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Salon
Salon
Politics
Kelly McClure

MTG thinks vaccines cause Autism

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a new controversial theory on Monday, following up past hits like "the U.S. government is controlling the weather" and "wildfires are being caused by space lasers," with a fresh take on what causes Autism.

In a post to X which was, shortly after, hit with a corrective community note, Greene wrote, “I fully believe vaccines cause Autism. It’s another example of crimes against humanity. And innocent babies, children, and their families are the victims."

A bold statement but, as the note now attached to it on Elon Musk's platform proves, it's simply not factual.

Sourcing 19 links to outside resources disproving Greene's claim, the correction to Greene's statement kicks off with: “Vaccines do not cause autism. The scientific literature on this is so extensive, that claiming otherwise can only be explained through sheer ignorance, or some sort of nefarious political purpose.”

As Newsweek points out in their coverage of Greene's latest theory, she also reposted a video of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's pick to be the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which echos her belief.

"Yes, Autism is caused by vaccines," Kennedy says in the clip. "The CDC's own data, they did a study in 1989 and the looked at the Hepatitis B vaccine . . .There was a 1,350 percent elevated risk for Autism among the people who got their vaccines."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website states that "studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism spectrum disorder."

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