Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla defended the law protecting vaccine makers from liability for vaccine injury, telling CNBC in an interview Tuesday that in a system where “litigations flourish, anyone can create a demand that the accident in a car happened because of a vaccine.”
The chances a jury would buy that story is a mere “flip of a coin,” Bourla told CNBC when asked why vaccine makers need a liability shield if their products are “safe and effective.”
Bourla’s suggestion that people falsely claim they were injured by a vaccine when they were injured by something else — like a car accident — was a trope common during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was one of many comments used by public health agencies to cast doubt on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — the primary government system for monitoring vaccine safety in the U.S. Anyone, including the general public and healthcare providers, can report adverse vaccine reactions to VAERS.
The system, co-managed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) historically underestimates vaccine injuries. It has registered nearly 2 million reports of adverse events following vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines since they were rolled out in December 2020.
The VAERS data includes a total of 37,869 reports of deaths and 314,958 serious injuries, between Dec. 14, 2020, and Jan. 31, 2025. Of the deaths, 23,868 reports are attributed to the Pfizer vaccine.
Bourla told CNBC that if their products aren’t safe and effective, “we’ll never get approval from the FDA and other health authorities,” which he said are “very strict.”
He also said he disagreed with U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s statement that “We don’t have any good safety studies on almost any of the vaccines and specifically on the COVID vaccines … and that is a crime.”
However, Bourla said he is focused on his points of agreement with Kennedy and President Donald Trump and on “what we can do together outside of the vaccines.” He hopes to partner with the administration to “make America healthy again,” he said.
Bourla’s comments come two days before a planned meeting between Trump and the pharmaceutical industry’s top lobbying group, PhRMA, set for Thursday. Bourla is the group’s incoming chairman.
Under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, vaccine makers are protected from liability for injuries associated with all vaccines listed on the CDC childhood vaccine schedule.
The law makes it extremely difficult to sue vaccine makers for injuries caused by their vaccines. Instead, people injured by vaccines can seek compensation through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, also known as the “Vaccine Court.”
While the program has paid out more than $5 billion to people injured by vaccines on the childhood schedule — evidence that vaccines can and do cause harm — it only accounts for a fraction of the injuries that people have experienced.
For vaccines and other drugs, called “covered countermeasures,” created in response to a public health emergency — like the COVID-19 vaccine and Paxlovid, another Pfizer product — drugmakers are protected by a different law: the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness, or PREP, Act.
Compensation under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) set up by the PREP Act, is even more difficult to access. Of the over 13,500 claims for COVID-19 countermeasures injuries filed with the CICP, only 20 had been compensated as of December 2024, with a total payout of $439,704.35. Most of that money went to a single myocarditis claim for $370,376.
For decades, liability for vaccine makers has gone largely unquestioned, except by the families of children injured by vaccines struggling for compensation and more recently, people injured by the COVID-19 vaccine.
Widespread public dissatisfaction with the mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic has generated distrust of public health agencies and raised questions about the liability shield for vaccines in general and the COVID-19 vaccines specifically.
Even reporters in the mainstream media, like the CNBC reporters, are asking questions.
A recent poll commissioned by Children’s Health Defense showed that today 57% of national voters believed people should be able to sue the manufacturer of a vaccine that caused them harm.
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Calls for ban on COVID vaccines heat up
A growing chorus of researchers, scientists and the public are demanding that public health officials hit the pause button on COVID-19 vaccines until definitive safety studies are performed.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, tapped by Trump to lead the National Institutes of Health, is a signatory to The Hope Accord, a petition calling for the mRNA vaccines to be paused and retested.
Others being considered for advisory roles within the administration, such as Dr. Aseem Malhotra, have also called for the COVID-19 vaccines to be suspended and reassessed.
Malhotra today posted on X a DailyMail article claiming the COVID-19 vaccines may be banned by the Trump administration. Malhotra wrote, “The mainstream media dam has burst. We did it — this is HUGE.”
BREAKING 🔥🔥🔥
‘Covid vaccine faces ban for ALL Americans in radical U turn by Trump team’
Covid vaccines could be suspended for all age groups in America under radical new plans backed by key health figures in the Trump Administration.
Several experts poised for top jobs in… pic.twitter.com/Qop61PjN5u— Dr Aseem Malhotra (@DrAseemMalhotra) February 19, 2025
Yesterday, in his welcome address to his HHS staff, Kennedy said he will direct HHS to investigate many possible causes of the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S. — including “formerly taboo” topics like the childhood vaccine schedule.
Under the first Trump administration, the COVID-19 vaccines were developed and distributed in partnership with Pfizer and others as part of Operation Warp Speed. Recently, Trump has signaled a turn from his first administration’s position on the COVID-19 vaccines.
Last week he signed an executive order to defund schools, universities and other education agencies that require COVID-19 vaccines for students and staff.
He also signed an executive order to reinstate service members who were discharged under the military’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate. The U.S. Department of Defense plans to invite those service members back at the same rank they previously held.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security under Trump also ended the Biden administration requirement that green card applicants show proof of vaccination, according to Breitbart.
Several states are weighing laws that would impose a moratorium, or altogether ban mRNA vaccines, including the COVID-19 shots.
Related articles in The Defender
- Breaking: Trump to Strip Federal Funding From Schools That Mandate COVID Vaccines
- Kentucky, Montana, Idaho Among States Looking to Ban mRNA Vaccines
- Poll: More Than Half of Americans Want Right to Sue Vaccine Makers for Injuries
- ‘Truth Is Becoming More Obvious’: Author of New Peer-reviewed Study Calls for Moratorium on COVID mRNA Vaccines
- COVID Vaccines Pose 112,000% Greater Risk of Brain Clots, Strokes Than Flu Shots
