Kansas v. Pfizer

Officials demand accountability over 'misleading' COVID vax claims

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A pillar of Big Pharma is facing big trouble in the Sunflower State.

Three-and-a-half years after Pfizer, Inc. launched its COVID-19 vaccine — the first such serum to debut in the United States — it appears that a reckoning is at hand.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach (R) announced this week that his office is suing the pharmaceutical giant, alleging the company lied about the effectiveness of its COVID vaccine, as well as health risks related to the jab.

"Today, Kansas is filing a civil suit against the Pfizer corporation under the Kansas Consumer Protection Act," seeking unspecified monetary damages "for misleading and deceptive statements made in marketing its COVID-19 vaccine," Kobach declared at a press conference on Monday.

"Kansas' case is the first of a multi-state collaboration," the attorney general noted, indicating that four additional, as-of-yet unnamed, states may soon follow Kansas' lead.

TRUTH DENIED

"As we all know, during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a great deal of panic and anxiety," Kobach recalled. "Many people who were elderly or who suffered from various medical conditions had already died when the vaccines became available."

"And when that time came," he said, "when the vaccines became available, every one of us had to make two decisions: Am I going to take the vaccine? And if so, which vaccine will I choose to take? "

"These decisions were being made in a hurry — in some ways, you could say, even being made under duress. In such an environment, it is imperative that Kansans making that decision receive the truth. They needed the truth — all Americans needed the truth — and in multiple respects, Pfizer did not provide the truth."

"Much of the information in this lawsuit came out as a result of a FOIA [Freedom Of Information Act] lawsuit seeking information from Pfizer that still had not been made public. And it was only a result of that effort that some of the information in this lawsuit is available," Kobach noted.

The attorney general urged his audience to read the complaint, noting it "goes into great detail about the specific statements that were made, and the misleading nature of those statements made to Kansas consumers."

CALLOUS COVER-UP

According to the complaint, filed in the District Court of Thomas County on Monday, "Pfizer misled the public that it had a 'safe and effective' COVID-19 vaccine."

"Pfizer said its COVID-19 vaccine was safe even though it knew its COVID-19 vaccine was connected to serious adverse events, including myocarditis and pericarditis, failed pregnancies, and deaths. Pfizer concealed this critical safety information from the public.

Pfizer said its COVID-19 vaccine was effective even though it knew its COVID-19 vaccine waned over time and did not protect against COVID-19 variants. Pfizer concealed this critical effectiveness information from the public."

The company "must be held accountable for falsely representing the benefits of its COVID-19 vaccine while concealing and suppressing the truth about its vaccine's safety risks, waning effectiveness, and inability to prevent transmission," the suit declares.

In his Monday presser, Kobach expounded upon these issues.

"Pfizer marketed its vaccine as safe for pregnant women," he said. "However, in February of 2021, Pfizer possessed reports for 458 pregnant women who received Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy. More than half of the pregnant women reported an adverse event, and more than 10% reported a miscarriage — many within days of the vaccination."

"Pfizer also possessed the information from its own October 2020 study on pregnancy in rats," he added, "indicating that its COVID-19 vaccine was likely linked to infertility, loss of litters, and stillborn offspring."

Turning to heart-related hazards, Kobach observed that "Pfizer consistently denied any evidence of a connection or safety signal between its COVID-19 vaccine and myocarditis or pericarditis."

He noted that on Jan. 18, 2023, company Chairman and CEO Dr. Albert Bourla was asked whether the company's vaccine causes strokes or myocarditis.

"We've not seen a single signal [i.e., a negative consequence], although we have distributed billions of doses," Bourla asserted.

"However," Kobach observed, "as Pfizer knew, the United States government, the United States military, foreign governments and others have found that Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine caused myocarditis and pericarditis."

Regarding vaccine effectiveness, the attorney general pointed out that the company "claimed that its COVID-19 vaccine protected against COVID-19 variants, even though data available at the time showed Pfizer's vaccine was effective less than half the time against variants."

"Pfizer urged Americans to get vaccinated in order to protect their loved ones, clearly indicating a claim that Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccination stopped transmission," he added, noting that the firm "later admitted that it had never even studied transmission after recipients received the vaccine and whether they could say it stopped transmission."

THUGGERY

Beyond issues of concealment, the suit accuses Pfizer of a draconian campaign to mute dissent:

"To keep the public from learning the truth, Pfizer worked to censor speech on social media that questioned Pfizer's claims about its COVID-19 vaccine."

The complaint lists a bevy of such abuses.

"Chairman and CEO Dr. Bourla," for example, "called people who spread misinformation on COVID-19 vaccines 'criminals' who have 'literally cost millions of lives,'" it notes.

Likewise, "Pfizer Board Member Dr. Scott Gottlieb pressed Twitter on multiple occasions to censor speech critical of COVID-19 vaccines and the response to the pandemic," the lawsuit states. "Gottlieb claimed social media companies had an 'obligation' and an 'affirmative responsibility' to prevent the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on their platforms."

The complaint includes specific examples of Pfizer's strong-arming.

For example, on Aug. 21, 2021, Gottlieb contacted Twitter to denounce a column by writer Alex Berenson criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci.

"This," Gottlieb said, "is why Tony needs a security detail."

On Aug. 27, Gottlieb followed up with a call to Twitter staff to discuss Berenson's status on the platform.

"Twitter," the suit notes, "banned Mr. Berenson the next day."

In a similar case, on Aug. 27, Dr. Brett Giroir — Assistant Secretary for Health from 2018-2021 — declared on Twitter that "natural immunity was superior to vaccine immunity."

"In response ... Gottlieb reached out to Twitter's top lobbyist in Washington, D.C., to complain that the post was 'corrosive,' 'draws a sweeping conclusion,' and 'will end up going viral and driving news coverage.'

The Twitter lobbyist forwarded ... Gottlieb's email to the Twitter 'Strategic Response' team, which 'later slapped [Giroir's tweet] with a 'misleading' label and blocked any ability to like or share the tweet."

Pfizer's campaign of speech suppression wasn't limited to social media, the suit points out, noting that the company "coordinated with and through others to conceal and suppress other material facts about its COVID-19 vaccine."

"On December 11, 2020, the same day that Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine received emergency use authorization from the FDA, a Zoom calendar appointment entitled 'Vaccine Disinformation Response' invited personnel at the Department of Health and Human Services, Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies, and Stanford University to discuss 'a coalition to respond to COVID-19 vaccine disinformation.'

[A]t or around this December 11, 2020 meeting, Pfizer, the Department of Health and Human Services, and Stanford University agreed to work together to conceal and suppress material facts about Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, including concealing and suppressing posts about the safety and efficacy of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine."

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) "is within the Department of Health and Human Services," the complaint notes, adding that "In 2021, the CDC actively worked to censor speech critical of COVID-19 vaccines."

PROFITS OVER PEOPLE

"It should also be noted," Kobach said Monday, "that Pfizer elected not to join the federal government's vaccine development program known as Operation Warp Speed, and declined that development funding."

"When asked about that," the attorney general explained, "Pfizer's CEO Albert Bourla said Pfizer did not participate in the program in order to 'liberate' Pfizer's scientists and to avoid government oversight of its vaccine development. He also said, 'They [government officials] want reports. I don't want to have any of that.'"

"Pfizer's misleading statements contributed to success in marketing its vaccine in Kansas," Kobach noted. "By February of 2024, Pfizer had delivered over 3.3 million doses of its vaccine in the state of Kansas. This accounted for over 60% of all vaccine doses given in the state of Kansas."

This approach sparked a record windfall for Pfizer, with the company raking in roughly $75 billion from COVID-19 vaccine sales in just the first two years of the jab's existence.

For its part, Pfizer is insisting the case has "no merit," and is vowing to respond in "due course."

"We are proud to have developed the COVID-19 vaccine in record time in the midst of a global pandemic and saved countless lives," the company told The Hill. "The representations made by Pfizer about its COVID-19 vaccine have been accurate and science-based. ... Patient safety is our number one priority, which is why we follow diligent safety and monitoring protocols."

Even so, Kansas is determined to hold the firm's feet to the fire.

Less than three weeks after Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted before Congress that his COVID directives were contrived, the revelation of Pfizer's misdeeds is injecting Americans with new hope that at least some of the architects of overreach may be made to pay for their abuses.

Writer, editor and producer Stephen Wynne has spent the past seven years covering, from a Catholic perspective, the latest developments in the Church, the nation and the world. Prior to his work in journalism, he spent eight years co-authoring “Repairing the Breach,” a book examining the war of worldviews between Christianity and Darwinism. A Show-Me State native, he holds a BA in Creative Writing from Pepperdine University and an Executive MBA from the Bloch School of Business at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

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