Florida Sues Pfizer and CEO Bourla, Alleging Vaccine Maker Hid Myocarditis and Miscarriage Risks

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit against Pfizer and CEO Albert Bourla on October 1 in St. Lucie County Circuit Court, accusing the company of deceptively marketing its COVID-19 vaccine as safe while sitting on data about serious side effects.

The 49-page complaint invokes Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. It seeks civil penalties of $10,000 to $15,000 per violation, disgorgement of profits, attorney fees and a permanent injunction, according to legalnewsline.

"Pfizer's marketing campaign that drove record-breaking profits rested on deception and falsehoods," the complaint states, as quoted by legalnewsline and the Florida Phoenix.

What the complaint alleges

The lawsuit centers on myocarditis and pericarditis, heart inflammation conditions that later showed up in federal warnings on mRNA vaccines, particularly for adolescent and young adult males. Uthmeier's complaint says Pfizer knew about these reports well before it stopped publicly downplaying safety concerns.

It also cites a specific contradiction. In a January 2023 CNBC interview, Bourla said Pfizer had seen "not a single [safety] signal" despite distributing billions of doses, according to the Epoch Times. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated later in 2023, after that interview, that it had found a causal link between the vaccine and myocarditis, the Epoch Times reported. Pfizer's own website now states its data "demonstrate increased risks of myocarditis" and pericarditis, particularly within the first week after vaccination.

On pregnancy, the complaint alleges Pfizer had reason to believe its vaccine carried risks in the first trimester, citing fetal abnormalities detected in rat testing and early miscarriage reports, according to the Epoch Times. A newsletter account from Nicolas Hulscher, citing the complaint directly, states Pfizer's own adverse-event database recorded 158,893 adverse events from 42,086 case reports by February 28, 2021, roughly ten weeks after emergency authorization, including 1,223 reported deaths and 52 reported miscarriages among 458 pregnancy-related reports. These figures come from allegations in the complaint, not an independent finding by a court, and raw adverse-event reports by themselves do not establish that the vaccine caused the outcomes reported.

Pfizer's defense on the rat-testing point, cited in its own filing to Australian regulators and referenced in the Epoch Times, was that the higher incidence of abnormalities was "not considered to be treatment-related." Pfizer's current vaccine label states there is no available data on use in pregnant women before 24 weeks gestation regarding major birth defects or miscarriage risk, a gap in data rather than a confirmed finding of harm.

The complaint also targets statements suggesting vaccination was necessary to stop transmission to loved ones, including a December 2020 Bourla comment that unvaccinated people risked "the lives of the people you love the most." Florida argues Pfizer's original clinical trials never tested whether the vaccine prevented transmission, according to legalnewsline.

The money numbers

WorldNetDaily, citing Reuters, reported the complaint says Pfizer made more than $80 billion from vaccine sales and then raised the price from roughly $30 a dose to $110-$130 a dose in 2023. The lawsuit does not seek damages for individual vaccine recipients; it is a consumer-protection action targeting the marketing conduct itself, legalnewsline reported.

Pfizer's response

Pfizer issued a written statement carried by the Florida Phoenix: "We are proud to have developed the COVID-19 vaccine in record time in the midst of a global pandemic and saved countless lives. 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 said Florida's allegations "have no merit" and that it will respond in court.

Pfizer's core position is that the vaccine was authorized by the FDA in December 2020, has been given to billions of people worldwide, and the company accurately described a rapidly evolving safety picture as new data came in rather than concealing a known risk from the start.

Political backdrop

Uthmeier tied the Pfizer suit to a separate, ongoing matter. "Weeks ago, we learned Fauci and the biomedical state knew the COVID jabs were dangerous but hid it from us," he said in a video statement announcing the lawsuit, referring to former federal health official Anthony Fauci. "While that investigation continues, today we sued Pfizer," he said, according to legalnewsline and WorldNetDaily. That Fauci-related investigation is separate from this lawsuit and has not resulted in charges described in these reports.

The Florida Phoenix noted the broader state context. Governor Ron DeSantis eased pandemic restrictions and later installed Dr. Joseph Ladapo, a vaccine skeptic, as state surgeon general, a shift that shaped Florida's posture toward vaccine makers well before this filing.

The Epoch Times also noted that a federal judge has previously ruled in Pfizer's favor in a separate lawsuit concerning the company's COVID-19 vaccine, meaning this is not the first time Pfizer's vaccine marketing has faced legal challenge, nor the first time Pfizer has prevailed.

The case now moves forward in St. Lucie County Circuit Court. No trial date was reported in the available filings. Whether Florida can show Pfizer's public statements crossed from optimistic science communication into actionable deception under state consumer-protection law is the question a judge will eventually have to answer.