Florida Sues Pfizer and CEO Bourla Over COVID Vaccine Marketing

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sued Pfizer and Chief Executive Albert Bourla on Thursday, accusing the company of misleading the public about the safety and effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine.

The case was filed in state court under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Uthmeier alleges Pfizer told consumers the shot was safe while failing to disclose potential risks, including heart inflammation and other adverse events, and urged people to take it to protect others even though the company had not tested whether the vaccine stopped the virus from spreading. The complaint also accuses Pfizer of unfair tactics to dominate the market.

“Weeks ago we learned Fauci and the biomedical state knew the COVID jabs were dangerous but hid it from us,” Uthmeier wrote on X. “While that investigation continues, today we sued Pfizer for deceptively marketing the products as safe—making billions—while pregnant women were miscarrying their babies and teenagers were having heart attacks.”

Reuters reported that the state says Pfizer made more than $80 billion from vaccine sales, then nearly quadrupled the price, from about $30 a dose to $110 to $130 in 2023. Florida is asking a court to stop the alleged conduct, impose fines of $10,000 per violation, or $15,000 when seniors or disabled people were harmed, and order the return of profits.

Pfizer rejected the claims. “The representations made by Pfizer about its COVID-19 vaccine have been accurate and science-based, and the company stands behind the safety and efficacy of its vaccine,” the company told Reuters. It said the allegations lack merit and that it will respond in court.

The suit is a consumer-protection case, not a federal criminal indictment and not a finding that any particular injury was caused by the product. Those distinctions matter. What the attorney general has put in front of a Florida judge is a marketing record: what Pfizer said about safety, what it said about transmission, what it disclosed about heart inflammation, and what it charged after the government purchase agreements wound down.

Uthmeier’s filing follows a run of state and congressional reviews of COVID-era decisions, including hospital protocols and origins questions that have already produced hearings and records fights. Florida is using a statute aimed at deceptive trade practices rather than waiting on a federal agency. The per-violation fine structure is the leverage. If a court treats each covered sale or advertisement as a separate violation, the exposure is large even before any disgorgement of profits. Pfizer’s defense is that its statements were accurate and grounded in the science available at the time, and that the vaccine’s safety and efficacy hold.

The company has not yet filed its answer in the public accounts of the case. The next substantive step is Pfizer’s response in the state court where Uthmeier filed.