What RFK Jr.'s running mate gets wrong about autism causes Nicole Shanahan, a technology lawyer tapped by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his running mate in his independent bid for president, has a child who she says was diagnosed with autism. She has said the discovery prompted her to delve deep into research on autism. In her first news conference as a candidate, she devoted a lengthy passage to describing what she had learned, including suggesting that vaccines play a role. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an umbrella diagnosis covering a range of neurological and developmental disorders that include autism and Asperger's syndrome. Symptoms and severity vary dramatically from one person to another, but they typically impair a person's ability to communicate and interact with others or result in restricted, repetitive behaviors. In recent interviews, Shanahan has expressed skepticism about vaccines and said she and Kennedy are not "anti-vaxxers." But in her remarks, she speculated that "toxic substances" and "electromagnetic pollution" played a role in the spike in ASD diagnoses, used code that suggested vaccines may cause autism and misleadingly cited statistics. We checked with five autism experts about her full comments and they said much of what she claimed is misguided, wrong or lacks context. Click the link to read our full report and see her Pinocchio rating. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Taxpayer dollars being used to fly 'illegal aliens' into U. S.? Nope. Two lawmakers from Tennessee have made misleading statements about a Biden administration program that permitted an increased use of a process known as humanitarian parole for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) offered an amendment to a spending bill — defeated in a party-line vote — that he said would prevent "using taxpayer dollars to charter planes that move and import thousands of illegal aliens into your states." Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, on X, posted a Fox News article — headlined "All Senate Dems vote against barring taxpayer funds to fly illegal migrants to US towns" — and made a similar claim. But the website for the program makes clear that people applying for humanitarian parole must pay for their tickets. Under a list of requirements, one is: "Provide for their own commercial travel to an air U.S. port of entry and final U.S. destination." When we asked spokespeople for Hagerty and Green, we received different answers about why they said taxpayers' dollars were involved. Neither is convincing. Click the link to read the full report. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP and @AdriUsero) or Facebook. We're also on TikTok. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. About the cats: It's a Friday and sometimes our fact checks deal with heavy subjects. So we hope to bring a smile to your face. Scroll down to read other election-related fact checks. | 
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