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Biden’s Final Numbers

Summary The final numbers for Joe Biden’s full term are nearly all in. Here’s our rundown of various statistical measures during his presidency: Inflation roared back, shrinking the value of workers’ paychecks. Consumer prices rose 21.5%. Gasoline alone rose 31%. After adjusting for inflation, private-sector average weekly earnings shrank 4%. The economy regained millions of jobs lost during the coronavirus pandemic and around 6 million more. Unemployment averaged 4.1%, well below the historical average. The economy grew by at least 2.5% each year, with real gross domestic product growth of 2.8% in 2024. The percentage and number of Americans who lacked health insurance went down by 0.6 percentage points, or 1.2 million people, when measuring those who were uninsured for an entire year. The nationwide violent crime and property crime rates declined. The murder rate dropped by 1.7 points. All three major U.S. stock indexes set new records. The S&P 500 climbed 57.8%. After-tax corporate profits continued to set records. Consumer confidence sank to a historic low, when inflation surged, and then rose. But it was still lower when Biden left office than when his term began. Apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally were 107% higher in Biden’s last year compared with the year before he took office. The monthly average for refugee admissions was 157% higher than during his predecessor’s time in office. The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services went up by nearly 40%. Home prices rose 37.4%. The homeownership rate fluctuated slightly. The number of people receiving federal food assistance increased only slightly. The median household income, when factoring in inflation, went up by $2,150. The official poverty rate declined, but the alternative, supplemental measure increased, after pandemic stimulus payments ended. The federal publicly held debt went up by one-third. Crude oil, natural gas, natural gas plant liquids, biofuels, solar and wind all set domestic production records in Biden’s last year in office. Analysis We’ve been publishing quarterly “numbers” articles about how the country has fared under the president since Barack Obama’s second term. We last posted an update for President Joe Biden in October 2024, weeks before Election Day, and a look at what President Donald Trump inherited on Jan. 20. But it takes some time for many of the final figures to be gathered, revised and released. We’re nearly at that point now. The headline measure during Biden’s term — and a defining issue during the 2024 election — was the increase in inflation, particularly in 2022. Economists told us then that COVID-19 stimulus spending under Biden contributed to the rise in prices, though the root cause was the economic fallout from the pandemic, which created issues with supply, demand and labor, not just in the U.S. but around the world. Sanctions on Russian oil, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, further contributed. Other economic measures showed a country recovering from the pandemic, with employment hitting its pre-pandemic level and growing by millions more, and economic growth rebounding from 2020’s dip. Some statistics are a continuation of what occurred under Trump’s first term: The stock market and after-tax corporate profits again set records, for example. Other figures moved in the opposite direction than they did under Biden’s predecessor: Refugee admissions more than doubled, and the number of people lacking health insurance declined. The statistics below may be good, bad or neutral in the eye of the beholder, and we leave those judgments to the reader. Opinions also differ on how much credit or blame a president should get for what happens while he is in office. We expect some of these figures to be revised by the government, and we’ll update them again, as we did for Obama and Trump. We’ll launch our second “Trump’s Numbers” series in January, one year after Trump’s second term began. Wages and Inflation During Biden’s four years in office, wages went up but prices went up faster. CPI — The Consumer Price Index rose 21.5% under Biden — ending a long period of low inflation. Prices rose only 7.8% during the previous four years, for comparison. The worst spike came during the 12 months ending in June 2022, which saw a 9.1% increase in the CPI (before seasonal adjustment). The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that was the biggest such increase in over 40 years — since the 12 months ending in November 1981. Inflation cooled slowly for the remainder of Biden’s term, as the Federal Reserve ratcheted up interest rates. The CPI rose 3% in his final 12 months. Gasoline Prices — Inflation was advertised in foot-high letters on street corners everywhere as the price of gasoline shot up to a record high during Biden’s time. The week before he took office the national average price of regular gasoline at the pump was $2.38 per gallon, still rising from the $1.78 low point during the pandemic recession (which lasted from February to April 2020), according to figures from the Energy Information Administration. From there it shot up to the highest ever recorded — just over $5 per gallon in the week ending June 13, 2022 — as world oil markets were disrupted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The week he left office the price was down to $3.11, still 73 cents (or 31%) higher than when he came in. Wages — Paychecks grew larger also, but inflation ate up all the gain and more, leaving workers’ purchasing power worse off than before. The average weekly earnings of all private-sector workers rose 16.7%, not nearly enough to compensate for rising prices. In “real” (inflation-adjusted) terms, weekly earnings fell 4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That reversed nearly half the gains of the previous four years, when real weekly earnings increased 8.6% Those figures apply to all private-sector workers, including executives and professionals. But the story was similar for rank-and-file production and nonsupervisory workers — who make up 81% of the entire private-sector workforce. For them, the drop in real weekly earnings under Biden was 2%, following a 9.5% increase over the previous four years. Jobs and Unemployment Employment — During Biden’s

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Vaccine Advisory Committee Members Mislead About COVID-19 Vaccination During Pregnancy

A substantial body of evidence supports the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy, contrary to the suggestions of some members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently reconstituted the committee. Some members misrepresented the results of Pfizer’s maternal COVID-19 vaccination trial and one made misleading claims about the quality of the evidence on vaccine safety during pregnancy.  During the Sept. 19 vaccine advisory committee meeting, which focused on vaccine recommendations for this year’s updated COVID-19 shots, Retsef Levi, chair of the COVID-19 vaccine work group, said that “most” work group members thought that pregnant women should be advised to not get vaccinated against COVID-19, but that they had decided not to bring the issue to a vote before the entire panel that day. “Most of us are extremely concerned about the safety and the lack of robust evidence, both on safety and efficacy, for not only pregnant women, but their babies,” he said. The CDC shared his comments in a video clip, highlighting the remark in a post on X. Numerous studies have shown that the COVID-19 vaccines prevent severe disease during pregnancy, and studies have not identified an increased risk of any problems at birth, during pregnancy or for newborns. “[W]e have really extensive evidence on the safety of mRNA COVID vaccines in pregnancy,” Victoria Male, an associate professor of reproductive immunology at Imperial College London, wrote on the social media platform Bluesky the day of the meeting. Male maintains a continually updated online explainer about COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy and a table of relevant safety studies. Levi, who is a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s business school, is one of 12 new members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Kennedy selected the new members after he dismissed the previous panel. Several new members have a record of spreading vaccine misinformation. Levi has previously published dubious research suggesting COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe and stated in 2023 that it was his “strong conviction” that vaccination programs using the mRNA shots from Pfizer and Moderna should “stop immediately.” Retsef Levi during a Sept. 19 meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images. If the CDC accepts the panel’s latest decisions on the COVID-19 vaccines, there will be no specific recommendation for pregnant people. Instead, like everyone else, pregnant people will be recommended to get a COVID-19 vaccine only after discussion with a health care provider, or what’s known as shared clinical decision-making.  An HHS spokesperson confirmed that interpretation, noting that there was “an emphasis that the risk-benefit of vaccination in individuals under age 65 is most favorable for those who are at an increased risk for severe COVID-19,” and that high-risk groups included “those who are pregnant or recently pregnant.” That would be a shift from May, when Kennedy abruptly announced that the vaccines were no longer recommended for pregnant people. (And until the CDC accepts the new ACIP recommendations, the official CDC recommendation for COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy remains “no guidance/not applicable.”) At the time, HHS circulated a document to Congress that misinterpreted studies to argue against vaccination during pregnancy, as we wrote. It would also be a change from the CDC’s previous recommendations, which encouraged vaccination among pregnant people, and different from the advice of independent medical groups, which continue to advise vaccination. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, for example, recommends COVID-19 vaccination before, during and after pregnancy, including while breastfeeding. The American Academy of Family Physicians and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine similarly recommend COVID-19 vaccination during any trimester of pregnancy and during lactation. “COVID-19 vaccine safety during pregnancy has been well established. There is no evidence of increased risk of negative maternal, pregnancy, or infant outcomes associated with vaccination,” ACOG’s guidance, updated in September, reads, citing a 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis on the topic. The guidance explains that vaccination during pregnancy protects pregnant individuals, who have historically been at higher risk for severe COVID-19, and their babies. Infants benefit both because of the reduction in pregnancy complications and because maternal vaccination transfers antibodies to babies that can protect them against COVID-19 in their first few months of life. Infants cannot be vaccinated against COVID-19 until they are 6 months old. Babies this age are the second most likely age group to have a COVID-19-associated hospitalization, after adults age 75 and older, according to CDC data presented at the Sept. 19 meeting. Pfizer’s Maternal Trial Results Much of the ACIP meeting’s discussion about vaccination during pregnancy was focused on a small trial Pfizer conducted in 2021 in healthy pregnant individuals in the U.S., Brazil, South Africa, Spain and the U.K. It included around 340 mothers and their infants, evenly divided between a vaccine and placebo group. In explaining why the work group thought that the panel should advise people to avoid getting vaccinated during pregnancy, Levi cited the trial, stating in his presentation slides that “there was observed numerical imbalance of higher number of fetal anomalies among babies born to vaccinated women (8 vs. 2).” Earlier in the day, ACIP chair Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist formerly with Harvard University, also pointed to the imbalance, which he said was included in materials Pfizer provided to him prior to the meeting. He called it a “fourfold excess risk of birth defects” that was “very concerning,” adding that he had calculated his own p-value for the figures, and it was 0.05 — the typical threshold for determining whether a result is statistically significant. In a vote that passed, the panel also agreed to recommend an update to the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine information statement to include mention of the “observed numerical imbalance.” (Dorit Reiss, a professor at University of California Law San Francisco who specializes in vaccine law and policy, told us that changing the VIS is an “elaborate process” that ACIP has no authority over, so the vote was “at most persuasive.”) Experts told us that a closer look at the trial results, however, shows that the imbalance is not indicative of a legitimate concern. Most, if not all, of the observed birth defects occur in early

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Evidence Behind Comey Indictment Is Unclear

James Comey, a former director of the FBI, was indicted on two criminal counts on Sept. 25 by a federal grand jury in Virginia. But the barely two-page indictment provides very little information about the underlying evidence for the charges of lying to Congress.  The indictment came just days after President Donald Trump publicly pressed the Department of Justice to prosecute Comey and installed Lindsey Halligan as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Halligan, a former personal attorney for Trump, replaced Erik Siebert, who was pushed out of the position. ABC News reported, based on anonymous sources, that Siebert and other career prosecutors who led the investigation of Comey had believed there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against him. It was Halligan, who had no prior experience as a prosecutor, who presented the case to the grand jury. Comey was FBI director from 2013 to 2017, when Trump fired him. In this story, we cover the few details we know about the indictment and what Comey told Congress. What are the charges against Comey? The grand jury indicted Comey on two criminal counts: one for making a false statement to Congress and the other for obstructing a congressional proceeding. The grand jury declined to indict him on a third charge. All we know for certain is that the indictment pertains to congressional testimony Comey gave before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020.  The indictment alleges that Comey “willfully and knowingly” made a “materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement” to a senator that day when Comey said he “had not ‘authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports’ regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.” The statement was false, the indictment says, because Comey “then and there knew, he in fact had authorized PERSON 3 to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.” The indictment does not identify “PERSON 1,” “PERSON 3” or the news reports in question. But the indictment appears to be referring to an exchange Comey had when questioned in the 2020 hearing by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who had asked Comey about previous testimony Comey gave to Congress on May 3, 2017, days before Trump fired Comey. What did Cruz ask Comey? Cruz said Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley had asked Comey in the 2017 hearing if he had “ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation,” and if he had “ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton administration.” Comey testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 3, 2017. Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images. Grassley actually had asked about reports about the “Clinton investigation” – not the “Clinton administration,” as Cruz said. (The Trump investigation was about alleged collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election, and the Clinton investigation was about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.) Comey answered “never” and “no” to Grassley’s questions, Cruz pointed out. Cruz then said that Andrew McCabe, who was Comey’s deputy director at the FBI, had admitted to leaking information to the Wall Street Journal in October 2016 and said that Comey was “directly aware of it” and “directly authorized it.” When Cruz said that Comey and McCabe could not both be telling the truth, Comey said: “I can only speak to my testimony. I stand by the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017.” Is the indictment about McCabe? But Cruz was wrong when he claimed that McCabe had said Comey approved the leak. McCabe had already admitted that he – not Comey –  authorized two other FBI officials to provide information about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation to the Wall Street Journal for an Oct. 30, 2016, story. A 2018 inspector general report concluded that Comey learned of the leak after the story was published, and that McCabe, in a meeting with Comey, was not initially forthcoming about being the one who permitted the disclosure to a Wall Street Journal reporter. McCabe told IG investigators that he “did not recall telling Comey prior to publication of the [Wall Street Journal] article that he intended to authorize or had authorized” the leak “although he said it was possible he did.” McCabe told investigators that after the article was published, he told Comey that he had authorized the leak and Comey “did not react negatively, just kind of accepted it” and that Comey thought it was “a ‘good’ idea,” according to the IG report. Comey gave IG investigators a different account, saying that, at the time, McCabe “definitely did not tell me that he authorized” the leak. The IG investigators concluded based on “considerable circumstantial evidence” that “the overwhelming weight of that evidence supported Comey’s version of the conversation.” McCabe spoke to the issue this week, saying in a Sept. 28 CNN interview that because Comey didn’t approve the leak, “I absolutely do not believe” that issue is the premise for the Comey indictment.  McCabe said the Justice Department has not interviewed him as part of its investigation. “If my interactions with Jim Comey nine years ago in October 2016 was going to be the basis of this entire prosecution, it’s unbelievable to think that prosecutors wouldn’t at least want to sit down and hear what I had to say about it,” McCabe said. What else could the indictment be about? Jake Tapper, who interviewed McCabe on CNN, reported on his weekday show Sept. 26 that an unnamed source familiar with the indictment told Tapper that “PERSON 3” is Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is currently a law professor at Columbia Law School. Richman is a personal friend of Comey and worked as a “special government employee” at the FBI from June 2015 until February 2017, during Comey’s tenure as

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Evidence Behind Comey Indictment Is Unclear

James Comey, a former director of the FBI, was indicted on two criminal counts on Sept. 25 by a federal grand jury in Virginia. But the barely two-page indictment provides very little information about the underlying evidence for the charges of lying to Congress.  The indictment came just days after President Donald Trump publicly pressed the Department of Justice to prosecute Comey and installed Lindsey Halligan as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Halligan, a former personal attorney for Trump, replaced Erik Siebert, who was pushed out of the position. ABC News reported, based on anonymous sources, that Siebert and other career prosecutors who led the investigation of Comey had believed there was insufficient evidence to bring charges against him. It was Halligan, who had no prior experience as a prosecutor, who presented the case to the grand jury. Comey was FBI director from 2013 to 2017, when Trump fired him. In this story, we cover the few details we know about the indictment and what Comey told Congress. What are the charges against Comey? The grand jury indicted Comey on two criminal counts: one for making a false statement to Congress and the other for obstructing a congressional proceeding. The grand jury declined to indict him on a third charge. All we know for certain is that the indictment pertains to congressional testimony Comey gave before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020.  The indictment alleges that Comey “willfully and knowingly” made a “materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement” to a senator that day when Comey said he “had not ‘authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports’ regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.” The statement was false, the indictment says, because Comey “then and there knew, he in fact had authorized PERSON 3 to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.” The indictment does not identify “PERSON 1,” “PERSON 3” or the news reports in question. But the indictment appears to be referring to an exchange Comey had when questioned in the 2020 hearing by Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who had asked Comey about previous testimony Comey gave to Congress on May 3, 2017, days before Trump fired Comey. What did Cruz ask Comey? Cruz said Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley had asked Comey in the 2017 hearing if he had “ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation,” and if he had “ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton administration.” Comey testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 3, 2017. Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images. Grassley actually had asked about reports about the “Clinton investigation” – not the “Clinton administration,” as Cruz said. (The Trump investigation was about alleged collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election, and the Clinton investigation was about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.) Comey answered “never” and “no” to Grassley’s questions, Cruz pointed out. Cruz then said that Andrew McCabe, who was Comey’s deputy director at the FBI, had admitted to leaking information to the Wall Street Journal in October 2016 and said that Comey was “directly aware of it” and “directly authorized it.” When Cruz said that Comey and McCabe could not both be telling the truth, Comey said: “I can only speak to my testimony. I stand by the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017.” Is the indictment about McCabe? But Cruz was wrong when he claimed that McCabe had said Comey approved the leak. McCabe had already admitted that he – not Comey –  authorized two other FBI officials to provide information about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation to the Wall Street Journal for an Oct. 30, 2016, story. A 2018 inspector general report concluded that Comey learned of the leak after the story was published, and that McCabe, in a meeting with Comey, was not initially forthcoming about being the one who permitted the disclosure to a Wall Street Journal reporter. McCabe told IG investigators that he “did not recall telling Comey prior to publication of the [Wall Street Journal] article that he intended to authorize or had authorized” the leak “although he said it was possible he did.” McCabe told investigators that after the article was published, he told Comey that he had authorized the leak and Comey “did not react negatively, just kind of accepted it” and that Comey thought it was “a ‘good’ idea,” according to the IG report. Comey gave IG investigators a different account, saying that, at the time, McCabe “definitely did not tell me that he authorized” the leak. The IG investigators concluded based on “considerable circumstantial evidence” that “the overwhelming weight of that evidence supported Comey’s version of the conversation.” McCabe spoke to the issue this week, saying in a Sept. 28 CNN interview that because Comey didn’t approve the leak, “I absolutely do not believe” that issue is the premise for the Comey indictment.  McCabe said the Justice Department has not interviewed him as part of its investigation. “If my interactions with Jim Comey nine years ago in October 2016 was going to be the basis of this entire prosecution, it’s unbelievable to think that prosecutors wouldn’t at least want to sit down and hear what I had to say about it,” McCabe said. What else could the indictment be about? Jake Tapper, who interviewed McCabe on CNN, reported on his weekday show Sept. 26 that an unnamed source familiar with the indictment told Tapper that “PERSON 3” is Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is currently a law professor at Columbia Law School. Richman is a personal friend of Comey and worked as a “special government employee” at the FBI from June 2015 until February 2017, during Comey’s tenure as

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Trump Administration’s Problematic Claims on Tylenol and Autism

In a Sept. 22 press conference that he had billed as “one of the biggest [medical] announcements … in the history of our country,” President Donald Trump touted an unproven link between autism and the use of Tylenol, or acetaminophen, during pregnancy. Trump repeatedly told pregnant women not to take Tylenol and to “tough it out,” due to an association between the medication and autism. But the medication has not been established to cause autism, and some research indicates it likely doesn’t. Untreated pain or fever during pregnancy can be harmful to both mother and child. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary claimed the dean of Harvard University’s public health school said “there is a causal relationship” between Tylenol and autism. The dean did say that in written testimony for a lawsuit in 2023, but in a statement issued before the press conference he only said that a causal relationship was a possibility. Trump advised, “Don’t give Tylenol to the baby after the baby’s born.” Research hasn’t shown a causal link to autism for that, either. The American Academy of Pediatrics says that acetaminophen is “safe for children when taken, or dosed, correctly and under the guidance of a child’s pediatrician.” Months ago, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had promised a press conference like this one pinpointing the causes of autism. In an Aug. 26 Cabinet meeting, Kennedy said that the administration will “have announcements, as promised, in September. We’re finding interventions, certain interventions now, that are clearly, almost certainly causing autism.” But the press conference didn’t identify clear causes of autism. The administration’s suggestions about the role of acetaminophen go beyond what the research has shown. The hourlong press conference also included several false and misleading claims from Trump and Kennedy about autism and vaccines, which we addressed in a separate article. Tylenol During Pregnancy Trump repeatedly urged pregnant women not to take Tylenol, citing an association between the medication and autism. The FDA will be telling doctors that taking Tylenol, or acetaminophen, “during pregnancy can be associated with a very increased risk of autism,” Trump said. “So taking Tylenol is not good. All right, I’ll say it. It’s not good.” Photo by MichaelVi /stock.adobe.com “Don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it. … Fight like hell not to take it,” he said later in the press conference, during which he urged women to “tough it out” and repeated the phrase “don’t take Tylenol” around a dozen times. But acetaminophen during pregnancy is far from having been established to cause autism, as we have written previously, and there is evidence indicating it likely does not. Moreover, there are limited treatments available for pregnant people experiencing pain or fever, and failing to treat these problems can have risks, expert organizations say. “As far as the evidence goes, it points towards no causal association between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism,” Brian Lee, a professor of epidemiology at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health, told us in an interview for a previous story. In observational research, it can be difficult to tell whether one thing that is associated with another actually causes that outcome. People with greater genetic risk for neurodevelopmental conditions, such as autism, are also known to take more acetaminophen in pregnancy, Lee said. So in this case, genetics could explain both why someone might use more acetaminophen and why that person might be more likely to have a child with autism. Concern about acetaminophen during pregnancy is not new, nor did Trump or others present new research into the topic at the press conference. Several studies have shown an association between acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. But some recent studies, including a large one by Lee and colleagues, have found that associations go away when comparing siblings. This suggests that acetaminophen is not causing autism or ADHD. “Today’s announcement by HHS is not backed by the full body of scientific evidence and dangerously simplifies the many and complex causes of neurologic challenges in children,” Dr. Steven J. Fleischman, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a Sept. 22 statement. “Despite assertions to the contrary, a thorough review of existing research suggesting a potential link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and an increased risk of autism and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children has not established a causal relationship,” a statement from the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine also said on the same day. In his remarks, Makary, the FDA commissioner, referred to two studies from 2019 on acetaminophen during pregnancy, including one that showed an association with autism and ADHD and another showing an association with ADHD. “We now have data we cannot ignore,” he said. Neither of the studies, which were both observational, claimed to have established acetaminophen as an autism or ADHD cause. The study showing an association between acetaminophen and both autism and ADHD, published in JAMA Psychiatry, had significant limitations, as we reported previously. Researchers found an association between the two conditions and the amount of acetaminophen components found in blood from a baby’s umbilical cord. As we wrote, looking at acetaminophen in cord blood only indicates recent use around the time of childbirth, as opposed to use throughout pregnancy. And researchers have pointed out that the sample of children in the study was unusual. All cord blood samples showed at least some acetaminophen exposure, and the children had a very high rate of autism and ADHD. Makary also mentioned a recent review study, published Aug. 14 in Environmental Health. The study did not present new research. Rather, it reviewed the existing literature on acetaminophen during pregnancy and autism, finding “evidence consistent with an association between acetaminophen exposure during pregnancy and increased incidence” of neurodevelopmental disorders. The study did not do a quantitative analysis of the studies’ findings, but rather described the existing literature, with flexibility for the authors to interpret the quality of the available studies and decide how much

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Rural Health Fund Falls Short of Estimated Medicaid Cuts

In the battle over how the One Big Beautiful Bill Act affects rural hospitals, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has touted a five-year $50 billion fund as “an infusion of cash” that will “restore and revitalize” rural communities. But his statements ignore the higher estimated Medicaid spending cuts to rural areas under the law. An aerial view of Valley Health Hampshire Memorial Hospital on June 17 in Romney, West Virginia. Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images. Other administration officials have made similar claims, such as Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. He and Kennedy have misleadingly claimed the fund would be a 50% increase over Medicaid spending now going to rural hospitals. The independent health policy research organization KFF estimated that the OBBBA’s Medicaid provisions could lower federal Medicaid spending in rural areas by $137 billion over 10 years. An analysis by Manatt, a legal consulting firm, for the National Rural Health Association estimated a smaller impact on rural hospitals alone (not more broadly to rural areas) — a reduction of $58 billion in federal Medicaid funds over a decade. At an Aug. 26 Cabinet meeting, Kennedy said: “Right now, we spend 7% of Medicaid dollars on rural hospitals. So, they’re getting the short end of the stick. It’s about $19 billion a year. Under the rural transformation program, we give them an extra $10 billion a year. So, we’re raising an infusion of cash of rural hospitals and rural communities by 50%. It’s going to be the biggest infusion in history and it’s going to restore and revitalize these communities.” Oz used the same figures in Sept. 16 remarks at a Senate Republican press conference. In addition to the fund falling short of estimates of the law’s Medicaid cuts, there are questions about how the $50 billion fund will be distributed. “It’s unclear what portion of that would eventually go to hospitals versus other providers. It’s also ultimately unclear whether all the dollars will go to rural areas,” Zachary Levinson, project director of the KFF project on hospital costs, told us. Leonardo Cuello, a research professor at the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy’s Center for Children and Families, noted that this funding was “a short-term patch,” while the Medicaid funding reductions in the law “go on forever.” On Sept. 15, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced details on how states could apply for the $50 billion fund, called the Rural Health Transformation Program, with a deadline of Nov. 5. CMS will make decisions on the applications by Dec. 31. In a video announcing the opening of the application period, Kennedy again used the 7% figure: “Right now, only 7% of Medicaid hospital spending reaches rural hospitals. That’s got to change,” he said. A White House memo said that figure came from the CMS Office of the Actuary and was the percentage of Medicaid hospital spending, both inpatient and outpatient, that goes to rural hospitals. HHS didn’t respond to our request for more information about the figure. The debate over the OBBBA included concern over the viability of rural hospitals, many of which are already on shaky financial footing. An August report from the Center for Healthcare Quality & Payment Reform said that about a third of rural hospitals in the U.S. “are at risk of closing because of the serious financial problems they are experiencing,” and 14%, or 322 rural hospitals, are “at immediate risk of closing.” The $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program was added to the legislation to address those concerns. In July, after the OBBBA was enacted, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who voted for the legislation, introduced a bill to double that fund to $100 billion over 10 years, and to repeal provisions of the law that impact the financing of rural hospitals. No action has been taken on the legislation. Overall, the OBBBA reduces federal Medicaid spending by $911 billion over 10 years, KFF estimates, and increases the number of people without health insurance by 10 million by 2034, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated, with most of that increase (7.5 million) because of the law’s Medicaid provisions, which include new work requirements. The Law’s Impact and How the Fund Works Reductions in insurance coverage among rural residents because of the OBBBA would mean a reduction in Medicaid dollars flowing to rural health care providers, such as hospitals. The law also affects rural hospitals by prohibiting states from increasing or instituting new provider taxes, which states have used to supplement payments to hospitals to cover uncompensated care, as we’ve written before. And it puts limits on state directed payments, which states can use to require managed care organizations to pay health care providers certain rates for services. Hawley’s bill called for repealing both of those aspects of the law. As we said, KFF estimated that the OBBBA would reduce federal Medicaid spending in rural areas by $137 billion over 10 years. That’s $87 billion more than the five-year rural health fund that Kennedy has promoted. KFF’s figure doesn’t include state matching funds, which would also decline due to decreases in Medicaid enrollment, or the potential impact of insurance coverage losses due to changes to the Affordable Care Act marketplaces under the law. (CBO estimates 2.1 million people will be uninsured by 2034 due to those changes.) “While providers could potentially offset at least some of the cuts—including through the new rural health funding—any financial pressure on hospitals and other providers could lead to layoffs of staff, more limited investments in quality improvements, fewer services, or additional rural hospital closures,” the KFF report said. States with larger rural populations would see larger reductions in Medicaid funding. “Over half of the spending reductions in rural areas are among 12 states that have large rural populations and have expanded Medicaid under the ACA, 10 of which could see rural federal Medicaid spending decline by $5 billion or more over 10 years,”

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Trump Again Overstates Number of Drug Overdose Deaths in U.S.

Reviving an unfounded claim he has made for several years, President Donald Trump on Sept. 5 overstated the number of Americans who died in 2024 of drug overdoses, saying that he believed 300,000 or “350,000 people died last year from drugs.” A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told us the provisional number of drug overdose deaths in 2024 was 79,383, and an expert in addiction medicine told us Trump’s number was “a gross exaggeration.” Trump made the overestimate at the White House while signing an executive order renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War. Asked by a reporter about the recent U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean Sea near Venezuela, Trump said those actions were in response to drug trafficking. Eight U.S. warships carrying attack aircraft, an attack submarine and Navy surveillance planes have been deployed to the southern Caribbean, the New York Times reported. On Sept. 2, the president announced on Truth Social that a boat in international waters carrying what he said were “positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists” with illegal drugs was hit in a U.S. airstrike that “resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action.” Trump shared a black-and-white video showing an open boat with passengers being blown up. The administration hasn’t provided more information about who was on board or what was being transported. Asked about the subsequent U.S. military buildup, Trump said: “Well, I just think it’s strong. We’re strong on drugs. We don’t want drugs killing our people. I believe we lost 300,000. You know, they always say 95[,000], 100,000. I believe they’ve been saying that for 20 years. I believe we lost 300,000 people last year.” “Whether it’s 100,000, but it’s not — it’s 300[,000], 350,000 people died last year from drugs. And we’re not going to let that happen to this country,” he later added.  The most recent provisional overdose death data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicate that drug overdose deaths had decreased more than 24% from 105,007 deaths in 2023 to 79,383 in 2024, CDC spokesperson Gabriel Alvarado told us in an email. Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a professor of addiction medicine at the University of California San Francisco, told us via email that Trump’s estimate was “a gross exaggeration” and the number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. has never been as high as 300,000 in a year. Looking at data provided by NCHS going back 10 years, drug overdose deaths peaked at 111,466 in the 12-month period ending June 2023, followed by an “impressive drop to the latest figure,” Ciccarone said, which is about 75,000 for the 12-month period ending in March 2025. NCHS data show that the majority of overdose deaths in 2024 were from opioids. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids, which include fentanyl, declined from 74,091 in 2023 to 48,661 in 2024, a decrease of 34%. Unfounded Claim About NCHS Data Regarding Trump’s suggestion that the overdose death data may be undercounted, Ciccarone said, “Counts can be over or under for any statistic; we call this ‘error,’ or ‘variance.’” But the NCHS data “are considered widely to be reliable, authoritative, and while there is some variance, it is estimated to be low,” he said. “Death investigations involving drug overdose can take a long time and, in some cases, the cause of death may still be a pending investigation when we finalize the data for the year,” the CDC’s Alvarado said. “Our best estimate of the undercount in recent years is roughly 1-1.5%.” As we’ve written, Trump has inflated the number of U.S. drug overdose deaths before and said the numbers being reported were too low. He claimed during a 2024 campaign rally in Phoenix, “300,000 people are dying a year. Those are the real numbers. They like to say 100[,000]. They like to say 90[,000]. It’s been that number for a long time. It’s 300,000 people, and it’s probably more than that, and we’re going to have to take very strong action because we can’t let that happen.” At a rally in Waco, Texas, in 2023, Trump said the overdose figures provided by the NCHS were a “lie” and the annual deaths were “probably” five times as high, as we wrote then. Christopher Ruhm, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Virginia, told us in 2023 that he had “not yet seen convincing evidence that the number of overall drug deaths is drastically underreported or even necessarily underreported at all.” Incomplete death certificates had led to opioid drug deaths being “understated” in the past, Ruhm wrote in a 2018 paper. But he told us that reporting on death records had improved and that “undercount has fallen over time.” We reached out to the White House for evidence supporting Trump’s claim about the number of drug overdose deaths in 2024, but we did not receive a response. Factors Causing Decline in Overdose Deaths “At this moment it is unknown what is causing the last year decline in overdose,” Ciccarone told us. “It is likely to be a complex mix of supply and demand forces.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection data show that seizures of fentanyl “from [Mexico] across the US/Mex border has gone down in the last year,” Ciccarone said. “This has been attributed more to precursor controls in China,” he said, referring to the production of chemicals used to make fentanyl in China, “and subsequent reduced Mexican cartel production of fentanyl. There also [has] been effective action against one of the largest Mex cartels, the Sinaloa cartel, which may have impacted the fentanyl trade significantly.” The Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico is “one of the world’s oldest and most powerful drug cartels” and “one of the largest producers and traffickers of fentanyl and other illicit drugs to the United States,” according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. “Keep in mind that overdoses had started to drop during the Biden administration,” Ciccarone said. “Although [drug overdose] deaths peaked just before Trump came into office, many eastern states were seeing drops from peak

Factcheck.org

Trump Again Overstates Number of Drug Overdose Deaths in U.S.

Reviving an unfounded claim he has made for several years, President Donald Trump on Sept. 5 overstated the number of Americans who died in 2024 of drug overdoses, saying that he believed 300,000 or “350,000 people died last year from drugs.” A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told us the provisional number of drug overdose deaths in 2024 was 79,383, and an expert in addiction medicine told us Trump’s number was “a gross exaggeration.” Trump made the overestimate at the White House while signing an executive order renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War. Asked by a reporter about the recent U.S. military buildup in the southern Caribbean Sea near Venezuela, Trump said those actions were in response to drug trafficking. Eight U.S. warships carrying attack aircraft, an attack submarine and Navy surveillance planes have been deployed to the southern Caribbean, the New York Times reported. On Sept. 2, the president announced on Truth Social that a boat in international waters carrying what he said were “positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists” with illegal drugs was hit in a U.S. airstrike that “resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action.” Trump shared a black-and-white video showing an open boat with passengers being blown up. The administration hasn’t provided more information about who was on board or what was being transported. Asked about the subsequent U.S. military buildup, Trump said: “Well, I just think it’s strong. We’re strong on drugs. We don’t want drugs killing our people. I believe we lost 300,000. You know, they always say 95[,000], 100,000. I believe they’ve been saying that for 20 years. I believe we lost 300,000 people last year.” “Whether it’s 100,000, but it’s not — it’s 300[,000], 350,000 people died last year from drugs. And we’re not going to let that happen to this country,” he later added.  The most recent provisional overdose death data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicate that drug overdose deaths had decreased more than 24% from 105,007 deaths in 2023 to 79,383 in 2024, CDC spokesperson Gabriel Alvarado told us in an email. Dr. Daniel Ciccarone, a professor of addiction medicine at the University of California San Francisco, told us via email that Trump’s estimate was “a gross exaggeration” and the number of drug overdose deaths in the U.S. has never been as high as 300,000 in a year. Looking at data provided by NCHS going back 10 years, drug overdose deaths peaked at 111,466 in the 12-month period ending June 2023, followed by an “impressive drop to the latest figure,” Ciccarone said, which is about 75,000 for the 12-month period ending in March 2025. NCHS data show that the majority of overdose deaths in 2024 were from opioids. Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids, which include fentanyl, declined from 74,091 in 2023 to 48,661 in 2024, a decrease of 34%. Unfounded Claim About NCHS Data Regarding Trump’s suggestion that the overdose death data may be undercounted, Ciccarone said, “Counts can be over or under for any statistic; we call this ‘error,’ or ‘variance.’” But the NCHS data “are considered widely to be reliable, authoritative, and while there is some variance, it is estimated to be low,” he said. “Death investigations involving drug overdose can take a long time and, in some cases, the cause of death may still be a pending investigation when we finalize the data for the year,” the CDC’s Alvarado said. “Our best estimate of the undercount in recent years is roughly 1-1.5%.” As we’ve written, Trump has inflated the number of U.S. drug overdose deaths before and said the numbers being reported were too low. He claimed during a 2024 campaign rally in Phoenix, “300,000 people are dying a year. Those are the real numbers. They like to say 100[,000]. They like to say 90[,000]. It’s been that number for a long time. It’s 300,000 people, and it’s probably more than that, and we’re going to have to take very strong action because we can’t let that happen.” At a rally in Waco, Texas, in 2023, Trump said the overdose figures provided by the NCHS were a “lie” and the annual deaths were “probably” five times as high, as we wrote then. Christopher Ruhm, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Virginia, told us in 2023 that he had “not yet seen convincing evidence that the number of overall drug deaths is drastically underreported or even necessarily underreported at all.” Incomplete death certificates had led to opioid drug deaths being “understated” in the past, Ruhm wrote in a 2018 paper. But he told us that reporting on death records had improved and that “undercount has fallen over time.” We reached out to the White House for evidence supporting Trump’s claim about the number of drug overdose deaths in 2024, but we did not receive a response. Factors Causing Decline in Overdose Deaths “At this moment it is unknown what is causing the last year decline in overdose,” Ciccarone told us. “It is likely to be a complex mix of supply and demand forces.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection data show that seizures of fentanyl “from [Mexico] across the US/Mex border has gone down in the last year,” Ciccarone said. “This has been attributed more to precursor controls in China,” he said, referring to the production of chemicals used to make fentanyl in China, “and subsequent reduced Mexican cartel production of fentanyl. There also [has] been effective action against one of the largest Mex cartels, the Sinaloa cartel, which may have impacted the fentanyl trade significantly.” The Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico is “one of the world’s oldest and most powerful drug cartels” and “one of the largest producers and traffickers of fentanyl and other illicit drugs to the United States,” according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. “Keep in mind that overdoses had started to drop during the Biden administration,” Ciccarone said. “Although [drug overdose] deaths peaked just before Trump came into office, many eastern states were seeing drops from peak

Factcheck.org

RFK Jr. Cherry-Picks and Misuses Data on Aluminum-Containing Vaccines

A large Danish study recently provided reassurance that aluminum-containing vaccines are not associated with increased rates of chronic health conditions in children, including autism. But Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. misrepresented the study’s findings, claiming that the paper’s supplementary data “shows calamitous evidence of harm.” The study, published on July 15 in Annals of Internal Medicine, drew attention because of its large size and rigorous methods. Anti-vaccine activists, however, quickly seized on it to claim that it was flawed, particularly after the journal mistakenly uploaded an earlier version of the supplementary data. Kennedy declared in an X post last month that the authors used a “long parade of statistical artifices” to “achieve their deceptive results,” incorrectly alleging that the study actually showed an association between vaccines and autism. He linked to an article with his byline on TrialSiteNews, which consisted of a list of criticisms of the study peppered with unfounded accusations on the researchers’ motives. It called for the journal to “immediately retract this badly flawed study.” The journal, however, defended the study. Dr. Christine Laine, the editor-in-chief of Annals, wrote in an editor’s response that the journal found the study “to be among the strongest research currently available” on the subject and that there was no basis for retraction. Small amounts of aluminum are used in some vaccines as adjuvants that boost the immune response and make vaccines more effective. Among those that contain aluminum are vaccines that protect against hepatitis A and B, HPV, and diphtheria and tetanus. There is no aluminum in the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which has been subject to unfounded claims about autism in the past. Aluminum has been used as a vaccine adjuvant since the 1920s. The quantities of aluminum in vaccines represent an “extremely low risk to infants,” researchers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have concluded. Despite this, aluminum has long been a target of anti-vaccine groups. In the case of the Danish aluminum study, Kennedy dismissed the results of the paper’s main analysis. It found no relationship between aluminum exposure from vaccines and an elevated risk of dozens of conditions, including autism. Instead, he zeroed in on results on autism in two of the paper’s 15 supplementary figures and tables, which he claimed on X were “a devastating indictment of aluminum-containing vaccines directly contradicting the published study’s conclusions.”  As we will explain, Kennedy’s interpretation of these figures is unwarranted. For one, statisticians know that if a paper makes a large number of comparisons, some results are expected to be statistically significant by chance alone. It is inappropriate to focus on a single result or subset of results while ignoring their context. Kennedy “is doing extreme cherry-picking of the results he likes and ignoring and dismissing all of the results he doesn’t like,” Jeffrey S. Morris, director of the division of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told us. For another, Kennedy highlighted an analysis that the authors of the paper and other experts said should not be used to determine whether aluminum in vaccines causes health conditions. “In short, Kennedy is cherry-picking a fragile secondary analysis that is explicitly disclaimed by the study’s authors and misrepresenting it as a refutation of the main findings,” vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris of the University of Auckland told us in an email. “It’s a classic misuse of supplementary data.” She called the supplementary results Kennedy highlighted a “statistical blip, not a bombshell.” Anders Hviid, head of the epidemiology research department at the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark, agreed that Kennedy’s interpretation of his team’s study amounted to cherry-picking. “Our results showed that increasing exposure to aluminum from vaccines was not associated with increasing risks of a wide range of early childhood health conditions in Denmark,” he told us in an email. Kennedy’s statements followed a pattern familiar to those who have tracked the secretary’s history of unfounded claims on vaccines and autism. Historically, Kennedy has ignored or attempted to discredit well-done scientific studies that have failed to show a link between autism and vaccination. His criticisms are often accompanied by inflammatory language and unfounded claims about researchers’ motivations. At the same time, he has zeroed in on results that he claims show an association, elevating flawed studies and highlighting decades-old unpublished statistics that weren’t borne out by later analysis. HHS did not reply to a request for comment. ‘The Cherry-Pick of All Cherry-Picks‘ Denmark’s universal, publicly funded health care system and detailed record-keeping allow researchers to study the relationship between medical care and health outcomes. Hviid and his colleagues analyzed vaccination and health data on more than 1.2 million children who were born in the country over the course of around two decades. As the Danish vaccine schedule changed over time, the amount of aluminum in recommended vaccines also changed, allowing the researchers to assess whether each additional milligram of aluminum exposure had any relationship to chronic disease. Photo by lavizzara / stock.adobe.com In their primary analysis, the researchers found no link between the amount of aluminum the children received via vaccination and elevated rates of 50 chronic conditions. These conditions included asthma and allergic diseases, autoimmune diseases, and neurodevelopmental conditions. This last group of conditions included attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and five autism-related diagnoses. “The main findings, based on solid methods and all the data, showed no increased risk,” Petousis-Harris said (emphasis is hers). Rather than highlighting these reassuring results, Kennedy focused on a supplemental figure showing a barely statistically significant increase in one autism-related diagnosis in a single set of children. “The data show a statistically significant 67% increased risk of Asperger’s syndrome per 1 mg increase in aluminum exposure among children born between 2007 and 2018,” Kennedy wrote on X. (In the U.S., Asperger’s syndrome is no longer a specific diagnosis. The condition was folded into the autism spectrum disorder diagnosis in 2013 in the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.) “That is the cherry-pick of all cherry-picks,” Morris said.  The figure was part of a series of analyses meant to look at the data in various ways and see if the primary results held up — and hold up they did, in almost

Factcheck.org

RFK Jr. Cherry-Picks and Misuses Data on Aluminum-Containing Vaccines

A large Danish study recently provided reassurance that aluminum-containing vaccines are not associated with increased rates of chronic health conditions in children, including autism. But Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. misrepresented the study’s findings, claiming that the paper’s supplementary data “shows calamitous evidence of harm.” The study, published on July 15 in Annals of Internal Medicine, drew attention because of its large size and rigorous methods. Anti-vaccine activists, however, quickly seized on it to claim that it was flawed, particularly after the journal mistakenly uploaded an earlier version of the supplementary data. Kennedy declared in an X post last month that the authors used a “long parade of statistical artifices” to “achieve their deceptive results,” incorrectly alleging that the study actually showed an association between vaccines and autism. He linked to an article with his byline on TrialSiteNews, which consisted of a list of criticisms of the study peppered with unfounded accusations on the researchers’ motives. It called for the journal to “immediately retract this badly flawed study.” The journal, however, defended the study. Dr. Christine Laine, the editor-in-chief of Annals, wrote in an editor’s response that the journal found the study “to be among the strongest research currently available” on the subject and that there was no basis for retraction. Small amounts of aluminum are used in some vaccines as adjuvants that boost the immune response and make vaccines more effective. Among those that contain aluminum are vaccines that protect against hepatitis A and B, HPV, and diphtheria and tetanus. There is no aluminum in the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, which has been subject to unfounded claims about autism in the past. Aluminum has been used as a vaccine adjuvant since the 1920s. The quantities of aluminum in vaccines represent an “extremely low risk to infants,” researchers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have concluded. Despite this, aluminum has long been a target of anti-vaccine groups. In the case of the Danish aluminum study, Kennedy dismissed the results of the paper’s main analysis. It found no relationship between aluminum exposure from vaccines and an elevated risk of dozens of conditions, including autism. Instead, he zeroed in on results on autism in two of the paper’s 15 supplementary figures and tables, which he claimed on X were “a devastating indictment of aluminum-containing vaccines directly contradicting the published study’s conclusions.”  As we will explain, Kennedy’s interpretation of these figures is unwarranted. For one, statisticians know that if a paper makes a large number of comparisons, some results are expected to be statistically significant by chance alone. It is inappropriate to focus on a single result or subset of results while ignoring their context. Kennedy “is doing extreme cherry-picking of the results he likes and ignoring and dismissing all of the results he doesn’t like,” Jeffrey S. Morris, director of the division of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, told us. For another, Kennedy highlighted an analysis that the authors of the paper and other experts said should not be used to determine whether aluminum in vaccines causes health conditions. “In short, Kennedy is cherry-picking a fragile secondary analysis that is explicitly disclaimed by the study’s authors and misrepresenting it as a refutation of the main findings,” vaccinologist Helen Petousis-Harris of the University of Auckland told us in an email. “It’s a classic misuse of supplementary data.” She called the supplementary results Kennedy highlighted a “statistical blip, not a bombshell.” Anders Hviid, head of the epidemiology research department at the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark, agreed that Kennedy’s interpretation of his team’s study amounted to cherry-picking. “Our results showed that increasing exposure to aluminum from vaccines was not associated with increasing risks of a wide range of early childhood health conditions in Denmark,” he told us in an email. Kennedy’s statements followed a pattern familiar to those who have tracked the secretary’s history of unfounded claims on vaccines and autism. Historically, Kennedy has ignored or attempted to discredit well-done scientific studies that have failed to show a link between autism and vaccination. His criticisms are often accompanied by inflammatory language and unfounded claims about researchers’ motivations. At the same time, he has zeroed in on results that he claims show an association, elevating flawed studies and highlighting decades-old unpublished statistics that weren’t borne out by later analysis. HHS did not reply to a request for comment. ‘The Cherry-Pick of All Cherry-Picks‘ Denmark’s universal, publicly funded health care system and detailed record-keeping allow researchers to study the relationship between medical care and health outcomes. Hviid and his colleagues analyzed vaccination and health data on more than 1.2 million children who were born in the country over the course of around two decades. As the Danish vaccine schedule changed over time, the amount of aluminum in recommended vaccines also changed, allowing the researchers to assess whether each additional milligram of aluminum exposure had any relationship to chronic disease. Photo by lavizzara / stock.adobe.com In their primary analysis, the researchers found no link between the amount of aluminum the children received via vaccination and elevated rates of 50 chronic conditions. These conditions included asthma and allergic diseases, autoimmune diseases, and neurodevelopmental conditions. This last group of conditions included attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and five autism-related diagnoses. “The main findings, based on solid methods and all the data, showed no increased risk,” Petousis-Harris said (emphasis is hers). Rather than highlighting these reassuring results, Kennedy focused on a supplemental figure showing a barely statistically significant increase in one autism-related diagnosis in a single set of children. “The data show a statistically significant 67% increased risk of Asperger’s syndrome per 1 mg increase in aluminum exposure among children born between 2007 and 2018,” Kennedy wrote on X. (In the U.S., Asperger’s syndrome is no longer a specific diagnosis. The condition was folded into the autism spectrum disorder diagnosis in 2013 in the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.) “That is the cherry-pick of all cherry-picks,” Morris said.  The figure was part of a series of analyses meant to look at the data in various ways and see if the primary results held up — and hold up they did, in almost

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