’ve been looking into the VAERS database self-reports, [and] there have been children that have died from the Covid vaccine.” He described an “intense” investigation involving doctors, autopsies, and family interviews. Yet ACIP heard nothing. Had the FDA reversed course — or had internal forces blocked disclosure? STAT’s reporting offered the first real clues. STAT described a confidential gathering of FDA vaccine scientists in which Høeg presented slides listing roughly two dozen deaths of young people following vaccination. One slide reportedly read: “Timing fits. Diagnosis fits. No better explanation found. Sufficient information provided.” According to STAT, some career regulators reacted with “quiet horror” — not at the deaths themselves, but at the policy implications of acknowledging them. The article portrayed Høeg as pushing to bring the findings to ACIP and to amend vaccine labels for younger males, while longtime staff resisted, describing the evidence as “thin” and worrying about restricting vaccine access. STAT reported that “no career regulator would stand by the decision,” and Høeg backed away from presenting the cases to ACIP. It was a rare glimpse of a regulator divided against itself: career staff trying to contain the findings, and FDA leadership apparently trying to surface them. Nothing more was said publicly — until Prasad’s memo detonated inside the agency. The memo from Dr Vinay Prasad, Director of the FDA’s Centre for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), is unlike anything ever issued by a senior US vaccine regulator. Addressed to all CBER staff, it confirmed what STAT only implied: FDA scientists had determined that “at least 10 children have died after and because of receiving Covid-19 vaccination.” Prasad wrote that the true number is “certainly an underestimate” and that “the real number is higher.” He wrote that “deaths were reported between 2021 and 2024, and ignored for years,” calling it a systemic failure that “requires humility and introspection.” “It is horrifying to consider that the US vaccine regulation, including our actions, may have harmed more children than we saved,” he wrote. Prasad defended Høeg’s analysis, saying “Dr Hoeg was correct in her assessment,” and that disagreements reflected subjective coding — not differing facts. He also noted that healthy children at extremely low risk from Covid had been “coerced” into vaccination under Biden-era mandates, some of which he said “were harmful.” He added that it was “difficult to read cases where kids aged 7 to 16 may be dead as a result of covid vaccines.” Prasad also challenged one of the most repeated claims in pandemic messaging — that Covid infection causes more myocarditis than vaccination. He argued that these comparisons rely on faulty denominators, because they count only people sick enough to seek hospital care while ignoring the far larger number of infections that never present to clinics. He underscored that vaccination does not prevent eventual infection, so the comparison cannot be framed as “virus versus vaccine.” A vaccinated child still encounters the virus over their lifetime — but now carries the additional myocarditis risk from the vaccine itself. Prasad’s memo contained another revelation — confirmation of internal sabotage inside the FDA. He wrote that “slides she presented, emails she sent, and distorted firsthand reports” from Høeg’s meeting had been leaked to media outlets by staff who believed they were acting appropriately. He condemned the behaviour as “unethical, illegal, and…factually incorrect,” a blunt repudiation of how the STAT narrative had framed events. In Prasad’s telling, Høeg had not exaggerated the evidence at all. She had uncovered what the FDA had failed to recognise for nearly three years — that Covid vaccines had killed children. Far from being the rogue figure depicted in selective leaks, she was doing precisely what the public assumes a regulator does: investigating deaths, contacting families, gathering records, and treating each case as a potential signal that demands scrutiny. For Prasad, the leaks weren’t merely improper — they betrayed the core obligation of a scientific agency. He said internal debates must remain inside the FDA until ready for public release, and that he would not “endorse selective reporting of our meetings and documents.” Anyone unwilling to follow that principle, he said, should resign . It was an extraordinary directive — and a clear sign that the internal battle over whether to acknowledge children’s deaths had reached a breaking point. When the memo surfaced, ACIP vice-chair Dr Robert Malone issued his own statement. He wrote that he had been aware of the review through ACIP’s internal working group, and that the child deaths “have been known since this summer but not released to the public due to the need to validate the initial findings independently.” Bound by confidentiality, he could only say, “I have seen the data and findings, and they are even more stunning than this strongly worded letter indicates.” He said he was “stunned, gobsmacked,” adding: “The significance and importance of this letter in the context of US and global vaccine policy cannot be overestimated. This is a revolution, the likes of which I never expected to see in my lifetime.” Malone then took aim at the Covid-19 mRNA products: “These products do not work. They do not prevent disease and death. And as Secretary Kennedy testified in the Senate, objective analysis cannot even demonstrate that, on balance, they saved lives.” MIT professor Retsef Levi — who leads ACIP’s Covid-19 Vaccines Workgroup — issued a similarly forceful response. He wrote, “the acknowledgement that at least 10 children died from COVID vaccination must be followed with disclosure to the parents,” and said regulators and media “have gaslighted the vaccine injured, including the parents who lost their precious child.” He described disclosure as “a moral imperative” and essential for any hope of trustworthy vaccine programs. Inside ACIP, the memo is being understood not only as a scientific shift — but an ethical reckoning. Predictably, the memo triggered pushback from establishment figures who have spent years defending the Covid vaccines from scrutiny. Dr Paul Offit — a long-time industry-aligned vaccine promoter and a familiar voice deployed whenever safety concerns arise — dismissed the memo as “science by press-release.” He argued that the memo lacked context and should not be treated as evidence, calling the memo “irresponsible” and “dangerous.” But Prasad’s communication was never presented as a scientific publication. It was an internal memo to staff. Offit’s attempt to judge it by academic-paper standards is a tactic to avoid addressing what the memo actually says — that children died and regulators overlooked it. Former CBER director Dr Peter Marks — whose tenure is explicitly criticised in the memo for failing to identify child deaths for years — said he was “taken aback by the clearly political tone of the communication.” But Prasad’s memo details precisely why Marks’s era is under scrutiny, including his 2021 decision to push out senior FDA officials Marion Gruber and Philip Krause after they objected to the Biden administration’s rush toward booster approval. If anything was political, it was that episode. For years, figures like Offit and Marks insisted that VAERS was a robust early-warning system — and that anyone citing it without follow-up investigation “didn’t understand pharmacovigilance.” Now that FDA investigators have actually done the follow-up — contacting families, obtaining medical records, and reviewing autopsies — these same voices suddenly claim VAERS can’t establish causality at all. This is the core hypocrisy. You cannot praise VAERS as the backbone of vaccine safety, then declare its signals meaningless once they are properly investigated. Critics also warned that stricter evidence requirements — such as randomised trials and rejection of surrogate endpoints — would “slow innovation” or “harm vaccine confidence.” But vaccine confidence is already shattered. Fewer than 10% of American healthcare workers took last season’s Covid booster. Trust collapsed not because regulators asked too many questions — but because they asked too few, dismissed safety concerns that later proved real, and insisted on messaging long after the data had shifted. The problem for these critics is not that children have died after vaccination. The problem is that the regulators have finally acknowledged it. Prasad’s memo goes far beyond confirming child deaths. It announces a structural overhaul of vaccine oversight. He wrote that future vaccine approvals would require randomised trials for most new products; that immunogenicity studies would no longer be accepted as proof of effectiveness in new populations; and that vaccines for pregnant women would not be authorised on unproven surrogate markers. He committed to rewriting the US influenza vaccine framework and overhauling assessments of concomitant vaccination. Most strikingly, he declared that vaccines would be treated as “no better or worse” than any other medical product — ending decades of special regulatory leniency. “Never again,” he wrote, “will the US FDA commissioner have to himself find deaths in children for staff to identify it.” The ACIP meeting on 4–5 December will be the first held under these new realities — with the knowledge that the FDA has attributed paediatric deaths to Covid vaccination, that senior leadership has repudiated the previous regulatory approach, and that a revolution in evidentiary standards is underway. Because many international regulators track the FDA, the acknowledgment that children died from the Covid-19 vaccine — and that the agency failed to detect it — marks a seismic moment in global vaccine policy. For bereaved families, the acknowledgment is devastating but necessary. For the public, it signals that the institutional silence of the pandemic era is beginning to fracture. The reckoning has begun. Republished from the author’s Substack

Authored by Maryanne Demasi via Brownstone Institute , In September 2025, then-US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr Marty Makary publicly acknowledged that the agency was investigating reports of child deaths following Covid-19 vaccination. " We do know at the FDA...that there had been children who have died from the COVID vaccine ," Makary said during a CNN interview . By that stage, however, a fierce internal dispute had already emerged inside the FDA over what investigators believed the evidence showed - and whether the public should ever see the full findings. "It really did feel like there was some sort of cover-up going on about the Covid-19 vaccines," said one individual familiar with the discussions. MD Reports spoke with several current/former agency officials, advisers, and individuals briefed on the discussions, all of whom requested anonymity because they were not authorised to publicly discuss internal FDA deliberations. At the centre of the controversy was an internal FDA review led by Dr Tracy Beth Høeg, a physician-scientist who was working as a senior scientist inside the FDA's vaccine division at the time. FDA officials examined roughly 96 paediatric death reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the government database used to detect potential vaccine-related adverse events. The review included medical records, autopsy reports, pathology findings, and follow-up investigations conducted by agency staff. About 25 deaths following Covid vaccination were ultimately considered serious enough for high-level internal discussion inside the agency. The findings were expected to be presented at a September 2025 meeting of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP), the federal panel that shapes US vaccine recommendations. But before that could happen, details of the review leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Høeg quickly became the focus of intense media scrutiny and criticism from vaccine advocates and unnamed FDA officials who argued she was relying too heavily on VAERS reports and overstating preliminary findings. People familiar with the fallout said some FDA staff strongly objected to Høeg's methods and conclusions and allegedly sought to undermine her credibility by leaking details of the review. The leak effectively ended plans for a public ACIP discussion and deepened divisions within the FDA over how the findings should be handled. Some officials believed the findings warranted stronger warnings and greater transparency. Others feared public acknowledgement of vaccine-linked child deaths would damage confidence in the Covid vaccines. "We know that there are these deaths that are due to the vaccine," said one source, referring to myocarditis cases and published reports from countries including Korea and Israel . The controversy intensified after then-FDA vaccine chief Dr Vinay Prasad ordered additional investigation into the deaths identified in Høeg's review. Months later, another leak brought the issue back into public view. In November 2025, an internal memo circulated by Prasad became public. In it, Prasad acknowledged that "at least 10" children had died "after and because of receiving Covid-19 vaccination." He described the findings as "a profound revelation." "COVID-19 vaccines did result in the death of children," Prasad wrote . "Dr. Hoeg was correct in her assessment." The memo triggered another round of backlash from media outlets and vaccine advocates, many of whom accused Prasad of overstating the evidence before the agency's analysis had been finalised. Inside Medicine reported on a Dec 5 memo about a subsequent FDA analysis using a World Health Organization causality framework, which classified zero deaths as "certain," two as "probable/likely," and five as "possible." But individuals involved in the discussions said pressure steadily mounted inside the agency to "downgrade" the findings with each successive review. " It seemed like there was a lot of pressure to keep decreasing the number of deaths ," said one source. "It does seem like they tortured the data to get something that was more palatable." At the same time, tensions were also growing around another unresolved issue inside the FDA - residual DNA contamination in Covid mRNA vaccines. The issue surfaced repeatedly during ACIP discussions throughout 2025, with some advisory group members seeking additional information from the FDA about DNA levels and biodistribution studies involving lipid nanoparticles. According to individuals familiar with the discussions, those requests were repeatedly delayed. One individual identified Dr David C. Kaslow, director of the FDA's Office of Vaccines Research and Review (OVRR), as the official responsible for liaising with ACIP on the issue. Another person involved in the discussions described Kaslow as the person "stonewalling" the issue of DNA contamination. The controversy has since drawn Congressional scrutiny. In May 2026, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) wrote to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. referencing an FDA memorandum examining paediatric deaths following Covid vaccination. Johnson said the documents raised concerns about a potential "cover-up" of vaccine safety risks. The letter confirmed that FDA officials reviewed 96 paediatric deaths following vaccination and ultimately classified seven cases as either "possibly" or "probably" related to Covid vaccination. It also acknowledged that fatal myocarditis cases represented "new safety information" and documented discussions about revised vaccine warning labels. By then, the internal dispute at the FDA had expanded beyond the deaths themselves and into a broader fight over vaccine safety warnings. Høeg later delivered an internal presentation arguing that Covid mRNA vaccines warranted a black box warning - the FDA's strongest warning reserved for products associated with serious injury or death. The proposed warning would have explicitly acknowledged the risk of death in children. "If a vaccine has potential to cause death to children, I think it should be on the label," said one source familiar with the discussions. Høeg's proposal was ultimately rejected by the agency. In December 2025, Makary publicly confirmed that the FDA had declined an internal recommendation for a black box warning on Covid mRNA vaccines. Makary argued that earlier safety concerns emerged during the initial multi-dose rollout and might not apply to annual vaccination schedules. According to individuals familiar with the discussions, Høeg's persistent probing of Covid vaccine safety issues increasingly isolated her inside the agency. Her eventual transfer out of the vaccine division and into the FDA's drug division, CDER, effectively ended her involvement in those investigations. Only last week, Høeg was fired from the agency after refusing to resign from her position. To this day, the FDA has never publicly released the full paediatric death review examining 96 VAERS reports of child deaths following Covid vaccination, nor the multiple revised versions of the agency's subsequent analyses. "Why do we collect these VAERS reports if we're not going to explain to the public what we find?" said one source. Now, months after the internal disputes first erupted, the FDA continues to face questions about what officials knew, when they knew it, and why the agency failed to promptly release its investigations into paediatric deaths following Covid vaccination.