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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

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

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

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

The Labor Day holiday became a violent weekend in the city of Chicago, as more than 50 people were shot and nine were killed from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2. Despite those grim statistics, President Donald Trump was wrong when he said on Truth Social on Sept. 2, “CHICAGO IS THE MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!” That’s not the case, experts told us, and Chicago’s overall homicide rate declined more than 30% in the first six months of this year as compared with last year. But Chicago has topped the list of large U.S. cities for its number of murders for over a decade. After the burst of violence over the weekend, Trump was asked at a Sept. 2 press conference whether he planned to send the National Guard or other federal law enforcement purportedly to quell crime in Chicago, as he did in Washington, D.C. Trump replied, “Well, we’re going in — I didn’t say when. We’re going in.” Photo by be free / stock.adobe.com Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, joined by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson at a news conference the same day, said, “There is no emergency that warrants deployment of troops” in the city. Pritzker said the state would challenge Trump’s power to send troops to Chicago in court. (On Sept. 3, Trump seemed to backpedal on sending the National Guard to Chicago, telling reporters, “So we’re making a determination now. Do we go to Chicago or do we go to a place like New Orleans where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite, you know, quite tough, quite bad?”) Here, we’ll address some of the inaccurate or misleading claims by Trump and the White House regarding the trends in violent crime in Chicago. Highest Homicide Rates in the World In his Truth Social posts on Sept. 2, Trump said, “Chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far,” and later wrongly claimed, “CHICAGO IS THE MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!” Jeff Asher, co-founder of the consulting firm AH Datalytics, which compiles an aggregation of crime data provided by law enforcement agencies across the U.S., previously told us about Trump’s comparison of crimes in Washington, D.C., to other cities around the world, “It’s generally inadvisable to compare crime rates between cities, especially international cities with populations many times that of DC.” In a Sept. 2 email, Asher said, “No, Chicago is not the murder capital of the world, there are many cities with higher murder counts and rates globally.” Experts at the Council on Criminal Justice, an independent think tank which focuses on U.S. cities, directed us to a study of “the world’s most homicidal cities in 2023” by the Igarapé Institute, an independent Brazilian think tank. That study listed cities of 250,000 inhabitants or more by highest homicide rates — the number of homicides per 100,000 people. Chicago was not among its ranking of the 50 cities in the world with the highest homicide rates. The Igarapé Institute’s top 50 list did include U.S. cities (by highest ranking): Memphis (number 21 in world ranking); New Orleans (25); St. Louis (30); Baltimore (36); Cleveland (37); Detroit (48); and Washington, D.C. (50). The top 10 international cities are in Ecuador, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico. Most Murders But Not Highest Rate A week before Trump’s Truth Social claims about Chicago, the White House posted a press release that said, “For 13 consecutive years, Chicago has had the most murders of any U.S. city.” The release cited an article in the conservative Center Square about the number of murders in Chicago in 2024. The press release also said, “For seven consecutive years, Chicago has had the highest murder rate among U.S. cities with more than one million people.” Asher told us, “The White House is correct that Chicago has recorded the most murders in the US for 13 straight years and has had the nation’s [homicide] highest rate for any city of 1 million or more, but that’s an arbitrarily tight comparison group to make in my opinion (usually comparisons are made amongst cities of 250,000 or more).” According to our analysis of FBI crime data, Chicago had the highest murder rate among the nine cities with a population over 1 million in 2024. But it ranked 10th among 37 cities with  population over 500,000. And it ranked 15th among 87 cities with a population over 250,000. Chicago had a population of more than 2.7 million in 2024. Ernesto Lopez, senior research specialist at the Council on Criminal Justice, also said that the White House statement about Chicago’s number of homicides is accurate. “Chicago does have the highest number of homicides in our sample of 30 U.S. cities,” he told us via email. “Relying on homicide counts at the city level is misleading, however, because generally cities with more people have a higher number of homicides. Chicago does not have the highest rate of homicides. … Other major U.S. cities, such as St. Louis, Memphis, Detroit, Baltimore, and Washington, DC, have higher homicide rates.” (Emphasis is his.) According to CCJ data going back to 2018, Lopez said, “Chicago does have the highest number of homicides. But again, using the number of homicides as a comparison across cities is not an advisable way to examine homicide trends. Chicago does not consistently have the highest homicide rate among cities with more than 1 million people.” Citing the CCJ criminal offense dashboard, Lopez said, “In our sample, we have homicide data for five cities with more than 1 million people — Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and San Antonio.” That data shows Philadelphia had a higher homicide rate than Chicago in the first six months of 2019, 2024 and 2025. Examining Chicago Crime Data Responding to an anticipated deployment of the National Guard to Chicago, the mayor told CNN on Aug. 25, “I don’t know of any cities in America that are calling for federal troops to occupy their cities. … Homicides are down nearly 32%

Amid upheaval at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including the firing of the agency’s director, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. distorted the facts to falsely claim that the agency’s website lists abortion as one of the “10 greatest advances in medical science.” Kennedy’s comments came in an Aug. 28 interview on “Fox & Friends,” the day after HHS announced on X that Susan Monarez, who had served as CDC director for less than a month after being nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate, was no longer head of the agency. Monarez, who reportedly clashed with Kennedy over vaccine policy, has disputed the legality of her firing. Her lawyers said in a statement posted on X that she was targeted after she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.” The same day, the Food and Drug Administration approved updated COVID-19 shots for the 2025-2026 season, but only for certain people based on age or health condition, contrary to the advice of other major medical groups. Four high-level CDC staffers also resigned. While declining to speak about Monarez specifically, Kennedy said in the Fox News interview that the “CDC has problems,” citing what he viewed as deficiencies in the agency’s response during the COVID-19 pandemic. As another example of the CDC’s “problems,” Kennedy, who has repeatedly claimed not to be anti-vaccine despite decades of such advocacy work, proceeded to point to an agency website that he said listed abortion, water fluoridation and vaccination as major medical advances. “Today, on the CDC’s website right now, they list the 10 top advances — the 10 greatest advances in medical science. And one of them is abortion,” he said. “Another is fluoridation, another is vaccines. So we need to look at the priorities of the agency, if there is really a deeply, deeply embedded — I would say, malaise — at the agency.” “The agency is in trouble and we need to fix it,” he added. “And it may be that some people should not be working there anymore.” Later in the day, at the end of a press conference in Texas, Kennedy repeated the claim. “The CDC has on its website — today — that among the top 10 medical innovations, greatest medical accomplishments in history, abortion. One of the greatest medical accomplishments because it keeps small families. Go to the website, look at fluoridation — giving kids a toxin — and vaccines.” We could find no CDC webpage listing the greatest medical innovations. There are a few older reports published in the agency’s journal, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, that list the top 10 public health achievements. But while vaccination and water fluoridation are indeed included, abortion is not a main entry in any of them. Nor are the lists featured on the CDC’s website in a consumer-friendly way. The pages are web versions of published journal articles that are primarily intended for medical or scientific audiences. Susan Monarez takes part in a Senate hearing on her nomination to head the CDC in June. Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images. HHS did not respond to our inquiry asking which list Kennedy was citing, but it’s likely that Kennedy is referring to an April 1999 MMWR that lists the 10 greatest public health achievements in the U.S. during the 20th century. (Two similar MMWR lists cover achievements in the first decade of the 21st century and include vaccination but do not ever refer to abortion.) In subsequent MMWR articles in 1999, which explain the rationale for each of the choices on the 20th century list, two of the entries, “Healthier mothers and babies” and “Family Planning,” include brief mentions of abortion. But abortion itself is not the major “achievement.” Rather, the October 1999 “Healthier mothers and babies” MMWR is about reductions in maternal and infant mortality, which are attributed to “[e]nvironmental interventions, improvements in nutrition, advances in clinical medicine, improvements in access to health care, improvements in surveillance and monitoring of disease, increases in education levels, and improvements in standards of living.”  Abortion is mentioned with regard to maternal mortality and sepsis, a potentially lethal immune response to an infection. Noting that maternal mortality was highest in the last century during the first three decades of the 1900s, the MMWR explains that poor obstetric practices were responsible for many preventable maternal deaths.   “Deliveries, including some surgical interventions, were performed without following the principles of asepsis,” the article reads. “As a result, 40% of maternal deaths were caused by sepsis (half following delivery and half associated with illegally induced abortion).” The MMWR goes on to explain that increased attention to the issue of maternal mortality starting in the 1930s led to maternal mortality review committees as well as new practice guidelines. In addition, more people began delivering in hospitals using aseptic techniques and with access to medical advances such as antibiotics and safer blood transfusions. At the end of the paragraph, abortion is mentioned once to note that legalization of the practice “beginning in the 1960s contributed to an 89% decline in deaths from septic illegal abortions” between 1950 and 1973. Legalization of abortion, therefore, contributed to some of the maternal mortality declines, according to the MMWR, but it was one of many factors — and did not mean abortions were not occurring previously. The “Family planning” MMWR from December 1999 is focused on modern contraceptives, not abortion. Describing family planning as it developed over the 20th century as “the ability to achieve desired birth spacing and family size,” the article notes that “couples chose to have fewer children” and that “[s]maller families and longer birth intervals have contributed to the better health of infants, children, and women.” Abortion is mentioned primarily in contrast to modern birth control, since contraceptives can prevent unintended pregnancies. The article is clear that the main goal is to reduce such pregnancies, which in turn would reduce abortions.  Under a section titled “Challenges,” the article states that unintended pregnancy in the U.S. “remains a problem;

While signing executive orders at the White House on Aug. 25, President Donald Trump wrongly said that an 11-day span of no homicides in Washington, D.C., was the “first time that’s taken place in years,” a claim reiterated by other members of the administration who credited Trump’s federal takeover of the district’s law enforcement. An 11-day stretch with zero murders is rare in the city, but there was a 16-day period with no murders earlier this year, from Feb. 25 to March 12, according to Metropolitan Police Department data. The Metropolitan Police Department investigates a double shooting of two males who were transported to the hospital on Aug. 18 in Washington, D.C. Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images. “In the last 11 days, we’ve had no murders and that’s the first time that’s taken place in years, actually years. We always have a murderer a week. They call it a murder a week,” Trump said as he prepared to sign executive orders aimed at ending no-cash-bail policies in Washington and other jurisdictions. He repeated it later: “So for 11 days there have been no murders. The record goes back years where that’s happened. They haven’t seen that happen in years.” So far in 2025, there have been 103 homicides in Washington, an average of about three per week. In all of 2024, there were 187, down from 274 in 2023. As we’ve reported before, the city’s murder rate in 2023 — 39 per 100,000 population — was the highest in 20 years, but it was half the peak murder rate in 1991. And the rate has been declining since 2023. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, repeated the claim at the same event, saying: “We’ve checked the records. No one can even find a record of being murder free for as long as we’ve been murder free under President Trump’s leadership.” Vice President JD Vance credited the president “and the team” with saving “six or seven lives.” There were no reported homicides in the city on Aug. 25, bringing the no-homicide streak to 12 days, dating back to Aug. 14. That information is available through the Metropolitan Police Department’s “crime cards” website, which provides preliminary crime data based on when crimes are reported to police. An early-morning homicide on Aug. 26, as reported by local news, ended the streak. Trump had announced a federal takeover of the city’s police force on Aug. 11, along with the deployment of National Guard troops and a surge of federal law enforcement officers in the city to combat what he called a “crime emergency” in the district. (As we wrote at the time, there was an increase in crime in Washington in 2023, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia reported in January that violent crime overall for 2024 was down 35% from the previous year and was “the lowest it has been in over 30 years.” The administration has accused the police department of reporting “phony crime stats” and is investigating the matter, as we’ve also explained.) There were two reported homicides on Aug. 11 and one more reported on Aug. 13, but the 12-day period with zero homicides began the following day. As we said, such 12-day periods aren’t common in the city, but it hasn’t been “the first time that’s taken place in years,” as Trump said. It’s been about six months, when the city went 16 days without a homicide in late February and early March. In 2024, the longest period without a homicide that we could find was 11 days, from Jan. 5 to Jan. 15. We asked the White House whether the president was using a different crime dataset to make his claim. Spokeswoman Taylor Rogers responded: “Here are the facts: Violent crime has been plaguing the streets of Washington, DC for years – in just two weeks, President Trump’s bold action has stopped the senseless killings, removed over one thousand violent criminals from the streets, and overall crime has decreased.” The MPD crime cards website does show a drop in violent and property crimes from Aug. 11, the date of Trump’s announced law enforcement takeover, to Aug. 26, compared with the same time period last year, or even a similar time period just prior to Aug. 11, with most of the violent crime reductions in robberies. But Jeff Asher, a co-founder of AH Datalytics, a data consulting firm that produces an aggregation of crime data, cautioned that it was too early to analyze very recent crime data and to try to tease out whether the federal government’s actions have had an impact. The crime data is “very preliminary,” and it could take weeks or up to two months for all the reporting to occur, he told us. There is some “underreporting of data,” he said, “when using a raw dataset like this.” The crime trends in the city were also “already going down,” so measuring two points on a downward slope will show a decline. According to the preliminary data, there were 32 fewer violent crimes reported from Aug. 11 to Aug. 26, compared with the prior 16-day period, a drop of 28%. The decline was 48% compared with the same time period in 2024. But as Asher noted, violent crime in the city had dropped 34% for the two weeks ending June 29, compared with the two weeks prior, and was 51% lower than the same period in 2024. “No intervention or anything, just randomness disguised as meaning,” he said.  That doesn’t mean the federal intervention in Washington hasn’t or won’t have an impact, but more time is needed to determine that, Asher said. “It’s challenging to see the effect of an intervention even months down the line. Doing it while it’s occurring … is not strongly advised.” Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not accept advertising. We rely on grants and individual donations from people like you. Please consider a donation. Credit card donations may be made through our “Donate” page. If you prefer to give

In the battle over Texas’ redistricting plan to pick up Republican House seats, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have made competing claims. Hochul, a Democrat, said at an Aug. 4 briefing, “Congressional districts are never redrawn mid-decade as they are, but here they are, flagrantly breaking the rules so they can hold on to power.” Districts have been redrawn mid-decade many times, but that’s usually due to legal challenges — making Texas’ mid-decade redistricting without court action rare.  Abbott, a Republican, said in an Aug. 5 appearance on Fox News, “There are no states more gerrymandered than California and Illinois and New York. … I don’t think those states can gerrymander any more than they have.” Illinois is among the most skewed states for partisan congressional maps, but California and New York get favorable marks in analyses from nonpartisan organizations. A person views a map during a Texas Senate Special Committee on Congressional Redistricting hearing on Aug. 7. Photo by Brandon Bell via Getty Images. The fracas began because, ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, President Donald Trump has said he wants Texas state lawmakers to redraw congressional district lines to pick up Republican House seats. The move could touch off a redistricting arms race since some Democratic governors have threatened to counter with redistricting in their states if Texas Republicans move forward with their plan. Trump referred to the plan as “a very simple redrawing,” when reporters asked him about it on July 15. “We [Republicans] pick up five seats. But we have a couple of other states where we’ll pick up seats also,” he said. We asked the White House for more details about the plan, including which other states may be involved, but we didn’t get a response. Texas Republicans announced a redistricting proposal in July, and Democratic state representatives grabbed headlines when they left the state on Aug. 3 in order to block a vote on the proposed map. Two weeks later, those lawmakers said that they would return to Texas if California releases a redrawn congressional map of its own. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is planning to hold a special election on Nov. 4 to get voter approval for a redrawn map that could give Democrats five additional seats in the House. But if Texas or other states abandon redistricting plans, California’s map would stay as is under Newsom’s proposal. Hochul has also pledged to help Democrats pick up seats, but state laws in New York would likely bar any changes before the midterms. The governor has said that New York should disband its independent redistricting commission, which could allow Democrats to draw more favorable maps. We’ll explain how redistricting has been done and differences among the states as we assess Hochul’s and Abbott’s claims. When Are District Lines Drawn? Congressional districts are usually drawn at the start of the decade, but Hochul is wrong to say that lines are “never” redrawn later. Typically, lines are redrawn every 10 years, following the census. The process is meant to result in fair representation based on population. “Our modern congressional redistricting system was effectively set up in the early 1960s in a series of Supreme Court decisions that enforced a ‘one person, one vote’ standard on congressional districts,” Kyle Kondik, an elections analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told us in an email, referring to a trio of cases in 1962 and 1964. “This specified that congressional (and state legislative) districts had to essentially have equal population within states,” Kondik said. “Previously, states had allowed huge disparities in district populations, which led to rural areas being overrepresented and urban/suburban areas being underrepresented.” Since 1970, states have gotten into a more regular habit of redrawing districts every 10 years to account for changes uncovered by the census, he said. “However, starting in the 1964 congressional election cycle and going through 2024, at least one congressional district’s lines were changed in 24 of the 31 two-year election cycles since then. This cycle will make it 25 of 32, assuming a map officially changes,” Kondik said. “So, mid-decade redistricting is common. Now what is uncommon about Texas (and states that may follow) is that mid-decade redistrictings almost always include some sort of court action.” Sam Wang, director of Princeton’s Gerrymandering Project and president of the Electoral Innovation Lab, told us the same thing. “In recent decades, the only times that mid-decade redistricting has occurred are (a) when a court or the law requires it (PA, NY, MD, NC, OH…), or (b) when it’s Texas – they did it in 2003,” Wang said in an email. Following the decennial redistricting process, civil rights and good government organizations often file lawsuits challenging the new maps — usually alleging gerrymandering or race discrimination. The Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks these cases, says that the courts “play an important role” in determining where the lines will eventually fall. According to a 2021 paper that collected about 60 years’ worth of data, there had been more than 900 challenges to various redistricting plans — for local governments, school boards, statewide offices and congressional districts — in federal courts. A Brennan Center analysis of challenges brought following this decade’s redistricting found 90 cases, “split roughly evenly between state and federal court, a change from last decade when the overwhelming bulk of challenges to maps were in federal court.” “What Texas is doing is different than the norm in that there’s no court action,” Kondik said. It’s not completely unprecedented, though. As both Wang and Kondik pointed out, in 2003, Texas redrew its congressional map, replacing the one that had been adopted following the 2000 census. That redistricting led to a lawsuit that was eventually decided in 2006 by the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that part of the map violated the Voting Rights Act but did not find that the state was prohibited from redrawing its electoral maps at will. Redistricting is largely handled by the states, and there is no federal prohibition on

In the battle over Texas’ redistricting plan to pick up Republican House seats, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have made competing claims. Hochul, a Democrat, said at an Aug. 4 briefing, “Congressional districts are never redrawn mid-decade as they are, but here they are, flagrantly breaking the rules so they can hold on to power.” Districts have been redrawn mid-decade many times, but that’s usually due to legal challenges — making Texas’ mid-decade redistricting without court action rare.  Abbott, a Republican, said in an Aug. 5 appearance on Fox News, “There are no states more gerrymandered than California and Illinois and New York. … I don’t think those states can gerrymander any more than they have.” Illinois is among the most skewed states for partisan congressional maps, but California and New York get favorable marks in analyses from nonpartisan organizations. A person views a map during a Texas Senate Special Committee on Congressional Redistricting hearing on Aug. 7. Photo by Brandon Bell via Getty Images. The fracas began because, ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, President Donald Trump has said he wants Texas state lawmakers to redraw congressional district lines to pick up Republican House seats. The move could touch off a redistricting arms race since some Democratic governors have threatened to counter with redistricting in their states if Texas Republicans move forward with their plan. Trump referred to the plan as “a very simple redrawing,” when reporters asked him about it on July 15. “We [Republicans] pick up five seats. But we have a couple of other states where we’ll pick up seats also,” he said. We asked the White House for more details about the plan, including which other states may be involved, but we didn’t get a response. Texas Republicans announced a redistricting proposal in July, and Democratic state representatives grabbed headlines when they left the state on Aug. 3 in order to block a vote on the proposed map. Two weeks later, those lawmakers said that they would return to Texas if California releases a redrawn congressional map of its own. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is planning to hold a special election on Nov. 4 to get voter approval for a redrawn map that could give Democrats five additional seats in the House. But if Texas or other states abandon redistricting plans, California’s map would stay as is under Newsom’s proposal. Hochul has also pledged to help Democrats pick up seats, but state laws in New York would likely bar any changes before the midterms. The governor has said that New York should disband its independent redistricting commission, which could allow Democrats to draw more favorable maps. We’ll explain how redistricting has been done and differences among the states as we assess Hochul’s and Abbott’s claims. When Are District Lines Drawn? Congressional districts are usually drawn at the start of the decade, but Hochul is wrong to say that lines are “never” redrawn later. Typically, lines are redrawn every 10 years, following the census. The process is meant to result in fair representation based on population. “Our modern congressional redistricting system was effectively set up in the early 1960s in a series of Supreme Court decisions that enforced a ‘one person, one vote’ standard on congressional districts,” Kyle Kondik, an elections analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told us in an email, referring to a trio of cases in 1962 and 1964. “This specified that congressional (and state legislative) districts had to essentially have equal population within states,” Kondik said. “Previously, states had allowed huge disparities in district populations, which led to rural areas being overrepresented and urban/suburban areas being underrepresented.” Since 1970, states have gotten into a more regular habit of redrawing districts every 10 years to account for changes uncovered by the census, he said. “However, starting in the 1964 congressional election cycle and going through 2024, at least one congressional district’s lines were changed in 24 of the 31 two-year election cycles since then. This cycle will make it 25 of 32, assuming a map officially changes,” Kondik said. “So, mid-decade redistricting is common. Now what is uncommon about Texas (and states that may follow) is that mid-decade redistrictings almost always include some sort of court action.” Sam Wang, director of Princeton’s Gerrymandering Project and president of the Electoral Innovation Lab, told us the same thing. “In recent decades, the only times that mid-decade redistricting has occurred are (a) when a court or the law requires it (PA, NY, MD, NC, OH…), or (b) when it’s Texas – they did it in 2003,” Wang said in an email. Following the decennial redistricting process, civil rights and good government organizations often file lawsuits challenging the new maps — usually alleging gerrymandering or race discrimination. The Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks these cases, says that the courts “play an important role” in determining where the lines will eventually fall. According to a 2021 paper that collected about 60 years’ worth of data, there had been more than 900 challenges to various redistricting plans — for local governments, school boards, statewide offices and congressional districts — in federal courts. A Brennan Center analysis of challenges brought following this decade’s redistricting found 90 cases, “split roughly evenly between state and federal court, a change from last decade when the overwhelming bulk of challenges to maps were in federal court.” “What Texas is doing is different than the norm in that there’s no court action,” Kondik said. It’s not completely unprecedented, though. As both Wang and Kondik pointed out, in 2003, Texas redrew its congressional map, replacing the one that had been adopted following the 2000 census. That redistricting led to a lawsuit that was eventually decided in 2006 by the U.S. Supreme Court, which found that part of the map violated the Voting Rights Act but did not find that the state was prohibited from redrawing its electoral maps at will. Redistricting is largely handled by the states, and there is no federal prohibition on