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Says Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “says that all young people want to be socialists. From his campaign ad, you’d think Tim Baxter is running for a U.S. House seat against New York City Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — even though Baxter is a small-town Republican from New Hampshire. "AOC is a liar, liar. Her $60,000 Tesla must be on fire," Baxter says to open the 90-second video, before an image of a white Tesla surrounded by animated flames and photos of Ocasio-Cortez are shown. Then Baxter makes this claim in the Facebook and Instagram ad: "She says that all young people want to be socialists; another lie." Baxter, a first-term state House representative, is running in the Sept. 13 primary for the GOP nomination to challenge U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., who is running for a third-term. We found no evidence for his claim. Republicans have used the socialist label to attack Democrats and their policies for decades, including over programs such as Medicare or Social Security that ultimately became popular on both sides of the aisle. Some are using the label in their 2022 campaigns, including an ad by Kalena Bruce, a House candidate from Missouri, that calls Ocasio-Cortez a socialist. The most narrow definition of socialism refers to, as Merriam-Webster puts it, the"governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods." ​When Ocasio-Cortez, who was elected to the House in 2018, speaks of socialism, it is often about expanding social programs. She supports a single-payer health care system, tuition-free college and banning private prisons, and has advocated abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. She has described herself as a democratic socialist, expressing support for free markets, but with more power for workers. In her own ads, she said her first run was "people versus money," and she has called for Medicare for All and a federal jobs guarantee. Featured Fact-check Adam Laxalt stated on November 20, 2022 in an ad “Biden and Democrats have dismantled border security.” By Maria Ramirez Uribe • November 3, 2022 At the same, Ocasio-Cortez has said some democratic-socialists can also be capitalists. Our searches of Google, Bing and Nexis found no instance in which she said that all young people want to be socialists, as Baxter’s ad says. We also searched for any mention of young people and socialists on her personal and official Twitter accounts. Had Ocasio-Cortez flatly stated that all young people want to be socialists, it’s likely news coverage would have quickly followed. Baxter’s campaign did not reply to our requests for information to back his statement. A spokesperson for Ocasio-Cortez declined to comment on the claim and on whether she has owned a Tesla, which is an American brand of electric cars. A number of reports have speculated that Ocasio-Cortez drives a Tesla, including the conservative Washington Free Beacon, which reported in May that according to unnamed sources, her Tesla was seen parked illegally in Washington, D.C. Young people and socialism While Baxter is not running against Ocasio-Cortez, his ad makes it clear that, at 24, he wants to be "the youngest elected congressman." Ocasio-Cortez is now 32 but in 2018 was the youngest person in modern history to be elected to Congress until Madison Cawthorn, a North Carolina Republican, was elected in 2020 at 25, the minimum age to serve in the House under the Constitution. There is evidence that young people in the U.S. react favorably to the term "socialism" — and show support for more progressive ideas about government programs, if not government ownership of the means of production. For example, this question was asked in an Axios/Momentive poll in June: "Do you have a positive or negative reaction to the word socialism?" Among adults ages 18 to 24, 52% said positive and among those 25 to 35, 50% said positive. But there’s a lot of distance between those findings and the claim that Ocasio-Cortez said "all young people want to be socialists." We rate that claim False. PolitiFact staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this repor

Washington’s State Board of Health will discuss mandatory COVID-19 quarantines and vaccine requirements for schoolchildren at a Jan. 12 meeting The Washington State Board of Health has a meeting scheduled for Jan. 12, and social media users warned that officials were planning to discuss changes that would allow authorities to detain unvaccinated people in quarantine facilities, and also to require COVID-19 vaccines for children to attend school. Fears residents had about being taken against their will to an isolation site are unfounded, however. And any decision about whether to require vaccines for students is a long way off. A Facebook post shares a flyer that reads: "The WA State Board of Health will discuss applying current infectious disease WAC codes to include COVID-19 for all WA state residents." It goes on to say the changes will allow health officials to use law enforcement to detain individuals or families in an isolation facility if they don’t comply with requests for testing, treatment and vaccination. It also says the board will discuss adding COVID-19 vaccines to school immunization requirements. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) After getting more than 25,000 emails about the meeting agenda, the board posted an article saying it wanted "to clarify some misinformation that has circulated online regarding two topics on the agenda." First, the board said that item nine on its agenda is related to rulemaking, but that it is not voting to change isolation or quarantine policies at the meeting, "nor does it suggest law enforcement be used to enforce any vaccination requirements." It is continuing a November rules hearing on proposed changes to the Washington Administrative Code to bring it in line with a state law that went into effect in June 2020. That bill was intended to modernize state’s laws on the control of communicable diseases "by ending statutory HIV/AIDS exceptionalism, reducing HIV-related stigma, defelonizing HIV exposure, and removing barriers to HIV testing," according to the board. The changes being discussed at the hearing are related solely to HIV language and have zero overlap with COVID-19, said Keith Grellner, chairperson of the State Board of Health, in an interview with PolitiFact. Grellner said this chapter has been in place since before 1988. It was updated in 2003 with a section geared toward HIV, but also to other highly contagious diseases. One of the many sections of that code relates to the procedures health officials could use to forcibly put a person into isolation or quarantine. In short, Grellner said, a health officer does not have the authority to quarantine someone against their will — only a judge could make such an order. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 "The only communicable disease I'm aware that it's ever been used for is tuberculosis," said Grellner. Regardless, it is not something the board is discussing or considering, he said. "It's never been talked about. There's no plans to use that for COVID. There are no plans or resources or locations to set up involuntary isolation or quarantine camps," Grellner added. "That's a complete falsehood. It doesn't exist. It's never been discussed." Grellner blamed the confusion on social media users who "willfully and intentionally put out misinformation." School requirements As far as vaccine requirements for schools, there is no action being taken by the board at this meeting. However, the board is expected to receive an update on the progress of a technical advisory group that’s evaluating whether to include a COVID-19 vaccine in the list of vaccines required for schoolchildren. Currently, children attending schools in the state must be vaccinated against 11 diseases, including measles and whooping cough, but not COVID-19. The group will make a recommendation at a future hearing, which the board would then vote on. If they do require a COVID-19 vaccine, the board said, there would be exemptions for medical, religious or personal reasons. "There's nothing imminent as far as a possible recommendation" from the advisory group, Grellner said. Grellner said there is a limit to how many people can register to watch the meeting on Zoom, but those who can’t get in can follow a live broadcast of it on tvw.org. Our ruling A Facebook post shared a flyer warning that Washington’s State Board of Health in a Jan. 12 meeting was going to discuss changes that would allow for the forced quarantines of unvaccinated families and require students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to attend school. The board is discussing rules changes to the state’s administrative Code to bring it in line with a state law (ESHB 1551) that went into effect in June 2020. The changes are related to language about HIV and not at all related to quarantine or isolation policies, nor do they discuss using law enforcement to enforce quarantines. The board is not taking any action about vaccine requirements for students, but is expected to hear a status update from an advisory group tasked with making a recommendation. Any recommendation or vote would take place at a future hearing. We rate this claim Mostly Fals

Says Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was photographed at dinner with Democratic lawmakers On Jan. 8, Politico published a photo from a tipster that it described as showing Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor at dinner the night before with a group of Democrats: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Dick Durbin. Later that day, the publication corrected the record: It wasn’t Sotomayor, who that morning heard arguments in a hearing concerning the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates. It was Iris Weinshall, Schumer’s wife and chief operating officer of the New York Public Library. But several days later, the misinformation lingered online. "Justice Sotomayor, who participated in yesterday’s SCOTUS arguments remotely from her chambers, seen last night at Le Diplomate with Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Schumer and Sens. Klobuchar and Durban, per Politico," one Jan. 8 Facebook post said. "They are all laughing at us." This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 In an editor’s note, Politico issued a mea culpa: "Politico standards require we verify this information. The editor who received the tip failed to do so in this case. We deeply regret the error." In the photo in question, someone with dark hair — like Sotomayor and Weinshall have — can be seen sitting at a table with their back to the camera next to Klobuchar, who is turned around and facing the camera. A spokesperson for Schumer told the Associated Press that Sotomayor wasn’t at the dinner. We rate claims that Sotomayor is the person in the picture False.

Gov. Kim Reynolds, touting $210 million for Iowa broadband, “failed to mention these are actually federal funds approved by Rep. Cindy Axne and signed into law by President Joe Biden. More than $210 million was awarded to 160 applicants for new broadband infrastructure in Iowa as part of the state’s Empower Rural Iowa Broadband Grant Program, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds announced in a press release on Tuesday, Jan. 4. Reynolds also tweeted on Jan. 4: "These grants will bring more than $526 million of new broadband infrastructure investment to Iowa, serving over 39,000 homes, schools, and businesses." In response, Democrats ranging from state legislators, running for the Legislature and party activists said on Facebook and social media that Reynolds is giving herself credit where credit is not due, and accused her of neglecting to tell Iowans that the grants she was announcing were funded Iowa’s allocation of the American Rescue Plan that, they noted, Reynolds and other Iowa Republicans opposed. "Governor Reynolds is doing it again, claiming credit she doesn't deserve," Iowa Senate Democrats posted on Facebook Jan. 5. "Yesterday's Reynolds press release touting $210 million in broadband help for Iowa failed to mention these are actually federal funds approved by Rep Cindy Axne and signed into law by President Joe Biden." They are correct about Reynolds announcing the grants from a program she opposed, although Iowa has provided some of its own funding for broadband improvements in rural Iowa and Reynolds has made broadband expansion a state priority. When contacted by PolitiFact Iowa, Reynold’s communications director, Alex Murphy, wrote in an email that the entire $210 million in new money was from the American Rescue Plan. Empower Rural Iowa The Empower Rural Iowa Broadband Grant is part of the Empower Rural Iowa initiative, which Reynolds established by an executive order in 2018. In that year, the state allocated $1.3 million to the program. Since 2018, the goals of the grant program have been to reduce the amount of areas in Iowa unserved or underserved by broadband service by providing funds to organizations installing broadband infrastructure. Reynolds renewed another round of grants on April 28, 2021, after the bill passed unanimously in the Republican-led Legislature earlier that year. Iowa’s state budget allocated $100 million for the program in fiscal 2022, which started July 1, 2021. Reynolds originally had asked for $150 million annually for each of the next three years, but agreed to $100 million, saying she could get federal funds to supplement the remaining cost. On Oct. 11, after applications were received, Reynolds announced in a press release that due to an overwhelming need and interest in the program, the state would spend about $200 million from American Rescue Plan funding for the program. The state had received 178 applications requesting a total of $300 million in funds. Featured Fact-check Deidre DeJear stated on October 19, 2022 in a tweet "Kim Reynolds doesn’t think nurses are educated." By Liam Halawith • October 31, 2022 Reynolds announced the recipients of nearly $100 million using state funds in September. Eventually, the American Rescue Plan amount for Iowa rose to $210 million. Democrats were quick to respond in October because Reynolds advocated against the passage of the American Rescue Plan before President Biden signed the bill in March. In February, she had signed a joint statement with 21 other governors opposing the plan. The statement criticized the plan because it allocates funds according to each state’s unemployed population rather than its total population, which Reynolds said punished states that kept unemployment levels low in the pandemic. Iowa’s unemployment rate ranged from 3.6% to 4.1% in 2021. "A state’s ability to keep businesses open and people employed should not be a penalizing factor when distributing funds. If Congress is going to provide aid to states, it should be on an equitable population basis," said Reynolds in the press release. Reynolds was not the only Iowa Republican to advocate against the American Rescue Plan. No Iowa GOP Congress member voted for the plan. The only Iowa congresswoman to vote for it was Democrat U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne. Beyond the American Rescue Plan, a bipartisan $1.2 billion infrastructure bill that passed Congress and was signed into law in November included $65 billion for broadband improvements nationally. Grassley was the only Republican in Iowa’s congressional delegation to vote with Democrat Rep. Cindy Axne for the plan. Overall, around $310 million eventually was provided to applicants for broadband infrastructure in Iowa in 2021, nearly triple the original $100 million. Our ruling Iowa Senate Democrats said on Facebook on Jan. 5 that Reynolds failed to mention in a Jan. 4 press release that new funding for broadband expansion in Iowa came from the American Rescue Plan that Democrats supported and President Biden signed into law. A look at the state grant program shows $210 million of the funding announced in January 2022 is from the American Rescue Plan. And, while another $100 million for broadband expansion in Iowa this fiscal year came from a state contribution that Reynolds supported, she declined to identify that the new $210 million in broadband money was from the American Rescue Plan that she opposed. We rate this claim to be Tru

“New Zealand okays euthanasia for COVID patients. As COVID-19 cases continue to surge, the headline on a blog post claims New Zealand decided to approve euthanasia for COVID-19 patients. "New Zealand okays euthanasia for COVID patients," reads the blog’s headline, which was shared in numerous social media posts. "‘Patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 can die by euthanasia if doctors decide they might not survive, the New Zealand government has declared,’" said one tweet that drew a quote from the Catholic Herald article before offering commentary: "That’ll certainly increase the numbers. There’s evil afoot." “Patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 can die by euthanasia if doctors decide they might not survive, the New Zealand government has declared.”That’ll certainly increase the numbers.There’s evil afoot. https://t.co/ffGi5egSpL— Calvin (@calvinrobinson) December 26, 2021 But the headline is a misrepresentation of an assisted dying program that recently went into effect in New Zealand — and social media posts referencing the news leave out significant context. Passed in a referendum by New Zealanders in 2020, the End of Life Choice Act of 2019 has strict eligibility requirements and is only meant for terminally ill people. It wasn’t introduced for COVID-19 patients. The story was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The law took effect in November 2021 about a year after the vote. In December, an anti-euthansia website called The Defender published an article that seemed to ignite the claims now circulating online. According to the article, the New Zealand Health Ministry told The Defender that, in some circumstances, a person with COVID-19 may be eligible for assisted dying, and suggested that the law could be used as a tool if COVID-19 hospitalizations were to spiral out of control. But New Zealand health officials said that the story and others like it are taking the law out of context and omitting its eligibility requirements and rules. "There is no truth" to claims that suggest the law was introduced for COVID-19, said Blair Cunningham, a spokesperson for the health agency. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 To be eligible for the program, a person must be 18 years or older and meet all of the following criteria: a citizen or permanent resident of New Zealand suffering from a terminal illness that is likely to end their life within six months in an advanced state of irreversible decline in physical capability experiencing unbearable suffering that cannot be relieved in a manner that the person considers tolerable competent to make an informed decision about assisted dying. Two doctors and, in some cases, a psychiatrist must assess whether a patient is eligible and whether the person is competent to make an informed decision. The legislation says that doctors can’t suggest euthanasia as an option to the patient or make the decision for them. The patient alone must be the one to raise assisted dying with someone in their health care team. The services, Cunningham said, are most likely to be provided in a person’s home or other community settings, rather than in hospital settings. The health agency added that a terminal illness is most often a prolonged disease where treatment is not effective and that, in some circumstances, a person with COVID-19 may be eligible for assisted dying. But because eligibility is determined case by case, the agency "cannot make definitive statements about who is eligible." Our ruling Blog posts and social media posts claim that New Zealand has approved euthansia for COVID-19 patients, with suggestions that it could be used as a tool if COVID-19 hospitalizations rise dramatically. An assisted-dying law was passed by New Zealand voters in 2020. But while some COVID-19 patients may be eligible under the law, the legislation was not introduced for COVID-19. The law has strict eligibility requirements, including that the person must have a terminal illness that is likely to end their life within six months and causes them unbearable suffering. It requires multiple doctors to determine whether the person is eligible and competent, and doctors cannot suggest euthanasia as an option or make the decision for patients. These stories are misleading and omit critical facts that would give a different impression. Mostly Fals

"Clarence Thomas’s wife was one of the organizers of Jan 6th On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, took to her Facebook page to cheer on supporters of Donald Trump who were attending a rally in Washington, D.C., that day. Two days after that rally devolved into a violent attack on the Capitol building, she amended her posts to clarify that they were written before the violence, according to Slate. Shortly after, unsubstantiated claims that Thomas paid for 80 buses to charter people to the rally began to surface on social media. They were debunked by fact-checkers, as well as The New York Times and Washington Post, but a similar claim is showing up on social media again this week, shortly after the one-year anniversary of the attack. A Facebook post features a screenshot of a tweet that reads, "The fact that Clarence Thomas’s wife was one of the organizers of Jan 6th should be mentioned every time SCOTUS is in the news, IMHO." The original tweet came from an account belonging to a comedian and podcaster Noel Casler and garnered more than 50,000 likes. We reached out to Casler on Twitter for the source of his claim but he has not responded. There’s no evidence that Thomas was an organizer of Jan. 6 events or that she did anything more than express her support for Trump and rallygoers. "LOVE MAGA PEOPLE," she wrote in one post that morning and "GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP OR PRAYING," in another. Her Facebook page is no longer visible, but reporting by Slate, the Washington Post and Law & Crime confirmed those posts were made in the morning hours of Jan. 6. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 27, 2022 in a post Video shows Marjorie Taylor Greene planted pipe bombs at Republican and Democratic party headquarters on Jan. 5, 2021. By Gabrielle Settles • October 31, 2022 The New York Times in January 2021 debunked assertions that Thomas paid for buses to send people to the Jan. 6 rally in DC through Turning Point USA, a conservative group founded by Charlie Kirk. The Times wrote the claim was likely sparked by a tweet from a writer named Anne Nelson, who said Turning Point USA was sending 80 buses to the rally and noted that Thomas was on the group’s advisory council. A spokesperson for Turning Point at the time said that Thomas did not provide any funding for the seven buses that were ultimately chartered. The spokesperson also clarified that Thomas hadn’t been on the group’s advisory board for years. The House select committee investigating the attack has so far subpoenaed several dozen people, including many involved in organizing rallies that day. Thomas was not among them as of Jan. 10. There is also no indication from the committee that she has been asked to voluntarily testify. Thomas wrote a letter shortly after the Jan. 6 attack to her husband’s former law clerks in a private email list, apologizing after a rift developed over her outspoken advocacy for the former president before and after the election, the Washington Post reported. Our ruling A Facebook post claims that Thomas was one of the organizers of Jan. 6. Though Thomas did signal support for "MAGA people" the morning of Jan. 6, she later clarified that those posts were made before Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. There’s no evidence that Thomas was involved in organizing the events that unfolded on Jan. 6. She has not been subpoenaed by the House select committee investigating the attack and rumors that she helped organize busing for Trump supporters that day have not been supported. We rate this claim Fals

“Barack Obama’s real father is Communist Party propagandist Frank Marshall Davis. PolitiFact has a deep bench of stories debunking claims that former President Barack Obama isn’t who he says he is. Now, a claim is again spreading on social media that Obama’s father isn’t who the ex-president says he is. "Barack Obama’s real father is Communist Party propagandist Frank Marshall Davis," one Jan. 9 post says. But that’s wrong, and this post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Obama’s father shared his name: Barack Hussein Obama. He’s listed as Obama’s father on Obama’s birth certificate. He was also named in two birth announcements submitted to newspapers by the health department in Hawaii, where Obama was born. Will Hoover, who wrote a 2008 story for the Honolulu Advertiser about Obama’s childhood there, has told PolitiFact that he reviewed microfilm archives and found an announcement for Obama in the Honolulu Advertiser on Aug. 13, 1961, and another in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin the next day. They both said the same thing: "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Highway, son, Aug. 4." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 "Take a second and think about that," PolitiFact reported in 2009. "In order to phony those notices up, it would have required the complicity of the state Health Department and two independent newspapers — on the off chance this unnamed child might want to one day be president of the United States." In 1995, Obama published a memoir, "Dreams From My Father," and in 2011, biographer Sally H. Jacobs wrote about Obama’s father in her book "The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father." Jacobs spoke with the radio show "Fresh Air" that year about her book. After Obama was born, his mother, Ann Dunham, moved with him to Seattle while Obama’s father stayed in Hawaii before leaving a year later to attend Harvard University. In 1964, Dunham filed for divorce, and Obama’s father returned to his native Kenya. Obama’s father visited him briefly in Hawaii in 1971 and then, in 1982, died from injuries sustained in a car crash. RELATED VIDEO The falsehood that Obama is actually the son of Communist activist Frank Marshall Davis dates back to before the 2012 presidential election. And in 2015, the Washington Post fact-checked another claim that Davis was Obama’s "Communist mentor." The Post reported that Obama mentions Davis in his memoir as someone who influenced his understanding of his Black identity, "but there is no evidence that Obama was ‘raised’ by Davis, or that Davis remained a close Communist mentor who advised him throughout his life." We rate the claim that Davis is Obama’s father Pants on Fire!

“A tragic end today” for CNN’s Sanjay Gupt Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon who serves as CNN’s chief medical correspondent, has fallen prey to a social media death hoax. He is alive and well, despite a post announcing, "A Tragic End Today For Our Dr. Gupta, Viewers Feel Sad About Today’s News." The post from Dec. 23 also linked to an article with the preview text, "End of the road for medical expert." It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Gupta is still alive. And we wish we could tell you this is ‘the end of the road’ for social media posts that falsely proclaim the deaths of people who are very much alive. Already in 2022, Gupta has appeared on CNN to discuss the CDC’s changes to its COVID-19 isolation guidelines and on MSNBC to promote his book and discuss the long-term realities of COVID-19. There is no mention of Gupta’s death on his official social media accounts. He has posted on Twitter in the days since Dec. 23 — including a tweet shared at about noon on Jan. 10. A CNN spokesperson for Gupta confirmed: "Thank goodness, Sanjay is alive and well." There are other inaccuracies in the link the Facebook post shares. Clicking on the link leads to what looks like a CNN article with the headline, "Big Pharma In Outrage Over Sanjay Gupta's Latest Business Venture - He Fires Back With This!" Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 A closer investigation of the site reveals that it is actually an advertisement. Clicking on any links on the webpage — including links in the byline that appear to link to the "authors" of the article — leads to different sites selling various brands of CBD gummies. Similarly, clicking on the fake CNN Health logo or the site’s drop-down menu in an effort to navigate to a different page also leads to a site encouraging people to buy CBD gummies. The fake article purports to have been written by CNN’s Maggie Fox and Elizabeth Cohen — who work for CNN as a senior editor and a senior medical correspondent, respectively. A search of articles written by Fox and Cohen did not turn up any articles of this sort — nor did a search of all CNN headlines. The article attributes a number of quotes to Gupta. There is no evidence Gupta said them, or that he is connected to a company that makes CBD gummies. The CNN spokesperson said there was "zero connection" Gupta and any CBD gummy company. Our searches of the quotes and the article headline pulled up stories about other CBD product endorsement scams that featured advertisement articles with similar headlines that occasionally used the same quotes attributed to other celebrities. PolitiFact has debunked false claims about CBD gummies and fake CBD endorsements. Some cannabis product manufacturers have earned a reputation for falsely claiming their products have been endorsed by celebrities like Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood. It appears Gupta has become their latest target. Our ruling A Facebook post claimed Gupta met "a tragic end today" on Dec. 23, 2021. He is still alive and has already appeared on CNN and MSNBC in 2022. The post links to an advertisement for CBD gummies that falsely claims Gupta is the CEO of the company and has been promoting his products on television. There is no evidence Gupta has any connection to a CBD gummy company. Similar advertisements relying on fake celebrity endorsement scams have been used to sell other cannabis products. We rate this claim Fals

Says Bob Saget died from the COVID-19 vaccine Actor and comic Bob Saget was found dead on Jan. 9 in a hotel room in Orlando, a day after he had performed a set there. The county sheriff’s office tweeted that deputies responded to a report of an unresponsive man at the Ritz-Carlton; he was identified as Bob Saget. "Detectives found no signs of foul play or drug use in this case," the sheriff’s office said. Joshua Stephany, the county’s medical examiner, announced on Jan. 10 that an autopsy had been completed but that the cause and manner of death were "pending further studies and investigation which may take up to 10-12 weeks to complete." That hasn’t stopped some social media users from claiming without evidence that the star of "Full House" and "America’s Funniest Home Videos" died from a COVID-19 vaccine. "Another victim of the jab," one Twitter account said. "Bob Saget died from vaccine complications in his hotel room, on the first night of his fully vaccinated comedy tour," another claimed. "He just received his COVID booster a few weeks ago," a Facebook account added. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 Saget’s publicist did not immediately respond to PolitiFact’s questions about the posts, but no credible news reports or statements from authorities or Saget’s family have connected his death to the COVID-19 vaccine. In May, on his podcast "Bob Saget is Here for You," Saget talked with Dr. Jon LaPook of CBS News about vaccine hesitancy, "common medical misinformation," "and the amazing efforts scientists and doctors are making to help people during this time," according to a description of the episode on Bob Saget’s YouTube page. Saget has also joked about the vaccine, tweeting in July that he got "vaccinated five to six times a day and I feel great!!" In August, he said: "Please people, I don’t wanna preach, but please get your visine today. Sorry, auto-correct— I meant vaccine… Help save eyes…Sorry, damn this auto-correct! I meant save lives." "I went to the dumbest pharmacist yesterday and asked for my booster and he gave me a child’s seat," he tweeted in November. "I was pissed until I sat at the table and was a foot taller." Saget, whose comedy was often bawdy despite his wholesome prime-time TV image, was scheduled to perform sets at venues that required attendees to show evidence of their full vaccination against COVID-19. A clip from a Dec. 13 recording of his podcast is being shared on social media in the wake of his death. In it he says: "I went to the pharmacy the other day I got a booster shot and I should’ve gotten it in my arm but I got it in my butt so I’m a little in pain." RELATED VIDEO About 1:35:30 into the episode, Saget says: "I try not to preach you know about — I got my booster shot, I’m 65, so I got it yesterday — day before — and I was hurting… I’ve been telling people I got it in my ass." In a Jan. 5 episode of the podcast "A Corporate Time with Tom & Dan," Saget also talked about catching COVID-19. The timeframe is unclear, but Saget mentioned both the delta and omicron variants, saying, "I might have had a combo." What is clear: Claims that Saget died from the COVID-19 vaccine booster he joked about a month earlier are unfounded. His cause and manner of death have not been released. We rate these posts False.

A law backed by Virginia Democrats barred local sheriffs from having military equipment that “would have come in very helpful” with the I-95 traffic jam Hundreds of motorists were left stranded in freezing temperatures on Interstate 95 in Virginia, some for more than 24 hours, after heavy snowfall led to multiple crashes and slowed emergency response. The 40-mile traffic jam started building up the morning of Jan. 3 and wasn’t resolved until the following day. In a segment about the pileup, Dana Perino, a co-host on Fox News’ "The Five," claimed that a move by Virginia Democrats complicated the recovery effort. "I talked to a state legislator there in Virginia. He pointed out to me that, in the last several years, many on the left made the decision that local sheriffs should not be allowed to have military-grade equipment," Perino said. "Because they said that was a bad symbol, and that it was too militaristic and authoritarian. But imagine if they were still allowed to have the equipment that they had just a few years ago it probably would've come in very helpful today." The comment raised two questions: Did Virginia Democrats decide that local law enforcement shouldn’t get access to certain types of military equipment? And would the machinery have been helpful in recovery efforts on the snowy highway? The short answer is that Democrats did put such a law on the books, but it’s not what hampered the recovery effort. For the details, let’s dig in. Law prohibits use of some military-grade equipment Fox News told us that Perino was referring to HB 5049, which prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies from acquiring or buying certain pieces of military equipment unless they are granted a waiver by the state’s Criminal Justice Services Board. The list of equipment included weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles, combat aircraft, grenades, bayonets and armored mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs. The law includes a way for sheriffs to seek an exemption in specific circumstances. It also doesn’t bar them from participating in the Pentagon’s 1033 Program, which offers surplus military property to participating state and federal law enforcement agencies, said Patrick Mackin, a spokesperson for the Defense Logistics Agency, which manages the program. The legislation was introduced by Democratic Delegate Dan Helmer, a combat veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. It passed a Democratic-controlled Assembly along party lines, and was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam on Nov. 18, 2020. Some of the resistance to the law focused on MRAPs and their potential use as rescue vehicles. But Craig Fugate, a disaster management expert in extreme weather events and consultant in emergency management at Indian River State College, told PolitiFact that the conditions on I-95 didn’t require MRAP vehicles. Featured Fact-check Levar Stoney stated on October 26, 2022 in a news conference. “I don’t get involved in the hiring and firing of police chiefs.” By Warren Fiske • November 2, 2022 "Since there were no mines or ambush threats in the snow emergency, military transport vehicles, which are not prohibited, would better fit the mission of rescuing stranded motorists." In any case, MRAPs can be purchased through the 1033 program, Mackin said, and Virginia’s law doesn’t prevent participating state-level law enforcement agencies from acquiring surplus military vehicles for road clearing, if they are available. The equipment wouldn’t have been helpful in the recovery State police and disaster management experts told PolitiFact that local sheriff’s agencies did not respond to stranded vehicles in the Jan. 3 traffic jam along Interstate 95, and that the types of equipment the law prohibits would not have been useful in clearing the snowy highway. "Even before that legislation became law, the Virginia State Police had never purchased surplus military vehicles for use in interstate (highway) emergency response," agency spokesperson Corinne Geller wrote in an email. Other than helping state police and Virginia’s Department of Transportation block off highway exits, local sheriff’s agencies did not assist in recovery efforts, Geller said. Why did recovery efforts take so long? The multi-agency recovery operation took around 30 hours. Virginia State Police and transportation officials said deteriorating road conditions, multiple jack-knifed tractor trailer accidents and congestion from disabled vehicles significantly complicated cleanup efforts. In a phone call with reporters, Gov. Northam said that rainfall before the storm had washed away any chemicals or salt used to pretreat the roads. "Then we had slushy snow that fell a lot faster than our snow plows could move it," WTOP News reported Northam as saying. "And then, as night fell, the temperatures dropped below freezing. All those together created the perfect storm for what happened on I-95." Northam and other Virginia state leaders defended the decision to not call on the National Guard, explaining that deployment would have taken too long and may not have helped. The Virginia Department of Transportation said it would investigate what might have gone wrong in the state’s response. Our ruling Perino claimed that a law passed by Virginia Democrats prevented local sheriffs from having military equipment that "would have come in very helpful" with recovery efforts in the I-95 traffic jam. Virginia Democrats voted to pass such a law, but experts and state officials said that the prohibited equipment would not have helped clear roads any faster in the snowstorm, and that the law did not hamper recovery efforts. In any case, agencies can seek exemptions to the law for special circumstances, or may be able to take advantage of a federal program to acquire surplus military gear. We rate this claim Fals

Recently released Jan. 6 footage shows "these cops using massive amounts of force against unarmed Trump supporters, including women. Dinesh D’Souza falsely claimed that recently released footage of the Jan. 6 insurrection shows the police guarding the U.S. Capitol using "massive amounts of force against unarmed Trump supporters" — and he suggested that the government is sitting on more video that would show the same. The claim flew in the face of what other footage, court documents and testimony have shown about the rioters’ violence and use of real and makeshift weapons against police. D’Souza, a conservative commentator, made the claim on Fox News host Laura Ingraham’s show two days before the anniversary of the attack, which left about 140 police officers injured. "If you follow Jan. 6 at the granular level with the facts that are coming out slowly, they are coming out because the government has been very reluctant to release footage, particularly footage of what happened in the tunnel on Jan. 6, where you now begin to see these cops using massive amounts of force against unarmed Trump supporters, including women," D’Souza said. "The death of Rosanne Boyland is now being called into question," D’Souza continued. "Was she the second Trump supporter that was killed by the authorities?" Boyland, a 34-year-old Georgia woman who supported Trump and believed the QAnon conspiracy theory, was one of the four people who died as the crowd fought with police. The D.C. Medical Examiner’s Office said she died of accidental acute amphetamine intoxication, and videos compiled by the New York Times show her getting trampled in the crush of the mob as it surged against police lines near the Lower West Terrace tunnel. Prosecutors have said officers tried to reach Boyland to administer aid but were assaulted by other rioters. D’Souza’s Fox News appearance was not his first attempt at offering a counter-narrative surrounding the events of Jan. 6, 2021. In the year since the attack, he has claimed the event was "a bunch of rowdy people walking through hallways," said it was a "boisterous walk-through," and likened it to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington in 1963. He has said repeatedly that the attack was not an insurrection or coup, and that the rioters charged for crimes are "political prisoners." PolitiFact named the lies about the Capitol attack and its significance the 2021 Lie of the Year. RELATED VIDEO "D’Souza’s quote falls squarely into a larger retelling of the history of Jan. 6 … as a peaceful protest by patriotic Americans that only turned violent because of the actions of police," said Michael Jensen, a senior researcher at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. "Countless hours of video captured by both the authorities and the rioters themselves clearly counter this reimagined take on Jan. 6." The Lower West Terrace tunnel The Capitol Police declined to comment on D’Souza’s claim, citing ongoing court cases. But court documents from those cases show members of the crowd brandished real and makeshift weapons. The rioters wielded bats, knives, crutches, flagpoles, skateboards, hockey sticks, zip ties, chemical sprays, and a fire extinguisher, the filings show. They stole and used police batons and riot shields. Several had guns on them or stashed nearby, according to court documents. As of Jan. 1, more than 225 people had been charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or employees, the Justice Department said, including over 75 charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to an officer. In a series of emails to PolitiFact, D’Souza stood by his statement. He told PolitiFact he was referring specifically to what happened in the tunnel at the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace and surrounding Boyland’s death. "If you read my quotation, it applies to the violence in the tunnel, and I specifically referenced Rosanne Boyland, who was unarmed," he said in one email. But zooming in on the tunnel doesn’t make D’Souza’s claim more accurate. There’s no evidence that the footage that has not yet been released would, either. "Claims that the mob that invaded the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection, or specifically the mob that intended to breach the terrace tunnel, were ‘unarmed’ is an utter falsehood disproved by facts and statements from those on the scene," said Brian Levin, the director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. The Justice Department in December released three hours of surveillance footage showing the scene from the tunnel at the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. The footage shows outnumbered officers retreating into the tunnel before rioters piled in behind them and punched, kicked, climbed over and threw things at them in an effort to push through. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 15, 2022 in Instagram post Seattle authorities are investigating a string of serial killings. By Michael Majchrowicz • October 17, 2022 The brawl in the tunnel was where Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges got crushed against a door. It was also where Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone was dragged into the crowd, stripped of his badge, beaten, tased and threatened with chants to "kill him with his own gun." Fanone later testified that he fell unconscious and suffered a heart attack. "It was like a war zone," Fanone told CNN in an interview aired on the anniversary of the attack. "It was just littered with weapons, debris. CS gas, like residual gas just kind of floating in the air, created this like mist, or like a haze." Metropolitan Police Commander Ramey Kyle said in the same interview that he felt "some of the most violent people in that crowd" were "concentrated at these (tunnel) doors." According to court documents, those rioters included: Patrick McCaughey, who prosecutors say used a police shield to pin Hodges against the door. Daniel Rodriguez, who prosecutors say tased Fanone twice in the neck. Robert Morss, who prosecutors say directed rioters to form a "shield wall" and push past the police on the tunnel’s frontlines. Devlyn Thompson, who was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for helping throw a speaker at the officers and striking one with a baton. Robert Palmer, who was sentenced to more than five years in prison for using a wooden plank and a fire extinguisher to attack the officers. Timothy Desjardins, who prosecutors say assaulted police with a broken wooden table leg. Nicholas Languerand, who pleaded guilty to throwing an orange traffic barrier and two stick-like objects at the officers. Cody Mattice and James Mault, who prosecutors say sprayed chemical sprays at the officers. Mark Andrew Mazza, who prosecutors say swung a baton at the officers, and who allegedly brought a loaded gun onto Capitol grounds. Other rioters fought police at several other points on the Capitol grounds, videos show. "These rioters were armed with blunt objects, stun guns, and chemical sprays and aggressively forced the Capitol Police into a precarious position inside the tunnel," Jensen said. "The police remained restrained, using non-lethal force to stop the advances of the mob." Court documents show Jan. 6 rioters attacking police with real and makeshift weapons in the Lower West Terrace tunnel. In one email to PolitiFact, D’Souza cited a civil lawsuit filed by Victoria White, who claims the police repeatedly punched her and struck her with a metal baton. White faces several charges, including impeding or attempting to impede officers. Joseph McBride, White’s attorney, told PolitiFact the tunnel footage shows "an absolutely brutal beating that she endured." A video he posted to Rumble zeroes in on one officer in the tunnel who swung a baton over the front line of police as the standoff with the rioters continued. D’Souza also shared a Twitter thread that claimed to identify Boyland in the new footage and said other body camera footage appeared to show an officer hitting her "still body" with a baton. But Newsweek parsed through videos of the same moment in November, after other social media users circulated a misleading, doctored video and claimed it showed the police beating Boyland. Newsweek rated those claims false, reporting that the officer in question was actually attempting to hit back at a rioter who was wielding a hockey stick as a weapon. Our ruling D’Souza said recently released footage "of what happened in the tunnel on Jan. 6" shows "cops using massive amounts of force against unarmed Trump supporters, including women." D’Souza’s claim leaves the impression that Trump supporters were unarmed and helpless in the face of brutal beatings by police, but that’s a drastic recasting of what happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The reality is that, in the Lower West Terrace tunnel and elsewhere, the police protecting the Capitol were overwhelmed by rioters who attacked them with real and makeshift weapons. Two experts said the force the police used in return was restrained. We rate D’Souza’s claim Fals

Hochul is an “interim Governor. Tom Suozzi, a Long Island congressman who plans to run in the Democratic primary for governor, has been calling Gov. Kathy Hochul "interim Governor." In a tweet on Jan. 4, Suozzi said: "With crime surging across NYS, this morning I will call on the interim Governor to develop a comprehensive public safety plan to stem the violence." He also used the term in a statement on Dec. 23, saying that Hochul didn’t have a plan to fight the COVID surge. Hochul was elected lieutenant governor in 2014 and 2018 after facing primary challengers both times. She became governor after Andrew Cuomo resigned amid scandal in August. Given Hochul’s path to the governorship, we wondered if there is any truth to Suozzi’s claim. Four experts on the New York state constitution told us that there are no abbreviations or modifications on the powers and duties of lieutenant governors who become governor after their predecessors resign. The New York State Constitution recognizes her as governor, fully and completely. Peter J. Galie, an emeritus professor of political science at Canisius College who has written extensively on the state constitution, says that when the governor resigns, the lieutenant governor becomes governor. "Period. No acting, no interim," Galie said. Article IV, Sect. 5, states: "In case of the removal of the governor from office or of his or her death or resignation, the lieutenant-governor shall become governor for the remainder of the term." The same section says that in periods where the governor cannot perform the duties of the office, in cases such as impeachment, travel, or illness, the lieutenant governor will "act as governor." But there is no qualifier such as "act as governor" in the case of Hochul’s situation. We reached out to Christopher Bopst, a partner at the Buffalo law firm Wilder & Linneball and co-author of books about the New York State Constitution. Interim implies that there will be a special election for the governor’s office, but that is not the case when a lieutenant governor becomes governor in New York, Bopst said. Hochul is filling out the remainder of the term that Cuomo was elected to in 2018. Cuomo resigned in the third year of his term, but even in the case of a governor-elect who declined to or couldn't take office after an election but before the term began, the lieutenant governor would serve the full four-year term, he said. Featured Fact-check Kathy Hochul stated on October 25, 2022 in a debate The state is absorbing the cost of overtime pay for farmworkers, and farm owners do not have to pay any more. By Jill Terreri Ramos • November 5, 2022 Suozzi’s campaign told us that voters never elected Hochul governor. "The fact is that voters have not elected Kathy Hochul as their governor and no matter how you slice it, until New Yorkers have their say at the ballot box she is serving in an interim capacity," said Kim Devlin, senior advisor to Suozzi’s campaign. The campaign also provided news articles where Hochul or David Paterson, another New York governor who ascended to higher office after the incumbent resigned, were described as "interim." Our ruling Suozzi has been calling Gov. Kathy Hochul "interim governor." Suozzi’s team told us that Hochul is an interim governor because she was not elected as governor and is serving in an interim capacity until the next election. Hochul is interim governor only to the extent that any other governor is "interim" - they all serve fixed terms and are subject to election, Bopst said. While political campaigns employ colorful language to persuade voters and discount their rivals, using "interim" to describe Hochul’s governorship can be misleading. The New York State Constitution does not make any modifications or qualifications on lieutenant governors who become governor after a vacancy. The newly ascended governor has the full powers and duties granted to all governors. Nobody called Theodore Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson interim presidents when they assumed office. The state constitution is clear that Hochul shouldn’t be described that way either. We give Suozzi’s statement a Pants on Fire ratin

“When I became mayor of the City of Richmond in 2004, the crime rate was at its highest. When I left in 2008, it was at its lowest. Former Gov. Doug Wilder says he’s "very concerned" about crime in Richmond and the city should rededicate itself to public safety strategies from his days as mayor. "When I became mayor of the City of Richmond in 2004, the crime rate was at its highest." he said during a Jan. 3 WRVA radio interview. "When I left in 2008, it was at its lowest." We fact-checked Wilder's claim and found it partially correct. Wilder did not inherit the highest crime rate in Richmond history when he became mayor on Jan. 2, 2005. The city’s overall crime rate was significantly higher in the 1990s, as were the rates for violent crime and murder. They had been on a slow decline for at least 10 years when Wilder became mayor, according to FBI data. But Wilder is right that when he stepped down as mayor on the first day of 2009, the city’s crime rate was at a low point - at least since 1995, which is the earliest comprehensive data we found. So were the rates for violent crime and murder. Wilder acknowledged to us that he misspoke about inheriting Richmond’s highest crime rate and offered clarification. "The crime rate was increasing when I became mayor and decreasing when I left," he said. Again, he’s partially right. For history’s sake, let’s take a deeper look. Wilder’s record U.S. crime rates soared in the early 1990s and many experts largely blamed it on the crack cocaine epidemic. Richmond’s overall crime rate in 1995 (again, the earliest record we could find) was 103 offenses per 1,000 residents, according to our computations from FBI data. That is the highwater mark moving forward. The rate, with a couple of blips, dropped over the next nine years and stood at 80 crimes per 1,000 residents in 2004, the year before Wilder became mayor. It continued to fall throughout Wilder’s term and in 2008, his last full year, the rate was 48 crimes per 1,000. In 2019, the last year FBI records are available, Richmond’s rate was 40 crimes per 1,000 residents. The violent crime rate was 27 per 1,000 residents in 2004 and dropped to 16 per 1,000 in 2008. In 2019, the rate fell to 11. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 15, 2022 in Instagram post Seattle authorities are investigating a string of serial killings. By Michael Majchrowicz • October 17, 2022 Richmond’s murder rate was .47 per 1,000 when Wilder became mayor and .16 when he left - a low mark since 1995 that still stands. The number of murders fell from 93 in 2004 to 31 in 2008. Crime rates fell in many U.S. cities during Wilder’s tenure as Richmond’s mayor. Richmond’s drop was steeper than each of three cities we researched: New York, Detroit and Los Angeles. A December 2008 article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch attributed Richmond’s lowered rates to community-based policing strategies employed by then-Police Chief Rodney Monroe, a "drastic increase in police manpower," and prosecutors seeking tougher sentences in court. The Richmond Police Department reported 98 murders in 2021, the most in 24 years, and Wilder says Richmond should recommit to his strategies. "It goes beyond murder," he told us. "It goes to actual shootings. Not a day goes by that you don’t read about someone getting shot." "It takes a village to fight crime," Wilder told us. A review of recent research on how policing affects crime rates, conducted by the Richmond branch of the Federal Reserve last year, found that increases in police presence have been shown to drive down crime. However, the conclusion of the article contained a caveat. "Crime is an outcome of multiple factors. Education, employment opportunities, poverty, access to housing and health services, food deserts, and many other factors play important and complementary roles in determining crime levels." The study said "a holistic and comprehensive approach to address the problem of crime prevention seems to be the most reasonable course of action." The murder surge reflects a national trend. The U.S. saw a 29% increase in homicides in 2020, the largest rise since the start of national record keeping began in 1960. Preliminary figures suggest murders may have increased by another 10% in 2021. Experts largely attribute the surge to isolation and economic distress caused by COVID-19 as well as conflicts stemming from social media use. Our ruling Wilder said, "When I became mayor of the City of Richmond in 2004, the crime rate was at its highest. When I left in 2008, it was at its lowest." Wilder did not inherit a record high crime rate when he became mayor in January 2005. The rate was much higher in the 1990s and had been ebbing. When Wilder left office at the start of 2009, Richmond’s overall crime rate was at its lowest level since 1995, which is the farthest back we could find records. We rate Wilder’s statement Half Tru

“We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators” due to the coronavirus Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor incorrectly cited statistics about serious cases of COVID-19 among children during oral arguments over the Biden administration’s efforts to mandate vaccines for certain Americans. "We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators" due to the coronavirus, Sotomayor said Jan. 7, 2022. Her claim is not supported by data. In all, 82,842 COVID-positive children 17 and younger have been admitted to the hospital since Aug. 1, 2020, according to CDC data. The most recent data available as of Sotomayor’s remark showed 3,342 children were currently hospitalized for confirmed COVID-19, according to federal data. That number rises to 4,652 children if suspected coronavirus cases are included. Both figures represent less than 5% of the number Sotomayor cited. (The Supreme Court press office did not respond to inquiries from PolitiFact.) Sotomayor spoke of serious cases, which might not necessarily mean that the children went to the hospital. The American Academy of Pediatrics reported that as of the end of December, "child COVID-19 cases are above 100,000." But it also noted that "it appears that severe illness due to COVID-19 is uncommon among children." Serious pediatric coronavirus cases have risen lately — just not as fast or as far as Sotomayor said. The number of pediatric COVID-positive admissions has spiked as the fast-spreading omicron variant has become dominant since mid December. CDC data shows that the frequency of new hospital admissions for patients younger than 17 years old has blown past its previous peak. Still, the pediatric hospitalization rate has remained much lower than that of other age groups. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 The 1.09 per 100,000 hospitalization rate for children under 18 compares with 2.76 for those between 20 and 29; 3.57 for those between 30 and 39; 3.79 for those between 40 and 49; 5.62 for those between 50 and 59; 8.16 between 60 and 69; and 15.82 for those above age 70. !function(e,i,n,s){var t="InfogramEmbeds",d=e.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];if(window[t]&&window[t].initialized)window[t].process&&window[t].process();else if(!e.getElementById(n)){var o=e.createElement("script");o.async=1,o.id=n,o.src="https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js",d.parentNode.insertBefore(o,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async"); There is evidence that the youngest children — those from birth to 4 years old, who are not yet approved to take coronavirus vaccines — are seeing two to three times higher rates of coronavirus-positive hospitalization than at any point in the pandemic. "It’s critically important that we surround them with people who are vaccinated to provide them protection," said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. This elevated rate for children up to age four has reached 4 per 100,000, still well below the rates for middle-aged and elderly patients. Meanwhile, some of the hospitalized children (and patients of other ages) were not admitted to the hospital specifically for coronavirus symptoms, but rather tested positive once admitted for other reasons. Seattle Children’s Hospital critical care chief Dr. John McGuire told the Associated Press that "most of the COVID-positive kids in the hospital are actually not here for COVID-19 disease. They are here for other issues but happen to have tested positive." Our ruling Sotomayor said, "We have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators" due to the coronavirus. While the number of coronavirus-positive pediatric hospitalizations has risen with the spread of the omicron variant, Sotomayor’s number was way off. At the time she made this comment, federal data showed that fewer than 5,000 coronavirus-positive children were in the hospital. In fact, fewer than 83,000 children have been hospitalized for COVID-19 — cumulatively — since August 2020. There are over 100,000 cases among children, but scientists say that few of those are severe. We rate the statement False

“Corporate profit margins are at their highest point in 70 years. … They’re overcharging us for gas, medicine, and groceries, and pocketing the difference. A Democratic congressional candidate in North Carolina says corporations are making more money than they have in seven decades. Former state Rep. Erica Smith is campaigning to represent North Carolina’s newly-drawn 2nd Congressional District. On Dec. 30, she tweeted: "Corporate profit margins are at their highest point in 70 years. Corporations are trying to blame inflation on stimulus checks. Meanwhile, they’re overcharging us for gas, medicine, and groceries, and pocketing the difference. It’s a racket." PolitiFact has written multiple fact checks on inflation, wages and whether the cost of goods is related to presidential policy. Smith’s comments address a different angle of high prices, and we wondered whether she was right. It turns out that, after taxes, corporate profits did hit a 70-year high last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, citing U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis data. But economists say Smith’s tweet gives a misleading impression about the prices of gas, groceries and medicine. Corporate profits The prices of various goods have climbed as demand has increased for limited supply. Despite that, companies have been able to keep profit margins high by cutting costs and passing higher costs along to consumers, Reuters reported in September. Government numbers, which aren’t adjusted for inflation, were updated on Dec. 22. They show that corporate profits in the quarter ending Sept. 30 tallied $2.7 trillion dollars, the highest level since 1950. Corporate profits in the previous quarter also reached a high as a percentage of gross domestic product. Smith’s campaign cited a Bloomberg News article about the profits, titled: "Fattest Profits Since 1950 Debunk Wage-Inflation Story of CEOs." The "pocketing the difference" line in Smith’s tweet comes from President Biden, who called out gasoline companies that kept prices high at the pump even as wholesale gas prices started to decline. Bloomberg created a chart showing the gap between wholesale gasoline and the price at the pump, on a rolling five-day average. Bloomberg’s data showed the gap rising from $1.18 per gallon in early August to $1.42 in late November. Yardeni Research, a consulting firm offering financial analysis, in December produced a report on the profit margins of S&P 500 companies. The report shows corporate profit margins at their highest levels since at least 1994. Smith is certainly not the first Democrat to point the finger at corporations during the pandemic. Economists who spoke to PolitiFact NC said the first line of Smith’s tweet is generally accurate. However, some said her comments about companies "overcharging us for gas, medicine, and groceries" need additional context. The price of gas, groceries and medicine Economists recently told the New York Times that it doesn’t make sense to blame businesses for profit-seeking in recent months, considering that supply is low, demand is high, and the government recently put more money in Americans’ pockets. Featured Fact-check Senate Leadership Fund stated on October 11, 2022 in a political ad Cheri Beasley “backs tax hikes — even on families making under $75,000.” By Paul Specht • October 31, 2022 "I do not necessarily agree with the claim that the current record level of the profit margin shows that businesses are ‘overcharging us for gas, medicine, and groceries, and pocketing the difference,’" said Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution. Burtless said the Yardeni report shows that "the current high rate of profitability may be offsetting sharply lower profit rates the same companies experienced in the months in 2020, when the pandemic dramatically reduced the profitability of many companies’ operations." Exxon Mobil Corp. Last year, Exxon Mobil Corp., for instance, reported a third-quarter profit margin of 9.4%. That figure is the company’s highest since 2017. Meanwhile, gas prices, which plunged in March and April 2020 as the pandemic took hold and fewer people commuted to work, are on average about 67 cents per gallon higher now than they were in January 2020. But prices are lower than they were in portions of 2012, 2013 and 2014, according to GasBuddy, a company that tracks U.S. gas prices. When it comes to medicine, consumers in America do tend to pay more for prescriptions than those in other countries. Researchers at the University of Southern California and at Brookings found that U.S. consumers account for about 64% to 78% of total pharmaceutical profits. While the prices of some prescription drugs are regulated, AARP in June released a report that said retail prices for 260 widely-used prescription drugs increased in 2020 by an average 2.9%, more than twice the general rate of inflation. As for groceries, economists balked at the notion that local grocers are shaking down customers. "Profit margins vary dramatically not only by industry, but by company," said Scott Lincicome, a senior fellow in economic studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. Historically, grocery stories and gas stations have "notoriously low profit margins," he said in a phone interview. Kroger, one of the largest grocery store chains in the U.S., reported a third-quarter profit margin of 1.5%, down compared to the same period in 2019. The third-quarter figure isn’t historically high. The cause of rising grocery prices is more a tale of supply and demand than of corporate greed, said Lincicome and Dean Baker, an economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic Policy and Research. "The high prices are a pretty simple story that there is a big jump in demand and no corresponding increase in supply," Baker told PolitiFact in an email. "I don't see any special conspiracy story there," he said. "I expect prices to moderate as demand falls back to some extent and supply increases." Our ruling Smith said "Corporate profit margins are at their highest point in 70 years … they're overcharging us for gas, medicine, and groceries, and pocketing the difference." Government data show that Smith is right about the profit margins of companies in the U.S., collectively speaking. Consumers in the U.S. tend to pay more for medicine than consumers in other countries. Oil companies are also making more money lately. However, economists say it’s misleading for Smith to suggest that your neighborhood grocery store or gas station is running what she described as "a racket." The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it Half Tru

Says Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “to investigate himself over voter fraud. The headline of a Jan. 5 blog post that’s spreading widely on social media suggests that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is putting himself in the crosshairs of an investigation. "SoS Brad Raffensperger to Investigate Himself Over Voter Fraud…10 to 1 He Will Find Himself Innocent," the headline says. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The blog post goes on to say that Raffensperger said he was opening an investigation into ballot harvesting accusations. "Since the 2020 election, Raffensperger has spent all of his time covering up the voter fraud that occurred," the post says. "He is basically investigating himself." Raffensperger, a Republican, has regularly pushed back on false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, incurring the wrath of former President Donald Trump and his supporters. On Jan. 6, he tweeted: "One year ago, rioters stormed the Capitol driven by baseless stolen election claims and conspiracy theories." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 18, 2022 in a post Connecticut ballot initiative on early voting would "remove the requirement of a certified seal from certain ballots." By Andy Nguyen • October 27, 2022 The claim in the blog headline that he’s investigating himself is not accurate. The post references a Jan. 4 report from Just the News, a site founded by former Hill reporter John Solomon. Solomon reported that Raffensperger had confirmed that "Georgia authorities have launched an investigation into an allegation of systematic ballot harvesting during the state’s 2020 general election and subsequent U.S. Senate runoff and may soon issue subpoenas to secure the evidence." It’s illegal in Georgia for third-party activists to pick up and deliver ballots on behalf of voters, Solomon wrote, and in 2019, Raffensperger "led a successful effort" to strengthen the law. RELATED VIDEO The National Desk, a Sinclair Broadcast Group outlet, and the Washington Post also reported on the Just the News report. The Post noted that Raffensperger told the National Desk that his office had received the ballot harvesting tip from a group called True the Vote, but that the organization "does not allege the ballots delivered by couriers were fraudulent." "Those are still lawful ballots," Raffensperger said, "but they’ve just been handled fraudulently with, obviously, the ballot harvesting." What he didn’t say? That he’s going to investigate himself over voter fraud. We rate that claim False.

“Data from around the world suggests that omicron favors the fully vaccinated. An article on a conservative blog uses infection statistics from other countries to back a dubious claim: that people who are vaccinated against COVID-19 are more susceptible to the omicron variant of the virus. "Data from around the world suggests that omicron favors the fully vaccinated," says the headline on the Jan. 3 article from Alpha News that was shared on Facebook. The article says that in Canada, 81% of omicron cases are among people who are fully vaccinated; that in Germany, the vaccination rate is 71%, but 95.6% of omicron cases are among people who are fully vaccinated; that "61% of omicron cases in Israel were among those who are triple vaccinated; and that "Iceland is the most boosted nation on earth but also has the fourth highest COVID case rate." The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Infectious-disease experts said the conclusion in the headline is incorrect. While scientists are still studying how effective existing COVID-19 vaccines are against the omicron variant, experts said that being vaccinated does not put people at greater risk. "Omicron does not favor the vaccinated; it favors everyone," said Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "The immune evasive properties of the variant allow it to infect fully vaccinated, and even boosted, individuals. This doesn’t mean it favors or targets them, it just means it has the capacity to infect them. Other variants lacked this ability and preyed primarily on the unvaccinated. Omicron can prey on both." Omicron is more resistant than delta to immunity from vaccines or from a prior infection, said Dr. Thomas A. Russo, a professor of infectious diseases at the University at Buffalo who treats COVID-19 patients. "That’s why we’re seeing more infections in the vaccinated," Russo said. But there’s "no question" that people who are vaccinated have more protection, Russo said. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 "Vaccination does not increase the likelihood that you’ll get infected. It’s really quite the opposite," he said: Vaccination protects against infection, severe disease and bad outcomes. The high incidence of infections among vaccinated people is occurring in certain countries not because they are more susceptible to the virus than unvaccinated people, but rather because there are so many more of them than there are unvaccinated people. "As the proportion of vaccinated increases, they’ll have an increasing contribution to the infection pool," he said. Dr. George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco, said it’s "nonsense" to claim that people who are vaccinated are at higher risk of disease. PolitiFact has looked at other claims about high rates of omicron infection among vaccinated people, and the statistics behind them. We found that claims that data from the United Kingdom show that unvaccinated people are less likely to get infected with omicron to be Mostly False. A claim about data in Germany showing 95.6% of omicron cases were among the vaccinated, the same figure Alpha News cited, was from a report that had an error in it that has been corrected. The report had substantially undercounted the number of unvaccinated people who were infected. Our ruling A blog post claimed that data from around the world showed that the fast-spreading omicron variant of COVID-19 "favors people who are fully vaccinated." That’s not accurate. Early research suggests that vaccines may not be as effective against omicron as they have been against other variants, but there is no evidence to support the claim that omicron favors people who are vaccinated. Experts say that vaccinated people have more protection, and that the high numbers of infections among vaccinated people are due in part to the high vaccination rates in certain countries. We rate this claim False.

If you have “natural immunity,” getting vaccinated against COVID-19 “is more likely to harm you severely. Recent Facebook posts have posited that if you’ve been infected with COVID-19, getting a vaccine against the disease could harm you. "If you have natural immunity, taking the vaccine is more likely to harm you severely," one post said, using lipstick emojis in lieu of the word "vaccine" though comments made it clear that’s what was being discussed. "Natural immunity = 26x the protection." This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We reached out to some medical experts and were told this isn’t accurate. "The vaccines are safe for the overwhelming majority of people with little to no serious side effects," said Richard Watanabe, a professor of population and public health sciences at the University of Southern California. Trials have borne that out, he said, and many of the warnings that they’re harmful are rooted in misinformation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Johns Hopkins Medicine recommend people who have already had COVID-19 get a vaccine. One study, according to the Mayo Clinic, showed that unvaccinated people who already had COVID are more than twice as likely as fully vaccinated people to get reinfected. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 And another study, by Johns Hopkins, showed antibody levels against COVID-19 stay higher for longer in people who were infected by the virus and then were fully vaccinated with an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine compared to those who only got the vaccine. In other words: People who were infected and then got vaccinated were better protected than those who were never infected and vaccinated. We’ve already tackled questions about natural immunity versus vaccines. In September, for example, we rated a claim that an Israeli study found that fully vaccinated people have a greater risk of hospitalization and are 13 times more likely to catch COVID-19 than those who have recovered from an infection Half True. The study was not peer reviewed and had limitations, while peer-reviewed studies have repeatedly found that vaccinated people are more likely to avoid hospitalization or death if they become infected. Plus, Watanabe said, developing "natural immunity" means you have to become infected with the virus in the first place, risking hospitalization, long-term COVID, or death. "Immunity is based on being exposed to the virus," he said. "So-called ‘natural immunity’ results in a wide range of levels of protection, because it’s primarily dependent on the type of virus you were exposed to and the level of exposure, which can widely vary and result in varying levels of immune response. This results in widely varying levels of protection. Vaccinations are given at doses that are designed to ensure a robust immune response to generate a strong level of protection." We rate this post False.

"Germany: 96% of Latest Omicron Patients were FULLY Vaccinated – Only 4% Unvaccinated A conservative news site and others on social media jumped on a report out of Germany that appeared to show that the vast majority of people who tested positive for the omicron variant of COVID-19 were fully vaccinated. But those claims were made based on an error in the report that has since been corrected. A headline in The Gateway Pundit reads "Germany: 96% of Latest Omicron Patients were FULLY Vaccinated – Only 4% Unvaccinated." The Dec. 30 Koch report Gateway Pundit was referring to said it detected 4,020 omicron cases among fully vaccinated people and 186 omicron cases among unvaccinated people. But Koch corrected those numbers on Jan. 5, saying the number of cases among those who were unvaccinated was actually 1,097. Using these corrected figures and the same mathematical processes that Gateway Pundit used as the basis for its headline, it would seem the percentage of omicron cases among unvaccinated people accounted for 21%, not 4% as the Gateway Pundit headline suggested. But, even using those figures, a spokesperson for the Robert Koch Institute cautioned against drawing any sort of conclusion from the statistics about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. "The effectiveness of the vaccination cannot be calculated from these figures," spokesperson Susan Glasmacher told us in an email. "For that, you have to take into account the number of vaccinated people in the population." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 Germany has administered more than 152 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to its population and reports 71.6% of its population is fully vaccinated, including 87% those over 60. Nearly 42% of those who are vaccinated have also received a booster shot. If a country’s vaccination rate is high, it is expected that the relative proportion of fully vaccinated people among all COVID-19 patients is also high. PolitiFact has tackled similar misleading claims about the rate of COVID-19 infection in the United Kingdom, where vaccination rates are also high, especially in older populations. Snopes fact checkers said the initial 4% claim that we also found in the Gateway Pundit story came from a German journalist who calculated that from the incorrect report and has since tweeted a correction. PolitiFact reached out to the author of the Gateway Pundit story, who did not respond to us. But while we were working on the check, the story was updated with a correction. Our ruling A Gateway Pundit article said that in Germany, 96% of new omicron cases were from fully vaccinated people. That calculation was based on incorrect numbers in a report from the Robert Koch Institute. It initially said there were 186 cases among unvaccinated people but later corrected the report to show there were 1,097 cases. The institute also cautioned against drawing conclusions about the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines based on this research as it does not account for the nation’s high rate of vaccination. We rate this claim False.

Electric vehicles would not have fared well in the Virginia snowstorm traffic jam A major snowstorm in Virginia this week left hundreds of motorists stranded in freezing conditions on Interstate 95, some of them for more than 24 hours. That led a social media user to warn of what would have happened if more of those cars had been electric vehicles. "Imagine if half the cars in the traffic jam on I-95 in Virginia last night were electric vehicles. And half of those were to run out of battery power," A Facebook post on Jan. 4 said. "All those people would be stuck in freezing temperatures without a heated vehicle. And all the cars would be stuck unable to move because you can’t bring a charging station to them. In effect all those electric cars would become roadblocks to the gasoline powered vehicles. Just something to think about when you hear politicians pushing electric vehicles over gasoline and diesel." This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post suggests electric vehicles would have been more prone to failure in such conditions than gasoline-powered cars and trucks. Others raised similar concerns, including a Washington Post columnist, who shared a tweet from a trucker who recounted his experience with a Tesla driver who was worried about running out of power. But are such worries grounded in reality? Many variables affect how a given electric vehicle would fare in such a situation, including the type of battery it has, the heating system it uses and whether the vehicle was fully charged before the trip. But there’s no evidence that EVs generally would be more prone to failure in a traffic jam like the one that happened in Virginia. The range of an electric vehicle varies widely by model, from 110 miles in the Mini Cooper Electric to up to 373 miles in the Tesla Model S. And cold weather can diminish the range of an EV, according to automakers and tests by Consumer Reports. But when idling, as in a standstill traffic jam, an EV behaves differently from a gas-powered vehicle. An electric vehicle’s motor doesn’t run when the car is stationary, so the only draw on the battery is for the heating system and other electrical accessories. Drivers idling in a gas-powered vehicle would need to keep the engine running, and gasoline burning, to keep the heat on. In December, PolitiFact looked into a similar claim that said electric vehicles are more likely to fail in traffic jams in cold weather. We found that to be false because the vehicles don’t use much power while at a standstill or in their climate settings. To understand the energy capacity of an EV’s battery, Peter Wells, director of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff Business School in Wales, told PolitiFact that the average U.S. house uses 30 kilowatt-hours of power per day, so a fully charged 62 kilowatt-hour battery in an electric car could power a house for two days. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 30, 2022 in a photo “There are no greenhouse gas emissions in this photo” of cows grazing. By Kristin Hugo • November 7, 2022 Even half-charged, a 62 kWh battery could yield 10 to 15 hours of heating in a car that’s stationary during a traffic jam, Wells said. A gasoline car’s heating or air conditioning, on the other hand, wouldn’t be able to operate without the engine running and consuming fuel to power the compressor and other parts. Jeremy Michalek, co-founder of the Vehicle Electrification Group and an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said cold weather can cut an electric vehicle’s range, in miles, by as much as half, citing a study he co-authored. But range is a function of a moving car. While idling, a gas-powered vehicle, assuming a full tank of 15 to 18 gallons, could take anywhere from about a day to up to a week to burn through that gas, Michalek said. A stationary Tesla Model 3, he said, could exhaust its battery in as little as eight hours or as much as a few days, depending on the wattage of the heater. So which would fare better stuck in a daylong traffic jam like the one in Virginia? It depends, Michalek said, on how comfortable someone needs to be, whether the car has a heat pump and other factors. "Bottom line: A gasoline vehicle can keep the cabin warm while idling for a longer period, on average, but in practice it will depend on how much energy is left in each vehicle at the time it is stranded and how efficiently the heating options are used," Michalek said. "For example, electric seats in EVs can be more efficient at keeping an adult body warm than heating the whole cabin in an emergency situation." It is easier to refuel a car that runs out of gas in a traffic jam than to recharge an electric vehicle, which can take hours, but no car is really built to outlast a 24-hour traffic jam. Dozens of vehicles were left abandoned or ran out of gas in the Virginia jam and had to be towed, the Washington Post reported. An electric vehicle that runs out of battery power on the road would typically need to be towed to a location where it could be recharged. But some new options are becoming available. Blink Charging Co. in Miami sells a portable charger for use by roadside assistance services to supply EVs with enough battery power to get to a charging station, and Lightning Mobile is developing a mobile electric charging station that it hopes to sell to operators of commercial electric vehicle fleets, according to Automotive News. Our ruling A Facebook post implied that a massive traffic pileup during a Virginia snowstorm would have been far worse with more electric vehicles on the road. Cold weather can diminish the range of an electric vehicle that’s moving. But there is no evidence to suggest electric vehicles idling in standstill traffic would have fared any worse than gas-powered vehicles, which need a running engine to provide heat and can run out of gas while idling. Electric vehicles don’t use much energy while idling, and drivers can use even less by using the seat warmers instead of the heating system. We rate this claim False. Monique Curet contributed to this fact-chec

Pfizer made $37 billion in profit in its last quarter With a sarcastic tribute, a Facebook post accuses COVID-19 vaccine maker Pfizer of generating outsize profits at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer. "Pfizer wants to thank… all the taxpayers for a record $37 billion profit last quarter," the Dec. 23 post said. "Special thanks goes out to the 800 lobbyists and all the bought and paid for politicians. Couldn’t have done it without your great cooperation." The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The claim gives an inaccurate figure for Pfizer’s quarterly profit, overstating it by a factor of more than four. The COVID-19 vaccine has been a big seller for Pfizer, which has shipped billions of doses to the U.S. government and other countries since it was first authorized for emergency use in December 2020. The need for booster shots to combat new variants of the coronavirus has increased demand. In the third quarter of 2021, Pfizer reported that its vaccine, Comirnaty, generated $13 billion in global revenue, accounting for more than half the company’s total revenue of $24.09 billion for the quarter. For the first nine months of the year, Pfizer said, more than 75% of revenues for Comirnaty came from supplying countries outside the U.S. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 The company said in November that it expected full-year revenue for 2021 to be about $81 billion, with $36 billion of that coming from Comirnaty. Pfizer plans to release its fourth-quarter 2021 results Feb. 8. But the claim in the Facebook post talks about profit, not revenue. Revenue is the total income a company generates through sales. Profit is the amount of money left over after operating expenses, debt service and other costs. Pfizer’s third-quarter net income was $8.15 billion, about five times the year-earlier figure, but less than a quarter of what the claim says. Our ruling A Facebook post claims Pfizer made $37 billion in profit in the latest quarter. That’s inaccurate. The company generated $24.09 billion in revenue in the third quarter, more than half of that coming from its COVID-19 vaccine. Its profit for the quarter was $8.15 billion. We rate this claim False.

“In Wisconsin, we have 50% of the population paying 50%, 60%, 70%, sometimes 80% for their housing. With the heart of winter approaching, and two people already found dead on Milwaukee streets, there is a renewed focus on homelessness. And with it, housing affordability. Joe Volk, executive director of the Wisconsin Coalition Against Homelessness, connected the two in a Nov. 17, 2021 appearance on PBS Wisconsin’s "Noon Wednesday," part of its "Here & Now" franchise: "In Wisconsin," he said, "we have 50% of the population paying 50%, 60%, 70%, sometimes 80% for their housing so it should be no surprise then that the littlest thing, much less a pandemic, in these people’s lives is going to cause them not to be able to pay their rent." That figure – at least half the population paying at least half their income for housing – caught our attention. Is he right? Volk is off the mark because he spoke so broadly. Had he focused more clearly just on renters, he would have been closer – but even then he underestimated the percentage. Let’s dig in. A look at the evidence In making the claim, Volk spoke of "50% of the population," a statement that includes, well, everybody – homeowners and renters alike. Yet later he mentioned difficulty paying rent, which would narrow things. As such, we are muddled from the start. When asked for backup, Volk said he was referring to an annual state-by-state report about rent burden released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for decent and affordable housing for everyone. The group’s 2021 report uses U.S. Census data, including from the American Community Survey from 2019. The report found that Wisconsin was one of 16 states – including Illinois, Idaho and Michigan – that had 31 to 40 affordable and available rental homes per 100 renter households classified as extremely low income. In Wisconsin’s case, the number was 37. By that measure, California, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Delaware and Florida rank as some of the worst states, all with 30 or fewer affordable and available rental homes. Wyoming and Mississippi rank as the best states with 61. But Volk’s claim was not about a ranking, just about the percentages. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 25, 2022 in an Instagram post The documentary “2,000 Mules proves” Democrats “cheated on the 2020 elections.” By Jon Greenberg • October 28, 2022 So, what can we glean from the study? As of 2021, there are more than 2.3 million households in Wisconsin. Of that, 777,217 are renter households – with 188,097 of those households falling into the "severely cost-burdened" category, per the data. The report defined "extremely low-income renters" as those making 30% of the area’s median income. In Wisconsin, that would be $24,394 or less. So, that piece of the pie is getting smaller. Of the "extremely low-income renters'' in Wisconsin, more than half are "severely cost burdened," according to Andrew Aurand, Vice President for Research at the National Low Income Housing Coalition. That is, they spend more than 50% of their income on housing costs, including rent and utilities. The median housing-cost-to-income ratio among extremely low-income renters in Wisconsin is 67%, meaning the median extremely low-income renter spends 67% of their income on housing and many spend far more than that, Aurand said. But remember: That is a subset of renters, not all renters – much less all households. "More generally speaking, renters in Wisconsin are more likely to be severely cost-burdened than homeowners (19% vs. 6%) because owners typically have higher incomes," Aurand explained in an email to PolitiFact Wisconsin. So, by that measure, far fewer than 50% of renters – let alone all households – are paying more than half their income on housing. As such, not only is Volk’s statement more off base, it’s also completely wrong. Our ruling In connecting affordable housing and the pandemic to homelessness, Volk claimed: "In Wisconsin, we have 50% of the population paying 50%, 60%, 70%, sometimes 80% for their housing." But the study he cited is far narrower than the way he stated the claim, which can be read as applying to all households, renter and homeowner alike. In fact, far less than 50% of Wisconsin’s population is severely cost-burdened – meaning that they pay more than 50% of their income on housing costs, including rent and utilities. We rate the claim False. window.gciAnalyticsUAID = 'PMJS-TEALIUM-COBRAND'; window.gciAnalyticsLoadEvents = false; window.gciAnalytics.view({ 'event-type': 'pageview', 'content-type': 'interactives', 'content-ssts-section': 'news', 'content-ssts-subsection': 'news:politics', 'content-ssts-topic': 'news:politics:politifactwisconsin', 'content-ssts-subtopic': ' news:politics:politifactwisconsin' });

When children are given vaccines for COVID-19, “a viral gene will be injected into your children's cells. This gene forces your child’s body to make toxic spike proteins. These proteins often cause permanent damage in children’s critical organs. COVID-19 vaccines have been safely tested in and approved for those ages 5 and older, but that has not stopped false, fear-inducing claims about risks of the vaccine to children. A TikTok video posted Jan. 3 shows footage of Dr. Robert Malone saying that when children are given vaccines for COVID-19, "A viral gene will be injected into your children's cells. This gene forces your child’s body to make toxic spike proteins. These proteins often cause permanent damage in children’s critical organs." The caption on the video reads, "Listen please inventor of vaccine says do not get vaccine." After the video was posted, the account appears to have been banned from TikTok for repeated violations of community standards. The TikTok video was shared on Facebook and was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Spike proteins are not toxic, and experts have told fact checkers there is no evidence that the spike proteins damage organs. Malone is the self-proclaimed inventor of messenger RNA vaccines, though that description has been disputed. He has "leveraged that title to push one false claim after another," PolitiFact reported. The Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines use mRNA technology to instruct a person’s cells on how to create a piece of a spike protein. It’s the same protein found on the surface of the virus that causes COVID-19, so the immune system learns to recognize and respond to it. The mRNA vaccines "involve the injection of a small part of the virus’s genetic code … in contrast to the more widespread ‘conventional’ vaccines which use a whole pathogen or fragment," Reuters reported. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 But claiming that the vaccine involves injecting a "viral gene into your children’s cells" appears to be a riff on numerous debunked claims that COVID-19 vaccines are a form of gene therapy. The mRNA vaccines do not change a person’s genetic makeup and never enter the part of the cell that hosts DNA. The spike proteins are harmless, do not cause illness and do not last long in the body. And the proteins do not cause long-term damage to organs. "There is absolutely no evidence that the spike proteins can cause permanent damage to children's vital organs," American Academy of Pediatrics fellow Dr. Deborah Greenhouse told AFP Fact Check. We have previously fact-checked other claims about the safety of the spike protein. Each of these fact-checks concluded that there is no evidence that spike proteins are toxic or pose any serious health risk. And there is also no evidence to support the claim that the COVID-19 vaccine causes the body to continuously produce infectious spike bodies in children. Our ruling A TikTok video shows footage of Dr. Robert Malone saying that when children are given vaccines for COVID-19, "A viral gene will be injected into your children's cells. This gene forces your child’s body to make toxic spike proteins. These proteins often cause permanent damage in children’s critical organs." The spike proteins generated by vaccines help trigger the body’s immune response. They are not toxic, do not cause illness and do not last long in the body. Experts say there is no evidence that the proteins cause damage to organs. We rate this claim False

Photo shows former French education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem herding sheep as a child in Morocco Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, who served as the minister of national education, higher education, and research in France for several years, was born in Morocco. But an image that’s being shared on social media does not show Vallaud-Belkacem, France’s first female education minister. "20 years ago she was herding sheep in Morocco," text that tops two side-by-side photos, "now she is France’s education minister." One of the photos shows Vallaud-Belkacem leaving a cabinet meeting in October 2014, the year she started serving as minister. The second image shows a child leaning against a staff while sheep graze in the background. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 This claim has been online for years, and drew the attention of the French newspaper Le Monde in 2016. The photo of the child was taken by photographer Giacomo Pirozzi in 2006 in Morocco and subsequently published in a UNICEF report, Le Monde said. It shows an 8-year-old girl named Fouzia. Vallaud-Belkacem, who was born in 1977, would have been about 30 years old that year. She has previously discussed a childhood that included not sheep, but goats. "Reports in the French press that I was a child shepherd hold a grain of truth: I was born in Morocco and lived in Bni Chiker, a mountain hamlet in the north," she said in a 2017 story in the magazine Porter. "My early childhood was spent as a country girl living with near and extended family, all under one roof. We were quite poor. I helped my grandfather with the goats, drew water from a well, and spent most of the day in flip-flops. I don’t have many specific memories, but I carry with me the feeling of a happy family life." She goes on to say that she moved to France to join her father in 1982, well before the photo of the girl in Morocco was taken. We rate claims that this photo shows a young Vallaud-Belkacem False.

An email shows that employers are requiring employees to wear masks during Zoom meetings Some social media users have been duped or at least confused by online images that suggest employers are requiring remote workers to wear masks on Zoom meetings. "I am writing you all today to inform you of a new protocol for our staff zoom meetings," reads a purported email message depicted in one of the images. "Moving forward, everyone will be required to wear a mask during our meetings. One of our team members has a fear of unmasked people, and I want to make sure everyone feels safe and comfortable." "I’m fuming," an image of a tweet posted on Facebook says. "Zoom meeting this AM (Incorporating Drag in Pre-K Education). Sent memo prior to mtg: ‘Masks required, remember some folx triggered by unmasked faces.’ Despites this, two colleagues remained unmasked until *after* introductions. They apologized, but damage was done." "The left is a neverending parade of mental illness," one person wrote in response. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 Both the email and the tweet originated on satire accounts. On Dec. 30, @zactokz posted a video saying that he had received an email from his boss saying people needed to wear a mask during Zoom meetings because a colleague had a "fear of unmasked people." On Jan. 4, in response to a user asking to see the email, he posted the image now being shared on social media. But his bio notes that his posts are satire. The tweet, meanwhile, was posted by "Ann Lesby," whose Twitter bio says she is head of gender studies at "ACL Univ," apparently a satirical reference to the ACLU. Her user photo is a stock photo of a "happy mature businesswoman," according to Getty Images, and her other posts include one promoting an Etsy store for "Woke Baby products" featuring wall art that says "Antifa Baby." We couldn’t find any such store on Etsy. We rate claims that these post are real — and not satire — False.

Tylenol "ruins your ability to kill” COVID-19 As the highly transmissible omicron variant fuels a surge of COVID-19 cases across the country, treatment advice has ramped up on social media. Some users are warning against the use of Tylenol, with claims that it does more harm than good. Tylenol "ruins your ability to kill the virus," one Instagram post said, adding that an infected person with a fever is better off letting it run its course. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Tylenol is an over-the-counter brand of pain reliever and fever reducer containing acetaminophen. The same ingredient is found in various other brands of pain relievers and over-the-counter medicines. We couldn’t find any evidence that the medication "ruins" the body’s ability to neutralize the virus. While a high temperature can help the body fight off a virus, doctors say, running a high fever could also be dangerous. The other claims in the post about Tylenol’s effects are also exaggerated. Treating COVID-19 at home We’ll first note that it’s best to take medical advice from health care professionals, not from random social media posts, regardless of whether the poster has "Dr." in their username. Ben Lynch, the man who posted this image, is a naturopathic doctor who does not have a medical degree. Fever is one symptom of a COVID-19 infection, along with cough and shortness of breath. Common symptoms associated with the omicron variant include a headache, runny nose and sore throat, according to health officials. To treat COVID-19 symptoms at home, Harvard Medical School recommends taking acetaminophen to reduce fever and ease aches, as well as getting enough rest and staying hydrated. But if you are taking any combination cold or flu medicine, keep track of all the ingredients and doses, the medical school says, and don’t exceed a total of 3,000 milligrams of acetaminophen per day. One regular-strength Tylenol tablet has 325 milligrams of acetaminophen. The Mayo Clinic also recommends rest and fluids for treating COVID-19, as well as cough medication and pain relievers such as Tylenol or ibuprofen. For otherwise healthy people — and not specifically for coronavirus — the medical center offers general tips on whether to treat a fever or let it run its course. For example, for adults with a temperature above 102, Mayo recommends acetaminophen, ibuprofen or aspirin. There is some scientific discussion about the potential value of fevers for fighting infection, but experts we spoke with told us they haven't seen anything to suggest that fevers resulting from COVID-19 infections should be treated any differently than those stemming from other infections. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 "It’s true that fever is an immune mechanism that enhances the ability of the body to clear infections, and treatment of mild fever with acetaminophen is not always necessary," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "However, fevers can be poorly tolerated in some individuals, so acetaminophen is indicated." Taking Tylenol before getting a vaccine may initially lower the amount of antibodies a person produces, Dr. Daniel B. Fagbuyi, an emergency room physician and former health adviser to the Obama administration, told PolitiFact. So many doctors recommend against people taking Tylenol before their shots. But there is no strong evidence that the medication affects long-term immune response, and physicians typically recommend taking Tylenol after a vaccine shot, or to treat symptoms from a COVID-19 infection. "It has not been shown to cause a decrease in the immune response," Fagbuyi said. He added that fevers are the body’s way of fighting an infection and not all are bad, but the post’s language about Tylenol "ruining" the body’s ability to kill the virus is inaccurate. Everyone is different, and health experts told us that people should discuss treatment with their doctor. Tylenol’s effects Tylenol can have harmful effects, including liver damage, if it’s taken in excess of recommended doses, or in combination with other drugs. "Severe damage could occur if people take more than 4 grams of acetaminophen in 24 hours," Dr. Ke-Qin Hu, a liver disease specialist at the University of California, Irvine, said in a post about the drug. Even less can cause problems if the medicine is taken with alcohol, he added. But the Instagram post doesn’t include any caveats about dosage in declaring Tylenol "the worst thing you can use." Our ruling An Instagram post claims that Tylenol ruins people’s ability to fight off COVID-19. There’s no evidence that Tylenol does that. Health officials have recommended the use of Tylenol and other fever-lowering medications to treat COVID-19 symptoms. Sometimes people can let a fever run its course, medical experts said, but doing so can be dangerous in certain situations. Tylenol can have serious side effects when taken in excess of recommended doses. But the post doesn’t mention dosage. We rate this claim Fals

“Chief Justice John Roberts goes after the highest court in the land, citing their ‘inappropriate political influence.’ The headline of a recent blog post suggests that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is attacking his colleagues on the court. "BUSTED: Chief Justice John Roberts goes after the highest court in the land, citing their ‘inappropriate political influence,’" the Jan. 3 headline says. But in reality, Roberts was making a plea to protect the court from political influence. The blog post says as much, but its headline, which was viewed tens of thousands of times on social media, doesn’t make that clear. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Roberts issued his annual year-end report on the federal judiciary on Dec. 31. On the first of the nine page report, he quotes former President William Taft, who was appointed to the court by then-President Warren Harding in 1921. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 "During his nine-year tenure, he proved visionary on a matter of vital concern to the entire judiciary: safeguarding and fortifying the independence of the branch," Roberts said. "Taft knew that no one seriously questioned that judges ‘should be independent in their judgements.’ Decisional independence is essential to due process, promoting impartial decision-making, free from political or other extraneous influence. But Taft recognized that courts also require ample institutional independence. The judiciary’s power to manage its internal affairs insulate courts from inappropriate political influence and is crucial to preserving public trust in its work as a separate and co-equal branch of government." (Emphasis ours.) Nowhere in the report does Roberts criticize the Supreme Court for "inappropriate political influence." Rather, Roberts — after raising issues such as financial disclosure and recusal obligations among federal judges, workplace conduct, and patent cases — discussed the need for the federal judiciary to manage its own internal affairs. We rate this post False.

President Joe Biden “never had a” COVID-19 “plan. Donald Trump’s political action committee uses an ad peppered with Joe Biden sound bites to claim that Biden never had a plan to tackle the pandemic. It’s a curious attack. Many Republicans, including supporters of the former president, complain that COVID-19 plans carried out by Biden have gone too far. At the same time, Biden did make a comment over the holidays about there being "no federal solution." But Trump’s Save America PAC took Biden’s remark out of context. A post sharing the ad was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Trump’s Save America Save America was formed a week after Election Day in November 2020. It is a leadership PAC, which politicians typically use to support or oppose other candidates. Save America had $90 million in cash on hand as of June 30, according to its latest report to the Federal Election Commission. It spent over $1.4 million on Facebook and Google fundraising ads since March, "more than many marquee 2022 campaigns," the elections newsletter FWIW reported Dec. 3. Save America and Trump are active in 2022 races. They are supporting, for example, Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who is seeking to unseat Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Murkowski voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Ad uses then and now Save America’s 30-second video consists of a series of Biden sound bites. In the first half of the ad, the word "THEN" appears in a corner of the screen as six clips are played. Five of the clips are comments Biden made in late October 2020, near the end of his presidential campaign against Trump; and one was made five in January 2021, five days after he took office, our research found. There’s repetition in what Biden says: "I am going to shut down the virus." "I’m going to shut down the virus." "I’ll put a plan in place to deal with this pandemic responsibly." "I’m going to shut down the virus, not the country." "I’m going to shut down the virus." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 "I’m going to shut down the virus." As the second half of the video begins, the word "NOW" appears in a corner of the screen. Only one clip is shown, twice. Biden says, as the words appear in capital letters on the screen: "Look, there is no federal solution." The video ends with this message on this screen: "Biden never had a covid plan." Biden is shown holding an umbrella and walking away from the camera. The context of Biden’s recent remark What the ad presents as its "gotcha" moment occurred during a Dec. 27 conference call between Biden and governors about COVID-19. Gov. Asa Hutchinson, R-Ark., expressed concerns to Biden about testing. Here was their exchange: Hutchinson: "But we also, as governors, are getting pressure to do more, and the need is great to do more in terms of the rapid tests and the availability of it. And so, one word of concern or encouragement for your team is that as you look towards federal solutions that will help alleviate the challenge, make sure that we do not let federal solutions stand in the way of state solutions. And the production of 500 million rapid tests that will be distributed by the federal government is great but, obviously, that dries up the supply chain for the solutions that we might offer as governor ...." Biden: "Thank you very much, Asa. Look, there is no federal solution; this gets solved at a state level. I’m looking at (New Hampshire) Governor (Chris) Sununu on the board here; he talks about that a lot. And then it ultimately gets down to where the rubber meets the road, and that’s where the patient is in need of help or preventing the need for help." Critics might argue that Biden’s pandemic plan has not been adequate — but he had one, as a candidate and as president. Among the actions he’s taken: On Inauguration Day, Biden signed several executive orders, including one that created a new position within the Executive Office of the President of COVID-19 response coordinator; and one requiring mask-wearing on planes, trains, buses and ships. The White House also released a 198-page national COVID-19 response plan. By June, new COVID-19 cases dropped by 95%, largely due to a rollout of vaccines under Biden. In September, after the delta variant caused a new surge in cases, Biden announced a six-part plan. And in December, he announced a plan that included vaccine boosters and in-home testing. A Republican National Committee tweet sharing the "no federal solution" clip gained more than 909,000 views. Save America PAC did not reply to our requests for information to back its claim. Our ruling An ad from the Trump-aligned Save America PAC claimed that "Biden never had a plan" for COVID-19. The ad seized on a recent Biden remark about the pandemic that "there is no federal solution." Biden’s comment was in the context that the fight is not merely a federal one, but is carried out at the state and local levels, as well. Moreover, as a candidate and as president, Biden has advanced a number of plans to counter the virus. We rate the claim False. PolitiFact staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this repor

“It feels amazing” that unvaccinated people are “4.5 times LESS LIKELY to catch omicron” than people who are fully vaccinated and boosted Recent data from the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics showed that infected people who had been fully vaccinated and had a booster shot were more likely to test positive for the omicron variant of COVID-19 than were unvaccinated people. But those statistics were shared on social media without some key context, and with a post falsely suggesting that it’s safer not to get vaccinated against COVID-19. A Facebook post reads, "It feels amazing to know I’m 4.5 times LESS LIKELY to catch #Omicron than a boosted Fauci-ite. Can’t wait to see how the media spins this information. It is preliminary but seems like there’s an inverse relationship between number of vaccinations and chances of infection." This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post shares a screenshot of a graphic from an article in The Daily Skeptic. The data from the U.K. statistics agency used in that article looked at those in the population with a positive COVID-19 test result, then those "were then looked at to see which characteristics of that population were associated with omicron," Jonathan Cooke of the ONS wrote in an email to PolitiFact. The analysis did show that COVID-19-infected people who had received three doses of a vaccine were 4.5 times more likely to have a positive test compatible with omicron compared with an unvaccinated person who tested positive for COVID-19, Cooke said. It’s worth noting that the U.K. studies compared populations of people who had tested positive for COVID-19. Those who didn’t contract omicron would have been infected by another variant, possibly one associated with more serious health effects. Unvaccinated still at greater risk An ONS statement on the analysis said, "It is too early to draw conclusions from our data on the effectiveness of vaccines against the omicron variant." In addition, unvaccinated people are still more likely to catch COVID-19 and have worse outcomes than the fully vaccinated. The U.K. analysis showed 1,816 people testing positive for COVID-19 between Nov. 29 and Dec. 12, with 115 of those 1,816 cases compatible with omicron. People with three vaccine shots accounted for a total of 185 COVID-19 infections, 21 of which were omicron. Unvaccinated people had a total of 536 infections, 14 with the omicron variant. Based on its modeling technique, the agency said fully vaccinated and boosted people who tested positive for COVID-19 were 4.5 times more likely to be infected with the omicron variant than unvaccinated people. A more recent release by ONS from Dec. 3 through Dec. 16 shows the ratio growing to six times. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 But, again, that doesn’t mean the unvaccinated didn’t get COVID-19. According to the study, they simply tested positive for a variant of the virus other than omicron. In both analyses, unvaccinated people were more likely to get any variant of COVID-19 than people with three shots, the statistics agency said. In the later period, where there were 2,091 positive cases, there were 262 COVID-19 infections among people with three shots and 99 omicron cases out of those. Unvaccinated people had 559 infections, with 47 being from omicron. "Our statement on the analysis did make clear, using analysis from our recent characteristics release, that unvaccinated people overall are more likely to test positive for COVID-19, regardless of variant," said Cooke. Reuters fact-checkers found similar posts shared by users on social media also were missing that key context. UK health agency: 50% lower risk of hospitalization with omicron As in the rest of the world, the omicron variant is spreading rapidly across all U.K. regions, according to ONS data and the UK Health Security Agency, and is now the dominant strain in the U.K. The U.K. set a daily record with 189,846 new COVID-19 infections of any kind on Dec. 31. The UK Health Security Agency said studies using data through Dec. 29 show there is a roughly 50% lower risk of hospitalization for those infected with the omicron variant, compared with the delta variant. People who are fully vaccinated and boosted who get the omicron variant are 81% less likely to be admitted to a hospital than those who are unvaccinated, the agency said. The studies also show the vaccines have waning effectiveness over time in preventing an omicron infection. Preliminary studies from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the Imperial College of London also showed significantly lower risk of hospitalization from omicron than delta. Our ruling A Facebook post with a graphic claimed that people fully vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19 were 4.5 times more likely than unvaccinated people to catch the omicron variant. The post gives the false impression that unvaccinated people are better protected against COVID-19. The ratio comes from statistics published by the UK’s Office for National Statistics, and it rose to 6 times more likely in more recent data. However, the Facebook post leaves out key context that is included in the ONS report and in the Daily Skeptic article the graphic posted on Facebook comes from. The agency’s analysis compared people who had tested positive for COVID-19, meaning that those who didn’t contract omicron were infected with another variant, possibly a more dangerous one. The ONS report clearly states that unvaccinated people are more likely to contract COVID-19 of any strain and that it is too early to draw conclusions from the data about vaccine effectiveness. The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate this claim Mostly Fals

President Joe Biden “has the lowest approval rating of any president ever. Nearing the end of President Joe Biden’s first year in office, some social media users are casting doubt on his election by comparing the popular vote to poll numbers. "Biden got 80 million vote(s) (more than any president ever), yet has the lowest approval rating of any president ever," one Dec. 29 post says. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Biden won more than 81 million votes in the 2020 presidential election, more than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history and about 7 million more votes than former President Donald Trump received in 2016. On Dec. 20, NPR, PBS and the Marist Poll released the results of a new survey of 1,400 Americans in mid-December. The poll found that Biden’s job approval rating was 41%, the lowest score of his presidency. But it’s not the lowest approval rating of any president ever, as the Facebook post claims. In November, for example, NPR and the Marist Poll released the results of another survey that found Biden’s approval rating at 42% among all Americans. "When comparing Biden to his predecessor, the latest number is just below the highest approval rating (44%) Donald Trump received in our polls during his four years in office," the Marist Poll said then. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 The Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center, drawn from Gallup polls dating back to the Truman presidency, also shows that Biden doesn’t have the lowest approval rating ever. Former Presidents Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush all had approval ratings below 30%. RELATED VIDEO In October, CNN used the Gallup data to conclude that Biden had the second-lowest approval rating of any president that Gallup had measured at that moment in their presidency, about nine months into their term. Trump had a lower rating — 37%. Looking at the most recent data available from Gallup, that was still true. FiveThirtyEight, which also looks at Biden’s popularity and how he compares with past presidents, reached the same conclusion. We rate this post False.

"Yale study: Vaccinated people more likely to be infected than those without the jab. A recent study from Denmark on the Pfizer and Moderna two-dose vaccines showed a sharp and quick decline in their effectiveness against the omicron variant of COVID-19. But some social media posts and articles are misrepresenting what the study shows, its authors said. An Instagram post by Teens Against Mandates shows a headline that reads "Yale study: Vaccinated people more likely to be infected than those without the jab" This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The poster links in the comments to an article in the Rogue Review. That article links to a study posted on medRxiv.org, a site that allows users to post preprints of unpublished manuscripts that have not been peer reviewed. The headline calling it a "Yale study" is not correct. MedRxiv was founded by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Yale University and BMJ, a medical research site for health care providers. The site states that "no endorsement of a manuscript’s methods, assumptions, conclusions, or scientific quality" is implied by the laboratory, Yale or BMJ. The study was conducted by researchers on the Infectious Disease Preparedness Group at Denmark’s Statens Serum Institut, which states on its website that it’s "responsible for the Danish preparedness against infectious diseases." The headline also misrepresents the study’s findings. Nowhere does it suggest that vaccinated people are more likely to be infected than unvaccinated people. "Interpretation that our research is evidence of anything but a protective vaccine effect is misrepresentative," Astrid Blicher Schelde, one of the study’s authors wrote in an email to PolitiFact. The study measures the effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines against the omicron and delta variants in Danish residents up to five months after a primary vaccine series and uses data from Nov. 20 through Dec. 12, about the time the omicron variant was first reported by researchers in South Africa. The authors wrote that the study showed vaccine effectiveness against both variants after two doses, though they were each more effective against delta. It also found that the vaccine effectiveness declined rapidly against both variants after several months, but that it was restored after a Pfizer booster dose. "In light of the exponential rise in Omicron cases, these findings highlight the need for massive rollout of vaccinations and booster vaccinations," they wrote. The Pfizer vaccine was 55.2% effective against omicron in the first 30 days after two doses, but that dropped to -76.5% after 90 days, the study found. The Moderna vaccine also showed a steep drop in effectiveness from 36.7% to -39.3% in the same time period. Featured Fact-check Viral image stated on October 16, 2022 in an Instagram post “Covid vaccinations now prohibited in people under 50 in Denmark.” By Ciara O'Rourke • October 18, 2022 A Pfizer booster restored vaccine effectiveness to 54.6%, but there was not enough data on a Moderna booster, the researchers said. The Rogue Review story pointed to the two negative numbers, and said these figures show that those vaccinated with Pfizer are 76.5% more likely to get omicron than the unvaccinated, and that Moderna vaccine recipients are 39.3% more likely to get omicron than the unvaccinated. That’s not what the study concluded. In the discussion section of the study, the authors explained that the negative numbers suggest that different behavior "and/or exposure patterns in the vaccinated and unvaccinated" caused underestimation of the vaccines’ effectiveness. "This was likely the result of omicron spreading rapidly initially through single (super-spreading) events causing many infections among young, vaccinated individuals," they wrote. Blicher Schelde said there are several reasons why the number might be negative. First, vaccinated people may test more than unvaccinated people, she said. Also, the data is from the first generations of omicron cases in Denmark, which occurred disproportionately among those who were traveling internationally and people in their social and professional circles who were largely vaccinated, she said. Therefore, there was likely an overrepresentation of vaccinated people. Finally, discrepancies in risk behavior between vaccinated and unvaccinated people will lead to an underestimate of vaccine effectiveness, she wrote, pointing out that the "increasingly small cohort of unvaccinated people" in Denmark may take extra precautions because they are not vaccinated. In Denmark, 78.4% of the population have received two doses of a vaccine and 49.5% have received a booster dose, as of Jan. 4. "To conclude, the vaccines’ protective effect may be low against infection with omicron after four months, but it is most unlikely to be negative," Blicher Schelde wrote. Fact checkers from Lead Stories and Reuters also disputed similar claims about the Danish study. Our ruling An Instagram post claimed that a Yale study showed that vaccinated people are more likely to be infected with omicron than people who are not vaccinated. The claim misrepresents the source and findings of the study. It was done by Danish researchers at the Statens Serum Institut, not by Yale researchers. The study shows a sharp decline in vaccine effectiveness against omicron over time in people who have received two doses. It also shows that effectiveness is restored with a booster dose of Pfizer, although there is not enough data on a Moderna booster. The authors said the study did not conclude that vaccinated people are more likely to be infected with omicron than people who are not vaccinated. They said their findings prove the need for more vaccinations and booster doses to combat the rapid rise of omicron. We rate this claim Fals

“Jan. 6 was NOT an insurrection…but Nov. 4 at 3 a.m. was! As the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection approaches, false claims continue to attempt to recast that day’s events and question the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. One such claim is a viral Facebook post that says, "Jan. 6 was NOT an insurrection…but Nov. 4 at 3 a.m. was!" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Politicians and media personalities have gone to great lengths to try to reframe the events of Jan. 6 — efforts so extensive that PolitiFact chose lies about the Capitol attack and its significance as the 2021 Lie of the Year. Despite the efforts to downplay that day, Jan. 6 was an insurrection, with dozens of rioters armed with real and makeshift weapons trying to overturn the election. Extensive evidence includes video documentation and many eyewitness accounts. On the flip side, the 2020 presidential election was not an insurrection. Joe Biden was legally elected president. Late-night spikes in voting results reflected the effort to count unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots, and are not proof of election fraud. The idea that the election was the "real" insurrection originated with former President Donald Trump, who first said it in early October. Then, on Oct. 21, Trump issued a statement that said, "The insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day. January 6 was the Protest!" The Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol was not a protest; it was a historic attempt to subvert the results of an election. "Never before had Americans overtaken the Capitol to hold up electoral proceedings and threaten lawmakers," PolitiFact reported. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 23, 2022 in a post Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs “sent 6,000 wrong ballots to Republicans.” By Gabrielle Settles • October 28, 2022 The 2020 presidential election was the focus of the insurrection and also at the center of a multitude of false claims. But there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud, and dozens of lawsuits seeking to overturn the election failed. Every state certified its results, and Biden won both the Electoral College and the popular vote. The Facebook claim does not specify what occurred at 3 a.m. on Nov. 4. It could be a reference to false claims that surfaced in November 2020 that more than a million ballots with votes cast for Biden were "found" in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in the middle of the night following the election. The claims were a misinterpretation of how mail-in ballots are counted, PolitiFact reported, and the numbers of ballots cited in such claims were exaggerated or incorrect. For example, in Wisconsin, election officials worked through the night following the election "to tally the unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots, which under state law they were not allowed to start counting until Election Day," PolitiFact reported. And in Pennsylvania, there were no credible reports of 1 million mail-in ballots discovered in the night or at any time. Our ruling A Facebook post says, "Jan. 6 was NOT an insurrection…but Nov. 4 at 3 a.m. was!" Jan. 6 was an insurrection, with dozens of rioters armed with real and makeshift weapons trying to overturn the election. An extensive body of evidence includes video documentation and many eyewitness accounts. The 2020 presidential election was not an insurrection. Joe Biden was legally elected president. Late-night spikes in voting results reflected the effort to count unprecedented numbers of mail-in ballots and are not proof of fraud. We rate this claim Pants on Fire

A judge sealed “all the evidence and proof of who helped Ghislaine Maxwell sex traffic children. Despite the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial was conducted in public and open to the media, and Maxwell was convicted on federal sex trafficking charges, false claims persist that a coverup is afoot. In one viral Facebook video, conservative commentator David J. Harris Jr. referred to the judge in the Maxwell case and asked, "Why in the world would they seal all the evidence and proof of who helped Ghislaine Maxwell sex traffic children?" The caption on the video says, "Can the world say…. ‘Cover up!’" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The judge in the Maxwell case, Alison J. Nathan, did not order all of the evidence and proof sealed. Most of the evidence introduced at the trial has already been published by media outlets and is publicly available, including information about Jeffrey Epstein — whom Maxwell helped to sexually abuse minors over several years beginning in the 1990s — and other high-profile people. Nathan did restrict the public release of one item, Maxwell’s address book, saying only certain pages could be used as evidence. Maxwell’s trial in federal court ended Dec. 29, when she was convicted by a jury on five sex trafficking charges related to grooming underage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 Evidence that was introduced at trial and widely reported by media included a flight log from Epstein’s private airplane, which showed the names of passengers such as former U.S. presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton; Maxwell’s bank records; and photos that established a longstanding relationship between her and Epstein. Nathan also allowed the use of depositions from previous civil cases against Maxwell, and other judges released sealed records from previous lawsuits against Maxwell. "Troves of additional materials detailing what went on at homes where Maxwell and Epstein resided have been unsealed in the last two years after federal appeals judges and a Manhattan judge agreed that once-sealed records in a civil case against Maxwell should be released publicly," the Associated Press reported. Similar false claims about sealing the evidence also were posted on social media by Jack Posobiec and U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. Our ruling A Facebook video says the judge in the Maxwell trial sealed "all the evidence and proof of who helped Ghislaine Maxwell sex traffic children." The judge did not order all of the evidence and proof sealed, and most of it was published by media outlets during the trial, including information about Epstein and other high-profile people. We rate this claim False

Actions by Joe Biden left "10,000 - 15,000 American citizens abandoned to terrorists in Afghanistan. The United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan remains a fixture of retired U.S. Navy SEAL Derrick Van Orden’s campaign for Wisconsin’s Third District congressional seat. Since last summer’s chaotic exit from the nation’s longest war, Van Orden has repeatedly criticized President Joe Biden for the number of American citizens left in the country. Here’s how he framed it in a Dec. 7, 2021 tweet: "(President Joe Biden) abandoned 1000’s of our fellow American citizens to their fate w/ the Taliban & imported 10’s of 1000’s of random people from a country that we fought in for over 20 years." That echoed a Sept. 29, 2021 tweet that claimed, in part: "When officers do enlisted math. 10,000 - 15,000 American citizens abandoned to terrorists in Afghanistan. 6000 - pulled from the country. Equals - ‘less than 100’ " The "less than 100," of course, is a reference to official tallies at the time of the Aug. 31, 2021 deadline of Americans who were not evacuated. For purposes of this factcheck, we are going to focus on the claim that actions by Biden left "10,000 - 15,000 American citizens abandoned to terrorists in Afghanistan." Is he right? Not exactly, since those Van Orden classifies as "abandoned" did not necessarily want to leave. Indeed, some have dual citizenship, between the U.S. and Afghanistan. How the number of reported American citizens in Afghanistan changed There are some key factors involved in counting Americans in Afghanistan, or any foreign country for that matter. First, registering with the U.S. State Department, through an embassy, is not required. Second, in many cases individuals may have dual citizenship. And, in this case, officials say not every American in Afghanistan wanted to leave. When the evacuation of Afghanistan began, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote in an Aug. 17, 2021, letter to Congress that there were as many as 15,000 Americans in the country needing evacuation. Blinken then told reporters on Aug. 25, 2021, that the number of American citizens who wanted to leave was closer to about 6,000. Featured Fact-check Blake Masters stated on October 15, 2022 in a tweet Immigrants illegally in the country are treated “better than military veterans.” By Jon Greenberg • October 21, 2022 According to an Aug. 29, 2021 Washington Post analysis of those figures, the State Department started its initial figure of 15,000 citizens based on the known number of Americans in the country and assumed given the Taliban’s pending takeover many would need evacuation. The second number of 6,000 came after State Department officials and embassy workers had heard from people who wished to leave the country. So Van Orden may use the correct numbers in making the claim, but he misleads in assuming the estimated 9,000 Americans remaining in Afghanistan wanted to leave in the first place. When we asked Van Orden for backup, spokesman Justin Giorgio said the candidate’s broader point was about how the Biden Administration’s figure of exactly how many more Americans needed to be evacuated kept changing, more so than how some chose to leave after the Aug. 31 deadline. But that was not how it was stated. In any case, we dug a little further. On Sept. 13, 2021, Blinken told Congress that fewer than 100 American citizens who wished to be evacuated remained inside the country, according to a report that day from NBC News. Other news outlets reported the number of Americans left in Afghanistan was between 100 and 200. Since that point, as conditions in Afghanistan have worsened, the number of Americans seeking to leave has increased. Thus, the number of those "left" is constantly changing. In all, the federal government has helped 479 American citizens and 450 permanent residents leave Afghanistan for the United States since the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline, according to a Dec. 13, 2021, news release from the State Department. Jen Psaki, Biden’s press secretary, told reporters on Dec. 14, 2021, many of those evacuated since the withdrawal deadline had initially decided not to leave. "There were people who wanted — determined they wanted to leave since then, and it is our responsibility to help them depart. So that’s evidence of our commitment to do exactly that," she said, according to a White House readout of the media briefing. Psaki and the State Department said at the time that about a dozen Americans were awaiting evacuation from the country. Our ruling Van Orden claimed actions by Biden left "10,000 - 15,000 American citizens abandoned to terrorists in Afghanistan." The figures he uses are real, but they are dramatically mischaracterized – particularly with the use of the word "abandoned." The State Department’s initial estimate included thousands who have dual citizenship. And even using a whittled-back number would suggest that every one of those individuals wants to leave. After the August 31 withdrawal deadline, about 100 Americans remained who wished to be evacuated. Since then, the US has helped 479 American citizens and 450 permanent residents leave Afghanistan. As of mid-December, officials said, about a dozen were seeking help in leaving the country. Our definition of Mostly False is a statement that "contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression." That fits here.

The CDC finally admits its COVID-19 test can’t tell the difference between the virus and the fl This past summer, many social media posts claimed that the CDC was withdrawing its PCR test for COVID-19 because the test didn’t differentiate the coronavirus and the flu. That claim was debunked in July by PolitiFact and other fact checkers, but it is back again — and it’s just as wrong now as it was then. An Instagram post showed a screenshot of a Dec. 29, 2021, headline from The Gateway Pundit that read: "HUGE. CDC Withdraws Use of PCR Test for COVID and Finally Admits the Test Can Not Differentiate Between the Flu and COVID Virus." The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its news feed. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with Facebook.) Here’s what actually happened. On July 21, the CDC issued a lab alert saying that it was withdrawing its request to the FDA for emergency use authorization of "the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel, the assay first introduced in February 2020 for detection of SARS-CoV-2 only." The CDC alert encouraged labs to instead use newer tests that can detect multiple viruses at the same time, in order to "save both time and resources as we head into influenza season." After the initial alert raised questions, the CDC on Aug. 2 issued a clarification, saying that the change was because the FDA "has authorized hundreds of other SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic tests, many of which … can test for more than one illness at a time." The agency said the first diagnostic panel it had been seeking emergency authorization for "was specifically designed to only detect SARS-CoV-2 viral genetic material. It does not detect influenza or differentiate between influenza and SARS-CoV-2. The presence of influenza viral genetic material within a specimen will not cause a false positive result." Featured Fact-check Viral image stated on October 16, 2022 in an Instagram post “Covid vaccinations now prohibited in people under 50 in Denmark.” By Ciara O'Rourke • October 18, 2022 What’s more, in a July 30 fact-check, PolitiFact found that the original CDC request was not for a physical test as the false claim suggested, but rather for a protocol for how to test for COVID-19. The CDC had also sought emergency use authorization earlier in July for its Influenza SARS-CoV-2 (Flu SC2) Multiplex Assay that could test for both viruses, which the FDA soon granted. The reason this claim may be cropping up again now is that the CDC said in the alert that its withdrawal would be effective on Dec. 31 in order to give laboratories plenty of advance notice. In a Dec. 30 email to PolitiFact, an FDA spokesman pointed us to the instructions for use for the CDC’s original panel, which "includes sensitivity data as well as specificity/exclusivity data regarding Influenza and other viruses." The CDC did not respond to an email seeking comment on the recent claim, but says on its website that the original test "filled an important unmet need" in early 2020, but that newer tests that can detect both COVID-19 and influenza are more efficient. Our ruling An Instagram post claims that the CDC is withdrawing its COVID-19 test and admitted that it’s because the test can’t tell the difference between the flu and the coronavirus. But that’s not what happened. The CDC said in July it would withdraw from FDA consideration its emergency use authorization request for its 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel because it was designed specifically to detect only COVID-19. But the CDC said it was because it wanted laboratories to use newer FDA-authorized tests that could already detect the flu as well as COVID-19, in order to save time. The clarification made clear that the initial test only detected COVID-19, not the flu. We rate this claim Fals

"By declining the vax, I am 100% safe from adverse reactions and 99.8% safe from COVID. An image shared on Instagram claims that people are largely safe from catching COVID-19 even if they don't take the vaccine. "By declining the vax, I am 100% safe from adverse reactions and 99.8% safe from COVID," the image's text reads. "I'd say those are pretty safe [odds.]" The image appears to be a screenshot of an Instagram post. Although the account featured in the post does have several anti-vaccination posts, we could not find that specific image on its timeline. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. Instagram is owned by Facebook. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) While the post doesn’t give a source for the figures it cites, we’ve fact-checked similar claims before about unvaccinated people and their chances of survival against COVID-19. As with the previous claims, this post appears to conflate the global survival rate for the virus with an individual’s chance of survival. Of the 290 million people in the world who have tested positive for the virus as of Jan. 3, around 5.4 million people, or fewer than 2%, have died, according to The New York Times. That means at least 98% of people in the world who had COVID-19 survived. However, the global survival rate for the virus should not be considered the same thing as an individual’s chance of survival. A person's age, gender, health history and where they live all factor into how likely they are to survive an infection, according to Our World in Data. No vaccine is ever 100% effective, but early studies showed the protection provided by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines can reduce a person's risk of infection from the virus by as much as 91%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine can reduce that risk by 66%. Featured Fact-check Viral image stated on October 16, 2022 in an Instagram post “Covid vaccinations now prohibited in people under 50 in Denmark.” By Ciara O'Rourke • October 18, 2022 The vaccines' effectiveness has waned over time and with the prevalence of more infectious coronavirus variants like delta and omicron, prompting health officials to approve booster shots. Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson have said booster doses of their vaccines are able to protect against severe symptoms and hospitalization related to the omicron variant. Health officials have also stressed the vaccines are safe to use and that serious adverse reactions are rare. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said during a November White House briefing, before this post was made, that unvaccinated people in the U.S. are six times more likely to test positive for the virus and have at least a 14 times greater risk of dying from COVID-19 compared with vaccinated people. In a December briefing following a surge in cases caused by the omicron variant, Walensky said those figures only went up: Unvaccinated people in the U.S. were 10 times more likely to test positive for the virus and were at 20 times greater risk of dying from COVID-19 compared with vaccinated people who received a booster dose. The hospitalization rate for unvaccinated adults in the country was also 17 times higher. "Our vaccines are working really well to prevent severe disease and hospitalization and death," Walensky said. "They’re actually also working quite well to prevent cases, although we do know more breakthrough cases are happening in the context of omicron." The latest data from the CDC also show the case and death rates of COVID-19 remain high among unvaccinated individuals compared with those who are vaccinated. Similarly, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a July interview with NBC that unvaccinated people accounted for 99% of deaths in the U.S. related to the virus. And, accounting for omicron, he said in the December White House briefing that while omicron may result in less severe symptoms compared with the other variants, its increased transmissibility is still a danger, especially among unvaccinated populations. "The risk of severe disease from any circulating variant, including omicron, is much, much higher for the unvaccinated," he said. Our ruling An image shared on Instagram claimed that not getting vaccinated against the coronavirus makes a person "100% safe from adverse reactions and 99.8% safe from COVID." The claim appears to conflate the total survival rate of the virus in the world with an individual’s chance of survival. The COVID-19 vaccines have proven to be safe and effective in reducing a person’s risk of infection and hospitalization from the virus. Positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths have been fueled by the unvaccinated. This trend has continued even as omicron has spread. The claim does contain an element of truth. By not getting vaccinated against COVID-19, a person does have a 100% chance of being safe from adverse reactions associated with those vaccines. However, developing a serious adverse reaction is rare. And serious health effects related to COVID-19 infection are more common. We rate this claim Mostly Fals

Vaccines are why flights have been shut down worldwide Are vaccines to blame for the cancellations of thousands of flights around the world? In short, no. A Facebook user posted a video of a vaccine critic speaking at a conservative conference about the use of vaccines by pilots, and wrote a caption: "why the flights have been shut down worldwide." The caption included the hashtag "just say no" along with an emoji of a needle. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Thousands of flights have been canceled in the United States and around the world in recent weeks, but not because COVID-19 vaccines are making pilots sick. Airlines report that COVID-19 infections among their staff members and wintry weather are to blame. SkyWest, which canceled hundreds of flights over the December holidays, told USA Today that its cancellations were the result of bad weather and an increase in coronavirus cases and quarantines among its crew members. USA Today reported on Dec. 27 that Southwest blamed its cancellations on weather challenges, and Delta said its cancellations were due to a combination of weather and the virus. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 JetBlue told the Washington Post, in an article published on Dec. 29, that its operations were affected by rising coronavirus caseloads, and that it was reducing its schedule through the first two weeks of January. And despite the claim in the video caption that the cancellations are linked to vaccines, there’s nothing in the actual video itself that supports the claim. The video is from a broadcast of Real America’s Voice, and was filmed in Phoenix, Ariz. It appears to have been recorded on Dec. 20, 2021, in a Turning Point USA conference event involving pilots. In it, Leigh Dundas, a lawyer who works with America’s Frontline Doctors, which has spread misinformation about the virus, recounted what she said were adverse reactions from the COVID-19 vaccines and their impacts on commercial airline pilots. She relayed information from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, a database maintained by the federal government that contains unconfirmed reports of adverse events following vaccination — data that is frequently misused by vaccine critics to spread misinformation. She also mentioned cases of vaccinated pilots who became sick on the job. PolitiFact looked at a case in October — a claim that a vaccinated pilot died mid-flight and forced an emergency landing — and found no evidence of an emergency landing or a dead pilot. In November, USA Today fact-checked claims that vaccinated pilots were dying during flights and found them to be false. The Federal Aviation Administration told USA Today that it had seen no evidence of aircraft accidents or pilot incapacitation caused by any complications associated with the vaccines. Our ruling A Facebook post claimed that flights were shut down worldwide because pilots have been vaccinated against COVID-19 and have experienced severe negative reactions. There is no evidence that flights are being canceled around the world because pilots have experienced adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines. Airlines have said that wintry weather and coronavirus infections among their staff members have resulted in canceled flights. We rate this claim False.

Says Betty White said Dec. 28, days before she died, “Eat healthy and get all your vaccines. I just got boosted today. Betty White, the Emmy-winning star of "The Golden Girls" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" whose career and celebrity extended into old age, died Dec. 31, 2021. She was just weeks away from turning 100. White’s death inspired countless tributes. But on social media, it also prompted a familiar anti-vaccine narrative that falsely linked her death and the COVID-19 vaccines — much like the baseless rumors that took off after the deaths of baseball legend Hank Aaron, boxer Marvin Hagler, rapper DMX and other celebrities. "‘Eat healthy and get all your vaccines. I just got boosted today,’ — Betty White, Dec 28th, 2021," said various Facebook posts shared Jan. 1 and Jan. 2. The purported White quote is fabricated. PolitiFact and other fact-checkers found no record of White making any such statement, and the Associated Press reported that she did not get a booster on Dec. 28. "Totally false statement," Jeff Witjas, White’s agent, said in an email to PolitiFact. Facebook posts sharing the quote were flagged as part of the platform’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 This image, shared widely on Facebook Jan. 1, featured a fake Betty White quote about the COVID-19 vaccines. Some of the Facebook posts included a link to an article on crowrivermedia.com, a website operated by MediaNews Group, a Denver-based newspaper publisher. But the crowrivermedia.com article does not quote White as saying she had just received the COVID-19 booster shot. Neither does the Dec. 28 People magazine cover story about White on which the crowrivermedia.com article was based. The cause and manner of White’s death had not been made public as of Jan. 3. Witjas previously told People she "died peacefully in her sleep at her home early this morning." Unsupported and false claims blaming the COVID-19 vaccines have routinely cropped up in the wake of celebrity deaths, even though the vaccines have proven to be safe. "You can get a COVID vaccine and still die from something else," Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, previously told PolitiFact. Since the quote is fabricated, we rate these Facebook posts Pants on Fir

A video clip shows a failed attempt by China to launch airstrikes near Taiwan Social media users misunderstood the origins of a viral video that supposedly showed attempted airstrikes by China near Taiwan. The video, which was shared on Facebook Dec. 27 and had been viewed more than 9 million times, showed a military-type aircraft in flight, sometimes firing missiles, while artillery is fired at it from the ground. The caption in the video title read, "See how the planes crashed again when China failed to launch air strikes near Taiwan #2." The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) But the footage was from a live broadcast of a video game as it was being played. A heading on the Facebook post says the poster, Gorib gaming, was live, playing Grand Theft Auto V. The Gorib gaming Facebook page says it is operated by a gaming content creator. Every video posted on the page is a live stream of video gameplay. We contacted Gorib gaming for comment but did not receive a reply. And after we started fact-checking the claim in the Facebook video’s title, it was updated to read only, "Arma 3 Iron Dom Vs Rockets #2" — a more accurate description as the video appears visually similar to other live streams of Arma 3 posted by Gorib gaming. But that title change (which was not accompanied by a formal correction on the post) came after the video generated thousands of comments, with some people appearing to believe the footage showed an actual attempt by China to launch airstrikes near Taiwan. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 One commenter wrote, "Really bad aim, all them projectiles not one hit, I’d invest in better weapons because these only work on missiles that go in straight lines." Another said, "Wonder how much all of those missed hits cost the Tax Payer’s." And one person incorrectly claimed that turrets shown in the video "are the defensive units of Israel, not Taiwan." The misinterpretation of the video game footage comes on the heels of real-life tension between China and Taiwan. China’s air force has carried out repeated missions near Taiwan, an island that claims independence but that China claims as its own. In December, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the missions "look like ‘rehearsals’ though he did not indicate that he expected Beijing actually to carry out such operations," Reuters reported. It’s not the first time we’ve seen gaming videos mischaracterized on social media as if they are actual war footage, including other misrepresentations of Arma 3 footage. Our ruling A Facebook video showed a military-type aircraft in flight, sometimes firing missiles, while artillery was fired at it from the ground. The caption in the video title read, "See how the planes crashed again when China failed to launch air strikes near Taiwan #2." The video was footage from a live broadcast of a video game and did not show actual footage of airstrikes. The title of the video was changed as we started fact-checking it, but not before many of the thousands of people who viewed the footage commented as though they believed it to be real. We rate that claim Pants on Fire

“Six-month Pfizer data show COVID vaccine causes more illness than it prevents. A headline widely shared on Facebook alleges that Pfizer’s own data show that the company’s COVID-19 vaccine causes more harm than good. "Alarming Six Month Pfizer Data Show COVID Vaccine Causes More Illness Than it Prevents + Major Trial Flaws," the headline states. It appears on an article on a website that says it provides "the support you need to assert your right to decline the shots." The article was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The actual data from Pfizer does not support any such claim. "Patently false statement. The headline is ludicrous," said Dr. Robert Wachter, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. The headline alludes to a report that claims that six months of Pfizer’s own data shows that the company’s vaccine caused "increased sickness and death." That report "completely misstates" the Pfizer data, said Dr. Matthew Laurens of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 That data is reported in a New England Journal of Medicine study. The study included some 46,000 people from the United States, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, Germany and Turkey. Half received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine and half received a placebo. The participants were checked after six months. Among the conclusions: The vaccine "continued to be safe and have an acceptable adverse-event profile. Few participants had adverse events leading to withdrawal from the trial." Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 was 91.3% through six months of follow-up. That is, only 77 cases were detected in vaccine recipients after a second dose, compared with 850 cases in placebo recipients. Of 31 patients who got severe COVID-19, 30 were placebo recipients and one was in the group that received the vaccine. No deaths among people in the study were related to vaccination. The statement is false and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fir

“Trump cut Social Security benefits by over $3 billion. As part of a push to raise Social Security benefits, a group that works to elect progressives made a false attack on former President Donald Trump. "Trump cut Social Security benefits by over $3 BILLION," was the first line of a Facebook post by the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC. The Nov. 10 post, still widely shared in late December, linked to an online petition calling for raising Social Security benefits by $200 per month. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Trump did not make any such cut to Social Security benefits. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 There were times when Trump raised fears about cuts to Social Security. For example, in September 2020, he said he wanted to eliminate the payroll tax, which funds Social Security. But that didn’t happen. Trump periodically proposed policies that would cut aspects of the program, but none were enacted by Congress. We rated as a Promise Kept a Trump campaign pledge to make no cuts to Social Security. The Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC didn’t reply to our messages seeking information to back its claim. We rate this claim Fals

The push for high-speed internet for rural areas, from the start, “was a Democratic thing. The need for more Americans to have better high-speed internet access is a common refrain these days — and it’s a rare one that reaches across the aisle. Republicans and Democrats alike — from the nation’s executive branch down to municipal officials — have taken swings at expanding access. President George W. Bush called for all Americans to have high-speed internet by 2007. In 2010, President Barack Obama released a report with more than 200 recommendations to improve broadband. In 2019, President Donald Trump unveiled the $20 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, and in recent months President Joe Biden earmarked tens of billions of dollars for broadband expansion as part of his infrastructure bill. In Wisconsin, where about a quarter of rural residents live without access to high-speed internet, the 2021-23 budget signed by Gov. Tony Evers set aside $129 million to grow a grant program that funds efforts to improve broadband services in regions that need them. The final budget ultimately was authored by GOP legislators, who backed the provision. (Evers had called for spending nearly $200 million on high-speed internet access in his proposed budget, which legislators discarded for other reasons.) In a Dec. 12, 2021 interview for Madison TV station WKOW’s Capital City Sunday program, state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-West Point, talked about how his party needs to do a better job reaching out to rural voters — and cited broadband as an example of issues where rural residents are not aware of Democratic efforts. Democrats, he said, have been pushing for more high-speed internet access for years: "No matter where you live, that you should have access to high-speed internet — that was a Democratic thing." Is he right? In Wisconsin, did Democrats lead the charge to improve rural broadband? Republican, Democrat approaches to improving rural broadband differ When asked for backup for the claim, Erpenbach spokesperson Kelly Becker pointed to a bill introduced in 2001 by Democrats, including former state Rep. Jennifer Shilling, who later served in the state Senate and left her seat in 2020, and former Sen. Richard Grobschmidt, who died in 2016. The bill would have required the now-dissolved state Department of Commerce to develop a map and database of broadband internet service providers in Wisconsin. It failed to pass during that session. Becker argued Wisconsin Republicans did not act on broadband until 2003, when they proposed exempting broadband internet service from regulation by the Public Service Commission and local governments. Barry Orton, professor emeritus of telecommunications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the Republican position on broadband has historically been to deregulate the industry and allow the marketplace to decide who gets what services. This, he said, "has always left unprofitable rural markets with poor or no service." Democrats, meanwhile, have sought to fund broadband expansion for years, at least since the beginning of the Obama administration, Orton said. Former Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle in 2010 announced the state would spend nearly $23 million in federal stimulus funds from Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to improve broadband access across the state’s 72 counties. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 25, 2022 in an Instagram post The documentary “2,000 Mules proves” Democrats “cheated on the 2020 elections.” By Jon Greenberg • October 28, 2022 A year later, when Wisconsin had flipped Republican under former Gov. Scott Walker, state officials returned those stimulus funds to the federal government, saying there were too many strings attached. Becker also pointed to a 2015 motion Erpenbach made as a member of the state’s Joint Finance Committee to make changes to the broadband expansion grants program, including expanding eligibility for the grants and creating a biennial general purpose revenue appropriation for making the grants. The motion failed 12-4 on a party line vote. State Republicans, however, say their early focus on eliminating the sales tax on internet services predates Democrats’ push for broadband expansion. A spokesperson for state Rep. Rob Summerfield, R-Bloomer — who along with state Sen. Howard Marklein, R-Spring Green, has called for better broadband infrastructure in Wisconsin — pointed to a 1999 bill aiming for a sales and use tax exemption for providing access to, or use of, the internet. The bill was introduced in part by then-Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, a Republican who represented Waukesha, said Alex Braaten, a research assistant for Summerfield. Jensen had previously advocated for reducing or eliminating that sales tax, in part because he believed it would limit growth of the internet economy and slow development of e-commerce, according to a 1999 Milwaukee Business Journal article. Braaten argued that, in doing so, Jensen sought to make the internet more affordable for Wisconsinites and ease the tax burden on small service providers so they could expand. (In 2016, Congress passed legislation banning state and local governments from taxing access to the internet. Wisconsin, one of just a handful of states that still did so, was forced to phase out the tax beginning in summer 2020.) At the local level, need for broadband isn’t about politics It’s worth noting that experts say party doesn’t matter much when it comes to the need for high-speed internet within local communities. Doug Dawson, a nationally recognized internet consultant from North Carolina, told PolitiFact Wisconsin he couldn’t think of one example of political bias from the approximately 500 communities he’s worked with to improve broadband access. "There are almost no rural politicians opposed to getting better broadband — and most are active proponents," he wrote. "I assume most such politicians are Republicans." Where the partisan divide begins to rear its head, he said, is the question of how to fund better broadband — "and funding anything quickly becomes partisan." Our ruling Erpenbach claimed pushing for better high-speed internet access was "a Democratic thing." Democrats pushed a broad variety of potential solutions and called for funding early, but Republicans did float bills that could address parts of the problem, albeit market-driven approaches that experts say would leave places that are most expensive to reach uncovered. Today, both sides agree on the need for better broadband — just not quite how to get there. And at the local level, experts say advocating for improved internet access is a grassroots effort, not a political one. We rate his claim Half True. window.gciAnalyticsUAID = 'PMJS-TEALIUM-COBRAND'; window.gciAnalyticsLoadEvents = false; window.gciAnalytics.view({ 'event-type': 'pageview', 'content-type': 'interactives', 'content-ssts-section': 'news', 'content-ssts-subsection': 'news:politics', 'content-ssts-topic': 'news:politics:politifactwisconsin', 'content-ssts-subtopic': ' news:politics:politifactwisconsin' });

Teens are “more likely to be hospitalized with myocarditis” from the COVID-19 vaccines than to be “hospitalized with COVID. A Texas cardiologist recently made a claim about the risk of myocarditis in teens from the COVID-19 vaccine, citing a study that health experts raised doubts about in September. He also floated a debunked claim that 45,000 Americans have died from the vaccine. Dr. Peter McCullough made the claims in an appearance on the "DarkHorse Podcast; an article about his appearance, from the website Conservative Fighters, carried the headline: "Top cardiologist: Study shows COVID vaccines are more dangerous than covid itself." "The most shocking thing in the Hoag analysis was that a child ages 12-17 is more likely to be hospitalized with myocarditis than taking your chances with COVID and ever getting hospitalized with COVID," McCullough claimed. The claim is not accurate. Public health experts say the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine outweigh the risks for teens. McCullough was referring to a study by Dr. Tracy Hoag and others posted to MedRxiv, a site where researchers post preliminary versions of scientific papers before they are peer reviewed. PolitiFact found that several doctors and researchers pointed out flaws in that study’s methodology. McCullough, president of the Cardio Renal Society of America and editor of the journal Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine, is a frequent Fox News guest and has a talk radio show called "The McCullough Report" on the America Out Loud network. His biography on the network’s website says he is "among the world’s experts" on the virus. However, McCullough has made several claims during the pandemic that have been debunked by fact-checkers, such as that healthy people under 50 don’t need the COVID-19 vaccine and that vaccines offered no protection against the delta variant. Baylor Scott & White Health, the large Texas-based health system, cut ties with McCullough in February and got a temporary restraining order against him in September, accusing him of continuing to claim an affiliation with it in media interviews, a claim he denied, according to Medscape. The risk of myocarditis is not greater than COVID-19 risk McCullough’s claim that teens are more at risk from the vaccine due to myocarditis is not accurate. Health officials acknowledge there is a risk of the heart disorder but say it’s rare and that cases are generally mild. Hospitalizations of teens due to COVID-19 infection remain low, compared with other age groups, CDC data shows, but the risk of illness or death due to the virus is greater than the risk from myocarditis, health experts say. Martha Sharan, a spokesperson for the CDC, said that cases of myocarditis after the COVID-19 vaccine are still being investigated. "It shares some features with typical viral myocarditis in terms of the age and sex distribution, the presenting symptom of chest pain, and various lab values. However, myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccine has less occurrence of heart failure and has a milder acute clinical course," Sharan said. She added that "short-term outcomes of myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccine are much better than those of typical viral myocarditis," and that studies of the long-term outcomes are continuing. When the vaccines first started coming out, doctors were seeing a small number of males in the 15-to-24 age group with symptoms of myocarditis, including chest pain, low-grade fever, and some changes in MRIs and EKGs, said Dr. Stuart Berger, chief of cardiology in the Department of Pediatrics at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. "These were kids that got symptoms resolved over a very short period of time, probably 24 to 48 hours, so went home and were fine," Berger said. Berger added that "the incidence of that was much, much, much smaller than myocarditis in the general population that is not related to COVID." Berger said people, even children, are at much higher risk of getting sick or dying from COVID-19 itself or from Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome, which has been reported in many children who have had COVID-19. His recommendation to his patients? Get the vaccine. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 "It's a no-brainer, to put it simply. Don't get COVID if there's a way to avoid it," Berger said. The American Academy of Pediatrics also continues to recommend that children be vaccinated against COVID-19 despite the rare risk of myocarditis. A spokesperson shared an article about a recent study from Denmark of 5 million residents that showed about 2 cases of myocarditis per 100,000 people after mRNA vaccines. The CDC’s Sharan pointed to a weekly morbidity and mortality report from June that concluded the benefits of COVID vaccination "clearly outweighed the risks of myocarditis after vaccination." The report showed that for males ages 12 to 29, there were between 39 and 47 cases of myocarditis expected per 1 million vaccine doses given. That compares with the prevention of 11,000 cases of COVID-19, 560 hospitalizations, 138 ICU admissions and six deaths per one million doses in that same age range. Another CDC report narrows the data to males ages 12 through 17 and shows that for every 1 million vaccine doses, there were between 56 and 69 reports of myocarditis. However, it calculated that the COVID-19 vaccines prevented 5,700 cases, 215 hospitalizations, 71 ICU admissions and two deaths. As far as children ages 5-11, who began receiving the Pfizer vaccine on Oct. 29, the CDC told Reuters on Dec. 16 that there were eight mild cases of myocarditis reported in that group after more than 7 million doses of the vaccine were administered. According to CDC data, 771 children ages 18 and under have died of COVID in the U.S. and more than 32,000 people between the ages of 19 and 44 have died from the virus as of Dec. 15. Johns Hopkins data shows more than 800,000 Americans have died from the virus. Deaths from the vaccine In the podcast, McCullough also cited data from the federal government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System to claim that 45,000 to 50,000 deaths had resulted from the COVID-19 vaccines. That’s not accurate. PolitiFact rated a similar claim of 45,000 deaths from the vaccine as Pants on Fire in July, and fact checkers at USA Today and Snopes rated them False. That claim was also made by America’s Frontline Doctors in a lawsuit in July that sought to stop authorization of the vaccines. McCullough provided a sworn declaration in that lawsuit. The 45,000 number came from an unidentified woman who didn’t share her method for calculating it, but based it on data from the VAERS, PolitiFact found. The CDC said on its website that VAERS received 10,483 reports of death after vaccines through Dec. 13. It adds that the FDA requires any health provider to report deaths after vaccines to VAERS, but that it "does not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem." The CDC’s search engine for VAERS requires that users read and acknowledge a disclaimer that says, among other things, "The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted or used to reach conclusions about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with vaccines." But anyone with a computer can search the data, download it, sort through the numbers and interpret them as they wish. Sharan said there is no indication that COVID-19 vaccines are leading to fatalities, except for nine confirmed deaths related to blood-clot issues in people who received the vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen. "To date, CDC has not detected any unusual or unexpected patterns for deaths following immunization that would indicate that COVID vaccines are causing or contributing to deaths, outside of the nine confirmed deaths following the Janssen vaccine," Sharan wrote in an email. Those nine deaths were from complications of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, she said, or a combination of blood clots and low platelet count. As a result, the CDC recommended on Dec. 16 that people get the Pfizer or Moderna shots instead of Johnson & Johnson’s. We reached out to McCullough via email but he did not provide any evidence to support his claims. Our ruling McCullough claimed that teens are at greater risk of being hospitalized with myocarditis from the COVID-19 vaccine than because of COVID-19 itself. There have been nine confirmed deaths related to the vaccine and those came from a rare blood clot disorder tied to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Post-vaccine deaths reported to VAERS do not mean they were caused by the vaccine. There is a rare risk of myocarditis from the vaccines in children and teens, but the benefits of the vaccine vastly outweigh the risks, multiple health authorities say. We rate this claim Fals

"Polar bears have increased 400% in 45 years; whales are nearly fully recovered; extinctions are down 90% past century. Koalas are doing fine. If we could ban wind turbines we could save 85,000 birds of prey/yr in US alone. A Facebook post says don’t listen to the warnings that polar bears, whales and koalas are in danger of extinction as a result of climate change. It claims that those species aren’t endangered, but actually on the rise. The Dec. 12 post shows a screenshot of a claim from Patrick Moore, who serves on the board of the CO2 Coalition, an advocacy group that claims to educate people about the benefits of carbon dioxide. Moore tweeted this claim in 2019: "Polar bears have increased 400% in 45 years; whales are nearly fully recovered; extinctions are down 90% past century (IUCN). Koalas are doing fine. If we could ban wind turbines we could save 85,000 birds of prey/yr in US alone." Moore describes himself as a Greenpeace co-founder; Greenpeace said in 2010 that Moore "played a significant role in Greenpeace Canada" years ago, but denied that he was a founding member. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Agence France Presse first fact-checked elements of the claim two years ago, calling it misleading. Experts we talked to agree that the statistical claims are unsupported. Here we look at each part of the claim individually: Claim: "Polars bears increased 400% in 45 years" It’s impossible to compare the global population of polar bears to 45 years ago, because scientific estimates for most of the world’s polar bear populations weren’t published until after the mid-1970s, said Andrew Derocher, professor in the department of biological sciences at the University of Alberta in Canada. "Many of the 19 polar bear populations (e.g., east Greenland, Laptev Sea, Arctic Basin, Kara Sea) have never had a population estimate and lack trend data, so it is impossible to say what the global population was 45 years ago or for that matter, what the global population size is today," Derocher said. Derocher pointed to data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Polar Bear Specialist Group, which published its first estimate in 1993. That year, IUCN’s global estimate of polar bears was 21,470 to 28,370. Its estimates were 22,000 to 27,000 in 1997, 21,500 to 25,000 in 2001, and 20,000 to 25,000 in 2005 and 2009. In July 2021, the global estimate was 26,000. The threat to polar bear populations 50 years ago was unregulated commercial, sport and subsistence hunting, Derocher said. A 1973 international treaty called the Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears blocked overhunting, Philip Newell, associate director of science defense at Climate Nexus, told PolitiFact. Today, Derocher said, polar bears face another threat: global warming. Experts differ on how much climate change has affected polar bears. Charles Greene, senior fellow at Friday Harbor Laboratories at the University of Washington, said the loss of ice in the Arctic Ocean has had some effect on polar bear populations, but not a major one so far. He pointed to two graphs published in 2014 that estimated their population — one showed a modest decline, while the other showed virtually no change. Still, both Greene and Derocher agreed there’s no evidence that polar bears have increased by 400%. Claim: "Whales are nearly fully recovered" The practice of whaling decimated the whale population over the 20th century, said Greene. He pointed to figures from a pair of studies cited by Our World in Data, showing the whale population dwindled from an estimated 2.56 million in the 1890s to 879,412 by 2001. While some countries, including Japan and Norway, still allow whale hunting, most have agreed to stop, Greene said. As a result of that and other international agreements, whale populations have recovered somewhat, but they’re nowhere near where they were when whaling was common. "The thing that prevents them from recovering even faster is that even though we’re not intentionally whaling, we are unintentionally whaling by them getting hit by ships, by them getting entangled in fishing gear," said Greene. "So for many species, blue whales, humpbacks in the Pacific, and right whales in the North Atlantic, those are the main sources of mortality now." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 30, 2022 in a photo “There are no greenhouse gas emissions in this photo” of cows grazing. By Kristin Hugo • November 7, 2022 That could be enough to make right whales extinct within a few decades, Greene added. The North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium reported that the whale species’ numbers had dropped to 336 in 2020, the lowest number in nearly 20 years. Claim: "Extinctions are down 90% past century" Moore’s tweet cites the IUCN as a source for his claim that extinctions have dropped 90%. But we found no evidence to support that number, On the contrary, groups tracking biodiversity point to rising threats of extinction over the past century. In 2019, the ​​Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services said, "the average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20%, mostly since 1900." The IPBES also reported that since the 1600s, at least 680 vertebrate species have gone into extinction. More than 9% of all domesticated mammals used for food and agriculture became extinct in 2016. The IPBES count of endangered animals included 40% of amphibians, 33% of reef-forming corals, a third of all marine mammals, and more. The IUCN reports that it has more than 142,500 species on its "red list" of threatened species, and more than 40,000 are in threat of extinction. "I couldn’t even begin to find anything that would suggest that extinctions have gone down," Greene told PolitiFact. "It didn’t take me very long to go and pull out very recent papers from top tier journals that demonstrate that it’s a totally bogus claim." Claim: "Koalas are doing fine" In 2016, the IUCN declared that koalas, which are native to Australia, were on the decline and categorized them as vulnerable. The group listed several threats, including residential and commercial development, logging and wood harvesting, and more. An IUCN fact sheet notes that koalas are affected by dangers including elevated CO2 levels in the plants they eat, predatory animals, vehicles, droughts and bushfires, diseases and habitat destruction. AFP reported in its 2019 fact-check that the exact number of koalas was contested by different experts. But they did agree that koalas were not, in fact, fine. Claim: Banning wind turbines would "save 85,000 birds of prey/yr in US alone." Birds do have deadly encounters with wind turbines. According to a June 2021 study published on the open-access journal Ecosphere, birds of prey with "relatively higher potential of population-level impacts from wind turbine collisions included barn owl, ferruginous hawk, golden eagle, American kestrel, and red-tailed hawk." However, wind turbines have a much smaller effect on birds of prey than other risk factors do. In response to a similar 2016 claim from candidate Donald Trump about "hundreds and hundreds" of eagles being killed by wind turbines, experts told us that the number of eagles killed was closer to 100, and that the birds could be easily saved with "proper siting and mitigation measures." A 2020 article from Eletrek, a news site focused on sustainable energy and electric transportation, reported that while raptors can be killed by wind turbines, factors like agriculture, deforestation, fossil fuels, climate change, cats and windows have proven to be far more dangerous. We didn’t find a basis for Moore’s claim that 85,000 raptors a year could be saved. We reached out to him for evidence for his claim in its entirety, but he did not return our query. Our ruling A Facebook post shared a 2019 claim that said polar bears’ populations had increased 400% in the last 45 years, whales were nearly fully recovered, that koalas were doing fine, and extinctions fell 90% in the past century. There are issues with each part of the claim. Experts said scientific estimates about the number of polar bears weren’t published until after the mid-1970s, so it’s impossible to compare today’s population to 45 years ago. Global estimates point to a modest decline or virtually no change in polar bear populations in recent decades. There is no evidence that whale populations have nearly fully recovered under whaling restrictions, or even come close. Koalas have been listed as vulnerable since 2016. We found no evidence to support the claim that extinctions are down by 90% in the past century. There have been several reports that wind turbines do kill raptors, but not nearly as many birds as the claim suggests. Fossil fuels and climate change post a greater threat. We rate this claim False

Audio clips from ad show Pat McCrory supported Black Lives Matter protesters while condemning ‘Trump supporters A new ad by a conservative political action committee attempts to portray Republican U.S. Senate candidate Pat McCrory as someone who supports Black Lives Matter protesters and condemns Republicans. McCrory, the former governor of North Carolina, is one of several Republicans hoping to hold incumbent Richard Burr’s seat when he retires next year. Club for Growth Action, the Washington-based anti-tax group, is throwing its weight behind U.S. Rep. Ted Budd, R-NC. The group recently released a 30-second video ad that includes several audio clips of McCrory speaking on his radio show. Toward the end of the ad, its narrator suggests that McCrory defended the protestors and scolded "Trump supporters." Here’s a transcript, with quotations showing where the ad uses audio of McCrory. Pat McCrory called Romney "a man of incredible courage." But on Trump? "Donald Trump is destroying democracy." "If there was any fraud, I haven’t seen the evidence." "Donald Trump, get off the stage, let Joe Biden take over the number one position." No wonder Biden loves McCrory. "People rightfully protested for Black Lives Matter." But Trump supporters? "Riots by Republicans. Who in the hell do they think they are?" We wondered: What was the full context of McCrory’s comments about Black Lives Matter and "riots by Republicans?" It turns out that the quote about Black Lives Matter is from one of McCrory’s rants condemning a "mob" mentality among all protestors. And to form the final line about Republicans, Club for Growth Action appears to have combined audio clips from different parts of one of McCrory’s radio show. Jordan Shaw, McCrory’s campaign spokesman, told PolitiFact NC that the former governor has condemned violence from both ends of the political spectrum on numerous occasions. "In fact, when he was governor, he called the National Guard to deal with far-left protesters burning our cities," Shaw said in an email. "His radio show from January 7th makes it clear he condemns the violence at the Capitol. He condemns violent protests no matter who it is, and he’s done so publicly on countless occasions with respect to BLM, Jan. 6, you name it." Featured Fact-check Senate Leadership Fund stated on October 11, 2022 in a political ad Cheri Beasley “backs tax hikes — even on families making under $75,000.” By Paul Specht • October 31, 2022 ‘People rightfully protested for Black Lives Matter’ in context The quote, "people rightfully protested for Black Lives Matter" comes from statements McCrory made on his Jan. 7 radio show, the day after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. McCrory did compare Black Lives Matter protests and the protests at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, but he was not condemning one protest and defending another. His statement did not express support for Black Lives Matter, as it appears in this ad. Rather, he was talking about how a "mob mentality" can lead any protest to become violent. Referring to rioters on Jan. 6, McCrory said: "I think a lot of those protestors didn't plan to get violent. … (But) when you follow the mob, you become part of the mob. I saw this during protests in Charlotte, where people rightfully protested for Black Lives Matter. But then they didn't stop other people from breaking the windows. They didn't defend the police. And the exact same thing happened yesterday in Washington, D.C. People who had a right to protest did not protest the violence and the breaking of laws — the taking over a hallowed institutional building. It’s inexcusable." McCrory has previously distinguished between peaceful protestors and people who see protests as an opportunity to vandalize. NBC’s "Meet The Press" featured McCrory as a commentator after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Protests had broken out across the country. McCrory said "groups of anarchists" that infiltrate protests can cause "destruction and cause this massive call for the National Guard." "They'll hit and run. They'll break windows. They'll set fires. Then they'll run and even using social media, they'll maneuver around very well trained police officers who are trained to do riots," McCrory said on the May 31, 2020, show. "It’s a very complex situation in which you’re dealing with people with legitimate protests, but you’re also dealing with people that are basic terrorists." About a week later, McCrory tweeted that police officers weren’t getting enough credit for their work during the protests. ‘Riots by Republicans … who in the hell do they think they are?’ misleadingly stitched together The final quote in the ad appears to be stitched together from a pair of sentence fragments from different parts of McCrory’s Jan. 7 episode and it distorts what he actually said. About three minutes into the episode, McCrory said this: "I did a top five—a McCrory top five—about five weeks ago after the election ended and said some things that haven't happened since the election where Donald Trump was defeated. One thing I was proud of: no riots by Republicans. "Well, that ended yesterday. And it was disgusting. Violence and assaults against police officers trying to protect government property. Violence trying to get into the halls of our government of the United States of America. Gunfire. People being killed. There's no excuse for it. And I want to be consistent. I’m gonna speak against that violence and say there's no excuse no matter how mad you are." While McCrory mentioned Republicans here, it’s clear that he’s calling out violence – not the fact that they were protesting. The day prior, McCrory tweeted: "Mob rule and violence was unacceptable in our cities across our country this past year and it is even more unacceptable today in our (nation’s) Capital." The "who in the hell do they think they are?" audio comes from later in McCrory’s Jan. 7 show, around the seven-minute mark of the recording. McCrory did not condemn Republicans, specifically, as the ad suggests. He scolded rioters for assaulting police officers. "To see protesters during this past year, and now yesterday at the U.S. Capitol, go into the chambers of the House of Representatives, which felt like an assault to those individuals, those representatives – that to me is an assault on our government. And then to see police officers defending themselves and having to spray individuals who were attacking them, it’s inexcusable. Who in the hell do they think they are carrying an American flag and then assaulting a police officer?" McCrory went on to say that even if he were protesting, he would have stopped to help police officers. Our ruling The Club for Growth Action ad played audio clips of McCrory that made it seem like he was defending Black Lives Matter protesters, while condemning Trump supporters by saying, "Riots by Republicans. Who in the hell do they think they are?" The clip about the Black Lives Matter protests omits McCroy’s full comments, which reference violence during their protests. The second quote was deceptively edited by pasting together using two sound bites. It’s accurate for the ad to point out that McCrory was upset with Trump supporters, but it was misleading for the ad-makers to exclude McCrory’s reasoning for condemning them: because those who rioted used violence against police officers. This part of the ad contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate this claim Mostly Fals

NASA study says snake plants can produce enough oxygen for humans to live in a sealed room Could a common houseplant keep you alive in a sealed room if you couldn’t open the windows? A Facebook post claims that the snake plant can. "According to NASA's Clean Air Study, the snake plant is so effective in producing oxygen that if you were locked in a sealed room with no airflow, you would be able to survive with just 6-8 plants in it. NASA recommends 15 to 18 medium to large size plants for 1,800-square-foot home for optimum air quality." The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) NASA did conduct a study, in partnership with a landscaping trade association, of how plants can solve indoor air pollution. But its study didn’t draw conclusions about whether plants could produce enough oxygen to keep people alive in a sealed room. Other research has dismissed the idea of air-cleaning plants as impractical. The study covered two years of data and was published in 1989. It was supported by a division of the NASA Office of Commercial Programs and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America. The landscaping group then used the study’s findings to promote the use of plants indoors. Study authors looked at a dozen plants, and how they reduce the presence of several toxins: benzene, trichloroethylene and formaldehyde. One of those plants was Sansevieria laurentii, also known as a snake plant or mother-in-law’s tongue. The plants were placed in sealed Plexiglas chambers, which were contaminated by the toxins. Two chambers were 30-by-30-by-30-inch cubes, and two were twice the volume. Air samples were taken in timed intervals after the toxins were introduced. The snake plant was shown to remove TCE, benzene and formaldehyde, though other plant varieties removed more of these toxins, according to the study. Researchers wrote that the plants, along with activated carbon filters, "have demonstrated the potential for improving indoor air quality by removing trace organic pollutants from the air in energy-efficient buildings." They said that fans that move air through activated carbon filters should be included in any plan to reduce indoor air pollution with plants. But the Facebook claim is about what would happen if a human was locked in a room with no airflow. The NASA study did not test how the introduction of humans into the chamber would change the results, and researchers acknowledged this. They wrote that scientists were looking into it, but as of the study’s publication in 1989, they said, research was limited: "NASA studies at Stennis Space Center, private studies by Biosphere 2 in Arizona, and USSR studies in Siberia are beginning to present a clearer picture of what man can expect to experience when sealed inside facilities with plants and soil as his major means of life support." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 29, 2022 in Instagram post Photo shows Stanford scientists' "3D model of how Joseph, the husband of Mary the Mother of Jesus Christ, might have looked.” By Michael Majchrowicz • November 4, 2022 We reached out to NASA several times about this claim. A spokesperson directed us to the clean air study, but attempts to obtain more information about it were unsuccessful. Other research Since the NASA study, other scientists have looked into the effects of plants on indoor air pollution. In 1992, an official with the Indoor Air Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, wrote a critique of the NASA study, and said that scaling up the number of plants used in the study for use in a house — the author estimates 680 plants would be required in a typical house — makes using them impractical, and would cause other problems, such as increased humidity. A study published by the American Society of Horticulture Science in 2009 found that snake plants were effective at reducing ozone in indoor environments, but that more study would be necessary to determine the number of plants required in an area. The study recommended inexpensive houseplants as a way to mitigate indoor air pollution in the developing world. In 2019, a review of a dozen studies over 30 years was published by scientists at Drexel University, and their findings show that plants are not effective at cleaning the air. "Plants are great, but they don't actually clean indoor air quickly enough to have an effect on the air quality of your home or office environment," said Michael Waring, an associate professor of architectural and environmental engineering at Drexel. Drexel researchers found that the natural air exchange that happens in buildings works faster than plants to remove volatile organic compounds. They also found that the number of plants required to remove such compounds makes it impractical to use them for this purpose. According to their calculations, it would take between 10 and 1,000 plants per square meter of floor space to compete with the air cleaning capacity of a few open windows or a building's air handling system. Our ruling A Facebook post claims that according to a NASA study, six to eight snake plants could produce enough oxygen to keep humans alive in a room with no airflow. We found no evidence to support that claim. A 1989 NASA study found that snake plants could remove certain toxins from small sealed spaces under certain conditions. But it did not examine whether snake plants would be able to keep humans alive in sealed rooms. Other researchers have questioned the NASA study’s findings and found that relying on plants is an impractical way of cleaning indoor air. We rate this claim Fals

“I represent more, or just as many or more, people than Joe Manchin does. After Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he could not support President Joe Biden’s safety net bill, the Build Back Better Act, a leading House progressive, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, appeared on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" and took aim at the senator. "The idea that Joe Manchin says that he can’t explain this back home to his people is a farce," Ocasio-Cortez said on Dec. 20. "I mean, it’s a farce in terms of plain democracy, because I represent more or just as many or more people than Joe Manchin does — perhaps more," she said. On the numerical comparison, Ocasio-Cortez is wrong. (Her office did not respond to an inquiry for this article.) Ocasio-Cortez represents the 14th congressional district of New York, which includes parts of two boroughs in New York City. The district’s population was 696,664 in the most recent Census estimate available, from 2019. Featured Fact-check Kathy Hochul stated on October 25, 2022 in a debate The state is absorbing the cost of overtime pay for farmworkers, and farm owners do not have to pay any more. By Jill Terreri Ramos • November 5, 2022 By contrast, Manchin, who as a senator represents the whole state of West Virginia, has 1,793,716 constituents, according to the 2020 Census. That means that Manchin represents roughly 2.6 times as many people as Ocasio-Cortez does. Senators run in statewide elections and count the entire state’s population as their constituency. But for those who would argue that each of a state’s two senators should count for only half the population, Ocasio-Cortez’ statement still falls short. Half of West Virginia’s population is close to 900,000, which is nearly 30% more than Ocasio-Cortez’s district has. We rate the statement Fals

People vaccinated for COVID-19 “do not spread the disease to anyone else. As President Joe Biden heads toward his second year in office of leading the country through a pandemic, he faces the challenge of trying to convince millions of unvaccinated Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The Republican National Committee said Biden has misled Americans about the effectiveness of the vaccine. The RNC tweeted a partial clip of an interview Biden gave to a Dayton, Ohio, TV station that aired Dec. 14. "This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated," Biden said in the full interview. "The unvaccinated. Not the vaccinated, the unvaccinated. That’s the problem. Everybody talks about freedom and not to have a shot or have a test. Well guess what? How about patriotism? How about making sure that you’re vaccinated, so you do not spread the disease to anyone else." We fact-checked a similar statement by Biden in October when he said people who are vaccinated for the coronavirus "cannot spread it to you." We found at the time that studies showed a vaccinated person was less likely to spread the virus, but the risk wasn’t zero. We rated Biden’s statement Half True. That was before the omicron variant was named a variant of concern by the World Health Organization. At the time, Tara C. Smith, a Kent State University epidemiologist, told us: "Vaccination does significantly reduce transmission from vaccinated breakthrough cases but does not completely eliminate it." A reader flagged Biden’s more recent remarks and asked us to look at his statement. Now that omicron has spread rapidly across the U.S. in December, we wanted to revisit the question: Can vaccinated people spread COVID-19? We reached out again to experts to see if their understanding has changed about the role the vaccinated play in COVID-19’s transmission. We found that there is not enough data on how many people caught COVID-19 from an unvaccinated person vs. a vaccinated person in recent weeks, but scientists in general said that vaccinated people can also spread COVID-19. Bill Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard, said Biden’s December "statement is not accurate." "We knew that vaccinated people could become infected with delta and shed viable virus in large amounts," Hanage said. "While data are emerging and not yet complete for omicron, this appears to be even more the case for that variant." Biden’s emphasis on promoting vaccination is rooted in evidence that it helps protect people from serious cases, including hospitalization and death. However, we found that Biden again inaccurately characterized the vaccine when he suggested that a vaccinated individual can’t spread the virus. Any concerns experts had about the accuracy of Biden’s statement before omicron seemed to have been strengthened in the face of this new variant. We emailed spokespersons for the White House to ask for Biden’s evidence and did not hear back. Vaccination doesn’t eliminate risk of transmission Some early evidence out of South Africa provided hope that the omicron variant may cause a more mild disease than earlier variants, but many patients there were younger, making them less likely to develop severe illness to begin with. Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president, told reporters Dec. 17 that the seriousness of infection is "still up in the air right now because there are a lot of confounding issues as to whether or not it is less severe." Heather Scobie, an epidemiologist at the CDC, wrote in a Dec. 16 presentation that it’s not yet known how easily omicron spreads compared with delta. However, it is "likely that vaccinated people with breakthrough infection or people infected without symptoms can spread the virus to others." That statement was similar to one the CDC made in August. A page on the CDC’s website updated Dec. 20 said that the "CDC expects that anyone with omicron infection can spread the virus to others, even if they are vaccinated or don’t have symptoms." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 We read recent statements by Biden administration officials promoting vaccination, and none went as far as Biden to suggest that vaccination completely eliminated the chance of transmission. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters Dec. 17 that even vaccinated individuals should take precautions to reduce the spread. John P. Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medicine, said while we lack data on omicron vaccine breakthrough infections, with delta there's evidence that vaccinated people can spread infections to other people. "That’s true on an anecdotal level (we all know such cases) and there are a few papers, mostly out of the U.K., on this point," Moore said. However, infection spread is less likely when the infected person is vaccinated, he added. "So, the vaccines work, but they are not perfect… I would expect that to be true also for omicron," Moore said. Biden would have been on firmer ground, Moore said, if he had said "make sure you’re vaccinated, so you’re less likely to spread the disease to anyone else." Vaccinated people are less infectious, better protected Biden is correct that COVID-19 is primarily a disease of the unvaccinated when we look at hospitalizations and deaths, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. However "vaccinated people can shed virus and be contagious but generally shed virus in lower quantities and for a shorter amount of time." Offit pointed to a study from Singapore which found that vaccinated individuals who caught COVID-19 "had a more rapid decline in viral load, which has implications on secondary transmission and public health policy." The study was done based on cases earlier this year before omicron emerged. Brooke Nichols, a health economist and infectious disease mathematical modeler at Boston University, said "vaccinated individuals can definitely infect other people. There is enough data to support this." "While vaccinated individuals may be less infectious and infectious for a shorter duration of time they are by no means a dead-end host," Nichols said. "When calling it a pandemic of the unvaccinated, though, it makes it sound as those vaccinated individuals aren’t substantially contributing to new cases — which they are (particularly now). Unvaccinated individuals do, however, continue to contribute disproportionately to hospitalizations and deaths." However, Nichols added, "I don’t think the data systems in place can tell us anything about the proportion of new infections that originated from a vaccinated or unvaccinated person." We asked professors if we can draw conclusions from Cornell University, a campus that is having an outbreak even though 99% of the students are vaccinated. Is that a sign that vaccinated people are spreading the virus? "Your statement is a reasonable inference from what’s happened on campus," Moore said, pointing to an article from the student newspaper about the spike of cases in December. "I’m not saying that’s not happening, only that I’ve not yet seen formal studies on this topic — too soon." Our ruling Biden said Dec. 14 that people vaccinated for COVID-19 "do not spread the disease to anyone else." White House officials did not respond to our email asking for evidence, but Biden’s statement conflicts with information by the CDC that it is "likely that vaccinated people with breakthrough infection or people infected without symptoms can spread the virus to others." While the information from the CDC presentation was a couple of days after Biden spoke, it echoes what the CDC said in August about the potential for vaccinated people to transmit the virus. Experts told us that getting vaccinated protects individuals from severe cases including hospitalization and death and reduces the chance of transmission, but Biden went too far when he suggested that vaccination completely eliminates the chance of transmission. We rate this statement Mostly False. RELATED: Events within and beyond Joe Biden’s control stymied progress on COVID-19 in his first year RELATED: No, public health officials aren’t passing off common cold as omicron varia

Eating grapefruit, “if you're on antidepressants,” can “cause a fatal overdose. A Facebook post claims that eating grapefruit or drinking grapefruit juice presents a known deadly risk for people taking antidepressants. "Since grapefruit season is coming up soon, this is a friendly reminder that you CANNOT eat grapefruit if you're on antidepressants. It can cause a fatal overdose," the widely shared post states. The use of "reminder" indicates it’s been established that there is some occurrence of such fatalities. We found no evidence of that with antidepressants, though grapefruit can potentially cause a dangerous reaction if you’re taking certain medications. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) "I am not aware of any evidence of fatality," said University of Nebraska Medical Center pharmacy professor Ally Dering-Anderson. "That doesn’t mean that patients won’t be very uncomfortable, even hospitalized from very high levels of antidepressants. But I am not aware of any reports of death from grapefruit and antidepressants. There are reports of death with other drug classes." The Food and Drug Administration said it "has no data to support the claim that consuming a combination of grapefruit and antidepressant medication, when used as labeled and absent any other underlying medical issues, could be potentially fatal." Grapefruit juice blocks an enzyme in the body, making it easier for a medication taken orally to pass from your gut to your bloodstream, according to an article on Harvard Medical School’s website. Levels of medication in the blood will rise faster and higher than normal, and in some cases, the abnormally high levels can sometimes be dangerous. For example, interaction with calcium channel blockers, which are not antidepressants, can lower your blood pressure or slow your heart rate excessively. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 The article says medications that are "substantially boosted" in this way by grapefruit juice include diazepam (brand name Valium), triazolam (Halcion) and midazolam (Versed), which are prescribed for anxiety or insomnia; and neurological and psychiatric medications such as buspirone (BuSpar), sertraline (Zoloft) and carbamazepine (Tegretol). Janice Hermann, a nutritional sciences professor at Oklahoma State University, said "grapefruit does not interact with the whole class of antidepressants, it’s only specific ones such as buspirone." Dering-Anderson also said some antidepressants "are fine with grapefruit while others can get to dangerously high levels in the blood. The best way to know is to ask your pharmacist." A Healthline article written by a Mayo Clinic doctor also stated that most antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs are safe to use with grapefruit. Several mood medications, including buspirone, diazepam and midazolam, do interact with grapefruit juice, the article says. Eating grapefruit while taking the mood-related medications "can result in heart rhythm changes, excessive sleepiness and other drug-specific effects," that article said. The Harvard and Healthline articles, as well as an FDA article, say nothing about any potential fatal risk of ingesting grapefruit while on any medications. The FDA told PolitiFact that grapefruit and grapefruit juice can interfere with how well certain medicines work. As a result, the FDA has required that some prescription and over-the-counter drug labels include warnings against drinking grapefruit juice or eating grapefruit while taking the drug." Two other fact-checkers have identified flaws with the claim about grapefruit causing fatal overdoses from antidepressants. There are potential health risks, but there’s no evidence that they are fatal. We rate the claim Fals

"Electromagnetic radiation from wireless technologies, including and especially 5G, can cause the same symptoms as COVID-19! Since the beginning of the pandemic, various attempts to connect COVID-19 with 5G technology have circulated across social media. We've fact-checked several of these false claims. Another iteration of these problematic assertions resurfaced in the form of a paper published on Sept. 29, 2021, in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Research. "Their analysis revealed a clear overlap between the effects of wireless communication technologies on the human body and the symptomatology of COVID-19 disease," a blog post on the paper said. "In other words, the electromagnetic radiation from wireless technologies, including and especially 5G, can cause the same symptoms as COVID-19!" This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) 5G, or the fifth generation of cellular networks, refers to a new standard for the internet that promises higher internet connection speeds and quality. Concerns about 5G and wireless technologies stem from exposure to the radio frequencies that allow these technologies to work. The authors of the paper, however, cherry pick studies that support their claim, and acknowledge that their findings do not prove a link between 5G and COVID-19 symptoms. The paper also underwent a biased peer review process conducted by vocal anti-5G advocates. What do we know about 5G and health? Longstanding fears about wireless technology and its potential health risks are difficult to quell, in part because research is still ongoing. The World Health Organization, which has been investigating the potential health impacts of radio frequency exposure since 1996, states that there is no proven causal link between adverse health effects and wireless technologies. "It’s important for people to realize that the ultraviolet waves from the sun are many thousand times higher frequency than 5G," said Theodore Rappaport, a professor of electrical engineering and radiology at New York University, in an interview with USA Today. "People should be more concerned about wearing sunscreen outside than using their 5G cell phones." As for 5G's effect on COVID-19 infections, the World Health Organization and the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection, which evaluates the health risks of radiation exposure from devices like cell phones, both have issued statements dispelling this false link. The study in question The authors of the study are an adjunct professor in the mind-body medicine department at Saybrook University and a radiologist not currently affiliated with an academic institution. They proposed a hypothesis that exposure to "wireless communications radiation," including 5G, may have increased the severity of COVID-19 infections. To prove their theory, the authors compared select studies on the biological effects of wireless communication radiation exposure with studies on COVID-19 disease progression. They claim that observed symptoms shared by the two conditions — such as blood clotting, inflammation and irregular heart rate — imply a potential link between them. However, the authors of the paper state outright that "none of the observations discussed here prove this linkage." They go on to say, "Specifically, the evidence does not confirm causation. Clearly COVID-19 occurs in regions with little wireless communication. Furthermore, the relative morbidity caused by (wireless communications radiation) exposure in COVID-19 is unknown." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 Even one of the papers they cited on COVID-19 and 5G said, "The fact is that there is no link be­tween the COVID-19 virus and 5G cell phone technology or 5G base-station communication towers. These are to­tally different constructs; they are not even close." The authors of the paper also acknowledge that they only selected sources that supported their theory, ignoring papers that showed negative results. "We did not make an attempt to weigh the evidence," they wrote. Of the over 30,000 research reports on radiofrequency radiation exposure the authors note are available in the literature, they only cited 90. One of them is an anonymously published 2014 paper by one of the authors, which is not peer reviewed. Eight others are authored by the peer reviewers who evaluated their paper. Notably, of the 10 listed reviewers, two of whom requested anonymity, half are vocal public opponents of 5G. They include vaccine skeptic Ronald Kostoff; Martin Pall, whose own theory about a connection between 5G and COVID-19 was shared on social media by actor Woody Harrelson; and David O. Carpenter, whose efforts at circulating inaccurate data on the health risks of wireless technology stoked fears over 5G. Two other reviewers signed a 2017 petition urging the European Union to stop the rollout of 5G. We reached out to the editors of the journal but did not hear back before publication. Why was this study listed in a reputable research database? There are other signs that the study wasn’t credible or rigorously reviewed, even though it was published in a journal that could be accessed through the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s research database. This paper was indexed in PubMed Central, an archive of open access papers from biomedical and life science journals managed by the NIH's National Library of Medicine. While distinct from PubMed, a search engine for the NLM's MEDLINE database of journals, articles from PubMed Central are also indexed in the search engine. The Journal of Clinical and Translational Research is currently indexed by PubMed Central, but not MEDLINE. While both PubMed Central and MEDLINE screen journals before they are indexed, the review standards for MEDLINE are considered to be far more rigorous. PubMed includes citations from around 30,000 journals; MEDLINE has around 5,200. Journals seek to get indexed in PubMed because it increases their credibility and exposure. Some of these journals, including predatory journals that publish low-quality articles and financially exploit scholars, use PubMed Central as a backdoor method of getting indexed. Other academic databases also face similar issues in screening for journals with flawed peer review processes. "If a predatory journal is confined on its website, which is often of low-quality, the chance that patients or scholars will read and cite these articles is very low," said Andrea Manca, a professor of physiology at the University of Sassari in Italy, in an interview with The Scientist. "The problem is that when they are displayed in the most popular biomedical database that we have, there are many (people) who think if a journal is on PubMed, then it is fine — which is not true, unfortunately." Researchers have called for more stringent standards for journal acceptance in PubMed and PubMed Central. But until these standards are raised, both scholars and lay people will need to approach all papers with a critical eye. Our ruling A blog post claims that a study found clear evidence that 5G technologies can cause COVID-19 symptoms. The authors of the paper, however, themselves acknowledge that they cherry-picked studies supporting their own theory and state that their findings do not prove any potential link between 5G and COVID-19. Though the paper was indexed in a reputable research database, this does not mean that the research is high quality or underwent an ethical and rigorous peer review process. Correlation does not equal causation — but even these correlations are suspect. We rate this claim Fals

Says Kellogg’s tweeted, “Oh, so you think it's cool when workers strike jobs? Now replace 'jobs' with 'women.' Still think it's 'cool'? Days before the striking Kellogg's workers in four states approved a new contract to end a weeks-long dispute, a fake tweet purportedly from the food manufacturing giant spread online. "Oh, so you think it's cool when workers strike jobs? Now replace 'jobs' with 'women.' Still think it's 'cool'?" the tweet said, in reference to the nearly three-months-long strike. The fabricated tweet was shared as an image on Facebook, where it was flagged as part of the platform’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It was made to look as though the company posted it Dec. 19 from its verified Twitter account, @KelloggsUS, and received thousands of retweets and likes. But the tweet does not appear on the official Kellogg’s account's page, PolitiFact found. The account has replied to other users, but it has not posted an original tweet since August 2020. "This is not a legitimate Kellogg tweet," the company told PolitiFact. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 A fake Kellogg's tweet was posted to Facebook on Dec. 19. In a Dec. 21 online statement responding to the unionized workers’ ratification of the five-year contract ending the work stoppage, Kellogg’s chairman and CEO Steve Cahillane said, "We are pleased that we have reached an agreement that brings our cereal employees back to work." Before that, the most recent statement on the Kellogg’s website was posted Dec. 16, before the fake tweet purportedly went up. Searching Twitter, Nexis and Google, PolitiFact found nothing to match the made-up tweet. We rate the Facebook post about the tweet Fals

“They've now killed close to twice as many kids from the vaccine as have died from COVID. A man who promotes himself as an entrepreneur and technology expert claims that federal data led him to make this statement: "They've now killed close to TWICE as many kids from the vaccine as have died from COVID." The statement, the headline on a blog post, was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We’ve rated a previous claim by the blog writer, Steve Kirsch — that Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine "kills more people than it saves" — as Pants on Fire. His new statement falls into the same category. MIT Technology Review describes Kirsch as a tech millionaire who "went from COVID trial funder to misinformation superspreader," as he boosted unproven COVID-19 drugs and campaigned against vaccines. Kirsch accurately cites federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on deaths involving COVID-19 among children (age 0 to 18). The latest data, published Dec. 15, three days after Kirsch’s post, showed 771 deaths. Then Kirsch’s analysis goes off the rails. To calculate what he calls vaccine deaths, Kirsch says he uses data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, an open system for accepting unverified reports about possible vaccine side effects. It is run by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration. But the actual VAERS database requires users to agree to a disclaimer that says in part that "VAERS reports alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 What Kirsch cites is an alternative portal that does not require agreeing to the disclaimer. That portal is offered by the National Vaccine Information Center, an anti-vaccine advocacy group. Kirsch’s contortion alleges that based on a figure of "excess" children deaths, and his own claim that VAERS data is "41 times underreported," there are 1,312 children deaths "that are highly likely to be caused by the vaccine." There is no confirmed evidence of a COVID-19 vaccine causing the death of even one child. More than 485 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from Dec. 14, 2020, through Dec. 13, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 10,483 reports of death (0.0022%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. But reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem. Anyone can submit a report of an adverse event but the reports themselves are not verified. The CDC says a review of reports indicates a causal relationship between the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine and TTS, a rare event that causes blood clots with low platelets, with a total of nine deaths of adults causally associated with that vaccine. The youngest was 28. "Nationally comprehensive vaccine safety monitoring systems administered by both FDA and CDC have found no evidence that COVID-19 vaccination is causing or contributing to deaths in children," a CDC spokesperson told PolitiFact. "Specifically, no deaths in children after COVID-19 vaccination have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System where conclusive evidence demonstrated COVID-19 vaccination caused the patient’s death." The CDC said it is reviewing the deaths of two girls within days of vaccination, both of whom had "complicated medical conditions." They are a 5-year-old whose underlying conditions included spastic cerebral palsy and seizure disorder; and a 6-year-old whose conditions included hypoxic encephalopathy and spastic cerebral palsy. In the wake of the news over the blood clots, the CDC on Dec. 16 recommended the Pfizer and Moderna shots over Johnson & Johnson’s, citing "the latest evidence on vaccine effectiveness, vaccine safety and rare adverse events." Our ruling Kirsch claimed: "They've now killed close to twice as many kids from the vaccine as have died from COVID." Federal data show 771 deaths involving COVID-19 among children. Nine deaths have been associated with one of the COVID-19 vaccines, but none were children. The claim of nearly twice as many children being killed by COVID-19 vaccines — 1,312, when none have been confirmed — is false and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fir

The omicron variant of COVID-19 “came out” in 2021, but “the copyright on this book” about the variant is 2020 A viral image suggests that the omicron COVID-19 variant was known before public health authorities announced they had discovered it. The image, shared without comment by a user on Facebook, asks incredulously: "Can someone please explain this to me? The Omicron came out this year right? So how come the copyright on this book is 2020?" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The image refers to a listing on Amazon, where the book’s publication date is listed as Dec. 5, 2021 — weeks after omicron’s discovery was announced. We could find no record of the book coming out in 2020. Omicron first surfaced in November in several southern African nations. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says omicron may spread more easily than other variants, but the "severity of illness and death associated with this variant is unclear." Below the text in the viral image is a screenshot of what appears to be an Amazon page from the United Kingdom showing a book cover with this title: Understanding Omicron Variant: All You Need to Know About OMICRON VARIANT, Where It Comes From Answers To Questions You Have And Lots More Update To Keep You Well Informed. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 The author is listed as Dr. Theresa Bishop. She writes in the description of the book that she "conducted many studies on the COVID-19 virus," but no other professional or biographical information for her is listed. A comment on the Facebook post included a link to the Amazon page for the 106-page book, which was self-published. That page shows the publication date as Dec. 5, 2021. No book with that title comes up in a search of the International Standard Book Number database. A fact-check by Logically.ai said a free sample of the text listed a copyright of December 2020. We didn’t find such a sample. The Kindle version of the book, produced Dec. 15, includes a sample of the text, which begins with: "Many parts of Omicron are being studied widely all across the globe, and we will keep sharing the results of this research as they become available." That sample doesn’t list a copyright or publication date. Another viral image, posted on Facebook on Dec. 19, makes a similar claim. It asks: "If the new scariant was only found in South Africa" on Nov. 24 and named omicron by the World Health Organization two days later, how could more than 30 books on it available on Amazon have been published between Nov. 27 and Dec. 2? Unlike books produced by commercial publishers, self-published books can be produced rapidly. Amazon says that its publishing takes less than five minutes. We rate the post Fals

“Maybe they’re just calling the common cold … the omicron variant. In February 2020, as the earliest COVID-19 cases cropped up in the U.S., the late conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh told his listeners there was no need to worry. "The coronavirus is the common cold, folks," he said, pushing a false claim that would soon be repeated widely online. Nearly two years later, and after millions of people have died worldwide from the coronavirus and its variants, social media users are still taking up the refrain. "People catch colds more often during the winter months," said one Dec. 20 Facebook post about the latest coronavirus variant of concern, omicron. "Maybe they’re just calling the common cold or an RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) infection the omicron variant." The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The omicron variant isn’t the same as the common cold, and public health officials aren’t "just calling the common cold" omicron to scare people, the CDC and five experts told PolitiFact. "Both RSV and the common cold are very different than the omicron variant of the SARS CoV-2 virus," said Cindy Prins, clinical associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Florida. "The suggestion that public health officials are ‘just calling the common cold’ the omicron variant is totally off the mark," added Richard Watanabe, professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California, who said the coronavirus and its variants are "genetically distinct" from the flu and other viruses "much like humans and cows are distinctly different." We’re still learning about the omicron variant The World Health Organization designated the omicron variant of the coronavirus as a variant of concern in late November. Officials were alarmed by the strain’s more than 50 mutations, and by preliminary evidence that showed some worrying trends, including high transmissibility. Four days later, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed suit. "The omicron variant is not the common cold," CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said in a statement to PolitiFact. Some early evidence out of South Africa provided hope that the omicron variant may cause a more mild disease than other strains, but many patients there were younger, making them less likely to develop severe illness to begin with. Scientists in London, meanwhile, said they’ve seen no evidence so far that the variant causes milder illness than the delta strain before it. In the U.S., the CDC followed up with 43 people infected with the omicron variant, more than three-quarters of whom were fully vaccinated, and one-third of whom had also received a booster shot. The agency posted the results on Dec. 10. Their survey found that only one person had been hospitalized, no one had died, and the most common symptoms were cough, fatigue, and congestion or runny nose. But the CDC report noted that most severe outcomes don’t usually show up right away, and that symptoms are expected to be tamer in people who got vaccinated or had prior infections. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Dec. 17 that the agency believes the omicron cases among the vaccinated and boosted "are milder or asymptomatic because of vaccine protection." Overall, there is still much scientists are racing to determine about the variant and its ability to spread, evade existing immunity and trigger severe disease. But experts said that while more time is needed, it should not be taken lightly. "The virus causing omicron is an offshoot of SARS-CoV-1, which has killed millions of people, so I would not compare it to the common cold," said Dr. Myron Cohen, director of the Institute for Global Health & Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Omicron is not a rebrand of the common cold The common cold is not a specific virus, but an infection that can be caused by several viruses, said Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health and Security. Rhinoviruses are the most typical cause of the common cold, according to the CDC. A common cold can also develop from several other viruses, including the four less serious coronaviruses that circulate seasonally among humans, which are distinct from the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and the other more dangerous strains, like SARS and MERS, Prins said. That’s one possible reason for the confusion online. But scientists can distinguish COVID-19 and its variants from other viruses, including the seasonal coronaviruses, through testing. "SARS-CoV-2 cases are only reported if there was a confirmed SARS-CoV-2 case, not just reported symptoms, either through a PCR or rapid antigen test," said Brooke Nichols, assistant professor of global health at Boston University. Another potential reason for confusion among social media users: a preliminary study from a Massachusetts firm said that the omicron variant may have picked up some of its genetic material from another virus that causes the common cold. However, one of the study’s authors told Reuters that despite the firm’s findings, the claims that the omicron variant is really just the common cold are inaccurate. "The identification of new variants of COVID are confirmed using genetic analysis, so there’s no way to confuse the new variant with anything else," Watanabe said. Our ruling A Facebook post said, "Maybe they’re just calling the common cold … the omicron variant." Scientists are still studying the severity of the disease caused by the omicron variant of the coronavirus. But the variant is not the same as the common cold, and public health officials are not trying to pass one off as the other, either. We rate this post Fals

The expanded child tax credit in the Build Back Better Act has “no means testing,” so people making $200,000 and $400,000 would get “the same as someone making” $70,000 Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., threw ice cold water on President Joe Biden’s hopes for passage of his signature Build Back Better Act when he told Fox News that he was a "no" vote on the current $1.75 trillion package. The next day, Dec. 20, Manchin told West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kercheval that he simply couldn’t live with the increased spending when the federal debt stands at $29 trillion. Biden says the plan would have no impact on deficits because higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy cover the cost, but there’s political debate on that point. Beyond the possible impacts on the national debt, Manchin said he also thought the bill failed to target aid to the poorest households. He gave the example of the child tax credit, a tax break for parents that would be expanded in the Biden-backed proposal. "There’s no work requirement, no means testing," Manchin told Kercheval, referring to the rules for basing benefits on income. "People making $200,000 and $400,000 would still get the child tax credit, the same as someone making $50, $60 or $70,000 that really needs it," he said. Manchin has talked before about making sure at least one parent is working before they can claim the child tax credit. But here, his focus is on means testing. The bill does not treat wealthy households the same as much poorer ones. People making as much as about $400,000 can take advantage of the tax credit, but that’s under an older law, not the expansion offered in Build Back Better. We raised that issue with Manchin’s press staff, and they said they had no comment. The child tax credit falls as incomes rise The child tax credit is a nearly 25-year-old tax break meant to help parents pay for raising kids. Before the pandemic, the credit was worth as much as $2,000 for any child under 17. In 2021, Democrats made the program more generous. For children up to age 5, the credit rose to $3,600. They also added more money and one year of eligibility for children over 5; for each child between 6 and 17, the amount went up to $3,000. The increases were turned into fully refundable tax credits, which meant that even people who didn’t make enough to use all of the tax credit would still get the full amount. These changes only lasted through 2021. The Build Back Better Act would extend those increases for an additional year, through 2022. But here’s the relevant part where Manchin’s claim is concerned: These benefits phase out with rising income. It’s a little complicated, but for the bump in payments to either $3,600 or $3,000 (depending on the child’s age), that portion would start coming down for single parents making over $112,500, and for couples making over $150,000. Those income levels are higher than for typical aid programs like temporary cash assistance and housing assistance, but they are still a form of means testing. Then there’s the $2,000, the amount of the credit before the pandemic. That would start coming down for single parents making $200,000 and for couples making $400,000. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 The Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan analytic arm of Congress, found that the hike delivered by the Build Back Better Act would be gone for a typical married couple by the time they made about $200,000. After that, they would be back where they were under the pre-pandemic rules. Source: Congressional Research Service Every analysis finds that the provisions in the Build Back Better Act would reduce child poverty. There are different opinions over how big a reduction would come, but the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank that advocates for government aid to poor and working families, estimated that it would lift 4.1 million children out of poverty. Part of this stems from the bill’s aid to the very poorest households. By making the program fully refundable, it delivers the biggest increases to those who didn’t make enough to qualify for much if any benefits under the old rules. "Anyone with yearly income under $2,500 used to get zero child tax credit," said Elaine Maag, principal research associate with the Urban Institute. The benefit rose slowly — 15 cents on the dollar — but even with that, Maag said families making less than $25,000 were unable to take full advantage of the program. If Manchin meant that people making as much as $400,000 could get some money from the program, he would have more of a point. But his comments apply to the program as it stood before the pandemic, not to the changes in the Build Back Better Act. Under the old rules, benefits for the original $2,000 begin to fall at $200,000 and $400,000 of income for single and married couples, respectively. By about the $440,000 mark, all benefits are gone. The value of the tax credit for those wealthier households is less than for people making $70,000, but they still get some money. Our ruling Manchin said that the Build Back Better Act has no means testing for the expanded child tax credit. He said people making as much as $400,000 "still get the child tax credit, the same as someone making ($50,000, $60,000) or $70,000 that really needs it." The increases offered in the Build Back Better Act begin to fall starting with single parent families making over $112,500 and couples making over $150,000. By the time a household makes $200,000, those benefits have disappeared. Under the pre-pandemic rules, less generous benefits continue for married couples making as much as $440,000. But that exists totally apart from the Build Back Better Act. Under any reading of the concept of means testing, the Build Back Better Act uses that approach. A household making $70,000 would see higher benefits than a comparable household making over $200,000. We rate this claim Mostly False

“Moderna patent uncovers horror nanocensor contained in bioweapon. COVID-19 vaccines have different volumes. The first dose of the Moderna shot has 0.5 mL, while the booster has 0.25 mL. Other manufacturers make their mixtures in slightly different quantities. But the liquid always equals just a few drops of water. That would be hard to believe considering everything they are rumored to contain. According to false online claims, COVID-19 vaccines come with graphene oxide, 5G nanoparticles, living organisms, "transhumanism nanotechnology," aluminum, aborted fetal tissue, formaldehyde, bioluminescent markers, and parasites. PolitiFact has previously shown that the vaccines contain none of those things, but the list of invented ingredients just keeps on growing. The latest addition, which is as false as the others, is "wireless nanosensors," which are also identified as "biochips." Stew Peters, a conservative radio personality who has spread conspiracy theories about COVID-19, claimed in a recent episode of his online show, published on Dec. 3, that a Spanish doctor had found those components in COVID-19 vaccines. He then claimed that show guest Ariyana Love, a naturopathic practitioner, found evidence in Moderna’s patents that confirmed the claim. "They’re called biochips," Love said. "They’re in the patents." A video of the interview was posted on Facebook. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) "Completely false" The eight patents related to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine published by the company do not mention "wireless nanosensors" or "biochips," according to a word search carried out by PolitiFact, which included those specific terms and variations. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 Some patents mention "lipid nanoparticles." But those are small particles that carry and protect the active ingredient of the vaccine, as previously described by PolitiFact. They are not sensors or chips. One patent mentions "micromixer chips." But as the document explains, they are electronic devices, produced by companies like Harvard Apparatus and Dolomite Microfluidics, used to make a component of the vaccine. They are not ingredients themselves. "These claims about wireless nanosensors are completely false," says Alison Hunt, a press officer for the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the vaccines in the U.S. The COVID-19 shots approved by the FDA, including Moderna’s, simply do not contain those components, according to the agency. A guide published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains that Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine contains three groups of ingredients: the messenger RNA molecule (mRNA) that causes the immune response that eventually protects the body against COVID-19; lipids that carry and shield the mRNA as it moves inside our body; and salts, acids, and sugars that preserve the mixture while the vaccine is being produced, frozen and stored. The CDC says that the vaccine does not contain manufactured products (like microelectronics), nanostructures (like carbon nanotubes or nanowire semiconductors), or metals (like iron, nickel, or cobalt). Our ruling A video shared on Facebook claims that Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine contains "wireless nanosensors" or "biochips," and that evidence of their existence can be found in the patents of the vaccine. The eight patents published online by Moderna make no reference to those components. When they use the term "nano," they are not referring to sensors. And when they mention "chips," they are not naming an ingredient of the vaccine. The FDA says that none of the approved COVID-19 vaccines contains "wireless nanosensors" or "biochips," and the CDC says that the Moderna vaccine does not contain microelectronics, nanostructures, or metals. We rate the post Fals

“Obama certificate a fake. In the year 2021, more than four years since former President Barack Obama left office — more than 13 since he was first elected president — we are still encountering claims questioning his U.S. citizenship and his birth certificate. Over more than a decade, PolitiFact has fact-checked 30-some statements about Obama’s birthplace. Here’s one more. A Dec. 14 blog post that’s spreading widely on social media retreads familiar territory. "Probe," the title says. "Obama certificate a fake." It goes on to claim that "an exhaustive forensic investigation into President Obama’s birth certificate has concluded that it is a fraudulently created document, which was represented as an official copy." The probe, according to the post, was led by Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., "chief investigator Mike Zullo and two forensic experts." Arpaio did gather reporters with Zullo, a member of the sheriff’s Cold Case Posse, to announce that after investigating Obama’s birth certificate, they concluded that the document was forged. But that was in December 2016. This is not new, and it’s been thoroughly debunked. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Back in 2016 Arpaio, then still sheriff, summoned journalists to a press conference to talk about Obama’s "fake, fake birth certificate." The Arizona Republic reported on the hour-long event, writing that "in exacting detail, Zullo explained how a careful analysis of the document’s typed letters and words, as well as the angles of the date stamps, proved forgery." "According to the theory," the Republic said, "the birth certificate presented to the public was created after copying and pasting information from the legitimate birth certificate of a woman born in Hawaii" named Johanna Ah’Nee. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 Zullo later told the Republic that he had gotten Ah’Nee’s birth certificate from a man named Jerome Corsi, who wrote a 2011 book making "the case that Barack Obama is not eligible to be president." How did Corsi get the birth certificate? Zullo didn’t know. "I have to be honest with you, that’s a really good question," the Republic reported he said. "Because either that’s an unbelievable coincidence or there’s something else going on." Here is what’s going on. In June 2008, the Obama campaign responded to rumors about his citizenship and released a copy of his "Certification of Birth" from Hawaii, posting the document online. That fueled even more claims, this time that the document was fraudulent. FactCheck.org reporters even went to Chicago, where Obama’s campaign headquarters was based, to hold the document and examine it closely. They concluded that it was legitimate. In October 2008, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, director of the Hawaii Department of Health, issued a statement saying that he and the registrar of vital statistics "who has the statutory authority to oversee and maintain these types of vital records" had personally seen and verified that the health department had Obama’s original birth certificate on record. Janice Okubo, a spokesperson for the health department, told us that birth certificates evolve over the decades, and there are no doubt differences between what Obama’s looked like when he was born and the documents issued today. And if there was a plot to forge a birth certificate so that Obama could run for office, it went back decades — to the month he was born in 1961. Will Hoover, who wrote a 2008 story for the Honolulu Advertiser about Obama’s childhood in Hawaii, told PolitiFact that he reviewed microfilm archives and found two birth announcements for Obama. One was in the Honolulu Advertiser on Aug. 13 , 1961, and the other was in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin the next day. They both said the same thing: "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalanianaole Highway, son, Aug. 4," and they were both submitted to the newspaper by the health department — not Obama’s family. "Take a second and think about that," PolitiFact reported in 2009. "In order to phony those notices up, it would have required the complicity of the state Health Department and two independent newspapers — on the off chance this unnamed child might want to one day be president of the United States." We rate the claim about Obama’s birth certificate being a fake Pants on Fire!

It’s a myth that autism is genetic An image of a tweet that’s being shared on social media casts doubt on the origins of autism spectrum disorder, a developmental disability that can affect how people communicate, interact, behave and learn. "How have so many people been tricked into believing autism is genetic," the tweet says, "when neither parent has it, and it isn’t in the medical histories of either parents’ families?" One Facebook account sharing the tweet wrongly suggested that only younger generations have autism as a result of receiving vaccines as a child. (Vaccines do not cause autism.) "If autism is genetic, where are all the autistic 40-50 year olds?" This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 Most scientists agree that genes are one of the risk factors that can make a person more likely to develop autism spectrum disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s one of several factors that may contribute to a child having autism, including environmental, biologic and genetic factors. Children who have a sibling who has autism are at a higher risk of also having it. And people with certain genetic conditions can have a greater chance of having it. Researchers have identified a number of genes associated with autism, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "Studies strongly suggest that some people have a genetic predisposition to autism," according to the institute. Research into autism is ongoing. Since launching in 2016, SPARK, the largest genetic study of autism, has discovere more than 100 genes linked to autism. As for the claim that no adults in their 40s or 50s have autism? That data isn’t collected in any comprehensive way. The first estimates of adults living with autism weren’t released by the CDC until April 2020. A study estimated that, in 2017, an estimated 2.2% of adults in the United States have autism. We rate this post False.

“Dr. Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech and inventor of the BIO N TECH Pfizer jab, refuses to take the jab for safety reasons. The COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and German partner BioNTech has been available for nearly a year. And yet, a Twitter user claims, the CEO of BioNTech is still refusing to get vaccinated. "Dr Ugur Sahin CEO of BioNTech and inventor of the BIO N TECH Pfizer jab refuses to take the jab for safety reasons." The Dec. 5 tweet says. "WAKE UP!" The post included a video of an interview in which Sahin explains why he isn’t getting vaccinated. The claim in the Tweet is false. Sahin was vaccinated in January 2021, within roughly a month of when Germany began vaccinations. The video, which was later disabled, is from December 2020, before Sahin was eligible to be vaccinated under Germany’s priority rules. And the video doesn’t support the claim about Sahin having safety concerns. The video in the Tweet has been edited from its original presentation on the German network DW News. But both the edited and original versions show Sahin’s answer when he was asked on Dec. 22, 2020, why he could not take the vaccine yet. He said: "Because you know there is a priority. The vaccine is not allowed to be taken outside of this priority list. We were even not allowed to participate in clinical trials because of law. It is not possible to include company people in such trials." At the time of the interview, Germany had not begun vaccinating anyone. The country began vaccinating the elderly on Dec. 27, 2020, and like many countries that had limited supplies early on, it followed a priority list that determined who could get vaccinated first. The country has since removed its priority requirements, and anyone is eligible to get the vaccine. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 A spokesperson for BioNTech said Sahin has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Sahin told Britain’s The Times in September that his concerns about getting the vaccine when it first became available were related to ethics, not the safety of the vaccine, and that he ultimately decided to get the shot in January 2021. "I had general concerns about having the vaccine at the beginning," he said. "Was it not better ethically for me to wait until my age group’s turn to get vaccinated? But everyone told me to go ahead and do it. We had no side effects. Our vaccine’s safety profile is similar to the others. So it is a perfectly fine vaccine." Our ruling A tweet claims BioNTech’s CEO refuses to get vaccinated for safety reasons. The post included an edited version of an interview with Sahin from DW News in which he explained why he had not been vaccinated. Sahin was vaccinated against COVID-19 in January. The video interview is from December 2020, before Germany began vaccinating people, and the video does not support the claim that Sahin refused the vaccine for safety reasons. Sahin said in a subsequent interview that he was initially concerned about receiving the vaccine before it was his turn under Germany’s priority list for vaccination. We rate this claim False.

“Voter ID is supported by an overwhelming majority of NYers, from all across the state, walks of life, & political parties. Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Long Island Republican running for governor, claims most New Yorkers support voter identification laws. New York generally does not require voters to show photo identification when they vote. But Zeldin has called for a law to change that, and he launched a petition in support. "Voter ID is supported by an overwhelming majority of NYers, from all across the state, walks of life, & political parties," Zeldin tweeted on Dec. 8. Given the debate about election security across the nation, we wondered if he is correct. We reached out to Zeldin’s campaign, and spokesperson Katie Vincentz provided us with a screenshot from a private poll of 600 New York voters from September, conducted by McLaughlin and Associates on behalf of the Conservative Party of New York. The screenshot included a single question: Do you support or oppose requiring photo ID to vote whether in-person or by absentee mail-in? The results indicate that 600 likely general election voters responded. Of those, a majority, 57.3%, said they "strongly support" voter identification requirements and 12.5% said they "somewhat support" such requirements. Overall, 69.8% of respondents expressed some level of support for requiring voter identification. The poll showed 27.7% of respondents opposed it. Of those, 20.5% said they "strongly oppose" and 7.2 % said they "somewhat oppose" it. The rest of those polled said they didn’t know or refused to answer. Polls done for candidates, parties and lobbyists can be problematic. Pollsters may bring a perceived point of view to the polls, which can color everything from how questions are asked to how responses are weighted. We spoke with pollster John McLaughlin, who said the poll included more Republicans and Conservatives than are reflected in New York’s voter rolls, but added it was adjusted for actual voter turnout in a general election. Among Republicans, 98% supported it. Among non-affiliated voters, 82% supported it. Among Democrats, 49% supported. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points, so support among Democrats could be 53%, or it could be 45%. Support for the measure was strong upstate and downstate. Majorities of all racial groups polled also supported it, ranging from 91% in support among Asian respondents to 58% among Black respondents. Featured Fact-check Kathy Hochul stated on October 25, 2022 in a debate The state is absorbing the cost of overtime pay for farmworkers, and farm owners do not have to pay any more. By Jill Terreri Ramos • November 5, 2022 Thirty-seven percent of poll respondents live upstate, and 63% live downstate. Respondents were a mix of party affiliations: 31% percent Republican, 52% percent Democratic or Working Families, and 18% non-affiliated or who refused to answer. Seventy-two percent of respondents were white, 10% were Hispanic, 12% were Black, and 4% were Asian. Other polls We also sought out other recent public polls of New York voters, but came up empty. Representatives from three major polling organizations: Siena College Research Institute, Marist College Institute for Public Opinion and Quinnipiac University said that they had not polled this question. In New York, a voter’s identity is verified when they register to vote. If their identity cannot be verified during the registration process, they are asked for identification the first time they vote, according to the state Board of Elections registration form. In August, PolitiFact looked at new voter identification laws and found broad public support for voter identification laws, even among Democrats. PolitiFact also found nuance in the debate, and that asking people whether they support or oppose these laws obscure these aspects. These include voter identification requirements already in place, the low risk of voter fraud, and the support even among voting rights advocates for voter identification laws that are flexible enough to accommodate all voters. States set their own rules on voter identification. Some are strict, and others less so, accepting many different forms of identification to vote. Recent national polls show broad support for voter identification. A Monmouth University poll from June of 810 adults showed that 91% of Republicans, 62% of Democrats and 87% of non-affiliated voters support requiring photo identification to vote. In April, the Pew Research Center polled 5,109 people and asked whether photo identification should be required to vote: 76% of all respondents said they support the requirement. A majority in both parties support it: 93% of Republicans and 61% of Democrats. In March, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that 72% of respondents strongly or somewhat favor requiring photo identification to vote. The Economist/YouGov polled in March and found 64% of respondents support photo identification requirements for in-person voting. Analyzed by region, support was lowest in the Northeast, with 53% in favor. Only 46% of Northeast voters supported it for absentee voting. Our ruling Zeldin claimed voter identification requirements are supported by an overwhelming majority of New Yorkers, from across the state, walks of life, and political parties. Zeldin backs the claim with a private poll of 600 New Yorkers conducted for the Conservative Party of New York. A majority of poll respondents, 57.3%, said they strongly support voter identification requirements for voting in-person or casting absentee ballots while 12.5% said they somewhat support the requirements. The poll showed majorities of each racial group, geographic group, and political affiliation support the requirements, with one exception. Support among Democrats in the poll was at 49%, with a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points. The requirements are broadly supported across the country, and according to a single private poll, in New York state as well. We rate this Mostly True

“Dying nurse on deathbed claims she swapped more than 5,000 babies for ‘fun.’ In June, a couple in Tennessee with a newborn child was surprised when a hospital nurse mistakenly brought them the wrong baby from the nursery. "Just a panicked look on her face, she was like just breathing heavily and just flustered," the father told reporters when the hospital swapped the babies back. The incident made both local and national news. Now, what looks like a headline about a different, malicious switched-at-birth scheme is being shared on social media. "Dying nurse on deathbed claims she swapped more than 5,000 babies for ‘fun,’" the Dec. 14 Facebook post says. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We found the headline on an undated story on a website called Relay Hero, which says it spreads stories "that really matter." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 The post discusses details in an April 2019 story in the Zambian Observer that said a maternity ward nurse named Elizabeth Bwalya Mwewa at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia, made a deathbed confession that she "used to swap babies at UTH for fun." "I have nothing to hide, in the 12 years I worked in the maternity ward at UTH, I swapped close to 5,000 babies," the story claims she said. "If you were born in UTH between the years 1983 to 1995 chances are your parents may not be your biological parents." But, as Snopes reported in 2019, the Lusaka Times reported that year that an investigation by the General Nursing Council of Zambia found no evidence to support the claims in the Zambia Observer story — or any midwife named Elizabeth Bwalya Mwewa in the council’s registry. . The Zambian Observer also reported on the investigation, saying that it "revealed that no midwife by that name ever existed and later worked in (the) maternity ward at the University Teaching Hospitals." We found no evidence to corroborate the claim in the post. Only news articles and fact-checks debunking it. We rate this post Pants on Fire!

“Boy passes Joe Biden a vial of fresh blood to drink on his way back to the White House Social media users circulated a fake, doctored video that purported to show a child discreetly handing a vial of blood off to President Joe Biden. "Boy passes Joe Biden a vial of fresh blood to drink on his way back to the White House," said a Dec. 16 tweet from a Twitter account that has since been suspended. The Biden-drinks-blood claim was repeated — and the video reposted — on Instagram. There, it collected thousands of views, and it was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) But the claim is false, and the video it’s based on is edited to include the vial of blood. A Dec. 16, 2021, Instagram post shared a doctored video of President Joe Biden. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 The original video, unedited and without the ominous soundtrack featured in the social media version, was captured live on July 21 by a local Fox-affiliate TV station serving the Cincinnati area, Snopes reported. The video shows Biden meeting with Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and his family after landing at an airport near the Kentucky-Ohio border. Around the 12:30 mark, the Fox19 video shows Biden slipping an unknown object to the young boy standing beside him, Beshear’s son Will, who then placed the object in his pocket. It doesn’t show a vial of blood, nor does it show Biden receiving anything from Beshear’s son in return. Crystal Staley, Beshear’s communications director, said the social media claim about Beshear's son slipping Biden a vial of blood is "completely false." The claim about Biden harvesting blood to drink plays into a segment of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which holds that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles, including many high-profile Democrats. Some QAnon adherents believe members of this ring molest, kill and eat children to ingest a life-extending chemical in human blood, PolitiFact reported. Those beliefs are without evidence, and so is this claim. We rate it Pants on Fir

“Santa Claus arrested by German police for not wearing a mask. Humbug in Hamburg — or Stralsund, Germany, where some social media posts claim a Santa Claus was arrested by police at a Christmas market because he wasn’t wearing a face mask. "Santa Claus arrested by German police for not wearing a mask," the title of one blog post says. But that’s not quite right. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) There’s video of the incident, which happened at night and shows masked police officers talking to a man dressed as Santa Claus before frog-marching him away and then carrying him when he refuses to walk. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 The Santa is wearing a sign that says 2G, which in Germany stands for genesen (recovered in the past six months) and geimpft (vaccinated), according to the BBC. It’s become shorthand for new policies in the country restricting where unvaccinated people can go in public. RELATED VIDEO On Dec. 14, state police in the region posted a statement online that the person arrested was protesting COVID-19 restrictions. The demonstration was unregistered — and illegal, according to police — and he was taken to a patrol car "to determine his identity" after he refused to give his name to police. He was then released, about an hour after police responded to the protest. The statement doesn’t mention a mask. We rate this claim False.

“McDonald’s puts aborted baby fetuses in their food. About 30 minutes into a 45-minute Facebook video is a stomach-turning claim that might put you off your French fries. "McDonald’s puts aborted baby fetuses in their food, this is not fake," a man can be heard saying. "This is real. Look at their additives. The same, it’s a sweetener." He goes on to call abortion "witchcraft" and "black magic" and "fallen angel technology," warning listeners that "you cannot ascend if you’re a cannibal." This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) McDonald’s did not respond to PolitiFact’s email asking about the claim. But we’ve previously looked into a similar claim that popular food companies are selling products with "aborted fetus cells" — and it’s wrong. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 25, 2022 in an Instagram post Proposed Senate bill would give FDA power to approve dietary supplements and “ban herbs.” By Jeff Cercone • October 27, 2022 The upshot: There are biotechnology companies that use fetal stem cell research in food and pharmaceutical development, but none of these cells are actually found in food products available to consumers. We looked for credible reports of aborted fetuses — or aborted fetus cells — in McDonald’s food and found none. Rather, we discovered a 2017 fact-check by Snopes, which debunked a claim that a McDonald’s in Alabama had been outed for using aborted fetuses in its Chicken McNuggets, and an undated response from McDonald’s on the company’s website to a question posed by someone named Muhannad: "Are you using human’s meat in the food?" "No," McDonald’s said. "We do not have any human meat in our burgers. We would like to assure you that we only use 100% pure Halal beef and chicken in our food. That’s it!" In 2012, after an Oklahoma state senator introduced a bill banning the sale of "food or products which use aborted human fetuses," Gawker reached out to McDonalds and other companies about the question of whether aborted fetuses are used in their food. Ashlee Yingling, then a company spokesperson, answered directly: "The answer is no," Yingling said. "McDonald’s does not use aborted human fetuses in its food." We rate this post False.

“Dr. Fauci opens up the possibility that the COVID-19 vaccine could be making people more likely to be infected by the virus. A clip of Dr. Anthony Fauci that’s being shared on Facebook, divorced from its original context, makes it seem that he’s suggesting COVID-19 vaccines could actually make people sicker. "Dr. Fauci opens up the possibility that the COVID-19 vaccine could be making people more likely to be infected by the virus," a caption over the video says. It then quotes Fauci as saying, "this would not be the first time, if it happened, that a vaccine that looked good in initial safety actually made people worse." But this video is from March 19, 2020, about a week after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic and before vaccines for the virus were available. Fauci’s comments related to the need for thorough testing of any vaccine before distribution and he was posing a hypothetical. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The clip comes from a conversation between Fauci and Mark Zuckerberg, and it was livestreamed on Facebook. The part that’s pertinent to this fact-check starts around the 17:30 mark. "You mentioned a vaccine, there are conversations about other therapeutics," Zuckerberg said. "Maybe talk about where are we in the vaccine development, you just announced a first trial for phase one to test the safety. What’s the timeframe for having something like that go through all the different trials, how would we expedite that and what should people expect on that?" "To give our viewers a perspective," Fauci replied, "if this were 10, 15, 20 years ago and it was for any vaccine that we wanted to make, you would say a vaccine from the time you start, from the time it’s approved, to be safe and effective, is several years, five, six, seven years. That’s unacceptable for now. So what happened is that as soon as we got the sequence of the virus from the Chinese, we pulled it out from the public database and stuck the gene into a vaccine platform and worked on it literally within a day of when it came out. Sixty-five days later, namely two days ago, we gave the first injection to a normal volunteer for a phase one trial to see if it’s safe. That’s the fastest it’s ever been done. That’s the good news. The challenging news is that even at that rocket speed, it’s going to take a few months to show that the initial safety is okay. Then you go into a phase two trial, which instead of involving 45 people, which we have in the phase one trial, it involves hundreds if not thousands of people. That will take another six to eight months to even know if it works. So, at the fastest we can go, it’s going to take a year to a year and a half to even know if we have a vaccine that we can use. So apropos of the question you asked me a moment ago, that if we cycle to another season, that's when the vaccine is going to be very relevant." Zuckerberg then asked why the government doesn’t "push harder" on rolling vaccines out more aggressively after the safety trials "even if you don’t know how effective it is." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 RELATED VIDEO "What’s the public health rationale and thinking behind needing to prove that it’s extremely effective before rolling out something that you know is safe?" he said. Fauci responded that the "initial safety study is to see, if I inject it in the arm, does it have some idiosyncratic or bad reaction." But, he said, "there’s another element to safety, and that is if you vaccinate someone and they make an antibody response, and then they get exposed and infected, does the response that you induce actually enhance infection and make it worse, and the only way you’ll know that is if you do an extended study — not in a normal volunteer who has no risk of infection, but in people who are out there in a risk situation. This would not be the first time, if it happened, that a vaccine that looked good in initial safety actually made people worse." He then gave some examples and said, "You can’t just go out there and give it unless you feel that in the field, when someone is getting infected and exposed, being vaccinated doesn’t make them worse. That’s why you’ve got to do a trial." In short: Fauci wasn’t, in the present day, suggesting that the COVID-19 vaccines approved for use in the United States could be making people more likely to be infected by the virus. He was talking nearly two years ago about the importance of safety trials and studies before approving the vaccines. We reached out to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, where Fauci is the director, about the Facebook post. The agency told PolitiFact in an email that there’s always a theoretical risk of unintended events with any new vaccine. "This is why the development of candidate vaccines proceeds in a stepwise fashion, starting with laboratory studies, then progressing to studies in animal models that mimic the human immune response, and finally to carefully controlled human clinical trials where participants are monitored closely for any adverse events," the institute said. "After a candidate vaccine is authorized or approved by the FDA, rigorous post-marketing safety surveillance is conducted to identify even very rare safety concerns. This is precisely the process NIAID has followed during the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, the agency said, the COVID-19 vaccines approved or authorized for use in the United States had been administered to more than 485 million people "and have proved to be very safe and effective." We rate this post False.

Photo shows “the jabbed and the unjabbed … separated with a fence in a supermarket” in Germany In early December, we fact-checked a claim that a photo showed a fence in a German mall separating the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Germany had recently announced unvaccinated residents would face stricter restrictions in the country, but the picture didn’t show that — it was taken in Latvia, which requires proof of vaccination or recovery from COVID-19 to patronize some businesses. A similar image and claim are also being shared on social media. "Germany," begins the description of a photo showing what looks like a store with a long fence cutting through the center. "The jabbed and the unjabbed are separated with a fence in a supermarket." This photo was taken in Romania, and this post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The image and images like it were posted in November. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 "Today at Kaufland Arad I was surprised to find that some fences have appeared," reads the English translation of a Romanian description of the same photo that’s being shared on Facebook. Kaufland is a market chain that has locations in Romania, and Arad is a city in Romania. The same account posted other photos from Kaufland showing fencing and said that the store had placed a fence inside to restrict where unvaccinated shoppers could be. On Nov. 24, a Romania news channel reported that metal fences had been erected in some markets to separate people who had a digital certificate showing proof of vaccination or recovery from COVID-19. RELATED VIDEO Since Oct. 22, Romania has required a European Union Digital COVID Certificate or a Romanian-issued "Digital Green Certificate/Green Pass" to access some public locations such as restaurants, shopping malls, museums, and gyms, according to the U.S. Embassy there. In Germany, people seeking entrance to bars, restaurants and some stores must also show proof of vaccination or evidence that they recovered from a recent infection. But this image doesn’t show those rules in effect. We rate claims that this photo was taken in Germany False.

Microsoft and Bill Gates created a 1999 video game called “Omikron. Ever since it was discovered, people have continued to use the new COVID-19 omicron variant to make false claims about the pandemic. Some claimed its name was evidence that the whole thing was planned, while others spread a photoshopped poster for a non-existent film called "The Omicron Variant." Now, social media posts claim that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates created a video game named — you guessed it — "Omikron" back in 1999. "DID YOU KNOW?" text on a Facebook post graphic asks. "Omikron was the name of a 1999 video game by Microsoft and Bill Gates about demons pretending to be humans and harvesting their souls." One video circulating online fuels conspiracy theories further as it shows the game’s anti-government plot featuring a digitally illustrated David Bowie-like character. The game is real and was available to play on Microsoft Windows computers in November 1999, but it wasn’t developed by Microsoft or Gates. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) "Omikron: The Nomad Soul" was created by Quantic Dream, a French developer based in Paris founded by a man named David Cage. Bowie made the music for the game, and the game features a character who shares Bowie’s voice and appearance. It was released on Sega’s home video game console Dreamcast in 2000, and it’s still available today on Steam, a video game digital distribution service. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 The adventure game follows players as their souls enter the futuristic city of Omikron, located in an alternate dimension. Players explore the world while fighting off demons who try to trap their souls. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation told PolitiFact that the claims about Gates and the game are false, and a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that neither the company nor Gates developed the game. Meanwhile, the new coronavirus variant’s name of omicron follows an established pattern of naming variants after letters in the Greek alphabet. The first four variants of concern identified by the World Health Organization — alpha, beta, gamma and delta — are all Greek letters. "These labels were chosen after wide consultation and review of many potential naming systems," the WHO said when it announced it would use the Greek alphabet to name variants. The organization said it convened "an expert group of partners from around the world to do so, including experts who are part of existing naming systems, nomenclature and virus taxonomic experts, researchers and national authorities." It’s not unreasonable to see why writers would pick the word omicron for futuristic popular culture references as it’s been used by astronomers for years to name multiple stars, like Omicron Persei and Omicron Centauri. The aliens in the animated show "Futurama," for example, are from a planet called Omicron Persei 8. Our ruling Social media posts claim Microsoft and Bill Gates created a 1999 video game called "Omikron." This is wrong. A real game called Omikron was available on Microsoft in 1999, but neither Gates nor Microsoft created it, and it had nothing to do with the COVID-19 pandemic, as these posts suggest. The term omicron is from the Greek alphabet, which has been used by health officials to name coronavirus variants. The word has also been used to name stars and appears in multiple popular culture references. We rate this Fals

Chuck Grassley was “voting to slash Medicare” when voting against the debt ceiling bill Democrats controlling the U.S. Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote came up with a plan earlier this month to circumvent the Senate’s 60-vote rule for raising the federal government’s debt ceiling: Combine in one bill a procedural vote saving Medicare from automatic funding cuts for 2022 with the unusual authorization of a one-time only Senate majority vote to raise the federal government’s debt limit. It’s a move journalist Lindsey McPherson called in a Dec. 13 Roll Call story "an age-old Washington trick for must-pass legislation that requires bipartisan support: Pair the thing the minority hates with something they support and hope they feel the good outweighs the bad." The legislation passed 59 to 35, with 10 Republicans voting yes and six senators not voting. The ploy didn’t pass muster for Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, though, who voted against the legislation. Grassley said he opposed the part that authorized raising the debt ceiling without a 60-vote Senate approval. That brought a response from Democrat Abby Finkenauer, the former U.S. representative from Iowa running in 2022 for the seat Grassley holds. Finkenauer tweeted on Dec. 9: "It’s not surprising that @ChuckGrassley would fight to preserve the filibuster while voting to slash Medicare, but it’s sure as heck not acceptable. D.C. hasn’t been working for DECADES and this guy is the problem." It’s not surprising that @ChuckGrassley would fight to preserve the filibuster while voting to slash Medicare, but it’s sure as heck not acceptable. D.C. hasn’t been working for DECADES and this guy is the problem. https://t.co/ihieXtzF5g— Abby Finkenauer (@Abby4Iowa) December 9, 2021 Michael Zona, former spokesman for the Senate Finance Committee and Grassley when Grassley led that committee, saw the tweet and responded: "Another day, another lie. Grassley explicitly stated he supported the Medicare policies. Honesty isn’t Abby’s strong suit. Abby accomplished nothing in the House and now she has opinions about how the Senate should operate. I’m gathering humility isn’t her strong suit either." Finkenauer’s campaign staff called foul, saying Zona unfairly accused Finkenauer of lying. Zona told PolitiFact Iowa he was referring specifically to the assertion that Grassley voted to slash Medicare, so we looked at the record. Political rhetoric galore Defining political opponents’ actions in ways that provoke negative emotion also is an age-old Washington trick, practiced in abundance in a town whose major industry is influencing others to take preferred actions on behalf of the public. With this approach, failing to vote yes on a bill that stops automatic Medicare funding cuts gets defined as a vote that allows Medicare cuts. Republicans voting no included Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. "It’s a bad position to be in. I don’t like being put in this position," Ernst told Roll Call’s McPherson. "But, you know, Medicare is important. Republicans voting no on this legislation thought they had something to gain: pinning the blame for raising the federal government’s debt ceiling but also high spending on Democrats, even though raising the ceiling authorizes the government to pay existing bills, not take on new spending. Grassley said in a prepared statement that he objected to authorizing a procedural vote without the Senate’s 60-vote requirement to increase the debt ceiling in an otherwise non-controversial bill. "I support the health care-specific provisions reflected in the Medicare extenders package, which the Senate will soon take up, that would prevent cuts and changes to Medicare providers," he said, referring to an upcoming procedural vote on extending legislation. "In fact, I supported an amendment that would have provided for a clean Medicare extender package." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Grassley had joined Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, Ernst and 19 other senators on Dec. 8 in support of an amendment that would have eliminated the last portion from the legislation. That portion – Section 8 – contained the language giving the Senate authority to expedite through Dec. 31 a vote on raising the debt limit a non-specified amount by using a joint resolution, which would allow a simple majority vote instead of a 60-vote majority to pass. The amendment failed. "Had the bill not included the debt ceiling provision, Sen. Grassley would have supported it," Grassley’s communications director Taylor Foy wrote in an email to PolitiFact Iowa. Foy sent a list of 16 legislative bills Grassley supports that provide Medicare access and health care benefits. Grassley sponsored some of them, including the Rural Health Clinic Protection Act that was part of legislation signed into law in April that also spared Medicare for nine months of automatic 2% spending cuts. The latest action stops cuts for three months. Medicare was headed for a 2% sequestration cut on Jan. 1 and a mid-January 4% cut in Medicare provider payments. "Sen. Grassley supports the 60 vote threshold to reach finality on legislation, which forces bipartisanship and collaboration on proposals being considered during the normal course of action in the Senate," Foy wrote. "But, that wasn’t his chief concern regarding the process in this particular instance. His procedural concern here is that a supposed ‘one-time’ change of the Senate rules (whether related to vote thresholds or not) rarely results in a one-off event, and tactics to sidestep the Senate’s standing rules are often repeated once the precedent is set." Christian Slater, Finkenauer’s campaign communications director, countered in a PolitiFact Iowa interview that Finkenauer was on solid ground and not lying about Grassley’s vote. The legislation before the Senate specifically protected Medicare funding from being cut, and Grassley voted against it, he said. "It doesn’t matter what you theoretically support — you voted to cut Medicare," Slater said. Slater had a list, too, of votes Grassley took in 2012 and 2013 on proposals by then U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, to cut federal spending. The 2012 budget proposal, which failed 41 to 58, capped Medicare beneficiary payments for people under the age of 55 at 2012 levels, with annual, inflationary adjustments. Democrats said then that Republicans voted to end Medicare, earning PolitiFact’s 2011 Lie of the Year designation, although PolitiFact noted that Democrats’ assertion that the Republican plan would privatize Medicare was Mostly True. Slater cited that privatization attempt as a bid to cut Medicare funding. He cited Grassley votes to revisit the Ryan budget proposal in 2012 and also a 2013 Grassley vote on an involved budget amendment to bring down proposed fiscal 2014 spending, revise spending levels for fiscal 2013 and set federal budget levels through 2023. That budget amendment was tied to a Ryan budget proposal to rein in the federal spending growth rate and included a Medicare policy that would have given seniors the option of using subsidies to buy private health insurance. The moves failed in the Democrat-controlled Senate. This time around, Grassley voted against legislation that, had his side prevailed, would have resulted in automatic cuts to Medicare funding unless further action were taken. Why? Because of budget sequestration, the method by which federal funding is cut automatically under the Budget Control Act of 2011 that allows spending caps if spending exceeds congressional appropriations. Words matter Zona countered by referring to the 2021 Medicare and debt ceiling legislation’s words. For Finkenauer’s assertion to be true, Zona said, the legislation would have had to state specifically that Medicare was being slashed. It does not use those words, he said. "There was never a vote to cut Medicare funding, or to slash it," Zona, who is out of government now and spokesman and senior vice president at a public affairs company, Bullpen Strategy, told PolitiFact Iowa in an interview. He followed up in an email, writing that Grassley delivered as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee expanded Medicare benefits to "tens of millions of Americans." Our ruling Finkenauer said Grassley’s vote against the combined Medicare extension and debt ceiling meant voting to slash Medicare. Is Finkenauer lying, as Zona tweeted? She is correct about Grassley declining to vote in this instance to stave off a pending Medicare funding cut and, for that matter, about wanting to preserve the Senate’s 60-vote rule. But the legislation did not specifically call for slashing Medicare funding — if a 2% cut fits the definition of slashing — or close the door on finding another way to avoid cutting Medicare funding. The exchange between Finkenauer and Grassley is just the latest example of the two parties forcing their opponents to vote on combinations of measures that force them to choose between voting for something they don’t like, or voting against something they do. If they pursue the latter course, it can be weaponized into campaign attacks. Both parties do this regularly. Figuring out how Congress works through various pieces of legislation and how debate is carried out in a political dispute like this benefits from having context. We rate Finkenauer’s statement to be Half Tru

Soft-tissue cancer diagnoses have “climbed through the roof” in 2021 as a result of COVID-19 vaccines The anecdotal claim is startling at first glance. An oncologist tells her nurse friend that she is seeing a huge increase in soft-tissue cancers. She then insinuates that it must be due to the COVID-19 vaccine. But there’s no evidence to support either claim. A Facebook post claims that one oncologist said that soft-tissue cancers have climbed "through the roof" in 2021, "a 550% increase" and that "we know why it’s happening," which implies it’s related to the COVID vaccines that rolled out early this year. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) In addition to the claim made in a screen grab of another person’s tweet, the poster wrote that "Dr. Ryan Cole has found an increase in cancers since the COVID-19 inoculation rollout," and adds a link to a claim made by Dr. Cole that has been debunked by fact checkers at USA Today and others. Soft-tissue cancers, or sarcomas, are tumors that begin in tissues such as fat and muscle that support other parts of the body. There are more than 50 subtypes of the cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic. The American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute estimate that in 2021 about 13,460 new soft-tissue sarcomas will be diagnosed in the United States. In 2020, the projected number of new cases was 13,130. If those numbers prove true, that would be a modest 2.5% increase this year. Ahmedin Jemal, the American Cancer Society’s senior vice president, Surveillance & Health Equity Science, said in a statement to PolitiFact that "the incidence of soft-tissue cancer in the United States has been increasing gradually before the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic." Jemal said that incidences increased from 2.5 cases per 100,000 people in 1992 to 3.6 cases per 100,000 people in 2014, before stabilizing. In 2018, the last year for which incidence data is available, there were 3.2 cases per 100,000 people, according to data from the National Cancer Institute. "Therefore, any anecdotal evidence for the increase in soft-tissue cancer during the past two years is likely to be a continuation of past trends," Jemal said, adding that there can be decades of lag between exposure to risks and a cancer diagnosis. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 He cited lung cancer as an example, saying most of those cases occur 40 to 50 years after the patients start smoking. In 2018, the last year data on all new cancer cases is available, the Center for Disease Control said there were 1,708,921 new cases of all forms of the disease. The American Cancer Society projected there would be about 1,899,160 new cases in 2021, after projecting about 1.8 million in 2020. A spokesperson for the National Cancer Institute said in an email that it has no evidence to support the claim made in the Facebook post, but that the NCI, and other organizations, are concerned that a drop in cancer screenings during the pandemic will have a negative effect on cancer diagnosis and treatment. The NCI spokesperson pointed to a June interview with its director, Ned Sharpless, published on the American Association for Cancer Research website. Sharpless said that the "pandemic has affected cancer screening in a dramatic way," creating a massive screening deficit that "is going to lead to cancers being diagnosed at later stages." The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center says in a story on its website about vaccine myths that "there is no truth to the myth that somehow the mRNA vaccine could inactivate the genes that suppress tumors." Our ruling A Facebook post implied that an anecdotal spike in soft-tissue cancers is due to the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. However, there is no evidence to support that claim. There has been a gradual rise in new diagnoses of soft-tissue cancer over recent years, one expert said, and any actual rise this year would likely be due to those continued trends. There is also no evidence to support the claim from Cole that the COVID vaccines are responsible for overall increases in cancer or other illnesses. We rate this claim Fals

“They've planned this” COVID-19 “pandemic all along! The headline on a spooky video made this allegation about COVID-19: "They've planned this pandemic all along!" The user who posted the video on Facebook commented: "Jesse Ventura warned us since 2009!" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post was published July 8, but was circulating widely in December. Like another Ventura video that made a different "planned" claim about COVID-19, which we rated Pants on Fire, this claim is false and ridiculous. Wild allegations The eight-minute video shows Ventura, the former professional wrestler and former Minnesota governor, conducting an interview on a 2009 episode of the truTV show "Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura." The episode opens with a narrator intoning ominously: Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 "Jesse Ventura’s investigation into the secret society that runs the world has led to this: a meeting at a remote airstrip with Dr. Rima Laibow. The physician fled the United States in fear of the Bilderbergs’ plan to use vaccines to kill off much of the world’s population." The annual Bilderberg Meetings, named for a hotel where the first meeting took place, are attended by political leaders, government officials and experts from industry, finance, media and academia in Europe and North America. The private gatherings are often the target of conspiracy theories. Laibow, a New Jersey psychiatrist, says in the interview she left the U.S. because she didn’t feel safe. She then makes a series of baseless and disjointed allegations, including that the World Health Organization "has decided that we have 90% too many people" and that it has worked since 1974 on vaccines "to create permanent sterility"; that the U.S. government "will induce a pandemic" using a nasal mist vaccine that is a "live, attenuated virus" that will spread the flu from one person to another; and that the government will respond by saying it doesn’t have enough vaccines and so it will add squalene to existing supplies. "What that means is a holocaust, a genocidal holocaust," she stated. There’s no credible evidence presented for any of this. In November 2020, Laibow was a target of a civil complaint by the federal government seeking to stop her and a colleague from distributing an unapproved product touted as a prevention or treatment for COVID-19 and other diseases, in violation of federal law. The case is pending. How the pandemic started We and other fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic having been planned. Scientists who have studied the coronavirus have generally concluded that it resembles naturally occurring viruses. They have considered the possibility that the virus somehow leaked from a lab, though there’s still no conclusive evidence of its exact source. And there is no evidence that the pandemic emerged from vaccinations. The claim that the coronavirus pandemic was planned is false and ridiculous — Pants on Fir

A video from British public broadcaster BBC shows the network was part of a 9/11 conspiracy A longstanding conspiracy theory about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has resurfaced on social media. A widely shared Instagram post claims that a video from British public broadcaster BBC shows that the network was part of a 9/11 conspiracy. The post says, "An astounding video uncovered from the BBC archives showed that BBC reported the collapse of WTC Building 7 over 20 minutes before it fell at 5:20 p.m. on the afternoon of the 9/11 attacks. The incredible footage shows BBC reporter Jane Stanley talking about the collapse of the Salomon Brothers building while it remains standing in the live shot behind her. Shortly after this ‘reporting error,’ BBC cut the interview short." The caption says, "Many inconsistencies with the events which unfolded on 9/11. This was one of them!" Hashtags include #911insidejob and #conspiracytheory. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) BBC did report the collapse of Building 7 before it actually occurred, but not because the network had inside information or was intentionally misleading the audience. BBC relied on an incorrect report from Reuters that said the building had collapsed, for which Reuters later issued a correction, according to a BBC story published on the 20-year anniversary of the terrorist attack. Because of persistent theories that the BBC was "actively participating in some sort of attempt to manipulate the audience," BBC editor Richard Porter addressed the false theory in two 2007 blog posts. The scene on 9/11 was chaotic, and BBC staff "were talking directly to the emergency services and monitoring local and national media… and there was a fairly consistent picture being painted of Building 7 in danger of collapse," Porter wrote. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 12, 2022 in a Facebook post “Trump woken up from his bed by police.” By Ciara O'Rourke • October 14, 2022 The 47-story office building was on fire for seven hours before collapsing at 5:20 p.m., according to an investigative report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The fires were caused by debris from the collapse of 1 World Trade Center, the North Tower. Beginning around 4:15 p.m., CNN and other American networks were reporting that Building 7 had collapsed or was collapsing, according to Porter’s blog post. The reporter named in the Instagram post, Jane Standley — whose last name is misspelled in the post — "doesn't remember minute-by-minute what she said or did — like everybody else that day she was trying to make sense of what she was seeing; what she was being told; and what was being told to her by colleagues in London who were monitoring feeds and wires services," BBC editor Porter wrote. Porter concluded, "If we reported the building had collapsed before it had done so, it would have been an error — no more than that." Our ruling An Instagram post says a BBC video shows that the network was part of a 9/11 conspiracy. BBC reported the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 before it actually occurred. The network relied on an incorrect report from Reuters, for which Reuters later issued a correction. The building was on fire for seven hours and authorities consistently said it was in danger of collapse. There is no evidence that this reporting was part of a conspiracy. We rate the claim False

“California store owner prices all items at $951 so thieves can be prosecuted. A recent uptick of robberies in Los Angeles has some blaming the county’s zero-bail policy for lower-level offenses. The policy, enacted as a way to reduce jail crowding during the COVID-19 pandemic, has remained in effect in Los Angeles County even as California’s statewide emergency zero-bail order expired in 2020. Meanwhile, under the state’s Proposition 47, which voters passed by referendum in 2014, theft and shoplifting crimes are classified as misdemeanors instead of felonies if the stolen property’s value does not exceed $950. Now a Facebook post going around shares what appears to be a story about what one L.A. store owner did to address the theft problem. "California store owner prices all items at $951 so thieves can be prosecuted," the headline reads. Text below explains that the store has coupons for customers to use to bring the price back down to normal. Featured Fact-check Viral image stated on October 29, 2022 in an Instagram post The Pelosis “are refusing to turn over surveillance video of their home.” By Ciara O'Rourke • October 31, 2022 Screenshot via Facebook The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We couldn’t find any credible reports about a California store owner raising prices to $951 so that thieves could be charged with felonies. A reverse-image search revealed that the article in the screenshot is from the Glorious American, a website that posts satirical content. The website includes a disclaimer on it's "About Us" page that says it is a "satire publication." But that information is absent from the social media post. As such, we rate this claim False

“I’ve been against that war in Afghanistan from the very beginning. President Joe Biden has been criticized for how he handled the U.S. military exit from Afghanistan in August. But Biden has said he remains convinced that it was the right thing to do. During a CBS News interview that was primarily about first lady Jill Biden, the president referenced his past stance on the Afghanistan war. "I’ve been against that war in Afghanistan from the very beginning," the president told Rita Braver in a segment aired on CBS’ "Sunday Morning" on Dec. 12. "We're spending $300 million a week in Afghanistan over 20 years." A reader asked us to fact-check Biden’s stated position on the war, so we did. The record shows that Biden’s claim was wrong. Biden was called out for a similar assertion during the Democratic presidential primary in 2019. Biden told an editorial board meeting of New Hampshire’s Seacoast Media Group that "I’m the guy that — as has been pointed out repeatedly — that thought we should not be going into Afghanistan." At the time, CNN fact-checked Biden and found the assertion to be incomplete at best. The Biden campaign told CNN that Biden had been skeptical of the U.S. role in Afghanistan, including opposing then-President Barack Obama’s "surge" of additional troops in 2009, when Biden was Obama’s vice president. The New York Times reported that Biden argued against a surge in internal debates. However, as a senator in 2001, Biden did vote for the initial U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks. When the Authorization for Use of Military Force came up in the Senate three days after the attacks, it passed, 98-0, with Biden voting in favor. While it’s possible to parse Biden’s 2019 statement as being somewhat consistent with his 2001 vote, it’s impossible to do so for what he told Braver — that "I’ve been against that war in Afghanistan from the very beginning." The war began with that congressional vote, and Biden voted in favor of it. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 17, 2022 in una publicación en Facebook "Ministros de Defensa de OTAN deciden invadir a RUSIA para prevenir ataque de Putin”. By Maria Ramirez Uribe • October 17, 2022 Over the next year, Biden worked from his perch as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman to provide humanitarian aid for Afghanistan, and he sometimes offered words of caution about the balance between military efforts and humanitarian assistance. For instance, he said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in October 2001 that unless the bombing of Afghanistan ends "sooner rather than later," the U.S. risks looking like a "high-tech bully." Still, Biden did not flatly oppose a military response in Afghanistan. "America stands united behind our men and women in the military, who are putting themselves in harm's way," Biden said after the U.S. air assault began. "I join all Americans in supporting President (George W.) Bush." And as late as May 2002, Biden issued a statement welcoming a U.N. Security Council vote to extend the international military force in Kabul and calling for the force’s mandate to be broadened. "I'm glad that the U.N. has extended the mandate of the peacekeepers in Afghanistan — but if this unit is not greatly expanded in both size and scope, there may soon be no real peace left to keep," he said. "Unless we provide the necessary diplomatic, military, and political support to extend (the force’s) mandate into other key cities and transit routes, we may well see Afghanistan fall back into the very sort of chaos and warlordism that spawned the Taliban in the first place." Biden’s stance on the war in Iraq was similar. He voted for a resolution that authorized the use of force in Iraq, saying he supported the president. But he grew more critical as the years wore on. PolitiFact rated his 2019 claim that he opposed the war "immediately, the moment it started," False. The White House did not respond to an inquiry for this article. Our ruling Biden said, "I’ve been against that war in Afghanistan from the very beginning." The record tells a different story. Biden, along with every senator, voted to launch the war, three days after the 9/11 attacks. He opposed aspects of the war as vice president, particularly a troop surge 10 years later. We rate Biden’s statement Fals

The COVID-19 vaccines cause AIDS Ever since the COVID-19 vaccines were introduced in late 2020, people have falsely claimed that they cause all sorts of health problems, ranging from Alzheimer's disease to autoimmune disorders. Claims circulating online recently add AIDS to that list. "The AIDS hysteria of the 80s has been totally forgotten," one post shared on Facebook reads. "It's been eclipsed by current C0\/lD insanity in which millions are running to inject themselves with an experimental product that causes AIDS (!!)" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post uses a misspelling of COVID, using numerals and slashes, a tactic social media users employ to circumvent tools that help detect COVID-related misinformation online. The AIDS claim is bogus. AIDS is an immune disease caused by human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. The COVID-19 shots do not introduce HIV into the body or cause AIDS. HIV attacks the body’s immune system and can lead to AIDS if left untreated. AIDS is considered the most severe phase of HIV infection, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data from clinical trials do not show that the COVID-19 vaccines create any increased risk for AIDS, nor is there evidence that those infected with HIV are more likely to develop AIDS after receiving one of the vaccines. Real world data from the billions of COVID-19 vaccinations around the world also haven’t shown that the vaccinated are more likely to get AIDS than the unvaccinated. Medical experts confirmed with PolitiFact that there is no relationship between the COVID-19 vaccines and AIDS. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 "AIDS has only one cause, HIV," said Michael Imperiale, a professor in the microbiology and immunology department at the University of Michigan. "This is because HIV replication destroys the immune system. This is why HIV-infected people are given antiviral drugs, to prevent them from getting AIDS." Since the vaccines don’t contain HIV, there is "no way" any COVID-19 vaccine can cause HIV infection or AIDS, said Dr. David Wohl, an infectious disease expert and professor specializing in HIV research at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "The COVID-19 vaccines do not cause immunosuppression — a decline in immune function leaving a person vulnerable to opportunistic infections," Wohl added. "In fact, the COVID-19 vaccines spur immune function to protect against SARS-CoV-2 infection." Research from the CDC and others show that the vaccines boost the body’s immune response. For example, one Aug. 13 CDC report found that people who had been infected with COVID-19 in 2020 got a dramatic boost in virus-killing immune cells later because they were vaccinated. "Vaccines stimulate the immune system," Imperiale said. "They do not destroy it." Our ruling A Facebook post claims that the COVID-19 vaccines cause AIDS. There is no evidence to support this. Only HIV causes AIDS, and the vaccines don’t contain HIV. Medical experts say the vaccines do not make people more susceptible to HIV or AIDS and that the shots bolster the immune system. They don’t weaken it. We rate this Pants on Fir

"2,809 Dead Babies in VAERS Following COVID Shots as New Documents Prove Pfizer, the FDA, and the CDC Knew the Shots Were Not Safe for Pregnant Women An article from an anti-vaccine website claims that thousands of fetuses died after their mothers were administered the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy. "2,809 Dead Babies in VAERS Following COVID Shots as New Documents Prove Pfizer, the FDA, and the CDC Knew the Shots Were Not Safe for Pregnant Women," reads the headline from Health Impact News, which has spread misleading information about vaccines in the past. The article was shared on Facebook and was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The article claims that a government database that collects information about negative health events that occur after people get vaccinations is proof that the COVID-19 vaccines are not safe for pregnant women, and that federal public health authorities knew this. This is not accurate. Health Impact News got its numbers through an anti-vaccine organization, the National Vaccine Information Center, which offers its own search tool for data from the federal government’s Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System, or VAERS. VAERS collects information from the public and health care providers about health conditions that occur after vaccination. Vaccine providers are encouraged to report any significant health problem following vaccination to VAERS, whether or not they believe the vaccine was the cause. The reports become accessible to the public in VAERS, without the government verifying whether the vaccine was the cause of the event described in the report. As PolitiFact has reported, the database is a tool for researchers to detect patterns that warrant further study, but its data is frequently misused to spread misinformation. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which runs VAERS with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, warns users of its search engine that the data alone cannot be used to establish a causal relationship between a vaccine and a particular adverse event, and that people who get vaccines may have health events or develop illnesses in ways that have nothing to do with the vaccines. People who use the NVIC’s search tool instead of the CDC’s, however, are shown a link that leads them to the government’s disclaimers and warnings about the data. But they are not required to read it or to check that they have read and understand these limitations before accessing the data, as is required of people who search the original federal database. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 As for the safety of the vaccine in pregnant women, the CDC and doctors who focus on maternal health and pediatrics recommend that pregnant women receive the vaccine. The CDC recommends COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant people, and says that scientific evidence shows that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh any known or potential risk during pregnancy. The CDC cites studies that show that the vaccine is effective in pregnant people, and that there is no increased risk of harm to mothers or their babies. The CDC also warns that pregnant and recently pregnant people who are infected with COVID-19 are at a greater risk for severe illness compared with nonpregnant people, though the overall risk is low. "Additionally, pregnant people with COVID-19 are at increased risk for preterm birth and stillbirth and might be at increased risk for other pregnancy complications," according to the CDC. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommends that pregnant people be vaccinated, and said that a CDC registry of pregnant people who were vaccinated did not report any neonatal deaths. This finding is based on a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine of nearly 4,000 pregnant people who were vaccinated. "There is no evidence of adverse maternal or fetal effects from vaccinating pregnant individuals with COVID-19 vaccine, and a growing body of data demonstrate the safety of such use," according to the ACOG. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other organizations of health care providers urged vaccination for pregnant women in a joint statement released in August: "Maternal care experts want the best outcomes for their patients, and that means both a healthy parent and a healthy baby. Data from tens of thousands of reporting individuals have shown that the COVID-19 vaccine is both safe and effective when administered during pregnancy. The same data have been equally reassuring when it comes to infants born to vaccinated individuals." PolitiFact also found in August that claims about COVID-19 vaccines leading to miscarriages are not based in science. Our ruling A headline from Health Impact News says, "2,809 Dead Babies in VAERS Following COVID Shots as New Documents Prove Pfizer, the FDA, and the CDC Knew the Shots Were Not Safe for Pregnant Women." The claim is based on reports to the government’s VAERS database. Those reports are not verified, and they are often used to spread misinformation about vaccines. They do not prove that the shots are dangerous to babies or pregnant women. The CDC and health care providers who work with pregnant patients and infants recommend vaccination, based on scientific studies of people who have been vaccinated and the risks associated with COVID-19 infection during pregnancy. We rate this claim False. RELATED LINK: Claim about 920 miscarriages caused by COVID-19 vaccination lacks evidence

“Overdoses in Virginia (are) up 35%. Del. John McGuire, R-Goochland, recently cited "failed leadership" by Democrats in curbing drug overdoses as one of the reasons why he had announced his candidacy in next year’s race for the 7th District congressional seat. "Overdoses in Virginia (are) up 35%," he said in a Dec. 3 radio interview on WRVA in Richmond. McGuire pointed blame at Democratic President Joe Biden and said U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, the two-term Democratic incumbent in the 7th District, has been ineffective on these issues. "She’s not there," he said. Since his comments, both McGuire’s and Spanberger political plans have been thrown in the air. A new redistricting map, submitted to the state Supreme Court for approval by a Democratic and Republican special master, placed each politician’s home outside of the 7th District. At this writing, Spanberger has not announced her plans. McGuire says he’ll wait for the political maps to be approved before making a decision. McGuire’s claim about soaring Virginia drug overdoses remains relevant, however. We fact-checked his statement and found the state has seen at least a 35% increase in drug deaths during the 12 months from April 2020 to April 2021. But McGuire’s effort to blame Democrats for the overdose surge in Virginia and across the nation does not statistically hold up. The numbers McGuire’s campaign told us his overdose data comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which receives monthly reports on the number of drug deaths in each state. The latest figures show Virginia had 1,660 overdose deaths during the year before the end of April 2020. That rose to 2,034 fatalities over the next year ending in April 2021 - a 23% increase. McGuire, however, is citing a "predicted number" from the CDC - a monthly estimate the agency produces for each state because drug deaths often require lengthy investigations before being confirmed, creating a backlog. The CDC estimates that Virginia’s actual yearly overdose deaths rose from 1,669 during the year ending in April 2020 to 2,262 in the year ending in April 2021. That 35.5% increase jibes with McGuire’s statement. Featured Fact-check Levar Stoney stated on October 26, 2022 in a news conference. “I don’t get involved in the hiring and firing of police chiefs.” By Warren Fiske • November 2, 2022 Nationally, the CDC estimates that drug deaths rose nationally by 28.5%, from 78,056 in the 12 months preceding April 2020 to 100,306 during the year ending in April 2021. Virginia’s Department of Health uses a broader definition of overdose deaths than the CDC and says state drug fatalities increased from 1,681 during the year ending March 31, 2020 to 2,543 in the year ending March 31, 2021 - a 51% rise. The reasons Experts say the main reason for the increase in Virginia and nationally is the spread of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is many times more powerful than heroin. It is increasingly interlaced with other illicit drugs and some people may not have even been aware that they used it. Virginia’s increase above the national average suggests a high presence of fentanyl in the state, according to Kathrin "Rosie" Hobron, statewide forensic epidemiologist for the Virginia’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. She also tied the increase to the coronavirus pandemic. "I talk to the treatment folks and they say during the lockdown, fewer people were going into treatment programs," Hobron said. "There’s been a lot of insecurity about losing jobs and financial issues that might be pushing people towards drug use." McGuire lays the overdose surge at Biden’s feet, but the numbers don’t back him up. The national opioid epidemic precedes the Biden administration as does the recent uptick. CDC figures show national drug deaths increased by 29% percent during 2020, the last full year of Republican President Donald Trump’s administration. The agency estimates Virginia overdoses increased 42% that year. Our ruling McGuire says, "overdoses in Virginia (are) up 35%." He accurately relays CDC statistics that estimate state drug deaths rose by 35.5% from April 2020 to April 2021. The Virginia Department of Health, which uses a broader definition of overdose deaths than the CDC, says drug fatalities increased 51% from April 2020 to March 2021. But McGuire’s context - blaming Biden for the surge - is a reach. The CDC estimates overdoses rose 29% nationally and 42% in Virginia during Trump’s last year in office and continued to rise during the first months of Biden's adminstration. We rate McGuire’s claim Mostly True.

“The CBO says (the Build Back Better Act) is $3 trillion of deficit spending. Republicans have been highlighting a recent government estimate of what they say is the true cost of the Democrats’ Build Back Better bill, which includes major spending on child care and child tax credits. On Fox News Sunday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told departing host Chris Wallace that the bill is far more expensive than Democrats claim, and the money it raises falls trillions short of covering the cost. "The Congressional Budget Office says it's not paid for," Graham said Dec. 12. "It's $3 trillion of deficit spending." Graham is incorrect. The bill passed by the House and now in the Senate’s hands costs about $1.75 trillion, and, according to CBO figures, would add $158 billion to the deficit over 10 years, not $3 trillion. (President Joe Biden and other Democrats say even that smaller deficit would evaporate thanks to IRS crackdowns on tax evaders.) Graham is saying the deficit would be 20 times larger than the bill at hand. That’s like the difference between a grape and a big cantaloupe. So, what is Graham talking about? Graham and his Republican counterpart in the House asked the CBO to estimate what would happen if temporary spending programs in the legislation were extended through 2031. The major spending provisions include a bigger child tax credit and support for child care. Graham’s press office sent us a Dec. 10 letter from the CBO. The agency did say the deficit would go up by $3 trillion, but that was for, as they put it, "a modified version of H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act." Modified means the CBO scored a bill that’s different from the one on the table. "These estimates do not reflect what is actually written in the Build Back Better Act nor its official cost for scorekeeping purposes," the deficit hawk group Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget wrote. "Lawmakers may choose to allow some provisions to expire, to extend some as written, and to modify some." To unpack this — just a little bit — Congress passed a budget resolution that set a ceiling on how much, if any, a bill like Build Back Better could add to the deficit. When the CBO scored the bill as adding $158 billion to the deficit, the Democrats were well below the ceiling they had set. (Technically, the CBO said the bill added $365 billion, but it also figured that IRS enforcement would help offset that by $207 billion.) Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 9, 2022 in a Facebook post “Donald Trump is back on Twitter,” thanks to Elon Musk. By Sara Swann • October 10, 2022 Those CBO estimates have legal power. If they show that a bill exceeds the limits in the budget resolution, any senator can call for a higher hurdle 60-vote supermajority to move it forward. To keep costs in check, Democrats made a number of programs temporary. In dollars, a one-year increase in the child tax credit is the biggest example. As passed, that provision added $185 billion to the deficit. It ends after 2022, but if it lasted through 2031, it would add nearly $1.6 trillion. Other big ticket items in the Democratic package are the subsidies for child care and preschool (ending after 2027), raising the limit on state and local tax deductions (ending after 2025), and health insurance subsidies (ending after 2025 and 2026). While there would be political pressure to extend some or all of these changes, there’s no way to predict today what would happen. Certainly, if Republicans were successful in the 2022 midterm elections, they would likely have the clout to defeat any effort to extend them if they wanted to. Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, head of the American Action Forum, a right-of-center policy group, said it’s commonplace for lawmakers in the minority party to ask the CBO to score something that isn’t in a bill. Holtz-Eakin said he received and fulfilled those requests all the time. Unlike the CBO estimates of actual legislation, those what-if estimates have no weight except for purposes of debate and offering amendments. As for the tactic of making certain provisions temporary to contain the overall cost of a bill, that’s something Republicans have used themselves. In the Republicans’ 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act, individual income tax cuts ended after 2025. Graham voted for that bill. "Their budget resolution said you can’t add more than $1.5 trillion in deficits in the budget window," Holtz-Eakin said. "They were going to do that, so they sunsetted provisions of the income tax, along with a few other provisions." In 2017, the CBO told Congress that the Tax Cut and Jobs Act would add a bit over $1.45 trillion to the deficit. That was the estimate before the vote to pass the bill. In reality, the law has ended up adding nearly $2 trillion to the deficit. Our ruling Graham said the CBO predicted the Build Back Better Act would add $3 trillion to deficits over 10 years. He’s referring to a bill that’s not the Build Back Better Act. At Graham’s request, the CBO looked at the impact of extending the temporary programs in the bill for a full 10 years. That is an assessment of a hypothetical situation, not the bill at hand. We rate this claim False.

“Wisconsin 2020 election investigation finds more illegal votes were cast than Biden's margin of victory. A headline widely shared on Facebook implied that illegal votes carried Joe Biden to victory over Donald Trump in a key swing state. "Wisconsin 2020 Election Investigation Finds More Illegal Votes Were Cast Than Biden's Margin of Victory" was the headline on an article by the Western Journal, a conservative news and opinion website. The article was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The headline isn’t true. The review did not make any finding about illegal votes, let alone enough of them to sway the 2020 election. The Dec. 10, 2021, article is based on a review released a few days earlier by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative public interest law firm. The article highlighted one finding in the review: "54,259 ballots were cast by individuals who have never shown a voter ID in any election." That’s more than Biden’s 2020 margin of victory in Wisconsin of roughly 20,000 votes. But the headline falsely states what the review found. The finding highlighted by the article has to do with voters who declare themselves "indefinitely confined." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 25, 2022 in an Instagram post The documentary “2,000 Mules proves” Democrats “cheated on the 2020 elections.” By Jon Greenberg • October 28, 2022 Wisconsin generally requires voters to present photo identification to cast a ballot, but there are exceptions, including for those "indefinitely confined." They can cast absentee ballots without producing a photo ID. "Designation of indefinitely confined status is for each individual voter to make based upon their current circumstance," according to a memo issued by the Wisconsin Election Commission ahead of the 2020 elections. "It does not require permanent or total inability to travel outside of the residence." The legal group’s review said: "While we cannot infer any malignant intent on the part of these voters, this means that many votes were cast without the requirement of photo identification. 54,259 ballots were cast by individuals who have never shown a voter ID in any election." The review found that "there appears to be no particular partisan pattern in usage" of the indefinitely confined status, and "our conclusion remains that it is unlikely that ‘indefinitely confined voter fraud’ happened in material numbers." The group called for requiring medical documentation in order to apply for indefinitely confined status. The review concluded overall that "there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud. In all likelihood, more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump." The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported in January 2021 that amid the coronavirus pandemic, about 215,000 voters claimed they were confined for the November 2020 election, up from about 67,000 in 2016, and that the vast majority already had an ID on file with their municipal clerk or had shown one when they voted in person in the last four years. We rate the post Fals

Says Anthony Fauci “wants Americans to get 4 shots per year. Amid conversations and speculation about how many COVID-19 vaccine shots may ultimately be necessary to ward off the virus and its variants, some people are sharing a headline about Dr. Anthony Fauci that originated on a website that posts misinformation. "Fauci wants Americans to get 4 shots per year," the headline says. "AND SO IT BEGINS," wrote one Facebook account that posted it. "YOU SHEEP CAN ENJOY YOUR 5 SHOTS A YEAR. WAKE UP!" This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The headline was posted alongside a story that quotes one supposed anonymous source on a site called Real Raw News, which we’ve previously investigated. It has a disclaimer that the content it posts is satire. RELATED VIDEO Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease official, has not said that he wants Americans to get four shots a year. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 Rather, on Nov. 23, a few days before this story was posted on Real Raw News, Fauci said that a majority of Americans who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 should get a booster. On Dec. 8, Pfizer officials said that a fourth vaccine dose could be necessary to protect against the omicron variant. But there is no evidence that Fauci wants Americans to get four COVID-19 vaccine shots every year. On Nov. 24, the Journal of the American Medical Association noted that some companies that produce COVID-19 vaccines are planning for annual COVID-19 vaccine boosters, but that it’s not yet clear if that will be necessary. In any case, we know one thing: Fauci didn’t say that he wants Americans to get four shots each year. We rate that claim False.

“Ivanka Trump is joining the Democrats to run against her dad. The title of a recent Facebook video makes a claim worthy of a "Succession" plotline: that Ivanka Trump, daughter of former President Donald Trump, is going to betray her father and challenge him in the 2024 presidential election. "Ivanka Trump is joining the Democrats to run against her dad," the video title says. But over the course of nearly 10 minutes, Ivanka Trump doesn’t come up in the video at all except for an opening question from the narrator that seems to contradict its title: "Is Ivanka really going to be Trump’s 2024 running mate?" This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Ivanka Trump was once a Democrat who donated to Democratic politicians, but in October 2018 she officially changed her voter registration to Republican. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 "I am a proud Trump Republican," she told the New York Times in March 2020. "I believe he’s broadened the reach of the Republican Party, which is really important to me." About a year later, there was speculation that Donald and Ivanka Trump could share the ticket in 2024, with Ivanka Trump replacing former Vice President Mike Pence. But there’s no evidence to support the claim that she’s switching political parties to challenge her father. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!

At Lions Gate Hospital in Vancouver, “13 babies were reportedly stillborn at the hospital in a period of 24 hours. All of their mothers had received a COVID-19 injection. False claims about pregnancy and COVID-19 vaccines have persisted, and a new claim that includes specific detail about a scenario in Canada is no different. A viral article, headlined, "Sudden Surge in Stillbirths and Menstrual Changes," says that a Nov. 11 rally outside Lions Gate Hospital in Vancouver was "to call attention to an unthinkable tragedy: 13 babies were reportedly stillborn at the hospital in a period of 24 hours. All of their mothers had received a COVID-19 injection." The article, which appeared on a website called Fox 26 News Henry, was shared in a Facebook post and was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) There was not a surge of stillbirths at Lions Gate Hospital. The company that operates the facility, Vancouver Coastal Health, said in a tweet that the information is false and "there has been no notable change to the incidence of stillbirths in the VCH region throughout the COVID-19 pandemic." In fact, the seven hospitals operated by Vancouver Coastal Health reported only four stillbirths between April and August 2021, according to Global News. Trials, studies and safety data have shown that COVID-19 vaccines are safe during pregnancy. The COVID-19 virus itself, rather than vaccines to protect against it, poses a risk to pregnant women. Pregnant women have a higher risk of developing severe illness from COVID-19, and "a COVID-19 diagnosis documented during the delivery hospitalization was associated with an increased risk for stillbirth in the United States," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. According to CBC News and Global News, the rumors fueling these claims can be traced to video clips from an Nov. 11 anti-vaccination rally. The video clips feature two doctors, Daniel Nagase and Mel Bruchet, who are also named in the viral article as having "started an official investigation" into the supposed stillbirths. Nagase says in the video that Bruchet said a number of doulas told him there had been 13 stillbirths in a 24-hour period at Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 Bruchet has referred to COVID-19 as a hoax and, according to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, has resigned his medical license. Nagase, a licensed family physician, said he was to have been fired from an Alberta hospital for using ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug, to treat patients with COVID-19, CBC News reported. Vancouver Coastal Health said in its tweet, "there is no truth to this claim and the individuals spreading this false information have no affiliation to either LGH or VCH." It’s unclear who publishes Fox 26 News Henry, the site where the viral article appeared. Its contact information appears to be fabricated, with an address of "12345 North Main Street, New York, NY 555555." All articles on the site include the same byline but appear to be sourced from other sites. The viral article includes a "source link" at the end, to Mercola.com. That site is operated by Joseph Mercola, whom the New York Times called "the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online." Mercola.com appears to have published the same story about Lions Gate Hospital, though the viral article does not link directly to it. Other sites known for spreading misinformation, such as Gateway Pundit, also were sharing the false story about Lions Gate Hospital. Our ruling An article says at Lions Gate Hospital in Vancouver, "13 babies were reportedly stillborn at the hospital in a period of 24 hours. All of their mothers had received a COVID-19 injection." There was not a surge of stillbirths at Lions Gate Hospital. Vancouver Coastal Health, which operates Lions Gate and six other hospitals, said the information is false. The company saw only four stillbirths reported among its seven facilities between April and August 2021. We rate this claim False

“Dr. Oz releases COPD gummies that help quit smoking, detox lungs and stop COPD. Celebrity surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz recently announced he would be running for a Pennsylvania seat in the U.S. Senate. He didn’t debut a "miracle" gummy, as a recent Facebook post suggests. "Dr. Oz releases COPD gummies that help quit smoking, detox lungs and stop COPD," the post says, referring to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung condition. The post shows a picture of Oz standing next to what looks like a yellow bear-shaped gummy floating midair, and a link to a website called lungspowerhealth.com. But for years now Oz has warned that supposed product endorsements like these are a scam. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 In December 2012, Oz posted a message on his Facebook account thanking people for reporting "fraudulent ads" through a page on his website called "Oz Watch." "Remember," he said. "I don’t endorse anything, so if you see something using my name or likeness, it’s fake!" The "Oz Watch" page says, "Unfortunately, dubious people online will often spam or solicit people like you; they make it seem as though Dr. Oz is personally endorsing their product — he does not." A spokesperson for Oz’s Senate campaign told us on Dec. 13, 2021, that this Facebook post "is yet another example of Dr. Oz’s image being used without his consent to try and sell products he does not support to unsuspecting people." We rate this post False.

Around the world, people who exercise their "health autonomy" and don't get vaccinated are being put "basically into internment camps. In a Dec. 8, 2021 appearance on Janesville radio station WCLO, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson ran through his familiar talking points when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, including that adverse effects of the vaccine are being reported to the nation’s tracking system, that vaccinated people can still spread the virus, and reiterating that he has chosen not to be vaccinated. Then he added this jaw-dropper: "I’m going to actually utilize my own freedom, my own health autonomy, and I’m going to choose not to get the vaccine, and now we are demonizing those people. Around the world, they’re putting them basically into internment camps," Johnson said. "What is going on?" The unvaccinated being sent to internment camps? Let’s check that out. Australian quarantine facility is not an internment camp When asked for clarification on his remark, Johnson’s office told a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter he was referring to a COVID-19 quarantine site in Australia that requires residents returning from international travel to stay 14 days and be tested for the virus to ensure they aren’t bringing it back into the country with them. In making the comment, Johnson spoke generally about people who choose not to be vaccinated — not travelers. So listeners would be left to think anyone who does not get vaccinated might be rounded up. In addition, Johnson claimed this is happening "around the world," yet only provided a single example. Even setting those points aside, the claim is awry at best. Here is some background on the facility his staff said he was referring to: Located at a former mining camp in Howard Springs in the Northern Territory, it’s one of several such sites across Australia for Australians returning home from abroad. (The country remains closed to almost all travel by others.) Australia has utilized such supervised mandatory quarantines to keep coronavirus cases low. According to the New York Times, Australia has seen an average of about six cases per 100,000 residents in the past week, compared with the United States’ 36 cases per 100,000 residents. People at the quarantine site are required to test for the virus three times during their stay. They are given three meals a day, as well as drinking water, tea and coffee, free television and air conditioning, according to the Northern Territory’s information page. After 14 days on site, they are allowed to return home. That would set the facility a far cry apart from what most people recognize as internment camps. One general definition of an internment camp, as reported by Dictionary.com, is a guarded compound for the mass detainment of civilian citizens, especially those with ties to an enemy during wartime, without hearings or trials. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 Americans may be most familiar with the case of the World War II-era detainment of Japanese Americans. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government grew suspicious of people of Japanese descent and began rounding them up for the camps, some on as little as two days’ notice. Most who were sent to the camps lived there for close to three years. The camps were enclosed by barbed-wire fences and patrolled by armed guards who were under instruction to shoot anyone who attempted to leave, Britannica reports. (It’s worth noting that three people who broke out of the Howard Springs site in late November were arrested — that is, taken into custody, not shot.) David Inoue, executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League, the nation’s oldest and largest Asian American civil rights organization, said equating medical quarantine with incarceration is "just ridiculous." While Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps because of their ethnicity and for an undetermined amount of time, Inoue said, the Australian policy involves people who are choosing to travel and who are aware of the scope of the quarantine requirements involved. Those sent to the World War II-era camps could only bring one suitcase, Inoue said, and in some cases were shipped to colder regions without winter coats, arriving at barracks that were not properly insulated against the elements. Any requirement for unvaccinated travelers to quarantine would be a consequence of their choice to remain unvaccinated, he said, not a consequence of something they cannot change, like their ancestry. In response to a request for more details about the remark from Politifact Wisconsin, Johnson’s office issued a wide-ranging statement that – among other things – noted that countries like Australia, Austria and Germany have arrested citizens for not wearing masks outside, in violation of requirements. But the statement did nothing to support his claim that unvaccinated people were being sent to internment camps. Our ruling Johnson claimed that "around the world," people who refused to get vaccinated were being placed "basically into internment camps." Such camps throughout history have been used to corral those whom nations deem political prisoners or enemies, forcing people to live there for years. In comparison, the quarantine facility Johnson cited is for Australian residents returning home from abroad who stay there for two weeks, then get to go home. In addition, Johnson spoke generally of those who are not vaccinated being sent to camps, but the example he cited was a facility for travelers. And while he said the practice was occurring "around the world," he was only able to provide one such example. We rate this claim Pants on Fire. UPDATE Dec. 14, 2021 at 9:02 a.m.: A prior version of this article incorrectly stated that quarantined Australians were tested three times a day at the site. 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“Norway spends about $30,000 per child on early childhood care, Finland spends $23,000, Germany $18,000” and the U.S. $500 Economist and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich decried to his 1.4 million Twitter followers how relatively little the United States spends on early childhood care. "Norway spends about $30,000 per child on early childhood care. Finland spends $23,000. Germany, $18,000. The U.S. spends $500 per child. In other words, 1/60th of what Norway spends on its toddlers. How do we expect to build a better future if we refuse to invest in our kids?" his Nov. 24 tweet read. A reader asked us to check if Reich is right. Reich, who served in the Clinton administration and is now at the University of California, Berkeley, cites a solid source on government spending figures, though there are other measures that show a smaller discrepancy. Reich’s point The tweet was part of an opinion column Reich wrote in which he argued that America has "chosen to dramatically reduce poverty among the nation’s elderly but not among our children." A spokeswoman confirmed that Reich used rounded numbers based on a table included with an Oct. 6 New York Times article. Those figures show annual public spending per child on early childhood care, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and Elizabeth Davis and Aaron Sojourner for the Hamilton Project: Norway: $29,726 Finland: $23,353 Germany: $18,656 United States: $500 The first three figures appear in the OECD’s report "Education at a Glance 2021." The spending figures are for early childhood education programs targeting children under 3 years that have an educational component of at least the equivalent of 2 hours per day and 100 days a year. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 19, 2022 in a post The diphtheria vaccine is a “poison dart” with side effects worse than the symptoms of diphtheria. By Andy Nguyen • October 24, 2022 The report did not include a figure for the U.S. for children under age 3, but the Hamilton Project report, also cited as a source in the Times article, does, said one of the authors of the Hamilton Project report, University of Minnesota economist Aaron Sojourner. The figure for the U.S. is $500 per child. (The figure is $1,500 when preschoolers are included — children up to age 4.) Other views Joya Misra, professor of sociology and public policy and director of the Institute for Social Science Research at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, pointed to different figures from the OECD that show a smaller disparity between the U.S. and the other countries. They show yearly public social spending on childcare for three age spans — 0 to 2 years, the "pre primary" 3 to 5 age group, and the combined 0 to 5 — divided by the population of each group. In round numbers, the total figures Misra pointed to were: Norway: $12,000 Finland: $8,000 Germany: $7,000 United States: $3,000 Some economists emphasized that the figures show only what governments spend on child care, not how much in total is spent on child care. "Americans have chosen mostly to pay for child care directly, while other countries have chosen to pay for child care indirectly via taxation," said Antony Davies, a Duquesne University professor and fellow at the conservative Foundation for Economic Education. Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard University lecturer and director of economics studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said government spending can’t be considered in a vacuum. "What matters to children is how much is spent on them, adding government and private expenditure," he said. "If government provides a lot, private spending will cut back." Our ruling Reich said: "Norway spends about $30,000 per child on early childhood care, Finland spends $23,000, Germany $18,000" and the U.S. $500. He accurately cited figures from a solid source, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, but a different set of figures from the same organization shows a smaller discrepancy. The figures are for government spending, not total spending, on child care. We rate the statement Mostly Tru

Deaths from vaccines have totaled 1,621 from Johnson & Johnson, 4,799 from Moderna, 13,039 from Pfizer and 73 from unknown vaccines. And this is an undercount because “only 1% of deaths are reported. Throughout 2021, misinformation based on the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System has cycled persistently throughout social media. A new claim has popped up via Instagram: that thousands of COVID-19 vaccine deaths reported in VAERS are an undercount of an actual number of deaths. The Dec. 6 Instagram post shared a screenshot, showing a number of deaths it attributed to vaccines: 1,621 deaths from Johnson & Johnson, 4,799 deaths from Moderna, 13,039 deaths from Pfizer and 73 from unknown vaccines. Those numbers were from the United States only, the Instagram user wrote in the caption. "Only 1% of deaths are reported according to Harvard study," the user wrote. We reached out to the Instagram user for more information but did not receive a response. We searched for the Harvard study that they referenced, but were not able to find one which stated 1% of deaths are reported. We did note in a separate fact-check that a well-known anti-vaccine advocate made a similar claim and cited a study that evaluated an automated system other than VAERS that tracked a patient’s health changes following a vaccination. But the study did not explain how it calculated 1%. The Department of Health and Human Services has said on its website that the degree of underreporting in VAERS varies widely depending on the symptom being reported. Deaths and other adverse events following a vaccine have counted for many reports in the VAERS system — for more than 30 years, it’s been available as a public database that anyone can use to report an adverse health event that occurred after a vaccine. It helps government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration detect whether a vaccine has a serious health side effect. There are thousands of reports entered into the VAERS system constantly. But federal officials, health experts and organizations have warned repeatedly that correlation does not imply causation — just because an adverse event is reported as having occurred does not mean that a vaccine was the cause. In addition, officials warn the public that VAERS cannot be used on its own to verify if a vaccine has caused an event. Its reports "often lack details and sometimes can have information that contains errors," warned the agencies that run the system. VAERS accepts reports before verifying them — so it doesn’t provide enough concrete evidence. However, it has become used as a source for false claims that spread quickly across social media and other platforms. We’ve fact checked many of them. This Instagram post said these numbers of deaths were only in the U.S. Right now, the CDC reports that 200.4 million people have been fully vaccinated within the United States. The agency also reports that between Dec. 14, 2020, and Nov. 29, 2021, VAERS received 10,128 reports of deaths among people who were vaccinated — that figure would represent 0.0022% of vaccinated people. Featured Fact-check Viral image stated on October 16, 2022 in an Instagram post “Covid vaccinations now prohibited in people under 50 in Denmark.” By Ciara O'Rourke • October 18, 2022 "FDA requires health care providers to report any death after COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS, even if it’s unclear whether the vaccine was the cause. Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem," the FDA reiterates. It isn’t clear where the numbers in the Instagram post came from. When we ran our own search in the VAERS database by using the CDC WONDER search tool to verify, we found a total of 8,843 reports had been made through Nov. 26, 2021 — 1,021 regarding Johnson & Johnson, 3,745 for Moderna, and 4,077 for the Pfizer BioNTech. Altogether, this is fewer than half what the post claims. Reports in VAERS are updated every week, and "include reports processed through the preceding Friday" according to database information. And again, no matter what the number of reports are in the VAERS system, those reports have yet to be verified. To say that a certain number of deaths have been caused by the COVID-19 vaccines is to make assumptions from inconclusive evidence. VAERS can detect true adverse events when used correctly. The government in April confirmed a handful of reports made to VAERS about women who experienced rare blood clotting following vaccination. In response, the FDA added a warning to the label and resumed administration of the vaccine. The incidents accounted for a tiny fraction of over 6.8 million Johnson & Johnson shots given at that point. The CDC said in an email to PolitiFact that it hasn’t detected any unusual or unexpected patterns for deaths after immunization, but did confirm six deaths following the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which resulted from a rare but serious adverse reaction of thrombocytopenia syndrome, or blood clotting. Our ruling An Instagram post claims that there have been 1,621 deaths from the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, 4,799 from Moderna, 13,039 from Pfizer and 73 from unknown vaccines, and claims that this is an undercount because only 1% of people reported deaths. Available data in VAERS does not confirm these figures. What’s more, VAERS can’t be used on its own to verify if a vaccine has caused an event. The government agencies that run the system warn that it accepts reports before verifying them, and reports can usually contain information that may have errors or lacks details. We rate this claim False. PolitiFact researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this repor

The COVID-19 vaccine is the “deadliest vaccine ever made. COVID-19 ushered in the biggest vaccination campaign in history. And a relentless disinformation campaign about vaccines quickly followed. One of the latest controversial statements about the vaccines came from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, and one of the biggest sources of anti-vaccine rhetoric today, as he spoke to Louisiana lawmakers. Kennedy was given the floor for about 20 minutes during a Dec. 6 Louisiana House oversight meeting on a proposal that would require students to get vaccinated against COVID-19 before entering school. The meeting ended several hours later with the state House Committee on Health & Welfare voting 13-2 to oppose requiring vaccination. Kennedy used his time to make a series of problematic and false statements about the COVID-19 vaccines and, at one point, argued that the shots’ record "confirms that this is the deadliest vaccine ever made." Pointing to a pie graph that compiled deaths reported in the federal government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System over the last 30 years, Kennedy claimed that there are "more people who have died in eight months from this vaccine than from 72 vaccines over the last 30 years." But there are several errors with Kennedy’s claim. We address them here, one by one. VAERS is unreliable The biggest issue is the low-quality data that Kennedy relies on to make his point. VAERS, which is run by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, was established in the late 1980s to help health agencies and researchers collect and analyze data on vaccine after-effects and to detect patterns that may warrant a closer look. But the database is an open-access system and unlike other government data sources that are screened before being made available to the public. VAERS is designed so that anyone — parents, patients and health care professionals — can freely report any health effects that occur after a vaccination, according to the CDC, whether or not those effects are believed to be caused by a vaccine. The reports aren’t verified before they’re entered and have included car accidents and incidents of self injury. Still, anyone with a computer can search the data, download it, and interpret the numbers as they wish — making VAERS fertile ground for vaccine misinformation. The VAERS search engine has a prominent disclaimer that says: "The number of reports alone cannot be interpreted or used to reach conclusions about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with vaccines." VAERS reports alone "cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event or illness," it says. People using the database are required to click on a form saying that they understand these limitations. Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said VAERS is misnamed because it leads people to believe that if something was reported, it’s automatically an adverse effect of the vaccine. "At its best, VAERS is a hypothesis-generating mechanism. It really should be titled ‘suspected adverse event,’" Offit said. "There is no screening. You could report that your child got the vaccine and turned into the Incredible Hulk." More than 459 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in the United States from Dec. 14, 2020, through Nov. 29, 2021, according to the CDC. During this time, VAERS received 10,128 reports of death (0.0022%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine, agency spokesperson Martha Sharan told PolitiFact in an email. That includes people who died of any cause. "Reports of adverse events, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a COVID-19 vaccine caused a health problem," Sharan added. "Statements that imply that reports of deaths to VAERS following vaccination equate to deaths caused by vaccination are scientifically inaccurate, misleading and irresponsible." Health officials have data on billions of individuals who have received multiple doses of the COVID-19 vaccines, said Dr. Rebecca Weintraub, an assistant professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. "So yes, we are confident that we have a robust database that these vaccines are as safe and effective as other vaccines," Weintraub said. "It prevents death, it prevents severe disease and it decreases transmission. And we know that for those who are vaccinated who get breakthrough cases, they clear the virus faster." On average, 2,800 people die each day in the U.S., and health officials say that there will always be people who got a vaccine who die afterward from unrelated causes. This is especially true for a vaccine that over 70% of the country’s population has received. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 "Hank Aaron is one example," Offit said. "He died of a stroke because he was in his mid-80s, not because of a vaccine." The CDC said in an email to PolitiFact that it hasn’t detected any unusual or unexpected patterns for deaths following immunization that would indicate that the COVID-19 vaccines are causing or contributing to deaths, outside of six confirmed deaths following the Johnson & Johnson vaccine due to complications from a rare and serious adverse reaction called thrombocytopenia syndrome. The reaction prompted officials to pause injections of the vaccine for about 10 days. In an email, Kennedy’s spokesperson, Rita Shreffler, cited the same VAERS numbers and said that a 2010 study found that, as opposed to overcounting, VAERS vastly undercounts vaccine injuries — fewer than 1%. But that study evaluated an automated system that tracked a patient’s health changes following a vaccination, rather than the voluntary reporting system that Kennedy drew his numbers from. It also didn’t explain how it calculated the percentage. In VAERS, the degree of underreporting varies widely depending on the symptom being reported, the Department of Health and Human Services said on its website. "As an example, a great many of the millions of vaccinations administered each year by injection cause soreness, but relatively few of these episodes lead to a VAERS report," HHS says. "Physicians and patients understand that minor side effects of vaccinations often include this kind of discomfort, as well as low fevers. On the other hand, more serious and unexpected medical events are probably more likely to be reported than minor ones, especially when they occur soon after vaccination, even if they may be coincidental and related to other causes." COVID-19 vaccines compare with other vaccines René Najera, an epidemiologist and editor of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia’s History of Vaccines website, said that Kennedy’s statement is typical of anti-vaccine activists who make inflammatory comments without credible evidence. Najera said that it’s difficult to compare the COVID-19 vaccines with vaccines from decades ago because the technology and communication are better. If anything, he said, a very small signal of an adverse reaction would be identified and detected more quickly now than back then. "First, we had the smallpox vaccine in the early 1800s," Najera said. "It was given to millions around the world, but we just don't know how many people may have died from it — there was no such thing as a clean needle back then. But we do know that it prevented smallpox, and the epidemic started to die down afterward." The closest thing to a "deadly" vaccine was the result of a lab accident, Najera said, not the therapeutic itself. When the polio vaccine was licensed in the 1950s, independent labs started to create it. One California lab, Cutter Laboratories, didn’t deactivate the virus used in the vaccine as it should have, and several thousand children were exposed to the live polio virus, with several dozen dying as a result. When the flu vaccine rolled out in the mid-to-late 1970s, it was found that on very rare occasions, people developed Guillain-Barré syndrome after being vaccinated. Guillain-Barré is a disorder in which the immune system attacks the nerves, and it can also result from the flu itself. In the late 1990s, the live virus RotaShield vaccine was found to be a rare cause of intussusception, a type of bowel blockage caused when the intestine folds into itself like a telescope. There was one death, and the vaccine was pulled from the market. "This was caught by the same surveillance systems we have now, and while it was very treatable it was still taken off the market," Najera said. Offit said vaccines have in rare cases been associated with adverse events, including the diseases they’re meant to prevent, but that Kennedy’s claim is "just not true." "The COVID-19 shots are very typical of vaccines, which have associated adverse events," he said. "The mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are a rare cause of myocarditis. The J&J vaccine is a very rare cause of one in 500,000 for blood clots. "The flu vaccine can rarely cause Guillain-Barré syndrome. The polio vaccine that we used from the early ’60s to 2000s was a rare cause of polio. The yellow fever vaccine can cause yellow fever for about one per million recipients." Meanwhile, few measures in public health can compare with the impact of vaccines, which medical officials and analysts say have saved more lives than any other single medical advance. Vaccinations have reduced disease, disability, and death from a variety of infectious diseases by protecting those vaccinated and by reducing the spread of disease. One 2017 report highlighted the impact in the U.S. of immunization against nine diseases, including smallpox, measles and polio. All were shown to have been reduced by 90% or more. Our ruling Kennedy claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine is the deadliest vaccine ever made according to deaths reported in VAERS. VAERS is an unreliable source, and the agencies that run it say its reports cannot be used on their own to establish whether a vaccine caused any adverse event. Health officials and experts said that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and comparable to others, and that they would have been discontinued if they had caused many deaths. We rate this Pants on Fir

Warnings about heart problems and blood clots in cold weather are to cover up COVID-19 vaccine side effects For years, scientists have cautioned people about the health effects of winter weather, including blood clots and heart problems. To skeptics of vaccines, those conditions sound familiar. And some recent posts are recasting these warnings as a cover-up for rare blood clots and heart complications associated with the COVID-19 vaccines. "Just in case anyone was confused, winter does not cause blood clots and heart attacks," said one since-deleted Facebook post. Another person, sharing a headline that said "researchers warn that cold weather can cause blood clots and heart attacks," commented: "We are getting a lot of education on random things that can cause heart attacks." "Just in case you are confused," a third sharing a similar headline said. "Winter does NOT cause blood clots and heart attacks. But I know something that does (use your imagination)." There have been rare cases of blood clots and heart complications associated with the COVID-19 vaccines. But they’re also a risk in cold weather, and warnings about them aren’t new. Researchers have discussed this for years, before COVID-19. These posts were flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 "As temperatures start to fall, your risk of a heart attack begins to climb," says a 2016 blog post on the Harvard Medical School website. The post quotes Randall Zusman, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, who said that cold weather can decrease the supply of oxygen-rich blood to the heart and potentially force the heart to work harder, setting the stage for a heart attack. Because of this, the American Heart Association says that some people should avoid sudden exertion in cold weather, such as lifting a heavy shovel of snow. A 2018 study in the JAMA Cardiology journal found that heart attacks increase most when the temperature drops below freezing. Cleveland HeartLab says on its website, "The cold air alone can raise blood pressure, slow down the flow of blood to the heart, and help blood clots form. RELATED VIDEO Comilla Sasson, vice president for science and innovation for emergency cardiovascular care at the American Heart Association, told AFP that there are "several studies with strong correlations to cold weather heart health concerns," including the increased formation of blood clots. Sasson said studies have also shown an increase in heart attacks shortly after people get the flu — and winter is flu season. On Dec. 7, the American Heart Association posted a warning on its website: "Heart attack deaths more likely during winter holiday season than any other time of year." We rate claims that these warnings are fake and covering up rare vaccine side effects False.

"Canada joins the no jab, no food trend A Facebook video viewed by tens of thousands of people suggested that some Canadians are prohibited from securing food unless they have been vaccinated. "Canada joins the no jab, no food trend," read the caption next to the hour-long Facebook live video in which a woman decried restrictions meant to curb the spread of COVID-19. She said people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 cannot shop for groceries:"Now they have this headline, right: ‘No jab, no food.’ Can you imagine the terror of tyranny?" The video was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The claim misrepresents a new policy enacted in just one Canadian province that allows business and retail, including grocery stores, the option of requiring proof of vaccination when physical distancing of 2 meters is not possible inside a store. The policy does not require any retail store to ask for proof of vaccination. It also does not preclude people who are unvaccinated from shopping for food in that province or the rest of the country. Beginning at the 37:31 mark in the Facebook video, the woman read a headline that said in the province of New Brunswick, grocery stores can ban unvaccinated shoppers — though the woman referred to unvaccinated people as "unhexxed." (PolitiFact has reported that some social media users are relying on coded language to escape detection by platform moderators on the lookout for misinformation about COVID-19.) "This is a new provision, put into place as of yesterday in New Brunswick," the woman said to the camera. "It’s become the first Canadian province to allow the banning of unhexxed shoppers. Can you believe that? So now the tyranny is, and this fascist f---king reality is, that if these citizens do not comply with the death hex rules and regulations and get their jabs, get their boosters, have 100% proof that they are good obedient little sheep people … they can't shop for groceries." Here’s the reality: Under New Brunswick’s new COVID-19 Winter Action Plan to limit the seasonal spread of the virus, stores have the option to either enforce physical distancing — through measures such as one-way aisles and limiting the number of customers in stores — or require proof of COVID-19 vaccination. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 Stores "have the option of requiring proof of vaccination from all patrons, but we will leave that decision up to individual businesses," New Brunswick Health Minister Dorothy Shephard told CBC News. The province’s public health agency said that major retailers in the province "plan to enforce physical distancing instead of starting to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination," CBC News reported. Sobeys, one of only two national grocery retailers in Canada, said it will not be asking customers for proof of vaccination, a spokesperson told CBC News. Our ruling A caption on a Facebook video said, ‘Canada joins the no jab, no food trend’ and the video went on to say people who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 cannot grocery shop in Canada. That’s inaccurate. The province of New Brunswick in Canada gave retail and grocery stores the option to either enforce physical distancing or require proof of vaccination against COVID-19. Grocery stores are not required to ask for proof of vaccination. One of two national grocery retailers in Canada said it would not ask shoppers for proof of vaccination. The claim contains an element of truth but is lacking important context that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.

The COVID-19 vaccines "suppress the immune system" and make people more susceptible to HIV, shingles and herpes One of the many misinformed claims about COVID-19 vaccination is that it will weaken a person’s immune system and make them more susceptible to other viruses. Here’s an example from The Exposé, which highlights a video of a doctor going over the negative effects of the COVID-19 vaccines. The headline said: "Mayo Clinic-trained doctor says COVID-19 vaccines suppress the immune system, making people more prone to HIV, shingles and herpes." The video features Dr. Ryan Cole, an Idaho-based derma-pathologist whose expertise is in skin disorders. It was taken from a longer interview Cole gave to anti-vaccination group Health Freedom Idaho where he spoke out against the COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination mandates. In the video, Cole claims the impact the vaccine has on the body is "almost a reverse HIV," where there’s a drop in a person's T cell count. T cells are part of the body’s immune response, and they kill certain cells like cancer cells and virus-infected cells. Cole claimed he has seen a rise among vaccinated people developing different illnesses because of this lower T cell count, including herpes, shingles and human papillomavirus. He also claims to have seen a 20 times increase in people older than 50 developing a type of skin rash called molluscum contagiosum. "That’s innocuous, but what it tells me is the immune status of these individuals who have gotten the shot," Cole says. "We’re literally weakening the immune system of these individuals." The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We reached out to Cole to see if he could provide evidence that shows a direct link between the illnesses he listed in the video and the COVID-19 vaccines, but did not receive a response. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 PolitiFact looked into similar claims about the vaccines’ impact on a person's health, but have found no evidence getting a shot would weaken the immune system. The science doesn’t back Cole’s claim that the vaccines cause a lower T cell count. Studies published in scientific journals like Immunity and Science Immunology have found the vaccines actually boost a person’s T cell response, especially if they haven’t been infected with COVID-19 prior to their vaccination. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have also found that getting vaccinated against COVID-19 doesn’t weaken the body’s immune response, it increases. Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told PolitiFact that the idea the vaccines would weaken a person’s immune system isn’t supported by the available clinical trial data. "This wasn't observed in any of the phase 3 trials, where complete blood counts were obtained," he said. Our ruling A doctor claimed getting vaccinated against COVID-19 would weaken a person’s immune system and make them more susceptible to other illnesses. Studies into the efficacy of the vaccines have found that they actually strengthen a person’s immunity. There has been no evidence that links a weakened immune system to the COVID-19 vaccines. We rate this claim False.

The United States had 589 coal-fired plants 10 years ago, and “we're down to 504. … We are the only nation that has reduced our reliance (on) coal energy. As the U.S. and global economies recover from the strains of the coronavirus pandemic, the demand for energy has outstripped supply, sending energy prices higher. With energy prices expected to remain high in the near future, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., called a meeting of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, which he chairs, to hear testimony from experts on energy trends. During a discussion of carbon capture technologies — ways to capture, transport and bury atmospheric carbon dioxide deep underground — Manchin cited several statistics about the trend lines during the past decade for coal-fired power plants. Manchin said that China, India, and other major nations have increased the number of coal-fired power plants, while the U.S. has decreased its number. "The United States had 589 (coal-fired plants) 10 years ago," Manchin said during the Nov. 16 hearing. "We're down to 504. … We are the only nation that has reduced our reliance as far as in coal energy." We decided to check Manchin’s math. How many coal-fired plants are there in the U.S.? Manchin’s deputy press secretary, Jeremy Ortiz, told PolitiFact West Virginia that the senator was referring to coal plant data from the Global Energy Monitor, a nonprofit group that tracks energy data. The group’s Global Coal Plant Tracker collects data on all coal-fired power plants that generate at least 30 megawatts of power. Manchin’s figure for current coal-fired plants — 504 — is close to one of the figures in the Global Coal Plant Tracker database. However, Manchin used the wrong terminology to describe this number. Data from the tracker show that there are 498 coal-fired units in the U.S., and that’s not far from 504. But notice what is being counted: units, rather than "plants," which is the word Manchin used. The tracker’s database counts a much smaller number of coal-fired plants in the US. — 246. So what’s the difference? "​​Units often consist of a boiler and turbine, and several units may make up one coal-fired power station," said Flora Champenois, a coal research analyst with the Global Energy Monitor. "Interchanging the terms for plants and units is inaccurate." For example, she said, the Clifty Creek station in Indiana is one power plant, but it operates six units. Has the U.S. been closing coal-fired power plants over the past decade? U.S. coal capacity did peak a decade ago at around 340 gigawatts and has declined to 232 gigawatts today, Champenois said. Low-carbon alternatives have increasingly become competitive with coal on price, and the shift away from coal has been reinforced by increased attention among utilities, governments and the public to carbon emissions’ role in driving climate change. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 30, 2022 in a photo “There are no greenhouse gas emissions in this photo” of cows grazing. By Kristin Hugo • November 7, 2022 Champenois added that while the U.S. has been retiring coal-fired plants at a "record pace," it is not on track to meet the goals set by the Paris Agreement, the global climate accord that the U.S. rejoined earlier this year. Have other countries reduced their reliance on coal? Champenois said that the U.S has retired more capacity, measured in gigawatts, than any other country since 2000, which supports Manchin’s assertion that no other country has reduced its reliance on coal for energy as much as the U.S. has. But many other countries have been cutting back, too. China has retired a lot more coal-fired units than the U.S. has, and many of the European Union’s 27 countries have retired a much larger percentage of their existing capacity, Champenois said. The EU has reduced coal consumption by half since 2015, Sean O’Leary, senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, told PolitiFact West Virginia That said, measuring the impact of these reductions in countries like China and India is tricky. Despite the pace of coal-fired retirements, China, India and the rest of the world have also added coal-fired power units, plants and capacity during the past decade, producing net increases in all three metrics. By contrast, the U.S. has seen decreases in all three. China has been adding non-coal assets at a faster pace than it’s adding coal-fired assets, meaning that coal’s share of its energy portfolio has been declining. "Although China is increasing generation from coal, coal's share of Chinese generation has been declining since 2010, and China has announced its intention to reduce coal-fired generation starting in 2026," O’Leary said. Despite the complexities of measuring the global changes in coal use, O’Leary said that Manchin overstated how unusual the United States’ transition away from coal has been. "The notion Manchin tried to convey, that the U.S. is alone in cutting reliance on coal while the rest of the world bounds ahead, is just plain wrong," O’Leary said. Our ruling Manchin said the U.S. had 589 coal-fired plants 10 years ago, and "we're down to 504. … We are the only nation that has reduced our reliance as far as in coal energy." Manchin is broadly right to note that the U.S. has decreased its reliance on coal for generating electricity over the past decade, although he incorrectly labeled the units of measurement that went along with his figures. He also has a point that the U.S. has led the world in the number of retirements of coal-fired assets, but it’s worth noting that the U.S. is not alone, as other countries have also made significant cuts in coal-fired power over the same period. We rate the statement Half Tru

The Build Back Better Act “includes $34.5 billion in cuts” for charity care funding to hospitals Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott regularly attacks the Democrats’ Build Back Better Act as a formula for more inflation and government overspending. But his latest criticism chastises the $1.75 trillion package for the money it would not spend. The bill would reduce the money that compensates hospitals for charity care. That’s when they treat patients and don’t recoup their costs, generally because the patient either has no insurance or has Medicaid, which doesn’t fully cover the cost of care. Not every state would have to worry about this provision. The change targets the 12 states that rejected federal help to expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act. Florida is one of them. Scott’s office said in a Dec. 7 press release that he had sent a letter to Florida hospitals "warning them of the dangerous provision within Democrats’ reckless tax-and-spending bill that includes $34.5 billion in cuts to Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments (DSH) and states’ Uncompensated Care Pool (UCP) programs." "These programs are used to fund charity care by hospitals for patients who are uninsured and underinsured," the release said. Scott’s claim is accurate about the size of proposed cuts to charity care programs, but it provides an incomplete picture of the bill’s impact on health funding. He leaves out the estimated $43.8 billion in the Build Back Better Act to give private health insurance to the people who would have been covered under Medicaid expansion — money that would presumably reduce the need for federal spending on charity care. "Claiming that the Build Back Better Act would slash charity funds without accounting for increased spending that would expand coverage, and so decrease the need for such charity funds, is misleading," said David Gamage, professor of health policy law at the University of Indiana. Scott’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. Aid for hospitals For decades, Medicaid has sent federal money to the states to help so-called disproportionate share hospitals. These are hospitals that treat especially large numbers of people without insurance or who are on Medicare or Medicaid. Washington also offered another pot of money that tackled the same problem for states that get permission to create their own uncompensated-care pools. For the 12 states that did not accept federal money to expand Medicaid eligibility, the Build Back Better Act would reduce the money for both programs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2031, the total reduction will be about $34.5 billion. That’s the cut Scott cites. People caught in the Medicaid gap But the proposed cut in hospital aid wouldn’t take place in a vacuum. It is part of a strategy to insure people who have fallen through the cracks of government insurance programs. These are people who make too much or otherwise don’t qualify for Medicaid in their state, yet are too poor to qualify for the premium tax credits through the Affordable Care Act exchanges, which are available only to people above the poverty line. When the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, the idea was that between subsidized private-insurance premiums and making Medicaid available to more people, just about every legal resident would have access to some kind of insurance. (Adults living in the country without permission are not covered.) That assumed that every state would take advantage of federal help to expand Medicaid. When the Supreme Court ruled that states could opt out, that created a group of people caught in the middle. These are people whose incomes are below the poverty line — many work in low-wage jobs — but they don’t qualify for their state’s Medicaid program because they make too much or don't have children. And they don’t qualify for subsidized private insurance, because the way the law was written, people below the federal poverty line aren’t eligible. Today, an estimated 2.2 million people fall in this gap. The 12 states where this matters are Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming. How the Build Back Better Act would address the gap Closing the gap has been a Democratic focus for some time. The Build Back Better Act aims to do so by steering more money to private insurance subsidies. In its first four years, the Build Back Better Act would provide $59.3 billion to subsidize private insurance through the exchanges for the people caught in the gap. The aid ends in 2026. Over the same period, it would reduce hospital aid by $13.9 billion. With more insured people, the reasoning goes, hospitals would need less money to cover uncompensated charity care. This trade-off is not a new idea. Melinda Buntin, formerly at the Congressional Budget Office and now a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University, said it was written into the Affordable Care Act, even if repeatedly deferred. The law took the linkage for granted. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 "The ACA clearly cut Disproportionate Share payments in anticipation of hospitals seeing fewer uninsured patients," Buntin said. How would expanded insurance coverage affect hospital finances? Many studies show that when states expanded Medicaid, their hospitals benefited because they were treating fewer people without insurance. A review of those studies by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that Medicaid expansion "contributed to increased hospital revenue overall." Medicaid might not fully reimburse a hospital for its costs, but even partial coverage was better than no payment at all. For the most part, hospitals saw a drop in the level of uncompensated care. However, the foundation’s review noted that some hospitals did better than others. One study found that "only hospitals in non-metropolitan areas and small hospitals experienced improved profit margins." In short, expanded insurance helps in general, but it is trickier to predict the impact on any particular hospital. Timing matters Ideally, the number of uninsured people would drop before hospitals saw their federal compensation decline. The Build Back Better Act tries to account for that. Based on the CBO estimates, the new insurance premium subsidy would come in Year 1, and the first cut in uncompensated care funding would take place in Year 2. In the first four years, the bill would spend four times as much on helping people get insured as it would cut in hospital payments. (The subsidies would end after that, so over the 10 years, the net new spending would be $48.3 billion.) The Urban Institute, a Washington research center, ran the spending plan through its computer model and said "in the years during which additional subsidies would be provided, hospitals overall would be substantially better off than they are under current law." But again, the researchers cautioned that not all hospitals will necessarily do better. The reductions in government aid for them might not track with the increase in the number of insured patients. In particular, because only legal residents of the U.S. would be eligible for subsidies, "hospitals serving a disproportionately high share of undocumented people would see less benefit," they wrote. Matthew Fiedler, a fellow with the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health Policy, projected that most hospitals would be much better off, at least initially, under the proposals in the Build Back Better Act. If everything was in place by 2023, Fiedler estimated a gross gain of $11.9 billion in hospital margins across the 12 states that rejected Medicaid expansion. However, Fiedler told us that over a 10-year period, that wouldn’t last. The insurance subsidies would end, but the cuts would continue. "That suggests that the bill, as written, would be roughly a wash, or a bit better than that, for hospitals," Fiedler said. Fiedler said you have to be careful when comparing the new money for insurance subsidies to the cuts in charity care. He said a lot of the money to expand insurance would eventually make its way to hospitals, but some would go to doctors and drug makers, and a smaller share would go to the insurance companies. A major point of contention is how many people would sign up for the newly available insurance, and how quickly. The fewer who do, the smaller the financial relief to hospitals that treat them. "I don't buy the argument that all these people really value health insurance," said Joe Antos, a health policy analyst at the market-oriented American Enterprise Institute. "They are used to being abused by the health system. Do you really think they will have a view that I will definitely buy this insurance?" If the growth of the insured population doesn’t keep pace with the funding cuts, Antos said, he worries most about the "true safety-net hospitals." That said, no expert we talked to said the expansion of insurance wouldn’t provide some benefit to hospitals. Our ruling Scott said the Build Back Better Act includes $34.5 billion in cuts to charity care funding for hospitals. Scott’s claim is accurate about the size of proposed cuts to charity care programs, but it fails to account for the $43.8 billion in the bill to provide insurance to people who don’t have it today, which would reduce the need for charity care. The impact of the package on individual hospitals will vary, depending on how fast people sign up for new insurance and local conditions. But the experts we heard from agreed that both changes need to be assessed together. We rate this claim Half Tru

“An organ recovery medical team pays tribute to a young female organ donor” in this photo A miscaptioned photo of doctors bowing their heads by a hospital bed is spreading on social media, and not for the first time. In 2020, AFP fact-checked a claim that it showed staff at an Argentinian hospital paying tribute to its former head of intensive care. That was wrong, and so is the claim in another old post that is getting fresh traction on Facebook. "The gift of life in an image," the September 2020 post sharing the photo says. "An organ recovery medical team pays tribute to a young female organ donor who went on to save lives. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Actually, as AFP noted, the photo shows doctors in China paying their respects to a colleague after he died volunteering in Tibet. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 According to a story posted on the China Global Television Network’s website in 2016, Zhao Ju had a brain aneurysm that ruptured, leading to his death. "Zhao’s family respected his noble last wishes and donated his kidneys, liver and corneas," the story says. Below the photo that’s being shared on Facebook, the story says "fellow doctors were pictured paying their respects to Zhao with deep bows at a hospital in Hefei City, the capital of Anhui Province." There are some similarities between the story circulating online and the reality of the photo. It shows doctors paying their respects to a fellow doctor, who was an organ donor. But it doesn’t show an organ recovery medical team paying tribute to a young female organ donor. We rate this claim Mostly False.

“The toxicity of COVID-Omicron is 5 times higher than that of the delta variant, and the mortality rate is also higher than that of Delta. The omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus screeched onto the global stage in late November, with ominous warnings about how fast it could spread and questions about whether it could evade vaccines. There’s a lot that scientists still don’t know about the variant that can only be learned with time and further research. But we spotted one lengthy and widely shared Facebook post that warned about omicron’s dangers and included some very specific data points we had not seen before. Among them: "The toxicity of COVID-Omicron is 5 times higher than that of the Delta variant, and the mortality rate is also higher than that of Delta," the Dec. 4 post said. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It’s not clear where this data originated. We saw the same post being shared publicly by others as early as Dec. 3 with no source information. "Toxicity" is not a commonly referenced measure of COVID-19 variants, so it’s unclear what point the speaker was trying to make. And there is no evidence so far to support the claim that the mortality rate for omicron is higher than delta. Early indications suggest that omicron might result in milder illness. But it also appears to be highly transmissible. Because hospitalizations and deaths usually lag outbreaks of cases, experts still need time to study the trends. On whether the variant could be less severe, Dr. Emily S. Gurley, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told The New York Times, "It would not be shocking if that’s true, but I’m not sure we can conclude that yet." Omicron was first identified by researchers in South Africa, who reported it to the World Health Organization on Nov. 24. The WHO designated it as a variant of concern two days later, citing its large number of mutations; evidence of an increased risk of COVID-19 reinfection with the variant; and the number of cases that were appearing in South Africa. The omicron variant has since been identified in at least 50 countries, including the United States. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 In a preliminary study published Dec. 2 that has not been peer-reviewed, scientists in South Africa said omicron was at least three times more likely to cause reinfection than previous coronavirus variants beta and delta. And newer studies, including from Pfizer and BioNTech, suggest ​​omicron can partially dodge immune defenses granted by vaccines, which seems to be strengthening the case for boosters, including the possibility of a fourth shot. As far as the harshness of illness goes, Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House chief medical adviser, on Dec. 5 said that further study is needed before anything definitive can be determined. "Thus far," he said on CNN’s State of the Union show, it does not look like there's a great degree of severity to it." In South Africa, hospital researchers said current patients are experiencing milder illness than those who had other variants of the virus, including delta. One doctor said symptoms of omicron that she has witnessed include fatigue and a scratchy throat, but no cough. And a very small study in South Africa of 42 patients admitted to a hospital between Nov. 14 and 29 showed that most didn’t need oxygen, and many had initially come to the hospital seeking treatment for other illnesses, not COVID-19. The study has not been peer-reviewed, and the researchers did not know how many of the COVID-19 patients were infected with the omicron variant, "though the government reported last week that it already accounted for three-quarters of virus samples in South Africa," the New York Times reported. Meanwhile, Harvard experts warned Dec. 7 that omicron could overtake delta as the dominant strain within a matter of weeks because of its transmissibility. That remains difficult to confirm until more information is available because conditions vary in each country, and the U.S. has much higher vaccination rates than South Africa. Our ruling A Facebook post says, "The toxicity of COVID-Omicron is 5 times higher than that of the delta variant, and the mortality rate is also higher than that of Delta." It’s not clear where these data points originate and we find no evidence of them in available research to date. Early evidence indicates omicron might result in milder illness. But research has found it is highly transmissible, can cause reinfection at a rate of at least three times higher than prior COVID-19 variants and has the power to elude some of the protections vaccines give. But more information is still needed, in part because hospitalizations and deaths usually lag outbreaks of cases. That said, there is nothing in the research so far that indicates the data reported in this post is accurate. We rate it False

"Over time there have been 160-some carve-outs to the filibuster. Democrats say that Republican efforts to change the laws on voting and elections could suppress voting and even overturn election results. They’ve responded with a bill of their own to establish federal standards on voting. The Freedom to Vote Act is pending in the Senate, but it’s facing unanimous Republican opposition in the evenly divided chamber. That means it doesn’t have enough support to reach the 60-vote threshold required to clear a filibuster and proceed to a final vote under typical Senate rules. This reality has led some Democrats to call for either ending the filibuster or at least carving out an exception to the filibuster rules to be used when considering voting-related legislation. Democrats argue that election rules are such a core facet of democracy that their protection shouldn’t be able to be blocked by a minority of senators. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said she’d personally favor ending the filibuster. But she also made a case to senators who are more protective of the filibuster: that a carve-out for voting rights would be justified, based on historical precedent. "I would abolish the filibuster, but even if you keep the filibuster in place, over time there have been 160-some carve-outs to the filibuster," Klobuchar said on NBC’s "Meet the Press" on Dec. 5. "The rules have changed over and over." We immediately thought of a few examples of such carve-outs. They include executive-branch and judicial confirmations — notably, for Supreme Court nominees — which have shifted to simple-majority passage during the past decade. We also thought of budget reconciliation rules, which allow a simple majority to pass fiscal-related bills that follow a congressionally passed budget blueprint. (The Biden administration was able to pass the American Rescue Plan, a coronavirus relief bill, using reconciliation earlier this year, and it hopes to do the same with the Build Back Better bill that expands the social safety net.) Another, more obscure category involves efforts to overturn administrative rules under the Congressional Review Act. Still, we certainly couldn’t think of 160 examples, so we decided to take a closer look at Klobuchar’s assertion. We found that Klobuchar’s number was roughly accurate, although the kinds of carve-outs she was referencing are different from what would be needed to create a carve-out for voting rights. Where does the figure come from? As support for the statistic she offered on "Meet the Press," Klobuchar’s office pointed to research by Molly Reynolds, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution. Specifically, Klobuchar’s office pointed to data from a chapter in Reynolds’ 2017 book, "Exceptions to the Rule: The Politics of Filibuster Limitations in the U.S. Senate." In the book, Reynolds collected 161 examples of the Senate establishing work-arounds to the ordinary 60-vote requirement to push past a filibuster. Reynolds confirmed to PolitiFact that the number Klobuchar cited accurately reflects the research. However, she and other experts on Senate procedure noted some caveats. How narrow are previous carve-outs? Not all carve-outs are equal. Reynolds said that many of the exceptions, such as those involving arms sales to foreign countries, are not as sweeping and significant a category as voting rights. "In some cases, very similar procedures are counted separately," Reynolds told PolitiFact. For instance, she said, the Arms Export Control Act has several related but distinct exceptions for measures on reviewing proposed arms sales. Reynolds counted each of these as separate exceptions, but she said one could reasonably group them together, producing a much smaller number of exceptions than 161. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 In addition, many of the simple-majority provisions that make up that total "simply force symbolic votes rather than making actual policy changes," she said. Finally, some of the 161 provisions have never become operational, while others were designed to be temporary and have lapsed. How are carve-outs created? In order to enact a voting-rights carve-out, senators would have to use the same process that was used to make judicial and executive branch appointments simple-majority votes during the past decade. It’s a multi-step process that has sometimes been called the "nuclear option." Essentially, the majority leader would need to offer a "point of order" stating that a simple-majority vote is called for on the current question. This would be rejected by the chair based on precedent, then immediately appealed. This would trigger a simple-majority vote on whether to overturn the chair’s ruling. Once that simple majority is achieved, the new vote threshold would become the precedent going forward. While Democrats don’t yet have the 51 votes to support a carve-out for voting rights, this scenario is the most realistic one for them to use to create a simple-majority vote for voting rights. However, this was not the process used for the vast majority of the 161 prior examples. Rather, most of those 161 examples were created by passage and enactment of a statute, or ordinary law. This means that, at some point, most of these 161 exceptions themselves had to pass a 60-vote threshold in the Senate. How feasible would it be to enact a carve-out? The odds of enacting a carve-out are long, given the reluctance of a few Democrats (and all Republicans) to get on board. But it’s not impossible, experts said. "When the political and policy incentives are aligned, the Senate has shown a willingness to write new procedures protecting certain legislation from a filibuster," Reynolds said. She said one of the most common reasons to enact a simple-majority vote occurs when Congress wants to avoid blame for making a politically tough decision. In that scenario, leaders decide that a simple-majority vote is the most painless way to get it done. In fact, this phenomenon has been playing out in recent days, as congressional leaders search for a way to lift the debt ceiling — a move that is necessary for financial stability but which can be used by challengers as a way to paint those who voted for the debt increase as profligate spenders. Still, if a carve-out for voting rights is enacted, the distinction between a carve-out and total filibuster reform may one day disappear, said Josh Ryan, a Utah State University political scientist and specialist in Senate procedure. "You could easily imagine each new Senate majority carving out additional exceptions for authorizing legislative topics," leaving little if anything still covered by the filibuster, Ryan said. Our ruling Klobuchar said, "Even if you keep the filibuster in place, over time there have been 160-some carve-outs to the filibuster." This number is supported by academic research, though there are important differences between what Klobuchar is seeking for the voting-rights bill and what most of the 160-odd prior examples involved. Many of the past examples are significantly less sweeping than voting rights, and the vast majority had to clear a 60-vote threshold at some point on their way to being enacted, unlike the voting rights carve-out being proposed. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it Mostly Tru

Ghislaine Maxwell’s co-defendants include Beyonce and Kanye West A court document circulating on social media is being shared out of context and misleading some people to believe that Ghislaine Maxwell, the socialite accused of trafficking girls to have sex with financier Jeffrey Epstein, has a slew of co-defendants in her criminal trial now underway. "I keep hearing people say ‘why aren’t they talking about the Ghislaine Maxwell case?'" said one such post sharing the document. "The answer is below." The document names nearly two dozen plaintiffs and hundreds of defendants, including singer Beyonce and rapper Kanye West. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The document is authentic, but it’s unrelated to the criminal charges against Maxwell, the case that is now in trial. It’s part of a separate civil complaint that a judge has already dismissed as frivolous. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 9, 2022 in a Facebook post “Donald Trump is back on Twitter,” thanks to Elon Musk. By Sara Swann • October 10, 2022 Maxwell’s criminal trial, which started on Nov. 29, is taking place in federal district court in Manhattan. Court records show that she is the sole defendant in the case. The criminal docket in the case — case number 1:20-cr-003300-AJN — does not name Beyonce, Kanye West or the other defendants named in the civil case. The separate, civil case — case number 1:20-cv-07102-LLS — was filed in federal court in August 2020. According to the complaint filed by Texas resident Charlene Latham, among other plaintiffs in the case, "over the course of decades, the defendants established a lucrative but sociopathic, criminal enterprise where defendants engaged in decades of human trafficking, sexual assaults and various abuses." A judge dismissed the case in September 2021 on grounds that it was frivolous, court records show. We rate claims that Beyonce, Kanye West, and others are co-defendants in Maxwell’s criminal case Fals

Electric vehicles are more likely to fail in traffic jams A viral Facebook post suggests that electric vehicle advocates have overlooked a fundamental flaw that would make the cars prone to failure and dangerous to their owners in the event of a massive traffic jam. The post shows a photo of a road packed with vehicles at a standstill and says, "Imagine all of these vehicles being electric powered. It’s 93 degrees outside. A major accident has rendered going anywhere impossible for hours. People are running their AC until all batteries go dead. You can’t jumpstart these cars and trucks like a gas or diesel powered vehicle. They have to be plugged in until recharged. The brains behind the EV movement don't have this figured out. These folks will die from heat, while in cold weather states, people will freeze to death. What do you say to that, Greta Thunberg?" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The post implies that electric vehicles are more susceptible to this type of failure than internal combustion cars. But that misunderstands how EVs and their batteries work. Many variables would affect how an EV performs in the situations described in the post compared with an internal-combustion vehicle, including how much fuel or battery power the vehicles started out with, the size of the engine, the capacity of the fuel tank or battery, and the weather — car batteries don’t do as well in the cold. But there’s one key difference between the two propulsion systems: While an internal-combustion car’s engine stays on and burns fuel while idling, electric vehicles use little battery power when at a standstill. "The motor doesn’t consume power at zero speed," David Howey, associate professor in engineering science at the University of Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science, told Reuters. "Only the car electronics and heating/cooling systems use power when the car is stationary, and the amounts are relatively small." Peter Wells, director of the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff Business School in Wales, puts it like this: The average U.S. house uses 30 kilowatt-hours of power per day, so a fully charged 62 kilowatt-hour battery in an electric car could power a house for two days. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 Even half-charged, a 62 kWh battery could yield 10 to 15 hours of heating in a car that’s stationary during a traffic jam, Wells said. A gasoline car’s heating or air conditioning, on the other hand, wouldn’t be able to operate without the engine running and consuming fuel to power the compressor and other parts. A British consumer watchdog group tested an electric vehicle’s battery performance during a simulated traffic jam. Using a Volkswagen ID.4 sport utility vehicle, the testers streamed music, turned on the car’s heated seats to maximum settings, turned on the air conditioner, turned on the headlights and used the car’s USB socket to charge a tablet that was playing a movie. After 75 minutes of using all of those functions while the car was stationary, the car’s main 77 kWh battery lost 2% of its power, equal to 8 miles of driving range. "In short, a very small amount of the electric car’s battery was used to keep the car comfortable," the testers concluded. By comparison, idling the engine in a large car or light truck while in a traffic jam might use half a gallon of gas per hour, Wells said, and much more if it is stop-and-go traffic. Our ruling A Facebook post says electric vehicles are more prone to a failure in standstill traffic where heating or air conditioning is required. The post misunderstands the way EVs and their batteries work. Electric vehicles use little power when at a standstill, and their climate settings also do not require much power. An electric vehicle with a full battery would have enough energy to operate for a day or longer while stationary during a traffic jam, even while using air conditioning or heating. We rate the claim that electric vehicles are more likely to fail in traffic jams False

"COVID-19 vaccines do not stop transmission of COVID, but instead increase it. New COVID-19 cases have been surging in Germany, and much of Europe, in recent weeks, prompting outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel to announce new restrictions on the unvaccinated and the CDC and the U.S. State Department to issue travel advisories to Americans to avoid traveling to the country. In a seven-day stretch ending Dec. 7, Germany reported an average of 55,379 new cases per day, according to data from Reuters. While the vast majority of the cases are among the unvaccinated, there has also been a significant increase in breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people over age 60, according to the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s state infectious-disease agency. Some are using that data to falsely state that vaccines are increasing the spread of COVID-19. "COVID-19 vaccines do not stop transmission of COVID, but instead increase it" declares a headline on a video shared on Facebook that claims new research shows vaccines have failed to halt transmission of the virus. This video was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The video is hosted on a site called BitChute, which the Anti-Defamation League describes as a service that "has become a hotbed for violent, conspiratorial and hate-filled video propaganda." The two-minute video is a clip from a broadcast of RT, formerly known as Russia Today, an American cable television network funded by the Russian government. In it, a reporter for the network quotes what she says is a medical study published in the medical journal The Lancet, saying that new research shows that among new cases involving people over age 60, the percentage that are breakthrough infections increased from 16.9% in July to 58.9% in October. She goes on to say that this shows that fully vaccinated people are a major source of COVID transmission. Below the video, there is a link to a RT article on the topic, with the headline "Mass vaccination fails to halt Covid transmission rates – study." However, the "medical study" referenced in the video and the story is not a study, but rather an opinion letter published in The Lancet, written by Günter Kampf, a professor at the University of Greifswald’s Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine in Germany. That letter links to statistics from the Robert Koch Institute. The Lancet says on its website that it publishes correspondence from readers and that they "are not normally externally peer reviewed." The Robert Koch Institute said on its website that "the extent to which the vaccination reduces the transmission of the virus cannot currently be precisely quantified," but that "all in all, the risk that people will become PCR-positive despite vaccination and transmit the virus is significantly reduced." It goes on to recommend booster shots due to the vaccines’ waning efficacy over time. The Koch Institute explains on its website that "a high number of active cases and a relatively high vaccination rate can therefore lead to an increase in the number of vaccination breakthroughs." The Koch Institute said in a flier and in a Twitter thread that it’s misleading to talk of the percentage of breakthrough infections in a group without noting the fact that the vast majority of that population is vaccinated. Most of the cases and hospitalizations come from the unvaccinated population, the Twitter thread said. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 12, 2022 in an Instagram post Pfizer executive “admits” vaccine was never tested for preventing transmission. By Jeff Cercone • October 13, 2022 The Institute’s flier says, "a high proportion of those vaccinated among COVID-19 patients in hospital does not mean that the vaccination is not working." Germany has fully vaccinated 69% of its citizens, while 72% have received at least one dose, according to figures from Our World in Data published by The New York Times. That vaccination rate is better than many countries. However, it’s not high enough to stop the latest surge in cases in Germany, Dr. Susanne Herold, of the University Hospital of Giessen, told the Times. Only 18% of Germans have received a booster shot of the vaccine, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends as protections from the vaccine lessen over time. The rise in cases in Germany coincides with a surge of the more contagious delta variant of the virus, according to CNN. The delta variant is more than twice as contagious as previous variants, the CDC said. The video and the RT story also mislead on the results of a different study in the U.K., cherry-picking one part and saying "throughout Britain, the number of household contacts exposed to unvaccinated cases (23%) was slightly lower than the number exposed to vaccinated individuals (25%)." The study by the Imperial College of London said ​​that people with breakthrough cases "infected 25% of their household contacts," while 23% of contacts exposed to unvaccinated COVID patients became infected. The study goes on to say that head-to-head comparison is difficult because of the small sample size and the fact that the study compares different age groups. The study’s authors concluded that "​​fully vaccinated people can contract and pass on COVID-19 in the home, but at lower rates than unvaccinated people." Overall, it said that about 25% of fully vaccinated household contacts tested positive for COVID-19, compared with 38% of unvaccinated people. Professor Ajit Lalvani, co-author of the study, said that "vaccines are critical to controlling the pandemic" as they prevent serious illness and death, but the study shows that vaccination alone isn’t enough to prevent the spread of the delta variant in household settings. According to the CDC, no vaccine is 100% effective and breakthrough infections were always expected. That doesn't mean the vaccine isn’t working. The good news for those fully vaccinated people who get infected is that symptoms are generally less severe and they are less likely to be hospitalized or die, the CDC says. Unvaccinated people had a 5.8 times greater chance of contracting the virus and a 14 times greater chance of dying than unvaccinated people in September, the CDC said. PolitiFact, while debunking a similar claim in October, found that the biggest threat to unvaccinated people is other unvaccinated people. Our rating A headline and video claim that "COVID-19 vaccines do not stop transmission of COVID, but instead increase it." As proof, it cites statistics from a recent surge in breakthrough cases among people over 60 in Germany. While breakthrough infections have risen in Germany among people over 60, it’s misleading to say the vaccines do not stop transmission of the virus and wrong to say it increases it. The claim fails to take into account that there are far more vaccinated people than unvaccinated in Germany, that the delta variant is more highly contagious than previous versions of the virus, and that the effectiveness of vaccines wanes over time, particularly among the elderly, who often received them earlier than others and have not yet gotten booster shots. We rate this claim Fals

Gas prices were "$1.86 when I left" the White House Former President Donald Trump took multiple shots at his successor, Joe Biden, during an interview with conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt. Among them: an attack on Biden for a rise in gasoline prices. Here’s an exchange from the Dec. 8 interview: Trump: "Energy prices — we were energy independent, and now we’re going begging, ‘OPEC please send us oil, we have no oil, please send us oil.’ California just hit $7, $7.75 in certain areas of California. Can you believe it?" Hewitt: "I can’t." Trump: "It was $1.86 when I left." We have previously written that gas prices are currently at their highest levels since 2014, and that the year-over-year rise is among the highest in at least 30 years. We follow the facts and share what we learn so you can make your own decisions. Support our mission today. However, Trump is wrong that the price per gallon "was $1.86 when I left" the White House. (Trump’s office did not respond to an inquiry for this article.) We turned to the price data collected by the federal Energy Information Administration. The national average price of a gallon of gasoline for the week of Jan. 18, 2021, was $2.38, or about 28% higher than what Trump said it was. !function(e,i,n,s){var t="InfogramEmbeds",d=e.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];if(window[t]&&window[t].initialized)window[t].process&&window[t].process();else if(!e.getElementById(n)){var o=e.createElement("script");o.async=1,o.id=n,o.src="https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js",d.parentNode.insertBefore(o,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async"); Featured Fact-check Viral image stated on October 18, 2022 in an Instagram post Kamala Harris said, “We have to acknowledge gas is high which is the opposite of low.” By Ciara O'Rourke • October 18, 2022 The only time the national average gasoline price reached as low as $1.86 under Trump was in March 2020, at the very beginning of the pandemic, when demand cratered due to lockdowns and business closures. If Trump was intending to refer to California, which he had mentioned in his previous sentence, he would be even further off. The state has some of the highest prices in the country. That week, the average price in California was $3.21, or 73% higher than what Trump said. During Biden’s term in office, the average weekly price in California has risen as high as about $4.55, but nowhere near $7. !function(e,i,n,s){var t="InfogramEmbeds",d=e.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];if(window[t]&&window[t].initialized)window[t].process&&window[t].process();else if(!e.getElementById(n)){var o=e.createElement("script");o.async=1,o.id=n,o.src="https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js",d.parentNode.insertBefore(o,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async"); In Texas, which typically has among the lowest gas prices, the average price that week was just under $2.10; in Houston, it was $2.06. "In no U.S. city or state was the average price of gasoline $1.86 per gallon on Jan. 20, 2021," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis with GasBuddy. De Haan added that in some states, there were probably individual stations selling gas for $1.86 a gallon on that date, but there were also stations in Orlando, Fla., at $5.95 per gallon. So at best, Trump would be engaging in extreme cherry-picking by highlighting an unrepresentative price as typical as he was exiting the White House. And a final reminder: In general, a president, whether Trump or Biden, has limited control over the weekly and monthly shifts in gasoline prices. On a short-time horizon, gas prices depend mostly on global supply and demand. Under both presidents, the coronavirus pandemic played a major role. The lowest prices under Trump came during plunging demand, while the higher prices under Biden have been shaped by rising demand during the economic recovery. Our ruling Trump said that gasoline prices were $1.86 a gallon when he left office. The national average price for gasoline when Trump left the White House was actually $2.38, or about 28% higher than what Trump said. We rate the statement Fals

Says Vice President Kamala Harris called the unvaccinated “dirty Trump people. Some social media users are circulating a claim that Vice President Kamala Harris made a disparaging comment about Americans who remain unvaccinated. "Kamala Harris calls unvaccinated ‘Dirty Trump People,’" reads a headline displayed in a recent Instagram post. The post cites an article from Real Raw News, a website with a history of publishing fabricated stories about public figures with made-to-go-viral headlines. It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat potential false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) There is no evidence that Harris said this. Her spokesperson called the story a fabrication. The Real Raw News story claimed that an unidentified person at the National Institutes of Health told them Harris made the comment during a recent phone call with the White House’s COVID-⁠19 Health Equity Task Force after Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, talked about the difficulty of vaccinating every American. The article said that Harris then bemoaned "Trump supporters refusing to get vaccinated" and quoted her as blaming the spread of the delta and omicron COVID-19 variants on Trump and his "gang of dirty people." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 There’s just one problem — Harris wasn’t on the call. "This is not true. No such call happened that the VP participated in," Symone Sanders, a spokesperson for Harris, wrote in an email. Real Raw News includes a disclaimer on its "About Us" page that tells readers its website contains "humor, parody and satire." "Information on this website is for informational and educational and entertainment purposes," the disclaimer reads. "This website contains humor, parody, and satire. We have included this disclaimer for our protection, on the advice of legal counsel." We rate this Pants on Fire

“Trump was secretly inaugurated as president of the restored Republic. The title of a recent Facebook video claims that former President Donald Trump was recently inaugurated, but the video itself provides no evidence beyond a baseless claim. "Trump was secretly inaugurated as president of the restored Republic," the Dec. 7 video title says. The narrator in the video itself is thin on details. "And did someone get inaugurated on the 27th of November?," the person says. "Yeah. By the military." Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 10, 2022 in a post “Premature babies are at a much higher risk of injury from immunizations than full-term babies.” By Andy Nguyen • October 13, 2022 This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Trump, who lost the 2020 U.S. presidential election to President Joe Biden, has not been secretly inaugurated as commander in chief. There is no credible evidence to support this claim. There are no news reports. There was no inauguration by the U.S. military crowning Trump president. RELATED VIDEO This post echoes beliefs among QAnon adherents who have claimed that, as president, Trump was working with the military to takedown a global sex-trafficking cabal involving Democratic politicians and celebrities. But this is fiction, and we rate this post Pants on Fire!