Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) once again battled with White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci Wednesday about whether children with natural immunity from a prior COVID infection should be injected with the mRNA shots the government has referred to as “vaccines.”

“Dr. Fauci continues to lie, cover-up, and deny the science to promote himself,” tweeted Paul about his tense exchange with Fauci during a Senate committee hearing whose central focus was the federal response to monkeypox.

“I’m doing everything I can to hold Fauci accountable and TAKE BACK THE SENATE,” Paul stated.

Paul presented a 2004 video of Fauci responding to an apparent C-SPAN caller’s question about whether a child who had the flu for 14 days should get a flu shot.

Fauci responded:

Well, no. If she got the flu for 14 days, she’s as protected as anybody can be because the best vaccination is to get infected yourself. And … if she really has the flu, if she really has the flu, she definitely doesn’t need a flu vaccine, if she really has the flu.

C-SPAN: She should not get it again?

Fauci: No, she doesn’t need it because it’s the be – the most potent vaccination is getting infected yourself.

The senator proceeded, stating Fauci has provided “ever-evolving opinions” about whether those who have been infected with COVID and have a certain degree of natural immunity need to receive the mRNA injections, which have not prevented people from getting COVID:

Currently, antibody surveys show that … approximately 80% of children have had COVID. And, yet, there are no guidelines coming from you or anybody in the government to take into account their naturally acquired immunity. You seemed quite certain of yourself in 2004 but in 2022, there’s a lot less certainty. One of the things that we also know after looking at this for two to three years is that the mortality from COVID is very similar, if not less, than that from influenza. So, when we look at this, we wonder, you know, why you seemed to really embrace basic immunology back in 2004 and how you or why you seem to reject it now.

Fauci began his response by denying he has rejected “basic immunology”:

I have never denied that there is importance of the protection following infection. However, as we have said many times, and as has been validated by the authorization … by the FDA, through their committee, and the recommendation by the CDC, through their committee, that a vaccination following infection gives an added extra boost.

Fauci said the video of himself in 2004 “is really taken out of context,” pointing to the fact that “someone called in who had had a reaction to a vaccine and asked me through a telephone in the interview, if they should get vaccinated again; so, it was in the context of someone who had a reaction.”

“As a matter of fact,” Fauci justified, “Reuters’ fact-check looked at that, and said, ‘Fauci’s 2004 comments do not contradict his pandemic’ –

“Actually, words don’t lie,” Paul pressed him. “If you look at the words behind me, we go with them a little bit at a time. ‘She doesn’t need it because the most potent vaccination is getting infected yourself.’”

It is true; it is true, Senator,” Fauci agreed. “It is a very potent way to protect.

Paul, however, then got to the heart of the matter:

When you’re trying to tell us that kids need a third or a fourth vaccine, are you including the variability, or the variable of previous infection, in the studies? No, you’re not, because when you have approved vaccines in recent times, and the committees that have approved them for children don’t report anything on hospitalization, or death or transmission. They only report that if you give them the jab, they’ll make antibodies. And you can give kids hundreds of jabs and they’ll make antibodies every time, but that does not prove efficacy. So, what you’re doing is denying the very fundamental premise of immunology, that previous infection does provide some sort of immunity.

“It’s not in any of your studies,” Paul continued. “Almost none of your studies from the CDC or from the government have the variable of whether or not you’ve been previously infected.”

“So, let’s look at adults,” the senator said. “I’ve had three infections. Should I get a fourth one? If you’re going to measure whether you’re going to a fourth one, you need a category that has a fourth one in it, and you need one that has nothing in it, no vaccine or the fourth vaccine, but you also need to know whether they’ve been infected.”

Paul said ignoring whether a person has been infected with COVID is the equivalent of “ignoring a vaccine basically, so you’re ignoring a variable.”

The senator noted government health officials have been consistently bemoaning the growing “vaccine hesitancy” on the part of many Americans.

“Vaccine hesitancy,” the senator asserted, is “coming from the gobbledygook that you give us. You’re not paying attention to the science. The very basic science is that previous infection provides a level of immunity. If you ignore that in your studies, if you don’t present that in your committees, you’re not being truthful or honest with us.”

Paul observed to Fauci that he has repeatedly refused to respond to whether those on the vaccine committees obtain royalties from the pharmaceutical companies.

“We don’t have to tell you” is the response Fauci gave, the senator said, adding that his Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have been met with refusals as well.

“When we get in charge, we’re going to change the rules, and you will have to divulge where you get your royalties from, from what companies, and if anybody in the committee has a conflict of interest.,” the senator warned. “We’re going to learn about it. I promise you that.”

Fauci attempted to evade any personal responsibility in responding to Paul, pointing instead on two occasions to the directors of the CDC and FDA seated to his right and left.

“They’re not my committees,” he said. “They’re the VRBPAC [Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee] committee for the FDA, and the ACIP (Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] for the CDC. So, I don’t have any idea what goes on.”

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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].