Paradise News

Category: Fact Check

  • COVID-19 Vaccines Save Lives, Are Not More Lethal Than COVID-19

    SciCheck Digest

    COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk of death from COVID-19. Social media posts have misused survey data and adverse events reports to falsely claim that COVID-19 vaccines have killed more people than COVID-19. But serious adverse events resulting from vaccination, including deaths, are rare.


    Full Story

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that more than 1.1 million Americans have died from COVID-19. COVID-19 vaccines have substantially reduced the risk of severe disease and death, according to multiple studies, even as more transmissible and immune-evasive variants have led to widespread infections.

    Meanwhile, the vaccines have a strong safety record and have only been linked to serious adverse events and deaths in rare cases. Studies of mortality after vaccination provide reassurance that COVID-19 vaccination does not increase a person’s risk of death.

    Despite these facts, anti-vaccine advocates continue to baselessly inflate the prevalence of deaths caused by COVID-19 vaccines, while also minimizing COVID-19 deaths. Most recently, posts have falsely claimed that more people have died from COVID-19 vaccines than from COVID-19.

    One popular post shared the headline of an article from a notorious spreader of misinformation called the People’s Voice, which falsely claimed: “New Study Reveals Covid mRNA Jabs Killed ‘3.5X More Americans Than Virus Itself.’” The People’s Voice has a history of sharing COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation.

    The article referenced a widely shared Substack post from Steve Kirsch, a former tech entrepreneur whose current enterprise is spreading vaccine misinformation online. Kirsch based this latest false claim about deaths from COVID-19 vaccines on a survey shared on his Substack, in which he asked readers how many people in their extended families they “believe” had been killed by COVID-19 vaccines, and compared that with the number readers said had died from COVID-19.

    A self-selected survey of readers of a specialty publication is an inappropriate method for assessing vaccine safety. It is not even an appropriate method for assessing public opinion, according to the American Association for Public Opinion Research. It sheds light only on the beliefs of people who saw the survey and were motivated to complete it.

    “I think we can’t put any validity to the survey itself,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told us. 

    He said the survey is not a population-based survey, meaning that it does not reflect the perceptions of the general population. Additionally, he said, respondents ”can claim whatever they choose to claim,” without validation of whether their claims are accurate.

    “It’s clearly erroneous and spurious and doesn’t in any way reflect reality,” Schaffner said of Kirsch’s claim that the COVID-19 vaccines have caused more deaths than COVID-19.

    “Kirsch’s survey has numerous limitations and flaws that prevent it from providing any real insight into actual USA death rates linked to COVID-19 or vaccines,” Jeffrey S. Morris, a biostatistician at the University of Pennsylvania, told us in an email. “It is not at all a valid scientific study.”

    Morris, who has previously written on his blog about Kirsch’s false claims about vaccine deaths, also pointed out that there’s no confirmation of the deaths reported in the latest survey, how they are connected to vaccination or COVID-19, “or even whether the individuals they refer to were in fact vaccinated or not, or infected or not.”

    Another widely shared social media post, from a supplement company associated with Dr. Peter McCullough, also made a false claim about vaccine deaths. “The C S Directly K*lled More Americans Than C Itself,” said the post, which also promoted an unproven and unnecessary “detoxification protocol” for vaccinated people. McCullough has a long history of spreading health misinformation.

    In the post, McCullough falsely claimed that COVID-19 deaths are “highly inflated” while also misusing data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System to vastly inflate COVID-19 vaccine-related deaths. VAERS, run by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration, is an early warning system used to identify potential vaccine safety concerns. It encourages unverified reports of any health issue that occurs after vaccination, whether the cause is known or not. McCullough’s VAERS claims follow common patterns of deception, including inappropriately assuming deaths are caused by vaccines and making exaggerated and baseless claims about underreporting.

    “He is misinterpreting and misusing VAERs in numerous ways that I have seen repeatedly done by him and others,” including Kirsch, Morris said.

    Furthermore, both Kirsch’s and McCullough’s conclusions are inconsistent with the other available evidence on vaccine safety. “Deaths that are directly caused by a COVID vaccine, they are vanishingly rare,” Schaffner said.

    We reached out to both Kirsch and McCullough with questions but did not receive a reply.

    Kirsch Survey Does Not Shed Light on Vaccine Safety 

    Morris said that Kirsch’s survey only reveals “the beliefs and perceptions of his followers,” noting that it is not surprising that the “survey responses would support the narrative he has been pushing since early summer 2021.” 

    Kirsch posted a link to his “reader” or “subscriber” survey in his Substack newsletter on Oct. 24, requesting “EVERYONE reading this” take it. Kirsch launched his newsletter two years ago and has been exposing readers to false or unsupported claims about deaths from COVID-19 vaccines ever since.

    Before getting to the questions on deaths, readers were asked: “When did you first figure out that vaccines were not safe?” According to survey responses posted by Kirsch, only nine people out of more than 10,000 respondents selected the option: “Still think vaccines are safe.”

    “This is highly selected subgroup with particular views of Covid and vaccines leading them to follow him, whose attitudes and beliefs are undoubtedly influenced by his myriad past claims about covid vaccine deaths (many of which have been explicitly debunked),” Morris said.

    According to his Substack post, Kirsch based his false claim that the vaccines have caused more deaths than COVID-19 on the first 9,620 survey responses. He tallied 804 deaths noted in response to the question, “How many people in your EXTENDED family DIED from the COVID virus?” He then prompted people to speculate, asking, “How many people in your EXTENDED family do you believe DIED from COVID vaccine?” In response to this question, people reported 2,830 deaths — around 3.5 times more deaths than were attributed to COVID-19.

    There’s no reason to believe these death tallies are accurate. “There’s no documentation,” Schaffner said. 

    Some people provided notes explaining their answers or expressing their concerns about vaccines. Many people shared personal stories of people who became ill and died at various points following vaccination, but this does not mean vaccination was responsible.

    “Some people who got vaccinated on Monday will die on Thursday, but that doesn’t mean that the vaccine on Monday caused the death on Thursday,” Schaffner said. Further studies need to be done “to try to distinguish coincidence from causality,” he said.

    Schaffner also pointed out there has been an emphasis on getting COVID-19 vaccines to older people, who also have an elevated likelihood of dying from unrelated causes. Kirsch did not systematically collect data on the ages of the people who allegedly died from COVID-19 vaccines.

    Some respondents presented other possible explanations for their family members’ deaths, including remdesivir (presumably given for COVID-19) or fentanyl overdose, but attributed the deaths to COVID-19 vaccination. And some respondents said that unvaccinated family members were killed or injured by vaccines due to “shedding,” a theory that is unsupported by evidence and lacks a plausible mechanism. 

    Kirsch invited fact-checkers to investigate the deaths of his readers’ family members, but he himself eschewed calling the over 10,000 readers and tracking down medical and death records on their many extended family members. Instead, he corroborated his claim with an anecdote about a man who said 15 of his friends “died suddenly” after vaccination.

    Data Contradict Claims of Mass Vaccine-Related Deaths

    The CDC and FDA have programs for monitoring vaccine safety, and researchers regularly share updates on vaccine safety based on data from these systems and other sources.

    It is clear that the vaccines have not led to mass deaths, contrary to Kirsch’s and McCullough’s claims. “The body of evidence suggests there is no increase in risk of death after covid vaccination, and if anything there is a decrease,” Morris said.

    “People receiving COVID-19 vaccines are less likely to die from COVID-19 and its complications and are at no greater risk of death from non-COVID causes, than unvaccinated people,” the CDC website says. “CDC scientists and partners have performed detailed assessments of deaths after COVID-19 vaccination and made the information available to healthcare providers and the public.”

    Photo by candy1812 / stock.adobe.com

    One of these monitoring systems, Vaccine Safety Datalink, gathers electronic health data from various health care organizations in the U.S. Researchers use this system to monitor for adverse events linked to vaccination and have not detected adverse events that could lead to the large number of deaths McCullough and Kirsch describe.

    Analyses of deaths after vaccination do not indicate any increased risk of death. For instance, a study using VSD data on people vaccinated or not vaccinated during the initial COVID-19 vaccine rollout, through June 2021, found that people who received the vaccines had a lower rate of death through August 2021 from non-COVID-19 causes than those who did not get vaccinated. 

    The authors of the study wrote that they did not think the large risk reduction they found could be entirely owing to “any real protective effect” of COVID-19 vaccines against non-COVID-19 death. They pointed out that people who believe they are near death may be less likely to get vaccinated, which could influence the results.

    However, the results are inconsistent with claims that the COVID-19 vaccines are causing mass deaths. “In the context of widespread suggestions on social media that COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe, it is reassuring that we found no evidence of any association of COVID-19 vaccination with increased risk of death,” the researchers wrote.

    Another system, commonly used deceptively by anti-vaccine groups, is VAERS. Anyone can submit an unverified report of a death or other health problem to VAERS. There are also requirements that health care providers file VAERS reports about deaths after vaccination, “even if it is unclear whether the vaccine was the cause,” the CDC explains on its website.

    “It’s like a giant vacuum cleaner,” Schaffner said of VAERS, explaining that it collects “anything that happens after vaccination,” or even sometimes reports of events that occurred before vaccination. “You cannot just count up things in VAERS and draw conclusions,” he said. “You have to do further studies.”

    The CDC and FDA review and investigate reports of adverse events and take action if needed. For instance, as we’ve previously written, the FDA temporarily stopped use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after six reports to VAERS of a very rare and sometimes fatal condition involving blood clotting and low platelets. The CDC later endorsed a “clinical preference” for giving other COVID-19 vaccines, and the FDA eventually limited the authorization of the vaccine — which was found to have caused nine deaths in the U.S. after 19 million doses administered — to adults who couldn’t or didn’t want to get another COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine is not currently available in the country, after the remaining supply expired.

    VAERS data do not indicate increased risk of death after COVID-19 vaccination. For instance, a study of deaths after COVID-19 vaccination reported to VAERS through November 2021 found that the rate of reported deaths was lower than the expected death rate in the general population. “These findings do not suggest an association between vaccination and overall increased mortality,” the authors wrote.

    But anti-vaccine advocates often incorrectly attribute all reports of deaths in VAERS to vaccines. The Instagram post quoting McCullough, for instance, said there were “18K VAERS daths” and then multiplied this by an “underreporting factor” to falsely claim there have been more than half a million U.S. COVID-19 vaccine deaths.

    The CDC indeed said there were around 18,000 preliminary reports of death after COVID-19 vaccination as of December 2022, according to a prior article by the Associated Press. But the social media post neglected to say that these reports were not verified and that VAERS deaths are not necessarily causally linked to vaccination.

    In fact, it is fully expected that people will coincidentally die after vaccination. “For example, in the USA if there are 2.8 million deaths per year, that means >7500 per day and 50,000 per week,” Morris said. “Thus, if vaccines were given to every USA resident at a random time and all events within a week of vaccination were reported to VAERs, we’d expect >7500 deaths within 1 day of vaccination to be reported to VAERS and 50k within 1 week. Thus, it is not surprising to see many reports of deaths to VAERs even if vaccines contributed to none of them.”

    McCullough then multiplied the number of preliminary reports of deaths by an “underreporting factor” of 30. As we have previously written, claiming underreporting is a common VAERS-related deception, and ad hoc estimates of an “underreporting factor” are scientifically unsound. The underreporting rate is not simple to determine, and there will be no single underreporting rate that applies to all types of adverse events or all vaccines.

    Morris said that it’s known that severe events like death are reported to VAERS at a higher rate than other adverse events, for instance, and that reporting rates are up for COVID-19 vaccines compared with other vaccines prior to the pandemic.

    Morris went on to explain that the U.K. Office of National Statistics was able to link national medical records to death rates and published the dataset. “These data clearly show death rate was lower, not higher, after vaccination,” he said.

    ONS does not adjust for people’s health problems, Morris said, limiting the ability to say there is a causal relationship between vaccination status and the lowered death rates. But again, the data run counter to claims of large numbers of deaths from vaccines.

    Individual studies using other sources of data, such as records on U.S. nursing home residents and national registries in the Netherlands, also have not found an elevated risk of death after COVID-19 vaccination. 

    “None of this rules out the possibility that there have been deaths related to vaccination,” Morris said, giving the example of the very small number of deaths causally linked to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. He added that “there are likely more, but there is no plausible way given existing data that claims like those of McCullough (and Kirsch) can be true.”

    Editor’s note: SciCheck’s articles providing accurate health information and correcting health misinformation are made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation.

    Sources

    “Trends in United States COVID-19 Hospitalizations, Deaths, Emergency Department (ED) Visits, and Test Positivity by Geographic Area.” CDC COVID-19 Data Tracker. Accessed 3 Nov 2023.

    “COVID-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Update.” CDC COVID-19 Data Tracker. Accessed 3 Nov 2023.

    Yandell, Kate. “No Evidence Excess Deaths Linked to Vaccines, Contrary to Claims Online.” FactCheck.org. 17 Apr 2023.

    “How safe are the vaccines?” FactCheck.org. Updated 17 May 2022.

    Xu, Stanley et al. “A Safety Study Evaluating Non-COVID-19 Mortality Risk Following COVID-19 Vaccination.” Vaccine. 20 Dec 2022.

    Xu, Stanley. “COVID-19 Vaccination and Non–COVID-19 Mortality Risk — Seven Integrated Health Care Organizations, United States, December 14, 2020–July 31, 2021.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 29 Oct 2021.

    Day, Brendan et al. “Reporting Rates for VAERS Death Reports Following COVID ‐19 Vaccination, December 14, 2020–November 17, 2021.” Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety. 22 Feb 2023.

    Tony Delgado (@tonydelgado). “We did it!!!” Instagram. 27 Oct 2023.

    Dmitry, Baxter. “New Study Reveals Covid mRNA Jabs Killed ‘3.5X More Americans Than Virus Itself.’” The People’s Voice. 26 Oct 2023.

    Yandell, Kate. “Ventilators Save Lives, Did Not Cause ‘Nearly All’ COVID-19 Deaths.” FactCheck.org. 1 Jun 2023.

    Yandell, Kate. “Posts Share Fake Chelsea Clinton Quote About Global Childhood Vaccination Effort.” FactCheck.org. 10 May 2023.

    Kirsch, Steve. “Vaccine” Killed 3.5X More Americans than COVID Did.” Steve Kirsch’s Newsletter, Substack. 26 Oct 2023.

    Kirsch, Steve. “About.” Steve Kirsch’s Newsletter, Substack. Accessed 3 Nov 2023.

    Ferguson, Cat. “This Tech Millionaire Went from Covid Trial Funder to Misinformation Superspreader.” MIT Technology Review. 5 Oct 2021.

    Kertscher, Tom. “Activist Misuses Federal Data to Make False Claim That Covid Vaccines Killed 676,000.” KFF Health News. 1 Sep 2023.

    Spencer, Saranac Hale. “False Claim About Cause of Autism Highlighted on Pennsylvania Senate Panel.” FactCheck.org. 21 Jul 2023.

    Spencer, Saranac Hale. “Blood Transfusion Doesn’t Transfer COVID-19 Vaccine.” FactCheck.org. 13 Dec. 2022.

    “Condemned Survey Practices.” American Association for Public Opinion Research website. Accessed 3 Nov 2023.

    Schaffner, William. Interview with FactCheck.org. 31 Oct 2023.

    Morris, Jeffrey S. Email to FactCheck.org. 2 Nov 2023.

    Morris, Jeffrey. “Do Pfizer Vaccines ‘Kill’ 2 People for Every 1 Saved? Evaluating Steve Kirsch Claims.” Covid Data Science. 28 Sep 2021. Updated 14 Oct 2021.

    The Wellness Company (@twc.health). “Dr. Peter McCullough, MD, MPH: The C S Directly K*lled More Americans Than C Itself…” Instagram. 31 Oct 2023.

    Yandell, Kate. “Posts Push Unproven ‘Spike Protein Detoxification’ Regimen.” FactCheck.org. 21 Sep 2023.

    Fichera, Angelo. “Flawed Report Fuels Erroneous Claims About COVID-19 Death Toll.” FactCheck.org. 2 Apr 2021.

    McDonald, Jessica. “What VAERS Can and Can’t Do, and How Anti-Vaccination Groups Habitually Misuse Its Data.” FactCheck.org. 6 Jun 2023.

    Kirsch, Steve. “Please take my 90 second reader survey!” Steve Kirsch’s Newsletter, Substack. 24 Oct 2023.

    Kirsch, Steve. “Welcome to my substack.” Steve Kirsch’s Newsletter, Substack. 30 Oct 2021.

    “Steve Kirsch Substack reader survey.” Airtable. Accessed 3 Nov 2023.

    “[Steve Kirsch Survey Results].” Airtable. Accessed 3 Nov 2023.

    Jaramillo, Catalina. “No Scientific Basis for Vaccine ‘Shedding’ Claims.” FactCheck.org. 11 May 2021.

    “How do we know vaccines are safe?” FactCheck.org. Updated 8 Jul 2021.

    “ACIP Meeting Slides Archive.” CDC website. Accessed 3 Nov 2023.

    “Selected Adverse Events Reported after COVID-19 Vaccination.” CDC website. Updated 12 Sep 2023.

    Robertson, Lori. “A Guide to Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 Vaccine.” FactCheck.org. Updated 17 May 2023.

    Goldin, Melissa. “Posts Mischaracterize CDC Data on COVID-19 Vaccine Deaths.” AP News. 11 Jan 2023.

    “Deaths by vaccination status, England.” Office for National Statistics website. 25 Aug 2023.

    Bardenheier, Barbara H. et al. “Adverse Events Following mRNA SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination among U.S. Nursing Home Residents.” Vaccine. 28 May 2021. 

    de Gier, Brechje et al. “Effect of COVID-19 Vaccination on Mortality by COVID-19 and on Mortality by Other Causes, the Netherlands, January 2021-January 2022.” Vaccine. 8 Jun 2023.

    Source

  • Fact Check: Photo does not depict US soldiers praying before being deployed to ‘defend Israel’

    A photo of people in camouflage uniforms kneeling over folding chairs, some with their hands raised in the air, is being shared amid the Israel-Hamas war. 

    “American soldiers praying for their country, for Israel before being deployed to defend Israel,” one Nov. 3 Facebook post of the photo said.

    This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    But this photo predates the current conflict in Israel. 

    In October 2017, a Facebook account posted the same picture and wrote, “Powerful image of U.S. soldiers praying together after a Chapel service in Fort Benning, Georgia.” 

    We reached out to Fort Moore, the U.S. Army training base in Georgia formerly known as Fort Benning, to ask about this description but didn’t immediately hear back. 

    The photo has been misused before. In 2022, some social media users shared it, saying it showed “Ukrainian soldiers praying.” 

    That wasn’t true, and neither is the suggestion that it shows American soldiers before they’re dispatched to the Middle East for the Israel-Hamas war. 

    We rate that claim False.

     



    Source

  • No Change in George Floyd’s Cause of Death, Despite Viral False Claims

    Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.

    Quick Take

    The police officer who kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes in 2020 was convicted of murder, and the medical examiner determined that police efforts to subdue Floyd caused his death. Nothing about the autopsy’s findings have changed, but social media posts falsely claim new documents show Floyd died of a drug overdose or natural causes.

    Full Story

    George Floyd, a Black man, was killed on May 25, 2020, after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeled on Floyd’s neck during an arrest in Minneapolis for about nine minutes while Floyd said repeatedly that he couldn’t breathe. The incident sparked protests and riots across the country.

    Chauvin was subsequently convicted of murdering Floyd.

    The county medical examiner who conducted the autopsy listed Floyd’s death as a homicide and determined that the cause was “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”

    This finding was highlighted in the first set of charges leveled against Chauvin in May 2020 and was explained in detail by the medical examiner, Dr. Andrew Baker, during Chauvin’s trial.

    “The top line of the cause of death is really what you think is the most important thing that precipitated the death. Other things that you think played a role in the death but were not direct causes get relegated to what’s known as the ‘other significant conditions’ part of the death certificate,” Baker said at the trial, explaining why Floyd’s other health conditions weren’t included in his cause of death.

    “So, the other significant conditions are things that played a role in the death, but didn’t directly cause the death,” Baker said. “So, for example, Mr. Floyd’s use of fentanyl did not cause the subdual or neck restraint; his heart disease did not cause the subdual or the neck restraint.”

    Nothing new has emerged in the medical examiner’s findings.

    But recently posts have been circulating on social media falsely claiming that new court documents show Floyd was not murdered and, instead, died of a drug overdose.

    Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson also posted a video to his X account on Oct. 20 in which he says, “George Floyd, according to the official autopsy, was not murdered. He died instead of what we used to call natural causes, which in his case would include decades of drug use, as well as the fatal concentration of fentanyl that was in his system on his final day.”

    That’s not true. Floyd’s autopsy report hasn’t changed. It shows Floyd had fentanyl in his system when he died, but determined his death was caused by action taken by police that resulted in cardiac arrest. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office confirmed to us in a phone interview on Nov. 3 that no changes have been made.

    Experts at Chauvin’s trial also said the evidence doesn’t support the idea that he had died of an overdose, as USA Today reported.

    Court Deposition Doesn’t Say Floyd Died of Overdose

    Misinformation pushers have been making claims similar to Carlson’s since a website highlighted statements that were recently made public in an unrelated court case.

    The website, called Alpha News, describes itself as an outlet focusing on Minnesota news that “mainstream media all too often refuses to report and routinely disregards.” It doesn’t disclose any kind of political affiliation, but the site was founded by Alex Kharam, who is the executive director of a nonprofit that “works to promote conservative ideals and free market principles.” The nonprofit had an associated political action committee that spent more than $250,000 since the 2016 election cycle to support conservative politicians in Minnesota, according to data from the Federal Election Commission.

    The person who wrote the story with the highlighted quotes, Liz Collin, published a book in October 2022 titled, “They’re Lying: The Media, The Left, and The Death of George Floyd.”

    In her Oct. 17 story, Collin cited depositions that were made public in a sex discrimination lawsuit that a former prosecutor had brought against the Hennepin County attorney who was in office at the time of Floyd’s death. The suit isn’t related to Chauvin’s case. But the prosecutor, Amy Sweasy, had worked on charging Chauvin early on, and some incidents in the county attorney’s office at the time came up in her deposition.

    Sweasy was clear in her deposition that she agreed with the decision to charge Chauvin in the death of Floyd, although she disagreed with the degree to which he should be charged and she did not support the decision to charge the other three officers who had assisted in Floyd’s arrest. Two of those officers have since pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter, and the third was found guilty on the same charge in a bench trial.

    In her letter resigning from the case in early June 2020, Sweasy wrote:

    “When I wrote and signed the complaint against Derek Chauvin, I believed in the charges and that there was sufficient admissible evidence to prove the elements of those crimes beyond reasonable doubt at trial; I still do. Unfortunately, the decision to add additional charges against former Officer Chauvin and to bring charges against the other involved officers is, in my opinion, clearly contrary to Rule 3.8(a). For this reason, I have resigned from this case and will have no further part of it.

    “What I am unable to do right now is prosecute three men for failing to act and speak up when they saw something going horribly wrong and then do the same by failing to speak up myself. Thank you.”

    Sweasy’s original complaint had charged Chauvin with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The final complaint added a third charge of second-degree murder, which is a higher level sometimes used for cases in which there was an intent to kill. A jury later found Chauvin guilty on all three charges.

    None of this was included in Collin’s story. Instead, that story quoted from a section of the deposition in which Sweasy recounted a phone conversation she said she had with the medical examiner on the day he performed Floyd’s autopsy.

    As Sweasy recalled in the deposition, “he told me that there were no medical findings that showed any injury to the vital structures of Mr. Floyd’s neck. There were no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation. He said to me, ‘Amy, what happens when the actual evidence doesn’t match up with the public narrative that everyone’s already decided on?’ And then he said, ‘This is the kind of case that ends careers.’”

    The issue of Floyd’s manner of death was not the subject of the deposition. Rather, lawyers were focused on who had mentioned the phrase about ending careers, since Sweasy is alleging that her former boss had threatened her career and failed to promote her. So, there was no further context or explanation in the deposition about Baker’s alleged statement to Sweasy.

    As we explained, when he completed the final autopsy report, the medical examiner had determined that Floyd died of cardiac arrest due to the neck restraint carried out by police. He did not determine that Floyd died of asphyxia or strangulation, so there’s nothing new that has been revealed.

    We reached out to Sweasy for further explanation, but, through her lawyers, she declined to comment. “Unfortunately, because the lawsuit is still pending, we cannot comment or explain testimony given,” her lawyer, Sonia Miller-Van Oort, told us in an email. “She may be able to provide clarifications to your questions in the future when the case is concluded.”

    The county medical examiner’s office referred us to the county spokeswoman, Carolyn Marinan, when we asked about Sweasy’s statement. “Dr. Baker cannot comment on statements made by other people in their depositions. He stands by the autopsy report and his televised testimony,” Marinan said.

    All that the deposition shows is that there was internal strife within the prosecutor’s office and disagreement about which charges to level against Chauvin, not whether he should be charged.

    And nothing at all has changed about the medical findings regarding Floyd’s cause of death.

    Sources

    PBS NewsHour (@PBSNewsHour). “WATCH: Derek Chauvin found guilty of murdering George Floyd.” YouTube. Apr 20 2021.

    WCCO | CBS News Minnesota (@WCCO). “Fowler is now speaking on #GeorgeFloyd’s death certificate, explaining the immediate and underlying causes of death.” X. 14 Apr 2021.

    MPR News (@MPR_News). “Chauvin trial: Medical examiner who ruled Floyd’s death a homicide takes the stand.” YouTube. 9 Apr 2021.

    Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office. Autopsy report: George Floyd. 26 May 2020.

    Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State. Business Record Details: Alpha News. Filed 19 Feb 2015.

    Department of the Treasury. Form 990: Freedom Club. 1 May 2023.

    Federal Election Commission. FREEDOM CLUB FEDERAL PAC. Accessed 2 Nov 2023.

    Minnesota District Court, Fourth Judicial District. Case no. 27-CV-22-16364. Amy Sweasy Tamburino v. Michael O. Freeman, Individually, and the County of Hennepin. 11 Oct 2023.

    Minnesota District Court, Fourth Judicial District. Case. no. 27-CR-20-12646. State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin. 29 May 2020.

    Minnesota District Court, Fourth Judicial District. Case. no. 27-CR-20-12646. State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin. 3 Jun 2020.

    Miller-Van Oort, Sonia. Lawyer for Amy Sweasy. Email to FactCheck.org. 3 Nov 2023.

    Marinan, Carolyn. Spokeswoman, Hennepin County. Text message to FactCheck.org. 3 Nov 2023.



    Source

  • Fact Check: Fact-checking DeSantis’ first TV ad about Israel evacuations, hurricane recovery and the border

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ first TV ad begins with a single premise: “While Biden fails, DeSantis leads.” In 30 seconds, it highlights the governor’s actions related to Israel, hurricane recovery and the southern U.S. border.

    A clip shows a reporter speaking to a camera. “The DeSantis administration has launched an evacuation,” she says before the scene flashes to footage of an explosion followed by a “breaking news” clip of a EuroAtlantic plane taxiing on a runway and people deboarding the plane.

    “Safely evacuated hundreds of stranded Americans out of Israel,” the ad’s narrator says. “After a catastrophic hurricane, they said it would take over six months. But DeSantis got people back in their homes and rebuilt bridges in just days. And DeSantis deployed troops to the southern border to stop the invasion.”

    We found that although DeSantis responded in each of these scenarios, the ad omits context about the federal government’s actions and responsibilities during these events.

    DeSantis arranged for flights out of Israel, but so did the State Department

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, candidate for the 2024 presidential nomination, Oct. 28, 2023, at an annual leadership meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas. (AP)

    DeSantis signed an executive order Oct. 12 allowing the state to evacuate Americans from Israel. Approximately 700 Americans have flown to Florida on four flights, according to an Oct. 24 statement by the governor’s office. 

    The Florida Division of Emergency Management told PolitiFact that the flights are expected to cost taxpayers approximately $32 million. The flights were free for passengers.

    The ad could create the impression that the Biden administration failed to evacuate Americans, but that’s not so. 

    The Biden administration offered 6,900 seats to Americans in Israel seeking to depart by air, land or sea. About 1,500 U.S. citizens and their family members departed using federal government transport through Oct. 31, a State Department spokesperson told PolitiFact. 

    Per longstanding federal law and policy, the government seeks reimbursement from citizens for the cost of transportation. We couldn’t ascertain how much the flight will cost those people. 

    Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Nov. 5 that over several days, the U.S. got more than 300 Americans from Gaza after the Rafah crossing opened into Egypt.

    Florida troops went to border, but impact on illegal immigration is unclear

    DeSantis twice sent Florida National Guard service members to the southern border during Biden’s presidency. But it’s unclear how those deployments have affected illegal immigration mitigation. 

    In May, the most recent deployment, DeSantis said he was sending 1,100 people to Texas — a mix of Florida National Guard soldiers and law enforcement officers. This came at Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s request, following the expiration of a public health policy that allowed border patrol agents to quickly deport migrants who crossed the southern border. 

    The Texas Military Department said Florida’s National Guard soldiers would work with its Texas counterparts. But the National Guard troops and state law enforcement officers’ roles are limited. States cannot enforce immigration law, only the federal government can. 

    The Tampa Bay Times reported in July that DeSantis had spent more than $3 million to send personnel to Texas. A Florida National Guard spokesperson told PolitiFact the Florida National Guard members are no longer in Texas. 

    Biden has also deployed thousands of National Guard soldiers to help immigration officials at the border with administrative tasks. At least 2,500 National Guard members are at the border now. 

    According to DeSantis’ May announcement, Florida National Guard troops patrolled the border and provided engineering support. 

    Local law enforcement can arrest people and charge them for trespassing, theft, drug trafficking or vandalism, the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors low immigration levels, wrote. They cannot deport people. 

    The ad says DeSantis “deployed troops to the southern border to stop the invasion.” But experts told us the word “invasion” doesn’t accurately describe what’s happening at the border where many immigrants turn themselves into Border Patrol agents to seek asylum.

    That is not behavior that you would typically attribute to an invader. Usually, the term invasion suggests people are forcibly entering another country to take it over.

    Bridge repairs have been funded by state and federal government

    A damaged causeway to Sanibel Island is seen Sept. 29, 2022, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian near Sanibel Island, Fla. (AP)

    Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in southwest Florida in September 2022.  It caused over 150 deaths and over $112 billion in damage, the costliest hurricane in Florida’s history, according to the National Hurricane Center. 

    Pine Island and Sanibel Island were cut off from the mainland because their points of access were impassable, a Florida Department of Transportation spokesperson told PolitiFact. Although Lee County owns both bridges, DeSantis directed the state to provide support. 

    Temporary emergency repairs were made in three days to provide access to Pine Island. Temporary repairs to the Sanibel causeway took 15 days. The state set up a basecamp on site and some employees lived on site as work continued around the clock. A video by the state shows the extensive damage and repairs.

    In March, DeSantis said the Sanibel causeway would be permanently repaired this year and cost $350 million. Permanent repairs to the Pine Island bridge will cost $25 million.

    The state initiated the emergency repairs with state funds and in 2023, the Florida Legislature allocated almost $52 million for Lee County for road and bridge work that the state said would not be covered by the federal government.

    A U.S. Department of Transportation spokesperson told PolitiFact the department made $111.5 million available to the state for road and bridge repair related to Hurricane Ian, including $50 million it announced weeks after the hurricane.

    PolitiFact Staff Writer Samantha Putterman contributed to this article.

    RELATED: More than 50 fact-checks of DeSantis

    RELATED: Immigration plans by Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis face obstacles

    RELATED: Experts say Ron DeSantis’ plan to send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border wouldn’t lower fentanyl flow



    Source

  • Fact Check: U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson is the 56th speaker of the House

     

    U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., was elected speaker of the House of Representatives on Oct. 25, becoming the 56th person to lead the chamber. 

    But some social media posts are claiming he’s actually the 45th speaker. 

    “45th speaker of the House!!” reads text in a TikTok video shared on Facebook. “Hear that!!! Omg!!”

    The video begins with a Fox News clip of Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., saying: “It is my great pleasure to introduce the 45th speaker of the House, my dear friend Mike Johnson.” 

    A woman in the TikTok video then says that Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was elected 52nd speaker of the House in 2007 as text from a Wikipedia post appears behind her.  

    “52nd, 45th,” the woman says. “We went backwards?” 

    Later, an X post appears in the video that says, “Mike Johnson being sworn in as the 45th speaker went over everyone’s head. People are wide asleep.” 

    The woman also suggests that former President Donald Trump, the 45th president, is somehow involved. 

    This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    The clip of Scalise is authentic, but he misspoke. That’s made clear in a transcript of his remarks shared on his website. 

    “It is my great privilege to introduce the (56th) Speaker of the House, my dear friend Mike Johnson, the speaker,” it says on the site.

    John McCormack, D-Mass., was the 45th speaker of the House from 1961 to 1971. 

    Pelosi served as the 52nd speaker of the House in the 110th and 111th Congress, from 2007 to 2011. After Republicans regained control of the chamber that year, then-Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, was elected as the 53rd speaker. He was succeeded by then-Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who was the 54th speaker. Pelosi was reelected to the position in 2017 and served for the 115th-117th Congresses before Republicans regained control and elected House speaker No. 55: Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

    He was ousted in October, clearing the way for Johnson. 

    We rate claims that Johnson is the 45th House speaker False.

     



    Source

  • Fact Check: No, Bill Gates didn’t write an article called ‘Depopulation Through Forced Vaccination’

    Microsoft Corp. co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has been regularly and erroneously linked to misinformation about supposed depopulation schemes. 

    We’ve previously debunked claims that he said “at least 3 billion people need to die” to mitigate climate change, that a photo showed a “Center for Global Population Reduction” at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation headquarters, and that he discussed using vaccines to control population growth during a 2010 TED Talk. 

    Now an image circulating on social media is being characterized as showing a 2011 newspaper that “contains an article by Bill Gates called ‘Depopulation Through Forced Vaccination.’ Gates believes this would be the most ‘environmentally friendly solution.’” 

    An Instagram post sharing this image was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    The image of the newspaper, The Sovereign Independent — which Reuters reports consisted of “opinion pieces about well-known conspiracy theories and has since folded — is authentic. It’s from June 2011. 

    But Gates didn’t author it. 

    Rachel Windeer did, according to the byline that’s not quite visible in the Instagram post. 

    We rate claims Gates wrote this False.

     



    Source

  • Fact Check: Video shows 2020 protesters invited into someone’s home, not 2023 rioters breaking in

    A video that shows people streaming up the stairs into someone’s home is being characterized in the comments of an Instagram post as “a scene right out of ‘Gangs of New York.’” 

    Except text above the video claims this shows “protests in Washington D.C.” on Oct. 28. 

    The protests were “hitting next level as rioters rush people’s houses,” the text says. 

    The Instagram post sharing this video was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    A couple of things are wrong here. 

    First, this video is from 2020 as demonstrators around the country protested the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. 

    Second, WUSA-TV, the Washington, D.C., CBS News affiliate, reported June 4, 2020, that protesters weren’t breaking into someone’s home — they were invited inside. 

    Rahul Dubey confirmed to the station that he welcomed dozens of protesters inside on June 1, 2020, to wait out a 7p.m. curfew.

    “If ‘Get in the house’ is not an indicator that one is welcome in a stranger’s home, I don’t know what else is,” Dubey said. “These were strangers, the invited guests, the community members and now we are family. I invited them in on Monday night, and they are welcome anytime.” 

    We rate claims this video shows rioters rushing people’s homes in Washington on Oct. 28, 2023, False.

     



    Source

  • Fact Check: Switzerland has distributed iodine tablets to residents for years, and not because of nuclear war

    A recent video shared on Facebook warns of “extremely disturbing information,” but the truth is much less sensational. 

    “The entire of country of Switzerland has received packages, mostly around the nuclear power plants,” a man says in the Oct. 25 video, recounting what he describes as a report from a subscriber. “There are 5 million Swiss that have received iodine tablets in the mail yesterday or actually today, the 25th of October 2023, so she says the government must be worried about something.”

    He then says that iodine tablets “are used for nuclear war” and asks if that’s a “good sign, 5 million people getting iodine tablets before the outbreak of nuclear war.” 

    This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    In reality, Switzerland distributes iodine pills every decade to residents living within 50 kilometers (31.1 miles) of one of the country’s three nuclear power plants. If a radiation emergency occurred at the plants, taking the pills would protect the people from thyroid cancer. (The iodine pills, technically potassium iodide, stops the thyroid gland from absorbing radioactive iodine that may leak from nuclear plants.)  

    “The campaign may seem like a Cold War relic to some,” Bloomberg News reported Oct. 28. “Newly arrived expatriates are often startled to be handed a voucher for their pills when they register at the town hall. But the idea is that sirens would sound in the event of a nuclear accident so that people could take a dose before any fallout reaches them.”

    This has been going on “for years,” Reuters reported in 2021. “In 2014, the last time Switzerland handed out iodine, it gave tablets to nearly 5 million people in 1.9 million households.”

    We rate claims that Switzerland is distributing iodine tablets to prepare for a looming nuclear war False.

     



    Source

  • Fact Check: It’s getting hot in here: the U.S. is warmer now than it was in 1936

    In the 1930s, the United States was plagued by extreme heat waves and drought, bringing about the era known as the Dust Bowl. But was that time significantly warmer than today’s climate, as social media posts claim?

    A Sept. 26 Facebook post said “1936: Much Hotter Than 2023,” with a photo of two U.S. maps depicting high temperatures across the country in 1936 and 2023.

    Red dots on the maps marked cities with temperatures over 100° Fahrenheit and purple dots marked cities with temperatures over 110° F. The 1936 map showed the U.S. covered in red and purple dots, whereas the 2023 map was more sparse, giving the impression that 1936 was the hotter year.

    (Screengrab from Facebook)

    This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

    The post did not name a source for the maps comparing U.S. temperatures in 1936 and 2023, so it is unclear how this data was collected or whether it’s accurate. Our reverse-image searches through Google Images, Yandex and Tineye could not help us determine where the image originated.

    Regardless, the post paints a misleading picture of the country’s climate 87 years ago as it compares with today.

    Summer 1936 was unusually warm, especially with arid conditions in the Great Plains and Midwest exacerbating the heat. Many of the high temperature records set that year in the region still hold today, the National Weather Service reported.

    However, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data shows that in the contiguous U.S., the first nine months of 2023 were 1.64°F warmer than January through September 1936. (An agency spokesperson said October data is still being reviewed.)

    Globally, summer 2023 was the hottest on record, NASA reported.

    Climate scientists say that the 1930s heat waves in the U.S. are often singled out to rebut the existence of global climate change.

    “In climate science, trend is the true indicator of climate change, not a particular cherry-picked year. Recent summers in the United States are some of the worst summers we have on record,” said Randall Cerveny, a geographical sciences professor at Arizona State University.

    There’s abundant evidence that the Earth is warming exponentially because of human-caused climate change.

    Heat waves, or persistent periods of unusually hot days, are becoming more frequent and intense in the U.S. and other parts of the world. 2023 has already broken several heat records, and climate scientists estimate that it will likely be the hottest on record globally.

    We rate the claim that 1936 in the U.S. was “much hotter than 2023” False.



    Source

  • Fact Check: Do Biden’s policies get the credit for the decline in inflation, as Kamala Harris said?

    Americans have soured on the economy, partly because of unusually high inflation under President Joe Biden. Vice President Kamala Harries tried to change that perception on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

    During an Oct. 29 interview, Harris said Biden came into office during the coronavirus pandemic, but “because of our economic policies, we now are reducing inflation.”

    Inflation is at 3.7% year over year, down significantly from its nearly 9% peak in June 2022.

    But how strong is Harris’ argument that this drop is “because of our economic policies”? That’s less certain.

    The White House gave PolitiFact no supporting evidence for cause and effect, but we checked with economists and found a few Biden policies that may have had some marginal disinflationary effect. 

    One is an oil sell-off from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That was designed to take the edge off oil price spikes, which helped push inflation higher in 2022’s first half. Today, the amount of oil in the reserve is 45% lower than it was when Biden came into office.

    Another contributor may be a law that took effect Jan. 1, 2023, capping insulin at $35 for Medicare beneficiaries.

    “I do not know how much these measures have actually reduced overall consumer price inflation, but they probably contributed modestly to lowering or limiting the rise of some consumer prices,” said Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution, a think tank.

    However, other elements of the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, are being phased in over several years and could not have had a significant impact during 2022 and 2023, when inflation was falling. Provisions such as enabling Medicare to negotiate prices for certain drugs or subsidizing clean energy may one day help keep prices down, but they will take time to apply.

    By contrast, the biggest lever in slowing inflation is something the White House does not control: the Federal Reserve Board. 

    The Fed acts independently of the executive branch.

    When the Fed raises interest rates, economic growth slows and demand cools, lowering prices. On March 16, 2022, the Fed’s main interest rate was 0.8%. Today it’s 5.33%, the highest in a decade and a half. The Fed’s rate increases have rippled throughout the economy. 

    By raising mortgage rates, those increases have “cratered the housing market,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the center-right American Action Forum think tank. And when the housing sector gets hit, he said, that reduces demand for a host of other things such as appliances and home furnishings. As a result, he said, “goods price inflation is almost gone.”

    Another factor in declining inflation is also out of any president’s control: oil prices, which have plunged since their summer 2022 peak.

    Biden has gotten “a real break on energy prices over the past year,” Holtz-Eakin said.

    Part of this relates to a major economic slowdown in China, which has reduced the demand for oil, lowering its price. Lower oil prices have led to lower commodity prices more generally around the globe, Holtz-Eakin said.

    Our ruling

    Harris said, “Because of our economic policies we now are reducing inflation.”

    Inflation has fallen since mid-2022 on Biden’s watch, and some of his policies may have helped marginally. But Harris drew a causal link between White House policies and lower inflation that doesn’t withstand scrutiny.

    Economists say the biggest reason for the disinflationary pattern has been something the administration doesn’t control: Federal Reserve rate hikes. An oil price decline and a slowdown in China’s economy, neither of which the administration can control, either, have also sent inflation lower, economists say.

    The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.



    Source