Texas is Suing Pfizer, and it’s a Doozy
Updated
In case you missed it, the state of Texas filed a monstrous lawsuit against Pfizer this past week. The suit details several transgressions, which I reported on in an amazing amount of detail for UncoverDC. For the purposes of this column, I chose some of the most critical highlights to showcase for you. It is important to note that all the examples are meticulously documented, and this is the first major lawsuit by a state to challenge the public assertions of efficacy made by Pfizer directly – claims that just were not supported by their own available data.
The lawsuit makes many arguments, among them that more Americans died in 2021 with the vaccine available than in 2020—and most Americans were taking Pfizer’s. By the end of 2021, in some places, a greater percentage of the vaccinated were dying from COVID-19 than the unvaccinated. As per the filing, the Pfizer shot was plainly not “95% effective.”
So, how did they claim that it was 95% effective? Simple. They calculated risk using a standard the FDA says should never be used. The lawsuit argues that Pfizer used the Relative risk reduction vs. the Absolute risk reduction to determine that the shots were 95% effective. As per the petition, the FDA warns that this should never be done. Using relative risk reduction, Pfizer essentially mucked up its own numbers and failed to provide informed consent. The petition meticulously demonstrates the difference between the two and includes language to explain why the FDA doesn’t allow this. About using relative risk, the FDA says:
“…when information is presented in a relative risk format, the risk reduction seems large and treatments are viewed more favorably than when the same information is presented using more accurate metrics.“
This is how Pfizer did it: as of November 14, 2020, 8 out of 17,411 participants (.04%) who received the shot and didn’t have COVID prior experienced a defined case during the trial. In the placebo group, as of November 14, 2020, 162 out of 17,511 participants (.9%) who didn’t have evidence of prior infection experienced a defined case during the trial. What is the relative risk reduction between the placebo and treatment groups? It was 95%. However—the absolute risk reduction was only .85%. And the NNT was 119. One hundred nineteen people needed to be vaccinated to prevent one single defined COVID case.
The lawsuit argues that even though Pfizer knew this, it continued to deceive the public in a myriad of ways. When it was first granted an EUA, the FDA recognized that it was impossible to know how effective the shot would remain beyond two months. By early 2021, Pfizer deliberately created the impression that the shot had durable and sustained protections, even withholding highly relevant data from the public that demonstrated rapidly waning efficacy.
The petition also argues that Pfizer deceived the public about the efficacy surrounding transmission. The FDA had warned Pfizer that it needed more info to determine whether the shot protected against transmission between individuals. Still, Pfizer instead engaged in a “fear-mongering campaign” exploiting the public fear over the virus by insinuating that the shot was necessary to protect their loved ones from getting COVID.
The suit goes on to explain that Pfizer also deceived the public when they made statements about protection from different variants of COVID. Pfizer knowingly made false and unsupported claims about the shot’s performance against variants, including the Delta variant. Pfizer’s data confirmed that the shot performed remarkably poorly against the Delta variant. Nonetheless, they told the public that its shot was “very, very effective against Delta.”
As per the suit, as Pfizer bragged about the vaccine’s success, many pieces of information proved that the shot failed to live up to the hype. For example, shortly after Delta’s emergence in Israel (a country Pfizer used as a “canary in a coal mine”), the relative risk reduction dropped precipitously, from 64% in June, to just 39% one month later.
Additionally, the suit confronted the claims of negative efficacy—something many of us were talking about very early on. Certain jurisdictions in Israel reported negative vaccine efficacy in late 2021 and early 2022, meaning that a greater percentage of vaccinated people contracted and died from COVID than the unvaccinated. Additionally, the number of people infected with COVID-19 increased over time. In the UK, infection rates were 7% from 4/26/20 through 12/7/20 (before the approval and distribution) but were 24.2% between 5/18/21 and 12/13/21 and 33.6% from 12/14/21-2/21/21, after wide distribution of the shot.
And, when it appeared that their deception wasn’t getting the job done and it became apparent that the shot was failing and its profits were under threat, Pfizer set out on an intimidation campaign, going so far as to censor the critics (I know all too well, and so do many of you.)
They labeled anyone who spread facts about the above as “criminals,” accused them of spreading “misinformation,” and coerced social media platforms to silence prominent truth-tellers. They even went so far as to request that social media silence the former FDA director because his comments could “drive news coverage” critical of the vaccine.
If you have been following my reporting on the Missouri v. Biden case, you can immediately recognize the trend. The lawsuit goes on to state:
“In summary, Pfizer intentionally misrepresented the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine and censored persons who threatened to disseminate the truth in order to facilitate fast adoption of the product and expand its commercial opportunity. In light of the multi-billion dollar bet that Pfizer made on the vaccine and its need to quickly establish the product as the marketing leader, was heavily incentivized to, and in fact did, make misrepresentations intended to confuse and mislead the public in order to achieve widespread adoption of its vaccine. This suit seeks to hold Pfizer responsible for its scheme of serial misrepresentations and deceptive trade practices…“
And I believe it has a good shot (no pun) at doing just that. While I am not an attorney, the bulk of my coverage focuses on litigation. The suit details several particular examples of Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla making public statements about efficacy when he knew Pfizer’s internal data didn’t support those claims. For example, Bourla said:
I [will] repeat once more. The decision not to vaccinate will not affect only your health or your life,” but also “[u]nfortunately it will affect the lives of others, and likely the lives of the people you love the most.”
Bourla stated that the trial’s efficacy data “provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent COVID-19.” And “With today’s news, we are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help bring an end to this global health crisis.” They didn’t have the receipts.
The suit is seeking redress for a number of counts, including misrepresentations concerning relative risk reduction, misrepresentations concerning the durability of protection, misrepresentations concerning transmission, misrepresentations concerning protection against variants, and one count of scheming to conceal vaccine underperformance.
In my opinion, the vaccine rollout is a wide-ranging conspiracy across the whole of government and the private sector. This lawsuit uncovers but a small fraction of what Pfizer is responsible for. It is a wonderful first step. There are brave people—doctors, individuals, service members, moms, dads, grandparents, and organizations suing across the country because of the havoc these vaccines caused. No, they didn’t “save lives.” This lawsuit proves that at a basic level.
I will be following this lawsuit in detail as it progresses through the court in TX. Stay tuned here at The Highwire for updates.
