‘A national embarrassment’: Marjorie Taylor Greene is getting dragged for autism and vaccine misinformation… again
We should all try to live our lives so that things we post on X don’t get hit with community notes featuring 20 different links from medical establishments. Alas, this concept is totally beyond Marjorie Taylor Greene, a woman so entrenched in conspiracy theories that she believes Jewish space lasers cause wildfires.
In an ideal world, we would all be able to ignore Greene and her nonsensical ramblings, but instead she is a congresswoman and we all have to listen to whatever inane thoughts pass through her head. This week, it’s the thoroughly debunked theory that vaccines cause autism. Greene reposted a clip of Robert F. Kennedy Jr, himself a vaccine skeptic and thus an incredibly dangerous man seeing as how he’s now Trump’s nominee for health secretary, spreading lies. The clip was attached to a post from the far-right group MJ Truth Ultra, which claimed among other things that “it is very hard to kill a healthy child with any infectious disease, particularly with measles” and that “all of these ‘studies’ trying to disprove that are paid handsomely by the CDC.”
In the clip, Kennedy claims that “autism is caused by vaccines” and that there was a a “1,350 percent elevated risk for autism” among people who got a Hepatitis B vaccine. He also took some time out to deny his own complicity in deaths caused by vaccine denial. This spurred Greene on to repost and comment, “I fully believe vaccines cause Autism. It’s another example of crimes against humanity. And innocent babies, children, and their families are the victims.”
If you want to see the real victims, look no further than the children who died from a measles outbreak in Samoa, and their traumatized parents. Kennedy helped fan the flames of vaccine distrust there, and the results were horrific. But it’s probably safe to assume Greene doesn’t care about any of that. She simply saw a conspiracy theory and jumped. Luckily, people were outraged and pushed back.
And the anger also ensured a Community Note was placed on Greene’s post. It read, “Vaccines do not cause autism. The scientific literature on this is so extensive, that claiming otherwise can only be explained through sheer ignorance, or some sort of nefarious political purpose.” Then there came 20 links of medical professionals explaining that no, vaccines really do not cause autism. Let’s pick one at random: the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic states that, “A small study in 1998 suggested a link between vaccinations and autism spectrum disorder. The study was reviewed further and retracted. In addition, the author’s medical license was revoked due to falsified information.” This was the infamous study by Andrew Wakefield, and it does not deserve to be taken seriously. While making it, Wakefield bought blood samples from children at his son’s birthday, and that alone should put you off. Wakefield is thoroughly discredited now, but unfortunately, those in the anti-vaxxer movement still believe his claims. That includes Greene.
This isn’t even the first time this month Greene has spread anti-vaxx rhetoric
Greene is taking any opportunity to slam life-saving vaccines. Back at the beginning of December, she made an X post saying, “Autism rates are skyrocketing, and many parents are desperately trying to protect their children from the dangerous vaccines being pushed on them by the government and Big Pharma. Parents shouldn’t have to fight so hard to make healthcare choices for their own kids.” She claimed that parents were seeing their children “fade into autism.”
Notable absent from any of this, of course, was the autistic community. They have been used as pawns in this political anti-vaccine game for a long time now and they’re sick of it. Greene and other anti-vaxxers like to indicate that autism is a fate worse than death and that’s not true either. It’s offensive—but of course, offensiveness is Greene’s trade. At least she didn’t compare health measures to the Holocaust this time.
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