Johnson Subpoenas HHS for COVID Vaccine Safety Records, Fauci Emails

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) last week subpoenaed the HHS for COVID-19 vaccine safety records communications about the COVID-19 pandemic, including a subset of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails.

by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) last week subpoenaed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for COVID-19 vaccine safety records and communications about the COVID-19 pandemic, including a subset of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails.

HHS is required to produce the requested data and communications by Feb. 18. Johnson told The Defender it’s imperative that HHS comply promptly.

Johnson said:

“The federal government is supposed to serve the American people. Our taxes pay the bureaucrats’ salaries and fund their activities and studies. The results belong to the public and should be made available to us in a timely and transparent manner.

“Bureaucrats who withhold information only raise suspicion and reduce the credibility and integrity of their agencies.”

This was the first subpoena Johnson issued after being named chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on Jan. 21.

During the Biden administration, Johnson wrote more than 70 congressional oversight letters to HHS officials and its health agencies requesting information on COVID-19 vaccine adverse events and related communications, according to a Jan. 29 press release.

Biden HHS officials “either completely ignored or inadequately addressed” the requests.

Johnson said in a statement:

“In the waning days of the Biden administration and after years of obstructing my oversight efforts, I warned HHS officials that when I become chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, I will subpoena records and data on the COVID-19 pandemic that have been inappropriately withheld from Congress and the American people for far too long.”

The subpoena requires HHS to hand over:

1. Previously withheld or heavily redacted communications about the pandemic, including Fauci’s emails, including but not limited to the approximately 50 pages of his emails that were withheld from Johnson’s office since September 2021.

2. Previously withheld or heavily redacted communications about the pandemic, including Fauci’s emails, including but not limited to the approximately 50 pages of his emails that were withheld from Johnson’s office since September 2021.

3. Safety surveillance data on the COVID-19 vaccines, including proportional reporting ratios and empirical Bayesian data mining.

4. Unredacted records previously released through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests regarding the government’s awareness of myocarditis and pericarditis cases in post-vaccinated individuals.

5. Data and records relating to COVID-19 vaccine lots associated with higher rates of adverse events.

6. Order forms and receipts showing government researchers purchasing DNA sequences from a biotechnology company.

7. All communications relating to HHS’ receipt of and response (or lack thereof) to Johnson’s oversight letters between January 2021 and the present.

Risa Evans, an attorney for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), applauded Johnson’s efforts.

CHD has filed multiple FOIA requests to obtain records from HHS agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) relating to the agencies’ monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine safety and injuries.

“The agencies have responded to our FOIA requests with delays, denials and redactions,” Evans said, “and we’ve been forced to sue to obtain records that, in truth, should be made public as a matter of course.”

Evans called the agencies’ lack of transparency “unconscionable — especially given the federal government’s relentless promotion of COVID-19 vaccination, coupled with claims that safety is being vigilantly monitored by the agencies and denials that the shots cause harm.”

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at CHD, said:

“Time is washing away the knowledge of how the government’s monitoring of COVID-19 vaccine safety went wrong, and the fingerprints of the wrongdoers. Promptly responding to Senator Johnson’s subpoena may preserve enough knowledge to ensure the betrayal never happens again.”

FDA partially responds to CHD’s FOIA request

Some documents referenced in Johnson’s subpoena have already been released, Evans said. For example, on Jan. 10, the FDA posted emails about its safety surveillance of COVID-19 vaccines using empirical Bayesian data mining.

Empirical Bayesian data mining is a method of analyzing vaccine injury reports, Jablonowski said.

The FDA provided the emails to CHD and posted them on the agency’s website one day after the agency objected to a motion filed by CHD in federal court about a 2023 FOIA lawsuit. CHD sued the FDA after it failed to respond to CHD’s FOIA request for the documents.

Other groups and individuals — including Johnson, The Epoch Times and the Informed Action Consent Network — had also FOIAed the FDA for the same safety surveillance data.

On Jan. 10, the FDA sent CHD a letter explaining that it was posting the emails as a “partial reply” to CHD’s FOIA request.

In its FOIA request, CHD had asked for “records of any Empirical Bayesian data mining” that the FDA conducted and “records of any sharing or discussion of results and signals with the CDC.” The emails posted by the FDA showed some of those records.

However, CHD in its FOIA request also asked for records related to “consultations by FDA and/or CBER [the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research] with VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] staff within the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office in connection with any signal that was detected.”

“The FDA still hasn’t responded to other key parts of our request,” Evans said. “In particular, it hasn’t provided records of the follow-up investigation the agency said it would conduct if it detected potential safety signals.”

Emails reveal FDA failed to detect safety signals

The emails released by the FDA revealed that in the first 18 months of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, the FDA’s monitoring of VAERS showed consistent alerts for serious adverse events, including death, for the Janssen (Johnson & Johnson) vaccine.

VAERS, co-managed by CDC and FDA, is a “passive” monitoring system that accepts reports of adverse events experienced after vaccination.

Meanwhile, the FDA’s monitoring found almost no safety signals for the Moderna and Pfizer shots, failing to detect signals even for widely recognized risks like myocarditis, pericarditis and anaphylaxis.

According to Jablonowski’s analysis of the emails, the FDA and CDC were never sufficiently looking for safety signals, despite all the “posturing” the agencies did around the COVID-19 vaccines’ safety.

The FDA and CDC’s “willful ignorance” of the adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination is an “epic betrayal,” Jablonowski said.

Related articles in The Defender

• Breaking: Emails Obtained by CHD Reveal Government’s Failure to Monitor COVID Vaccine Injury Reports

• FDA Must Respond to Court’s Requests in CHD FOIA Lawsuit Involving COVID Vaccine Injury Reports

• CDC Stonewalls Requests for COVID Vaccine Safety Monitoring Documents

• Sen. Johnson Threatens Legal Action Unless HHS Turns Over Unredacted Emails on COVID Vaccine Safety