Have you heard of Mark Green?
For those of us who grew up watching ER, Mark Green is a household name.
But that’s not the Mark Green I’m talking about…
Who Is Mark Green?
Mark Green is a soon-to-be congressman, recently elected for Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District.
A Republican, he is also a doctor. Specifically, he became a Army special operations flight surgeon after completing a residency in emergency medicine.
Of note, Dr. Green has also made horrible statements about transgender people, saying that they have a disease and that they are an evil that must be crushed.
Although his previous statements led him to withdraw as Trump’s pick for Army Secretary, that didn’t keep folks in Tennessee from sending him to Congress.
And now we have his comments about vaccines and autism…
At a recent town hall meeting in Tennessee, Green said:
“Let me say this about autism,” Green said. “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.
“As a physician, I can make that argument and I can look at it academically and make the argument against the CDC, if they really want to engage me on it,” Green said.
Has he apologized?
Despite some saying that he has walked back those claims, his main response has been that his comments had been “misconstrued” and that “I’ve vaccinated my kids and let others know they need to vaccinate theirs too.”
Nothing about vaccines and autism.
“There appears to be some evidence that as vaccine numbers increase, rates of autism increase,” Green said. “We need better research, and we need it fast. We also need complete transparency of any data. Vaccines are essential to good population health. But that does not mean we should not look closely at the correlation for any causation.”
Except for when he doubled down on his statements trying to associate vaccines with autism…
Statements which seemed to cause the Tennessee chapter of the AAP and the Tennessee Department of Health to issue statements of their own.
“Vaccines do not cause autism.”
Tennessee Department of Health Statement on Immunizations
So, is he going to really apologize for his comments, and perhaps learn a bit more about vaccines, vaccine-preventable disease, and autism?
More on Mark Green
- VAXOPEDIA – Does Congress Really Agree About Vaccines?
- VAXOPEDIA – What Ronald Reagan Can Teach Us About Vaccine Policy
- VAXOPEDIA – Vaccines and the Latest Autism Prevalence Report
- VAXOPEDIA – Explaining the Correlation of Autism After Vaccines
- VAXOPEDIA – Has the CDC Been Hiding and Destroying Evidence About Vaccine Safety?
- VAXOPEDIA – Expert Statements on Vaccines and Autism
- VAXOPEDIA – Dan Burton on Vaccines and Autism
- Who is Mark Green Representing in Tennessee, Exactly? Not His Autistic Constituents, That’s For Sure
- Tennessee U.S. Rep.-elect Mark Green alleges vaccines may cause autism, questions CDC data
- Tennessee Department of Health Statement on Immunizations
- ‘Vaccines save lives.’ Sen. Lamar Alexander states scientific facts after Mark Green comment
- Mark Green uses Bible verse to call transgender people “evil”
- Mark Green, the Heartless Man Who Would Be Army Chief
- Sen. John McCain: Army secretary nominee’s past comments ‘very concerning’
- Rep.-Elect Mark Green: A new antivaccine crank goes to Congress
- New GOP Congressman Mark Green Rejects Science, Claims Vaccines May Cause Autism
- GOP Senator Opposes Medicaid Expansion Because It Prevents People From Finding God
- In which Rep. Bill Posey hits most of the autism-vaccine bingo points at the Congressional autism hearing
- Antivaccine legislators are at it again
- Vaccines Aren’t Partisan
- How Congress Brought the Measles Back