by Nicolas Hulscher, MPH – originally published on Focal Points substack
VERSIONE SINTETICA IN ITALIANO
All links to previous Gospa News posts have been added in the aftermath by virtue of the ties with topics covered
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has filed a sweeping lawsuit against Pfizer and its CEO, Albert Bourla, accusing them of deceiving the public about the safety and transmission-prevention capabilities of Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA injection.
The 49-page complaint was filed on October 1, 2026, in St. Lucie County, Florida, and targets Pfizer and Bourla personally under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.
The complaint opens with a striking line: “Those people are criminals.”That is how Bourla described people who publicly raised safety concerns about Pfizer’s COVID-19 injection.
At the center of the case is an explosive allegation: Pfizer publicly assured Americans that its COVID shot was safe while the company possessed internal and external safety information involving myocarditis, miscarriages, strokes, adverse events, and deaths.
According to the complaint, Pfizer’s own adverse-event database contained 158,893 adverse events from 42,086 case reports by February 28, 2021—only about 10 weeks after the vaccine received emergency authorization.
Yet in January 2023, Bourla publicly stated that Pfizer had seen “not a single [safety] signal” despite billions of doses having been administered.
Florida argues that statement was fundamentally incompatible with information already known about myocarditis and pericarditis.
The complaint also states that Pfizer’s database contained 1,223 reported fatalities following vaccination as of February 28, 2021.
Florida argues that the existence of this volume of serious adverse-event information undermined Pfizer’s sweeping public safety messaging.
The volume of reports became so large, according to the filing, that Pfizer hired 600 additional full-time employees and expected to hire another 1,800 workers to process adverse-event reports.
Another major section of the lawsuit concerns pregnancy.
The complaint states that by February 28, 2021, Pfizer had reports involving 458 pregnant women exposed to its COVID vaccine. Of those reports, 248 involved an adverse event and 52 involved miscarriage, according to the filing. Nearly all of the reported miscarriages occurred during the first trimester.
The lawsuit also points to Pfizer’s planned clinical trial involving pregnant women.
Pfizer initially sought approximately 4,000 participants, but the complaint states that only 348 mothers and 335 infants were ultimately enrolled and that the study was terminated early. The women vaccinated in that study were 24–34 weeks pregnant, meaning the trial did not directly provide first-trimester vaccination data.
The complaint further cites the Comirnaty package insert as stating that there are no available data on use before 24 weeks sufficient to inform risks for major birth defects and miscarriage.
The second enormous pillar of Florida’s case concerns transmission. Pfizer and Bourla repeatedly told the public that vaccination would protect other people.
In December 2021, for example, Pfizer said that getting as many people vaccinated and boosted as possible remained the best course of action to “prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
But according to the complaint, Pfizer’s pivotal clinical trial did not test whether vaccination prevented person-to-person transmission.
The FDA itself stated in December 2020 that there was no evidence at that time that the vaccine prevented SARS-CoV-2 transmission from one person to another, and transmission was not an objective of Pfizer’s trial protocol.
A Pfizer executive later publicly acknowledged that the vaccine had not been tested for stopping transmission before entering the market.
Florida alleges that Pfizer nevertheless used the idea of protecting loved ones as a powerful marketing tool to increase vaccine uptake.
The financial stakes were enormous. The complaint states that Pfizer turned approximately $1.5 billion in research and development spending into more than $80 billion in COVID vaccine revenue.
Pfizer’s vaccine captured nearly 70% of the U.S. and European COVID vaccine markets, according to figures cited in the complaint.
Meanwhile, Bourla received approximately $101.8 million in compensation from Pfizer between 2020 and 2023.
Florida’s complaint goes beyond safety claims and accuses Pfizer of engaging in broader unfair business practices to dominate the COVID vaccine market.
Florida is seeking far more than a symbolic judgment. The Attorney General is asking the court for civil penalties, a permanent injunction against deceptive or unfair representations concerning Pfizer’s COVID vaccine, attorneys’ fees and other relief.
Most significantly, Florida is also seeking disgorgement—legal language meaning Pfizer could be forced to hand back profits connected to conduct the court ultimately determines violated Florida law.
Finally, a government is attempting to hold Pfizer and Albert Bourla accountable by at least some degree for their gross deception.
For years, the company’s false safety and transmission claims helped drive mass vaccine uptake. Now those fraudulent claims are headed to court.
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
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Attorney General James Uthmeier Files Lawsuit Against Pfizer and its CEO Dr. Albert Bourla
From the heinous crimes of the Epstein class to the Cornell 7, from the toxic cultures of the “manosphere” to the increase of antisocial relationships with online pornography and AI bots, we need to talk about what is going on with men in our society. We speak with renowned scholar, author, and commentator Dr. Mark Anthony Neal about his new book Save a Seat for Me: Notes on American Fatherhood, and about the ways American capitalism damages everyone and trains boys to become monstrous men.
Credits:
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Maximillian Alvarez:
I’m here at Red Emmas at the Baltimore Book Festival, and I’m sitting with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal. Brother Mark, it’s so great to have you back here in Baltimore, man. I know I only got you for a second, and we’re talking about your incredible new book, Save a Seat for Me, Notes on American Fatherhood. And I was thinking as another father in America in 2026, I wanted to ask you, it doesn’t take PhDs like we have to know that we’ve got a real fricking crisis in this country with men and masculinity and masculine culture and fatherhood, or we have a whole lot of crises that men are experiencing but aren’t dealing with well. So what do you make of all this? What do we do about it? And how can your book help us get there?
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
I think we have tried, America has tried to raise generations of warriors, if you will, to be on the front lines of American imperialism. And you can’t be human to do that. You can’t think, you can’t question, you can’t be vulnerable. So what we have done is raise two or three generations of men in America who don’t know how to be human, who don’t know how to lead into full range of who they are. We’ve been socialized to show up only certain kinds of ways, anger, rage, the ability to follow directions. Things like vulnerability are made fun of at the highest levels.
Maximillian Alvarez:
And those of us who are very vulnerable people have been made fun of.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
Because of that.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Because of that.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
We’ve been made to think that our responsibility in a capitalist system has literally been reduced to only making money, that our only value. And I think about this a lot as a Black father, my own father, that I’m sure he thought that his only value to me was making sure that I was fed and clothed and taken care of. And I get all of that, but I needed much more from him. As a father, I needed to be more than that for my daughters. And so I think when we look at young men who are clearly feeling so much with no outlet, their outlets become dangerous behaviors, self-directed violence,
Maximillian Alvarez:
Toxic online cultures,
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
All kinds of addictions, alcohol, Percocet, weed, porn. I mean, we can name all these things and understand it. And the fact that so many of the young men in the world today, their lives are what they can connect with on their handheld device. They don’t actually have relationships with people in the real world, don’t see a value in that. And I don’t know how we sustain that. I don’t know how we sustain our humanity in a situation where we don’t value human relationship anymore.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, and it’s like you see that the path that we’re on as a society or what’s left of a society is being driven by the sociopathic, psychopathic, bloodthirsty –
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
Or just plain evils.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Just plain evil maniacs who want a future where they get all the benefits of human society, but don’t have to deal with any of the humans in it. Whether they’re thinking of like, oh, AI is going to replace all their jobs and we’re going to get all the money. They’re not thinking about what the heck that’s going to mean for us. They’re just going to push us into slums and prisons and police us, hunt us, surveil us. That’s their big goddamn plan. And I think you put it so powerfully that it’s like so many men out there have the same human needs that we all have and we’re feeling them so acutely the more isolated we are, but we’re looking to find, we’re seeking inhuman avenues.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
I mean, think about all the folks who are in relationships with chat bots. I mean, it’s surreal. I can’t have a relationship with an actual person. I don’t desire a relationship with an actual person. I need to have a relationship with some facsimile, some avatar that somehow that’s more meaningful to me than having a relationship with a person.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Yeah. And I think even as a editor in chief and co-ED of a media network, as a media star, we recognize there’s only so much you can do online. You got to get the hell offline and you got to meet each other back on that level of shared humanity and shared reality because that’s the only way we’re going to deal with anything, anything in this country.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
And that’s why the Baltimore Book Festival is really important. First of all, not only just a reminder, someplace that’s celebrating the written word, obviously, but folks coming together in community. We have to get back to a culture where we share in community. We read together, we listen together, we debate together instead of these media silos. I’m going to have this debate over here on this network and you’re going to have this debate over there and never the twain shall meet.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, and final question, but it goes really to the heart of your book. Here in Baltimore, I see this every day. I feel it as a father, but right down the street from where I live in Mondamin, earlier this summer, there were six youth who were caught on camera just beating the hell out of an elderly member of the community, a former Black Panther. It was horrific. I’ve interviewed this man and the community that’s trying to help him, but clearly everyone who is showing up to help is seeing in that video the deficit of guidance, of fatherhood, of love.
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
Of respect. Basic respect.
Maximillian Alvarez:
So what can we do about that in our everyday lives at the person to person level?
Dr. Mark Anthony Neal:
We have to be willing not just to be witnesses to these experiences or commentators.
We have to intervene and feel comfortable enough to intervene. Whoever sat down with those young men, first of all, to explain, because the easy part is to say, no, this man was important to our movement in the past. The more difficult thing is like, no, this man is important because he’s another human being and you should value life and his humanity. But if they are young men who do not value their own humanity, don’t see their own humanity, they’re going to reproduce that behavior over and over again. And so we have to have the willingness because it’s real easy to go, I’m just going to build my life in this silo and protect my family and I get it. But to take that next step to say, okay, I might not be able to talk to all six of these brothers, try to talk to two of them.
Begin that process, that one-on-one conversation that can blossom into something that’s much more significant.
The European Union once prided itself on leading the world in protecting children. Today, policymakers backed by big polluters are betraying that promise in the name of “competitiveness”.
In June 2026, Florence, Franck, and Isabelle packed their bags and headed to Brussels. Why? Because their children have all suffered serious harm from pesticides.
These children have endured physical pain and heavy medical procedures, including repeated chemotherapy treatments. And their families have shouldered both the financial and emotional burdens alongside them.
As Isabelle puts it: “It destroys a family.” Her own daughter has been fighting leukaemia for the last seven years.
And they are not alone. In 2024, almost one in 20 children in the EU were exposed to dangerous levels of pesticides; that’s 380,000 kids. Now these parents have a clear message for policymakers: prioritise public health and stop dismantling the rules that protect children against harmful substances.
In 2024, around 316,000 tonnes of toxic pesticides were sold in the EU to be sprayed across our countryside, risking not only the health of farmers but also polluting our soil, air and water.
The European Environment Agency in Copenhagen has reported environmentally unsafe levels of pesticides in about a quarter of Europe’s rivers. In groundwater – which supplies 65 percent of the water we drink in Europe – unsafe levels were detected in 11-18 percent of water bodies.
In the same year, trifluoroacetic acid, a harmful “forever chemical” that forms when ‘PFAS’ pesticides and F-gases break down, showed up in 94 percent of drinking water samples tested across 11 EU countries.
We are surrounded by pesticide pollution. It’s even in our homes.
In December 2025, the European Commission proposed a legislative package that would remove fundamental environmental and health protections against pesticides in the EU.
Among other changes, the proposal – ironically labelled the ‘Food and Feed Safety’ Omnibus – suggests extending pesticide approvals indefinitely and relaxing the rules to allow pesticides already identified as hazardous to remain on the EU market.
Let that sink in, no pun intended.
These proposals are a political choice to prioritise short-term profits for Big Polluters over children’s lives, people’s health, and the nature and ecosystems we need to survive.
Human health is at stake, and children are at particular risk – as they absorb substances more easily and are less able to excrete them.
Pesticide exposure is linked to the development of childhood cancers, hormone disruption, neurodevelopmental impairments and birth defects. And prenatal and early childhood exposure can permanently alter development, with consequences that can be irreversible – and deadly.
Under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as the UN-declared human right to a healthy environment, all EU countries must commit to protecting children from environmental harm and ensure the highest attainable standard of health.
These principles must guide the work of EU institutions.
Yet, instead of strengthening protections, the EU is moving backwards at a worrying speed. This is largely due to intense (and repeated) lobbying from multi-billion euro corporations, which includes the pesticides industry. Corporate chemical giants now spend €46m a year just to lobby the EU; that’s over 60 percent more than in 2020.
The incoherence of current EU policy is troubling. On the one hand, the EU Commission is celebrating its new Intergenerational Fairness Strategy – a framework that is meant to ensure today’s policies do not disadvantage future generations. On the other, the same institution is actively seeking to relax controls of harmful substances.
Ripping up rules that protect people and the planet only benefits Big Polluters, industries that already make billions in profits at the expense of children’s health.
What’s more, an independent assessment found that the measures the EU institutions propose “will not accelerate innovations and authorisations”. In short, these proposals would actually make Europe less competitive.
Children’s rights and youth organisations have warned that deregulation exposes children to serious (and preventable) health risks. And the international scientific community recently stressed that robust environmental risk assessments cannot be optional.
Ultimately, Europe should widen and accelerate its access to pesticide-free alternatives. It must also support farmers in their efforts to transition away from pesticides, towards a more sustainable and resilient model.
So, what can be done? First, the EU must close the tap on pesticide use and production, and support farmers transitioning to safer alternatives. Second, it’s time for leaders to hold Big Polluters accountable for the damage they cause – not force the bill onto regular taxpayers and families harmed by these toxic substances.
Florence, Franck, and Isabelle’s children are among the hundreds of thousands already affected by pesticides. And they show that victims of pesticides are not just a statistic.
The ‘Food and Feed Safety Omnibus’ raises fundamental questions. Who exactly is the EU’s food policy supposed to protect? How many more children need to be harmed for politicians to act? And what kind of future do EU institutions want to build?
Should pesticide protections be treated as obstacles to short-term profits, or should children be able to grow up safely?
Politicians should reject this devastating Omnibus proposal and work instead to support the EU’s transition to safe, sustainable, and resilient farming.
Speaking ahead of an informal meeting of EU energy ministers in Dublin, Jørgensen said Europe had “surpassed €100 billion” in additional spending.
“We have now surpassed €100 billion that we’ve paid extra for our energy this year without receiving one extra molecule of gas or oil,” he said in the European Commission’s recording of his remarks.
The figure puts a direct cost on the price shock which has followed disruption to oil and liquefied natural gas supplies associated with the conflict involving Iran.
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted one of the world’s most important energy corridors. Under normal conditions, the waterway handles roughly one fifth of globally traded oil and significant LNG volumes.
Europe remains heavily exposed because most of the oil it consumes and about 80 per cent of its gas requirements come from outside the EU.
The consequences were already visible in trade figures published before the latest ministerial meeting.
Last week, EU Today reported that the EU’s oil import bill had risen 55.8 per cent in the second quarter compared with a year earlier, even though the physical volume of crude imported increased by only 1.2 per cent.
Europe was therefore paying substantially more without materially increasing the amount of energy it purchased.
The pressure has intensified as winter approaches.
EU gas storage is around 70 per cent full, roughly 12 percentage points below the level recorded at the same stage last year. Jørgensen has warned governments to continue filling storage or consider reducing demand if required.
Possible measures include limiting temperatures in public buildings, restricting outdoor heating and switching off unnecessary public lighting, according to recommendations circulated to governments ahead of the Dublin meeting.
The informal meeting of EU energy ministers focused on energy affordability, security of supply and Europe’s continuing exposure to international fossil-fuel markets.
Irish Energy Minister Darragh O’Brien described the situation as the second major fossil-fuel shock Europe had faced in four years and argued that domestic clean-energy production was essential if the EU wanted to reduce its vulnerability to future crises.
Europe is in a stronger physical position than during the 2022 energy crisis.
It has expanded LNG import infrastructure, increased renewable electricity generation and reduced gas demand. It has also sharply reduced its dependence on Russian pipeline gas.
But that restructuring has created different dependencies.
European buyers now compete more directly for LNG on global markets, meaning events in the Gulf, Asia or the United States can rapidly affect the price paid by European consumers.
EU Today reported earlier this month that reduced LNG availability and disruption around Hormuz had left European gas storage at historically weak seasonal levels.
Diesel presents another problem.
Europe became more dependent on imported refined products after reducing purchases from Russia, with the United States now supplying approximately half of EU diesel imports.
Washington has considered restrictions on diesel exports as domestic US prices rise. European officials have urged the Trump administration not to introduce such measures, warning that they would increase pressure on international markets.
Emergency reserves provide some protection.
EU countries are required to maintain strategic oil stocks, while the International Energy Agency coordinated a release of 400 million barrels from member-country reserves earlier this year.
France and Germany hold a particularly large share of Europe’s strategic diesel inventories. Further releases remain possible if international markets deteriorate, although no new coordinated decision has yet been taken.
The current crisis is also feeding into the EU’s longer-term energy debate.
Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg are now pressing for an EU renewable-energy target for 2040, arguing that increasing domestic electricity generation would reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels.
The security argument extends beyond climate policy. An EU Today Research Desk paper published in June examined how concentrated fossil-fuel supply routes and maritime chokepoints can transmit geopolitical shocks into European prices, infrastructure and industry.
The current disruption provides a practical example.
Europe has not bought substantially more fuel, but it is paying tens of billions of euros more because the international price of the energy it imports has risen.
The immediate concern is whether supplies and gas inventories will be sufficient through the coming winter without another sharp increase in prices.
The longer-term question is how much of Europe’s energy demand can be moved away from imported fossil fuels before another geopolitical crisis produces the same result.
For EU governments, Jørgensen’s €100 billion figure provides a measure of the cost of that dependency.
China’s Ministry of Commerce issued the warning after reports that several EU governments were discussing a mechanism modelled partly on Section 301 of US trade law, which allows Washington to investigate foreign trade practices and impose countermeasures.
Beijing described such an approach as protectionist and unilateral and warned that it could damage continuing negotiations between China and the EU.
“If the European side insists on introducing discriminatory restrictive measures against Chinese companies or products,” the ministry said, China would “resolutely respond” to defend the interests of its industries.
The warning comes as Europe’s trade relationship with China is moving further up the political agenda.
According to the European Commission’s latest EU-China trade figures, EU exports to China were worth €199.5 billion in 2025 while imports reached €559.5 billion.
The goods deficit stood at €359.9 billion, compared with €312.2 billion in 2024.
China remained the EU’s largest source of goods imports and its fourth-largest export market.
Brussels argues that the scale of the imbalance is connected not only to competitiveness but also to state support, market-access restrictions and other structural differences between the two economies.
China disputes that assessment and has repeatedly accused the EU of using industrial and security arguments to justify protectionism.
The argument is already visible in several industries.
The EU imposed countervailing duties on Chinese battery electric vehicles after an investigation concluded that state subsidies were giving Chinese manufacturers an unfair advantage in the European market.
Brussels has subsequently widened its attention to other parts of the automotive industry. Earlier this month, EU Today reported that the EU was considering restrictions affecting Chinese hybrid cars as policymakers looked for ways to contain the growing trade imbalance.
The automotive dispute is important because Europe is simultaneously trying to attract Chinese manufacturing investment.
France and Spain addressed that question during President Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Madrid.
Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez agreed on the need for greater European unity in responding to Chinese competition. They also discussed whether Chinese investors entering strategically important European industries should be required to provide stronger commitments on issues such as technology transfer.
Macron said that companies on both sides of the Pyrenees needed protection when they faced unfair competition and argued that “the only response that works is European.”
France has generally favoured stronger European trade defences.
Germany has traditionally approached the issue more cautiously because major German manufacturers have substantial commercial exposure to China. Increasing competition from Chinese producers, particularly in industrial sectors where German companies were once dominant, has altered the debate.
Reports that Berlin and Paris are now working together on a stronger trade instrument therefore suggest a potentially important shift.
The two countries are said to be considering a European mechanism inspired by the American Section 301 process, although no final proposal has yet been adopted by the European Commission.
EU trade law already provides several instruments.
Brussels can impose anti-dumping or anti-subsidy duties following investigations, use the Foreign Subsidies Regulation to examine state-backed investment and procurement, and deploy the Anti-Coercion Instrument where another country uses economic pressure against the EU or a member state.
The discussion now concerns whether those instruments are sufficient when governments believe a problem extends across industries rather than affecting an individual product.
The debate comes only weeks after EU Today reported that Brussels was preparing additional pressure on Chinese hybrid-car imports, demonstrating how quickly EU-China trade disputes are expanding beyond the original electric-vehicle case.
At the same time, Brussels and Beijing have established a Trade and Investment Consultations mechanism, with workstreams covering trade balances, export controls, intellectual property and World Trade Organisation reform.
China’s Commerce Ministry has warned that introducing tougher measures while those talks continue would damage trust.
That leaves the EU facing two parallel choices: continue negotiations intended to narrow the trade dispute while also developing stronger instruments in case those negotiations fail.
France and Germany are increasingly arguing that Europe needs greater leverage.
Beijing’s response is that using that leverage against Chinese companies would bring countermeasures.
The next stage will depend on whether the Franco-German proposal develops into a formal EU initiative. If it does, the dispute will move beyond duties on particular products towards a broader argument over how Europe intends to manage its economic relationship with China.
In 2023, the International Energy Agency predicted that by 2028 the world’s oil companies would produce more oil than people wanted to buy. Prices responded to that and similar projections of slowing oil demand, dropping too low to attract investment for new wells and refineries. No forecast anticipated that the Strait of Hormuz, the main […]
The post Oil and gas industry expected surplus – but war brought shortage appeared first on Asia Times.
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