Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin appeared on Newsmax Tuesday, where he offered up a misleading garbage pile of context-free numbers about acetaminophen’s dangers—a day after Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s reckless announcement pushing an unproven link between the medication and autism.
"Let me just give you some facts. So we've all heard of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Well, the FDA has FAERS—the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System. So, in 56 years of tracking Tylenol, there have been 39,540 deaths reported to FAERS,” Johnson said. “That's 706 per year.”
Johnson then went on to regurgitate unsubstantiated claims made by anti-vaxxers that thousands of Americans die annually as a result of complications from the COVID-19 vaccine.
“For ivermectin, you remember the one that they said was so dangerous, in 29 years of reporting, 493 deaths—17 a year. And of course, for the COVID injection, in over just five years, 38,742 deaths associated with the COVID injection. That’s over 8,000 per year,” Johnson said.
“It should be causing physicians and federal health officials to ask the questions. And God bless President Trump and RFK Jr. for asking the questions and starting to use their positions, their platform, to give parents informed consent,” the Wisconsin Republican said.
Johnson and the GOP continue to spread misleading information, devoid of context and evidence, at the public’s expense.
