(Bloomberg) -- Governor Ron DeSantis stepped up his attacks on vaccine makers, specifically targeting Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc., asking Florida’s Supreme Court to create a statewide grand jury that will investigate alleged claims of wrongdoing with Covid shots. 

The grand jury “will come with legal process to get more information and bring legal accountability for those who committed misconduct,” DeSantis said Wednesday during a 90-minute panel discussion he hosted. “We need to have a thorough investigation of what happened to these shots.”

The governor, who was re-elected in November, will also establish a committee, overseen by Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, that will assess whether federal public health recommendations and guidance are tailored for Florida’s communities and priorities, according to a statement Wednesday. DeSantis offered few details about the next steps for his grand jury petition, a request he made based on a state law, beyond saying it would involve the Tampa Bay area. A spokesperson declined to comment beyond the statement. 

DeSantis, a Republican widely floated as a potential presidential contender in 2024, has long been critical of the way the federal government responded to the pandemic, lashing out against masks and vaccine mandates. In March, the Florida Department of Health recommend against vaccinating healthy children for Covid, contradicting guidance from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Despite their relative safety, Covid vaccines have been linked to some side-effects ranging from mild to serious. Temporary inflammation in and around the heart in some patients has caused concern, especially in adolescents and young adult males, though studies have found risks are higher from Covid infection than from vaccination itself. Some critics have said that vaccines were rushed to the public without thorough safety assessments, but studies have found the shots saved some 20 million lives just in the first year of the rollout.

DeSantis hosted the panel discussion with a group of physicians, including Ladapo. The state will help conduct studies on vaccine side-effects, Ladapo said at the panel, singling out those made by Moderna and Pfizer.

“Regulatory agencies across the world have authorized the use of our COVID-19 vaccine,” a spokesperson for Pfizer said. “These authorizations are based on robust and independent evaluation of the scientific data on quality, safety and efficacy.”

A spokesperson with Moderna wasn’t immediately available for a comment.

About 25% of the state’s children age 5 to 11 have been vaccinated against Covid, according to data from the Florida Department of Health. That compares with 38% of children from the same age group who received at least one dose of the vaccine nationally. 

DeSantis said he will once again push for a bill defending health care practitioners’ “free speech” during the next legislature, while also creating a public health integrity committee in Florida to “offer critical assessment” of guidelines issued by other health authorities.

He also criticized Alphabet Inc.’s Google and YouTube, as well as Twitter Inc. for what he called “censorship” during the pandemic. 

--With assistance from Madison Muller.

(Adds Comment from Pfizer in the seventh paragraph)

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