Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Sues Pfizer for 'False, Deceptive, and Misleading' COVID Vaccine Claims

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday that he was suing pharmaceutical giant Pfizer over the blatant misrepresentations made by company management is pushing the use of its COVID-19 vaccine. According to the lawsuit, "Pfizer engaged in false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices by making unsupported claims regarding the company’s COVID-19 vaccine in violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act." This suit comes after Texas investigated the misrepresentations about vaccine efficacy by Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson.

The Pfizer vaccine was the first COVID-19 vaccine on the market; it was granted Emergency Use Authorization in December 2020. Its first-to-market status and a heavy-handed and, as it turned out, deceptive marketing program combined with the brute force of the federal government resulted in profits exceeding $100 billion.

The pharmaceutical company's widespread representation that its vaccine possessed 95% efficacy against infection was highly misleading. That metric represented a calculation of the so-called “relative risk reduction” for vaccinated individuals in Pfizer’s initial, two-month clinical trial results. FDA publications indicate “relative risk reduction” is a misleading statistic that “unduly influence[s]” consumer choice. Pfizer was also put on notice at that time that vaccine protection could not accurately be predicted beyond two months. Nevertheless, Pfizer fostered a misleading impression that vaccine protection was durable and withheld from the public information that undermined its claims about the duration of protection. And, despite the fact that its clinical trial failed to measure whether the vaccine protects against transmission, Pfizer embarked on a campaign to intimidate the public into getting the vaccine as a necessary measure to protect their loved ones.
In fact, Pfizer’s product failed to live up to the company’s representations. COVID-19 cases increased after widespread vaccine administration, and some areas saw a greater percentage of deaths from COVID-19 among the vaccinated population than the unvaccinated. When the failure of its product became apparent, Pfizer then pivoted to silencing truth-tellers. The lawsuit notes: “How did Pfizer respond when it became apparent that its vaccine was failing and the viability of its cash cow was threatened? By intimidating those spreading the truth, and by conspiring to censor its critics. Pfizer labeled as ‘criminals’ those who spread facts about the vaccine. It accused them of spreading ‘misinformation.’ And it coerced social media platforms to silence prominent truth-tellers.”

Among the more interesting factoids in the lawsuit is that Pfizer's own data showed that "preventing one COVID-19 case required vaccinating 119." The lawsuit also calls Pfizer out for attempting to silence critics.

Pfizer labeled as “criminals” those who spread facts about the vaccine. It accused them of spreading “misinformation.” And it coerced social media platforms to silence prominent truth-tellers. Indeed, Pfizer even went so far as to request that social media platforms silence a former FDA director because his comments could “driv[e] news coverage” critical of the vaccine.

It also alleges that the FDA cautioned Pfizer about the extravagant effectiveness claims it was making.

Simply put, Pfizer cannot attempt to hide behind FDA to shield its deception from scrutiny, especially where, as here, FDA itself explicitly cautioned the company that it did not have adequate data to support various claims it made. In short, nothing FDA said or did during Pfizer’s lengthy campaign of misrepresentations remotely validated the company’s actions at the heart of this case

Notably, even though the federal government knew that Pfizer's claims were unsupported by the truth, it never stepped in to tamp down the lies. Instead, it put its full coercive power behind forcing unwilling Americans to submit to the vaccine or face losing their jobs.

Hopefully, this will be just one in a series of lawsuits that may force Pfizer to disgorge some of the $100 billion it flimflammed the government out of. I also hope other companies that did the same are brought to justice.