President Donald Trump made numerous false claims throughout a Cabinet meeting Thursday at the White House – many of them about vaccines.
He wrongly asserted that infants are given 82 vaccines in a single shot (not even close to true). He wrongly asserted that infants are given vaccine doses the dimensions of two glasses of water (a regular dose is a small fraction of a teaspoon). He wrongly asserted that Amish folks don’t take vaccines or tablets (many do) and don’t have any autism (they do). And he wrongly asserted that the measles vaccine is already given individually from different vaccines (no separate measles shot is out there within the US).
Trump was additionally wildly inaccurate on different topics.
He once more claimed every alleged Venezuelan drug boat kills 25,000 Americans, a quantity that’s plainly absurd. He once more used mathematically impossible figures in promising that drug costs will fall by tons of of p.c. He once more declared that he had settled seven wars even earlier than the brand new ceasefire he brokered in Gaza, although his determine includes a war that hasn’t ended and two conditions that weren’t wars throughout his presidency.
He revived his regular lie that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election he legitimately misplaced to Joe Biden. And he declared as soon as extra that the massive home coverage invoice he signed earlier this 12 months consists of “no tax on Social Security,” although that’s not what the invoice says.
Here is a truth test of those remarks.
Babies and vaccines: Echoing his previous false claim that infants are given pictures from “a vat of 80 different vaccines,” Trump lamented this time that “we have 82 vaccines that we give simult(aneously),” slicing himself off earlier than ending the phrase, then mentioned, “You give 82 vaccines in a shot to a little baby that hasn’t even formed yet.” Babies usually are not given 82 vaccines in a single shot and even throughout a single go to to the physician. In truth, infants don’t obtain anyplace near 82 vaccines in whole, because the the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommended childhood vaccination schedule exhibits; US infants typically get properly below 20 totally different vaccines (and roughly 20 to 30 pictures) by the age of 15 months.
The measurement of vaccine doses: Trump, referring to a glass of water on the desk in entrance of him, speculated that autism may probably be linked to “these massive vaccines that are twice the size of a jar like that, a glass of water like that – into a baby’s body.” The notion of a hyperlink between vaccines and autism has been debunked, and no vaccine given to infants is even near the dimensions of a glass of water, not to mention two glasses. The MMR vaccine, to quote a typical example, has a dosage of 0.5 milliliters, roughly a tenth of a teaspoon.
The Amish, vaccines and autism: Trump, referring to the Amish group in Pennsylvania, mentioned “they don’t take any of this stuff and they have virtually none, right, they have no autism.” It wasn’t clear whether or not he was referring to vaccines particularly or each vaccines and trendy medicines when he mentioned “don’t take any of this stuff,” however the declare is false regardless; Braxton Mitchell, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who has labored with Amish communities for greater than 30 years and is co-director of the Amish Research Clinic in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, mentioned it’s not true that the Amish categorically reject vaccines and tablets, and not true that they don’t have any autism at all.
“Regarding vaccines: some Amish choose to vaccinate their kids and some do not. So it is incorrect to say that Amish do not vaccinate,” Mitchell advised NCS when Trump made related claims in late September. “A claim was also made about use of Tylenol. I can tell you that Tylenol is used by many Lancaster Amish.”
Childhood vaccination charges in Amish communities have long been lower than within the nation as an entire, however they don’t seem to be nonexistent. And whereas Amish folks generally prefer alternative treatments over trendy medicines, their communities don’t utterly shun tablets like Tylenol. Mitchell famous it’s not clear what the prevalence of autism is in Amish communities, since there was “very little systematic data” collected on the topic, however: “Bottom line: yes, autism does exist in the Amish. We do not know how its frequency compares to non-Amish.”
Vaccination for the measles: Trump repeated his name to separate the safe and effective measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) combination vaccine into three separate pictures, then baselessly mentioned, “The measles is already separate now, and it works out much better.” There is no separate shot for measles out there within the United States. The appearing director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did be part of Trump in calling this week for “vaccine manufacturers to develop safe monovalent vaccines to replace the combined MMR and ‘break up the MMR shot into three total separate shots,’” however the corporations haven’t already carried out so.
Alleged Venezuelan drug boats: Touting the military attacks he has ordered on at least 4 alleged Venezuelan drug boats since early September, Trump falsely claimed, “Every single boat that you see getting taken out kills 25,000 Americans, think of that.” This quantity does not make any sense.
The whole variety of US overdose deaths from all medication in 2024 was about 82,000, in keeping with provisional federal data. Trump is basically claiming, in different phrases, that his resolution to assault a small variety of boats within the Caribbean prevented greater than a full 12 months’s price of drug deaths. The president’s determine is “absurd,” mentioned Carl Latkin, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University college of public well being with a joint appointment at its medical college. “He’s claiming that he’s solved the overdose mortality crisis” with 4 boat strikes, and “that does not have any semblance of reality.” You can learn an extended truth test here.
Trump and wars: Trump, talking about his success in brokering a ceasefire in Gaza, falsely claimed this was “number eight” on the checklist of wars he had “settled.” He added, “We’ve settled seven wars, or major conflicts, but we’ll call them wars.”
Trump’s quantity is inaccurate even along with his “major conflicts” hedge.
Trump has beforehand explained that his checklist of seven supposed wars settled features a struggle between Egypt and Ethiopia, however that wasn’t really a struggle; it was a long-running diplomatic dispute about a major Ethiopian dam project on a tributary of the Nile River, a dispute that’s unresolved. Trump’s checklist consists of another supposed war that didn’t actually occur throughout his presidency, between Serbia and Kosovo. (He has generally claimed to have prevented the eruption of a brand new struggle between these two entities, offering few particulars about what he meant, however that’s totally different than settling an precise struggle.) And his checklist features a supposed success in ending a struggle involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, however that struggle has continued regardless of a peace settlement brokered by the Trump administration this 12 months – which was by no means signed by the main insurgent coalition doing the combating.
Prescription drug costs: Trump repeated his acquainted however nonsensical boast that his “Most Favored Nation” coverage on prescription drug pricing goes to cut back drug costs by properly over 100%; this time, he claimed, “We’re going to be reducing the costs of medicines by 100%, 200, 300, 500% and even more than that.” Those numbers usually are not mathematically potential, as NCS and others have repeatedly famous.
Even if Trump’s coverage does produce a giant decline in drug costs – and that’s very much uncertain on condition that it depends on cooperation by reluctant pharmaceutical companies or hypothetical future regulatory motion – he can’t really minimize the worth of any product by 150% to 500%. If he magically received the businesses to cut back the costs of all of their medication to $0, that will be a 100% minimize. You can learn an extended truth test here.
The 2020 election: Trump repeated his regular lie that the 2020 election “turned out to be a rigged election” and the “we had the wrong guy get in there” as president. Trump misplaced a free and truthful election to a legitimately elected Joe Biden.
Trump’s massive invoice and Social Security: Trump repeated his false claim that the “big beautiful” invoice he signed into legislation earlier this 12 months ensures “no tax on Social Security.” It doesn’t.
The laws did create a further, non permanent $6,000-per-year tax deduction for people age 65 and older (with a smaller deduction for people incomes $75,000 per 12 months or extra), however the White House itself has implicitly acknowledged that tens of millions of Social Security recipients age 65 and older will proceed to pay taxes on their advantages – and that new deduction, which expires in 2028, doesn’t even apply to the Social Security recipients who are younger than 65.