Fact Check: Did Biden administration hide deadly COVID vaccines risk from public? Viral claim about White House emails debunked

A viral claim alleging that US President Joe Biden’s administration covered up potentially lethal risks associated with vaccines against COVID-19 is doing the rounds on social media. The emails were reportedly acquired with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, with a focus on ‘myocarditis’, which is an inflammation of the heart issue. However, the claim turned out to be false, as per the fact-checking website Snopes.

After the release of the emails in September 2023, Vigilant Fox published an article, which was later re-circulated on many other news outlets including junk websites such as The People’s Voice.

The article described an interview between Dr. Naomi Wolf and Steve Bannon. Wolf, holding a Ph.D. in English Literature with no medical training, spoke in the interview about how high-ranking officials at the CDC and White House were concerned about the possibility that COVID-19 vaccines could cause complications such as myocarditis and/or thrombotic thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), “around May 24-25.”

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Biden administration did not hide anything about vaccines from the public and the claim doing rounds on the internet is false

While the emails did mention both conditions, Wolf falsely claimed in her interview that the Biden Administration and CDC “said nothing about the clotting issue.” In fact, these adverse reactions are the ones that caused the administration to announce a temporary pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on April 13, 2021.

The announcement was made a full month prior to the “bombshell” emails referenced in the viral claim, as per Snopes.

Claims made by Wolf and Vigilant Fox implied that the government had not disclosed its knowledge of adverse risks associated with vaccines against COVID-19, while the opposite is true.

A DoD study that looked into the prevalence of myocarditis as an uncommon adverse effect of mRNA Covid-19 vaccines in the military was apparently already accepted by the CDC by late April 2021. The CDC had publicly stated on May 17, 2021, that myocarditis was a potential concern, and a week later, reiterated that it was indeed a possible adverse reaction.

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Data showed contracting COVID-19 increased the risk of myocarditis far more than the vaccines against

The White House, too, acknowledged this statement at a news conference on the same day, while maintaining that it advocated further use of the vaccine.

Reportedly, the decision to continue to recommend the vaccines in spite of the potential risk was because data showed that contracting COVID-19 increased the risk of myocarditis far more than the vaccines against it.

It is worth noting that the claim about the Biden administration's emails that are doing rounds on the internet does not mention anything that was not made public. Other than this, the claim of Biden and his administration hiding any known harms of coronavirus to the public is false, reported Snopes.