Right-wing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has been suspended from Twitter for spreading misinformation about covid-19 vaccines, according to a new report from CNN. How long will Greene be forced off the platform? An entire 12 hours, according to the cable news outlet. That oughta teach her.
Greene, a Republican from Georgia, has stoked controversy over her extremely unorthodox views on subjects like climate change and firearms. But it’s her opinion on vaccination that’s gotten the most attention in recent months, given that vaccine skepticism is rampant among supporters of former president Donald Trump.
Twitter has labeled two of Greene’s tweets as misleading, though it’s not clear if either of those tweets are what ultimately got her suspended.
“This is why no entity should force NON-FDA approved vaccines or masks. Instead help people protect their health by defeating obesity, which will protect them from covid complications & death, and many other health problems. We should invest in health, not human experimentation,” Greene tweeted on Monday.
In fact, several vaccines have been approved for emergency use authorization by the FDA, and the vaccines by Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson have all been shown to be safe and effective.
And despite what Greene is suggesting, obesity is far from the only risk factor for mortality from covid-19. Plenty of perfectly healthy people have died from the coronavirus, with almost all deaths from covid now among the unvaccinated, according to the Associated Press.
“The controversial #COVID19 vaccines should not be forced on our military for a virus that is not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65. With 6,000 vax related deaths and many concerning side effects reported, the vax should be a choice not a mandate for everyone,” Greene said in another misleading tweet on Monday.
While the CDC reports that have been 6,079 reports of death from people who have received a covid-19 vaccine, not only is the percentage absolutely tiny, 0.0018%, it’s not been verified that those deaths are a result of the vaccine. Your risk of dying from covid-19 as an American far outweigh the risk of the vaccine, even if we assume every death reported to the CDC was a direct result of having an adverse reaction to a covid-19 vaccine.
Twitter did not immediately respond to questions about the suspension late Monday night. The question remains whether Greene will be forced to delete her false tweets before she’s allowed to get her account back.
Greene will no doubt play the victim on Twitter when she returns to the platform, something she does constantly while sometimes engaging in anti-semitic tropes. The congresswoman once even blamed forest fires on Jewish space lasers.
“These Big Tech companies are doing the bidding of the Biden regime to
restrict our voices and prevent the spread of any message that isn’t
state-approved,” Greene reportedly told the New York Times.
The U.S. is seeing resurgence of covid-19 as the Delta variant rips through the country and unvaccinated people become exposed. And the people most unlikely to be vaccinated are precisely the kind of people who believe in Rep. Greene’s bullshit.
The country has recorded over 34.1 million covid-19 cases and more than 609,000 deaths since the pandemic began last year. With cases ticking upwards across the nation, there will be plenty more deaths among the unvaccinated before the year is out.
