"Lost in Trans-lation": health journalist Gary Schwitzer gives Mace his 4th Health News Pinocchio Award for confusing transgenic with transgender mice
On June 23, 2026, health journalist Gary Schwitzer awarded Nancy Mace his 4th Health News Pinocchio Award for repeatedly confusing transgenic mice (a standard cancer-research tool) with transgender mice, and doubling down after public correction. His verdict: standing by a mistruth several times, even after being publicly corrected, and doing so on multiple platforms is noteworthy.
Health journalist Gary Schwitzer, who runs Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Substack continuing his longstanding HealthNewsReview.org accountability project, named Nancy Mace his 4th Health News Pinocchio Award winner on June 23, 2026. The award was for her repeated insistence that federally funded animal studies involve making animals transgender, when the studies use transgenic mice - a standard genetic-engineering tool used to research cancer, infertility, and other diseases.
Lost in Trans-lation. US Rep. Nancy Mace confuses transgenic mice with transgender mice (no such thing). Worthy of our 4th Health News Pinocchio Award. garyschwitzer.substack.com/p/us-rep-nancy...
Gary Schwitzer (@garyschwitzer) June 23, 2026
In his full Substack piece, Schwitzer documents the pattern: Mace made the transgenic/transgender claim on Fox News (February 2025), in Congress, and on X - and stuck to it after the community note and public correction. His verdict:
"Misspeaking once is one thing. But standing by a mistruth several times - even after being publicly corrected - and doing so on multiple platforms - on TV, in Congress, on social media - that is noteworthy."
Gary Schwitzer, HealthNewsReview Substack, June 23, 2026
He also quotes virologist Angela Rasmussen, PhD, who drew out the policy implication:
"What she's really doing is trying to pass a bill that uses words she doesn't understand to ban certain types of research... If you don't know what a word means and you don't know what you're trying to ban, then perhaps you shouldn't author a bill trying to ban it - especially when it's totally made up."
Angela Rasmussen, PhD, as quoted by Schwitzer
The three previous Health News Pinocchio Award winners, per Schwitzer: RFK Jr. (twice) and Mehmet Oz.
The replies on Schwitzer's post added their own gloss. One commenter: "Next on her agenda is to rename trans fats."
Sources & related coverage
- Gary Schwitzer, "US Rep. Nancy Mace on transgender mice: Lost in translation", HealthNewsReview Substack, June 23, 2026
- Gary Schwitzer, tweet announcing the award, June 23, 2026
- Our dispatch: "Radical transgender experiments": Mace's "TRANS MICE Act" goes to war with the transgenic lab mice scientists use to study cancer
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