“The COVID-19 pandemic was a unique time in history,” Green told the Washington Examiner. “The government gave exemptions for liability waivers because it wanted to solve the COVID-19 pandemic — and fast. Yet this should have never provided cover for these companies to lie or hide trial data. It is clear now that the Biden CDC misled the American people about the effects that COVID vaccines were having on recipients while simultaneously leveling sweeping vaccine mandates.” 

Green said he’s pressuring lawmakers to pass the VITAL Act to fuel transparency in healthcare because “we are seeing that the CDC and these companies colluded to hide the truth” about the “true risks” of the COVID vaccines.

“In a nutshell, pharmaceutical companies shouldn’t be immune from lawsuits if they intentionally lie about trial data [to] the public,” he continued. “You can’t enjoy the confidence and trust of the public on one hand and enjoy total freedom from accountability on the other, no matter what your job is and who you are.”

If passed into law, the VITAL Act would hold the power to reverse sweeping immunities enjoyed by vaccine manufacturers under the 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has criticized. The HHS Secretary has argued that in the United States, “zero-liability” vaccines are rampant because many of them are authorized for distribution without undergoing placebo-controlled safety trials.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, companies were shielded from lawsuits surrounding vaccine injuries when the Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization that allowed companies to administer the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines to the public before full FDA approval. At the time, the Department of Homeland Security also issued a Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act Declaration, based on the 2005 PREP Act, that made vaccine manufacturers immune from most legal liabilities related to the novel vaccines authorized for public use under the EUA.  

However, Green said his legislation would increase accountability for companies caught making fraudulent statements about or concealing vaccine trial data, an issue that rose to the forefront during the pandemic. He argues that the VITAL Act, which allows for fines and criminal proceedings by the federal government as well as civil lawsuits, is essential for vaccine company oversight and the trial data they use to obtain EUAs. The legislation also permits the HHS secretary to remove liability protections issued under EUAs. 

Green said the VITAL Act is necessary to create “a circle of trust” in the healthcare system, which he has been a part of for decades. Before winning his House seat in 2018, Green was a flight surgeon for the Army’s premier special operations aviation regiment, the 160th SOAR. Now, he’s a member of the House GOP Doctors Caucus and the Bipartisan Rural Health Caucus, chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Colorectal Cancer Caucus, and founder of two medical clinics in Memphis and Clarksville. 

“Patients need to be able to trust their doctors,” the Tennessee physician told the Washington Examiner. 

“In order to create this circle of trust, doctors must have all of the information. That’s why it’s such a big deal when vaccine companies hide their trial data or lie about it. As a physician who wants to be as well-informed as possible, it’s egregious to me that a company would purposefully stand in the way of that. Removing liability waivers for vaccine manufacturers creates another form of accountability for these companies to conduct safe trials,” he added. 

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The VITAL Act died in committee when Green initially introduced the legislation last year. When pressed on whether he believes there might be a greater bipartisan push to pass the bill due to the recent Senate report concluding that not all relevant details about the COVID-19 vaccines were shared with the public, Green expressed concern that Democrats would again suppress the bill. 

“I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will support this bill because, given what we know, it’s common sense,” he said. “That being said, we know that most Democrats supported vaccine mandates on the federal, state, and local levels. The left told Americans to follow the science, but the data proved that the vaccine was causing issues for many Americans — these concerns were ignored.”