Newly reported documents are raising fresh questions about Anthony Fauci’s handling of government emails during an early fight over gain-of-function research, years before the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the Daily Caller News Foundation, emails from 2012 show Fauci sharply criticizing New York Times science writer Phil Boffey over coverage of controversial bird flu experiments and then telling a subordinate to delete the message — including from the deleted folder.
“Please delete this e-mail and then delete from the deleted file,” Fauci wrote from his NIH email account, according to the documents cited by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The outlet reported that Fauci did not respond to a request for comment. It also said Boffey and Dutch virologist Ron Fouchier did not respond to requests for comment.
A Fight Over a Dangerous Flu Experiment
The dispute centered on research by Fouchier, whose work involved an airborne strain of bird flu. The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that the work was funded by Fauci’s institute at the National Institutes of Health.
Fouchier had described the virus as “probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make,” according to the source material. The research became a major flashpoint in 2011 and 2012 because of concerns that publishing details could create biosecurity risks.
Fauci defended such research in a December 2011 Washington Post editorial co-authored with NIH Director Francis Collins and Gary Nabel of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Vaccine Research Center. The op-ed argued that the risks could be justified because the work might help drugmakers and public health officials prepare for viruses if they emerged naturally.
Boffey, meanwhile, warned in a New York Times op-ed that NIH had helped create an “engineered doomsday” threat that could kill “hundreds of millions of people,” according to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The outlet reported that the newly obtained emails identify Boffey as the author of that previously un-bylined op-ed.
Fauci Objected to the Coverage
In March 2012, Boffey wrote another piece titled “The Truth About the Doomsday Virus?” questioning reassurances about the experiment’s lethality after Fouchier had softened earlier statements under public scrutiny.
One passage apparently drew Fauci’s attention: Boffey wrote that NIH, which had financed the work and had “its own reputation on the line,” was asking the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity to reconsider whether details should be redacted before publication.
“Phil Boffey is really off base here,” Fauci wrote to Collins on March 4, 2012, according to the reported emails. “He is acting like a mischievous guy.”
The next morning, Fauci sent a more candid message to a subordinate, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported. “Clearly, people are getting to Phil Boffey and he is swallowing it,” Fauci wrote, according to the outlet.
That same reported email included the instruction to delete the message and then delete it from the deleted folder.
Records Questions Resurface
The Daily Caller News Foundation framed the email as part of a broader records controversy, noting that deleting government records can violate federal law. The outlet also cited Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who has highlighted other instances in which Fauci allegedly sought to delete public records.
Fauci testified in 2024 that he never destroyed public records, according to the source material. The new report challenges that account but does not include a response from Fauci.
Fauci ultimately persuaded NIH’s biosecurity advisers to allow the Fouchier experiment to be published in full, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
COVID Origins Debate Added New Scrutiny
The report also connects Fouchier to later debates over COVID-19’s origins. When the pandemic began, Fouchier worked with Fauci and other virologists who argued against the likelihood of a lab origin, according to the source material.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that Fouchier contributed to an argument in “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” a paper that dismissed a possible lab origin. Fauci later cited that paper and its authors, while critics have argued he did not fully disclose his behind-the-scenes involvement with them.
Privately, the paper’s authors described Fouchier as “unbelievably conflicted,” according to the reported documents. One author wrote, “Ron … is not going to want it to be a GOF [gain-of-function] escape,” the outlet reported.
Fouchier also reportedly advised against publicly addressing a possible lab leak in the paper, warning that renewed biosafety debates could cause “harm to science” and obstruct future virus research.
