During a Tuesday hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) had the opportunity to question Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the outgoing head of the federal agency known as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Within a minute of Greene opening her mouth, she gestured towards conspiracy theories about a supposedly extensive number of deaths reasonably connected to COVID-19 vaccines.
She was referring to reports that are made proactively and prove nothing about any kind of actual connection to the vaccines that were received. She specifically referenced VAERS data. VAERS is an abbreviation for the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, and in short, it seems perfectly conceivable that people who just happened to pass away after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine might have their deaths added to the system’s numbers — figures that Greene was eager to cite on Tuesday. (“VAERS welcomes all reports, regardless of seriousness, and regardless of how likely the vaccine may have been to have caused the adverse event,” a CDC webpage that came up after less than a minute of searching said.)
Funnily, Greene also complained about the federal money that’s gone towards pharmaceutical companies involved in creating and distributing vaccines… though arrangements from when Trump was in power seemingly provided the framework for those outlays. As she went on and on, she also seemingly accused vaccinations against COVID-19 of direct involvement in an increase in miscarriages and stillbirths.
In reply, Walensky discussed the truth of the VAERS data. That system “is intended to have an over-reporting,” she explained in the hearing. “Most of the vaccines that were being given — and remember, we gave 676 million doses of the vaccine — any adverse event. If you got hit by a truck after you got your vaccine, that was reported… We at CDC have a responsibility to comb through every single one of them, to review the medical charts, and to see if they are related.”
Greene, sounding (perhaps purposefully?) ignorant of the basic concept Walensky was sharing — that the deaths reported through VAERS have nothing automatically to do with the shots — melodramatically complained that health authorities nonetheless still promoted vaccines. Walensky offered education for Greene’s staff in response. “I don’t want my staff educated,” Greene said. “You should educate the American people about what you’ve done” regarding the VAERS reports… which is what Walenksy was literally just telling those listening.
Check it all out below:
