The Worst 'Whoppers'

This week, we published our annual list of "whoppers" -- the worst falsehoods that we wrote about this year. 

President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. feature prominently on our list. 

Kennedy took his yearslong effort to spread misinformation about vaccines and health to the campaign trail. Kennedy, nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy, has repeated so many false and misleading claims to voters that we ran a three-part series on what he gets wrong. 

One of RFK Jr.'s most common falsehoods is that vaccines “are the only medical product that is not safety-tested prior to licensure.” In fact, all vaccines undergo safety testing prior to authorization or approval.

Speaking about illegal immigration, Trump said, "Other countries are emptying out their prisons, insane asylums and mental institutions and sending their most heinous criminals to the United States.” Immigration experts we talked to said there’s simply no evidence that is happening. One expert told us Trump’s claim appeared to be “a total fabrication.” 

Biden claimed to have “cut the federal deficit” by making some corporations pay a 15% corporate alternative minimum tax. However, the deficit in fiscal year 2023, when the tax went into effect, increased to about $1.7 trillion — up from nearly $1.4 trillion the previous year. 

For more, read our story "The Whoppers of 2023." 

Reader: I just discovered a recent news article ["Scoop: Warner Bros. Discovery in talks to merge with Paramount Global," Dec. 20] announcing David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery speaking with Robert Baskin of Paramount Global about a merger between the two conglomerates. I want to know if the news article is even legitimate. 

FactCheck.org Director Eugene Kiely: The article is legitimate. It was written by Axios, a reputable news organization. But whenever you are in doubt, try this simple test: Do a Google search and check to see what, if anything, other news organizations you trust have written about it.

Here are some stories on the possible merger by major news organizations: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg and Reuters. 

Wrapping Up

Here's what else we've got for you this week:

• "Yale Preprint Recorded Patient Experiences, Did Not Demonstrate Vaccines Cause New Syndrome": A preprint on a Yale-based study described chronic symptoms self-reported after COVID-19 vaccination by 241 members of an online group. The paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, did not show how common these symptoms are in the general population, nor whether vaccinations caused them — limitations popular online posts did not make clear. 
• "Post Spreads Misleading Information About Texas Abortion Case": Kate Cox petitioned to be allowed to have an abortion in Texas to “protect her life, health, and future fertility,” after receiving news that her baby was unlikely to survive, according to her court filing. A popular Instagram post misrepresented Cox’s specific case and also made misleading claims about trisomy 18, the condition affecting her pregnancy.
• "Fake Story About Trans Athlete Spreads Online": Lia Thomas, who received widespread attention as a transgender member of the women’s swimming team at the University of Pennsylvania, has graduated from college and is no longer on the school team. But claims about her persist online, including one recent falsehood, which originated on a satirical site, claiming that she joined a men’s team.
• "Flawed Analysis of New Zealand Data Doesn’t Show COVID-19 Vaccines Killed Millions": Data from around the world support the general safety of the COVID-19 vaccines. Some people online, however, incorrectly claim that illegally obtained data from New Zealand show the vaccines have killed 13 million people worldwide. Experts say the analysis is bogus. 
• "Posts Use Transposed Mugshot of Epstein to Target Kamala Harris": A federal judge has ordered the release of documents that will identify scores of accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s associates. The order has led many social media users to share a digitally manipulated image that purports to show Vice President Kamala Harris posing with Epstein. The original photo showed Harris with her husband, Douglas Emhoff.

• "Las enfermedades respiratorias infantiles en China no son tan ‘misteriosas’": Cinco senadores republicanos han escrito una carta al presidente Joe Biden instándole a prohibir los viajes a EE. UU. procedentes de China debido al aumento de enfermedades respiratorias “misteriosas” en los niños. Pero la carta cita selectivamente información obsoleta de la Organización Mundial de la Salud, y los expertos afirman que las enfermedades se deben probablemente a virus y bacterias conocidos y no son inesperadas.
• "La excreción de la vacuna es de esperar con ciertas vacunas y, en general, no es perjudicial, al contrario de lo que dice una publicación": Las personas que reciben algunas vacunas que utilizan virus vivos debilitados para estimular una respuesta inmunitaria fuerte y duradera, a veces, liberan pequeñas cantidades de esos virus. Eso es de esperar y no significa que pongan a poblaciones vulnerables “en peligro”, como una publicación sugiere engañosamente. 
• "Un meme hace una comparación engañosa para poner en duda el cambio climático": La Tierra se está calentando al ritmo más rápido de los últimos 10.000 años, según la NASA, y el consenso entre expertos en climatología es que la actividad humana es la causante del cambio. Pero un meme en las redes sociales busca minar la realidad del cambio climático, tergiversando las opiniones y la cobertura informativa de una climatóloga muy popular entre quienes creen que el cambio climático es un “engaño”.