PolitiFact’s Crummy ‘Fact Checking’ on Coronavirus Shots Safety

by | Feb 13, 2022

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Two recent articles from PolitiFact, a purported fact-checking organization, suggest that the message of the organization regarding experimental coronavirus “vaccine” shots that the United States government has been pushing people to take for over a year is this: Just trust the US government claim that the shots are safe irrespective of the fact that two of the US government’s own systems for tracking health data are flashing major warning signals regarding danger from the shots.

On December 10, Samantha Putterman wrote at PolitiFact that the reporting to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) managed Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) of much higher rates of adverse events including death and major health problems among people who took the experimental coronavirus shots than among people who took other vaccines should be totally disregarded. You read that right. The “fact checker” says, to know if the shots are safe, it is best to totally disregard the US government system that was created to track such adverse events in order to alert people to potential dangers from vaccines.

The “fact check” concludes that it is a “pants on fire” falsehood to suggest that the extraordinarily high rate of adverse events reports to VAERS for coronavirus shots indicates any danger whatsoever from the shots. Why? Putterman writes: “Health officials and experts said that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and comparable to others, and that they would have been discontinued if they had caused many deaths.”

In other words, Putterman is saying, ignore the dire signals from the data and instead just nod your head in agreement with the “health officials and experts” that endorse the “the shots are safe” narrative. Of course, other people with expertise in health matters strongly disagree with this narrative and see the VAERS numbers as indicative of serious problems with the experimental coronavirus shots. But, the “fact checker” disregards these experts along with the incriminating government data.

The preposterousness of this propagandizing disguised as fact checking is well captured in the abbreviated version of the “fact check” presented in the PolitiFact article for people whose “time is short.” Here it is:

  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., claimed that the COVID-19 vaccines are the most deadly, citing deaths reported in the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, an open database where anyone can report anything.

  Health officials say that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and comparable to other vaccines.

The abbreviated version, and the long version, of the “fact check” is better described as for people who are short on willingness to exercise critical thinking.

The pattern of telling people in a so-called fact check to disregard damning government data suggesting danger from coronavirus shots and to, instead, just trust the hand-picked shots-pushing experts’ claims the shots are safe continued with a January 31 article by Jeff Cercone at PolitiFact. Here is the conclusion of that purported fact check:

An Instagram post said that miscarriages among military members were up 300% in 2021 over a five-year average, and that cancer diagnoses were up 300% and neurological disorders were up 1000%.

However, the numbers used to compute the five-year average were greatly underreported, giving the false impression of a significant increase in 2021, a spokesperson for the Armed Forces Surveillance Division said.

The database has been taken down to identify and correct the problem.

We rate this claim False.

The “false” rating is very deceptive even if you accept every assertion in this PolitiFact article that supposedly supports the “false” rating. The Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED) that records billing codes associated with military members and their family members receiving different medical diagnoses and services from the military did indicate that there were huge spikes in the occurrence of these and many other medical problems in 2021 compared to the average of the previous five years. That is a fact that PolitiFact presents no information to dispute. Yet, PolitiFact announced its “false” rating for reporting what the data indicated because it turns out that, after whistleblowers made this DMED information public and people reported on it, the US military reacted by one of its spokespersons stating the military’s major medical tracking system, while working fine last year, had major snafus in the previous five years. These snafus supposedly made the DMED data entirely unreliable, and remained unfixed, over those five years. However, no one, including PolitiFact, is disputing that the actual DMED data was as revealed by the whistleblowers.

PolitiFact’s DMED data “fact checking” is devoid of basic reasoning. But it does bend over backward to promote the government line, as did PolitiFact’s “fact checking” regarding the VAERS data, that the experimental coronavirus shots are safe. Move along, there’s nothing to see here, asserts PolitiFact deceptively.

The US military’s sudden assertion of its huge failure that just so happens to advance the high priority “the shots are safe” narrative sure seems odd. But, hey, maybe things could be that screwed up. The military is a big government bureaucracy. It is not immune to incompetence.

So what is actually true? Daniel Horowitz, who has written extensively at The Blaze about the DMED data and its relation to the safety of the shots, concludes the following:

One of two things is true: Either there was mass vaccine injury in the military, or our military has been very unhealthy and the Pentagon completely lost control over epidemiological surveillance of these health issues for years. Either way, this is the story of the year.

But you won’t see any real investigation into a story like that at PolitiFact. To report that story would require searching for and communicating actual facts instead of just parroting the US government’s line.

If you want the facts regarding the VAERS data or the DMED data, PolitiFact appears to be of little use, unless you start with the assumption that what PolitiFact terms false is worth looking into further as likely true.

Fortunately, some people are providing helpful information regarding the VAERS and DMED data and its relationship to the experimental coronavirus shots.

Megan Redshaw wrote Friday regarding the latest developments in adverse events associated with experimental coronavirus shots being reported to VAERS. Her article is at the website of Children’s Health Defense, an organization that has done great work in exposing the ineffectiveness and dangerousness of coronavirus shots. PolitiFact target Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is the organization’s chairman.

Daniel Horowitz has written several fascinating articles regarding the disturbing DMED data and the US military’s actions in response to whistleblowers revealing the data. You can read his articles at The Blaze here, here, and here. Also, Robert Malone, who is an expert in matters related to the coronavirus shots but who we cannot expect the writers at PolitiFact to defer to as an authority for the truth given that he challenges US government assertions regarding the shots, wrote an interesting article regarding the matter. You can read his article, posted on Monday at the Independent Institute website, here.

Regarding the experimental coronavirus shots, PolitiFact can be expected to keep pushing US government propaganda instead of providing real fact checking. To find the truth, instead of the “political truth,” people will need to look elsewhere.

Author

  • Adam Dick

    Adam worked from 2003 through 2013 as a legislative aide for Rep. Ron Paul. Previously, he was a member of the Wisconsin State Board of Elections, a co-manager of Ed Thompson's 2002 Wisconsin governor campaign, and a lawyer in New York and Connecticut.