Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) declined to reveal if she is vaccinated against COVID-19 when asked on Tuesday, claiming the inquiry was a violation of her health privacy rights.
“Have you yourself been vaccinated and do you disagree with the Republican whip?” a reporter asked Greene, noting House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said that he had been vaccinated against the virus over the weekend and encouraged others to do so.
“Well, you see your first question is a violation of my HIPPA rights,” Greene replied. “And with HIPPA rights, we don’t have to reveal our medical records and that also involves our vaccine records.”
HIPPA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, is a federal law passed in the late 1990s with the primary purpose of requiring the health care and health care insurance industries to protect patients’ medical records and histories from fraud and theft. It is most regularly cited in hospitals, outpatient facilities or in schools.
Greene has a history of pushing false or misleading information about the coronavirus, face coverings, lockdown measures and the pandemic as a whole.
The conservative congresswoman was hit this week with a 12-hour suspension from Twitter after she posted a tweet falsely claiming COVID-19 is “not dangerous” for people who are not obese or under the age of 65. In a separate tweet this week, Greene said that “defeating obesity” would protect people against coronavirus complications and death.
The House Ethics Committee earlier this week rejected appeals by Greene and two other Republican lawmakers who were fined in May for repeatedly going maskless on the House floor, upholding the $500 fines against them.
She called the fine “arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and otherwise not consistent with law or with principles of fairness.”
Greene, a vocal supporter of former President Trump, also sparked bipartisan backlash in recent weeks for comparing mask mandates to conditions placed on Jews in Nazi Germany.
Since she was elected in November, several members of Congress have decried Greene’s rhetoric and said they do not feel safe around her.
Scalise, the second-highest ranking Republican in the House, cited the delta variant of the coronavirus for his decision to get vaccinated.
“Especially with the delta variant becoming a lot more aggressive and seeing another spike, it was a good time to do it,” he said. “When you talk to people who run hospitals, in New Orleans or other states, 90 percent of people in hospital with delta variant have not been vaccinated. That’s another signal the vaccine works.”
Updated at 8:51 a.m.