Court Temporarily Blocks Pfizer’s Motion to Intervene in Vaccine Information Case

Pfizer's headquarters in New York in a file image. David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

A federal judge has denied, for now, an attempt by Pfizer to intervene in a case that has drawn international attention.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, a Trump appointee, said Pfizer may be allowed to intervene if a reason for it to do so arises in the future, but not at this time. The case concerns documents on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) used to grant emergency use authorization for the vaccine.

Pfizer attorneys said during a recent hearing that the company is aligned with government defendants and a doctors’ group that sued the government for the documents in terms of wanting to get the information to the group in an expeditious manner, but they also said the parties’ “currently aligned interests could potentially diverge,” Pittman wrote in a brief order explaining his decision.

“For instance, the parties could disagree about which documents, or portions of documents, should or should not be redacted prior to production. Accordingly, Pfizer seeks to intervene because their interests might not be adequately represented by either plaintiff or defendant in the future,” he wrote.

But Pittman decided to delay granting Pfizer’s motion to intervene “until a conflict is imminent or has, in fact, manifested.” The company was instructed to alert the court of such an instance, which would prompt a fresh ruling.

Pfizer’s lead attorney in the case didn’t return a voicemail seeking comment on the order.

“We are pleased that the court has not let Pfizer into the case at this time and that the court has kept Pfizer under its jurisdiction by holding its decision on Pfizer’s motion to intervene in abeyance until Pfizer can show a real need to intervene,” Aaron Siri, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Epoch Times in an email.

Siri represents Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, a doctor’s group that sued the FDA after the agency said it would take decades to produce the documents regarding Pfizer’s vaccine.

The case was filed in September 2021, but Pfizer didn’t ask to intervene until January. Attorneys said the company didn’t become aware of the case until reading news reports about it in December 2021.

Pfizer attorneys told the judge in one filing that the company could help the FDA, which had stated that reviewing the documents in order to identify information that may need redacting, such as trade secrets, would take time.

The FDA supported Pfizer’s motion, but plaintiffs opposed it, arguing that Pfizer can help the FDA without becoming officially involved in the case.

Pittman’s order came about a week after he approved a production agreement between the parties that will see the FDA produce all the documents in approximately eight months.