On the last day of the year, we look back at the most popular articles that we posted to our website in 2021.

For the second consecutive year, COVID-19 tops our list. Seven of the 10 most popular articles were about the pandemic.

Here’s the list, in order:

Timeline of U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan

President Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, were both eager to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan and end what Biden referred to as “America’s longest war.” In this story, we reviewed many of the key diplomatic decisions, military actions, presidential pronouncements and expert assessments of the withdrawal agreement signed by the Trump administration and carried out by the Biden administration that ended the 20-year war.

Idaho Doctor Makes Baseless Claims About Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines

In a speech at a forum hosted by Idaho’s lieutenant governor, Dr. Ryan Cole baselessly claimed mRNA vaccines cause cancer and autoimmune diseases. When we asked Cole to provide support for his claims, he referred us to a 2018 paper published in the journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery that reviewed trials and studies of various, earlier mRNA vaccines. But that paper doesn’t support his statement, and its lead author told us there is no evidence mRNA vaccines cause such ailments. En español.

Read Full Story: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/12/our-most-popular-articles-in-2021/