Category: Fact Check

On 9 November 2023, an Alt News journalist received a request from an X user to look into the authenticity of a donation drive by a user named Ritika Annie, who claimed to run an animal welfare body named ‘Helping Hooks’. We were alerted that this X account had been using the name and photos of an Instagram user.

When we matched the photos of Ritika Sheoran on Instagram with those posted by X user Ritika Annie, we found that they were the same. We contacted Ritika Sheoran and she responded to us by saying that she did not run the X handle @GoneGirlAnnie. She did not have an X account at all.

We also noted that the premium subscribed X handle @GoneGirlAnnie was initially being run by a user named Annie Thakur, which was later changed to Ritika Annie. The bio of this account said, ‘Co-founder at Helping Hooks Animal Welfare Society.’ We found @HelpingHooks on X. As per its bio, it is a ‘registered NGO based in Uttarakhand, India’ which works in animal welfare and wildlife rehabilitation. Its activities include rescuing, feeding and rehabilitating animals.

Impersonation

So, our initial investigation revealed that the account ‘Ritika Annie’ was not only using someone else’s images but also their name. Besides the name ‘Ritika Annie’, the account had also used the name ‘Annie Thakur’. The Gmail ID mentioned in the bio was ‘[email protected]’.

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At the time of this story being written, the account @GoneGirlAnnie does not exist and all the tweets shared by the account @HelpingHooks have been deleted. The last profile photo of @GoneGirlAnnie before it was deleted, which can be seen in this archive, is a photo uploaded on Instagram by Ritika Sheoran in October 2022.

We also found that in December-January, the account named Ritika Annie changed its name and handle at least twice, to @SaveAIndie and @AnamikaThakurr. When we checked the replies given to the @GoneGirlAnnie handle by using Twitter (X) advanced search, we found that both these handles (@SaveAIndie & @AnamikaThakurr) appeared in search results. This shows that the handle was changed but the X account was the same. We archived the changes made in these accounts. It can be seen in the source code of these archives that the ID number (identifier) of the profile is the same, as changing the handle and name of the profile does not change its ID number.

We then looked into some images of stray dogs that the page had posted and found that those too were taken from an Instagram account called @pawdiarieswtaniishi.

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The Instagram account released a statement addressing the above where they clarified that they had got nothing to do with ‘Ritika Annie’ or ‘Helping Hooks’.

 

Once we sensed something amiss, we started keeping an eye on the X user, Ritika Annie. We noted that the account had posted a prescription of a veterinary hospital named Vets Now, run by Dr Sawan Kumar, which had the name ‘Helping Hooks’ mentioned in it as the pet owner.

We contacted Dr Kumar on the number given in the prescription. When we explained to him why we were interested in the activities of ‘Helping Hooks’ and that we suspected some wrongdoings, he told us that two men named Sandeep Mandal and Uttam Mallik frequently visited the hospital as representatives of ‘Helping Hooks’. Dr. Sawan shared an Instagram reel with us which he said had been sent to him by Mandal with a request to like, share and comment on it. The reel was posted on Instagram by Uttam Mallik and Sandeep Mandal was tagged in it. Dr. Sawan identified the two men in the reel as the ones who used to visit his hospital as representatives of ‘Helping Hooks’.

Donation Drives/ Fundraisers

When a user shared a screenshot (attached later in the story) of their X DM containing Sandeep Mandal’s phone number with us, we did a reverse search of that phone number, and two cases of fundraising came up in search results.

Case 1.

On June 26, 2021, a user named Manish Singh tweeted two pictures and wrote that he was raising funds for an X user named @Sandeep_Manan, whose mother’s health condition was critical and his father had died. Sandeep Mandal’s mobile number was given in the contact number of this fundraiser. On performing a reverse image search on the photo in this tweet, we found that the photo was taken from a drive on crowdfunding website Ketto. In this fundraiser, Sandeep Mandal raised funds for his widowed mother, Mamta Mandal.

I’m raising funds for @Sandeep_Manan family, Mother’s health is very

critical after father’s death.
Please help and amplify 🙏

Narayan Hospital And Trauma Center, Rudrapur, Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand
Contact 8791228449 for valid patient reports. @SonuSood pic.twitter.com/3gBLuUjUPo

— Manish Singh 🇮🇳 (@ManishSp8076) June 26, 2021

Ketto has also tweeted this fundraiser several times from its official handle.

“I lost my father to #COVID19 & now my mother is battling COVID Pneumonia. Her condition is critical & she is on 70-80% ventilator support. I cannot afford her medical expenses & request you all to please help us.”

To support: https://t.co/3D3WKdi5Gz pic.twitter.com/yOQPb4em9h

— Ketto (@ketto) July 14, 2021

Case 2.

A X user, Pankaj Kumar, had shared this mobile number on X on February 13, 2022 while talking about an incident of fraud that had happened to him. Kumar wrote that someone cheated him by posing as a journalist named Yukti Mishra. After receiving funds from him, the user blocked him and changed the name and handle of Twitter account to Prachi Sharma (@PrachiGuddy). In this case, Yukti Mishra had raised funds by saying that the condition of Sandeep Mandal’s mother was serious. In this X thread, Pankaj had tweeted Sandeep Mandal’s mobile number and part of the conversation with Yukti Mishra.

DP; Name everything is Changed. I am capable enough to file case and track her down. Biggest mistake she made was sharing Paytm no.
But we all stop just to think that who will go and file case for 5000rs.
I am still thinking over it pic.twitter.com/xpkWPtOygn

— P@nkaj (@PKT3306) February 13, 2022

‘Helping Hooks’ — ‘Ritika Annie’ — ‘Sandeep Mandal’: A Bottomless Pit of Deception

Alt News’s in-depth investigation revealed a mind-boggling network of social media pages/ accounts weaving a complex web of deception and manipulation, and almost all of them somehow led us to one name: Sandeep Mandal.

Being an NGO, Helping Hooks also often ran donation drives on its X account. The user Ritika Annie, claiming to be the co-founder of the organisation, did the same. Helping Hooks’ official account would often retweet and quote her tweets. Here are some screenshots of their donation drives.

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An X user, Sandeep Thapar (@sandythapar), donated Rs. 1000 to Helping Hooks on December 14, 2023. Before donating the amount to the NGO’s official UPI ID, donatehelpinghooks@okaxis, which is often plugged by its co-founder Ritika Annie, Sandeep Thapar tweeted to confirm the UPI ID. The ‘Verified Name’ for the UPI ID showed ‘Sandeep Mandal’. After donating the money, the user shared the screenshot of the same and it showed that the amount had been transferred to an account of Sandeep Mandal.

Helping Hooks replied to the user, thanking him and acknowledging his donation.

We were also contacted by some users who directly connected to Ritika Annie/Annie Thakur via her Twitter DM for making contributions and she sent them the payment details. There as well, under bank account details, the name Sandeep Mandal appears.

However, in the above DM exchange, the contact number shared with the donor is not the same as the mobile number the organisation and Ritika Annie displayed on their Twitter banners. The above mobile number ends with ‘8449’, when a user tried to donate to this number, the name ‘Sandeep Mandal’ showed up.

We looked up the NGO’s registration details and we found that the names of three individuals were mentioned as ‘Members’. They are Uttam Mallick (president), Sandeep Mandal (treasurer) and Suraj (member). The NGO was registered on October 19, 2023.

Even though Ritika Annie claimed to be the co-founder of the organisation, her name did not feature in the company details.

Now that our investigation showed that ‘Ritika Annie’ or ‘Annie Thakur’ was not a real person but a ‘catfish’ account using the name and images of someone else to create a fictional personality on social media, we looked further into where the donations were going if the supposed co-founder of the NGO did not exist.

On running a keyword search for ‘Sandeep Mandal’ on X, we found that many interested donors for Helping Hooks expressed their doubts when they did not see Ritika Annie’s name or the organisation’s name in the account details while making a payment. All that they could see was the name of Sandeep Mandal.

We tried to find out if any other account was using the name Sandeep Mandal.

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1. Smita Mandal

We found a tweet by a user named Amit Singh Rajawat (@satya_AmitSingh) from November 27, 2021, where he quoted a now-deleted tweet, asking his followers to donate, and shared details on where to donate.

We found an archive of the deleted tweet which was made by Smita Mandal (@SmitaMandal089). She tweeted that her mother had been suffering from kidney failure and lung infection. She shared a Ketto link asking people to donate and help her mother get the treatment she urgently needed. The tweet was shared on November 26, 2021.

On opening the Ketto link, it shows that the name of the campaigner was Sandeep and that of the beneficiary was Janki Devi.

The account number and the mobile number mentioned in Amit Singh Rajawat’s tweet seeking donations for Smita Mandal’s fundraiser were the same as the ones ‘Ritika Annie’ shared seeking donations for ‘Helping Hooks’.

We ran a relevant keyword search and found an almost identical fundraiser where the campaigner was different, Raj Singh in this case, but the beneficiary was the same, Janki Devi.

The only difference was in the titles of the two fundraisers but the ‘about’ section was identical with only differences in the names of the beneficiary’s son and the amount required. While Raj Singh’s fundraiser said the required amount was Rs. 5,00,000, Sandeep’s fundraiser said the target was Rs. 7,00,000.

We noticed that the image of the beneficiary Janki Devi in Raj Singh’s fundraiser is the same as the elderly woman who could be seen in the screenshot attached to Smita Mandal’s tweet.

Furthermore, we came across a tweet by a user named Raj Kumar Singh (@SOMVANSHIS) that said: “@ketto Hi, I am raising funds for “My Mother Is Suffering From Kidney (renal) Failure. Share and donate”. The tweet also carried the link to the same fundraiser as mentioned above. The tweet was shared on November 2, 2021, over 20 days before Smita Mandal’s tweet.

@ketto Hi,
I am raising funds for “My Mother Is Suffering From Kidney (renal) Failure.
Share and donate: https://t.co/oNEnIgwBIH.

— Raj Kumar Singh (@SOMVANSHIS) November 2, 2021

Raj Kumar Singh (@SOMVANSHIS) tweeted on December 30, 2021, alleging that Sandeep Mandal had raised 6.27 lakh impersonating as Janki Devi’s son and also withdrew the money while the beneficiary in question, Janki Devi, received nothing.

Ketto team accounts manager refuses to.file case of 420 on that fraud Sandeep mandal raising and withdrawal money on my mother’s name and ketto team without proper ref check transfer the funds great it is straight case of negligence and owners have no informations ?

— Raj Kumar Singh (@SOMVANSHIS) December 30, 2021

2. Dipika Mallik

We ran a relevant keyword search on X and found several tweets flagging the account by the name Dipika Mallik who had falsely shared a Ketto fundraiser claiming it to be for her son.

In October 2021, a user named Shilpa Badgujar (@ShilpaBadgujar) started tweeting about her son Kiansh’s hearing loss and the medical treatment that he required. She also mentioned that the surgery he required would cost around Rs 30 Lakhs. She tagged Sonu Sood’s charity organisation in almost all of her tweets about her son.

On January 11, 2022, Dipika Mallik tweeted the same images of the child and the documentation about his medical diagnosis. In her caption, she mentioned the same diagnosis of the child as mentioned by Shilpa Badjugar and proceeded to add a Ketto link.

In the documentation shared by both the accounts, the child’s name can be seen mentioned as ‘Baba Kiansh Badjugar’, however, the details in the fundraiser shared by Dipika Mallik mentioned the beneficiary’s name as ‘Baba Kiansh Mallik’.

Several users on X pointed out this fake fundraiser to Ketto who then released a statement that the actual father of the beneficiary visited Ketto office with all the required documents hence the money raised by Dipika Mallik would be transferred to the Badjugar family.

Before this, Dipika Mallik had shared an update on the fundraiser complaining that Ketto was not allowing them to withdraw the money and hence she would refund everyone’s donations. She shared a number on which donors can contact her for a refund. We checked the number on Truecaller and interestingly it showed that it belongs to Dipika Mandal. However, the number seems to be registered under Dipika Mallik’s name on Google Pay.

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Fact-checker Sahban (@someone_404) tweeted a thread on December 19 exposing the above Ketto donation fraud carried out by the now-deleted profile ‘Dipika Mallik’. The first tweet of the thread carried a screenshot of a tweet by ‘Ritika Annie’ from December 18. In the tweet, the ‘catfish’ account could be seen sharing bank account and UPI details, seemingly for donation purposes. The account holder’s name said: ‘Dipika Mallik’ and the mobile number mentioned in UPI details is also the same as the above.

The account details provided by @GoneGirlAnnie belongs a fraud, yes a fraud.
A short thread on this fraud 🧵
1/5 pic.twitter.com/sgAGX8nlOW

— Sahban 🇵🇸 (@someone_404) December 19, 2023

This shows a connection between the scams pulled off by ‘Sandeep Mandal’ and ‘Dipika Mallik’.

3. Mamta Tiwari

Another account which often shares donation requests apparently for underprivileged persons or patients is Mamta Tiwari (@MamtaTiwari01). This account is the only one on the list that is still active.

On May 31, Mamta Tiwari tweeted that a 22-year-old girl needed a sewing machine and that they were raising money for her. In the thread, Mamta mentioned that the girl’s father was an alcoholic and that she and her mother were the breadwinners in a household of five.

User Nishant Nihar (@nishant_nihar) reached out to Mamta on how to help. In the DMs, Mamta shared the account details where the donation is to be made and it can be seen that the account holder’s name says: Shivli Mandal.

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In a now-deleted thread on X shared in August 2022, two users claiming to be Shivli Mandal and Abhay Mandal, who are siblings, took to X to ask for donations. The sibling duo mentioned that their father was in a de-addiction centre and due to the family’s unfortunate condition at the moment they needed help to cover their expenses. They also shared a link to a fundraiser at Milaap.

Mamta Tiwari’s ‘Shivli Mandal’ also had a similar story where the father was an addict. However, the contact number shared by Shivli Mandal in her thread from August 2022 did not match the number shared by Mamta Tiwari.

Also, when a user asked Mamta where girl who needed the sewing machine was from, she replied, “Ashok Nagar, Manpur Ojha Bilaspur, Rampur, UP”. However, Abhay Mandal’s thread and the Milaap fundraiser both mentioned their location as Uttarakhand.

We came across a DM exchange from December 7 of this year, where Ritika Annie shared account details on where to donate for Shivli Mandal’s college fees. The bank account turned out to be again that of Sandeep Mandal. The same day, Ritika Annie also shared Shivli Mandal’s semester fee receipt, but the mentioned academic year in the receipt said 2021.

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In another instance, Ritika Annie quote-tweeted a fundraiser started by Mamta Tiwari.

4. Anupriya Sheoran

We found another X account associated with Sandeep Mandal called Anupriya Sheoran 🇮🇳 (@AnupriyaSheoran). The handle tweeted about a fundraiser on January 30 for a woman named Poonam Mandal. In the Twitter thread @AnupriyaSheoran also attached a QR code through which donors can donate money to Poonam. We scanned the QR code on Google Pay and found that the banking name linked to this account said “Sandeep Mandal” and also the mobile number associated with the account ended with ‘8449’ like in several other cases.

#Verified #fundraiser

Poonam, 29 year old woman needs your help for a (Sewing Machine). She has also taken a stitching course. She is a housewife and her husband runs a fast food/Burger shop. They live in a rented house and have two very small babies. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/qFXWO0m6vU

— Anupriya Sheoran 🇮🇳 (@AnupriyaSheoran) January 30, 2024

The above thread about the fundraiser was also retweeted by Mamta Tiwari (@MamtaTiwari01).

We found that the account had shared about the same case two years ago as well. In these two years, nothing, not even Poonam’s age, changed.

In 2022, @AnupriyaSheoran had narrated a similar case asking urging people to donate, and several donors came forward.

8th Machine! #womenempowerment

I have this request pending for many days. Meet Madhavi who is the bread earner of their family. She does her sewing work from home. She has a machine but it’s too old that machine belonged to her dad, her father was also a tailor. (1) https://t.co/Wp1IVExcX4 pic.twitter.com/TsxQIbG4E2

— Anupriya Sheoran 🇮🇳 (@AnupriyaSheoran) July 5, 2022

One more account that amplified the most recent fundraiser tweet by @AnupriyaSheoran is Srijan Sharma (@GovindPyari).

5. Srijan Sharma

We found that Srijan Sharma (@GovindPyari) is another user who regularly amplifies fundraising drives asking people to donate. We found @AnupriyaSheoran commenting on one of @GovindPyari’s tweets urging users to donate.

Further we found a reply to a now-deleted tweet from @GovindPyari where a user commented: “Earlier, about 2-3 weeks ago, “target” amount was 27K👇 of which 9500/- was collected initially, remaining 17500/- came from 1 well-wisher. Though, fees paid was only 15950/-!! 2-3 weeks later, the target amount changed to 33450/-?? and again 17500/- is sought??!! Something wrong!”.

@GovindPyari responded to the above comment saying that the two cases were different.

The user also attached a screenshot of the older tweet from Decmeber 16, 2023, and a student’s fee receipt.

We noticed that the college fee receipt was the same as the one Ritika Annie shared for Shivli Mandal.

Earlier, abt 2-3 weeks ago, “target” amount was 27K👇 of which 9500/- was collected initially, remaining 17500/- came from 1 well-wisher. Though, fees paid was only 15950/-!! 2-3 weeks later, the target amount changed to 33450/-?? and again 17500/- is sought??!! Something wrong! pic.twitter.com/o8vcXnKKIW

— 🇮🇳 RAM (@RamGovindaa) January 7, 2024

We also noticed that a few other handles also shared similar cases where a student was struggling to pay educational fees and also mentioned that the case had been verified by @GovindPyari.

We found a tweet by @Cyber_Huntss from August 2023 which contained a WhatsApp chat screenshot where a supposed student mentioned that they had failed to pay their educational fees, and a QR code was given via which one could donate. While the QR code or the UPI ID mentioned along with it, shivlimandalsmit@okaxis, show up to be invalid or non-existent on Google Pay at present, we noticed that several users had commented under @Cyber_Huntss’ tweet that they have donated.

Several users shared screenshots of their payments, and it can be seen that the payments were made to a bank account with banking name Sandeep Mandal, yet again.

बहुत ही छोटी सी राशि बिटिया रानी अच्छे से अपने एग्जाम दे और अच्छे नंबरों लाए 🙏🙏🥰 pic.twitter.com/VE14MD7ayT

— saffron 🚩🚩 (@King_ashoka_7) August 29, 2023

@GulzarPremi Turned @HelpingHooks

We also found that one of the previous usernames of the page now called NGO Helping Hooks used to be @GulzarPremi. It was only this year that the username of the page was changed to @HelpingHooks.

We found some of the older tweets from @GulzarPremi where the account was often found be attacking the Muslim community.

Below are a few examples —

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Related

The consecration of the idol of Hindu deity Ram at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya took place on January 22 amid the performance of rituals and with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in attendance. The temple has been built on the erstwhile disputed land where the Babri Masjid was pulled down on December 6, 1992. This had led to unrest in Ayodhya which reached other cities in the country. Mumbai, then Bombay, was the worst hit where communal riots claimed over 900 lives.

On January 21 and 22, 2024, even as the consecration ceremony was underway, clashes between Hindus and Muslims broke out in the northern Mumbai suburbs of Mira Road. The Quint reported that a bike rally by Hindus chanting ‘Jai Sri Ram’ was passing through a Muslim locality and as per a local’s account, tension arose between the two communities when the bike rally reached a dead end near a mosque.

Against the backdrop of these clashes, several visuals have come forward as footage related to the Mira Road clash.

1. Police Thrash Rioters in Lockup

A video of two policemen beating up people in a lockup is being widely shared with the claim that the men who are being beaten up by the police in the video are from Mira Road.

X (formerly Twitter) user Kartik😼🇮🇳🚩(@_Muffin_Men) shared the above-mentioned video clip on January 25 mentioning ‘Mira Road’ in his caption. The tweet has been viewed over 3.7 Lakh times and has been retweeted over 3,000 times. (Archive)

Moye Moye Movement Toh isko bolte hai Dosto. Mira Road. 😎#MiraRoadRiots #MiraRoadpic.twitter.com/BbSuWlE1dp

— Kartik😼🇮🇳🚩 (@_Muffin_Men) January 25, 2024

Several other users such as @AzzatAlsaalem, @raviagrawal3, @sanjoychakra, @FrontalForce, @AAKspeaks and @JSinha007 shared similar claims.

Readers should note that @AzzatAlsaalem and @raviagrawal3 have been found amplifying misinformation several times in the past.

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Fact Check

After breaking down the clip into several key frames, we ran reverse image searches on some of them, which led us to a news report by Jagran from June 12, 2022. The title of the report in Hindi can be translated as: “Strict action against riots in Saharanpur, 64 sent to jail, houses of two bulldozed”. The report carried an image similar to the first frame of the viral video, where several men could be seen inside the lockup.

We noticed several similarities between the two frames. This proves that this visual is from 2022 and not related to the recent clashes in Mira Road.

A reverse image search on another key frame from the video led us to a news report by Times Now from June 12, 2022, where the title said: “Video of UP cops thrashing protesters in a lock-up sparks row; BJP says ‘return gift to rioters’”. The video carried a screengrab from the viral video that showed the cops beating up the men they apprehended.

The report mentioned that the video was shot in a police station in Saharanpur where communal clashes broke out between after now-suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s comment against Prophet Muhammad of Islam. The men in the video are said to be the rioters.

Hence, it is clear that the viral video does not show the police thrashing rioters who were involved in the Mira Road clashes. The video is two-year-old and unrelated to the Mira Road incident.

2. Police Knock Down Doors to Nab Rioters

A video of the police apprehending some men is being shared on social media with the claim that the men were involved in the Mira Road riots.

X (formerly Twitter) user Lokesh Yadav (@Lokeshy49599209) shared the above-mentioned clip on January 24 with the following caption: “Those who attacked Ram Yatra on 22nd in Mira Nair area of Mumbai were picked up from their home today. Much respect! Now there is a reward for breaking the backyard!”. The tweet has been viewed over 7.5 lakh times and retweeted over 3000 times. (Archive)

Those who attacked Ram Yatra on 22nd in Mira Nair area of Mumbai were picked up from their home today.
Much respect! Now there is a reward for breaking the backyard!
#planecrash #ICCAwards #MiraRoad #TejRan #AusOpen #INDvENG
#Saipallavi #हेमंता_की_ले_ली #MiraRoadRiots pic.twitter.com/PSncOmP9bm

— Lokesh Yadav (@Lokeshy49599209) January 24, 2024

Several other users such as @JIX5A, @FrontalForce, @mini_razdan10 shared the viral video claiming the same.

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Fact Check

We broke down the video into several key frames and ran a reverse image search on some of them which led us to a tweet from August 24, 2022, by journalist Yunus Lasania that carried the viral video. The tweet mentioned that the visuals were from Hyderabad where police had barged into the houses of some protesters who were demonstrating against T Raja Singh for allegedly passing derogatory comments about the Prophet of Islam.

Update:#Hyderabad police enter homes and arrest protestors in and around Shalibanda after protests continued against #RajaSingh for his derogatory remarks on Prophet Muhammad.

Lathi charge/stone pelting reported. At least few are out protesting.
Details:https://t.co/MBPmQq6u6P https://t.co/fWdVSfh5Vp pic.twitter.com/zoJ10teATh

— Yunus Lasania (@YunusLasania) August 24, 2022

Therefore, the viral video showing police barging into houses is not related to the Mira Road riots in any way.

3. Railway Station on Fire

A 12-second clip of a fire in a railway station is being widely shared on social media with the claim that the visuals depict the condition at the Mira Road railway station.

X user 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗢𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗶𝘂𝘀✍ 🇮🇳 (@Stroke0Genius41) shared the above-mentioned clip on January 24 with the following caption: “Current Situation of #MiraRoad Railway Station.. 🤔 #MiraRoadRiots”. The tweet has been viewed over 5.6 lakh times and has been retweeted over 400 times. (Archive)

Current Situation of #MiraRoad Railway Station..

🤔#MiraRoadRiots pic.twitter.com/kc3DxVuvAF

— 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗢𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗶𝘂𝘀✍ 🇮🇳 (@Stroke0Genius41) January 24, 2024

Several other users shared the same clip on X with similar captions.

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Fact Check

We noticed that under @Stroke0Genius41’s tweet, the official X page of Western Railway commented that the claim was false and that the situation at the Mira Road railway station was normal.

The page also proceeded to share a video from the Mira Road station from the day of the viral claim which showed that the situation at the railway station was calm.

pic.twitter.com/5D87QJ4JKZ

— Western Railway (@WesternRly) January 24, 2024

Further, we ran a reverse image search on a key frame of the viral clip and that led us to a YouTube video by Sangbad Pratidin from April 23, 2023. The title of the video said: “Massive fire break out in Santoshpur station”. The YouTube video carried the viral clip, which shows that the visuals are not recent and hence, not related to Mira Road clashes.

We also ran a relevant keyword search and found several news reports regarding the fire at Kolkata’s Santoshpur Railway Station in April, 2023. The Times of India also carried the same video in their report.

Hence, the claim that the visuals of the fire in a railway station are from Mira Road is false. The incident is from Santoshpur railway station in West Bengal and happened in 2023.

4. Idol of Ram Vandalised on Mira Road

A video of a man climbing up on a huge idol of Hindu deity Ram and attempting to vandalize it is being shared on social media. Users are claiming that the incident is from Mira Road.

A premium subscriber on X, Kikki Singh (@singh_kikki), shared the viral video in question on January 23 with a caption in Hindi that can be translated as: “All these Babar descendants of Mira Road do such things and then beat them up and then say that it was not their fault at all.” The tweet has received over 2.6 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 1,300 times. (Archive)

यह सभी मीरा रोड के बाबर वंशज ऐसी हरकतें करते हैं उसके बाद कुटाते फिर कहते हैं कि हमारी तो गलती थी ही नहीं pic.twitter.com/2DbDoLgL1H

— Kikki Singh (@singh_kikki) January 23, 2024

Several other users also shared similar claims connecting the incident to the unrest at Mumbai’s Mira Road.

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Fact Check

We broke down the video into multiple key frames and ran reverse image searches on some of them. We found an Instagram post by @truthanidare from January 21 which featured the same video from a different angle. The caption of the post mentioned that the incident was from Amrit Mahotsav Mela in Ayodhya.

Taking a cue from the above we ran a relevant keyword search in Hindi that led us to a Facebook reel shared by Jagadguru Rambhadracharya Ji’s official Facebook page on January 16. The reel consisted of visuals from the Amrit Mahotsav Mela that was held in Ayodhya. It also featured the same Ram statue as in the viral video.

We also found the same visuals of the idol of Hindu deity Ram in a vlog by a YouTube channel called Ayodhya Nagri 92, the video was published on January 15. The title of the video said: “Amrit Mahotsav in Ayodhya has begun”.

The above findings make it clear that the Ram idol featured in the viral video is not from Mira Road, it is from Ayodhya’s Amrit Mahotsav Mela.

Further, we found another video by a YouTuber called Vlogger Shiva that showcased the incident of the man climbing on the statue and attempting to vandalise it. The video had been shot from a different angle than the viral video.

In the vlog, policemen could be seen rushing towards the scene of the incident and we noticed that their uniforms had ‘Uttar Pradesh Police’ written on them in Hindi.

Hence, it is clear that the claim that the visual of the Ram idol being vandalised is from Mira Road is false, the incident happened in Ayodhya.

Related

SciCheck Digest

A study showed a type of lab mouse is highly susceptible to a coronavirus derived from pangolins, a scaly, cat-sized mammal. This doesn’t mean the virus is dangerous to humans. The virus is related to the one that causes COVID-19 but did not descend from it, contrary to claims that it is a “mutant COVID-19 strain.” Nor did scientists “craft” the virus.

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Biologists sometimes work with lab mice engineered to have human-like tissues, cells or genes. Researchers studying viruses may use mice that have been genetically modified to have human receptors on their cells that allow entry of viruses that infect humans.

While these “humanized” mice can give insights into viruses and what treatments or vaccines might work against them, the mice are not that similar to humans. A virus that kills a humanized mouse will not necessarily be dangerous to people.

A recent study of a version of a pangolin virus in one of these modified mouse models has been misrepresented. Pangolins are mammals prized in Asia for their meat and unusual scales. A preliminary version of the study was posted Jan. 4 as a preprint that has not been peer-reviewed. The researchers posted an updated preprint on Jan. 21 in response to widespread misinterpretations of their work.

“Chinese lab crafts mutant COVID-19 strain with 100% kill rate in ‘humanized’ mice: ‘Surprisingly’ rapid death,” said the headline of a Jan. 16 New York Post story.

“Chinese scientists ‘create’ a mutant coronavirus strain that attacks the BRAIN and has a 100% kill rate in mice – as they admit there’s a ‘risk it spills over to humans,’” read the headline of a Daily Mail story published the same day. Various versions of these claims have spread widely on social media.

In reality, the researchers looked at GX_P2V, a virus found in pangolins. When they infected four mice modified to produce certain human receptors, the virus killed the mice. But co-author Lihua Song, a researcher at Beijing University of Chemical Technology, clarified that the study did not mean the virus was dangerous to people. 

The mice used in the experiments “are unique and do not exist in nature,” Song wrote in a Jan. 17 comment on the preprint server where the study was posted. “The outcomes from these tests cannot be applicable to humans.” 

There are many different types of coronaviruses. The coronavirus used in the study is in the same family as SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, but it is incorrect to say that the virus in the study is a “mutant COVID-19 strain,” as it is not descended from SARS-CoV-2. 

Nor did the authors of the study “craft” or “create” the version of GX_P2V they used to infect the mice. The virus used in the study was not engineered by scientists and had been previously described. The researchers explained in the updated preprint that the new findings do not alter their fundamental impression that the virus is relatively weak, or attenuated.

Mouse Characteristics Explain Why Virus Was Lethal

The researchers hypothesized in the updated preprint that GX_P2V had proven so lethal in the mice because they had been engineered to be unusually susceptible to infection in their brains. They noted that humans or normal mice, for that matter, would not be expected to be similarly susceptible.

To enter cells, viruses need to glom onto specific receptors. GX_P2V, like SARS-CoV-2, enters cells using ACE2 receptors. Many different types of animals have ACE2 receptors. To better understand viral infection in humans, researchers sometimes engineer mice to produce human ACE2 receptors.

In a previous study in mice with human ACE2 receptors, GX_P2V had limited ability to sicken the mice. But the mice used in the new study had been engineered to produce large quantities of human ACE2 across multiple tissues, including the brain, according to the preprint. ACE2 levels are lower in human brains, the researchers wrote.

The mice in the study “are cranking out massive levels of ACE2 on pretty much every cell in the body so they are getting infected with much higher levels of virus in more organs than a human would,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, in a Jan. 19 thread on X, formerly known as Twitter. The animals died because they had been engineered “to support massive virus growth,” she said. 

Researchers Did Not ‘Craft’ New Virus

GX_P2V was originally isolated from a pangolin — which had been seized in an anti-smuggling operation — in 2017 by a different group of researchers. The virus was described in a 2020 paper published in Nature. The researchers grew it in cells, but the version this yielded — dubbed GX_P2V(short_3UTR) — was slightly different from the version originally isolated from the pangolin.

Rasmussen explained on X that it is common for an RNA virus like GX_P2V to change as it grows in cell culture. “It’s not unexpected and usually is attenuating,” she said, meaning the viruses become less virulent. 

The virus used in the study did not result from engineering or any kind of intentional manipulation, but rather “occurred in the normal course of isolating this virus through classic virological techniques,” she said.

Song, the preprint co-author, told FactCheck.org via email that he and his colleagues were in fact trying to investigate whether the GX_P2V variant could itself be used as a vaccine to protect broadly against SARS-CoV-2 strains. There has been interest in developing vaccines that would protect against a greater variety of SARS-CoV-2 variants, including future variants. 

Song said that the GX_P2V variant appeared promising as a vaccine candidate because in prior research it had been identified as “highly attenuated across various animal species,” meaning that it did not significantly sicken the animals.

Song said the researchers gave the mice the virus primarily to see what kind of immune response it generated. He said the discovery that the virus was lethal to the modified mice “was unforeseen” and presented new ideas for how the modified mice and the virus could be used in research. 

Researchers could vaccinate the mice with a prospective COVID-19 vaccine and then expose them to the GX_P2V variant, he suggested. This could help them assess whether the vaccine could provide broad protection. Song also said the model is unique because the virus replicated and killed the mice without causing the inflammation that comes with a SARS-CoV-2 infection. He said researchers could use the model to test how well antiviral drugs suppress viral replication.

In the original preprint, the researchers had written that the work “underscores a spillover risk of GX_P2V into humans.” They removed this statement in the subsequent version.

Song said the original phrasing was based on the thought that the experiment “corroborated earlier findings that GX_P2V can indeed utilize human ACE2 for infections, which led me to suggest a potential, albeit theoretical, risk of transmission into humans.” 

But, he said, the phrasing “unintentionally misguided readers into believing there was a potential risk of the virus spilling over into human brains and causing 100% fatality, which is not accurate.”

Furthermore, he explained, scientists who read the preprint pointed out there currently isn’t empirical evidence indicating spillover risk to humans. “While it has been demonstrated in prior research that this virus can bind to the human ACE2 receptor, assessing spillover risks involves a broader evaluation than just the receptor interaction,” he said.

Misrepresentations Morph into Conspiracy Theories

As we’ve said, the authors of the preprint did not create a new virus or cause a virus to become more harmful.

Despite these facts, posts spun unsubstantiated theories about a new disease. Some posts mashed up claims about the mouse study with references to Disease X — a placeholder name for potential future pandemic threats that has been co-opted to support conspiracy theories.

“There’s gonna be a new covid -19 stran coming soon called dease-x It 100% kills you with 8 days !!!” read one post, mixing up multiple unsupported claims.

Other posts referred to the work as gain-of-function research. “So the gain of function research is not just a gain of function for the coronavirus, it’s a gain of function for the totalitarian Empire virus,” read one post, arguing that the creation of new viruses “consolidates the power of State.”

Song denied that his study constituted gain-of-function research in a comment on the preprint. “There have been some folks trying to misinterpret our work as gain-of-function research,” he said. “Let me be clear – that is not the case.”

There are various definitions of gain-of-function research, which most broadly just refers to research in which an organism gains some new ability. More narrow definitions attempt to focus on a subset of gain-of-function research that could be risky.

The U.S. government defines one such subset, called enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research, as work that is “reasonably anticipated to create, transfer or use potential pandemic pathogens resulting from the enhancement of a pathogen’s transmissibility and/or virulence in humans.” 

Rasmussen agreed on X that Song’s study was not gain-of-function research, referring to the latter definition. This was both because the GX_P2V variant was not engineered or produced intentionally, and because the virus “didn’t cause much disease in hamsters” and couldn’t be “reasonably anticipated” to cause severe disease.

She said that it is valid to have varying opinions of risks posed by virus research but objected to fearmongering and unsupported criticisms.

“The reason why this was so deadly in these particular mice is because they are engineered to support massive virus growth,” Rasmussen said. “There is a gain of function in the mice—high levels of human ACE2 everywhere—not the virus.”

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Editor’s note: SciCheck’s articles providing accurate health information and correcting health misinformation are made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation.

Sources

“Why humanized mice?” Jackson Lab website. 21 Jul 2020.

Gurumurthy, Channabasavaiah B. et al. “Genetically Modified Mouse Models to Help Fight COVID-19.” Nature Protocols. 26 Oct 2020.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. “World Wildlife Crime Report 2020.” UNODC website. May 2020.

Wei, Lai et al. “Lethal Infection of Human ACE2-Transgenic Mice Caused by SARS-CoV-2-Related Pangolin Coronavirus GX_P2V(short_3UTR).” bioRxiv. 4 Jan 2024.

Wei, Lai et al. “An Infection and Pathogenesis Mouse Model of SARS-CoV-2-Related Pangolin Coronavirus GX_P2V(short_3UTR).” bioRxiv. 21 Jan 2024. 

Donlevy, Katherine et al. “Chinese lab crafts mutant COVID-19 strain with 100% kill rate in ‘humanized’ mice: ‘Surprisingly’ rapid death.” 16 Jan 2024. Updated 17 Jan 2024.

Tilley, Caitlin. “Chinese scientists ‘create’ a mutant coronavirus strain that attacks the BRAIN and has a 100% kill rate in mice – as they admit there’s a ‘risk it spills over to humans’.” Daily Mail. 16 Jan 2024. Updated 18 Jan 2024.

Being Libertarian (@beingalibertarian). “Any guesses as to who is funding this?” Instagram. 16 Jan 2024.

Al-Ghaili, Hashem. “‘Chinese scientists are experimenting with a mutant COVID-19 strain that is 100% lethal to “humanized” mice.’” Facebook. 17 Jan 2024.

William Copus (@thefeedski). “Chinese Scientists have created a new COVID strain that attacks the brain and is 100% lethal and experts around the world are urging them to stop.” Instagram. 17 Jan 2024.

Wes Austin | Lawyer | Comedian (@wesley.austin2). “Chinese Lab Makes Mutant Strain with 100% Kill Rate in Humanized Mice #reels #reelsvideo #reelsinstagram #instareels #instavideo #instagood.” Instagram. 18 Jan 2024.

NewsNation (@newsnationnow). “Chinese scientists are experimenting with a mutant strain of COVID that reportedly has a 100% mortality rate in mice.” Instagram. 18 Jan 2024.

Business | Motivation | Mindset (@theamazingmindset). “Chinese scientists are experimenting with a mutant COVID-19 strain that is 100% lethal to ‘humanized’ mice. …” Instagram. 18 Jan 2024.

Erica Meier| Pharma Skeptic (@truth.seekingmama). “There plan is to depopulate. …” Instagram. 20 Jan 2024.

RICHIE THE BARBER (@richiethebarber). “There’s gonna be a new covid -19 stran coming soon called dease-x It 100% kills you with 8 days !!!” Instagram. 23 Jan 2024.

Song, Lihua. Emails with FactCheck.org. 31 Jan 2024.

Jaramillo, Catalina. “Video Distorts Early Coronavirus Research To Promote Baseless Bioweapon Conspiracy Theory.” FactCheck.org. 15 Jun 2023.

Lu, Shanshan et al. “Induction of Significant Neutralizing Antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 by a Highly Attenuated Pangolin Coronavirus Variant with a 104nt Deletion at the 3’-UTR.” Emerging Microbes & Infections. 18 Dec 2022.

Grove, Joe and Marsh, Mark. “The Cell Biology of Receptor-Mediated Virus Entry.” The Journal of Cell Biology. 28 Nov 2011.

Niu, Sheng et al. “Molecular Basis of Cross‐species ACE2 Interactions with SARS‐CoV‐2‐like Viruses of Pangolin Origin.” The EMBO Journal. 8 Jun 2021.

Liu, Mei-Qin et al. “A SARS-CoV-2-Related Virus from Malayan Pangolin Causes Lung Infection without Severe Disease in Human ACE2-Transgenic Mice.” Journal of Virology. 23 Jan 2023.

Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen). “… This article and others like it are very misleading. This was not gain-of-function research, no matter how many loud non-experts say it is. …” X. 10 Jan 2024.

Lam, Tommy Tsan-Yuk et al. “Identifying SARS-CoV-2-Related Coronaviruses in Malayan Pangolins.” Nature. 26 Mar 2020.

DiedSuddenly (@DiedSuddenly_). “Reports out of China are saying that a new disease X is emerging with a 100% kill rate on the lab tested mice. At the same time, China is assembling mobile crematoriums. How do you interpret this?” X. 14 Jan 2024.

Spencer, Saranac Hale. “Posts Misrepresent WHO Term ‘Disease X’ for Possible Future Illness.” FactCheck.org, 26 Jan 2024. 

Family Research Council (@frcdc). “‘Quite alarming.’ Dr. Robert Malone joined Tony Perkins on Washington Watch to unpack reports of Chinese Scientists using gain-of-function research to develop a new, deadly strain of COVID. …” Instagram. 18 Jan 2024.

Aubrey Marcus (@aubreymarcus). “As long as there is gain-of-function research going on anywhere in the world, we are going to be exposed to new viruses. …” Instagram. 16 Jan 2024.

Kuiken, Todd. “Global Pandemics: Gain-of-Function Research of Concern.” Congressional Research Service report. 21 Nov 2022.

“Research Involving Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens.” NIH website. 5 Jun 2023.

Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.

Quick Take

Misinformation peddlers baselessly claim a judge who presided over the defamation case that ended with an $83 million verdict against former President Donald Trump is linked to sex trafficking, noting that the judge dismissed a case related to Jeffrey Epstein. But the Epstein-related case was settled by the parties, and the defamation verdict was rendered by a jury.

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A federal judge in New York oversaw a 2021 case related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as well as the recent defamation trial that ended with an $83.3 million verdict against former President Donald Trump.

Now, in an effort to criticize the outcome of Trump’s trial, partisan misinformation peddlers are baselessly citing the earlier case as an indication that the judge was connected to Epstein in a nefarious way. There’s nothing to support that claim.

Posts are circulating on social media with unsubstantiated claims that the judge “was involved in sex trafficking” or “is linked” to Epstein.

Many of these posts feature comments made by Patrick Bet-David, who runs a conservative media business that we’ve written about before.

He said on the Jan. 26 episode of his podcast that U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York dismissed the Epstein-related case without going to trial, “yet Trump’s [case] — $83.3 million.” Bet-David later said, “I’m sorry man, this is ‘American Gangster,’ connect the dots. … There’s motive, the motive is linked to [former President Bill] Clinton, to Epstein, protecting the enemy. Protecting the bad guy and going after the good guy.”

Clinton nominated Kaplan to the federal bench in 1994. But some of those who have shared Bet-David’s claim have amplified the false suggestion that Clinton had been a party to the 2021 litigation in front of Kaplan that involved Epstein. The civil suit concerned Britain’s Prince Andrew.

For example, one Instagram post that shared a clip from Bet-David’s podcast also included text that said, “The judge that just made Trump pay $83.3 million – Let Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton go relating to Epstein.”

Clinton wasn’t a party to the suit against Andrew, but he is often invoked in relation to Epstein conspiracy theories, since he is among the powerful people who associated with Epstein. It’s worth noting that Trump, too, had associated with Epstein.

Bet-David’s claim misrepresents how the 2021 case unfolded and misleadingly equates it with the outcome of the recent Trump trial, which was decided by a jury, not the judge.

Settlement in Epstein-Related Case

In 2021, Virginia Giuffre — who accused Epstein of running a sex-trafficking ring for himself and his powerful friends — filed a civil suit alleging that one of those friends, Prince Andrew, sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager and caused her emotional distress.

Andrew settled the suit in 2022 without admitting liability.

The amount he paid wasn’t disclosed, but reports in the British press have estimated that it was anywhere from $3.8 million to $15 million.

A joint letter submitted to the court at the time of the settlement by attorneys for Andrew and Giuffre said, in part:

“Prince Andrew intends to make a substantial donation to Ms. Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights. Prince Andrew has never intended to malign Ms. Giuffre’s character, and he accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks.”

Since Andrew and Giuffre agreed to settle without going to trial, Kaplan followed standard procedure and dismissed the case.

That routine judicial action is now fodder for misinformation peddlers who claim it shows that Kaplan was connected to Epstein or acted favorably toward him in the case. But, as we said, there’s nothing to support that claim.

Jury’s Finding in Trump Trial

Kaplan also presided at the trial that recently ended with an $83.3 million verdict against Trump.

A jury found Trump liable in 2023 for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s and later defaming her, awarding her a $5 million verdict. Trump continued to deny the allegations, and during a town hall discussion aired on CNN shortly after that verdict, Trump called Carroll a “whack job.” She then added Trump’s statement’s following the verdict to an ongoing a defamation suit.

The jury in the defamation case found in Carroll’s favor on Jan. 26 and awarded her $83.3 million in damages.

To be clear, Kaplan was not responsible for finding Trump liable or for the amount of damages awarded to Carroll. The jury decided both.

In a jury trial, the judge decides what evidence can be presented and instructs the jury on matters of law, including the burden of proof that must be present to find a defendant at fault. “A judge is similar to a referee in a game, they are not there to play for one side or the other but to make sure the entire process is played fairly,” the U.S. Department of Justice has explained.

So, it’s misleading to compare the outcomes of these two cases. The first was settled by the two sides, which caused its dismissal, and the second was decided by a jury. Neither outcome indicates any bias by the judge or any link to Epstein.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Davies, Caroline, Harriet Sherwood and Richard Adams. “Prince Andrew settles Virginia Giuffre sexual assault case in US.” The Guardian. 15 Feb 2022.

Neumeister, Larry, Jake Offenhartz and Jennifer Peltz. “Donald Trump must pay an additional $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll in defamation case, jury says.” Associated Press. 26 Jan 2024.

Hale Spencer, Saranac. “Website Peddles Old, Debunked Falsehood About COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines.” FactCheck.org. 28 Jun 2022.

Virginia Giuffre v. Prince Andrew. Case No. 1:21-cv-06702. Complaint. 9 Aug 2021.

Pollard, Chris. “Prince Andrew’s pay-off to sex accuser Virginia Giuffre ‘was as little as £3m’ despite reports of £12m.” The U.S. Sun. 6 Aug 2022.

Ward, Victoria and Josie Ensor. “Queen to help pay for £12m Prince Andrew settlement.” 15 Feb 2022.

Virginia Giuffre v. Prince Andrew. Case No. 1:21-cv-06702. Letter. 15 Feb 2022.

Cornell Law School. Legal Information Institute. “motion to dismiss.” Updated Jul 2023.

Virginia Giuffre v. Prince Andrew. Case No. 1:21-cv-06702. Stipulation of dismissal. 8 Mar 2022.

Saric, Ivana. “Trump held liable for sexual battery, defamation in E. Jean Carroll lawsuit.” Axios. 9 Mat 2023.

E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump. Case No. 1:20-cv-07311. Verdict form. 26 Jan 2024.

SciCheck Digest

COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy benefits both mother and baby. Side effects are generally mild, and studies don’t show negative effects on the baby. A criticized study that gave COVID-19 vaccines to pregnant rats doesn’t show that vaccines cause autism or that people shouldn’t get COVID-19 vaccines, contrary to claims.

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COVID-19 vaccination protects pregnant people from severe COVID-19 and reduces COVID-19 risks for babies. As is the case in people who aren’t pregnant, side effects in pregnant people are usually mild and resolve within days. Studies do not show a link between COVID-19 vaccination and negative pregnancy outcomes or health problems for babies.

Long-standing claims that childhood vaccines cause autism have been roundly debunked. Long-term studies provide reassurance that vaccination during pregnancy against flu and other diseases does not increase a child’s risk of autism, a developmental disorder. And a recent study did not find a connection between maternal COVID-19 vaccination and increased risk of developmental delay at 18 months of age.

However, social media posts have misused findings from a recent study of COVID-19-vaccinated pregnant rats and their pups to back up unfounded claims that people should not take COVID-19 vaccines, or to promote unsubstantiated claims about vaccines and autism.

“I’m forever grateful I risked my reputation in my personal life to warn people far and wide to NOT get this experimental $h0t!” said one post sharing an article from the Epoch Times on the new study.

Commentator Candace Owens, who has a history of spreading misinformation, shared a post about the study on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, saying it supported long-standing, debunked claims about vaccines and autism. “That’s because vaccines and autism have always been linked, which affected mothers have been trying to tell the general public for decades,” she said. Posts about the study have continued to spread.

Researchers who study brain development expressed concerns to us about how the rat study was designed and interpreted.

The authors of the study, published Jan. 10 in Neurochemical Research, did behavioral and other tests on rats born to 15 female rats impregnated by five males. The pregnant rats either received an adult human-sized dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 or a saline injection. 

The researchers wrote that they observed “autism-like behaviors,” such as decreased interactions with an unfamiliar rat, and decreased neurons in regions of the brain in male rats born to vaccinated mothers. They also said they found alterations in the level of a particular protein in the brains of rats of both sexes born to vaccinated mothers.

Even if the results are taken at face value, it’s not possible to conclude from a study in rats that vaccines cause autism, because rat and human biology and behavior are different. Researchers do study rats to better understand autism, but these studies are meant to generate hypotheses, not change medical care.

Experts also told us there were various factors that made the study hard to interpret, such as the high vaccine dose given to the pregnant rats, despite their small size, the lack of replication of the experiment and issues with the statistical analyses.

“Caution should be exercised in generalizing these results to humans,” the authors themselves wrote in the paper. Corresponding author Mumin Alper Erdogan, a professor in the department of physiology at Izmir Katip Celebi University in Turkey, did not respond to a request for comment from us. However, he did answer questions from Health Feedback, responding to some criticisms and clarifying that there was “no intention, desire, or effort on our part to oppose vaccinations or make similar accusations.”

“Vaccines do not cause autism,” a spokesperson from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told us in an email. “To date, no vaccine safety monitoring data in the United States indicates a causal association between autism and COVID-19 vaccination.”

Rat Study Provides Limited Information

Multiple scientists expressed concerns to us about the high COVID-19 vaccine dose given to the pregnant rats.

Staci Bilbo, a neuroimmunologist at Duke University who studies how the immune system influences brain development, told us that vaccine doses are “extremely carefully” adjusted during vaccine development. Researchers determine the smallest dose that will generate the needed immune response.

Giving the rats — which on average weighed less than 8 ounces — a full adult human COVID-19 vaccine dose was equivalent to giving an average-weight American woman around 350 times the recommended dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, according to Bilbo’s calculation. 

“If you give a high enough dose of anything it’s going to probably have impacts,” she said.

In response to questions about the dose, Erdogan told Health Feedback that “there’s no established standard for mRNA vaccine dosages in rats due to the lack of specific dose studies” and that relatively high doses have been used for studies of other animals of varying sizes.

Jeffrey S. Morris, director of the division of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, also told FactCheck.org that the high dose given to the rats was a limitation of the study. “This does not make the results irrelevant, since super high dose can potentially detect some potential issue that might manifest in some humans, but if I were reviewing this article I would make the authors emphasize the multiple of how much larger the effective dose in the animal study is to the current human dose, and include the qualifier that this is one reason why it is not clear whether these results are relevant to what is experienced by humans given the current doses.”

Christopher Coe, a psychoneuroimmunologist and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told us via email that were it his study, he would also have wanted to give the rats a low dose of the vaccine to see if results varied by dose. Coe has done studies on the effects of infection and maternal inflammation on the fetus during pregnancy.

Coe said it was important to take reports of drug or vaccine adverse events seriously, but he also listed numerous other concerns about the paper.

For example, he said the researchers did not provide information about the rats and their pregnancies that could have shed light on how the injections affected them — and whether or not this was likely to be relevant to humans. This missing information included, for instance, whether the rats had an inflammatory reaction to the injections — the hypothesized pathway for how vaccination during pregnancy might affect neurodevelopment.

Teresa Reyes, a professor of pharmacology and systems physiology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, told us via email that information was missing on the length of the rat pregnancies. “If the pregnancy length was significantly different, it could indicate that the litters were born prematurely, which confounds the interpretation of the findings,” she said.

In humans, COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy has not been shown to increase preterm birth and may even protect against it.

She also said that information was missing on the weights of the pregnant rats, or dams, over time and their pups. “Significant differences in weight (e.g., vaccine exposed dams lost weight during the study) could indicate that the dams were severely ill in response to the vaccine, again confounding the interpretation of the study,” she said.

Coe said that he would have wanted “to replicate the findings rather than rush to publish on the basis of one experiment,” suggesting that both the authors of the paper and outside researchers should try to replicate the results.

And he expressed concern about the study’s statements that altered rat behaviors were “autism-like,” given that autism spectrum disorder is a “complex neurodevelopmental disorder.” 

Brian Lee, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health who studies prenatal exposures and autism risk, told us via email that it is hard to diagnose autism in humans, let alone in rats. “It’s hard to read into some behavioral tests for a rat and imagine it translates 100% to an autism diagnosis in humans,” he said.

There also appeared to be issues with the study’s experimental design and statistical analysis.

For instance, studies of prenatal exposures need to account for something called “litter effects” — or the fact that the multiple offspring born in the same litter to the same animal mother might share characteristics.

“The authors did not describe any approach to address the potential for a litter confound which could skew the findings (e.g., one dam has a significantly different response, multiple pups are used from that litter, and this skews the findings),” Reyes said. 

Additionally, the authors wrote that they set out to determine whether maternal vaccination led to “any sex-specific neurobehavioral changes” — or ways in which sex and vaccination, in combination, affected the rats’ behavior.

The authors didn’t find evidence of such sex-specific effects on social behavior, but they nevertheless went on to compare social behavioral results from the male pups of vaccinated mothers versus unvaccinated mothers and highlighted the results — something Reyes said they shouldn’t have done. “By improperly using statistics to analyze the data, the conclusions are not valid,” she said. “It is impossible to verify the stated claims because statistics were used incorrectly.”

Evidence Indicates Maternal Vaccination Is Effective, Safe

A person’s likelihood of being autistic is influenced by a combination of genetics and other factors. These likely include older parental age and whether there are complications at a child’s birth, including extreme prematurity or very low birth weight. As we’ve written previously, many lines of evidence contradict the idea — long spread by anti-vaccine groups — that childhood vaccines cause autism. 

Some theoretical concerns about vaccines given during pregnancy and autism are based on research indicating that infections during pregnancy might slightly increase the risk of a child later developing autism. “We know that immune activation can impact the way the brain develops, and sometimes that’s in adverse ways and yet we also know that the immune system is important in just normal brain development,” Bilbo said. 

But Bilbo said the body’s immune system reacts differently to a serious infection than it does to vaccination. A vaccine against a virus is designed to expose the body to just enough viral material to teach the immune system to recognize the infectious agent, should it encounter it later. “Dose matters, obviously,” Bilbo said. “It matters quite a bit.”

Studies in humans provide reassurance of recommended vaccines’ benefits and safety.

The Tdap vaccine — which protects against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis, or whooping cough — is recommended during pregnancy to protect newborns until they are able to be vaccinated against pertussis themselves at two months of age. The CDC began to recommend the vaccine routinely in all pregnancies in 2012, based on an uptick in pertussis, which can lead to death in very young babies.

A 2018 study of children born in Kaiser Permanente Southern California hospitals between 2011 and 2014 found no increased risk of autism in those whose mothers had been vaccinated against Tdap during pregnancy.

Flu vaccines have long been recommended for pregnant people during flu season and reduce risks for both the mother and the baby. A 2020 Swedish study looking at vaccination against the 2009 pandemic swine flu found no link between vaccination during pregnancy and increased autism risk. 

A 2017 study, looking at children born in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California health system between 2000 and 2010, found no association overall between autism and flu vaccination during pregnancy. The researchers did find a “suggestion” of increased autism risk when mothers were vaccinated during the first trimester of pregnancy but said that statistical analyses indicated the “finding could be due to chance.”

In the case of COVID-19 vaccines, research has not indicated any negative impacts on pregnancy outcomes or on babies of vaccinated mothers. In fact, there’s some evidence maternal vaccination is protective against certain bad pregnancy outcomes, such as preterm birth and stillbirth.

A study published on Jan. 22 in JAMA Pediatrics followed around 4,200 children born to mothers who enrolled in the study between May 2020 and August 2021. At 18 months, scores on a developmental screening test did not differ between children whose mothers got COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy versus those whose mothers didn’t.

The authors wrote that “these data suggest that maternal vaccination against COVID-19 during pregnancy was safe from the perspective of offspring neurodevelopment through 18 months of age.”

“It’s small and just 1 study, and of course more study is needed, but the findings are reassuring,” said Drexel’s Lee, who was not involved in the new study.

Coe emphasized the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy. “There are now many clinical studies that have demonstrated the benefits for safer pregnancy outcomes (as compared to the risk of an actual infection), as well as the reduced risk for young infants of getting a respiratory infection during the first 6 months of life,” he said.

“There is no known link between COVID-19 vaccines and the occurrence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD),” a Pfizer spokesperson told us in an email. “With hundreds of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines from BioNTech and Pfizer administered globally, the benefit-risk profile of our vaccines remains positive for all authorized indications/uses and age groups.”

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Editor’s note: SciCheck’s articles providing accurate health information and correcting health misinformation are made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation.

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Plotkin, S. et al. “Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses.” Clinical Infectious Diseases. Updated 15 Feb 2009.

Zerbo, Ousseny et al. “Association Between Influenza Infection and Vaccination During Pregnancy and Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder.” JAMA Pediatrics. 2 Jan 2017.

Ludvigsson, Jonas F. et al. “Maternal Influenza A(H1N1) Immunization During Pregnancy and Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder in Offspring: A Cohort Study.” Annals of Internal Medicine. 1 Sep 2020.

Becerra-Culqui, Tracy A. et al. “Prenatal Tetanus, Diphtheria, Acellular Pertussis Vaccination and Autism Spectrum Disorder.” Pediatrics. Sep 2018.

“Autism Spectrum Disorder.” National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Updated 19 Dec 2023.

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Erdogan, Mumin Alper et al. “Prenatal Exposure to COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 Induces Autism-Like Behaviors in Male Neonatal Rats: Insights into WNT and BDNF Signaling Perturbations.” Neurochemical Research. 10 Jan 2024.

Jackie | bootleg media (@bootlegmedia__). “How does Anthony fauci sleep at night 😵‍💫…” Instagram. 13 Jan 2024.

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shanna✨ scrunchy mama | organic humor | holistic. “I wonder what they will find out next about this shot 🤔 …” Instagram. 19 Jan 2024.

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Summary

Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.

Here’s how the United States has fared since President Joe Biden took office three years ago:

• The economy added more than 14 million jobs. The number is now nearly 4.9 million higher than before the pandemic.

• The unemployment rate dropped back to just above the pre-pandemic low; unfilled job openings again outnumber unemployed job seekers.

• Inflation spiked to the highest level in over 40 years. Despite recent moderation, consumer prices are up nearly 18% overall during Biden’s time. Gasoline is up 29%.

• Average weekly earnings haven’t kept pace with prices. After adjusting for inflation, “real” weekly earnings declined 3.4%.

• Defying expectations, the nation’s economy expanded 2.5% in 2023, marking the third straight year of economic growth.

• Crime data show a decrease in murders in U.S. cities in 2022 and 2023.

• The S&P 500 has increased 28.2%.

• The number of apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally remains near historical highs. For the 12 months ending in November, apprehensions are up 296%.

• For the third straight year, gun purchases declined, as measured by background checks for firearm sales.

• Crude oil production is up 12.7%; imports are up 8.7%.

• The trade deficit for goods and services is about 20.9% higher.

• The number of people without health insurance has gone down; enrollment in Affordable Care Act marketplace plans is at its highest point yet.

• The number of people receiving federal food assistance has declined by more than 700,000.

• The publicly held debt has increased by about 24.7%.

Analysis

Biden, who appears to be headed for a rematch with former President Donald Trump, is going into an election year with some favorable and unfavorable numbers. Unemployment is down, and consumer confidence is rising. But overall inflation is high, and wages aren’t keeping pace with inflation.

Here, we present those and other statistical measures in our latest installment of our quarterly feature, “Biden’s Numbers.” We take no position on how much credit or blame Biden deserves, following the same approach we took when we did “Trump’s Numbers.”

Jobs and Unemployment

The number of people with jobs rebounded strongly during Biden’s time, surpassing pre-pandemic levels by almost 4.9 million.

Employment — The U.S. economy added 14,263,000 jobs between Biden’s inauguration and December, the latest month for which data are available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The December figure is 4,861,000 higher than the February 2020 peak of employment before COVID-19 forced massive shutdowns and layoffs.

Some categories are still lagging, however. There were 28,000 fewer public school teachers and other local government education workers in December than there were at the pre-pandemic peak, and 183,000 fewer hotel and restaurant workers and others in the accommodation and food services industries.

Unemployment — The unemployment rate fell from 6.4% at the time Biden took office to 3.4% in January 2023 and again in April, the lowest since June 1969. Since then, the rate has crept up — but only to 3.7% in December, just 0.2 point above the pre-pandemic rate.

Job Openings — The number of unfilled job openings soared, reaching a record of over 12 million in March 2022, but then declined after the Federal Reserve began a steep series of interest rate increases aimed at cooling the economy to bring down price inflation.

The number of unfilled jobs was just under 8.8 million as of the last business day of November, the most recent month on record. That’s still an increase of over 1.6 million openings — or nearly 23% — during Biden’s time.

In November, there was an average 1.4 jobs for every unemployed job seeker. When Biden took office, there were fewer job openings than unemployed job seekers.

The number of job openings in December is set to be released Jan. 30.

Labor Force Participation — One reason many job openings go unfilled is that millions of Americans left the workforce during the pandemic and haven’t returned. The labor force participation rate (the percentage of the total population over age 16 that is either employed or actively seeking work) has risen slowly during Biden’s time, from 61.3% in January 2021 to 62.5% in December.

That still leaves the rate somewhat short of the pre-pandemic level of 63.3% for February 2020.

The rate has been trending generally down for nearly a quarter of a century. It peaked at 67.3% during the first four months of 2000. Labor Department economists project that the rate will continue to slide down to 60.1% in 2031, “primarily because of an aging population.”

Manufacturing Jobs — During the presidential campaign, Biden promised he had a plan to create a million new manufacturing jobs — and whether it’s his doing or not, the number is getting close to that target.

As of December, the U.S. added 790,000 manufacturing jobs during Biden’s time, a 6.5% increase in the space of 35 months, according to the BLS. Furthermore, the December total is 201,000, or 1.6%, above the number of manufacturing jobs in February 2020, before the pandemic forced plant closures and layoffs.

During Trump’s four years, the economy lost 170,000 manufacturing jobs, or 1.4%, largely due to the pandemic.

Wages and Inflation

CPI — Inflation came roaring back under Biden. During his first 35 months in office, the Consumer Price Index rose 17.6%.

It was for a time the worst inflation in decades. The 12 months ending in June 2022 saw a 9.1% increase in the CPI (before seasonal adjustment), which the Bureau of Labor Statistics said was the biggest such increase since the 12 months ending in November 1981.

Inflation has moderated greatly since then. The unadjusted CPI rose 3.4% in the 12 months ending in December, the most recent figure available.

Gasoline Prices — The price of gasoline shot up even faster.

During the week ending Jan. 22, the national average price of regular gasoline at the pump was $3.06. That’s 68 cents higher than in the week before Biden took office, an increase of 29%.

The price swung wildly during Biden’s first year and a half, hitting a record high of just over $5 per gallon in the week ending June 13, 2022. That rise was propelled by motorists resuming travel after pandemic lockdowns and then by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Wages — Wages also have gone up under Biden, but not as fast as prices.

Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers went up 14.2% during Biden’s first 35 months in office, according to monthly figures compiled by the BLS. Those production and nonsupervisory workers make up 81% of all employees in the private sector.

But inflation ate up all that gain and more. “Real” weekly earnings, which are adjusted for inflation and measured in dollars valued at their average level in 1982-84, actually declined 3.4% since Biden took office.

More recently, real wages have been increasing, rising 1.3% since hitting the low point under Biden in June 2022.

Economic Growth

After the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in March 2022 to slow inflation, the economic consensus held that the U.S. was headed for a recession in 2023. That turned out not to be the case.

In fact, real gross domestic product (which is adjusted for inflation) was 2.5% higher in 2023 than it was in 2022, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said in a Jan. 25 release announcing its “advance estimate.” (The advance estimate is the BEA’s first estimate, which could be adjusted slightly on Feb. 28, when updated figures with more complete data will be released.)

This marks the third straight year of economic growth under Biden. The real GDP increased 5.8% in 2021 and 1.9% in 2022. (In 2020, Trump’s final year in office, the U.S. economy was battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and real GDP declined 2.2%.)

The BEA also estimated that the economy increased at an annual rate of 3.3% in the fourth quarter of 2023 — marking the sixth straight quarter of economic growth, including a surprisingly strong 4.9% increase in the third quarter. 

The Fed’s monetary policy was designed “to achieve a ‘soft landing’ — a return to low inflation while maintaining moderate economic growth,” as the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service explained in a report released last month. But, the CRS report added, “a majority of private sector economists had, until recently, predicted that the Fed’s actions would result in a ‘hard landing’ — a recession — in 2023.”

The economic consensus now is that the Fed has achieved a “soft landing,” and the U.S. will likely avoid a recession, according to the Wall Street Journal’s most recent quarterly survey of economists in early January.

“Business and academic economists surveyed by the Journal lowered the probability of a recession within the next year, to 39% from 48% in the October survey,” the Journal wrote on Jan. 14. That’s the lowest it has been since April 2022, when the average probability of a recession was 28%.

In December, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the nation’s economic growth will slow to 1.5% in 2024 — which, if that happens, would mean the Fed had indeed achieved a “soft landing.”

Of course, the economic consensus has been wrong before.

Crime

The available data show that homicides declined nationwide last year, though you wouldn’t know it from recently released research from the Republican National Committee. The RNC report decried 2023 as “another violent year” that “continues the violent wave of crime that has been building for the past few years, ever since the defund the police movement – championed by Democrats – began.”

The RNC report highlights a rise in homicides in Washington, D.C., Kansas City and Memphis. While it’s true that homicides rose in those cities, figures from AH Datalytics, an independent criminal justice data analysis group, show that murders in more than 200 cities nationwide were down 12% overall in 2023 compared with 2022.

The latest figures from the Major Cities Chiefs Association show a 10.7% decline in the number of murders from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2023, compared with the same time period in 2022, in 69 large U.S. cities.

There was also a drop in murders in large cities in 2022. These decreases come after a 33.4% increase in the number of murders in large cities from 2019 to 2020, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association, and a smaller 6.2% rise from 2020 to 2021, Biden’s first year in office.

The nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice published a midyear report in 2023 on 30 U.S. cities that similarly found recent declines in homicides. However, it noted that the number for the first half of 2023 remained higher than the first half of 2019, “the year prior to the COVID pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020.”

“The authors conclude that crime patterns continue to shift as the nation has emerged from the COVID pandemic and that policymakers and communities must act urgently to adapt their strategies to meet the new challenges,” CCJ said in a summary of its report. “Though the level of serious violent crime is far below historical peaks, it remains intolerably high, especially in poorer communities of color.”

Our last “Biden’s Numbers” update in October included the just-released FBI report covering 2022. Its estimates showed a drop in the nationwide murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rate of 0.5 points during Biden’s time in office, from 6.8 per 100,000 population in 2020 to 6.3 in 2022. The number of murders declined by 5.6%, totaling an estimated 21,156 last year.

The violent crime rate dropped by 15.4 points, to 369.8 per 100,000 population in 2022.

As we noted then, the decrease in murder and aggravated assaults under Biden, however, hasn’t yet brought those figures back to their 2019 levels, before an increase in both offenses during the 2020 pandemic. For instance, the 6.3 murder rate for 2022 is still higher than the 5.2 rate for 2019.

The FBI’s 2022 report is based on figures voluntarily provided by 15,724 law enforcement agencies, which represent 93.5% of the U.S. population. All U.S. cities with 1 million population or more provided statistics for the full year, the FBI said.

The property crime rate also declined a bit, by 9.5 points, from 2020 to 2022. But there was a notable increase in motor vehicle thefts: The rate increased by 35.2 points to 282.7 vehicle thefts per 100,000 people.

Immigration

The number of apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally crept back up in September, October and November, remaining near historical highs. Overall under Biden, apprehensions are dramatically higher than the apprehension numbers under Trump, according to the latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

To even out the seasonal changes in border crossings, we compare the most recent 12 months on record with the year before Biden took office. And for the past 12 months ending in November, the latest figures available, apprehensions totaled 2,012,917, according to Customs and Border Protection. That’s 296% higher than during Trump’s last year in office.

Driving much of the increase has been a boom in migrants seeking asylum. (See chart below.)

Rather than trying to sneak into the interior, most migrants are crossing into the U.S. and turning themselves over to border authorities, Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, told us. “They want to be encountered by border patrol agents.”

Explaining the push on the border, Putzel-Kavanaugh said, “Part of it is because migration worldwide has increased,” due to unequal recovery from the pandemic, wars/violence, the loosening of restrictions after COVID-19 and climate change. “We are seeing more turmoil around the world.”

There are also unique pull factors to the U.S., she said.

“After the Trump administration, there was a perception that Biden was the opposite of Trump on immigration,” Putzel-Kavanaugh said. “There was a perception that the U.S. was more welcoming. There was a stark difference in the way they talked about migrants.”

It’s also true that most migrants have been able to find work, she said, which acts as a draw.

Adding to the problem, she said, is that the asylum system is incredibly backlogged.

“Cases don’t come to trial until years down the line,” she said. Asylum cases are taking four to five years to come to trial. In some cases, like in New York, the backlog is even longer, she said.

Less than 15% of those seeking asylum were ultimately granted it in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to Justice Department statistics. But while waiting on a decision, asylum seekers obtain work authorizations, get established in jobs and their children get settled in schools, Putzel-Kavanaugh said.

According to a December report from TRAC, a nonpartisan research center at Syracuse University, the immigration court backlog reached a record of 3 million pending cases in November, after growing by a million in just one year.

“Immigration Judges are swamped,” the report stated. “Immigration Judges now average 4,500 pending cases each. If every person with a pending immigration case were gathered together, it would be larger than the population of Chicago, the third largest city in the United States.”

Republicans and Democrats alike have been calling for immigration policy changes, though their plans are very different. Biden has called for addressing the root causes of immigration by sending more assistance to improve conditions in countries like El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. He also seeks funds to reduce immigration court and asylum application backlogs.

Republicans, meanwhile, are calling for a return to some of the policies championed by Trump, such as expanding the border wall system, reinstituting the “Remain in Mexico” policy (whereby asylum seekers had to stay in Mexico to await their court appearances), and returning to using U.S. Title 42, a public health order that was used during the pandemic to allow border officials to immediately return migrants caught trying to enter the country illegally.

Also, House Republicans are pursuing impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. A resolution proposed by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Mayorkas has not upheld a requirement in the Secure Fence Act of 2006 that the secretary of Homeland Security “maintain operational control” over the border, a standard that Mayorkas noted no DHS secretary has ever met to the letter of the law.

Refugees

Biden continues to make slow, but steady, progress toward fulfilling his ambitious campaign promise to accept up to 125,000 refugees into the United States each fiscal year.

On Sept. 29, the Biden administration set the cap on refugee admissions for fiscal year 2024 at 125,000 – just as it did in fiscal years 2023 and 2022.

In fiscal year 2023, which ended Sept. 30, the U.S. accepted 60,014 refugees — the highest total since fiscal year 2016, which was the last full fiscal year of the Obama-Biden administration, according to State Department data. It was also more than twice as many as the 25,465 refugees admitted in fiscal 2022.

But it still fell far short of the president’s 125,000 goal. To achieve that goal, the administration would have to admit an average of 10,417 refugees per month.

In the first three months of fiscal year 2024, the administration accepted 21,790 refugees — or 7,263 per month. That’s substantially higher than the 6,757 refugees — or 2,252 per month — who were admitted in the first three months of last fiscal year.

“Refugee admissions now are nearing a monthly pace that will, if sustained over the course of a year, enable arrival of 125,000 refugees, a 30-year high,” the State Department said in a November report to Congress. The mention of “a 30-year high” in the report refers to 1992, when the Clinton administration admitted 132,531 refugees, according to data compiled by the Migration Policy Institute.

The State Department report credited the Biden administration’s “intensive efforts to restore, strengthen, and modernize the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program” as the reason for making “significant progress” toward Biden’s 125,000 goal. (Note: Only refugees, who apply for refugee status from outside the U.S., count against the refugee admissions ceiling, as the State Department explains in its report to Congress.)

Overall, the U.S. has admitted 117,277 refugees in Biden’s first full 35 months in office, or 3,351 refugees per month, the data show. That’s 82% higher than the 1,845 monthly average during the four years under Trump, who significantly reduced the admission of refugees. (For both presidents, our monthly averages include only full months in office, excluding the month of January 2017 and January 2021, when administrations overlapped.)

Judiciary Appointments

Supreme Court — Biden has appointed one Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was confirmed on April 7, 2022. She replaced retired Justice Stephen G. Breyer, an appointee of President Bill Clinton. At the same point of his tenure, Trump had won confirmation for two Supreme Court justices.

Court of Appeals — Thirty-nine U.S. Court of Appeals judges have been confirmed under Biden, while 50 had been confirmed at this point of Trump’s term.

District Court — Biden has won confirmation for 130 District Court judges. At the same point under Trump, 133 had been confirmed.

Four U.S. Court of Federal Claims judges have also been confirmed under Biden, while five had been confirmed at the same point of Trump’s presidency. In addition, Trump had won the confirmation for two U.S. Court of International Trade judges at this stage of his term.

As of Jan. 24, there were 60 federal court vacancies, with 23 nominees pending.

Health Insurance Coverage

The number of people without health insurance decreased by 0.7 percentage points or 2.4 million people from 2020, the year before Biden took office, to 2022. Those figures come from the Census Bureau’s annual reports, which measure those who lacked insurance for the entire year.

The latest report, published in September, found that 25.9 million people, or 7.9% of the population, didn’t have insurance in 2022.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey provides more recent, early release estimates that measure those who lacked health insurance at the time they were interviewed. By that metric, the uninsured dropped by 1.3 percentage points, or 4 million people, from 2020 to 2022, and the latest NHIS report shows a further decline for the first nine months of 2023.

From January through June last year, 7.4% of the population was uninsured, according to the NHIS estimates, 1 percentage point lower than the figure for all of 2022.

As we have been noting, it’s possible the uninsured figures will start to rise, since some Medicaid provisions that were enacted during the coronavirus pandemic started to be phased out at the end of March last year.

Enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace plans — for those who need to buy coverage on their own — has increased under Biden. The Department of Health and Human Services announced on Jan. 24 that 21.3 million people had selected an ACA plan during this year’s open enrollment period, the highest figure yet and about 5 million more than last year. This year’s enrollment also includes more than 5 million consumers who are new to the ACA marketplace.

Corporate Profits

After-tax corporate profits have reached new heights under Biden.

For the year, after-tax corporate profits set records in 2021 and 2022, according to BEA estimates. (See line 45.)

On Dec. 21, the BEA estimated that profits in the third quarter of 2023 grew to an annualized rate of $3.02 trillion. That was 38% higher than the full-year figure for 2020, the year before Biden took office.

It was the third straight quarter that corporations had seen an increase in profits.

Consumer Sentiment

Under Biden, high inflation had weakened consumer confidence in the economy. But inflation has been slowing, and confidence is picking up once again.

The University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers reported that its preliminary Index of Consumer Sentiment for January was 78.8 — the highest since July 2021.

“Consumer sentiment soared 13% in January to reach its highest level since July 2021, showing that the sharp increase in December was no fluke,” Joanne W. Hsu, director of the Surveys of Consumers, said. “Consumer views were supported by confidence that inflation has turned a corner and strengthening income expectations. Over the last two months, sentiment has climbed a cumulative 29%, the largest two-month increase since 1991 as a recession ended.”

In June 2022, the consumer sentiment index dropped to a record-low 50, according to survey data since November 1952. But now it is almost back to where it was when Biden took office in January 2021, when the index was 79.

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey also reported an increase in December. The group said its survey showed “a surge in confidence and restored optimism for 2024.” The Conference Board will release its next survey on Jan. 30.

Home Prices & Homeownership

Home prices — After skyrocketing in Biden’s first two years, home prices have cooled, peaking in June and declining ever since.

The preliminary median sales price of existing single-family homes in the U.S. was $387,000 in December, marking the sixth consecutive month that prices have dropped, according to the National Association of Realtors.

For the year, the median sales price was $394,600 — just a shade higher than it was in 2022. Even so, the median price in 2023 was 31.4% higher than it had been in 2020.

But NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun isn’t expecting the real estate dip to last much longer.

“The latest month’s sales look to be the bottom before inevitably turning higher in the new year,” Yun said in a Jan. 19 press release. “Mortgage rates are meaningfully lower compared to just two months ago, and more inventory is expected to appear on the market in upcoming months.”

Mortgage rates had been rising along with the Federal Reserve’s key interest rate. The Fed last raised its benchmark rate in July — marking the 11th increase since March 2022. In December, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell indicated that its next move may be to cut its rate.

The 30-year fixed rate mortgage average nationwide, as of Jan. 18, dropped to 6.6% — the lowest since May, according to Freddie Mac.

Homeownership — Homeownership rates have barely budged under Biden.

The homeownership rate, which the Census Bureau measures as the percentage of “occupied housing units that are owner-occupied,” was 66% in the third quarter of 2023 — not much higher than the 65.8% rate during Trump’s last quarter in office. (Usual word of caution: The bureau warns against making comparisons with the fourth quarter of 2020, because of pandemic-related restrictions on in-person data collection.) 

The rate peaked under Trump in the second quarter of 2020 at 67.9%. The highest homeownership rate on record was 69.2% in 2004, when George W. Bush was president.

Stock Markets

The stock markets have rallied since our last report, finishing 2023 strong and setting records in 2024.

All three major indexes saw double-digit increases in 2023. The S&P 500 index “ended the year with a 24.2% gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose more than 13% this year, and the Nasdaq soared 43%, driven by gains in big technology companies, including Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft,” CBS News reported on Dec. 29, the last day of trading.

That pushed all three indexes solidly into positive territory on Biden’s watch.

The S&P 500, which is made up of 500 large-cap companies, set a new high on Jan. 24, closing at 4,868.55. Since Biden took office, the S&P 500 has increased 28.2%. Likewise, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which includes 30 large corporations, has increased 22.2% under Biden.

The technology-heavy NASDAQ composite index, made up of more than 3,000 companies, was in negative territory under Biden in our last report in October. But at the close on Jan. 24, the NASDAQ index was up 17.3% since Biden took office on Jan. 20, 2021.

Gun Sales

For the third straight year, since a spike during the pandemic, annual gun purchases appear to have declined, according to figures from the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

The federal government doesn’t collect data on gun sales, so the NSSF, a gun industry trade group, estimates gun sales by tracking the number of background checks for firearm sales based on the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS. The NSSF-adjusted figures exclude background checks unrelated to sales, such as those required for concealed-carry permits.

The adjusted NICS total for background checks in 2023 was more than 15.8 million, the NSSF said — the fourth-highest annual total going back to 2000. But last year’s total was still about 3.5% less than in 2022, approximately 14.4% less than in 2021, and roughly 24.8% less than in 2020, the one-year record.

Oil Production and Imports

U.S. crude oil production averaged roughly 12.76 million barrels per day during Biden’s most recent 12 months in office (ending in October), according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data published in late December. That was more than 12.7% higher than the average daily amount of crude oil produced in 2020.

In its Short-Term Energy Outlook for January, the EIA projected that crude oil production averaged 12.92 million barrels per day in 2023, which would be the highest average on record. EIA also said it expects crude oil production — fueled by increases in well efficiency — to increase to 13.2 million barrels per day in 2024 and 13.4 million in 2025, which would be new records.

Still, over the last 12 months, the U.S. imported about 6.39 million barrels of crude oil per day on average. That’s up more than 8.7% from average daily imports in 2020 — but lower than the pre-pandemic average of 6.80 million barrels per day in 2019.

Carbon Emissions

There was another small decline in U.S. carbon dioxide emissions since our last report.

In the most recent 12 months on record (ending in September), there were approximately 4.82 billion metric tons of emissions from the consumption of coal, natural gas and various petroleum products, according to the EIA. That’s down from the 4.83 billion metric tons as of our last update, but it’s still about 5.2% more than the roughly 4.58 billion metric tons emitted in 2020.

As of this month, the EIA forecast that energy-related emissions for all of 2023 would total 4.78 billion metric tons — which would be lower than the amounts of 4.90 billion in 2021 and 4.94 billion in 2022.

Trade

The U.S. imported roughly $789.4 billion more in goods and services than it exported over the last 12 months through November, according to figures published this month by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The international trade deficit in that period was $136.5 billion higher, or about 20.9% more, than the gap for the 2020 calendar year.

However, as of November, the 2023 goods and services deficit had decreased by around $161.8 billion from the same 11-month period in 2022 — putting the U.S. on pace to have a lower annual trade deficit last year than the record of $951.2 billion in 2022.

Food Stamps

Since our last quarterly update, enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, increased.

There were about 41.4 million beneficiaries receiving food assistance through SNAP, as of October. The figures, which are preliminary, were published by the Department of Agriculture earlier this month.

That means SNAP enrollment is up 96,392 since July — but still down 718,269, or about 1.7%, from the January 2021 enrollment of more than 42.1 million. The lowest monthly enrollment under Biden was roughly 40.8 million in August and September 2021.

Debt and Deficits

Debt — The public debt, excluding money the government owes itself, increased to more than $26.9 trillion, as of Jan. 19. The public debt is now about 24.7% higher than it was when Biden took office.

Deficits — The Congressional Budget Office estimates that so far the budget deficit for fiscal year 2024 has increased a bit compared with the same period in fiscal 2023, when the annual deficit was $1.7 trillion, according to the Department of Treasury.

Through the first three months of the current fiscal year (October to December), the deficit was $509 billion, or “$87 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year,” the CBO reported in its Monthly Budget Review for December 2023.

Notably, the CBO said that outlays in the first quarter were up $170 billion from the same time a year ago — and would have been slightly higher if not for some federal payments being made in the last month of fiscal 2023 instead of the first month of fiscal 2024. A significant contributor to the increase was interest payments on the debt, the CBO said, “because interest rates are significantly higher than they were in the first three months of fiscal year 2023.”

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Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.

Quick Take

Efforts are underway in many states to disqualify former President Donald Trump from primary ballots, based on the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause. Some viral posts compare Trump to Abraham Lincoln and falsely claim Lincoln was “removed” from state ballots in 1860. A Lincoln scholar said the claim “could not be more historically misleading.”

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Full Story

Challenges have been filed in at least 35 states to keep former President Donald Trump from appearing on the states’ presidential primary ballots, according to a review of court records and documents by the New York Times.

In Colorado, the state Supreme Court ruled in December that Trump was disqualified from the presidency based on the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, though the court allowed him to remain on the ballot for the state’s March 5 primary pending a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Colorado court found that then-President Trump engaged in insurrection based on his actions around Jan. 6, 2021, that led to his supporters’ assault on the Capitol and attempted disruption of the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Trump appealed the Colorado ruling on Jan. 3.

In Maine last month, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows barred Trump from the primary ballot, also based on the insurrection clause. A Maine Superior Court judge put a hold on Bellows’ decision until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the Colorado case.

The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in the Colorado appeal on Feb. 8.

While the nation awaits the high court’s ruling, some social media users have posted false claims about the basis for the efforts to disqualify Trump from state primary ballots and have distorted American history to draw parallels to the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln.

A Jan. 18 post on Instagram claims, “The satanic left removed Abraham Lincoln from ballots for fighting slavery. Lincoln won due to record voter turnout. Now they’re trying to remove Donald Trump from ballots for fighting child sex slavery… The American People stand with Trump! HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF!” The post has received more than 4,000 likes.

But as we said, the legal efforts to keep Trump off some state ballots is based on the insurrection clause, not for Trump “fighting child sex slavery.”

The text on another Instagram post, accompanied by a music video featuring a singer in a “Make America Great Again” hat, inaccurately claims, “The last presidential candidate to be removed from the ballots was Abraham Lincoln by the Democrats because they wanted to keep their slaves.” The post has received more than 7,000 likes.

But Lincoln was not “removed from the ballots.” Both posts misrepresent how the election system worked in the 1860s.

Voting for President in 19th-Century America

Christian McWhirter, a historian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, told us he has seen similar social media claims about Lincoln’s failure to appear on ballots in some states in the 1860 presidential election. “The problem with statements like this is it assumes voting practices worked the way they do now and that wasn’t true,” McWhirter said in a Jan. 22 email.

Rather than a series of state primaries, presidential nominees were chosen in the mid-19th century at a national convention. Lincoln was chosen as the Republican Party nominee at the 1860 convention in Chicago, defeating three other contenders, including front-runner and former New York Gov. William Seward, who would later serve as Lincoln’s secretary of state.

During the general election in the mid-19th century, “voters were not presented with official ballots at polling stations like we have today that allowed them to check off which candidate they were voting for,” McWhirter said. “Instead, a 19th-century ballot or ‘political ticket’ was a slip of paper, provided by each party, listing their candidates for whatever offices were up for election. This allowed voters to easily ‘vote the ticket’ for their party without having to know the names of every candidate and office.”

“So, a voter would receive tickets like these, often at a political event or in a newspaper before an election or even from a party representative at their polling station. Then they could just drop it in the ballot box as is, and that was their vote,” McWhirter continued.

Because the “1860 Republican Party had no real presence in most Southern slaveholding states —especially the Deep South — there were no political tickets being distributed. So that’s actually what was happening, rather than Lincoln being ‘left off’ some kind of official ballot like we have today,” McWhirter said. “That didn’t mean people couldn’t vote for Lincoln, but they would have had to ‘write him in’ like we would a 3rd-party candidate today, and results show very little of that happened in those states.”

Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer said the Jan. 18 Instagram post “could not be more historically misleading.”

In 1860, “no jurisdiction actually barred [Lincoln] from the ballot, such as it was. Voting was conducted with pre-printed ballots, and Republicans did not create Lincoln ballots for regions where pro-slavery forces repudiated him; electors did not run in these hostile districts pledged to Lincoln,” Holzer, director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, told us in a Jan. 22 email.

“To compare this situation to Donald Trump’s travails in 2024 is a miscarriage of historical justice. Lincoln pledged himself to fighting insurrection, not inciting it,” Holzer said.

McWhirter noted that in 1860, “the 14th Amendment didn’t exist yet, which is the specific context for Trump’s potential removal.” (The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.)

Lincoln won the 1860 election with just under 40% of the popular vote, defeating Stephen Douglas of the Democratic Party, John Breckenridge of the Southern Democratic Party — who won the nine Southern states — and John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party.

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Editor’s note: FactCheck.org is one of several organizations working with Facebook to debunk misinformation shared on social media. Our previous stories can be found here. Facebook has no control over our editorial content.

Sources

Bomboy, Scott. “On this day, Abraham Lincoln is GOP nominee in an upset.” National Constitution Center. 18 May 2017.

Coltrain, Nick. “Trump appeals Colorado Supreme Court ruling on 14th Amendment ballot disqualification.” Denver Post. 3 Jan 2024.

Constitution Annotated. Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection and Other Rights. Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office. Constitution.congress.gov. Accessed 22 Jan 2024.

Gamio, Lazaro, Mitch Smith and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs. “Tracking Efforts to Remove Trump From the 2024 Ballot.” New York Times. Updated 19 Jan 2024.

Holzer, Harold. Jonathan F. Fanton Director, Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. Email to FactCheck.org. 22 Jan 2024.

Library of Congress. “With Malice Toward None: The Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition. The Run for President.” Accessed 23 Jan 2024.

McWhirter, Christian. Historian, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Email to FactCheck.org. 22 Jan 2024.

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Journalist Rahul Shivshankar recently expressed outrage over an incident in Puttur in the Dakshin Kannada district of Karnataka. According to his tweet, a Hindu activist named Santhosh was allegedly beaten up for distributing Akshata (unbroken and uncooked rice grains offered to a deity during puja in Hinduism) ahead of the Ram Mandir consecration. Shivshankar took to Twitter to condemn the attack. “Is Hindumesia getting a wide berth because the will to curb it has softened in the face of expedient appeasement politics?”, Shivshankar asked. Whereas ‘Hindumesia’ is not a valid word, it is understood that Shivshankar wanted to use the word ‘Hindumisia’ which is sometimes used as an alternative for the word ‘Hinduphobia’. (Archive)

A Hindu activist who was distributing Ram Mandir ‘Akshata’ attacked in Karnataka’s Puttur.

Santosh was attacked last night. He had finished distributing the Akshat and was returning home.

Is Hindumesia getting a wide berth because the will to curb it has softened in the face…

— Rahul Shivshankar (@RShivshankar) January 16, 2024

Other users like verified handles @HateDetectors and @indiaglobaltalk also tweeted about the incident. “Which mentality people’s are they, it’s terrible”, said the latter.

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Fact Check

We found several local reports that stated that Dakshina Kannada SP Ryshyant had refuted the claims that Santhosh had been assaulted for distributing Akshata ahead of Ram Mandir Pran Pratishth. In a press release, SP Ryshanth stated that the fight between the neighbours had, in fact, resulted out of a civil dispute. A complaint and a counter-complaint were filed in the matter. The SP urged the public not to fall for false news or misleading messages.

Alt News accessed the FIRs filed by both parties. In Santhosh’s complaint to the police, he stated that after returning from a meeting regarding the Mantrakshate (ritual offering of grains), he had parked his scooter near his garden and was walking home when the accused persons stopped him and assaulted him. Santhosh’s mother Savitha, who came out after hearing the commotion, was also assaulted. In his complaint, Santhosh alleged that the accused were jealous of him since he had the privilege of distributing the Akshata. Hence, they attacked them. According to his complaint, the attackers took away Santhosh’s phone and wallet containing Rs 25000 in cash. Their complaint named Keshava, Jagadish and Dhananjaya as the accused.

In the counter-complaint filed by Keshava Naik, he accused Santhosh, his wife and a third person named Sandeep of starting to pull down the wire fence that had been put up around his garden. Upon being questioned by Keshava, the accused verbally abused him and threatened to kill him. Santhosh’s parents, Koragappa Nayak and Savitha, too, allegedly abused the complainant verbally. When Keshava was leaving for the police station with cousin Dhananjaya to file a complaint against the destruction of their property, Santhosh and Koragappa Nayak allegedly hit him on the head. Keshava’s mother who came to the spot after hearing the commotion was also allegedly assaulted. The complaint named Santhosh (32), his father Koragappa Naik, his mother Savitha and two other persons as the accused.

Santhosh held a press conference at the Puttur press club on January 17 along with his family. According to him, the two families have been at loggerheads for years. He accused the other group of having a grudge against them for distributing the Akshata of the Ram Mandir. A group of people including Santhosh had been given the responsibility of distributing the Akshata to the houses in Mundur village in the Puttur Taluk of Dakshin Kannada district. In the meantime, the accused trio, who belong to another Hindutva organisation Puthila Parivar, allegedly took the Akshata away from the Mundur temple and distributed it. They emptied the Akshata container and kept it in the temple. The next day Santhosh’s group kept that vessel at the house of a local person. He accused Dhananjay, Keshav and Jagdish of attacking Santhosh in this connection, while he was returning from a meeting related to the distribution of the Akshata. He accused Arun Puthila of Puthila Parivar of the attack. Santhosh also accused his rival group of blocking the access road to his house. At the press conference, Santhosh’s family verbally attacked Arun Puthila saying, “What! Are we Muslims? Are we not Hindus?”

Puthila Parivar is a local political organisation led by Hindutva activist Arun Kumar Puthila in 2023. He formed the party after losing the assembly polls in the Puttur constituency to Congress candidate Ashok Kumar Rai.

It is clear that both the parties involved in the tussle belonged to Hindutva organisations and neither of them wanted to stop the distribution of the Akshata as a result of ‘Hindumesia’. Journalist Rahul Shivshankar and several other users presented the incident in a way that implied that Santhosh had been attacked in an attempt to stop the distribution of the holy grains. In reality, the two families involved in the incident have been at loggerheads for years over a civil dispute, and according to Santhosh’s testimony at the press conference, there was an altercation over who would distribute the Akshata.

The injured persons were identified as Keshava Naik (35) and his mother Jayanthi (55) from one group and Santhosh BK (29) and his mother Savitha (50) from the rival group. They had been admitted to a private hospital in Puttur.

The facts of this incident were corroborated by several local media outlets, including Vartha Bharati and reports by Headline Karnataka and Daiji World. Former BJP MLA Sanjeeva Mathandur also visited Santhosh at the hospital. Speaking later, he said that this was a politically motivated attack and urged the government and the police department to arrest the perpetrators immediately.

Misleading Reports

The incident was reported by several media outlets with sensational headlines and incomplete facts. For instance, Times Now published a report titled, “Hindu Outfit Activist Attacked in Puttur While Distributing Ram Mandir Akshat, BJP Calls It ‘Politically Motivated”. It quoted Santhosh as saying, “…Since I have taken the responsibility of distributing Akshata, they are against me. So they were targeting me. I have been covering distribution for the last two weeks, but they don’t want to distribute. I was assaulted by Dhananjay, Keshava, and Jagadisha when I was returning home using a mobile torchlight.” Nowhere in the report is it mentioned that the families of Santosh and the accused trio had been embroiled in a conflict for years. Here is an archive of the report.

In a similar fashion, India Today published a similar report merely stating that Santhosh was reportedly attacked by his neighbours who opposed Santhosh’s distribution of the Akshata. Republic World published a report titled ‘Activist Distributing Akshat Ahead of Ram Temple Opening Attacked in Karnataka’s Puttur’ and stated that Santhosh had been attacked by the accused, Dhananjay, who opposed the distribution of ‘Akshata’. Media outlet Free Press Journal also published a similar report claiming that Santosh had been assaulted for distributing the ‘Akshata’.

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