Abortion rights advocates and anti-abortion campaigns are spending millions in Ohio to persuade voters on Issue 1, a Nov. 7 ballot measure that could dictate abortion access’s future in the Buckeye State.
If passed, Issue 1 would amend the Ohio Constitution and enshrine the right to “make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions,” including decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, miscarriage care, pregnancy and abortion.
But in an ad shared on Facebook, the opposition campaign argued the measure permits abortion later in pregnancy for reasons having to do with a woman’s finances.
“Legal experts say Issue 1 allows for abortion after viability for mental, emotional and even financial reasons, not just to protect the life of the mother,” said a woman featured in the ad from Protect Women Ohio, a coalition of anti-abortion groups that oppose the amendment. “I’m pro-choice, but Issue 1 goes too far.”
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We found the ad’s claim about an exception for finances goes too far. The proposed amendment says nothing about financial considerations being used to justify abortions later in pregnancy — what anti-abortion groups often call “late-term” abortions.
Rather, the measure reiterates a standard similar to that applied under Roe v. Wade, the now-overturned 1973 Supreme Court decision that said abortion access was federally protected: that laws restricting abortion include exceptions for the mother’s “life or health.”
Legal experts told PolitiFact that the argument that “financial reasons” would be considered a part of “health” is a stretch and goes beyond existing case law.
Bringing back a standard near-identical to Roe’s
After Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, Ohio’s six-week abortion ban temporarily took effect before a judge paused it. The ban is pending review by the state’s Supreme Court.
Issue 1 would re-establish a near-identical standard to what existed under Roe, that “abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability” — the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb — except if “in the professional judgment of the pregnant patient’s treating physician it is necessary to protect the pregnant patient’s life or health.”
The ballot measure does not mention finances.
Protect Women Ohio argues that the term “health,” left undefined, is open to a broad interpretation. The group cited two 1970s Supreme Court cases that addressed whether the term “health” in abortion laws was “unconstitutionally vague.”
In both cases, the court ruled it was not vague. But along with a third opinion from 1995, the rulings described “health” more expansively.
“Medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the wellbeing of the patient,” 1973’s Doe v. Bolton decision says. “All these factors may relate to health. This allows the attending physician the room he needs to make his best medical judgment.”
This ruling “effectively made abortion legal through all nine months of pregnancy for almost any reason,” said Amy Natoce, press secretary for Protect Women Ohio. “Certainly finances are ‘relevant to the wellbeing of the patient,’ and you could argue they fall under the ‘familial health’ exception.”
Mary Ziegler, an abortion historian and law professor at University of California, Davis, told us anti-abortion groups have long argued about health exceptions for abortion, saying the term is too broad and essentially means a person can have the procedure for any reason.
But this interpretation differs from how most people, including physicians, have understood the term, she said.
Jessie Hill, a Case Western Reserve University law professor who is involved in litigation against Ohio’s abortion restrictions, said the Doe v. Bolton ruling comprises factors that may be involved in medical judgment, but doesn’t define “health.”
The case “simply held that a Georgia statute was not unconstitutionally vague,” Capital University constitutional law professor Dan Kobil said. “It did not hold that the Roe standard required such a broad definition,” citing a supporting opinion from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Post-viability abortions are rare and are therefore rarely litigated, Hill said.
Only about 1% of abortions take place after 21 weeks, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows. The Ohio Department of Health reports similar numbers.
None of the court cases or legal analysis Protect Women Ohio shared mentioned financial circumstances as something the court could, or has, considered as part of a mother’s health.
The legal experts we spoke with agreed that previous case law could be used to argue that “health” goes beyond the physical and into mental and emotional risks, but finances? That would be a challenging legal argument.
“I cannot imagine a court taking the term health and trying to distort it into an economic consideration,” Kobil said.
Our ruling
An ad from Protect Women Ohio claims that Issue 1 would allow for post-viability abortions for “financial reasons.”
The proposed constitutional amendment does not mention a post-viability abortion exception for financial reasons. And experts say existing legal precedent doesn’t support such an exception.
The law would allow abortion restrictions later in pregnancy, as long as there were exceptions for the “life” and “health” of the mother.
“Health” has been subject to more broad interpretations by the court than just physical health, but PolitiFact found no evidence that finances have been included in that broader understanding and experts said they find no clear precedent for that.
We rate this claim False.
PolitiFact Reporter Samantha Putterman contributed to this report.
Experts agree mammograms are the best tool to screen for breast cancer and that the benefits of the exam outweigh the risks. But a video in Spanish recommended that women over 40 skip mammograms, claiming the test is “unsafe” and “unnecessary.”
Full Story
Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women in the United States. About 300,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023, and about 43,000 women will die from the disease this year, according to estimates by the American Cancer Society.
Expert groups agree that mammograms, or X-ray images of the breasts, can prevent some breast cancer deaths. Even though they have limitations, as we’ve explained, mammograms are the most effective tool available for looking for signs of breast cancer before a person has any symptoms. Mammograms allow for early detection and early treatment for breast cancer, which can increase the chances of survival from the disease.
“Mammography is the only test that is proven to save lives,” Dr. Sarah M. Friedewald, chief of breast imaging and associate professor of radiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told us about breast cancer screening methods in a phone interview.
Both the American College of Radiology and the Society of Breast Imaging say mammograms can reduce breast cancer mortality if women with average risk for the disease begin getting annual mammograms at age 40.
In May, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of national experts in disease prevention, issued a draft of its updated guidance urging women at average risk of breast cancer to get a mammogram every other year between the ages of 40 and 74. Previously, the group had recommended women start biennial mammograms at age 50.
The guidelines do not pertain to higher-risk women, who usually are told to begin screening sooner than age 40. Other expert groups differ on exactly how frequent mammograms should be and when women should start, but there is broad consensus that regular mammograms are valuable for middle-aged to older women.
“A rigorous review of the most up-to-date, high-quality scientific evidence clearly shows that mammograms are beneficial and can help keep women from dying of breast cancer,” Dr. John B. Wong, a professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and a member of the task force, told us in an email.
Yet, in a viral video in Spanish, a woman claimed the benefits of mammograms do not outweigh the risks and recommends that women skip them, counter to the consensus in the medical community.
“There is scientific evidence that mammograms are unsafe, unnecessary, and create completely unnecessary risk and anxiety for any woman,” said Coco March in a Facebook Live video that is now unavailable, but had over 500,000 views in one day. Neither of the two articles she presented in the video as evidence back up her claims, as we will explain.
Mammograms use low and safe radiation doses. The American Cancer Society says a woman would typically get the same amount of radiation used in a mammogram from her natural surroundings in about seven weeks.
In her 17-minute-long video, March, who uses several social media accounts to promote natural products she sells online, advised women over 40 to avoid mammograms and instead prevent breast cancer by getting ultrasounds and taking vitamins and other supplements.
Ultrasounds, she incorrectly claimed, are “the most accurate exam you can get.” March has made misleading claims about mammograms and other health issues before. In the video, she incorrectly added that “studies have shown” that doing a breast self-exam “is much more accurate than mammography.”
Dr. Claudia Tellez, an oncologist working with Spanish-speaking patients at the Lurie Cancer Center Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, said March’s comments are “very dangerous and incorrect.”
“It’s been very well documented that the improvement in survival is correlated with mammogram technology, so to tell people not to do their mammograms is truly criminal,” Tellez told us in a phone interview.
Benefits of Mammograms Outweigh Risks
As we said, mammograms are not perfect. The exam has limitations, and it can have some risks.
One of the risks is that a mammogram result may look abnormal even if there is no cancer in the breast. A false-positive result can lead to anxiety and creates the need for further testing, which can cost time and money. According to the National Cancer Institute, 1 of every 10 women having a mammogram will have a false-positive result.
Mammograms can also show false-negative results, which is when the test misses a cancer. Data from the National Cancer Institute estimate 1 in 5 cancers are missed by mammography. This occurs more commonly in younger women, women with dense breast tissue and women who have specific kinds of cancers.
Mammograms can also find cancers that may not be dangerous. Overdiagnosis can lead to unneeded treatment, University of Illinois Cancer Center experts Dr. Pamela Ganschow and Yamilé Molina told us, because no available tests are very good at predicting “which breast cancers will or will not progress or become harmful.”
“Therefore, all women diagnosed with breast cancer currently need to undergo treatment,” they added.
One of the articles presented as “evidence” in March’s video highlights some of these potential risks to misleadingly claim mammograms are “harmful and should be avoided.” The 2015 article was written by a single researcher, a former leader of the Nordic Cochrane Center, who also opposes COVID-19 vaccination.
Wong, from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, told us that in the course of drafting its latest recommendation, the USPSTF carefully reviewed the potential harms and benefits of mammography.
“If you balance the potential harms of screening, including the minimal radiation exposure from mammograms, against the proven benefit of preventing people from dying of breast cancer, it’s clear that the benefits of mammograms outweigh the harms, which is why the USPSTF recommends all women begin getting mammograms when they turn 40,” he wrote.
Ultrasounds and Self-Exams Don’t Replace Mammograms
March incorrectly claimed ultrasounds are better breast cancer screening tools than mammograms. As evidence, she shared an small study published in 2009 that compared the accuracy of both technologies in about 550 women in Kosovo. But all the women already had breast cancer symptoms, meaning the exams were not used for screening purposes.
Ultrasounds and mammograms complement each other. Ultrasounds, which use high-frequency sound waves to create images of the inside of the breasts, can show things that are harder to see in a mammogram. For example, they can distinguish between fluid-filled cysts and solid masses, the latter of which are more likely to be cancers. But mammograms can also show abnormalities that an ultrasound could miss, such as a microcalcification — one of the earliest signs of breast cancer.
“They actually really work together. It’s very hard to interpret an ultrasound without having the mammogram,” Friedewald, the radiology professor at Northwestern University, told us.
Tellez, the Northwestern University oncologist, agreed. Ultrasounds are helpful in assessing things a mammogram is showing or to guide a biopsy, she said, “but not in replacing the mammogram.”
Friedewald said MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, is used as a supplemental screening for women with dense breast tissue. But this exam is not perfect either, as it can also miss some cancers and produce false-positives, according to the ACS. In its latest recommendation, the USPSTF says there is not enough evidence on the benefit of adding supplemental screening such as ultrasounds or MRI in women with dense breasts.
Studies do not show that self-examination is “much more accurate than mammography,” as March claimed, either. Although experts encourage women to be familiar with their breasts and to report any changes to a doctor, studies have not found a clear benefit from self-exams or breast exams made in a clinic, the ACS says.
Tellez said self-examination can be helpful, particularly if women learn how to do them well, but “it’s never a replacement” for getting regular mammograms.
Mammogram Screening in Hispanic and Latino Women
Social media posts that spread fear and misinformation about mammograms can be particularly dangerous for Hispanic and Latino women, Tellez told us. Cancer statistics show that Hispanic women have lower rates of breast cancer than women of other races or ethnicities. But Tellez said that when Hispanic women are diagnosed, they are usually at a more advanced stage of the disease.
That’s partly because, as with Black women, Hispanic women are more likely than non-Hispanic white women to develop triple-negative breast cancer, a fast-growing invasive breast cancer, she said. But also because of multiple barriers that make them less likely to get a mammogram, including language, access to health care, lack of time out of work, or fear of technology and radiation. Videos like March’s, Tellez said, feed into that fear and reinforce the false idea that it’s OK not to get a mammogram.
“So instead of cancer being diagnosed at stage zero or stage one, which are the cancers that are most highly curable, they’re presenting with stages two and three,” Tellez said.
Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among Hispanic women in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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.
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Breast Cancer: Screening. Draft Recommendation Statement. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. 9 May 2023.
Mammography. FDA. Updated 21 Sep 2023, accessed 31 Oct 2023.
What Is Breast Cancer Screening? CDC. Updated 25 Jul 2023, accessed 31 Oct 2023.
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Tellez, Claudia. Oncologist at Lurie Cancer Center Hispanic Breast Cancer Clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Phone interview. 31 Oct 2023.
Breast Cancer Screening (PDQ®)–Patient Version. National Cancer Institute. Updated 26 Jun 2023.
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The transcript of a deposition in a workplace retaliation and discrimination lawsuit has revived debunked claims that George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose, not from police restraint.
Floyd, 46, died in Minneapolis in May 2020 after a white police officer pinned his knee against Floyd’s neck for several minutes. Floyd was Black; his death became a flashpoint in the national discussion over police brutality and inspired widespread racial justice demonstrations. The officer was convicted of second-degree murder.
But now an Oct. 27 Instagram video falsely claims that a former Hennepin County, Minnesota, prosecutor’s August deposition in an unrelated case shows Floyd didn’t die from a homicide.
“So, it actually turns out, … that (officer) Derek Chauvin didn’t kill George Floyd,” the man in the video said. “It was either China or Mexico, because new court documents reveal that George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose and not from asphyxiation or strangulation.”
The man in the video cited a 2022 lawsuit filed by Amy Sweasy Tamburino, who goes by Sweasy professionally. The case accuses Hennepin County of violating settlement terms in a prior retaliation and discrimination case.
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(Screenshot from Instagram.)
This claim is unsubstantiated. Fentanyl was found in Floyd’s system, but two autopsies concluded that Floyd died by homicide, not a fentanyl overdose.
At Chauvin’s trial in April 2021, Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker testified that Floyd’s other conditions, including heart disease and drug use, were “contributing causes,” but “not direct causes” of Floyd’s death.
“I would still classify it as a homicide today,” he said.
Where do the claims originate?
The video clip is a truncated segment of an Oct. 24 episode of the “PBD Podcast,” which features actor and comedian Vincent Oshana.
In the episode, Oshana referred to a portion of Sweasy’s Aug. 21 deposition related to her November 2022 discrimination lawsuit.
“During her deposition, she discussed a conversation she had after George Floyd’s death when the Hennepin County Medical Examiner Dr. Andrew Baker spoke about the autopsy,” Oshana said in the episode, before he appeared to read a few quotes and paraphrased statements from the deposition.
Using Minnesota Court Records Online, PolitiFact found the 313-page rough-draft transcript of Sweasy’s deposition and the parts of Sweasy’s testimony that Oshana referred to. That transcript includes neither the words “fentanyl” nor “overdose.”
Sweasy said in her deposition that she called Baker on the Tuesday after Memorial Day — which would have been May 26, 2020, the day after George Floyd was killed — “to ask him if he would perform the autopsy on Mr. Floyd.”
Baker did the autopsy, Sweasy said, and then called her later that Tuesday. This was Sweasy’s recollection of the conversation, according to the deposition transcript:
“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 Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s preliminary findings, which were cited in the criminal complaint charging Chauvin, echoed the language Sweasy recounted, but did not conclude that Floyd died of an overdose.
“The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation,” read the complaint, which said the full autopsy report was pending. “Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. The combined efforts of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.”
Carolyn Marinan, a Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office spokesperson, said Baker “cannot comment on statements made by other people in their depositions. He stands by the autopsy report and his televised testimony, both of which are publicly available,” she said.
Expert testimony and autopsy reports rebut overdose claims
Two autopsy reports — Baker’s and one Floyd’s family ordered — concluded Floyd’s death was a homicide. Neither autopsy said a fentanyl overdose caused his death.
The two doctors who conducted a private, independent autopsy for Floyd’s family found that Floyd died of asphyxia, or oxygen deprivation, and ruled his death a homicide.
Baker’s June 2020 autopsy report said Floyd’s death was a homicide, but cited a different cause: “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”
Floyd “experienced a cardiopulmonary arrest while being restrained by law enforcement officer(s),” the report said. It listed arteriosclerotic and hypertensive heart disease, fentanyl intoxication and recent methamphetamine use as “other significant conditions” in the autopsy findings.
Baker testified during Chauvin’s April 2021 trial that his opinion of what caused Floyd’s death “remains unchanged.”
One court exhibit included notes about a conversation in which Baker told prosecutors that the fentanyl found in Floyd’s system was higher than what would be expected for a chronic pain patient.
“If he were found dead at home alone and no other apparent causes, this could be acceptable to call an OD,” the exhibit read. Then, according to the notes, Baker said: “I am not saying this killed him.”
Baker repeated this during Chauvin’s trial: “Had Mr. Floyd been home, alone in his locked residence with no evidence of trauma, and the only autopsy finding was that fentanyl level, then yes I would certify his death as due to fentanyl toxicity.”
But “interpretation of drug concentrations is very context dependent,” Baker said, before reiterating that he ruled the death a homicide.
During Chauvin’s trial, other experts who testified said Floyd died of asphyxia or a lack of oxygen and rebutted claims that Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose.
In April 2021, a jury found Chauvin guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. He was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison.
Our ruling
An Instagram video claimed that “new court documents reveal that George Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose.”
Fentanyl was found in Floyd’s system, but two autopsy reports found that Floyd’s death was a homicide, not a fentanyl overdose. A deposition transcript revealed no new information that would prove Floyd died of a fentanyl overdose.
We rate this claim False.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.
RELATED: No, autopsy doesn’t say George Floyd died of overdose
RELATED: Two autopsies found George Floyd’s death was a homicide
“Potato chips, Kit Kat bars and Viagra are not taxed in Wisconsin because they are considered ‘essential.’ But, what about tampons and pads for those who menstruate? Menstrual products are necessities, not luxuries.”
Agard, D-Madison, has introduced numerous bills that try to expand menstrual product access, including ones to remove sales tax from menstrual products and provide free products in public buildings across the state.
In a 2021 press release when Agard introduced the menstrual product tax exemption legislation, she argued that tampons and pads shouldn’t be taxed because they’re a necessity for people who menstruate and essential items should be more affordable.
So, is Agard right in her claim about chips, Viagra and KitKats?
Let’s break this one into pieces.
Candy versus cookie
When it comes to Wisconsin sales tax, a number of products are exempt, with the primary example being food.
Under the tax code, all food is exempt from the sales tax, unless it’s considered “candy,” “soft drinks” or “prepared food.”
So, that’s a clear yes on potato chips, whether barbecue, jalapeño or flamin’ hot. They are considered food and therefore exempt from sales tax.
But a KitKat bar is candy, right? The tax code says no.
That’s because of one ingredient — flour.
Section Tax 11.51 defines candy as “a preparation of sugar, honey, or other natural or artificial sweetener combined with chocolate, fruit, nuts, or other ingredients or flavorings in the form of bars, drops or pieces.”
That means that even though Kit Kats come in bars made with sugar and chocolate, the flour used in the wafer means it’s not considered candy. Indeed, the tax code specifically mentions KitKats and defines them as cookies.
There are other foods most people would consider candy such as cotton candy, Pixie Sticks and Twix Bars that individuals might disagree on. But because those items contain flour or don’t come in bars, drops or pieces, they aren’t considered candy.
Prescription drugs are sold tax-free
Meanwhile, the senator’s tweet also mentions Viagra as a tax-exempt item, using it to argue a disparity in the taxation of products used by men versus women.
Agard is on point there, because Viagra is a prescription drug and prescription drugs aren’t taxed.
Our ruling
Agard said, “Potato chips, Kit Kat bars and Viagra are not taxed in Wisconsin because they are considered essential.”
Indeed, each item is tax-exempt in Wisconsin – potato chips and KitKats fall under the food exemption, while Viagra is exempt as a prescription drug.
If a student group voices support for a foreign terrorist organization, is it breaking the law?
That’s what Gov. Ron DeSantis argued after Florida banned Students for Justice in Palestine from operating chapters on the state’s college campuses.
“You have a right to go out and demonstrate, but you can’t provide material support to terrorism,” DeSantis said Oct. 29 on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They’ve linked themselves to Hamas. And so, we absolutely decertify them. They should not get one red cent of taxpayer dollars.”
DeSantis said it’s “not a First Amendment issue,” because of the state’s laws on terrorism and fundraising.
Host Kristen Welker clarified that DeSantis was citing the Florida law that says people cannot give material aid or resources to a terrorist organization. “Do you have any support that they’re actually doing that?” she asked.
DeSantis responded that, “in their own words,” they’re part of the Hamas organization. He was referring to a statement by the group’s national body after Hamas’ surprise Oct. 7 assault on Israel.
The U.S. State Department designated Hamas, an armed Palestinian militant group, as terrorists in 1997. The European Union and other Western countries also deem Hamas a terrorist organization.
Legal experts were dubious of DeSantis’ argument that written or vocal support for Hamas’ actions in Israel amounts to a violation of Florida’s anti-terrorism laws.
PolitiFact wanted to learn more about what the group said, how it could relate to Florida law and what legal precedent could inform the debate.
What the group said
On Oct. 12, five days after the Hamas attacks, Students for Justice in Palestine compiled a “Day of Resistance toolkit” with advice and tips campus chapters could use to host protests in support of Palestinians.
The toolkit referred to Hamas’ attack on Israel as “the resistance” and, in a section about framing discussions about the conflict, stated that “Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.”
“This is a moment of mobilization for all Palestinians. We must act as part of this movement. All of our efforts continue the work and resistance of Palestinians on the ground,” it said.
This language spurred DeSantis to close chapters of the group on university campuses. This affected chapters at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida.
“It is a felony under Florida law to ‘knowingly provide material support … to a designated foreign terrorist organization,” State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues wrote in an Oct. 24 letter to state university presidents, citing the national group’s toolkit.
Students for Justice in Palestine violated Florida law when it “affirmatively identified it is part of the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood — a terrorist led attack,” Rodrigues wrote.
The “deactivation” leaves room for the two chapters to form another organization decoupled from the national group.
Members of the University of Florida’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter called the order “disgraceful.”
“Governor DeSantis continues to disrespect American values such as freedom of speech to extend his political power. To bend the law in this manner shows the utmost disrespect not only to any pro-Palestinian organization, but also to anyone who truly cares for political freedom and freedom of speech,” members wrote in a statement.
The University of South Florida’s chapter had not released a statement.
What the Florida terrorism law says
The Florida statute in question, 775.3, says that any person who provides “material support or resources” to a foreign terrorist group or who “attempts or conspires to do so” is committing a first-degree felony.
The statute offers a broad definition for “material support or resources.” It includes “any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel or transportation.”
How experts say it could infringe on First Amendment rights
First Amendment and constitutional law experts said that absent more evidence of unlawful intent or direct interaction with Hamas, the statute doesn’t appear to apply to Students for Justice in Palestine’s statement.
“If the only reason to deactivate the SJP organization was based on the organization’s public statements supporting Hamas, then the state has engaged in content- and viewpoint-based discrimination against the student group,” Jane Bambauer, a University of Florida law professor, wrote in an email. “The material support statute does not and cannot convert what would otherwise constitute protected speech into unprotected conduct unless the statements are part of a coordinated campaign with a terrorist organization.”
Bambauer said the statements looked crafted to distance the national group from Hamas by emphasizing that the student organization is part of a larger movement.
The national organization did not respond to a request for comment.
Lyrissa Lidsky, the Raymond & Miriam Ehrlich Chair in U.S. Constitutional Law at the University of Florida, argued for free speech in a column for The Independent Alligator, the student newspaper.
“Universities cannot exclude student groups from the forums they have established simply because the universities find the students’ speech distasteful. Indeed, a core principle of the First Amendment is that government actors may not ban speech simply because the speech is offensive, hateful or even because it advocates violence,” Lidsky wrote.
She pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court addressed this in the 2010 case Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. The nonprofit organization wanted to train designated terrorist groups about international law and negotiation strategy to help them use peaceful and lawful means to resolve grievances, she wrote.
A federal statute after which the Florida law is modeled defined material support for terrorism to include such training. The nonprofit challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, and the Supreme Court ruled in the group’s favor.
The court held that the First Amendment allowed the federal government to criminalize such training if it was “coordinated with, or at the direction of” a foreign terrorist organization, but the terrorism law didn’t prohibit independent advocacy or expression about terrorist groups.
“In other words,” Lidsky wrote, “the court drew an important distinction between independently spreading propaganda supporting a terrorist group and coordinating with a terrorist group to help it get its message out.”
Brian Hauss, senior staff attorney for ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, told us that the First Amendment also prohibits DeSantis from disbanding, or otherwise punishing, local chapters merely because of their affiliation with the national chapter.
“The Supreme Court held in Healy v. James that student groups cannot be censored merely because of their affiliation with disfavored organizations,” Hauss wrote in an email.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that fights antisemitism, told Inside Higher Ed there could be a separate obstacle for such groups, however: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He said universities that allow speech that embodies support for terrorist organizations could violate that law, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin.
Are Republicans threatening to stop spending federal money to end one of the world’s most pressing public health epidemics? That’s what President Joe Biden said during a dinner hosted by an LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
“In the United States Congress, extreme MAGA Republicans are trying to undo virtually every bit of progress we’ve made,” Biden said Oct. 14 at the Human Rights Campaign event. “They’re trying to wipe out federal funding to end the HIV epidemic.”
Programs to treat HIV and fight its spread have enjoyed bipartisan funding support in recent years, experts said, so Biden’s portrayal signals a significant departure.
When we asked the White House what Biden was referring to, it pointed us to reports of budget recommendations from House Republicans that call for large cuts to the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, a Trump administration-era program designed to reduce new HIV infections in the U.S., as well as other programs.
The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a separate spending plan. The recommendations will be subject to negotiation as the House and Senate face a Nov. 17 deadline to pass another spending bill.
We found that although Republicans are recommending significant cuts to HIV prevention efforts across a number of public health agencies, the proposal keeps core funding intact. Meanwhile, political differences are eroding bipartisan support for global HIV-prevention funding.
Despite great strides in prevention and treatment since HIV was first reported in the U.S. in the 1980s, HIV remains at epidemic levels in the U.S. today, with approximately 1.2 million people living with HIV and around 30,000 to 35,000 new infections each year. Experts said cases are rising in the South and in rural areas, and new infection statistics show it is disproportionately affecting Black and Hispanic communities.
What are the proposed cuts?
AIDS Budget & Appropriations Coalition, a group of more than 100 public health advocacy organizations that track changes in HIV-related federal spending, said a majority of the proposed cuts to domestic HIV funding stem from House Republicans’ effort to eliminate the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative.
The program started in 2019 with the goal of reducing new HIV infections in the U.S. by 75% by 2025 and 90% by 2030. The program so far worked regionally, targeting areas that have the highest rates of HIV cases for funding.
In 2023, about $573 million was allocated for the program across various agencies, according to KFF’s funding tracker.
$220 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
$165 million to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program. (It was named for a 13-year-old diagnosed with HIV in 1984 and is overseen by the Health Resources and Services Administration.)
$5 million to the Indian Health Service.
$26 million to the National Institutes of Health for research.
$157.3 million to community health centers, which treated around 200,000 HIV patients annually.
The program lags its goals as it approaches the 2025 benchmark. “It’s well designed, well planned, it has targets that makes sense,” said Jeffrey Sturchio, a lead researcher on a Center for Strategic and International Studies report.
Sturchio said the problem is not a fault of design, but funding, adding, “Congress has never fully funded the initiative.”
Sturchio pointed to a range of local and state “bureaucratic hurdles.” Jurisdictions that have pulled together sufficient resources have seen “tremendous progress,” he said, and overall indicators seem to be moving in the right direction.
But COVID-19 reduced HIV testing and may have diverted public health efforts, CDC administrators said. PolitiFact partner KFF Health News reported in April that stakeholders saw progress but worried that it won’t be enough to make the 2030 deadline.
Democrats appear to share this concern. The spending bill proposed by the Democratic-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee maintained or slightly increased funding levels to all HIV-related programs. The committee requested more data about the program, describing its “lack of quantifiable data showing outcomes.”
The House has not yet passed the bill out of committee. We know of some proposed cuts from the bill, which the Republican-led House Appropriations Subcommittee released in July.
It outlines a $1.6 billion cut to the CDC, including a $220 million reduction in “HIV/AIDS, viral hepatitis, sexually transmitted diseases, and tuberculosis prevention” and a $238.5 million cut from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program. The Ryan White program provides medical care and support services to low-income HIV patients and serves more than half of those diagnosed in the U.S.
The bill also proposes cutting funding to the Minority HIV/AIDS fund by more than half — from $60 million to $28 million. According to hiv.gov, the fund supports prevention and care projects targeting disparities that affect communities of color.
Additional details about how these cuts could affect programs are detailed in a committee report that has not been made public. PolitiFact and some advocacy organizations obtained copies of the report, but the House Appropriations committee did not respond to our questions about it. The report we saw recommended cutting all funding for the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative.
And House Democrats, advocacy organizations and PolitiFact’s partners at KFF Health News, have each reported that the Ryan White program and CDC cuts result from a plan to eliminate the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative.
“If they cut funding, it’s going to have a dramatic and draconian impact on the ability of all of the people who are working in these jurisdictions to improve public health,” said Sturchio, the researcher.
Although the cuts would be dramatic, experts said that they would not eliminate all domestic HIV funding.
“There is certainly a demonstration and a commitment to some of the core HIV programs, but there are millions of dollars of proposed cuts in other areas,” said Lindsey Dawson, associate director for HIV policy at KFF, a policy research center. “These cuts would have a meaningful impact on the ability of programs to provide life-saving interventions for both HIV care and treatment, as well as prevention.”
The cuts would mean a 16%cut to the CDC’s division of STD prevention, a 9% cut to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program, and a 53% cut to the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund from fiscal year 2023 to 2024.
These funding cuts are only proposals. They require a vote from the full appropriations committee, would have to pass the House, and be negotiated with a Democratic-controlled Senate.
“We’ve heard for a long time that HIV is a bipartisan issue. But what some people forget, is that that bipartisanship was hard fought for over the first decade of the HIV epidemic,” said Dawson.
Other challenges to HIV/AIDS spending
The U.S. commitment to global HIV prevention, meanwhile, is also under scrutiny. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., challenged reauthorizing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR, without first making some changes. Started in 2003 by President George W. Bush, the program distributes funds in more than 50 countries for HIV testing, prevention, treatment and medications. It also strengthens healthcare systems to fight AIDS.
Funding for the program has grown over the past 20 years, totaling more than $110 billion. The program reported 25 million lives saved by medical intervention.
Smith, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Global Health, has expressed concerns that money is being given to nongovernmental organizations that support abortion-rights and access.
U.S. law prohibits the direct use of overseas funding to provide abortions or lobby for access to abortions. This has been the case since 1973. However, organizations that receive U.S. funding can do so with their own non-U.S. funding.
An official from the U.S. State Department, which runs the program, confirmed to PolitiFact that PEPFAR is legally restricted from funding abortion or lobbying for abortion access; the official cited the training of staff and partners and the monitoring of procedures to ensure compliance.
Other anti-abortion groups have favored a “Mexico City Policy,” which has required foreign nongovernmental organizations to certify that they would not perform or promote abortion with funds from any source to be eligible for U.S. government funding. Trump applied the policy to PEPFAR, but Biden rescinded it.
The failure to reauthorize PEPFAR would not eliminate the program, and Congress can continue to fund the program without reauthorization, but it could cause some provisions to lapse over the next few years.
The lack of a reauthorization would have significant symbolic impact, said Kellie Moss, KFF’s associate director of global health and HIV policy. “It could make the program more vulnerable during funding discussions without a clear signal of bipartisan support.”
Although reauthorization is being held up, funding has progressed. On Sept. 28, the House passed a State Department and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, which would fund PEPFAR for another year but implement a Mexico City-like policy provision on all global health funding. This bill would also extend the lapsing provisions for another year.
Our ruling
Biden said that Republicans in Congress are “trying to wipe out federal funding to end the HIV epidemic.”
A subcommittee of House Republicans have proposed cutting some HIV prevention programs anywhere from 53% to 9% in fiscal 2024, depending on the program.
A committee’s draft report cited by advocacy and policy groups shows these cuts stem from the elimination of the Trump-era Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative, although the committee did not respond to our questions about that.
Taken together, these cuts would not eliminate — or “wipe out” — all federal domestic HIV spending, but they do represent a significant cut.
Meanwhile, the House has not moved ahead to reauthorize PEPFAR, which supplies U.S. dollars for global HIV prevention, over Republican concerns about where organizations that receive the money stand on abortion access. But the House has passed one year of PEPFAR funding with some conditions about how it is distributed, which it can do without reauthorizing the program.
Biden’s statement is partially accurate in that significant funding cuts have been proposed by House Republicans, but he exaggerates by saying these efforts would “wipe out” federal funding.
We rate this claim Half True.
KFF Health News Reporter Sam Whitehead contributed to this report.
As with many medical products, the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines may contain trace amounts of residual DNA from the manufacturing process. It is not considered adulteration, and the Food and Drug Administration is not “required” to pull the vaccines from the market, contrary to viral claims online.
How do we know vaccines are safe?
How do we know vaccines are safe?
No vaccine or medical product is 100% safe, but the safety of vaccines is ensured via rigorous testing in clinical trials prior to authorization or approval, followed by continued safety monitoring once the vaccine is rolled out to the public to detect potential rare side effects. In addition, the Food and Drug Administration inspects vaccine production facilities and reviews manufacturing protocols to make sure vaccine doses are of high-quality and free of contaminants.
One key vaccine safety surveillance program is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, which is an early warning system run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FDA. As its website explains, VAERS “is not designed to detect if a vaccine caused an adverse event, but it can identify unusual or unexpected patterns of reporting that might indicate possible safety problems requiring a closer look.”
Anyone can submit a report to VAERS for any health problem that occurs after an immunization. There is no screening or vetting of the report and no attempt to determine if the vaccine was responsible for the problem. The information is still valuable because it’s a way of being quickly alerted to a potential safety issue with a vaccine, which can then be followed-up by government scientists.
Another monitoring system is the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink, which uses electronic health data from nine health care organizations in the U.S. to identify adverse events related to vaccination in near real time.
In the case of the COVID-19 vaccines, randomized controlled trials involving tens of thousands of people, which were reviewed by multiple groups of experts, revealed no serious safety issues and showed that the benefits outweigh the risks.
The CDC and FDA vaccine safety monitoring systems, which were expanded for the COVID-19 vaccines and also include a new smartphone-based reporting tool called v-safe, have subsequently identified only a few, very rare adverse events.
For more, see “How safe are the vaccines?”
Link to this
Full Story
When vaccines such as the mRNA COVID-19 shots are mass-produced, bits of DNA from the manufacturing process are sometimes left over in very small amounts. This residual DNA is expected and regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.
Recently, some people have claimed that the residual DNA in some mRNA COVID-19 vaccine vials is above the regulatory limit — and that some of the short sequences could be harmful and cause cancer if they integrated into a person’s genome. But as we have written, there isn’t reliable evidence that the residual DNA in the vaccines is too high, nor is there evidence that the DNA integrates, much less that it causes cancer or any other health problem.
Still, some individuals have continued to press the issue, making new false or unsupported legal claims related to the alleged “contamination.”
“You can now sue the mRNA COVID vaccine manufacturers for damages and the FDA is required to take the COVID vaccines off the market,” a post on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, incorrectly stated on Oct. 21. “Why? Adulteration. The plasmid bioactive contaminant sequences were NOT pointed out to the regulatory authorities. It’s considered adulteration.”
The author of the tweet, Steve Kirsch, is a tech entrepreneur and a prolific spreader of COVID-19 misinformation. His post was shared widely in screenshots on Instagram. Others echoed Kirsch’s statements in their own posts.
Legal experts and the FDA say the claims are wrong.
“The claim that the FDA is required to take any of the authorized or approved mRNA COVID-19 vaccines off the market is false,” the agency told us in an email. “With over a billion doses of the mRNA vaccines administered, no safety concerns related to the sequence of, or amount of, residual DNA have been identified.”
“[T]here’s no merit whatsoever to these claims,” Villanova University law professor Ana Santos Rutschman, who specializes in vaccine law and policy, told us.
No Evidence of ‘Adulteration’
Kirsch’s central claim is that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are adulterated, or contaminated, with the template DNA used to make large amounts of the mRNA, which is the active ingredient in the vaccines. (He has incorrectly referred to this as “plasma contamination.”)
Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines used a circular piece of DNA called a plasmid for this purpose in the early part of the manufacturing process. This is standard practice for many pharmaceuticals, and steps are taken to chew up and then remove the vast majority of this DNA. After purification, however, small amounts of these DNA fragments may still exist. There isn’t evidence that the residual DNA is harmful, and regulators require quality control checks to make sure it is under a certain limit. Such residual DNA is not considered contamination.
As we’ve explained before, some individuals claim to have tested vaccine vials and found levels of residual DNA that are above regulatory limits. But these unpublished analyses have been criticized, and regulators around the world have said they have not found anything concerning.
Kirsch has also referred to “SV40 contamination” and claimed that the vaccines are adulterated because “the manufacturers didn’t tell the FDA about the SV40 promoter.” SV40, or simian virus 40, is a monkey virus that can cause cancer in some animals, but has not been shown to cause cancer in humans. The virus is not present in either vaccine, but the Pfizer plasmid does contain some short sequences from the virus, which are not infectious and not known to cause cancer or to be harmful.
Neither Pfizer nor the FDA would tell us what Pfizer shared with the agency about its plasmid. But according to statements from other regulators, Pfizer provided the full plasmid sequence — from which anyone could have identified the SV40 components — but did not specifically note that it contained SV40 elements.
“While the full DNA sequence of the plasmid starting material was provided in the initial marketing authorisation application for Comirnaty, the applicant did not specifically highlight the SV40 sequence, as it was considered to be a non-functional part of the plasmid,” the European Medicines Agency, which helps regulate medical products in the European Union, told us in an email, referring to the brand name of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. “They have since clarified this information in response to questions raised by EMA.”
The issue over what exactly was disclosed came to the fore when the Epoch Times, a conservative media outlet that frequently spreads COVID-19 misinformation, reported that Health Canada, Canada’s version of the FDA, said that Pfizer had provided the plasmid sequence but had not pointed out the SV40 sequence.
According to the outlet’s Oct. 19 story, Health Canada said in a statement that it “expects sponsors to identify any biologically functional DNA sequences within a plasmid (such as an SV40 enhancer) at the time of submission.” The agency, however, was adamant that this was not a safety concern and nothing had changed about its risk-benefit assessment for the vaccine.
Health Canada told us in an email that the “SV40 promoter enhancer sequence was found to be a residual DNA fragment in Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine,” but that the “fragment is inactive, has no functional role, and was measured to be consistently below the limit required by Health Canada and other international regulators.” It iterated that this was not a safety concern.
Legal experts told us Kirsch’s claims of adulteration were bogus.
“[A]dulteration is a violation that occurs when you add something to an FDA-regulated product that’s injurious to human health,” Rutschman, the Villanova vaccine law expert, said. But nothing, she said, “suggests there’s harm to human health; so there was nothing that qualifies as ‘contamination’ or ‘adulteration’ here.”
She added that there are other types of adulteration, which perhaps Kirsch was also invoking. We reached out to Kirsch to clarify but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
One type occurs when a drug is not manufactured according to current good manufacturing practices. This type of adulteration does not require that there be potential harm to human health. Another occurs when a drug is misbranded or mislabeled.
Rutschman said that regardless of the definition, none of the claims about adulteration “would survive in court.”
Incorrect Claim About Liability
Kirsch claims that people “can now sue the mRNA COVID vaccine manufacturers for damages” for the alleged DNA contamination. Legal experts, however, disagree.
First, as we said, there isn’t evidence that any of the residual DNA — which is expected — is contamination, let alone that it has caused harm. But beyond that, the liability protections for the COVID-19 vaccines are somewhat unique, and the requirements for suing a manufacturer are high.
Most vaccines are covered under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which provides a way for people who believe they have been harmed by a vaccine to be compensated without having to go to court. People can still sue, however, for contamination or other manufacturing defects, as long as they first go through the NVICP system.
The COVID-19 vaccines, however, are covered under a different law — the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness, or PREP, Act — with a separate compensation program. While the compensation program is similar, the law, which pertains to certain medical products used during a pandemic, does not allow individuals to sue a manufacturer unless someone died or had a serious injury caused by “willful misconduct.”
The government describes “willful misconduct” as “misconduct that is greater than any form of recklessness or negligence.”
“Failure to disclose without recklessness is not likely to meet that very, very demanding standard,” University of California Law San Francisco professor Dorit Reiss told us in an email. Moreover, she added, someone cannot sue a manufacturer if the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services didn’t take an enforcement action against the company — and the FDA has not done so in this case.
In support of his claim, Kirsch has cited a Michigan case involving a man who suffered strokes after being given remdesivir, a COVID-19 antiviral drug, that was contaminated with glass particles. Like the COVID-19 vaccines, remdesivir is covered under the PREP Act, and in August, a judge in the case ruled for the first time that a drug maker is not immune to liability under the PREP Act — because in this case, the product was contaminated with glass.
Kirsch has argued that the Michigan case is relevant to allegations of contamination with the COVID-19 vaccines. But several factors make that case different. “In the Michigan case, the product was recalled because of the glass, and the judge found that it substantially deviated from approval – as supported by recall,” Reiss said. “That’s not the case here.”
No ‘Requirement’ for Market Removal
Even if some of Kirsch’s claims about contamination had merit, he’s wrong that the FDA would necessarily have to remove the vaccine from the market.
Photo by JHVEPhoto/stock.adobe.com.
“FDA has discretion on whether a problem is serious enough to justify recall. It’s usually done in collaboration with the manufacturer – in fact, it’s generally initiated by them,” Reiss said.
Rutschman further explained that it’s manufacturers that initiate recalls, even if the FDA is involved in requesting the recall. “The FDA merely sends a formal letter requesting the recall … and establishing a recall strategy,” she said. “If this doesn’t work, the FDA can ask a court for a seizure or an injunction; in this case, technically the order to seize the product (or otherwise stop commercializing) comes from the court, not from the FDA.”
Reiss noted that in this case, the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers have not acknowledged a quality control issue. “A group of anti-vaccine activists with no real expertise claim one,” she said. “That’s, well, not evidence.”
Moreover, even in a case in which a potentially suspect contaminant is found, it does not mean the FDA must remove the product from the market. For instance, as Reiss told PolitiFact, researchers identified DNA from a pig virus in GSK’s rotavirus vaccine in 2010 using a highly sensitive test. The FDA told doctors not to use the vaccine for a few months as the issue was investigated, but no safety concerns were found. The vaccine remains on the market today.
In another case similar to the current allegations, some people claimed in 2011 that there were DNA fragments of recombinant human papillomavirus, or HPV, in Gardasil, Merck’s HPV vaccine. The FDA explained that the vaccine does contain such fragments — as expected — from the manufacturing process, but they are “not contaminants” and “not a safety factor.”
The European Medicines Agency similarly determined that the DNA fragments in Gardasil did “not represent a case of contamination and is not considered to be a risk to vaccine recipients,” noting that many medical products contain such residual DNA.
It is rare for a vaccine to be recalled. In 2013, Merck recalled a single lot of Gardasil for possible contamination with glass particles. And in 2007, the company recalled 1.2 million doses of its Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine, after routine testing identified a certain kind of bacteria on vaccine manufacturing equipment. In both cases, there was no indication that anyone was harmed.
Kate Yandell contributed reporting for this article.
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.
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Rutschman, Ana Santos. Professor of Law, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. Emails to FactCheck.org. 27 and 29 Oct 2023.
Pfizer spokesperson. Email to FactCheck.org. 27 Oct 2023.
European Medicines Agency. Email to FactCheck.org. 23 Oct 2023.
Horwood, Matthew. “EXCLUSIVE: Health Canada Confirms Undisclosed Presence of DNA Sequence in Pfizer Shot.” Epoch Times. 19 Oct 2023.
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As one of the most commonly noticed consumer prices, gasoline costs shape many consumers’ perceptions of inflation and the broader economy.
In an Oct. 23 post on X, formerly Twitter, West Virginia state Senate candidate Chris Rose, a Republican, sought to leverage voter concern about prices at the pump into support for a pro-energy agenda that would benefit his state.
“West Virginia coal, oil, and gas will lead the way to America being energy dominant again; we just need to get the government out of the way. #WVEnergy #wvpol,” Rose posted.
Attached to the post was a graph showing how gasoline prices have fluctuated since President Joe Biden entered office in January 2021. The graph’s texth said, “Gas prices up 63% in just 31 months under Biden administration.”
Gas prices have increased on Biden’s watch, but by the time Rose posted, they had risen by less than 63% compared with when he entered office.
Rose did not respond to inquiries for this article. He is running in Senate District 2, which includes parts of Wetzel, Marion, and Monongalia counties. Republican Charlie Clements holds the seat now.
To vet the amount of the increase on Biden’s watch, we examined weekly gasoline price data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a federal agency.
During Biden’s first week in office, the national average retail gasoline price was $2.39 per gallon. When Rose tweeted, the price had risen to $3.53. That’s an increase of just under 48%, not 63%.
Once we found the chart’s source, we found an explanation.
It came from a blog post from the Media Research Center, a group critical of what it considers liberal media bias. The identical gasoline price graph was one of several included in the post, which was titled, “Bidenomics: Five Charts the Media Don’t Want You to See.”
The blog post was originally published Aug. 30, when the most recent weekly national average price was $3.87. That would represent an increase of almost 62%, which is close to what the chart said.
The problem for the accuracy of Rose’s Oct. 23 post is that the chart’s data was from Aug. 30 — and between those dates, prices at the pump fell from $3.87 to $3.53, a drop of nearly 9%. This is why the overall rise on Biden’s watch was 48%, rather than 63%, when Rose posted.
As it happens, prices have continued to fall. In the subsequent week’s data, prices fell to $3.47. That means the up-to-date rise on Biden’s watch is about 45%.
Also, while Biden’s policies may have marginally affected gasoline prices, experts say the price of gasoline — whether it’s high or low by historical standards — mostly isn’t something presidents can control.
As PolitiFact has reported, gasoline prices initially rose on Biden’s watch because of the recovery after the worst of the coronavirus pandemic. As economic activity, commuting and travel rebounded, fuel demand rose faster than global supplies did.
Then, after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. NATO countries and allies sought to buy less Russian crude oil as punishment for its war, which has hampered supply. Other major oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, have largely resisted requests to increase production to fill the void.
Overall, this has kept global crude oil prices high, even though they have fallen from their peak in summer 2022.
Our ruling
Rose said that gasoline prices are “up 63%” under Biden.
Gasoline prices have risen under Biden, but Rose’s post used old data. By the time he posted, gasoline prices had retreated, making the increase under Biden 48% rather than 63%.
Also, experts say that the rise under Biden was largely independent of his policies. Gasoline prices initially rose because of an economic comeback after the COVID-19 pandemic slowed, and then resumed rising after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy recently discussed Jewish Americans’ fears and the domestic threats they face after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7. He then suggested that Generation Z is not supportive.
Generation Z, born between the late 1990s and early 2010s, “is divided 50-50 on whether they support Hamas or Israel,” Ramaswamy said at the Oct. 28 speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas. “Young people in the country are lost.”
Is it true that Hamas — the political and military organization that governs Gaza and is classified as a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department — has strong support among Gen Z? Although Ramaswamy’s comment came after a spate of antisemitic incidents at U.S. colleges, the evidence that Gen Z widely supports Hamas is thin.
One poll found a roughly 50-50 split among younger respondents, but it was based on a small subsample of people, and that age group also gave other answers in the poll that seemed to contradict support for Hamas. Three other polls found lower rates of support for Hamas.
We contacted Ramaswamy’s campaign for comment but did not receive a reply.
Harvard-Harris poll has similar finding, with a caveat
A Harvard-Harris poll conducted in October after the Hamas attacks seems to fit Ramaswamy’s talking point. One question asked, “In general in this conflict, do you side more with Israel or Hamas?”
Overall, the poll of 2,116 respondents found that 84% of Americans sided with Israel and 16% with Hamas. But the support for Israel differed sharply by age, with the highest rates of support for Israel among the oldest respondents.
Among 18-to-24-year-olds, 52% supported Israel and 48% supported Hamas. However, the sample size for this age group was small, about 199 people.
Generally, fewer respondents means a larger margin of sampling error. That’s because the fewer people polled, the less likely the sample of respondents will fully reflect the entire group’s beliefs.
Peculiarities with responses in Harvard-Harris poll
Another concern: The 18-to-24 age group gave other responses that seemed to contradict support for Hamas.
By 2-1 margins, respondents in that group said Hamas’ Oct. 7 action “was a terrorist attack”; that the attacks “were genocidal in nature”; that Israel has “a responsibility” to retaliate “against Hamas terrorists”; and that Hamas “is a terror group that rules Gaza with force and fear and is not supported by them.”
Dritan Nesho, founder and chief executive officer of HarrisX, the company that conducted the poll, said these seemingly contradictory views might be related to Gen Z’s youth and relatively unformed views on the conflict. Nesho said Gen Z respondents typically haven’t long followed the Middle East and its political complexities.
The data showing divergent answers to poll questions signals that many respondents of this age “don’t have a clear distinction between Hamas the terrorist organization and the Palestinian national movement,” Nesho said.
Other polls show less Hamas support
The Harvard-Harris poll also appears to be an outlier.
We found three other polls conducted around the same time that asked questions about blame for Israel and Hamas. None showed support for Hamas as high as the Harvard-Harris poll.
The strongest rebuttal comes from a Generation Lab poll taken Oct. 11 to Oct. 16 that surveyed only college students, 833 of whom said they knew of Hamas’ attacks. Of that group, 67% described the attacks as an act of terrorism by Hamas, compared with 12% who saw it as a justified act of resistance. The poll also found that 52% blamed the attack on Hamas, compared with 11% who blamed it on Israel.
Two other polls examined responses from slightly different age ranges than the Harvard-Harris poll. Those also showed higher support for Israel.
An NPR-PBS-Marist poll conducted Oct. 11, found that 48% of the 223 18-to-29 year olds surveyed said the U.S. government should “support Israel,” while 12% said it should “criticize Israel.” Though the sample size also is small, the levels of support for Israel and Hamas are different from the more equal levels shown in the Harvard-Harris poll.
A Quinnipiac poll, taken Oct. 12 to Oct. 16, found that 19% of 18-to-34 year olds said Israel is more responsible for the outbreak of violence, while 55% said Hamas is. Again, the levels of support are not equal, as they were in the Harvard-Harris poll. The Quinnipiac poll did not specify the number of 18-to-34 year olds surveyed.
Our ruling
Ramaswamy said, “Gen Z is divided 50-50 on whether they support Hamas or Israel.”
A Harvard-Harris poll found that among 18-to-24 year olds, 48% said they sided with Hamas. However, that was based on a small subsample of 199 people. And that age group also gave other poll answers that seemed to contradict support for Hamas.
Three other polls found lower Hamas support among Generation Z.
For some people, any level of support for Hamas among Americans will be viewed as troubling. But Ramaswamy has exaggerated by saying it’s 50%.
The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.
Una bandera negra izada en una mezquita en Irán llevó a usuarios en las redes sociales a decir que el país estaba llamando a la guerra.
“#Urgente ¿Viene lo peor? En #Irán a sido izada una #BanderaNegra en el #SantuarioRazavi en #Mashhad, provincia de #Khorasan”, dicen los subtítulos del video en Facebook del 18 de octubre. “Esto significa un llamado a la #guerra o la #Venganza”.
La publicación fue marcada como parte del esfuerzo de Meta para combatir las noticias falsas y la desinformación en su plataforma. (Lea más sobre nuestra colaboración con Meta, propietaria de Facebook e Instagram).
El video en Facebook saca de contexto el significado de la bandera.
La bandera negra fue una declaración de luto, no de guerra, como respuesta al bombardeo del 17 de octubre en el hospital de al-Ahli en Gaza. Este ataque dejó a cientos de muertos.
El Santuario Razavi, también conocido como el Santuario de Imam Reza en Mashhad, Irán, publicó una foto idéntica a la del video en Instagram. Según el subtítulo, el cual trató de censurar algunas palabras, la bandera negra se alzó en “respuesta a los crímenes barbáricos del régimen Zio**nis**t (Sionista), especialmente el bombardeo del hospital Al-M**u’am**dani (Al-Mu’amdani)”.
El Santuario Razavi es dirigido por Astan Quds Razavi, el cual también publicó un anuncio sobre la izada de la bandera negra. Basados en la versión de la página web traducida al inglés, esta dice, “Siguiendo el martirio de cientos de residentes en la Franja de Gaza en los crímenes barbáricos del régimen usurpador Sionista, el santuario Razavi va a tomar un sentimiento de luto”.
Los noticieros controlados por el estado iraní y otros también reportaron que el Santuario Razavi levantó la bandera negra en luto por las víctimas de las explosiones en los hospitales y otros “crímenes” cometidos por Israel.
En la verificación de una declaración similar, Reuters también relaciono la declaración del 18 de octubre publicada por Astan Quds Razavi, la organización administrativa del santuario, diciendo que la bandera fue cambiada a “luto público” dado a las muertes en Gaza después de la explosion en el hospital.
Basados en los comunicados de prensa del Santuario Razavi que fueron traducidos en Google, el santuario planeo más eventos, incluyendo una convocación de personas y una marcha en apoyo para expresar solidaridad a los palestinos.
No es poco común que el santuario levante una bandera negra en luto, esto lo hace para los aniversarios de martirio.
Una bandera negra izada en octubre por el Santuario Razavi en Irán no fue un llamado a la guerra. Calificamos la declaración como Falsa.
Este artículo originalmente fue escrito en inglés y traducido por Maria Briceño.
