(Bethany Blankley, The Center Square) Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis requesting that a grand jury be convened to investigate what he called the “biggest vaccine fraud in history” is historic, the Orlando-based religious freedom legal foundation, Liberty Counsel, says.
On Tuesday, DeSantis held a “Public Health Integrity Committee” live roundtable conference with medical professionals and individuals who said they were injured by the vaccine. DeSantis also said he filed a “petition with the Supreme Court of Florida to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate any and all wrongdoing in Florida with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines.”
He said he anticipated “we will get approval for that. And that will come with legal processes that will be able to get more information to bring legal accountability to those who committed misconduct.
“In Florida, it is against the law to mislead and to misrepresent, particularly when you’re talking about the efficacy of a drug,” the governor said.
Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo also will conduct research through the University of Florida to assess sudden deaths of individuals in good health who received a COVID-19 vaccine, he said. The Department of Health will also utilize disease surveillance and vital statistics to assess such deaths and investigate alleged dishonesty communicated by the scientific community and the media.
“Our media has clearly demonstrated that it is impossible to accurately report on something when you are taking money from that same something,” Dr. Ladapo said, referring to news organizations that receive hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising from the pharmaceutical industry.
He also referred to a recent study resulting from a German university performing autopsies on individuals who died suddenly within weeks of receiving a COVID-19 nNRA shot, including those diagnosed with myocarditis specifically attributed to the drug.
“It’s important to note that all of these people died suddenly at home and these people are not counted in the estimates that the CDC likes to pretend are accurate,” Ladapo said. “We will be studying the incidents of myocarditis within a few weeks of COVID-19 vaccination for people who died. This is going to be a surveillance study with some of our medical examiners in Florida and researchers from the University of Florida. We will answer this question that probably keeps the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna awake at night.”
The public health committee joining DeSantis and Ladapo included Stanford University Professor of Medicine Jay Bhattacharya, New Orleans-based Emergency Medicine Physician Dr. Joseph Fraiman, Indiana University Associate Professor of Microbiology & Immunology Steve Templeton; University of Southern Denmark Professor in Global Health Christine Stabell Benn; biostatistician, epidemiologist and former Harvard Medical School professor Martin Kulldorff, among others.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “It is past time to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for the harm caused by their profit-making vaccines, especially when they withhold and misrepresent relevant data that the public has a right to know.”
Liberty Counsel is continuing to defend military service members in lawsuits filed against the Department of Defense over its refusal to accept religious accommodation requests to exempt service members from the DOD’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Even if the mandate is repealed, which Staver argues “isn’t enough,” Liberty Counsel will still pursue its cases because of how the DOD handled the RARs and allegedly caused harm to service members.
Staver is also calling for Congress to repeal liability protection that pharmaceutical companies received through the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which Congress passed to reportedly reduce vaccine injury lawsuits. Congress passed the bill, which was incorporated into a larger healthcare bill, which President Ronald Reagan signed into law on Nov. 14, 1986.
“If vaccine companies were held to the same standards of liability that drug manufacturers must shoulder, the COVID-19 shots would have ended months ago,” Staver argues. “Vaccines are all profit and no accountability, and that must change. Thankfully, Gov. Ron DeSantis will convene a grand jury to investigate the biggest vaccine fraud in history.”
