Directed to investigate possible wrongdoing related to COVID-19 vaccines, a statewide grand jury released a report Tuesday that found “deceptive and obfuscatory behavior” that “straddled the line between ethical and unethical conduct.”
While it didn’t find criminal activity, the grand jury recommended a series of changes at the state and federal levels.
“While a few of our recommendations are specific to the COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, we also believe that our other recommendations could serve as a basis for substantive public policy changes that would be in the best interests of the American people, who rely upon the quality and safety of our regulatory system for all pharmaceutical products,” the report said.
For example, at the state level, the report questioned a time limit for statewide grand juries, which, with a six-month extension, can run for 18 months, and called for putting criminal sanctions in law for not complying with statewide grand-jury subpoenas. The report said multinational corporations that were part of the COVID-19 investigation were headquartered outside of Florida.
“If those subpoena recipients had chosen to raise legal challenges to our subpoenas, it might have taken many months to shepherd those challenges through the trial and appellate courts before we could even begin receiving documents,” the report states. “This did not come to pass, but there is no reason to expect that will be the case in future statewide grand juries.”
The report also called for Florida to enact “more widespread monitoring of wastewater for pathogens.”
“During the pandemic, states were able to glean valuable insight regarding the geographic spread of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) by monitoring viral load in samples gathered from wastewater treatment facilities,” the report said.
At the federal level, for example, the report called for new clinical trials of the vaccines and regulations against a "revolving door" in which employees move between the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the private sector.
“We understand that prior experience in the regulatory arm of a particular industry can be an attractive quality in a potential job candidate, just as private sector experience can help a regulator interface with these private actors,” the report said. “This phenomenon has clearly produced a ‘fellow traveler’ attitude between the pharmaceutical companies and the agencies designed to regulate them. The boats of the regulators and the regulated are not supposed to be rowing in the same direction.”
The grand jury did not pursue criminal charges, in part, because it did not uncover activities involving vaccine makers and distributors that were not approved by federal regulators, the report said. Also, the grand jury did not find “statements that were both objectively false and sufficiently precise to support a criminal prosecution.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic gave sponsors (pharmaceutical companies) enormous leverage over federal regulators, and they were certainly not afraid to use it. Still, regulators had the responsibility to recognize and temper these intentions,” the report said. “It is hard to lay blame solely at the feet of the pharmaceutical industry for cutting regulatory comers when government actors were holding their hand the whole way. The lack of tension between federal regulators and sponsors is a significant problem.”
The grand jury was set up in December 2022, as Gov. Ron DeSantis was planning to embark on a run for the Republican presidential nomination. The report said the grand jury “did not draft this final report to win any arguments or settle any scores.”
“Given the political, social and cultural wars that have been waged over the last four years, asking those who read this document to keep an open mind is probably asking for too much,” the report said. “Instead, we will just say that no matter what anyone's prior opinions are regarding these issues, our findings will likely confirm some of them and debunk others.”
