The Florida Supreme Court last week approved Gov. Ron DeSantis’ petition for a statewide grand jury to investigate criminal activity and wrongdoing related to the development, testing and promotion of the COVID-19 vaccines in the state.
In its order impaneling the 18-member grand jury for a period of 12 months, the high court stressed that its responsibility for approving the grand jury investigation was “ministerial in nature,” as opposed to a ruling on the merits of the governor’s petition.
DeSantis’ petition alleges that pharmaceutical companies and individuals created perceptions that the vaccines prevented any transmission of the virus – and that they had a financial motive to do this.
The petition calls on investigators to look into possible offenses related to “individuals, persons, and entities, including … pharmaceutical manufacturers (and their executive officers) and other medical associations or organizations involved in the design, development, clinical testing or investigation, manufacture, marketing, representation, advertising, promotion, labeling, distribution, formulation, packing, sale, purchase, donation, dispensing, prescribing, administration, or use of vaccines purported to prevent COVID-19 infection, symptoms and transmission.”
One of the pharmaceutical companies involved in the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer, defended the safety of its vaccine and the clinical trials and scientific data collected to show its effectiveness.
“Regulatory agencies across the world have authorized the use of our COVID-19 vaccine,” a Pfizer spokeswoman, Keanna Ghazvini, told the Florida Record in an email. “These authorizations are based on robust and independent evaluation of the scientific data on quality, safety and efficacy, including our landmark phase-3 clinical trial. Data from real-world studies complement the clinical trial data and provide additional evidence that the vaccine provides effective protection against severe disease.”
The company did not refer specifically to the Florida grand jury probe in its comments to the Record, but Pfizer stressed that the vaccine provided protection that saved lives nationwide.
“Over the course of this deadly pandemic, mRNA vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, tens of billions of dollars in health care costs and enabled people worldwide to go about their lives more freely,” Ghazvini said. “As of Nov. 27, 2022, we have delivered 4.3 billion vaccines to 181 countries and territories in every region of the world.”
The coronavirus grand jury probe marks the third time that DeSantis successfully petitioned for a statewide grand jury to investigate a public-policy issue during his first four-year term as governor. In contrast, former Gov. Rick Scott, who served from 2011 to 2019, did not petition for any grand juries, and former Gov. Charlie Crist, who served from 2007 to 2011, petitioned for two statewide grand juries.
The chief judge of the 13th Judicial Circuit, Ronald Ficarrotta, was tapped by the high court to be the presiding judge overseeing the grand jury.