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In saying his alternative for vp, unbiased presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his operating mate, Nicole Shanahan, made statements that have been false or deceptive:
- There’s no proof that vaccines trigger autism, opposite to the impression Shanahan left in questioning the security of “one shot on prime of one other shot … all through the course of childhood” simply earlier than citing a rise within the prevalence of autism.
- Kennedy wrongly blamed President Joe Biden for shutting down companies in response to the pandemic in 2020, when Biden wasn’t in workplace, and misleadingly claimed there was no scientific foundation for closing companies in the course of the pandemic.
- Kennedy faulted former President Donald Trump’s and Biden’s pandemic insurance policies for transferring “$4 trillion from the center class” to “500 new billionaires.” However an Oxfam report that discovered 573 new international billionaires in the course of the pandemic didn’t attribute the rise to U.S. insurance policies alone.
- Shanahan, 38, wouldn’t be “the youngest vp in American historical past,” as she claimed. That will nonetheless be John C. Breckinridge.
Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and son of former Legal professional Basic Robert F. Kennedy, made his announcement in Oakland, California, the place Shanahan, a lawyer, was born.
Autism
Shanahan left the deceptive impression that childhood vaccines contributed to a rise in autism prevalence.
As we’ve written earlier than, there’s no proof that vaccines trigger autism, and the subject has been studied extensively.
“Circumstances like autism was 1 in 10,000. Now right here within the state of California, it’s 1 in 22. 1 in 22 kids affected,” Shanahan stated.
Simply earlier than that remark, she stated “pharmaceutical drugs” was one in every of “three predominant causes” of an “epidemic of persistent illness,” including that “no single security examine can assess the cumulative affect of 1 prescription on prime of one other prescription and one shot on prime of one other shot on prime of one other shot all through the course of childhood.” (The opposite two causes of the “epidemic” that Shanahan cited are “poisonous substances in the environment” and “electromagnetic air pollution.”)
Her remarks ignored the primary causes for the rise in autism prevalence, and so they left the impression that childhood vaccines are a trigger — a debunked concept that Kennedy has repeatedly pushed for years.
The prevalence of youngsters recognized as having autism has elevated considerably over the previous a number of a long time. However, whereas there could also be some true improve in autism, the main causes for the rise are elevated consciousness of the dysfunction and modifications in how it’s outlined and identified, as we’ve defined in earlier articles.
Shanahan’s statistics are largely right. The most recent knowledge from the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention present a 1 in 22 charge of autism in kids in California. In Maryland, the speed was 1 in 43. “These variations might be on account of how communities are figuring out kids with autism,” the CDC wrote in a March 2023 press launch on the figures.
The earliest research on prevalence discovered charges near what Shanahan cited. “The primary research of the prevalence of autism, which have been carried out within the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies in Europe and the US, reported prevalence estimates within the vary of two to 4 circumstances per 10,000 kids,” the Nationwide Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Drugs wrote in a 2015 publication. “This led to the impression that autism was a uncommon childhood dysfunction.”
The publication goes on to quote “the growth of diagnostic standards and the adoption of the idea of autism as a spectrum of impairments” as possible the main motive for a rise in prevalence in subsequent a long time. It additionally cited “enhancements in screening and companies for kids.”
As we’ve additionally defined earlier than, in a narrative debunking Kennedy’s false and deceptive assertions about autism, there are some recognized elements which have possible led to a slight true improve in autism, together with an increase in births to older mother and father and in infants with beginning problems who survive.
And an elevated threat of autism additionally has been related to genetics, prenatal publicity to air air pollution or pesticides, in addition to sure maternal well being circumstances.
Nonetheless, there’s no proof childhood vaccines are linked to the neurodevelopmental dysfunction, and scientists have studied the problem extensively, wanting into a number of urged elements and vaccine varieties.
David Mandell, a psychiatric epidemiologist, well being companies researcher and director of the Heart for Psychological Well being on the College of Pennsylvania, informed us for our prior story, “Each single rigorous examine we’ve” reveals “no affiliation” between autism and vaccination.
The Pandemic and Billionaires
Kennedy additionally claimed that Trump’s and Biden’s insurance policies in the course of the pandemic resulted in a big switch of wealth to a whole lot of recent billionaires.
“These insurance policies that each of them engineered transferred $4 trillion from the center class to this new oligarchy of billionaires,” he stated. “They created 500 new billionaires in 500 days. A billionaire a day.”
We requested Kennedy’s marketing campaign for the supply of his figures, however we’ve not obtained a response. We beforehand wrote a couple of related declare he made final July, and his marketing campaign didn’t present supporting proof then, both.
In our August article, we wrote that Kennedy might be referring to a 2022 Oxfam evaluation, which discovered a $3.8 trillion improve within the internet price of billionaires worldwide in the course of the pandemic. On the time, the variety of billionaires had elevated to 2,668 — up by 573 from when the pandemic started in early 2020, the evaluation stated.
Nonetheless, neither determine was particular to the U.S. or solely attributed to its insurance policies.
Oxfam did say that in some circumstances, spending by the U.S. authorities in the course of the pandemic helped create billionaires, reminiscent of by offering public funding to Moderna, which collected massive earnings from its COVID-19 vaccine.
However Oxfam additionally stated that billionaire wealth elevated considerably when “central banks injected trillions of {dollars} into economies worldwide, aiming to maintain the world economic system afloat.” And it famous that in the course of the pandemic, there was a “earnings bonanza within the meals, power, pharmaceutical, and know-how sectors,” which elevated the wealth of billionaires who owned massive shares of firms in these industries.
We additionally wrote that Kennedy could have been referring to an approximate determine for federal spending licensed in response to the pandemic, which totaled $4.6 trillion as of Jan. 31, 2023, in response to the Authorities Accountability Workplace. However a lot of that federal spending was for packages designed to help lower- and middle-class individuals, together with financial affect funds, unemployment insurance coverage and supplemental meals help.
COVID-19 Enterprise Closures
Kennedy, a distinguished critic of the COVID-19 vaccines, wrongly blamed Biden for shutting down companies in response to the pandemic in 2020, when Biden wasn’t in workplace, and misleadingly claimed there was no scientific foundation for closing companies in the course of the pandemic.
Kennedy, March 26: These two males, throughout their phrases as president, each labored to shut our predominant road companies for a yr — 3.3 million companies with no due course of, no scientific quotation, no public hearings, no environmental affect assertion. They simply informed us to close them down.
It seems that Kennedy is referencing an August 2020 financial examine by Robert Fairlie, an economics professor on the College of California, Santa Cruz, that gauged the “early-stage results of COVID-19 on small enterprise homeowners.” In his examine, Fairlie, who’s now at UCLA, stated the variety of working small-business homeowners fell by 3.3 million, from 15 million in February 2020 to 11.7 million in April 2020, “due to COVID‐19 mandates and well being‐ and financial‐pushed demand shifts.” That represented a 22% decline — “the most important drop on file,” the report stated.
Quickly after, there was a “partial rebound,” Fairlie wrote. By June 2020, there have been 13.8 million lively enterprise homeowners — a decline of 1.2 million, or 8%, from February 2020. (See desk 1.)
Kennedy blames each Trump and Biden for the fast financial fallout from a worldwide pandemic. However Biden wasn’t in workplace on the time, and Trump, as president, didn’t have the ability to close down companies.
On March 16, 2020, Trump introduced pointers to gradual the unfold of the coronavirus, however they didn’t embody mandates to shut companies. The rules referred to as on Individuals to remain at dwelling in the event that they really feel sick, have a family member who assessments optimistic, or are older or have a critical well being situation. The administration additionally beneficial not gathering in teams of 10 individuals or extra, and avoiding bars and eating places.
Per week into the “15 Days to Sluggish the Unfold” marketing campaign, Trump was already expressing concern concerning the financial affect of the pandemic. Quickly he sought to reverse course totally.
“We have now to get again to work,” Trump stated at a Fox Information digital city corridor on March 24, 2020. Regardless of Trump’s considerations, the White Home prolonged its “gradual the unfold” suggestions to April 30, 2020.
On the time, there have been no vaccines or therapeutics to stop, mitigate or deal with COVID-19. In response, state leaders — not the federal authorities — imposed mandates on companies.
Though Kennedy suggests there was no scientific foundation to close down companies, peer-reviewed research later discovered that authorities restrictions early within the pandemic diminished COVID-19 circumstances and/or mortality.
In a examine printed by The Evaluate of Monetary Research in June 2021, Yale College of Administration researchers developed “a time-series database” on a number of kinds of restrictions for each U.S. county from March to December 2020. The authors stated they discovered “sturdy proof in line with the concept worker masks insurance policies, masks mandates for the overall inhabitants, restaurant and bar closures, health club closures, and high-risk enterprise closures cut back future fatality progress.”
The enterprise closures didn’t come with out a price.
The Yale researchers additionally discovered some enterprise closures “could have been counterproductive,” saying “second-round closures of low- to medium-risk companies and private care/spa companies, didn’t generate constant proof of lowered fatality progress.”
One other examine, led by College of Michigan researchers and printed in January 2022 in PLOS ONE, concluded that “the variety of lives saved by the spring-summer lockdowns and different COVID-19-mitigation was better than the variety of lives probably misplaced as a result of financial downturn.”
In keeping with the examine’s estimates, the mitigation measures within the first six months of the pandemic saved 866,350 to 1,711,150 lives, whereas deaths “attributable to the financial downturn” have been between 57,922 and 245,055.
There have been almost 1.2 million COVID-19 deaths within the U.S. since January 2020, in response to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Youngest Vice Presidents
Lastly, Shanahan, who’s at the moment 38, wrongly claimed that she would make historical past because the youngest U.S. vp, if elected.
“Individuals speak about my age. It’s true. I would be the youngest vp in American historical past,” she stated.
Nope. John C. Breckinridge would nonetheless be the youngest; he was 36 when he grew to become President James Buchanan’s vp in March 1857.
If the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket wins in November, Shanahan can be 39 on Inauguration Day in January 2025. That will make her the second youngest vp.
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