A woman who suffered severe nerve damage after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination and four others with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 vaccine injuries launched a lawsuit against President Joe Biden and his administration on May 22.
Top government officials violated the plaintiffs’ rights to free speech and peaceful assembly when they pressured Big Tech companies to crack down on people sharing their experience after receiving the COVID-19 vaccines, Brianne Dressen, the woman, and the other plaintiffs say.
“Through threats, pressure, inducement, and coercion, Defendants now work in concert with social media companies to censor content the government deems ‘disinformation,’ ‘misinformation,’ and ‘malinformation’—a feat that the government could never lawfully accomplish alone,” the 124-page suit, filed in U.S. court in southern Texas, states.
In addition to Biden, defendants include Rob Flaherty, a top adviser to Biden; White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre; the Department of Homeland Security; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
The CDC declined to comment. The other defendants did not respond to requests for comment, or could not be reached.
Dressen hailed the lawsuit as a major development for those reporting to be suffering from vaccine injuries.
“People injured by the COVID vaccines in the United States have not been able to file suit anywhere, under any circumstance,” she told The Epoch Times. “So this is a landmark case for Americans injured by the COVID vaccine.”
COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers are largely immune from litigation in the United States due to the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act declaration entered by the Trump administration in early 2020. Most other vaccine manufacturers are also shielded from liability under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act.
Censorship
The five people who experienced serious problems following vaccination are joined by Ernest Ramirez, whose son died after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine. They’ve repeatedly been censored by platforms like Twitter and Instagram as they tried to share their stories.
Ramirez, for instance, saw a GoFundMe that sought to raise funds for him to travel to Washington to share his son’s story taken down. GoFundMe claimed the account was removed for violating conduct the company prohibits. GoFundMe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
