No stranger to controversy, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has come under intense scrutiny for pushing discredited conspiracy theories.
Notably, the freshmen congresswoman — an ardent supporter of former President Donald Trump — has strongly criticized public health officials in President Joe Biden’s administration for urging caution amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In recent days, Greene has taken aim at coronavirus vaccines, describing them as ineffective and slamming those who think they should be mandatory.
The social network Twitter is now stepping in.
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In a Monday tweet, Greene said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should not improve coronavirus vaccines because they don’t work.
"The FDA should not approve the covid vaccines. There are too many reports of infection & spread of #COVID19 among vaccinated people," Greene tweeted, before railing against masks and vaccine passports.
"These vaccines are failing & do not reduce the spread of the virus & neither do masks. Vaccine mandates & passports violate individual freedoms," she wrote, as reported by The Hill.
Twitter Bans Greene
Greene’s Monday tweet was labeled "misleading" by Twitter. Other users were not able to reply to the post, like or share it.
In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson explained that the message "was labeled in line with our COVID-19 misleading information policy."
In addition, Twitter has suspended Greene for a week, the spokesperson confirmed, noting that the congresswoman’s account will be in read-only mode for seven days "due to repeated violations of Twitter Rules."
Green was suspended from Twitter for 12 hours in July after claiming COVID-19 was "not dangerous" for most people.
Are Vaccines Failing?
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), even fully vaccinated people can contract and spread the Delta variant of COVID-19.
However, as NPR reported, CDC research also shows that vaccines are highly effective in preventing severe disease, hospitalization and death.
The Pfizer vaccine, for instance, is thought to provide more than 90 percent protection against hospitalization and death.
As the Delta variant continues to spread, all Americans — vaccinated or not — need to wear masks in indoor spaces, according to the CDC.
Trump Is A ‘Big Vaccine Fan’
Though Greene and several other Republicans have argued against vaccines and described them as ineffective, Trump has done the opposite, repeatedly promoting inoculation.
In an interview last week, Trump said that 100 million people around the world would have died from coronavirus, if not for his administration’s effort to develop vaccines.
The former president described himself as a "big vaccine fan," saying that the shots "turned out to be a tremendous thing" that saved millions of people.
He noted, however, that everyone should have a choice whether to get vaccinated or not.
