Fact Checking Two Claims About Vaccines by Marjorie Taylor Greene

The Georgia representative said that Anthony Fauci is recommending a fourth COVID shot and claimed that kids need only one dose of the polio vaccine.

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On March 17, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene made comments on the House floor in response to the possibility, according to Greene, that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, would recommend a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose. “He is also recommending a fourth COVID vaccine shot,” she said. 

She then went on to make a false statement about the polio vaccine: “I don’t know about you guys, but many of us were vaccinated as kids against polio, we had our MMR, and I have never seen the CDC coming out saying, ‘oh, you’ve got to get your second polio shot, you’ve got to get your third, you’ve got to get your fourth.’” 

 

Greene’s full remarks can be seen here.

The CDC actually does recommend four doses of the polio vaccine for children, with a recommended schedule of one dose each at 2 months old, 4 months old, 6 through 18 months old, and 4 through 6 years old.

Fauci has addressed the possibility of recommending a fourth COVID mRNA shot but is not doing so now. During a February 16, 2022, White House COVID-19 response team press briefing, he said:  “The potential future requirement for an additional boost or a fourth shot for mRNA or a third shot for J&J is being very carefully monitored in real time. And recommendations, if needed, will be updated according to the data as it evolves.”

Currently, the CDC recommends a fourth dose of the mRNA vaccines only for “​​people ages 12 years and older who are moderately or severely immunocompromised,” but not for the general public.  

If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Mike from Jersey

    MTG...Stupid is as stupid does.

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    JohnF

    If only there was a vaccine to combat stupidity. MTG would still need regular boosters, but at least there would be less need for fact checks.

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    The Bell Tower

    “Greene’s full remarks can be seen here.“

    You neglected to warn readers that looking directly at Greene’s full remarks will cause permanent brain damage.

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  4. Avatar photo
    AnnaA

    Thank you, although I feel there should be a threshold of statements anyone should bother to fact check. Some utterances are just too idiotic.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Thank you for the fact check——

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  6. Chanterelle

    The sad part of this is even a basic memory of her own life, if she went to college, or parented a child, should have informed her of this error. Clearly there is a lack of care or attention to the truth. There should be a lot of people, just from their own life experiences, that know this is inaccurate, right? ... Right?

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    Frank Lee

    Just thinking. Cool that we have good journalists fact-checking our government. Leaving aside for the moment that the media fact-checking related to COVID is way too one sided... there are so many other facts not being checked... it seems that the fact-checkers are attempting to make the strong case that healthcare should not be politicized by politicians while defending some politicians for politicizing healthcare. I would really like to see more consistency there.

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    1. Mary Stine

      Good luck. One thing that makes the inconsistency possible is the lack of agreement among prominent members of the medical community who also happen to be politicians or just have highly profitable websites and newsletters. Most of us readers are not doctors, or even trained nurses, so there's a lot of misinformation we might trip over.
      Combatting complex medical misinformation, like scientific information, is a lot harder than just fact checking a specific vaccine. Most Americans don't have the attention span to sit through that, never mind the vocabulary.

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        Frank Lee

        There are plenty of qualified people being canceled, de-platformed and ignored. The Great Barrington Declaration, at this point, seems valid and accurate.

        I am not a trained scientist but one I know told me something I will never forget. He said, if the science is complex, and most science is complex, there should never be consensus and science should welcome perpetual debate.

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          Scarlette Tarte

          Science does have perpetual debate. But the debate now is on which way to administer vaccines, not on if they do or don't work. They do. Are they better against some diseases than others? Yes. Why? Mutations.

          So now that we know vaccines work, the debate moves on to other things.

          No one is being "canceled". Being outed for being badly wrong is not being canceled.

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            Frank Lee

            There is reasonable science to theorize that the spike protein approach with these mRNA vaccines resulted in more and more contagious mutations than would have otherwise occurred with natural herd immunity. Check the difference in infection rates in places like Africa where there were many fewer vaccinated and the economy left open and places that are near 100% vaxxed and locked down.

            But according to you any scientists that raises this theory should be outed.

            Sort of Gestapo like don’t you think?

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            Frank Lee

            Well it turns out that most of those scientists that got canceled, outed and deplatformed were right about the vaccines. Who do we out and cancel now? I would start with Fauci.

            By the way, the science on flu vaccines are indicative that they do nothing to help prevent death from the flu. The billionaire boys club owns the media and donates to universities and they also own big pharma. People are so easy to manipulate into taking a tribal side and checking their brain cells at the door.

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            Frank Lee

            https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-11-19/scientists-mystified-wary-as-africa-avoids-covid-disaster

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        2. Mary Stine

          Trying to "like" this, but button doesn't work! I like your friend's take on this. Good science will have a good defense. I feel the same way about religion: if it cannot be openly debated it must not deserve defending.

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    rlritt

    She never fails to show her ignorance.

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    Mudskipper

    The right wing is pushing a lot of misinformation about vaccines right now to discredit the COVID vaccines. According to these people, a real vaccine gives you 100% immunity with one shot. Since COVID vaccines don't give complete immunity and require boosters, they can't be vaccines.

    This is, of course, complete nonsense. Not even the storied smallpox vaccine would fit the definition of vaccine these folks are pushing. It was 95% effective in preventing infection and the immunity provided faded after several years, requiring a booster.

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  10. Laura Crowder

    I had to get an additional MMR during college.

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