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By Giulia Carbonaro
Senior Reporter
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was confronted with her own anti-vaccination tweets at the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Thursday, with Rep. Robert Garcia accusing her of causing enormous harm with her social media posts.
Top federal health officials appeared to discuss how COVID-19 vaccine campaigns were run and how to strengthen trust in vaccines in the future. Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research at the Food and Drug Administration said that "about 3.2 million" lives in the U.S. have been saved by the COVID-19 vaccines, to which Greene vehemently reacted.
"I'm not a doctor, but I have a PhD in recognizing bullshit when I hear it," she said.
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The Georgia Republican said that the only people at risk of being hospitalized or dying of COVID-19 were only those who were obese, had diabetes or were over the age of 65—accusing Marks of rushing through the vaccination process. Greene attributed to the COVID-19 vaccines "all kinds of injuries, miscarriages, heart attacks, myocarditis, permanent disability, neurological problems."
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Garcia, a California Democrat, intervened after Greene and apologized to those at Capitol Hill for having to listen to "a lot of conspiracy theories and wild accusations, which we know have been debunked by medical science."
He then brought up printed versions of several of Greene's tweets that he said aimed to undermine trust in the COVID-19 vaccines, saying the Georgia Republican "spread misinformation, encouraged parents to refuse routine vaccination...and even compared our pandemic [response efforts] to the Holocaust."
Bringing up a 2021 tweet from Greene, Garcia said: "The same person that is actually attacking vaccines said that 'vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi's forced Jewish people to wear a gold star.' That is the level of insanity and attacks that we're having here."
During Garcia's remarks, Greene could be seen talking to a colleague. Newsweek contacted Garcia's office and Greene's spokesperson for comment by email on Friday morning, outside of standard working hours.
He also mentioned Greene's previous comments saying that COVID-19 was a bioweapon and vaccines could cause "turbo cancer." The California Democrat then deemed the comments "insanity" and asked Marks to clarify if the COVID-19 vaccine caused "turbo cancer."
Marks said he didn't know what "turbo cancer" was, adding that no increase in cancer diagnosis was linked to the taking of COVID-19 vaccines. He then apologized to "the thousand or so parents of children under 4 years of age who have died of Covid-19, who were unvaccinated. Because there were deaths and there continue to be deaths among children, and that is the reason why they need to get vaccinated."
The World Health Organization notes that billions have received a COVID-19 vaccine, the benefits of which outweigh the risks of getting ill with the disease. In the U.S, as of January 1, 2024, there were 12,854 Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program claims regarding COVID-19, including 9,682 that alleged death or injury due to a vaccine, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration. The HRSA noted before the subcommittee that these represented 0.001 percent of vaccines given.
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