Political Price Tags

In political campaigns, TV ads often try to warn voters about how an opposing candidate’s policies would affect them. Or cost them. But beware.

Case in point: a TV ad from the National Republican Senatorial Committee claims John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, has “embraced parts of the Green New Deal that’d cost you 50,000 bucks a year.”

Given that the median household income in the U.S. is about $65,000, that’s … a lot of money. But as Deputy Managing Editor Rob Farley explains, the figure is a speculative estimate of what it would cost to achieve the goals of the Green New Deal. And more importantly, there’s no evidence that Fetterman supports the policies that estimate includes.

Fetterman says he “never supported the Green New Deal,” which was a nonbinding resolution introduced in the U.S. House in 2019 with lofty goals to “achiev[e] net-zero greenhouse gas emissions” through a “10-year national mobilization effort.” The effort would include upgrading buildings to be more efficient and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation and agriculture. The resolution is big on ideas but short on specifics.

Fetterman does, however, support a longer-term transition away from fossil fuels -- “a balanced and gradual energy transition spanning decades,” his campaign told us, “that respects Pennsylvania communities that depend on the fossil fuel industry.”

As for the $50,000 estimate, that comes from the free-market think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which admittedly had to make a lot of assumptions to put a price tag on what households in Pennsylvania, and those in four other states, might end up paying to reach the Green New Deal’s goals. Experts have told us before that it’s tough to estimate a cost for the too-vague resolution.

Fetterman faces Republican nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz in the November general election to replace outgoing Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.

For more, see the full story, “NRSC’s Misleading Green New Deal Attack on Fetterman.”

Reader: So you have made hundreds of statements stating that the coronavirus vaccine is totally safe. Now it’s been made very clear that it is not totally safe.

Do you have plans to go back and correct all of your false statements?

FactCheck.org Science Editor Jessica McDonald: Clinical trials and subsequent studies and ongoing safety monitoring have shown the COVID-19 vaccines to be safe and effective, but we have never stated that they are “totally safe.” In fact, we have been careful to say that no vaccine is 100% safe, and have taken pains to explain the low, but real, risks of vaccination. For the two most used vaccines in the U.S., those include rare events, such as serious allergic reactions and cases of myocarditis or pericarditis (inflammation of the heart or its surrounding tissue). 
 
As with any medical product, the question about safety is whether the benefits outweigh the risks -- and to date, the evidence is quite clear that the benefits do outweigh the risks. So no, we don’t plan to correct our statements, because there is no need.
 
We will, however, be sure to share any safety concerns with the vaccines that may emerge in the future and will continue to provide accurate information about vaccine safety to our readers.

Wrapping Up

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

• "Social Media Swirls With Unsupported Claims About Cause of Justin and Hailey Bieber’s Medical Conditions": Pop star Justin Bieber announced he has Ramsay Hunt syndrome, a form of facial paralysis caused by a reactivation of the virus that causes chickenpox. Social media posts have claimed his condition was caused by COVID-19 vaccination, but there is no established link between vaccination and the syndrome. Some posts have also baselessly claimed vaccination was behind a mini-stroke suffered by Bieber’s wife, Hailey.
• "Kansas Cattle Died After Unusual Heat Wave, Contrary to Baseless Claims Online": At least 2,000 cattle have died following a heat wave in southwestern Kansas. Although the cattle apparently died of heatstroke, social media posts have made baseless claims suggesting that the deaths might be part of a larger conspiracy theory about the food supply.

• "Publicaciones en redes distorsionan cuestionable estudio sobre vacunación contra el COVID-19 y llamadas a servicios médicos de emergencia": Estudios han encontrado que el COVID-19 aumenta el riesgo de enfermedades cardíacas y que los beneficios de las vacunas contra el COVID-19 superan a los riesgos en mujeres y hombres en todos los grupos de edad. Pero publicaciones en las redes sociales han malinterpretado y publicitado un criticado estudio que dice haber identificado una correlación entre llamadas a servicios médicos de emergencia por eventos cardiacos y la tasa de vacunación en Israel.