Kansas AG Kris Kobach accuses Pfizer of misleading vaccine marketing in lawsuit

The state is seeking “civil monetary penalties, compensatory damages and an injunction against misleading and deceptive statements in the marketing of its COVID-19 vaccine,” Kobach said.

In the complaint, Kobach alleges that Pfizer intentionally concealed, suppressed and omitted material facts regarding the COVID-19 vaccine, the “most egregious” ones being the vaccine’s safety for pregnant women, regarding heart disease, its effectiveness against variants and its ability to stop transmission.

“Pfizer marketed its vaccine as safe for pregnant women,” Kobach said. “However, as of February 2021, (they) had reports of 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.”

The rate of “adverse events” — a term that refers to any negative reaction — was higher in pregnant women than in the general population, at about 17 percent, according to a study published in the journal Medicine in February 2022.

A previous study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in April 2021 offered preliminary results that showed no significant safety concerns among pregnant people who received the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, indicating that the observed miscarriages were not unusual and likely not a direct result of the vaccine.

Kobach says Pfizer marketed the vaccine as safe with respect to heart conditions such as myocarditis and pericarditis. He referred to a question Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO, was asked in January 2023 about whether the vaccine caused severe myocarditis, to which Bourla responded “we haven’t seen a single signal, even though we’ve distributed billions of doses.”

“However, 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,” Kobach said.

According to the CDC, cases of myocarditis and pericarditis caused by the COVID-19 vaccine are rare, and most patients experienced resolution of symptoms by the time they were discharged from the hospital.

Kobach says Pfizer marketed its vaccine as effective against COVID-19 variants, “even though the data available at the time showed that Pfizer’s vaccine was effective less than half the time.”

His final claim in the complaint was that the company falsely marketed the vaccine to prevent transmission.

“Pfizer encouraged Americans to get vaccinated to protect their loved ones, which clearly indicates a claim that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccination stopped transmission,” Kobach said. “Pfizer later admitted that it never even investigated transmission after recipients received the vaccine.”

In a statement, Pfizer said its COVID-19 vaccine saved countless lives and that the company’s claims about the vaccine were accurate and based on science.

“The company believes the state’s lawsuit has no merit and will respond to the lawsuit in due course,” the statement said. “Pfizer is deeply committed to the well-being of the patients it serves and has no higher priority than ensuring the safety and effectiveness of its treatments and vaccines.”

Kansas is the first state to file such a lawsuit, although Kobach says five other states will join. They will make their own announcements. The only other state confirmed is Idaho.

“More lawsuits may follow, depending on Pfizer’s response,” Kobach said.

In 2023, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Pfizer for “falsely misrepresenting the effectiveness of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine and attempting to censor public discussion of the product.” That lawsuit was also based on the state’s consumer protection law.

The lawsuit was filed in Thomas County. Kobach says it was because they wanted to go to a place with a lighter workload, to make sure they had time to handle it.

When asked if he had received the Pfizer vaccine, Kobach declined to answer. “I think whether I received the vaccine is irrelevant to the lawsuit, it’s not about me,” he said. “It’s about the statements that were made to the people of Kansas.”