Johnson, Paul release new email showing top FDA official's concerns about COVID vax adverse effects

The newly released email shows that on May 27, 2021, Dr. Janet Woodcock, then-acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, wrote to Drs. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins.

Published: August 16, 2026 12:22pm

GOP Sen. Ron Johnson and Rand Paul, each leading a Senate committee investigating the pandemic, released a new email Sunday obtained from Dr. Anthony Fauci’s account when he helped lead the White House Coronavirus Task Force showing a top FDA official has concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine.

The newly released email shows that on May 27, 2021, Dr. Janet Woodcock, then-acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, wrote to Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins regarding reports she says she received directly from individuals, including “healthcare professionals,” of adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination. 

“The symptoms do not fit together into a distinctive syndrome and most are not easily quantifiable or evaluated with standard laboratory testing," Woodcock wrote. 

“These problems are not the sort that a system like VAERS [the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] would be able to detect."

She also appeared to say, in the highly-technical email, that "even a more sophisticated" system like the one the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has or the FDA's safety surveillance system would not detect it either.

Woodcock also wrote that she thought health officials should conduct a study, though she doubted the industry would support it "for obvious reasons."

"But my experience is, that if you let a problem fester, then it will come back to bite you later, and you are not prepared," she continued. 

Collin served as director of the National Institutes of Health. 

Johnson, of Wisconsin, is chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and Rand Paul, of Kentucky, is the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The day after receiving Woodcock’s email, Fauci forwarded it to Collins, writing that Woodcock "asks what we think of this? We cannot ignore her. We should probably bring in CDC and see what" then Director Rochelle Walensky thinks.

Fauci's government email was produced by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Based on information reviewed to date, it is unclear if Walensky was ever consulted, Johnson and Paul say in their announcement Sunday. 

The release also states:

By the end of May 2021, when Woodcock wrote this email, there were already 440,025 worldwide adverse events and 8,650 deaths associated with the COVID injection reported to VAERS, with 3,350 (39%) of those deaths occurring within two days of injection. 

CDC used a contractor, General Dynamics Information Technology, to input reports into VAERS. The 440,025 adverse events exceeded GDIT’s December 2020 worst-case scenario of 1,000 reports per day by a factor of approximately 2.6.

As Johnson’s April 29, 2026 report details, three months before Woodcock’s May 27, 2021, email, on March 1, 2021, Dr. Peter Marks, director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, was warned by Dr. Ana Szarfman that the algorithm FDA was using to evaluate VAERS was masking/hiding safety signals. 

"The email we are releasing coincides with monthly data runs by Dr. Szarfman using a new algorithm showing dozens of safety signals including sudden cardiac death, pulmonary infarction (which Dr. Fauci suffered in June 2021), cerebral artery occlusion, basal ganglia stroke, agonal rhythm, and Bell’s palsy. 

Unfortunately, FDA officials ignored Dr. Szarfman and the safety signals, told her to cease and desist, and continued to use the algorithm they knew was masking safety signals. 

Also, beginning in March 2021, National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Dr. Avindra Nath was leading a team of doctors and researchers who were diagnosing and treating individuals severely injured by the COVID injections. The injuries and symptoms being treated were similar to those being described and reported directly to then-Acting Commissioner Woodcock. 

Was Acting Commissioner Woodcock aware of Dr. Nath’s diagnosing and treatment of COVID injection injuries at NIH and/or what senior FDA officials had been told and shown about safety signals when she wrote her May 27, 2021 email? If so, why did she hide that knowledge from the public? If not, why was she kept in the dark?

Dr. Woodcock wrote that she thought health officials should conduct a study that she nevertheless "doubt[ed] the industry would support, for obvious reasons.” 

What are those obvious reasons?" the release Sunday asks in closing. 

The day after receiving Woodcock’s email, Fauci forwarded the email to Collins that in part read: she "asks what we think of this? We cannot ignore her.” 

That is an odd statement as it appears to suggest they sure would like to ignore her and the reports of injection injuries.

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