Fact Checking a Marjorie Taylor Greene Tweet About COVID Vaccine Claims

On July 11, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican congresswoman from Georgia and a supporter of Donald Trump, tweeted that “[T]thousands of people are reporting very serious life changing vaccine side effects from taking covid vaccines.” She further claimed that the CDC reported “5,946 deaths” from the vaccine and that President Joe Biden is “going to homes to push shots.”

Many of the claims in the widely shared tweet are false or misleading. 

To start, while it’s true that according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database (VAERS) “received 5,946 reports of death (0.0018%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine,” this doesn’t mean the vaccine was the cause. Per the CDC, health care workers are required to report any death after any COVID-19 vaccination, even if the cause of death is unclear: 

“FDA requires healthcare providers to report any death after COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS, even if it’s unclear whether the vaccine was the cause. Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem. A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records, has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines.”