The Florida grand jury investigating alleged wrongdoing related to COVID-19 vaccines encountered challenges in obtaining cooperation from the Biden administration, according to an interim report released on Friday.
The grand jury, impaneled following Gov. Ron DeSantis’ petition to the state’s Supreme Court, focused on the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines in its first interim report.
Mr. DeSantis, seeking to address allegations of misinformation about the vaccines and their effectiveness, petitioned the state’s Supreme Court to impanel the grand jury in December 2022.
The grand jury’s first interim report, however, focuses on the lack of federal cooperation and on the effectiveness of lockdowns and masks instead.
The panel underscored the complexity of the vaccine issue, stating that answers sought by the probe couldn’t be determined “in a vacuum” and that cooperation from the Biden administration was crucial for insights into the vaccines’ approval, rollout, and administration.
However, the Biden administration did not provide “fulsome” cooperation with efforts to obtain testimony from officials, the grand jury said. This lack of cooperation was a major hurdle faced by the grand jury, which had limited legal authority to compel testimony from relevant parties.
Testimony was sought from witnesses at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the U.S. Army, among others.
The report highlighted that these agencies had substantial roles in the vaccine contracting, approval, and distribution process.
The jury added that some “prospective witnesses” raised concerns about the “underlying fairness” of the grand jury and chose not to testify for fear of “consequences.”
“Unfortunately, not all our investigative efforts have been met with fulsome cooperation. Some prospective witnesses have elected not to testify, often citing potential professional or personal consequences arising from their involvement with the Statewide Grand Jury process,” the report states.
The jury noted that regardless of their participation, there was a wealth of publicly available information about their justifications for decision-making around vaccines.
The panel further said that it wouldn’t penalize anyone for refusing to participate and would welcome any government entity representative or witness who disagrees with its findings to “come to Tampa and offer sworn testimony.”
In its initial report, the grand jury focused on the risk of COVID-19 and explored “other modalities” to contain the virus, such as lockdowns and masks.
The report criticized the lack of “sound evidence on the effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 transmission” of masks and lockdowns.
The report found that lockdowns “traded” the welfare of older, wealthier adults who could afford to be quarantined with “poorly-represented” children, young people, and adults in their 20s and 30s.
“If anything, the result of this was a modest benefit to the former group at the expense of the latter,” the report states.
The report accused health authorities of not administering interventions based on the best available scientific data and highlighted instances where such research was ignored or attacked.
Health agencies and the federal government were sharply rebuked for failing to provide accurate information on masks.
“There have always been legitimate questions around the impracticality of individual adherence to mask recommendations, but once it became clear that the primary transmission vector of SARS-CoV-2 was via aerosol, their potential efficacy was further diminished,” the report states.
“Public health agencies failed to adequately explain this important distinction to the American public in favor of a broad mask recommendation that did not make nearly enough distinction between the types of masks available and put at risk those it sought to help.”
The report accused federal agencies of hiding behind flawed studies “to avoid the potential embarrassment of the public health advice they championed being invalidated by evidence.”
Requirements around “social distancing” were also lampooned in the report, which found the public was misled when they were told to stay six feet apart.
“It is not nearly as important how far away people are from one another as it is whether they are in an interior or exterior environment and whether that environment is subject to adequate airflow,” the report states. “Even today, this important information is missing from the CDC’s Social Distancing Guidelines.”
These non-pharmaceutical interventions imposed in response to the pandemic were not based on the best available scientific data, according to the panel. Furthermore, they departed significantly from available research.
“Often this research was ignored by institutional policymakers. Occasionally, it was even attacked. It is a sad state of affairs when something as simple as following the science constitutes an act of heresy, but here we are,” the report states.
The Florida Supreme Court appointed Tampa-based judge Ronald Ficarrotta to preside over the grand jury.
