Marcella Sorg on Public Health

Statements and actions by Marcella Sorg on this topic.

Public disputes concerning population health, disease prevention, environmental exposure, overdose trends, and public-health responses.

How we classify topics

Condemned0No statements. Not selected. Activate to add.Defended or excused0No statements. Not selected. Activate to add.Challenged the characterization1Statements: August 25, 2026. Not selected. Activate to add.Minimized0No statements. Not selected. Activate to add.Mixed or conditional0No statements. Not selected. Activate to add.Explicitly stayed out0No statements. Not selected. Activate to add.

Counts show individual statements. They do not assign an overall position.

By category Timeline

Statement history

1 statement on this page. Dates: August 25, 2026

1 matching statement. Dates: August 25, 2026

1 published statement. Dates: August 25, 2026

Marcella Sorg
Role at the time: drug-policy or public-health researcher
August 25, 2026Challenged the characterization
Responding to
Maine’s decrease in overdose deaths in 2025 and 2026 occurred because the Trump administration sealed the border.
"“The evidence supports multiple factors for this reduction in overdose deaths, especially fentanyl deaths, rather than pointing to closing the U.S. border as a single cause.”"
Why we used this label
The statement directly rejects the characterization of border closure as the sole established cause.
PolitiFact review of Vance’s Maine overdose claim (opens in a new tab)

Expert interviews and ruling

Reports named interviews with University of Maine, Carnegie Mellon, University of Maryland, Georgetown, and Brown drug-policy and public-health researchers, plus a response from the vice president’s office.

Read statement Did border policy cause Maine’s overdose deaths to fall?