By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.

An unvaccinated federal health official who worked under Dr. Anthony Fauci in 2021 worried that he might lose his job and medical license after he questioned COVID-19 vaccines and mandates, newly revealed emails show.

Dr. Matthew Memoli, a physician-scientist and infectious disease researcher who led the Clinical Studies Unit at the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic, directly communicated his concerns about the vaccines to Fauci, according to emails obtained by The Epoch Times through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

In an email to Fauci, Memoli wrote:

“At best what we are doing with mandated mass vaccination does nothing and the variants emerge evading immunity anyway as they would have without the vaccine. … At worst it drives evolution of the virus in a way that is different from nature and possibly detrimental, prolonging the pandemic or causing more morbidity and mortality than it should.”

The Laboratory of Infectious Diseases operates under the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which Fauci directed from 1984 to 2022.

Memoli is now principal deputy director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NIAID’s parent agency.

In addition to emailing Fauci, Memoli spoke publicly about his reservations about the COVID-19 vaccines and policies. In November 2021, he told The Wall Street Journal, “I think the way we are using the vaccines is wrong.”

The emails reveal that Memoli was concerned his comments would cost him his position at NIAID and his Washington, D.C., medical license.

In 2021, NIH blocked Memoli from participating in an interview with The Epoch Times. His written responses to The Epoch Times’ questions were included in the newly released FOIA documents.

Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, said Memoli showed bravery in publicly questioning the COVID-19 shots and mandates.

“Dr. Memoli is a great hero because he resisted anti-science impositions when it mattered most,” Tucker said. “You cannot vaccinate your way out of a respiratory pandemic. Not possible. Many other scientists knew this, but Memoli was a rare case of a person who said what was true when the stakes were extremely high.”

‘Washington, DC directly threatened to take away my medical license’

According to the FOIA emails, Memoli was worried that he would face retaliation for questioning the COVID-19 vaccines and mandates, and also because he chose not to get the vaccine.

In response to questions from The Epoch Times — responses that the NIH subsequently blocked — Memoli wrote in a 2024 email:

“There were times when I was worried about losing my job especially when we first started receiving emails about [vaccine] mandate deadlines …

“I was concerned more about my medical license and not being able to continue to perform my job properly. Washington, DC directly threatened to take away my medical license which would have threatened my job (I need a medical license) so I applied for a Virginia license and protected myself that way.”

In the same series of responses, Memoli said that NIH never formally approved his request for a COVID-19 vaccine exemption.

“They let us twist in the wind worried about our jobs for a year, and then never even gave us a final approval which leaves us hanging if there is another mandate in the future,” Memoli wrote. “I feel this was done on purpose to try to coerce us into getting the vaccine and I consider it highly unethical and disappointing.”

Memoli suggested top officials at NIH and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should apologize for imposing vaccine mandates, but said he knew he would “be waiting until hell freezes over” for an apology.

He wrote that he should have been “more aggressive” in trying to “help the agency avoid some of the mistakes” — including vaccine mandates — he felt it had made. But he was “worried” about his job security. He said he had “friends who felt coerced into accepting vaccination.”

In December 2021, Memoli spoke at the “Ethics Grand Rounds,” with several NIH officials and NIH Department of Bioethics personnel in attendance. During the speech, he questioned the need for a vaccine mandate.

According to the emails, several colleagues thanked Memoli for his remarks — but others spoke in favor of mandates at the event or privately criticized Memoli’s stance.

Danielle Baker, a former certified hospice and palliative care registered nurse, was injured after her employer coerced her into getting the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021. She told The Defender, “The Biden era policies allowing what was essentially forced vaccination normalized a hostile work environment.”

‘The injured have been discarded’

In 2022, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) submitted a FOIA request to the NIH for copies of the agency’s communications with people injured after getting the COVID-19 shot.

In April 2023, CHD sued the NIH to obtain the records after the NIH failed to respond to the FOIA request. In an October 2023 settlement, the NIH agreed to produce up to 7,500 pages of documents. These documents, released in 2023 and 2024, showed:

• Fauci was aware that COVID-19 vaccines were causing serious injuries within days of the vaccines’ rollout in December 2020, but ignored these reports.
• Reports of injuries and deaths following COVID-19 vaccination — including a child injured by the Pfizer vaccine during a clinical trial and a fatal vaccine-induced case of myocarditis — reached Fauci, NIH researchers and other public health officials in 2021 and 2022.
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials Dr. Janet Woodcock and Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., then-director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, knew about COVID-19 vaccine injuries in early 2021 but continued to promote the shots as “safe and effective.”
• FDA officials blew off scheduled meetings with COVID-19 vaccine injury victims and eventually stopped corresponding with the victims.
• As early as January 2022, NIH researchers were aware of at least 850 peer-reviewed case reports and/or research articles about COVID-19 vaccine reactions.

Brianne Dressen, who was injured during AstraZeneca’s 2020 U.S. clinical trials for its COVID-19 vaccine, co-founded React19, an advocacy group for people injured by the COVID-19 vaccines. Dressen participated in some of the meetings and communications with federal health officials.

Dressen said it’s “no surprise that the vaccine-injured were sounding the alarm from the outside while medical researchers like Dr. Memoli were doing so from within.”

“What is difficult to reconcile, is just how many warnings were ignored,” she said. “These alarms were not isolated, they came from credible scientists, physicians, policymakers, and patients desperately seeking acknowledgment and help.”

Dr. Danice Hertz, a retired gastroenterologist injured by Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, sought help from Fauci and other NIH and NIAID officials shortly after her vaccine injury in December 2020, but said she was “met with complete dismissal.”

Hertz said she was not surprised that Fauci ignored Memoli’s concerns. Hertz said her concerns were ignored — and continue to be ignored. She said:

“I have over 200 pages of correspondence and was met with complete dismissal. I filed 11 VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] reports that were ignored. Many other vaccine-injured shouted from the rooftops with me about our injuries and to this day have been ignored by our regulatory agencies. They have disregarded and maligned us. There has been much physical suffering and no help forthcoming.

“The public and medical community continue to be uninformed about COVID-19 vaccine harms. The injured have been discarded.”

Fauci hid behind PREP Act liability shield

Sasha Latypova, a former pharmaceutical research and development executive, said “there has never been any excuse for the ‘safe and effective’ narrative” and that even without warnings from Memoli and the COVID-19 vaccine-injured, Fauci was aware of the dangers and risks of the vaccines.

“However, given the PREP Act liability shield being upheld for him by the entire U.S. government, he simply didn’t care about any of those risks,” Latypova said, referring to the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act.

The PREP Act provides a liability shield for the manufacturers and administrators of countermeasures, including COVID-19 shots, during a public health emergency. The law provides an exemption to its liability shield only in cases of “willful misconduct.” Hertz said Fauci’s actions may constitute such a violation.

Fauci “blatantly lied, claiming the vaccines are safe and effective, knowing otherwise,” Hertz said. “This is considered willful misconduct and should invalidate any protection from liability that the PREP Act or a presidential pardon provides.”

In the final hours of the Biden administration last year, former President Joe Biden preemptively pardoned Fauci for all of his official acts retroactively dating back to 2014.

Despite the pardon, legal experts have suggested that Fauci could still face state-level charges and could still be subpoenaed to testify before Congress.

In July 2025, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggested Fauci could be forced to testify under oath, as part of his investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

In September 2025, Paul invited Fauci to testify before Congress after releasing several 2020 emails showing Fauci instructed colleagues to delete messages after reading them. In November 2025, Paul demanded the release of U.S. intelligence records on Fauci as part of his ongoing investigation.

Related articles in The Defender

• Exclusive: Fauci Ignored Early Reports of Vaccine Injuries, Emails Obtained by CHD Reveal
• 300 Pages of Emails Leave No Doubt: Fauci, NIH Knew Early on of Injuries, Deaths After COVID Shots
• ‘Do Your Job. We Beg of You’: FDA Officials Knew of COVID Vaccine Injuries in Early 2021 But Took No Action
• FDA Blew Off Scheduled Meetings With COVID Vaccine Injury Victims, Emails Show
• Rand Paul Suggests Fauci May Be Forced to Testify Under Oath
• Biden Grants Fauci a ‘Preemptive Pardon.’ Could He Still Face Legal Challenges?

The post Former NIAID Official Who Warned Fauci About COVID Vaccines Feared for His Job appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.

 

IPAK-EDU is grateful to The Defender as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More