Topline
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday he sued pharmaceutical company Pfizer for misleading Texans about the efficacy of its Covid-19 vaccine and “attempting to censor public discussion”—despite the vaccine continuing to be effective and recommended by leading health agencies.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Pfizer alleging it misrepresented its vaccine’s efficacy … [+]
Key Facts
The lawsuit alleges Pfizer violated Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act by engaging in “false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices by making unsupported claims” about the vaccine and that it ran a “campaign to intimidate the public into getting the vaccine as a necessary measure to protect their loved ones.”
Paxton argued that Pfizer’s vaccine didn’t live up to the 95% efficacy metric it promoted, saying in a press release that “cases increased after widespread vaccine administration” and that “some areas saw a greater percentage of deaths” among vaccinated people than unvaccinated—though the latter could reflect the fact most people are vaccinated, not that the vaccine doesn’t work.
Paxton said after the vaccine failed to meet the efficacy promoted, Pfizer began to intimidate and censor critics by saying people spreading “misinformation” were “criminals,” which Pfizer’s CEO said in an interview in 2021.
The suit cites two instances in which Paxton claims Scott Gottlieb, a former Food & Drug Administration director and a member of Pfizer’s executive committee at the time, contacted people at Twitter over “perceived violations of Twitter policy” by users tweeting skepticism about the vaccine.
Paxton is asking for more than $10 million in civil fines as relief, along with the court barring Pfizer from commenting in public about the vaccine’s efficacy, according to the suit.
A Pfizer spokesperson told Forbes “the company believes that the state’s case has no merit and will respond to the petition in court in due course.”
Contra
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the vaccine effectiveness at reducing symptomatic cases was around 92.4%, and around 94.3% for preventing hospitalization, according to a 2021 assessment. Efficacy did drop from the original 95% figure given by Pfizer, but largely after more variants of Covid that the vaccine wasn’t created to protect against began to circulate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have continued to recommend Pfizer’s vaccine and call it effective, and the World Health Organization has said Pfzier’s vaccine has “very high efficacy against severe disease and moderate efficacy against symptomatic” cases.
Key Background
In May, Paxton launched an investigation into Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson to determine if they used gain-of-function research, a controversial method in which scientists can modify a virus to better understand it, and misled the public about doing so,” along with looking into whether they misrepresented efficacy. When the investigation launched, a Pfizer spokesperson defended the vaccine and told the Texas Tribune that “regulatory agencies across the world have authorized the use of our COVID-19 vaccine.” No lawsuits have been filed by Paxton’s office against Moderna or Johnson & Johnson, though. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Paxton has opposed the use of vaccines and masks in response to Covid-19, leading a lawsuit against the Biden Administration over the requirement for federal Head Start employees to be vaccinated. Skepticism of vaccines and public health weren’t limited to Paxton, or Texas, as it grew nationwide during the pandemic. In December 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis filed a petition for a grand jury “to investigate crimes and wrongdoing committed against Floridians related to the COVID-19 vaccine,” similar to what Paxton launched this year, though results have not been made public.
Further Reading
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/11/30/texas-ag-sues-pfizer-over-covid-vaccine-effectiveness/