Democrats scold Marjorie Taylor Greene for ‘vulgarity’ and ‘conspiracy’ in vaccine hearing

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) earned scorn from her Democratic colleagues for referring to herself as an expert in “recognizing bullshit” during a Thursday hearing on improving vaccine safety systems and Americans’ trust in vaccinations. 

“I’m not a doctor, but I have a Ph.D. in recognizing bullshit when I hear it,” Greene said shortly before confronting experts from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on their policies. 

Greene did not pose any questions to the witnesses and accused Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the FDA, of turning a blind eye to complaints of vaccine-related injury in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). 

“This is from the Congressional Research Service about VAERS — all kinds of injuries: miscarriages, heart attacks, myocarditis, permanent disabilities, neurological problems, and it going on and on and on,” Greene said. 

“These are the reports from people being forced to take vaccines,” she added.

VAERS is an early-warning system that collects unverified information to inspire investigation, but it is only one of many warning systems and should not be treated as the primary dataset for evaluating vaccine injuries, said Daniel Jernigan, CDC director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) immediately apologized to those present at the hearing for “a lot of conspiracy theories and accusations which we know have been debunked by medical science.” 

Garcia, seemingly prepared for Greene’s claims, immediately exhibited several of Greene’s tweets, saying she has “spread misinformation, encouraged parents to refuse routine vaccinations — which you just heard, by the way — and even compared our pandemic [response efforts] to the Holocaust.” 

Garcia then read a 2021 tweet from Greene that compared vaccination logos on employees to the Jewish people forced to wear the Star of David in Nazi Germany. 

The Hill reported that Greene later apologized for the tweet. 

“I want to on a point of personal privilege remind members of this committee, though I am not the chair, that there should be some sense of decorum, and vulgarity should be discouraged,” Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) said, seemingly referencing Greene’s use of “bullshit.”

“There are people watching across this nation who want, and frankly expect that Congress, if no other place, will conduct itself in a way that does not insult any of them personally because of vulgarities,” Mfume added.

At the outset of the hearing, Chair Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) called for a “nuanced conversation” about safeguarding against future health crises, identifying lessons learned and restoring Americans’ trust in health recommendations. 

Wenstrup, in addition to some of his Democratic colleagues including Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), said the government’s failure to be clear with the American people about the risks of COVID-19 vaccines has sown lingering distrust.

“We are now witnessing a startling decline in immunization levels across the board, and I’m deeply concerned about our nation’s ability to respond to public health threats in the future,” Dingell said. 

“We need to approach people with compassion and accurate information that breaks through the noise online,” she said.