Rep.-elect Green Wrong About Vaccines, CDC Fraud

fact check

At a town hall event on Dec. 11, Rep.-elect Mark Green of Tennessee inaccurately claimed that vaccine preservatives might cause autism. He also repeated an unsubstantiated claim that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “fraudulently managed” data that showed a link between vaccinations and autism.

Both of these statements are bogus:

• Multiple large studies already have investigated whether any aspect of vaccination — including preservatives — can cause autism and found no evidence they do. The CDC alone has conducted nine investigations into the preservative thimerosal, finding no link to the disease.
• There is no evidence that the CDC “fraudulently managed” vaccine data. Green said he was referring to an allegation of a CDC cover-up that was brought to the House floor in 2015. Those claims, however, are unsupported.

According to the Tennessean, which first reported the story, Green’s vaccine claims came in response to a question from a woman asking about possible cuts in Medicaid funding. She said she was the parent of a young adult with autism.

Here is more of Green’s reply.

Green, Dec. 11: Let me say this about autism. I have committed to people in my community, up in Montgomery County, to stand on the CDC’s desk and get the real data on vaccines. Because there is some concern that the rise in autism is the result of the preservatives that are in our vaccines.

So, as a physician, I can make that argument and I can look at it academically and make the argument against CDC, if they really want to engage me on it. But it appears some of that data has been — it appears some of that data has been, honestly, maybe fraudulently managed. So we’ve got to go up there and stand against that and make sure we get that fixed, that issue addressed.

Green is a former Army special operations flight surgeon and a 1999 graduate of Wright State University’s Boonshoft School of Medicine in Dayton, Ohio. Green, who is a Republican, previously served as a state senator and was elected this fall to represent Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District.