Is this just legal talk or did Pfizer just admit that the government were in bed with them in all the fraud?
A lawsuit has been filed by Brook Jackson (Pfizer whistleblower) alleging Pfizer and two of its contractors manipulated data, amongst other acts of fraud, during the clinical trials.
Jackson was the regional director for the Ventavia Research Group the company conducting Pfizer's important phase III trial in Texas in 2020. After witnessing extremely shoddy practice she emailed her concerns to the FDA. These concerns were ignored, meanwhile Ventavia fired Jackson and which has resulted in this legal action under the False Claims Act against Pfizer, Ventavia and ICON.
Now Pfizer has asked the US court to throw out the lawsuit
on the basis that the company can’t be guilty of fraud, abuse, and protocol violations in its vaccine trials because the contract allowed them to skirt regulations and federal law.
Jackson’s lawyer said Pfizer argued the lawsuit should be dismissed because the US government knew of the wrongdoings in the clinical trial but continued to do business with the vaccine maker.
Under the False Claims Act a whistleblower can be rewarded for disclosing fraud resulting in financial loss to the federal government. However, a 2016 Supreme Court decision expanded “materiality” and interpreted that if the government continued to pay a contractor, despite the contractor’s fraudulent behaviour, the fraud was not considered “material” to the contract.
In the words of the lead attorney, Robert Barnes;
Pfizer claims they can get away with fraud as long as the government would write the a check despite knowing about the fraud.
