An online discussion between Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), both physicians, asks whether or not it is worth it to give the Hepatitis B vaccine to babies who were just born.

Hepatitis B (Hep B) can spread through sex, but that’s not the only way. It can also pass from a mother to her baby during birth. Some people think babies are safe because mothers get tested, but in the U.S, about 25,000 babies will be exposed to hepatitis B each year.

If someone gets Hepatitis B, it can turn into chronic (long-term) Hepatitis B. This can last a lifetime and cause serious problems like liver damage, cirrhosis (scarring of the liver), or liver cancer. The younger you are when you catch Hepatitis B, the more likely it is to become chronic. There is no cure for Hepatitis B, but vaccines can stop people from getting it.

Thanks to the Hep B vaccine, especially the dose given at birth, cases have gone way down around the world. By vaccinating babies right away, we can protect more people, lower the spread of Hep B, and prevent diseases linked to it.

In an interview with Bill Maher, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. claims that 25% of Americans believe they know someone who died from the COVID vaccine, 52% think the shots cause injuries or death, and he claims the clinical trial showed people who got the vaccine had a 23% higher death rate than those who got a placebo.

These claims about what people believe claims are most likely based on laypeople searching the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS. As noted on the VAERS website, anyone can report anything to VAERS, regardless of causation.

The most important warning on the website helps put the above claims into context: “VAERS reports may contain information that is incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. Reports to VAERS can also be biased. As a result, there are limitations on how the data can be used scientifically. Data from VAERS reports should always be interpreted with these limitations in mind.”

These death claims usually don’t have any proof to back them up. In fact, the life-saving benefits of the COVID vaccine vastly outweigh the rare risks of an adverse event.

As for the claim about the clinical trials and the death rate, he is leaving out some very important data. It does say here that “From Dose 1 through the March 13, 2021 data cutoff date, there were a total of 38 deaths, 21 in the COMIRNATY group and 17 in the placebo group.”, which is indeed 23% higher death rate in the vaccine group. But the very next sentence reads “None of the deaths were considered related to vaccination.”

A widely circulating video claims that a large study in Italy shows people who got COVID shots have a higher chance of getting cancer, proving that the vaccines caused a turbo cancer epidemic.

What the study actually found was that vaccinated people had a much lower risk of death overall (42–65% lower, depending on dose) compared with unvaccinated people. While there was a slight overall increase in hospitalization for cancer in vaccinated people, it varied by cancer type, gender, prior COVID infection, and how much time was required between vaccination and cancer diagnosis. When requiring at least 12 months lag between vaccination and diagnosis, the association went away or even reversed for some cancers. The study found large protective effects against death, which the video ignored.

The authors emphasized that some results may be explained by confounding factors, healthy vaccinee bias, and the fact that hospital data alone do not capture all cancers.

Not to mention that the idea that COVID vaccines cause “turbo cancer” has no scientific backing. Even the most potent carcinogens take years to cause cancer, making claims of sudden cancer spikes implausible.