Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he plans to petition the state's Supreme Court to convene a grand jury to investigate "any and all wrongdoings" surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines. ."In Florida, it is against the law to mislead and represent, particularly when you're talking about the efficacy of a drug," DeSantis said in a press conference..The grand jury request, released Tuesday, argues pharmaceutical companies had a financial interest in creating a climate where people believed getting a COVID-19 vaccine would ensure they couldn’t spread the virus to others..It seeks a grand jury to investigate whether any deceitful information was disseminated about “vaccines purported to prevent COVID-19 infection, symptoms, and transmission.”“We’ll be able to get the data, whether they want to give it or not,” DeSantis said. In Florida, statewide grand juries can investigate criminal activity and issue indictments and recommendations. Recent panels tackled immigration and school safety and, as DeSantis pointed out, Florida received $3.2 billion through legal action against those responsible for the state's opioid crisis. "So, it’s not like this is something that’s unprecedented," DeSantis said. Last week, DeSantis said the manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccines would be held accountable for making false claims about their products. "They said there were no side effects and we know that there have been a lot," he said. “We did a study in Florida and we saw an 86% increase in cardiac related activity in people ages 18 to 39 from mRNA shots, and so we’re going to be doing some stuff to bring accountability there,” the governor said. READ MORE: Florida governor DeSantis plans to hold vaccine manufacturers 'accountable' Later Tuesday night, DeSantis told Fox News' Laura Ingraham he protected Floridians' rights while the "far-left" infringed on medical freedom in other areas of the United States. ."The authoritarians were the ones that wanted to mandate the vax on people. I protected people from having that happen and made sure Floridians could make their own choice. The authoritarians wanted to institute a vaccine passport system almost like a social credit system, so people who dissented from this would be marginalized from society entirely. We rejected that and we banned it," he said..Jonathan Chait, a political columnist for New York magazine, attacked DeSantis for "courting the anti-vaccine movement."The pro-vaccine conservatives chose to deny this fact rather than try to stop it. It's a case study in the conservative movement's intellectual dysfunction," he said."What the vaccine skeptics lacked in evidence, they more than made up for in fervor," he continued."Advocates of sanity proved unwilling or unable to push back, and now the party is turning so heavily against vaccines that soon it may be impossible for any Republican with national aspirations to say a good word about them."
