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August 10, 2026 / 10:41 PM EDT

/ CBS News

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Two Senate Republicans released a set of early 2021 text messages that show Dr. Anthony Fauci and other federal health officials discussing how to "weigh the potential risks against the benefits" of pregnant women taking COVID-19 vaccines.The 11 text messages that were made public Monday were among more than 34,000 that the Department of Health and Human Services recovered from Fauci's government-issued phone, Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said in a statement. The two lawmakers have intensely criticized Fauci over the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic for years, with Paul recently releasing diary entries penned by Fauci during the height of the pandemic.The newly released texts stem from late January 2021, several days after former President Joe Biden took office and more than a month after the first coronavirus vaccines — made by Pfizer and Moderna — were granted emergency use authorization and rolled out to the American public. At the time, officials were still collecting data on pregnant women who chose to receive the vaccines. Since then, multiple studies have found no increased risk of miscarriage or other pregnancy complications after COVID-19 vaccination.The text conversation began with then-Surgeon General nominee Dr. Vivek Murthy asking Fauci and then-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky if they knew of any information on whether pregnant women should get vaccinated earlier or later in pregnancy.Walensky noted that the CDC was using a monitoring system called "V-safe" to track side effects of COVID-19 vaccines for groups of people who were not included in the vaccines' initial trials, including pregnant women.Fauci — the now-retired longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — then said there is "no data or theoretical reason to believe that vaccinating early versus later in pregnancy would be preferred," according to the messages released Monday.