Responding to an expert’s statement that “about 3.2 million” American lives have been saved by vaccines against Covid, with “over 14 million lives” saved globally, the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene said: “I’m not a doctor, but I have a PhD in recognising bullshit when I hear it.”

On Capitol Hill on Thursday, Greene attended a hearing staged by the House oversight select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic.

The expert Greene responded to, Dr Peter Marks, the director of biologics evaluation and research at the Food and Drug Administration, also described how at the height of the pandemic in the US, “about 3,300 [people], about a World Trade Center disaster a day”, were dying of Covid-19, contributing to a death toll of more than 1.1m.

Marks later apologised to viewers, after Greene claimed children should not be given Covid vaccines.

Greene, from Georgia, is a former CrossFit gym owner, conspiracy theorist and controversialist who entered Congress in 2021 and has assumed an influential position in a House Republican caucus controlled by the far right.