Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is challenging Pfizer’s immunity from liability under his state’s consumer protection laws. Pharmaceutical companies are protected from liability lawsuits brought by individual Americans who are harmed by their products. Paxton sued Pfizer in 2023 for deceptive marketing practices, alleging that the company lied to the public about the safety and efficacy of its COVID mRNA shots. A lower court dismissed the case, but Paxton is now challenging that ruling in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
When a pharmaceutical company’s product hurts a person, they cannot sue the company for their injuries. That’s because of a 2005 law signed by George W. Bush, called the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act). It’s a law that makes almost no sense to Americans.
If an auto manufacturer makes a defective airbag and you get hurt in a fender bender, you can sue the company to pay for your hospital bills. If a toy company makes a defective tricycle and your toddler gets hurt, it’s the same deal. Being able to sue a company that makes a defective product that hurts someone is a fundamental part of Americans’ sense of justice and fairness. (We’re not talking about frivolous lawsuits, which are something else entirely.)
But if a vaccine gives your child autism, causes you to go blind, paralyzes you, or kills one of your loved ones, you cannot sue the vaccine manufacturer over its defective product. That’s because of the PREP Act.
Vaccine companies enjoy a bizarre liability shield that no other product manufacturer in America has. They cannot be sued by individuals.
Ken Paxton thinks he might have found a way around that, however. The PREP Act protects Pfizer from being sued by individual Texans who were hurt by the shots. Paxton is arguing that the PREP Act does not apply to the state of Texas as an entity. He’s suing Pfizer for $10 million in damages and for an injunction that will prevent Pfizer from lying to the public about its products in the future.
In the lawsuit, Paxton argues that Pfizer used “false” and “deceptive” marketing to push the company’s COVID jabs on the public. The state alleges that Pfizer violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Pfizer claimed that its so-called vaccines were “a miracle cure” (sounds very science-y, doesn’t it?). Paxton says these false claims “led Texas consumers to make choices they would not have otherwise made” and “Pfizer enriched itself based on these misleading statements to the tune of billions of dollars.”
Paxton also alleges that Pfizer proactively censored any scientists who tried to set the record straight about its safe and effective miracle cure.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Lubbock Division, immediately dismissed Paxton’s case, stating that Pfizer enjoys PREP Act immunity. The courts are so accustomed to dismissing cases against vaccine companies that the judge didn’t even bother to write out a full case ruling. He dismissed Paxton’s suit with a simple one-page note, claiming the PREP Act protects Pfizer.
Paxton says… not so fast.
He filed an appellate brief with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals this week, arguing that the PREP Act only applies to individual Americans. The law doesn’t say anything about pharmaceutical companies being protected from lawsuits brought by state agencies. Many legal experts think Paxton’s strategy has a good chance of prevailing.
The federal appellate courts haven’t been as quick to jump in front of Pfizer and protect the company in every case. For example, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Los Angeles teachers who were fired in 2021 for refusing to take the COVID shots. Not only that, but the Ninth Circuit declared in its thoughtful ruling that the jabs are not even real vaccines. They’re a type of gene-altering product.
That is the highest-ranking court ruling on the COVID shots so far, and it is the current federal precedent. So, don’t let anyone try to tell you anything different. The COVID shots are NOT vaccines, according to the federal courts.
Lawsuits in Utah, North Carolina, and Kansas are also challenging Pfizer and Moderna’s immunity under the PREP Act. Each case is attacking the pharmaceutical industry’s bizarre immunity shield from different angles. We should hope that these cases prevail, so that the many American victims of the COVID shots can finally seek justice for their injuries.