Newly obtained emails show that Anthony Fauci instructed a subordinate to permanently delete a 2012 email exchange in which he complained about a New York Times journalist who was raising alarms about potentially dangerous gain-of-function research.
The documents, obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, concern a scientific controversy that erupted roughly eight years before COVID-19 emerged and involved experiments designed to make an H5N1 bird flu virus transmissible through the air between ferrets.
The research was led by Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier and funded in part through the National Institutes of Health. Fouchier described the resulting virus at the time as “probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make.”
That work ignited an argument over whether creating more transmissible pathogens could help scientists prepare for future outbreaks or instead create an unacceptable risk of laboratory accidents and deliberate misuse.
Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, defended the research.
In a December 2011 Washington Post opinion piece co-authored with then-NIH Director Francis Collins and vaccine researcher Gary Nabel, Fauci argued that the risks were worth taking because such experiments could help researchers, public-health officials and pharmaceutical companies prepare for dangerous viruses before similar strains appeared naturally.
New York Times science writer Phil Boffey took a sharply different position.
In January 2012, the Times published an unsigned editorial-page article titled “An Engineered Doomsday,” which warned that an accidental escape could have catastrophic consequences. According to the newly released emails, Boffey was the author.
“The consequences, should the virus escape, are too devastating to risk,” Boffey wrote.
The dispute continued.
In March, Boffey published “The Truth About the Doomsday Virus?” after Fouchier softened some of his earlier descriptions of the experiment’s danger. Boffey remained skeptical and focused particular attention on NIH’s role in financing the research and supporting publication of its details.
One passage appears to have particularly irritated Fauci.
“Now, this country’s National Institutes of Health, which financed the research and has its own reputation on the line, is asking the [NSABB] to reconsider its call to redact details before publication,” Boffey wrote.
Fauci responded privately.
“Phil Boffey is really off base here,” Fauci wrote to Collins on March 4, 2012. “He is acting like a mischievous guy.”
The following morning, Fauci sent a more candid assessment to a subordinate.
“Clearly, people are getting to Phil Boffey and he is swallowing it,” Fauci wrote.
Fauci was also strongly opposed to a recommendation from federal biosecurity advisers that sensitive portions of Fouchier’s research should not be published. According to the correspondence, Fauci warned that if the recommendation stood, influenza research would face “a serious problem.”
Then came an instruction that has renewed questions about Fauci’s handling of government records.
“Please delete this e-mail and then delete from the deleted file,” Fauci wrote from his NIH email account.
Federal law governs the preservation and destruction of government records, and the newly disclosed instruction is significant because Fauci testified before Congress in 2024 that he had not deleted official records or conducted government business in a way intended to evade federal recordkeeping requirements.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has previously identified two other 2020 communications that he says show Fauci seeking to have official material deleted. Paul has argued that those records contradict Fauci’s sworn testimony and has sought further testimony from the former NIAID director.
