Do COVID vaccines cause pulmonary infarctions?

After reports that Dr. Anthony Fauci had a blood clot that damaged part of his lung sometime after a COVID vaccine, anti-vaccine activists like RFK Jr. claimed the vaccine caused it.

• Fauci’s diary appears to describe a real lung problem, but it does not say what caused it.
• Pulmonary infarction is not a known side effect of the Moderna vaccine.
• Large studies have not found a higher risk of lung blood clots after Moderna vaccination.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services should not guess about someone’s illness without examining that person. RFK Jr. is not a doctor and did not examine Fauci, so he cannot know what caused Fauci’s health problem.

Fauci’s diary says that on June 19, 2021, he had a pulmonary infarction. And we know he received his first COVID vaccine in December of 2020.

Pulmonary infarction happens when blood flow to a part of the lung is blocked. The diary also says he was treated with Eliquis, a blood thinner. However, the diary is not a full medical record. His doctors have not made a public statement about what caused the problem.

Pulmonary infarction is not a known side effect of the Moderna vaccine. The FDA warns about rare cases of myocarditis after Moderna vaccination. These cases usually begin within one week. Fauci’s problem happened about five months after his second shot.

Large studies have not found a higher risk of blood clots in the lungs after Moderna vaccination. One French study looked at 46.5 million adults. It found no link between the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines and lung blood clots during the three weeks after the first two doses.

A 2024 review said there was not enough evidence to prove or rule out a link between the Moderna vaccination and blood clots. Still, the studies did not find a higher risk of blood clots in the lungs.