In a recent development, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has initiated legal proceedings against pharmaceutical behemoth Pfizer.
The lawsuit, filed on Thursday, accuses the company of "unlawfully misrepresenting the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine and attempting to stifle public discourse about the product."
The Attorney General's office, in a press statement, claimed that Pfizer had contravened the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The company allegedly engaged in "false, deceptive, and misleading acts and practices" by making unsubstantiated assertions about its COVID-19 vaccine.
Pfizer had previously declared that its vaccine had a 95 percent efficacy rate, a claim that the lawsuit labels as "highly misleading." The lawsuit elaborates, "Pfizers widespread representation that its vaccine possessed 95% efficacy against infection was highly misleading from the outset.
This figure was only ever valid in a singular, highly technical, and artificial mannerit represented a calculation of the so-called 'relative risk reduction for vaccinated individuals in Pfizers then-unfinished pivotal clinical trial."
The lawsuit further points out that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) publications suggest that 'relative risk reduction' is a deceptive statistic that can unduly sway consumer choice.
The lawsuit also criticizes Pfizer's reliance on clinical trial data spanning two months, during which only 162 out of 17,000 placebo patients received the Covid vaccine. The lawsuit argues, "Based on these figures, vaccination status had a negligible effect on whether a trial participant contracted COVID-19. The risk of contracting COVID-19 was so minimal during this brief period that Pfizers vaccine only marginally improved a persons risk of infection."
The lawsuit also highlights instances in late 2021 where some regions reported "negative vaccine efficacy," implying that more vaccinated individuals contracted the virus than those who were not vaccinated. It also mentions areas where Covid rates increased despite a rise in vaccination.
The lawsuit alleges, "How did Pfizer react when it became clear that its vaccine was failing and the viability of its cash cow was in jeopardy? By intimidating those spreading the truth, and by conspiring to censor the vaccines critics. Pfizer labeled as 'criminals' those who disseminated facts about the vaccine. It accused them of spreading misinformation.
And it pressured social media platforms to silence prominent truth-tellers. In fact, 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."
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