Tag: supreme-court

The appearance of virology researcher Peter Daszak, PhD, whose organization worked with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) to study bat coronaviruses, drew the expected tough questions from House Republicans at a hearing Wednesday, but Democrats weren't letting Daszak off the hook either.

"Today we'll hear from both sides that there are serious concerns about EcoHealth Alliance's failure to comply with reporting requirements for federal grantees -- concerns that draw into question whether you, Dr. Daszak, sought to deliberately mislead regulators at NIH and NIAID [the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases]," Rep. Raul Ruiz, MD, (D-Calif.) ranking member of the House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, said at a hearing featuring Daszak as the lone witness. "We will also examine whether Dr. Daszak, beyond his obligations as an employee of a federally funded grantee, acted with integrity in his engagement with the possibility that COVID-19 resulted from a research-related incident."

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) asked Daszak, who is president of the EcoHealth Alliance, about why he appeared to mislead the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in relation to the Wuhan lab's potential participation when his organization submitted a grant application -- which was never funded -- for proposed coronavirus research to be done in cooperation with the University of North Carolina. "That kind of raises some questions for me," she said. "Why did you even entertain the thought of minimizing and apparently omitting the extent of Wuhan's involvement?"

Daszak denied he had done that. "I talked to the DARPA staff right at the beginning ... and asked them straight up in an email chain, 'Is it OK to propose this, to work with colleagues in China on coronaviruses from China?'" he said. "They said, 'Yes.' So there was no intent to hide any China involvement. They're in the proposal."

Dingell remained unconvinced. "My Democratic colleagues and I want to emphasize the importance of transparency," she said. "We believe in a full accounting of facts, and I believe we have been very fair with you ... But to the extent you've considered misrepresenting facts, or done so, we will consider that a very serious mistake."

Subcommittee chair Rep. Brad Wenstrup, DPM (R-Ohio), highlighted some of the conclusions of an interim report published Wednesday on the issue by the subcommittee's majority members. "We have found that EcoHealth was nearly 2 years late in submitting a routine progress report to NIH, that EcoHealth failed to report, as required, a potentially dangerous experiment conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, that EcoHealth used taxpayer dollars to facilitate risky gain-of-function research, and that Dr. Daszak omitted a material fact regarding his access to unanalyzed virus samples and sequences at the WIV in his successful effort to have his grant reinstated by NIH," he said in his opening statement.

In addition, he said, "Dr. Daszak has been less than cooperative with the Select Subcommittee, he has been slow to produce requested documents, and has regularly played semantics with the definition of gain-of-function research, even in his previous testimony." Generally, "gain-of-function" refers to research involving a genetic mutation in an organism -- such as a virus -- that confers a new or enhanced ability upon it.

Gain-of-function research was the focus of questions from Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) "EcoHealth Alliance never has, and did not do, gain-of-function research, by definition," Daszak said in response to her question.

"Are you aware of the Wuhan lab conducting that type of research?" Malliotakis said. "No," Daszak replied. When she asked him why his organization decided to work with the Wuhan lab, he replied, "If you want to work with a foreign country to find the next potential risk of a pandemic, you have to work with labs in those countries. We looked at labs across China; the [Wuhan lab] is the premier viral research [lab] in China" and has a "very good biosafety level." He estimated that in total, his organization has received about $60-$64 million in government funding since the start of the pandemic.

Several subcommittee members tried to focus on the future. "It's critical we understand what went wrong at NIAID and EcoHealth's relationship with Wuhan," said Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.). "My hope is that when we're finished we have a package of legislative proposals and other recommendations on biosafety and biosecurity. I increasingly think that means taking final approval authority for these experiments away from NIAID ... in favor of an independent entity."

"In my opinion [NIAID and EcoHealth] were grossly negligent," Griffith said, adding that NIAID continues to fund EcoHealth's research "to this very day. Even after COVID-19, at NIAID, it's business as usual. It's absurd and it's got to change."

Dingell had a different take. She urged her colleagues to focus on how to protect Americans from future pandemics. "Sowing distrust in the scientific community is not the best way to accomplish this goal," Dingell said. "While I agree that the EcoHealth Alliance proved to be careless and imprecise with federal funding ... this does not mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater. NIH and NIAID serve important functions in medical and scientific research ... They've done good work in the past and we want that good work to continue in the future."

"Throughout this investigation, my Republican colleagues have been trying to cast blame for the COVID-19 pandemic on [former NIH director Francis] Collins and [former NIAID director Anthony] Fauci ... contrary to the evidence," she added. "We should be holding today's witness accountable ... but this should not distract us from our ultimate goal: future pandemic preparedness."

Joyce Frieden oversees MedPage Todays Washington coverage, including stories about Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, healthcare trade associations, and federal agencies. She has 35 years of experience covering health policy. Follow

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House Members Grill Coronavirus Researcher on Involvement With Wuhan Lab - Medpage Today

The North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that Gov. Roy Coopers closure of certain bars, but not restaurants, in the early months of the pandemic was irrational and arbitrary, not based on data and science.

Our careful review of the Record does not reveal the existence of any scientific evidence demonstrating Plaintiffs bars, as opposed to the bars located in other establishments serving alcohol, posed a heightened risk at the time Executive Order No. 141 was issued, wrote Judge April C. Wood, a Republican. Overall, the articles and data submitted by Defendant entirely fail to address any differences in the risk of spread of COVID-19 between the bars he allowed to reopen and Plaintiffs bars which remained closed.

Cooper issued an executive order early in the pandemic, on March 17, 2020, closing all bars in North Carolina. On May 20, 2020, he issued another executive order, allowing some but not all bars to reopen with specific safety precautions. Coopers attorneys said hed relied on science and data to determine which types of bars should be allowed to open and which should remain closed, using research showing that bars presented a higher risk of COVID-19 transmission.

But Woods 39-page opinion, joined by Republican colleagues Judges Donna Stroud and Jefferson Griffin, who is also running for the state Supreme Court, said that Cooper did not submit any evidence that showed why members of the North Carolina Bar and Tavern Association the plaintiff in the lawsuit would have been unable to comply with his executive order, when he allowed other types of bars to reopen under certain restrictions.

It is illogical and arbitrary to attempt to achieve Defendants stated health outcomes by applying different reopening standards to similarly situated businesses that could have complied with those standards, Wood wrote. In other words, if restaurants serving alcohol could operate at fifty percent capacity and keep groups six feet apart with both food and alcohol at the customers tables, Defendant has failed to present any forecast of evidence of any reason bars would not be able to do the same with alcohol service.

Cooper wrote in the executive order that bars presented a greater risk to spreading COVID-19, due to factors such as people traditionally interacting in that space in a way that would spread COVID-19 . . . or a business model that involves customers or attendees remaining in a confined indoor space over a sustained period.

But Wood wrotein her ruling that Cooper didnt have sufficient science and data at the time of the executive order to justify closing some bars and not others.

Most of the information is news articles, at best anecdotal reports of various incidents in different places around the world, Wood wrote. None of the information addresses any differences in risk of COVID-19 transmission between Plaintiffs bars and the other types of bars allowed to reopen.

Wood wrote that news reports cited by Coopers attorneys were not the same as scientific studies.

Research such as these news articles could be conducted by private citizens utilizing Internet search engines, Wood wrote. In fact, many of the documents in the Record were gathered from Internet searches as evidenced by the tags and links at the bottom of the printed pages.

The panel sent the case back down to the trial court for further proceedings.

Wood and her colleagues did not agree with every argument the Bar and Tavern Association made. The court ruled that the associations members were not entitled to financial compensation under the Emergency Management Act because Cooper did not physically take their land or property; he merely prohibited them from using their land for the purpose of conducting their business. Wood wrote that what Cooper did was within the bounds of state law, and not within the parts of the statute the legislature determined would give someone a right to compensation.

Clearly, the General Assembly considered which governmental actions would trigger a statutory right to compensation and employed language which encompassed certain specific actions while excluding others, wrote Judge April C. Wood, a Republican. Ordering mandatory business closures is not one of those actions which triggers a statutory right of compensation under the statute as it is currently written.

Click here to read the courts ruling in N.C. Bar and Tavern Association v. Cooper.

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Appeals Court: Gov. Roy Cooper erred in COVID-19 bar closures - NC Newsline

The parallel economy anti-vaccine activists and the far right want to create : The Indicator from Planet Money Anti-vaccine activists, far-right groups and some religious conservatives convened in Las Vegas this spring to discuss the creation of a parallel economy. These are groups who believe their speech is threatened by big banks and big tech. On today's show, what is a "freedom economy," and how would it work?

Related episodes: A Supreme Court case that could reshape social media (Apple / Spotify)

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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Attendees visit booths at the RePlatform conference in Las Vegas in March. The conference crowd was a hybrid of anti-vaccine activists, supporters of former President Donald Trump and Christian conservatives. Krystal Ramirez for NPR hide caption

Attendees visit booths at the RePlatform conference in Las Vegas in March. The conference crowd was a hybrid of anti-vaccine activists, supporters of former President Donald Trump and Christian conservatives.

Anti-vaccine activists, far-right groups and some religious conservatives convened in Las Vegas this spring to discuss the creation of a parallel economy. These are groups who believe their speech is threatened by big banks and big tech. On today's show, what is a "freedom economy" and how would it work?

Related episodes: A Supreme Court case that could reshape social media (Apple / Spotify)

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

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The parallel economy anti-vaccine activists and the far right want to create : The Indicator from Planet Money - NPR

A Guilford County mother hopes the state Supreme Court will take the case of her teenage sons forced COVID vaccine shot. The mother and son sued the Guilford County school board and the Old North State Medical Society over the 2021 incident.

A unanimous state Court of Appeals panel ruled in March against mother Emily Happel and son Tanner Smith. Appellate judges agreed that the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act of 2005 protected the school board and medical society against legal action.

Happel and Smith filed a petition Friday asking the states highest court to reverse that ruling.

The pandemic that occurred from 2020-2022 caused a seismic shift in the social, medical, political, and legal landscape of not only the State of North Carolina, not only the United States, but the world as a whole, wrote lawyer David Steven Walker. How the government chose to deal with the pandemic, especially concerning the administration of vaccines that had been granted emergency use authorizations, was and is a hotly contested issue, one that is certainly of significant public interest.

This public interest is even more significant when the issue revolves around the vaccination of a minor and the allegation that neither the minor nor the minors parent consented to the administration of the vaccine, Walker added.

The case deals with the interplay between duty of the courts of North Carolina to remedy constitutional and other legal violations and a federal law that defendants purport forecloses that opportunity, Walker wrote.

The trial court and the Court of Appeals interpreted the PREP Act so broadly as to shield nearly every act, no matter how egregious, from any legal consequence, according to the petition. Further, the Court of Appeals and the trial courts decision rendered totally useless N.C. Gen. Stat. 90-21.5(a1) which prohibited the very acts committed by defendants. It is now a law of aspiration, with no consequence for its blatant violation.

The quoted state law NCGS 90-21.5(a1) says, Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, a health care provider shall obtain written consent from a parent or legal guardian prior to administering any vaccine that has been granted emergency use authorization and is not yet fully approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration to an individual under 18 years of age.

The Appeals Court issued a unanimous March 5 decision against the mother and son despite labeling the forced vaccination egregious.

Plaintiffs argue the trial court erred in determining that the PREP Act is applicable to this case and provides immunity to both Defendants, Judge April Wood wrote. Due to the sweeping breadth of the federal liability immunity provision in the PREP Act, we are constrained to disagree.

Bound by the broad scope of immunity provided by the PREP Act, we are constrained to hold it shields Defendants, under the facts of this case, from Plaintiffs claims relating to the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine, Wood added.

In August 2021, Smith was a 14-year-old Western Guilford High School football player. His family learned in a letter from the Guilford schools that Smith might have been affected by a COVID-19 cluster involving the team. He would not be allowed to return to practice until getting a COVID test.

Free testing would be provided at Northwest Guilford High School. The letter indicated ONS Medical Society would conduct the testing and consent for testing is required, Wood wrote.

Smiths stepfather drove him to the testing site and waited outside the building. The teenager was asked to fill out a form while a clinic worker tried unsuccessfully to contact his mother. Smith and his family didnt know the clinic also provided COVID-19 vaccine shots.

After failing to make contact with Tanners mother, one of the workers instructed the other worker to give it to him anyway. Tanner stated he did not want a vaccine and was only expecting a test, but one of the workers administered a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to him, Wood wrote.

Happel and Smith filed suit in August 2022. A trial judge dismissed the case in March 2023.

Appellate judges ruled that both the school board and medical society were covered by the federal PREP Act. A declaration from the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services in March 2020 offered protection related to the COVID-19 vaccine.

[W]e hold ONS Medical Society is a covered person as a program planner that administered a vaccine clinic, and individually administered vaccines to individuals. The declaration clearly provides that a program planner may be a private sector employer or community group when it carries out the described activities including administration of a covered countermeasure, Wood wrote.

The same law also applied to the Guilford school board. We are convinced by the Secretarys interpretation in the declaration that a covered person under the PREP Act includes a state or local government . . . [that] provides a facility to administer or use a Covered Countermeasure. We hold this language includes the Board, which provided a facility Northwest Guilford High School for the administration of the COVID-19 vaccines, Wood wrote.

Wisely or not, the plain language of the PREP Act includes claims of battery and violations of state constitutional rights within the scope of its immunity, and it therefore shields Defendants from liability for Plaintiffs claims, Wood added.

The Appeals Court noted that North Carolinas General Assembly amended state law in 2021 to require parental consent before a vaccine granted emergency use authorization may be administered to a minor.

Its intent is to prevent the egregious conduct alleged in the case before us, and to safeguard the constitutional rights at issue Emilys parental right to the care and control of her child, and Tanners right to individual liberty, Wood wrote. Notwithstanding, the statute remains explicitly subject to any other provision of law to the contrary under the broad provision preempting state law in the PREP Act.

The PREP Act provides only one exception for a Federal cause of action against a covered person for death or serious physical injury proximately caused by willful misconduct. Because Plaintiffs have not made any such allegations in their complaint, we are constrained to conclude the PREP Act preempts the protections provided by state law, Wood wrote.

Judges Allegra Collins and Jeff Carpenter joined Woods decision.

Originally posted here:

Mother appeals case of teen's forced COVID shot to state Supreme Court - Carolina Journal

Hoffman is president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Ehrenfeld is president of the American Medical Association.

Online misinformation about vaccines harm patients, undermines trust in science, and places additional burdens on our healthcare system through reduced vaccine uptake. All in all, it is a barrier to protecting public health.

As physicians, we see the damages caused by vaccine misinformation firsthand, and we welcome conversations with our patients about vaccine safety and efficacy. However, the widespread proliferation of misinformation and disinformation has triggered higher levels of vaccine hesitancy and refusal, allowing a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles that we had nearly eradicated.

Preventing the spread of vaccine misinformation without infringing on free speech protections in the First Amendment is a thorny legal issue that is at the heart of a landmark case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, Murthy et al. v. Missouri et al. The nation's leading healthcare organizations, including ours (the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association) and others -- and the hundreds of thousands of physicians across the country who we represent -- believe that vaccine misinformation poses a grave threat to public health. As outlined in an amicus brief we filed in this case, we seek to partner with the federal government to advance factual information.

In Murthy v. Missouri, plaintiffs including the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana argue that several federal agencies and the Biden administration engaged in censorship during the pandemic by urging private social media companies to stop the spread of discredited medical falsehoods from their platforms to save lives. Oral arguments took place last week, and a ruling is expected this summer.

At stake in this case is what tools the government and public health agencies have at their disposal to combat medical misinformation. Without getting into the legal arguments on both sides, one thing is clear: to strip away government power to raise the alarm about patently false information on life-saving vaccines -- when illness and lives hang in the balance -- would be a devastating outcome.

Vaccines have long been one of the safest and most powerful tools in protecting public health. Vaccines save lives by not only protecting vaccinated individuals against infection and reducing the burden of unnecessary hospitalization on our healthcare system, but also by helping prevent the spread of disease.

Medical misinformation that promotes non-scientifically validated remedies can and often does result in harm. Both the FDA and CDC warned of serious adverse effects from people taking ivermectin, an anti-parasitic, to prevent or treat COVID-19, even after numerous studies showed it was entirely ineffective against the virus.

Similarly, one recent study estimated that nearly 17,000 deaths occurred across six nations during the first COVID wave after people took hydroxychloroquine, an antimalaria agent that was wrongly promoted to treat and prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection. Although that was a time of crisis, drug repurposing with low-level evidence can be extremely hazardous and even deadly.

Stopping the spread of medical misinformation is an enormous task, and we cannot expect any single entity to accomplish this challenge. Those of us who have taken an oath to protect the health and well-being of patients share the responsibility to separate fact from fiction.

Anything less than a comprehensive effort to prevent the dissemination of medical misinformation -- using the powers of the federal government, public health agencies, healthcare organizations, social media companies and media outlets, and even individual physicians -- abdicates our responsibility and needlessly puts the health of our communities, and our nation, at risk.

Benjamin D. Hoffman, MD, is president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH, is president of the American Medical Association.

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Opinion | Medical Misinfo Runs Rampant Online. The Gov't Must Retain the Right to Intervene. - Medpage Today

World News

By Associated Press

Published March 19, 2024, 10:04 a.m. ET

BrazilsFederal Police have accused formerPresident Jair Bolsonaroof criminal association and falsifying his own COVID-19 vaccination data, marking the first indictment for the embattled far-right leader with others potentially in store.

The Supreme Court released the polices indictment on Tuesday that alleges Bolsonaro and 16 others inserted false information into the public health database to make it appear as though the then-president, his 12-year-old daughter and several others in his circle had received the COVID-19 vaccine.

During the pandemic, Bolsonaro wasone of the few world leaders railing against the vaccine, openly flouting health restrictions and encouraging society to follow his example.

His administration ignored several emails from pharmaceutical company Pfizer offering to sell Brazil tens of millions of shots in 2020 and openly criticized a move by Sao Paulo states then-Gov. Joo Doria to buy vaccines from Chinese company Sinovac when no jabs were otherwise available.

Brazils prosecutor-generals office will have the final say on whether to use the police indictment to file charges against Bolsonaro at the Supreme Court. It stems fromone of several investigations targeting Bolsonaro, who governed between 2019 and 2022.

Bolsonaros lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. The former president denied any wrongdoing during questioning in May 2023.

Police accuse Bolsonaro and his aides of tampering with the health ministrys database shortly before he traveled to the U.S. in December 2022, two months after he lost his reelection bid to Luiz Incio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro needed a certificate of vaccination to enter the U.S., where he remained for the final days of his term and the first months of Lulas term.

If convicted for falsifying health data, the 68-year-old politician could spend up to 12 years behind bars, and as little as two years, according to legal analyst Zilan Costa. The maximum jail time for a charge of criminal association is four years, he said.

Bolsonaro retains staunch allegiance among his base, as shown by an outpouring of support last month with anestimated 185,000 people clogging Sao Paulos main boulevardto decry what they and the former president characterize as political persecution.

Brazils top electoral court has already ruled Bolsonaroineligible until 2030, on the grounds that he abused his power during the 2022 campaign and cast unfounded doubts on the countrys electronic voting system.

Other investigations include one seeking to determine whether Bolsonaro tried tosneak two sets of expensive diamond jewelryinto Brazil and prevent them from being incorporated into the presidencys public collection.

Another relates to hisalleged involvement in the Jan. 8, 2023 uprisingin capital Brasilia, soon after Lula took power, that resembled the Capitol riot in Washington two years prior.

He has denied wrongdoing in both cases.

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Brazil's ex-President Jair Bolsonaro indicted for allegedly lying about COVID vax status in gov database - New York Post

Brazil's Donald Trump-loving ex-president, already under investigation for trying to overturn his election loss, was accused Tuesday of tampering with a public health database to fake his vaccination against COVID-19.

Jair Bolsonaro planted false information in a governmentdatabase to make it appear that he, his 12-year-old daughter and members of his entourage had received the COVID-19 jab, police said.

Bolsonaro, dubbed the Trump of the Tropics, and aides allegedly fiddled with the health ministry's database ahead of a December 2022 visit to the U.S., which required proof of vaccination for entry.He has been compared to Trump in part because his followers stormed Brazils Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace last year in an echo of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The charges, released by Brazils Supreme Court, marked the first criminal indictment of the former president, who railed against vaccines while in office, even as the coronavirus killed nearly 700,000 Brazilians.

Bolsonaro had no immediate comment.

The countrys high court last year barred the far-right firebrand from running for office until 2030, ruling he had abused his power during the 2022 campaign and cast unfounded doubts on the country's electronic voting system. He was endorsed in that election by former President Donald Trump, an enthusiastic backer.

"He is a wonderful man, and has my Complete & Total Endorsement!!!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

More: Brazil investigates after storming of Congress by backers of Bolsonaro, known as 'Trump of Tropics'

Thousands of Bolsonaros supporters rioted in the capital, Brasilia, on Jan. 8, 2023, soon after the inauguration of President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, trashing the Supreme Court and other government buildings.

Investigators are probing Bolsonaros possible link to those riots, as well as allegations that he tried to sneak two sets of expensive diamond jewelry into Brazil and prevent them from being incorporated into the presidency's public collection. He has asserted his innocence in all the investigations while claiming to be a victim of political persecution.

Story continues

Brazil's prosecutor-general's office hasnt yet decided if it will file charges against Bolsonaro in the fake vaccine case.

As the coronavirus scythed its way across the globe, Bolsonaro vowed not to get vaccinated, and his government ignored offers to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. In September 2021, he flouted a vaccination requirement at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. Several members of the Brazilian delegation later tested positive.

Fifteen months later, following his reelection loss, Bolsonaro was on a plane to Miami, allegedly with a fake vaccination certificate. Police said the nurse listed in the records as having administered the shot denied doing so and was no longer working at the center at the time of the supposed vaccination, Reuters reported.

More than 89% of Brazilians have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.

Contributing: Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jair Bolsonaro faked his COVID-19 shot, Brazil police say

Excerpt from:

Brazil's ex-president, the 'Trump of the Tropics,' charged with faking Covid-19 vaccination - Yahoo News Canada

SAO PAULO (AP) Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was formally accused Tuesday of falsifying his COVID-19 vaccination status, marking the first indictment for the embattled far-right leader, with more allegations potentially in store.

The federal police indictment released by the Supreme Court alleged that Bolsonaro and 16 others inserted false information into a public health database to make it appear as though the then-president, his 12-year-old daughter and several others in his circle had received the COVID-19 vaccine.

Police detective Fbio Alvarez Shor, who signed the indictment, said in his report that Bolsonaro and his aides changed their vaccination records in order to issue their respective (vaccination) certificates and use them to cheat current health restrictions.

The investigation found several false insertions between November 2021 and December 2022, and also many actions of using fraudulent documents, Shor added.

The detective said in the indictment that Bolsonaros aide-de-camp, Mauro Cid, told investigators the former president asked him to insert the false data into the system for both himself and his daughter. Cid also said he delivered the vaccination certificates to Bolsonaro personally.

During the pandemic, Bolsonaro was one of the few world leaders who railed against the vaccine. He openly flouted health restrictions and encouraged other Brazilians to follow his example. His administration ignored several offers from pharmaceutical company Pfizer to sell Brazil tens of millions of shots in 2020, and he openly criticized a move by Sao Paulo states governor to buy vaccines from Chinese company Sinovac when no other doses were available.

Brazils prosecutor-generals office will have the final say on whether to use the indictment to file charges against Bolsonaro at the Supreme Court. The case stems from one of several investigations targeting Bolsonaro, who governed from 2019 to 2022.

Bolsonaros lawyer, Fbio Wajngarten, called his clients indictment absurd and said he did not have access to it.

When he was president, he was completely exempted from showing any kind of certificate on his trips. This is political persecution and an attempt to void the enormous political capital that has only grown, Wajngarten said.

The former president denied any wrongdoing during questioning in May 2023.

Gleisi Hoffmann, chairwoman of the Workers Party, whose candidate defeated Bolsonaro, celebrated his indictment on social media. She said she hopes the former president stands trial in many other cases, including for his alleged attempt to sneak $3 million in diamond jewelry into the country and the sale of two luxury watches he received as gifts from Saudi Arabia while in office.

He has lied until this day about his nefarious administration, but now he will have to face the truth in the courts. The federal polices indictment sent to prosecutors is just the first of several, Hoffmann said. What is up now, Big Coward? Are you going to face this or run away to Miami?

Brazils Supreme Court has already seized Bolsonaros passport.

Police accuse Bolsonaro and his aides of tampering with the health ministrys database shortly before he traveled to the U.S. in December 2022, two months after he lost his reelection bid to Luiz Incio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro needed a certificate of vaccination to enter the U.S., where he remained for the final days of his term and the first months of Lulas term. The former president has repeatedly said he has never taken a COVID-19 vaccine.

If convicted for falsifying health data, the 68-year-old politician could spend up to 12 years behind bars or as little as two years, according to legal analyst Zilan Costa. The maximum jail time for a charge of criminal association is four years, he said.

What Bolsonaro will argue in this case is whether he did insert the data or enable others to do it, or not. And that is plain and simple: Either you have the evidence or you dont. It is a very serious crime with a very harsh sentence for those convicted, Costa told The Associated Press.

Shor also said he is awaiting information from the U.S. Justice Department to clarify whether those under investigation did make use of the false vaccination certificates upon their arrival and stay in American territory.

If so, further charges could be leveled against Bolsonaro, Shor wrote without specifying in which country.

The indictment sheds new light on a Senate committee inquiry that ended in October 2021 with a recommendation for nine criminal charges against Bolsonaro alleging that he mismanaged the pandemic. Then prosecutor-general Augusto Aras, who was widely seen as a Bolsonaro ally, declined to move the case forward.

Brazilian media reported that Aras successor, Paulo Gonet, was scheduled to meet lawmakers later Tuesday to discuss the possibility of filing charges.

Bolsonaro retains staunch allegiance among his political base, as shown by an outpouring of support last month, when an estimated 185,000 people clogged Sao Paulos main boulevard to decry what they and the former president characterize as political persecution.

The indictment will not turn off his backers and will only confirm his detractors suspicions, said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.

It is definitely worse for him in courts, Melo said. He could be entering a trend of convictions, and then arrest.

Brazils top electoral court has already ruled Bolsonaro ineligible to run for office until 2030, on the grounds that he abused his power during the 2022 campaign and cast unfounded doubts on the countrys electronic voting system.

Another investigation relates to his alleged involvement in the Jan. 8, 2023, uprising in the capital of Brasilia, soon after Lula took power. The uprising resembled the U.S. Capitol riot in Washington two years prior. Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing in both cases.

Shor wrote that the indictment will be folded into the investigation of Jan. 8, which is being overseen by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. That justice authorized the unsealing of the indictment.

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Brazil: Bolsonaro indicted over alleged falsification of vaccination data - The Associated Press

Covid-19 investigations

Former president allegedly inserted false information into public health database to make it appear he received Covid vaccine

Staff and agencies in So Paulo

Tue 19 Mar 2024 10.57 EDT

Brazils federal police have accused Jair Bolsonaro of criminal association and falsifying his own Covid-19 vaccination data, marking the first indictment for the embattled far-right leader with others potentially in store.

The supreme court on Tuesday released the polices indictment which alleges Bolsonaro and 16 others inserted false information into the public health database to make it appear as though the former president, his 12-year-old daughter and several others in his circle had received the Covid-19 vaccine.

During the pandemic, Bolsonaro was one of the few world leaders railing against the vaccine, openly flouting health restrictions and encouraging society to follow his example. His administration ignored several emails from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer offering to sell Brazil tens of millions of shots in 2020 and openly criticized a move by So Paulo states then governor, Joo Doria, to buy vaccines from the Chinese company Sinovac when no jabs were otherwise available.

Brazils prosecutor-generals office will have the final say on whether to use the police indictment to file charges against Bolsonaro at the supreme court. It stems from one of several investigations targeting Bolsonaro, who governed between 2019 and 2022.

The former president reiterated that he had not taken the Covid-19 vaccine and said he was calm. Its a selective investigation. Im calm, I dont owe anything, Bolsonaro told Reuters. The world knows that I didnt take the vaccine.

Police accuse Bolsonaro and his aides of tampering with the health ministrys database shortly before he traveled to the US in December 2022, two months after he lost his re-election bid to Luiz Incio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro needed a certificate of vaccination to enter the US, where he remained for the final days of his term and the first months of Lulas term.

If convicted for falsifying health data, the 68-year-old politician could spend up to 12 years behind bars, and as little as two years, according to legal analyst Zilan Costa. The maximum jail time for a charge of criminal association is four years, he said.

Bolsonaro retains staunch allegiance among his base, as shown by an outpouring of support last month, with an estimated 185,000 people clogging So Paulos main boulevard to decry what they and the former president characterize as political persecution.

Brazils top electoral court has already ruled Bolsonaro ineligible until 2030, on the grounds that he abused his power during the 2022 campaign and cast unfounded doubts on the countrys electronic voting system.

Other investigations include one seeking to determine whether Bolsonaro tried to sneak two sets of expensive diamond jewelry into Brazil and prevent them from being incorporated into the presidencys public collection. Another relates to his alleged involvement in the 8 January 2023 uprising in the capital, Braslia, soon after Lula took power, that resembled the Capitol riot in Washington two years earlier. He has denied wrongdoing in both cases.

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Brazil police indict Bolsonaro over alleged falsification of vaccination data - The Guardian

5 hours ago

Bolsonaro remains the most influential figurehead for the right in Brazilian politics

Brazilian police have formally accused former President Jair Bolsonaro of fraud relating to his Covid vaccination records, paving the way for possible criminal charges in the Supreme Court.

His health records say he received the vaccine in Sao Paulo in 2021.

But an investigation later found he was not in the city at the time.

Mr Bolsonaro, a Covid sceptic who publicly vowed never to have the vaccine, has denied any knowledge of records being tampered with.

Almost 700,000 people have died of Covid-19 in Brazil, according to Johns Hopkins University in the US.

The federal police accuse Mr Bolsonaro - who regularly downplayed the severity of the virus - and eight other people of plotting to issue "false certificates to obtain undue advantages" during the pandemic.

Vaccination was an entry requirement for many countries, including the US.

Brazil's attorney general's office will now decide whether to charge the former president.

The 68-year-old was questioned by police in connection with the allegations in May last year and his house was raided.

He denied the accusations and accused authorities of trying to "fabricate a case" against him.

The new indictment is just the latest legal battle he is facing as the former president had to surrender his passport last month over an investigation into accusations he tried to overturn the October 2022 election results and pressure military chiefs to join a coup attempt.

After he lost to left-winger Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva in the presidential poll thousands of his supporters stormed government buildings in the capital Braslia - including the presidential palace, the Supreme Court and Congress - looting and vandalising the buildings.

He was in the US when the attack on Congress happened. He returned to Brazil in March 2023, saying he had nothing to fear.

He remains the most influential figurehead for the right in Brazilian politics.

Originally posted here:

Brazil: Police accuse Bolsonaro of fraud over Covid vaccine records - BBC