Vaccines don't cause autism, and the 6th Fleet is actually doing OK.
Given the slew of drama, insults and Snapchats that
came out of Wednesday's Republican presidential debate, it's easy to forget
that the 10 men and one woman onstage also discussed actual policy issues. But
indeed they did.
Lots was said during Wednesday's broadcast. Not
all of it stands up to closer inspection. Here's some useful context for what a
few of the candidates said:
1. Planned Parenthood
The candidates were asked to comment on whether
they supported federal funding for Planned Parenthood, even if it meant a
government shutdown. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina spoke about the
sting videos recently released by the conservative Center for Medical
Progress.
"As regards Planned Parenthood, anyone who
has watched this videotape -- I dare Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama to watch
these tapes," she said. "Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its
heart beating, its legs kicking, while someone says 'We have to keep it alive
to harvest its brain.'"
However, there's no evidence that a video like
this actually exists. Vox senior editor Sarah Kliff wrote Thursday that in
the 12 hours of footage CMP has released, there are no images that match
Fiorina's description. On Thursday, Fiorina told ABC's "Good Morning
America" that she had indeed seen the footage she'd described. It's
possible that Fiorina was thinking of some other video besides the sting tapes
that CMP has put out -- but as of yet, no one has been able to find a clip that
looks like what Fiorina was talking about.
During Wednesday's debate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said that it makes no sense to federally fund Planned
Parenthood when "there are 13,000 community-based organizations [in the
U.S.] that provide health services to women." But many of those
organizations already struggle to accommodate patients, and there's
basically no way they could provide the millions of women who visit Planned
Parenthood every year with the same level of affordable care they currently
receive.
2. Vaccines
Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), who is a doctor, and WWE Hall
of Fame member Donald Trump both implied a causal relationship between
autism and vaccines on Wednesday. Trump told a story of a 2-year-old who
developed autism after getting vaccinated. Paul said that while he is in favor
of vaccines, he also supports people's "freedom" to spread out the
doses instead of concentrating them within a certain window of time.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, which is made up of medical experts and health professionals, vaccines
do not cause autism. The 1998 study that suggested they did was retracted over
five years ago. As for stretching out a child's vaccination schedule, Bloomberg
News notes that the American Academy of Pediatrics released a study
earlier this year saying that "delaying or spacing out vaccines puts
children and other vulnerable people in the population at risk for
vaccine-preventable diseases with potentially severe outcomes.” So that
seems both unnecessary and inadvisable.
3. National security
Bush insisted Wednesday that his brother, former
President George W. Bush, "kept us safe" during his eight years in
office. Those years included two military campaigns, Operation Iraqi Freedom
and Operation Enduring Freedom, that together have caused more than twice the
number of American casualties that occurred on 9/11.
Fiorina also weighed in on American foreign
policy, pledging to address the ever-looming threat of Russia by
"rebuild[ing] the 6th Fleet," a part of the U.S. Navy that conducts
operations in Europe and Asia. But as Vox's Ezra Klein points out, the 6th
Fleet doesn't actually need rebuilding. In fact, most of the things Fiorina
suggested, including military exercises in the Baltic States and putting more
troops in Germany, are things the Obama administration is doing or has already
done.
4. Drugs
The use and legalization of marijuana were hot
topics on Wednesday. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie called marijuana "a
gateway drug," while Fiorina argued that it's misleading to tell people
that "marijuana is just like having a beer."
But according to the National Institute on Drug
Abuse, "most people who use marijuana do not go on to use other, 'harder'
substances."
Technically, Fiorina was right -- marijuana is not
just like having a beer. It's probably better for you. Recent studies have
shown that using marijuana is over 100 times safer than using alcohol.
5. The Iran deal
When candidates were asked Wednesday what they
would do about undocumented immigrants in the U.S., Trump said that illegal
immigration is "costing us more than $200 billion a year." Trump and
Paul also both claimed that the 14th Amendment technically does not apply to
the children of immigrants.
According to NBC News, though, it's actually
Trump's immigration plan that would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion.
And while Trump and Paul may both have questions about how the 14th Amendment
applies to children of undocumented immigrants, as things stand now, such
children are 100 percent citizens of this country if they were born here.
