Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against pharmaceutical company Pfizer, claiming the company misrepresented the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine. The lawsuit follows a six-month investigation by Paxton into alleged gain-of-function research conducted by Pfizer in collaboration with the developers of the COVID-19 vaccines, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. Paxton stated, "Pfizer engaged in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by making unsupported claims regarding its COVID-19 vaccine, in violation of Texas's Deceptive Trade Practices Act," asserting that the company made billions of dollars in improper profits.
Paxton specifically challenged Pfizer's claim that its vaccine was 95% effective against the new coronavirus, arguing that this was a statistical trick known as "relative risk reduction," which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) acknowledged could mislead consumers by presenting the treatment as more effective than it really is. The lawsuit claims that clinical trial data showed the vaccine actually reduced the likelihood of contracting COVID-19 by only 0.85%. According to the complaint, the pandemic "worsened" after the majority of Americans were vaccinated against the illness, noting that "official government reports showed that in at least some places, the proportion of vaccinated individuals who died from COVID-19 was greater than those unvaccinated."
The lawsuit also alleges that Pfizer intentionally made false and unsupported claims regarding the vaccine's performance against variants, including the Delta variant, while labeling its critics as "criminals" and accusing them of spreading "misleading information." Paxton is seeking financial penalties and an injunction to prevent Pfizer from continuing to "distort" the effectiveness of its product.
In a statement to the media, a Pfizer spokesperson emphasized that the company "is firmly committed to the well-being of the patients it serves and has no higher priority than the safety and efficacy of its treatments and vaccines." They added that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been administered to over 1.5 billion people worldwide, helping to protect them from severe symptoms. Pfizer stated, "The company believes that the state lawsuit is without merit and will respond to the complaint in court in due course."
