Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into whether pediatricians, insurers, and vaccine makers engaged in deceptive behavior by allegedly failing to disclose financial incentives tied to vaccinating children.
"I will ensure that Big Pharma and Big Insurance don't bribe medical providers to pressure parents to jab their kids with vaccines they feel aren't safe or necessary," the Republican attorney general said in a press release that alleged an illegal, multi-industry "scheme" that has "forced" Texas kids to get over 70 vaccinations in order to receive medical care.
As part of the investigation, Paxton issued more than 20 Civil Investigative Demands to "some of the largest medical providers, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country, including entities like UnitedHealthcare and Pfizer."
A request for those documents made by MedPage Today was not returned as of press time. It is not clear who, exactly, received the requests, including any individual physicians or other clinicians, or medical groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
Paxton alleged that "doctors' wages, bonuses, and even employment often hinge on the number of vaccinations they administer."
However, pediatricians say they lose money on vaccinating children. "The fact is, pediatricians often take on significant costs to provide the vaccinations their patients need, and the minimal payments they receive do not always cover these costs," the AAP states on its website. "Pediatricians recommend childhood vaccines because they are one of our most effective tools to help keep children healthy and prevent diseases from spreading in communities."
Paxton's investigation was announced on the same day that Children's Health Defense -- the anti-vaccine group formerly led by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. -- filed a racketeering lawsuit against the AAP, along with five plaintiffs.
Richard Jaffe, the lawyer who filed the complaint on behalf of the plaintiffs, said the model for the suit is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act litigation against big tobacco.
"Tobacco created false uncertainty to manufacture doubt," Jaffe wrote on his blog. "AAP did the inverse: false certainty to foreclose questions. Both used the trappings of science to prevent actual science."
The AAP did not return a request for comment from MedPage Today as of press time.
Three of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are parents who allege their children died or were harmed because of vaccines.
Two other plaintiffs are physicians who say they were sanctioned or lost their licenses because of actions they took related to vaccines.
Kenneth Stoller, MD, said he lost his medical license in California and New Mexico for writing vaccine exemptions. Paul Thomas, MD, claims his license was suspended for 2 years, then reinstated with restrictions, because he conducted a study comparing outcomes for vaccinated versus unvaccinated children.
The suit against AAP was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, whose chief justice James Boasberg has faced mounting political pressure under the Trump administration.
In partnership with other medical groups, the AAP has sued HHS and Kennedy, calling for his newly appointed Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to be disbanded and its decisions overturned. A federal judge denied the government's motion to dismiss that case earlier this month, and another judge ordered the Trump administration to restore nearly $12 million in grants to the AAP that it had terminated late last year.
The groups recently amended their complaint to block Kennedy's changes to the CDC's childhood immunization schedule, and to halt the next ACIP meeting that's set for Feb. 25-26.
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