Kansas AG sues Pfizer over alleged COVID vaccine misrepresentation

FILE – A man walks past Pfizer headquarters on Friday, February 5, 2021, in New York. Pfizer reports results on Tuesday, January 30, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)

(NewsNation) — The state of Kansas has sued pharmaceutical company Pfizer, accusing it of misleading the public about its COVID-19 vaccine by making false claims about its effectiveness.

In the lawsuit filed Monday, Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach claims Pfizer misled Kansas residents by claiming the vaccine was safe and hiding evidence of the shot's link to myocarditis and pregnancy problems.

“Pfizer made several misleading statements to mislead the public about its vaccine at a time when Americans needed to know the truth,” he said in a statement.

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“Millions of Kansans heard Pfizer’s false claims”: lawsuit

Kobach claims Pfizer's alleged misrepresentations violated Kansas consumer protection law. The state is seeking unspecified damages.

“Millions of Kansans have heard Pfizer’s false claims about its COVID-19 vaccine,” the suit alleges.

The complaint alleges that Pfizer generated “record revenue” of approximately $75 billion in just two years thanks to its “false statements” about the vaccine.

“For example, Pfizer administered 3,355,518 doses of Pfizer vaccine in Kansas as of February 7, 2024. This represented more than 60% of all vaccine doses in Kansas,” the suit claims, citing the Kansas Department of Health Data .

Additionally, the complaint claims Pfizer gave a false impression to residents by claiming its vaccine was effective, but “knew” the vaccine waned over time and did not protect against COVID-19 variants.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration added a warning in 2021 about myocarditis and pericarditis, two rare inflammatory heart diseases, to the COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

COVID-19 vaccine studies conducted last year by the National Institutes of Health found no evidence that the shots are linked to an increased risk of miscarriage.

Is Pfizer planning to react?

In a statement to The Hill, Pfizer says the case has “no merit” and plans to respond to the lawsuit “in due course.”

“We are proud to have developed the COVID-19 vaccine in record time in the midst of a global pandemic and to have saved countless lives. The statements made by Pfizer about its COVID-19 vaccine are accurate and based on science,” the company said.

COVID-19 vaccine linked to possible health problems: study

Kobach's lawsuit comes as a new study has uncovered possible links between COVID-19 vaccines and possible neurological, blood and heart diseases.

The new study is the largest of its kind since the start of the pandemic and could reignite the debate about the risks and benefits of the vaccine.

Additionally, the complaint follows a similar lawsuit filed last year by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who claims Pfizer misled the public by claiming the vaccine was 95% effective. The case is pending.

Over the past three years, more than 13.5 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered worldwide. The World Health Organization recently announced that vaccination has saved at least 1.5 million lives in Europe alone.

More than 366 million doses of Pfizer's original BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in the United States

NewsNation correspondent Nancy Loo and The Hill contributed to this report.