Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) announced Thursday he is suing the pharmaceutical company Pfizer, alleging the company “misrepresented” the effectiveness of its widely administered COVID-19 vaccine.
In his announcement, Paxton accused Pfizer of violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by making “false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices by making unsupported claims regarding the company’s COVID-19 vaccine.”
The lawsuit alleges that Pfizer gave the impression its vaccine would end the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the company’s claims of its shot being 95 percent effective were misleading.
More than 366 million doses of Pfizer’s original coronavirus vaccine were administered in the U.S., according to federal data. The results of an efficacy analysis of the company’s original COVID-19 vaccine released in November 2020 determined that the injection was 95 percent effective against COVID-19 28 days after the first dose. Paxton’s lawsuit claims these results were achieved in a “technical, and artificial way.”
“We are pursuing justice for the people of Texas, many of whom were coerced by tyrannical vaccine mandates to take a defective product sold by lies,” Paxton said in a statement.
“The facts are clear. Pfizer did not tell the truth about their COVID-19 vaccines,” he added. “Whereas the Biden Administration weaponized the pandemic to force illegal public health decrees on the public and enrich pharmaceutical companies, I will use every tool I have to protect our citizens who were misled and harmed by Pfizer’s actions.”
The suit alleges five violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act in total.
It also accuses Pfizer of using social media to “intimidate” and “silence prominent truth-tellers,” specifically singling out former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who sits on Pfizer’s board of directors and became a prominent voice on immunization practices during the pandemic.
Paxton’s suit points to instances in which Gottlieb allegedly flagged posts or accounts that questioned or refuted the efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine, arguing that he did so with the knowledge that those accounts would be adversely affected.
The lawsuit is requesting that Pfizer be barred from “making representations about the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine” as well as “coordinating with social media platforms to silence truthful speech about Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine efficacy.”
The suit has also asked for $10,000 in civil penalties for each alleged violation, along with additional awards of restitution.
When reached for comment, Pfizer said in a statement, “Pfizer is deeply committed to the well-being of the patients it serves and has no higher priority than the safety and effectiveness of its treatments and vaccines. Since its initial authorization by FDA in December 2020, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has been administered to more than 1.5 billion people, demonstrated a favorable safety profile in all age groups, and helped protect against severe COVID-19 outcomes, including hospitalization and death. The representations made by the company about its COVID-19 vaccine have been accurate and science-based.”
“The company believes that the state’s case has no merit and will respond to the petition in court in due course,” Pfizer added.
Updated 5:11 p.m. ET