Newly released correspondence shows senior National Institutes of Health officials raised concerns about an internal study of patients with post-vaccination neurological symptoms, including its scientific basis and potential effect on public confidence in the vaccines.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Senior National Institutes of Health officials privately questioned whether agency researchers should continue pursuing a report on neurological problems experienced by some people after COVID-19 vaccination, according to newly released emails reported by The Epoch Times.
The correspondence centered on work conducted in 2020 and 2021 by Dr. Avindra Nath, a senior investigator at the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Nath and other researchers had evaluated patients who reported neurological symptoms following vaccination and prepared a manuscript describing their findings.
On April 10, 2021, Nath sent a draft of the paper to institute director Dr. Walter Koroshetz. Nath wrote that identifying the condition quickly and administering treatment could improve outcomes.
“Early recognition and treatment with corticosteroids can reverse the symptoms,” Nath wrote.
Koroshetz forwarded the manuscript the next day to Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was then leading another NIH institute. In his message, Koroshetz said reports of neurological conditions after vaccination had continued to reach him, though he cautioned that the timing alone did not establish causation.
“There have been steady slow stream of reports to me of post vaccination neurologic conditions, seem to be mostly peripheral nerve disorders … maybe an occasional spinal cord issue,” Koroshetz told Fauci. “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.”
The draft was also sent by another NIH employee to then-NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins and Dr. Lawrence Tabak, another senior official. The employee informed them that the New England Journal of Medicine had rejected the paper.
“What do you make of this?” Collins wrote. “The draft letter doesn’t explain how these 32 patients were referred—leaving one to wonder whether this is common or rare.”
Koroshetz responded that numerous reports had been submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and that Nath had received referrals after discussing neurological problems following COVID-19 vaccination during a podcast appearance.
He also told Collins that Nath and another employee at the institute had developed tinnitus after vaccination and that Nath had experienced hearing loss.
Collins objected to the research team’s approach, describing it as scientifically insufficient and warning that publication could intensify public concern about the vaccines.
Collins called the approach “very troubling,” adding, “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.”
In a private message to Collins, Tabak questioned why Koroshetz had allowed the work to continue.
“I don’t understand why Walter does not shut this down,” Tabak wrote.
The Informed Consent Action Network released the emails July 22 and said the correspondence raised questions about whether agency leaders considered the effect on vaccine confidence when discussing the manuscript.
“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,” the organization said.
The paper was never published in a peer-reviewed journal. More than a year after Nath first sent the draft to Koroshetz, it was made available as a preprint in May 2022 without formal peer review.
One of the patients evaluated by Nath’s team was Dr. Danice Hertz, a retired gastroenterologist who received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine shortly after it was authorized in 2020 and later experienced severe health problems.
After reviewing the newly released correspondence, Hertz said she had long suspected that pressure from senior officials led Nath to end contact with the patients.
“I have always believed that Fauci must have told Nath to stop talking to us, as we were all abruptly dismissed from Nath’s care without explanation. Now I know that my suspicions were true,” Hertz wrote in an email.
She also described the emails as deeply upsetting and criticized how the patients were treated.
“It is gut-wrenching to read these emails. Our lives were in Dr. Nath’s hands, and we were carelessly tossed away without a care. This is unlike any medical care that I have ever witnessed in my 33 years practicing as a gastroenterologist. Shame on them. This deep corruption needs to be exposed.”
The emails do not establish that Collins, Fauci or Tabak formally directed Nath to stop the research or abandon the manuscript. They do, however, show that senior NIH officials debated both the scientific strength of the work and the possibility that publication could contribute to vaccine hesitancy.
Collins, Fauci and Nath did not respond to requests for comment before publication. Tabak could not be reached.
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