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9341
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Breast Cancer Drug Promising in Phase 3 Trial
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This HealthDay story covers a clinical trial of a new drug for breast cancer – one that may be useful in women with BRCA mutations. The opening sentence is misleading, saying that the drug, talazoparib, improves survival. The study found that talazoparib helped women go longer without progression of their cancer. It remains to be seen if they live longer. It’s an important distinction that we think should be made crystal clear for readers. Also, there is already an FDA-approved cancer drug that works like this one. The story never explains: Why do we need another one? Is this one novel? New treatments for breast cancer are newsworthy because the disease is one of the most common cancers in women. What’s not clear in this story is why this particular drug trial is important. Another drug on the market works similarly, so some information about why a second drug is worthy of study and worthy of news coverage would have been appreciated.
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mixture
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breast cancer
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The story does not mention costs. When a drug has not been approved, and thus is not on the market, it can be hard to estimate cost. In this case, however, there is a similar drug on the market: The PARP inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) is $13,440 per month, without insurance, according to a 2015 report. The story describes the drug’s benefit in terms of “progression-free survival.” Women who took talazoparib went three months longer without their cancer progressing, on average, as compared to women on standard chemotherapy. However, it did not give us precise numbers on this: What was the total, in months, before cancer progressed, in both groups? According to OncLive, “at a median follow-up of 11.2 months, the median progression-free survival (PFS) was 8.6 months with talazoparib compared with 5.6 months” for the control group. The HealthDay story also said women on talazoparib had a “higher response rate” than women on standard chemotherapy, but never explained what that means. Most importantly, the story didn’t address the most important statistic: overall survival. Does the drug help women live longer? As we’ve explained, PFS is what’s known as a “surrogate marker” and is no guarantee of a longer life. Drugs are frequently approved on the basis of uncertain markers such as “progression free survival,” which is the amount of time between treatment and worsening of symptoms. The drug Avastin won accelerated FDA approval to treat metastatic breast cancer based on its ability to delay tumor growth, but that approval was revoked when multiple randomized trials showed the drug didn’t improve survival and had significant side effects. The story explained some of the harms, notably blood disorders, and included the rate of harms in both the treatment group and the control group, which is a useful comparison to include. One detail that also would have been useful to include: The rate of severe adverse events was similar in both the treatment and control groups. The drop-out rate (how many women dropped out of the study due to side effects) was slightly higher in the talazoparib group. The story gives some clues to the quality of the evidence. It mentions the size of the study (431 women), that treatment was randomized, and that funding came from the drug’s maker. However, it never discussed the limitations to the study. For example, the study was “open-label,” meaning that it wasn’t blinded–patients and researchers knew which drug was being given. The story does not engage in disease-mongering. Some discussion of how many women grapple with this stage of breast cancer, along with treatment success rates, would have been useful to include, though. The story mentions the study was funded by the drugmaker, Pfizer. It also clearly identifies one source, Jennifer Litton, as the lead researcher on the story. The other quoted source, Marisa Weiss was not involved in the research. However, both Weiss and the organization she works for, Breastcancer.org, have received money from Pfizer. This was not disclosed in the story. The story mentions another drug that has a similar mechanism of action, and is approved for BRCA-mutated breast cancer and ovarian cancer. There is no discussion of how the drugs may differ with regard to harms or benefits–which we’ll address in novelty, below. The story makes clear that talazoparib is not yet approved by the FDA. The story doesn’t articulate what’s new about this finding — except the drug used. With another similar drug already on the market, what might this new drug offer? Is there an unmet need? The story does not appear to rely on a news release.
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10801
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Acupuncture Reduces Hot Flashes for Half of Women, Study Finds
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The news release focuses on an article published in the journal Menopause, which evaluated the extent to which acupuncture may reduce the number of hot flashes women experience during or after menopause. The release does a good job of describing the study’s key findings, but offered readers no information about its limitations, treatment cost and risks, and the availability of acupuncture treatment. Most importantly, the release did not reveal that the study wasn’t blinded and that there was no sham acupuncture given to the control group, making this a weak study. It’s well established that acupuncture can produce beneficial effects on a wide array of health problems; the issue is whether these effects differ from what would be expected with a placebo or sham treatment. As the NIH puts it, “many women have hot flashes” during menopause — and they can persist for several years after menopause. In fact, according to a 1985 study, approximately 88 percent of women have hot flashes during menopause. Hot flashes, in themselves, do not pose a health risk. However, they can have a significant, adverse affect on a woman’s quality of life, with symptoms ranging from sweating to rapid heartbeat. In some cases, this can lead to sleep problems — and that can pose significant health risks. Given the number of women who experience hot flashes, it’s certainly worth discussing research that can inform patients and healthcare providers about treatment options. However, it’s important for news releases to place new findings in context. i.e., how do the new findings fit into the broader body of work that exists on the subject? This release doesn’t address that need.
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false
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Women's health
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Costs aren’t addressed at all. How much does it cost? And could acupuncture be covered by insurance? According to an acupuncture referral site, a single session of acupuncture typically costs between $60 and $120. Given that participants in this study received up to 20 acupuncture sessions over six months, that could present a significant financial hurdle for patients — particularly if they are paying for those sessions out of pocket. The release does a nice job here, breaking down the results in a detailed, quantified way: “Of the 170 women who received acupuncture, a small group of women (11.9 percent) had an 85 percent reduction in hot flashes by the eighth week of the study, Avis said. Forty-seven percent of the study group reported a 47 percent reduction over this same time frame. However, 37 percent showed only a minimal reduction of 9.6 percent in frequency of hot flashes, while 4 percent reported a 100 percent increase in hot flashes.” What would have made the release stronger would have been to note that 79.5 percent of the control group — who received no acupuncture — saw a 10 percent decline in hot flash frequency. That casts the 37 percent of the acupuncture group who had a reduction of 9.6 percent in a different light. i.e., it indicates that any reduction they saw may not have been tied to the acupuncture at all. The release notes that 4 percent of study participants who received acupuncture actually had twice as many hot flashes (“a 100 percent increase”). That’s good. The release also refers to acupuncture as “low risk.” But that doesn’t mean no risk. According to the Mayo Clinic, acupuncture can cause soreness, minor bleeding or bruising — and that may be exacerbated for patients who are taking blood thinners. There are also more serious risks involved, particularly if an acupuncture therapist has not been properly trained. Those risks include infection and possible organ damage. Since the release explicitly says “women bothered by hot flashes…may want to give acupuncture a try,” it is especially important to be up front about potential risks and the importance of finding a certified acupuncture practitioner (as well as where that certification should come from). The release doesn’t describe the weaknesses of the study — the lack of blinding, subjective outcome reporting and lack of a sham comparison group — all which have a high potential for bias. Also, there is a hugely disproportionate size of the two groups (170 who received acupuncture and 39 who didn’t). The differences were actually fairly small with a 47 percent reduction in hot flashes representing two per day, on average. This number is so small that it could have been due to ‘wishful thinking’ on the part of the acupuncture group. One would expect that a study that was funded with a National Institutes of Health reserach project grant would have more sound methodology. In addition, the study would have been stronger if they had compared the acupuncture to other ‘home remedies’ for hot flashes. For the most part, disease mongering wasn’t an issue here. Some issues with language are addressed under the “Unjustifiable Language” section (see below). The release does a nice job here, mentioning how the study was funded and clearly outlining the potential conflicts of interests. One of the co-authors is the primary shareholder of Chapel Hill Doctors which was subcontracted by Wake Forest School of Medicine to recruit volunteers for the trial. There are a number of pharmaceutical options that are used to provide patients with some relief from hot flashes, and these are not mentioned at all. A release needs to note what a given treatment option (acupuncture in this case) brings to the table that other treatment options do not. How is it different? How might it be better? Or worse? That sort of context is invaluable for readers. Acupuncture isn’t a new idea, and many — if not most — readers would be familiar with the concept and aware of its availability. If this were a news story, we would like to see some discussion of how accessible acupuncture is. For example, one can be fairly certain of acupuncture practitioners being located in New York City. Whether one would be able to find certified practitioners in rural areas is less clear. However, we don’t think that’s an issue that needs to be addressed in a news release from a research hospital. On first reading this release, we wondered why no one had studied the use of acupuncture to reduce hot flashes in the past. A quick internet search found that it had. As in this study, or this one, or this one, or this one (and there are quite a few more). These studies are all over the map in terms of positive and negative findings. The release’s failure to address the existing literature on this subject makes it impossible to place the new study’s findings in context. How, if at all, does this research differ from all of the previous work done on the use of acupuncture to address hot flashes? In its opening sentence, the release refers to hot flashes as “the bane of existence” for many women going through menopause. This is the sort of hyperbole that the “unjustifiable language” criterion was designed to address. Can it affect quality of life? Absolutely. Should it be presented as a life-destroying bête noire? No.
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8554
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Japan state of emergency mutes nightlife but cities still open as infections rise.
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The total number of Japanese novel coronavirus infections hit more than 5,300 on Thursday, NHK public broadcaster said, showing no signs of slowing despite a state of emergency being imposed this week on Tokyo and six other areas.
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true
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Health News
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Tokyo’s nightlife districts of Shibuya, Akasaka and Ginza areas were much quieter than usual overnight as the state of emergency took effect, but cities have not shut down and many workers are still commuting to offices by day. The central bank warned that the coronavirus pandemic had created an “extremely high” level of uncertainty for the world’s third-largest economy, with regional economies facing their worst conditions since the global financial crisis a decade ago. Japanese authorities are hoping to contain the outbreak without imposing a mandatory lockdown that could deal a major blow to an economy already struggling to cope. The state of emergency gives local governors stronger legal authority to urge people to stay home and businesses to close. In contrast to lockdowns in some countries enforced by fines and arrests for non-compliance, Japan is relying more on peer pressure and a tradition of respect for authority. Japan, where a cruise ship offshore was once the biggest source of infections outside China, had early success in limiting the coronavirus. But authorities have become more alarmed in recent weeks by a surge in local transmission. The number of infections rose by 384 on Thursday to 5,356, while the death toll edged up by 1 to 106, according to NHK. During a daily live YouTube broadcast, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said the capital had 181 new cases on Thursday, the highest daily jump. “I am asking for your cooperation to protect your life, protect your family, protect your colleagues and society” she said. While Tokyo and the central government have been discussing what kind of businesses they will ask to close, Koike is considering making her own decision if they fail to reach an agreement, Kyodo news agency reported. Hideaki Omura, governor of Aichi prefecture, which includes the city of Nagoya and hosts Toyota Motor Corp, said he would declare a state of emergency on Friday even if the central government did not add it to the national list. “If we watch what’s happened in the last week it doesn’t look good and so we’re making preparations,” he said. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said in an afternoon press briefing that there was no need now to add Aichi and other areas to the national list. Even with less stringent restrictions compared with other countries, analysts polled by Reuters expect Japan to slip into a deep recession this year. While aggressive central bank actions across the globe have eased financial market tensions somewhat, corporate funding strains were worsening, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda told a quarterly meeting of regional branch managers. “The spread of the coronavirus is having a severe impact on Japan’s economy through declines in exports, output, demand from overseas tourists and private consumption,” he said. “For the time being, we won’t hesitate to take additional monetary easing steps if needed, with a close eye on developments regarding the coronavirus outbreak.” The BOJ cut its assessment on all of Japan’s nine regions for the first time in 11 years, saying their economies were weakening or under strong downward pressure. “The situation is quite severe. Business sentiment is souring. Firms dealing with inbound tourism and consumption are seeing sharp declines in sales,” Yasuhiro Yamada, the BOJ’s Osaka branch manager overseeing the Kinki western Japan region, told a news conference. Orders for machine tools in March dropped 40.8% from a year earlier, preliminary data from the Japan Machine Tool Builders’ Association (JMTBA) showed on Thursday. The orders, regarded as a leading indicator on future spending on factory equipment, were especially dragged down by overseas demand, which fell 43.8% from a year earlier. Overseas orders hit their lowest level since January 2010, a JMTBA spokesman told Reuters. Shares of Oriental Land Co fell on Thursday after the operator of Tokyo Disneyland said it would keep the amusement park shut until mid-May. Entertainment facility operator Uchiyama Holdings said it was closing 43 karaoke shops and 11 restaurants until May 6. Fast Retailing said sales at its Uniqlo outlets were down 27% in March from a year earlier. But retail group Seven & i Holdings Co reported a 3% rise in annual operating profit, thanks to robust sales of food and other daily necessities. At its policy meeting later this month, the BOJ is likely to make a rare projection that the economy will shrink this year, sources have told Reuters. The BOJ eased monetary policy in March by pledging to boost purchases of assets ranging from government bonds to commercial paper, corporate bonds and funds investing in stocks. The government rolled out a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package.
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17308
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"Florida Democratic Party Says Rick Scott ""oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the nation’s history."
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"The Florida Democratic Party said Scott ""oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the nation’s history."" The Columbia/HCA settlement has since been surpassed in dollar value, though the bigger cases involved Medicare somewhat less directly. Because the Democratic Party could have been a bit more specific in its wording -- by saying that Scott oversaw the largest Medicare fraud at the time.
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true
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Candidate Biography, Medicaid, Medicare, Florida, Florida Democratic Party,
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"First, Gov. Rick Scott scared the bejesus out of seniors with an online ad claiming that Medicare rate cuts would lead them to lose access to their doctors, hospitals and preventive care. Then, the Florida Democratic Party fired back at Scott, issuing a press release that called Scott ""the ultimate Medicare thief."" The Democrats were referring to Scott’s prior tenure as CEO of Columbia/HCA about a decade ago, when the hospital company was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud. ""Rick Scott is saying Democrats are committing Medicare robbery, when in fact he's the ultimate Medicare thief. He lost the right to accuse Democrats of raiding Medicare when he oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the nation's history. Rick Scott's company stole money that should have gone to health care for seniors,"" said Florida Democratic Party spokesman Joshua Karp in the Feb. 25 press release. Separately, we have fact-checked Scott’s claim ""we are seeing dramatic rate cuts"" to Medicare that will affect people's choice of doctor, hospital and preventive care. We concluded that Scott had failed to say that the rate cut only applies to Medicare Advantage, and thus only affects a fraction of all Medicare beneficiaries. Also, it could be several months before we know the actual impact of the cut which could vary county by county. Here, we’ll fact-check the Democratic counter-attack that Scott ""oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the nation’s history."" Scott’s tenure at Columbia/HCA During Scott’s 2010 race for governor, PolitiFact fact-checked multiple claims related to his tenure at Columbia/HCA. Now, we’ll recap some of our earlier discussion of the investigation and fine. Scott started what was first Columbia in 1987, purchasing two El Paso, Texas, hospitals. Over the next decade he would add hundreds of hospitals, surgery centers and home health locations. In 1994, Scott’s Columbia purchased Tennessee-headquartered HCA and its 100 hospitals, and merged the companies. In 1997, federal agents went public with an investigation into the company, first seizing records from four El Paso-area hospitals and then expanding across the country. The investigation focused on whether Columbia/HCA had committed Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Scott resigned as CEO in July 1997, less than four months after the inquiry became public. Company executives said had Scott remained CEO, the entire chain could have been in jeopardy. During his 2010 race, the Miami Herald reported that Scott had said he would have immediately stopped his company from committing fraud -- if only ""somebody told me something was wrong."" But there were such warnings in the company’s annual public reports to stockholders -- which Scott had to sign as president and CEO. Scott wanted to fight the accusations, but the corporate board of the publicly traded company wanted to settle. In December 2000, the U.S. Justice Department announced that Columbia/HCA agreed to pay $840 million in criminal fines, civil damages and penalties. Among the revelations from the 2000 settlement: • Columbia billed Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs for tests that were not necessary or had not been ordered by physicians; • The company attached false diagnosis codes to patient records to increase reimbursement to the hospitals; • The company illegally claimed non-reimbursable marketing and advertising costs as community education; • Columbia billed the government for home health care visits for patients who did not qualify to receive them. The government settled a second series of similar claims with Columbia/HCA in 2002 for an additional $881 million. The total for the two fines was $1.7 billion. On Scott’s 2010 campaign website, he admitted to the $1.7 billion fine, though the link is no longer on the site. What type of record was that fine? The fine clearly set a record, though the Justice Department (and media reports at the time) were not always consistent in their terminology, sometimes describing it as the ""largest government fraud settlement in U.S. History"" and other times more specifically as the ""largest health care fraud case in U.S. History."" A Justice Department spokeswoman said that officials refer to Columbia/HCA as ""largest health care fraud"" rather than the more narrow term ""Medicare fraud"" because it involved defrauding other government programs such as Medicaid rather than Medicare exclusively. The Justice Department described in detail the various ways the company defrauded Medicare and other government health programs here. Here’s a key point, though: While the Columbia/HCA settlement was a record at the time for health care fraud, it has since been surpassed. In cases related to the improper promotion of certain drugs, Johnson & Johnson agreed to a a $2.2 billion settlement in 2013, Pfizer settled for $2.3 billion in 2009, and GlaxoSmithKline settled for $3 billion in 2012. ""HCA was the record health care fraud at the time. It’s now Glaxo,"" Justice Department spokeswoman Linda Mansour told PolitiFact in an email. That said, these cases were a little different. While the Justice Department’s case against Columbia/HCA repeatedly mentions overbilling and defrauding Medicare and Medicaid specifically, the three newer cases focused on the marketing of drugs, with Medicare, Medicaid and other federal programs caught up in the impropriety, rather than being the specific targets of the fraud. Because the Justice Department press releases explaining the settlements don’t explicitly break down how much of the misconduct in those more recent cases defrauded Medicare explicitly, it’s difficult to make comparisons. The Pfizer case includes violations relating to misbranding and kickbacks, ""so there may be a distinction to be made for that reason when thinking about whether it all should be classified under the very general category of ‘Medicare fraud,’ "" said Asha Scielzo, who practices health care law at the firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. The Columbia/HCA case ""still is the largest fraud settlement for a hospital corporation in U.S. history,"" since all the others involved pharmaceutical firms, added Zack Buck, a health care law professor at Mercer. ""So I guess, the quote (by the Florida Democratic Party) is a little loose."" The Scott campaign did not respond to an inquiry for this fact-check. However in 2010, Scott told the Tampa Bay Times, ""There's no question that mistakes were made and as CEO, I have to accept responsibility for those mistakes. I was focused on lowering costs and making the hospitals more efficient. I could have had more internal and external controls. I learned hard lessons, and I've taken that lesson and it's helped me become a better business person and a better leader."" Our ruling The Florida Democratic Party said Scott ""oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the nation’s history."" The Columbia/HCA settlement has since been surpassed in dollar value, though the bigger cases involved Medicare somewhat less directly. Because the Democratic Party could have been a bit more specific in its wording -- by saying that Scott oversaw the largest Medicare fraud at the time.
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4031
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2 Indiana environmental groups merge, plan kids’ health push.
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Two longtime Indiana environmental groups have merged and drafted plans for a refocused mission on children’s environmental and health initiatives.
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true
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Lead poisoning, Health, General News, Environment, Indianapolis, Environmental health, Indiana, Poisoning
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The Hoosier Environmental Council and Improving Kids’ Environment announced their merger Thursday. Both Indianapolis-based nonprofits will come under the banner of the Hoosier Environmental Council, which has been Indiana’s leading environmental health advocate for more than 36 years. Improving Kids’ Environment worked for two decades to reduce toxic risks to Indiana children from lead, pesticides and other sources. Jesse Kharbanda is the council’s executive director. He says the merger “enables our combined organization to better tackle remaining challenges.” He says their focus will now be on three children’s health initiatives, including reducing childhood lead poisoning and decreasing bacterial pollution so kids have clean drinking water and streams to play in.
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7915
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U.N. to create global coronavirus fund, Norway says.
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The United Nations will create a fund to prevent the spread of coronavirus and support the treatment of patients worldwide, Norway said on Monday.
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true
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Health News
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The purpose of the fund is to assist developing countries with weak health systems in addressing the crisis as well as to tackle the long-term consequences. The United Nations could make a formal announcement this week, the ministry said. Norway, which suggested the fund, has not committed how much money it would put into the initiative, similar to a 2014 United Nations Ebola Response Fund. “We want to make sure that the efforts are as unified as possible and as early as possible so that we can answer up to the demands that countries will have, especially the poorest countries,” Foreign Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide told Reuters. Almost 340,000 people have been infected by the novel coronavirus across the world and more than 14,500 have died, with deaths in Italy surpassing the toll in China, where the outbreak began, according to a Reuters tally. In Africa, Angola, Eritrea and Uganda have confirmed their first cases, while Mauritius recorded its first death as the virus spreads across the continent despite efforts by governments to hold it back. In the Middle East, the first two cases of coronavirus were confirmed in the densely populated Gaza Strip on Sunday. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called on wealthy countries to not just think about their citizens but help less-prepared nations tackle the crisis. “A wealthy country must not be convinced that it has only to deal with its own citizens. It’s in the interests of a wealthy country to contribute to a global response because the crisis can come from wherever, at any moment,” he told reporters.
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2394
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Food, beverage companies slash calories in obesity fight.
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A voluntary effort by the world’s largest food and beverage companies to remove billions of calories from the products they sell in the United States to help combat the nation’s obesity epidemic has far exceeded its five-year goal, according to an independent evaluation released on Thursday.
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true
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Health News
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In May 2010, 16 of the nation’s biggest food and beverage companies, from Coca-Cola Co to Kraft Foods Group, pledged to remove 1 trillion calories from the U.S. marketplace by 2012 and 1.5 trillion by 2015, compared with a 2007 baseline. In fact, as of 2012 they sold 6.4 trillion fewer calories, found an analysis by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). “Reports like this, and the fact that they exceeded their commitment by four-fold, really shows that you can make progress in giving American families more healthy options,” said Larry Soler, president of the Partnership for a Healthier America, a non-profit chaired by first lady Michelle Obama. The group was formed in 2010 to work with the private sector on anti-obesity strategies. At the time, critics said the Partnership relied too heavily on the good will of the industry and could not replace the role of tighter regulation on how food is manufactured and marketed. Such voluntary efforts by industry “are not a magic bullet,” said Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust for America’s Health, a non-profit policy group. “Particularly with kids, there is a role for regulation” in reducing demand for unhealthy, high-calorie fare. It is not clear yet how the companies accomplished the dramatic calorie reduction, said UNC public health researcher Barry Popkin, who led the analysis funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s largest public health philanthropy. Some of the decline may have come from the recession, as financially-strapped families cut back on junk food. When the pledge was announced, companies said they would substitute lower-calorie products, re-engineer existing products to cut their calories, and reduce portion size, such as with the popular 100-calorie packs of cookies and other snacks. Popkin and his team have found that beverage companies are producing more drinks that have both sugar and artificial sweeteners and, therefore, fewer calories than sugar-only drinks. They are also “shifting advertising to lower-calorie beverages,” he said, as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo both did. The biggest reduction in calories sold was to households with young children. “It seems to be parents who are driving the calorie reductions,” Popkin said. It is also not clear whether the reduction can move the needle for more than two-thirds of Americans who are overweight or obese. The 6.4 trillion fewer calories works out to 78 fewer calories per person per day, if spread equally across the 2012 U.S. population. By comparison, Americans consume an average of 300 more calories a day now than in 1985 and 600 more than in 1970, according to a 2012 report by Trust for America’s Health. Other companies that made the calorie-reduction pledge are Bumble Bee Foods, Campbell Soup Co, ConAgra Foods, General Mills, Hillshire Brands, Kellogg Co, Mars, McCormick & Company, Nestlé USA, Post Foods, the Hershey Company, J.M. Smucker and Unilever. They are part of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, a chief-executive-led organization formed in 2009 that aims to reduce obesity. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 35.7 percent of U.S. adults are obese (having a body mass index above 30, such as 175 pounds on a 5 foot, 4 inch frame). So are 14.9 percent of children, which is down from 15.2 percent in 2003. The 16 companies sold 60.4 trillion calories in 2007, which was 36 percent of total calories in packaged foods and beverages — cereals, chips, canned soup, juices, sodas, candy and more — sold that year. In 2012 they sold 54 trillion calories. To calculate the calories sold, the UNC researchers combined data on foods and beverages sold (from grocery-store scanners and other sources) with nutritional information for the products.
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2215
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Britain tells Canada and France to pull their weight on Ebola.
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Britain’s international development minister Rory Stewart called on France and Canada on Monday to offer more help in tackling the Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo.
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true
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Health News
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Stewart, who visited the Ebola zone earlier this month, told a U.N. meeting that Britain had donated $45 million towards a previous Ebola outbreak and the current one, and that he had authorized a further $63 million of British spending. “We are going to have to put a lot more money into this on a ‘no regrets’ basis,” he told the meeting, adding that governments must stop using security concerns as an excuse not to send staff to the Ebola front line, where armed groups have frequently attacked aid workers. The United States, Britain and Germany had all donated generously, but other members of the G7 group of countries needed to do more, Stewart said. “We would be hugely grateful if our dear friends from the other G7 countries really stepped up,” he added. Money was the priority, but French language expertise was also valuable, and francophone France and Canada could make a special contribution. “It would be wonderful if some francophone countries could provide more staff on the ground. We desperately need more French speakers deployed in the field,” he said. Stewart told BBC radio that he would be asking the French and Canadian governments to make more generous contributions. The World Health Organization’s emergencies chief, Mike Ryan, said Canada had contributed $750,000 directly to the WHO effort, but had also donated to other agencies. It was also Canadian government money that funded the development of the Ebola vaccine that has saved many lives. “With regard to the government of France, we rely on the government of France for a lot of technical cooperation, but as of this moment WHO has not received any financial contributions from the government of France,” Ryan said. Stewart said some donors at the packed U.N. meeting believed the response was well funded. “The World Bank has been making very positive comments about how they’ve got it all under control. They haven’t,” he said, adding that money was needed to double the number of WHO staff helping Congo’s neighbors, such as Burundi and South Sudan, prepare for a potential outbreak.
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5898
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NC officials confirm 3rd death from Legionnaires’ disease.
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North Carolina health officials say a third person has died from an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease linked to a hot tub display at a fair.
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true
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Health, General News, North Carolina, State fairs, Legionnaires disease
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The Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the third death to news outlets Monday. The department says 140 cases of Legionnaires’ have been confirmed in 19 North Carolina counties and “multiple states.” It says in addition to the three deaths, 94 people have been hospitalized. The agency says the cases are connected to people who attended the Mountain State Fair last month in Fletcher. It says testing found Legionalla bacteria in one water sample at the fair and those who were diagnosed with the disease may have walked by the hot tub displays. The department says they won’t release any information on the victims.
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4353
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Alabama to test Auburn students, employees for TB.
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Alabama health officials say they’ve identified an Auburn University student with a case of pulmonary tuberculosis.
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true
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Health, Auburn, Tuberculosis, Alabama, Auburn University
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The state Department of Public Health says they notified the school this week of plans to investigate and ensure that students and employees will be screened quickly to see if they were infected. On Wednesday, the state and university began identifying students enrolled in classes, as well as faculty and staff, who might have been in close contact with the student. Symptoms can include chest pain, chronic coughing, coughing with blood, chills, fever and loss of appetite. Testing is scheduled to begin on Thursday.
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4705
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No-spray zones divide French farmers from anxious neighbors.
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When tractors laden with pesticides and other chemicals start spraying the vineyards that produce fruity Bordeaux wines, Marie-Lys Bibeyran’s phone starts to ring.
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true
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Paris, General News, France, Health, Emmanuel Macron, Europe, Wine
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“People call me and say, ‘I was on my terrace having lunch and we had to rush inside, the kids were in the swimming pool,’” says the Bordeaux vineyard worker who turned anti-pesticide campaigner after her brother died from liver cancer, a death she suspects was linked to agro-chemicals he sprayed as a wine-industry worker. Amid rising concerns in France over the widespread use by its powerful farming industry of legal toxins, President Emmanuel Macron’s government is planning the enforced creation of small buffer zones to separate sprayed crops from the people who live and work around them. People like Corinne Despreaux, a childcare worker who looks after babies and toddlers at her home in the Medoc wine town of Listrac, with vineyards that butt up against her garden. She calls the tractors that rumble amid the vines “mosquitoes,” because of their long arms pockmarked with nozzles that spray chemical mists to keep the plants and their valuable grapes healthy and pest-free. “I close all the windows and all the doors. I bring the washing in. I put the kids’ games away,” Despreaux said in a phone interview, as one of her four young charges, ranging in age from 6 months to 2 ½ years, mewed in the background. “It’s terrible.” The government this week opened a three-week window of public consultation about its planned regulations that will take effect Jan. 1. It is proposing that crops treated with “the most dangerous substances” be separated from homes, schools and other workplaces by no-spray zones at least 10 meters (33 feet) across. For other chemicals, there would also be 10-meter zones around high-growing crops, including vines and fruit orchards, and five meters across for cereals and other shorter crops. The buffers could be shrunk further, to three meters for vineyards and short crops and five meters for tall crops, if farmers use cutting-edge spraying techniques, the government says. It invited public comment online, and said the distances could be modified as a result. A final government decision on their size is due by December. While some environmental campaigners welcome the zones’ introduction, many said the proposed distances were ridiculously small. “It’s to give the impression that something is being done,” Bibeyran said. “They won’t protect anybody.” She spent 14 years working for a Listrac vineyard that sprayed with industrial chemicals, watching with growing alarm as flora and fauna disappeared. She now works in a vineyard in Margaux that farms organically, proudly declaring: “We have loads of insects.” “The difference over 14 years was stunning,” she said. “It became rare to see a rabbit cross the vineyards or to see swallows.” Agricultural groups complain the proposed buffers unfairly target farmers for using perfectly legal products. Some warned zoning will backfire, with insects and diseases preying on crops’ untreated edges. Jean-Marie Fabre, president of the Independent Winemakers of France, said no-spray zones risked becoming “sources of contamination that will spread diseases to the rest of the vineyard.” “It would be the same as putting someone with the plague among people who have been vaccinated,” he said. The policy could force farmers to rip out untreated vines and other crops, shrinking planted acreages and hurting their bottom-line, Fabre said. If the zones contaminate treatable areas, farmers may have to spray more than they do now, he added. Urban creep into agricultural areas has exacerbated the conflict between farmers and their neighbors. Around Bordeaux, for example, families seeking space have moved in droves onto what used to be farmed lands, building homes amid vineyards. Despreaux and her husband moved from Paris in 2002. She says they were unaware they’d be living cheek-by-jowl with farmers who spray. “We were naïve,” she said. “If we had known there’d be these risks, we would never have come here. I regret it.” Although agro-chemicals are officially certified, she doesn’t believe they’re safe and doesn’t trust government officials to stand up to the influence of agricultural lobbies. Tractors spray vines behind her house every two weeks, and sometimes every week, from April when the grapes form to September when they’re harvested, she said. “It’s frustrating because the best period of the year, when it’s nice outside, is when we have to stay inside,” she said. “I don’t walk in the vines with the kids because it’s not possible. It puts them in danger. We live in the countryside but we don’t have the advantages of living in the countryside.” Fabre said the onus should be on property developers to set up buffer zones around new buildings. “The farmers didn’t move closer to houses, the houses moved closer to them,” he said. He fears the consultation launched Monday will stoke public concerns about chemicals he insists are risk-free if correctly used, giving voice to “disinformation and even demagogy that will trump science.” Despreaux said she’s braced for a long battle. Campaigning with Bibeyran and others in a region where wine-producing chateaux underpin local economies and jobs, she says she’s treated “as a tree-hugger and a bit mad.” “We’re not understood,” she said. “The chateaux have so much power. But we won’t give up and allow ourselves to be poisoned.”
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7629
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GSK's two-drug HIV treatment proves itself in key tests.
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GlaxoSmithKline’s simple two-drug treatment for HIV works as well as standard triple therapy, even in people with relatively high levels of the virus that causes AIDS, clinical study results presented on Tuesday showed.
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true
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Health News
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Doctors and investors alike have been anxious to see how the experimental combination of dolutegravir and lamivudine, also known as 3TC, would stack up against highly effective triple drugs championed by arch-rival Gilead Sciences. GSK’s majority-owned ViiV Healthcare unit, which is responsible for HIV medicine, had reported success from the two so-called GEMINI studies last month but details were only unveiled at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam. Pedro Cahn, a veteran HIV researcher from Argentina who led the GEMINI studies, said the results showed it was possible get the efficacy of three drugs in a two-drug regimen. After studying 1,400 patients for 48 weeks, researchers found 91 percent of patients taking dolutegravir and lamivudine had high levels of viral control versus 93 percent of those on three drugs. The difference was not statistically significant. Rates of virologic failure, or inability to control HIV, were consistent at no more than 1 percent across all groups and no patients developed drug resistance. Importantly, the results were also broadly consistent whether individuals had higher or lower starting levels of HIV in their blood, reassuring those who had worried the two-drug regimen might work less well in people with more virus. “This is a new option for treatment,” Cahn said. “The main reason for doing this is to reduce the amount of drug burden when patients are on life-long treatment.” GSK is betting that a shift to using two drugs rather than three will boost its sales by offering patients a therapy with fewer potentially toxic side effects. A two-drug regimen should also be cheaper, since lamivudine is an off-patent generic. ViiV has set itself a goal of overtaking Gilead in the $26 billion-a-year HIV market by the mid-2020s - an ambitious target, since Gilead currently has a market share of 52 percent against GSK’s 22 percent. Linda-Gail Bekker, an HIV expert at the University of Cape Town, who was not involved in the studies, said two-drug treatment was attractive in principle. “Simplification of treatment is what people want to see, both to reduce costs and to reduce side effects,” she told Reuters. Nearly half of all HIV patients in the profitable markets of North America and Europe are now over 50 and are vulnerable to side effects from the drugs that keep them alive, making tolerability more important than in the past. But a key question remains the durability of the treatment, given that many patients will be on HIV medication for decades. So while some doctors will be assured by the 48-week data, others may want to see two- or three-year results. The central worry is the emergence of drug resistance. While no resistance was seen in the 48-week trials, there was a case in an earlier study, although GSK believes this was likely down to failure to take the drugs properly. Regulators are also investigating if dolutegravir might be linked to birth defects, although there is no evidence proving a connection at this stage. ViiV, in which Pfizer and Shionogi have small stakes, plans regulatory submissions for the two-drug combination later this year. If approved, the new combination is expected to be much more widely used than another GSK two-drug regimen called Juluca.
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37534
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Homemade masks are sufficient against coronavirus exposure during a shortage of masks, N95 respirators, and other personal protective equipment (PPE).
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‘100 Million Masks’ — Are Homemade Masks Sufficient for COVID-19 First Responders?
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On March 20 2020, KOMO anchor Mary Nam shared a photograph of a person wearing a surgical mask (a form of personal protective equipment, or PPE, known to be in short supply due the coronavirus pandemic), and put out a call for anyone who knows how to sew and has access to a sewing machine to participate in an effort to fortify COVID-19 medical supplies with homemade surgical masks:Know how to sew? Got a sewing machine?WE NEED YOU!Please click on link for details. **All provided material is…Posted by Mary Nam KOMO on Thursday, March 19, 2020In her original post, Nam wrote:Know how to sew? Got a sewing machine?WE NEED YOU!https://www.providence.org/lp/100m-masksThe post was later updated to include the following text:Please click on link for details. **All provided material is surgical grade and products will be UV sterilized and inspected before use. The mask design was lab tested to ensure safety and effectiveness. **The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) maintained a page, “N95 Respirators and Surgical Masks (Face Masks),” defining the terms used during discussions of PPE shortages; linked on that page was a March 11 2020 letter from the FDA about coping with PPE shortages in a clinical environment:N95 respirators and surgical masks (face masks) are examples of personal protective equipment that are used to protect the wearer from airborne particles and from liquid contaminating the face. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) also regulate N95 respirators. […]The ‘N95’ designation means that when subjected to careful testing, the respirator blocks at least 95 percent of very small (0.3 micron) test particles. If properly fitted, the filtration capabilities of N95 respirators exceed those of face masks. However, even a properly fitted N95 respirator does not completely eliminate the risk of illness or death.Comments on Nam’s Facebook post were often left by people who met the stated requirements of knowing how to sew and having access to a sewing machine. However, a self-identified nurse from a Seattle hospital (a city where many of the United States’ earliest cases occurred) politely expressed some concerns about the 100 million masks initiative:As a RN at Swedish, I am extremely skeptical of the efficacy of masks that are sewn. Are these CDC approved?! Seems to me that the CDC keeps downgrading the necessary PPE based on availability and not science. We healthcare workers put our health (and our family’s health) at risk every day now. We deserve the best equipment.Jeffries explained that it was her experience that standards for protective equipment were relaxed due to a dearth of supplies — not the parameters of SARS-nCoV-2 safety protocols in a clinical setting.A second commenter did not claim to be a medical professional, but questioned the safety of the program in general, citing concerns about sterility and donations from volunteers possibly exposed to SARS-nCoV-2 themselves:Do all the masks go thru a sterile process before their used?? I’m so confused …cross contamination from many homes going into medical and health facilities… I’m a Teacher and when parents offered to drop off work at the school every week I about flipped out inside…if your kids cant be here in person, your willing to pack up their germs in a bag and send them back to the school… Can someone please explain to me how everything is not being cross contaminated? Including the school lunches they are delivering?? Doesnt the virus live on things for a period of time? Be nice…I’m just looking for information not a lashingThat commenter noted that as described, the program would entail raw materials distributed to “many homes,” then collected and distributed to health facilities without any sterilizing measures described. Two comments down, the exact concern the commenter raised seemed to be illustrated:I’m in Wenatchee WA, I believe I’ve been exposed but not exhibiting symptoms. A family member in this household is suspected of having the virus. I would welcome the chance to help if it is safe.We clicked on the link shared by Nam, and it led to a page with the same graphic seen in the Facebook post:Under “100 Million Mask Challenge” and “the journey begins with us … learn how to get involved,” the page explained global demand for PPE led to a shortage of “masks”:Let’s come together to keep our health care workers safe, so they can safely care for our patients.The global demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) has created a severe shortage of PPE across the world. While regular distribution channels ramp up, we need to act now to ensure caregivers have the isolation masks they need to do their jobs safely.So, we’re calling on you! Anyone with a willing heart and the ability to sew can help us protect our caregivers by sewing masks they can wear on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19.We are starting with Western Washington, which is one of the hardest hit areas in the nation. The effort will grow from there over the coming days and weeks so eventually everyone can participate.Please note: Volunteers must have the ability to sew and a sewing machine at home.A subsequent portion explained that all willing participants were asked to commit to sewing 100 masks. An initial date of March 23 2020 was provided for volunteers to collect the materials being distributed:Here’s how it will work. Since materials are precious and large quantities are required to make a difference, we’re seeking volunteers willing to make at least 100 masks. If you know how to sew, have a sewing machine, and are up for that challenge, here’s how you can help:Pick up a kit that will include all the materials you need to make 100 masks. We’ll offer various pick-up and drop-off times and locations. The first date and location for picking up a kit is [listed. ]Be sure to check back for future kit distribution dates and locations as we will be updating regularly.A contact form providing the organizers of the 100 Million Mask Challenge with information for volunteers followed; filling out the form did not lead to any additional information on the kits’ contents or parameters.Organizing the 100 Million Mask Challenge appeared to be Providence.org, described on the site’s “about” page as “the largest health care provider in Washington state”:Providence Health & Services is the largest health care provider in Washington state. Our not-for-profit network includes hospitals, physicians, clinics, care centers, hospice and home health programs and diverse community services across Washington. It also features a unique affiliation with Swedish Health Services in Western Washington.With more than 35 hospitals and various health and living facilities and 20,000 employees statewide, our health and services organizations work together to provide quality care to those in need. We continue to honor and live by a commitment to compassionate service that the Sisters of Providence began more than 155 years ago. Washington is part of our five-state network, which also serves Alaska, Oregon, Montana and California.On March 18 2020, a very brief post to Providence.org’s blog (“100 Million Mask Challenge: Volunteers Making Masks to Combat Shortage”) announced the initiation of the homemade mask effort. The post said Providence was “taking matters into its own hands” due to a “massive national shortage” of PPE during the COVID-19 pandemic.In that post, the organization said that Providence’s infection control was creating “face shields” with materials they already had on hand — “marine-grade vinyl, industrial tape, foam and elastic,” not sewing masks from fabric:Facing a massive national shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) to fight COVID-19, Providence is taking matters into its own hands by making their own protective gear out of what they have on hand.To buy time as cases grow, Providence infection control is creating face shields with materials from their shelves – marine-grade vinyl, industrial tape, foam and elastic. Earlier this week they visited hardware stores to get materials, and volunteers came together to start making the masks.“We are very close to being out of face shields,” said Becca Bartles, executive director of infection prevention at Providence. “Masks, we’re probably a couple of days away.”On the same day Providence.org published their blog post, the Evansville Courier & Press reported that similar efforts were being organized by Deaconess Health System in Illinois:Citing shortages, Deaconess Health System, including Henderson’s Methodist Health, has asked the public to sew face masks for staff fighting coronavirus.“This does follow CDC protocols that you can find on their website that if all other supplies are not available, that handmade masks that meet certain criteria are acceptable,” Deaconess spokeswoman Becca Scott said.The release with the video, pattern and instructions was posted to the Deaconess Facebook page [on March 19 2020] and is available at www.deaconess.com/masks. A PDF of the pattern is available here and embedded at the bottom of this article.Deaconess has “a sample video” about how to make the masks, which Scott said will be sterilized when they come in.“This is not outside CDC guidelines if other supplies are exhausted. And so we want to have these coming in,” Scott said.Shortages of specialized masks moved federal health officials this month to liberalize their recommendations about which face protection front line health-care workers should use to ward off the highly contagious disease stemming from coronavirus.In that reporting, Deaconess Health System spokeswoman Becca Scott provided some additional context for that project:Scott reiterated that handmade masks for healthcare workers were acceptable under said guidelines if all “other supplies are exhausted,” a stipulation which echoed the concerns in the Seattle nurse’s Facebook comment. As she observed, it appeared a massive shortage of masks and N95 respiratiors did indeed cause the CDC to loosen regulations on acceptable forms of PPE.That article also included instructions provided by Deaconess Health Systems for handmade masks, as well as information about any surplus of donated homemade masks:• Use tightly-woven cotton fabric. • Please remember that both women and men in a variety of roles may wear these masks. • When your masks are complete, please call 812-450-8673 to arrange delivery. (You will be met in a facility parking lot at a pre-arranged time.) • Collected masks will be immediately sent to laundry/processing to be prepared for use. • Any surplus masks will be distributed to other organizations in need.In contrast to Providence’s organized pick-up date and time, Deaconess Health Systems arranged individual deliveries, likely to reduce contact between mask-makers. Instructions in the article were published to deaconess.com/How-to-make-a-Face-Mask.At the top of the original page in big red text was a message indicating that Deaconess Health Systems no longer required volunteers thanks to a broad and enthusiastic response to their original request:Update: We have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and kindness from our community, the country and the world. We now have plenty of masks coming our way. Please consider reaching out to a hospital, nursing home, cancer-related organization, etc. near you, as many other health care facilities are also experiencing shortages in masks.On Facebook, a post published to the Deaconess Health Systems’ page at 9:39 AM on March 19 2020 originally read:We are welcoming fabric masks from our community as we prepare for COVID-19. Learn more at www.deaconess.com/masks.A follow-up article by Evansville Courier & Press reported an overwhelming response to the Facebook post and plea:In an unusual time, Deaconess Health Systems made an unusual plea.Like every hospital in the world right now, Deaconess is worried it could run out of supplies if a rush of COVID-19 patients overwhelms its facilities.So it asked for the public’s help: grab your sewing machine, make some masks at home and deliver them to the hospital.There’s no way they could have imagined the response they received.“I can’t even begin to tell you what the outpouring has been on that,” spokeswoman Pam Hight said Friday morning. “It’s unbelievable. From all over the world. All over the whole wide world.”That article was published at 12:36 PM on March 20 2020, and at that time, masks were still being collected and sought:Despite all the attention, they’ll need as many people as possible to step forward.Just before 2PM on March 20 2020, the text on the Facebook post was replaced with the above update, but the instructional video remained. So while the mid-afternoon article indicated that Deaconess still needed mask-making volunteers, the health system advised volunteers immediately thereafter to consider donating excess masks to other organizations.A concurrently circulating Wired interview with pandemic expert and epidemiologist Larry Brilliant included a brief exchange about masks and N95 respirators. The author asked if everyone ought to be wearing masks (the public has been repeatedly advised to refrain from further taxing supplies needed by hospitals), and Brilliant explained why that particular piece of equipment was vital in clinical settings during the coronavirus pandemic:The N95 mask itself is extremely wonderful. The pores in the mask are three microns wide. The virus is one micron wide. So you get people who say, well, it’s not going to work. But you try having three big, huge football players who are rushing for lunch through a door at lunchtime—they’re not going to get through. In the latest data I saw, the mask provided 5x protection. That’s really good. But we have to keep the hospitals going and we have to keep the health professionals able to come to work and be safe. So masks should go where they’re needed the most: in taking care of patients.As noted by Scott, CDC guidelines did allow for alternatives to N95s in the absence of PPE — but only as a port of last resort. On a page (“Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Patients with Suspected or Confirmed Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Healthcare Settings”) last updated on March 19 2020, the CDC acknowledged a gap in available N95s and added:In times of shortages, alternatives to N95s should be considered, including other classes of FFRs, elastomeric half-mask and full facepiece air purifying respirators, and powered air purifying respirators (PAPRs) where feasible. Special care should be taken to ensure that respirators are reserved for situations where respiratory protection is most important, such as performance of aerosol-generating procedures on suspected or confirmed COVID-19 patients or provision of care to patients with other infections for which respiratory protection is strongly indicated (e.g., tuberculosis, measles, varicella).The anticipated timeline for return to routine levels of PPE is not yet known. Information about strategies to optimize the current supply of N95 respirators, including the use of devices that provide higher levels of respiratory protection (e.g., powered air purifying respirators [PAPRs]) when N95s are in limited supply and a companion checklist to help healthcare facilities prioritize the implementation of the strategies, is available.In a final section titled “Summary of Changes to the Guidance,” CDC guidelines included reports about a lack of PPE in clinical settings:Updated information in the background is based on currently available information about COVID-19 and the current situation in the United States, which includes reports of cases of community transmission, infections identified in healthcare personnel (HCP), and shortages of facemasks, N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) (commonly known as N95 respirators), and gowns.The CDC also maintained COVID-19 specific guidance on “Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of PPE,” with a subsection headlined, “Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of Facemasks.” A final section was titled “When No Facemasks Are Available, Options Include,” and it explained:[Health Care Professional] use of homemade masks: In settings where facemasks are not available, [health care professionals, or] HCP might use homemade masks (e.g., bandana, scarf) for care of patients with COVID-19 as a last resort. However, homemade masks are not considered PPE, since their capability to protect HCP is unknown. Caution should be exercised when considering this option. Homemade masks should ideally be used in combination with a face shield that covers the entire front (that extends to the chin or below) and sides of the face.That excerpt explained:Additional guidance explained:This document offers a series of strategies or options to optimize supplies of disposable N95 filtering facepiece respirators (commonly called “N95 respirators”) in healthcare settings when there is limited supply. It does not address other aspects of pandemic planning; for those, healthcare settings can refer to existing influenza preparedness plans to address other aspects of preparing to respond to novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The strategies are also listed in order of priority and preference in the Checklist for Healthcare Facilities: Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of N95 Respirators during the COVID-19 Response in an easy-to-use format for healthcare facilities.During the week ending March 20 2020, Providence.org and Deaconess Health Systems put out a call for volunteers to make homemade masks due to national shortages of surgical masks and N95s. Discourse included some concern from health care professionals about CDC guidelines based on availability rather science. The appeals for homemade masks were legitimate, as were the concerns.CDC guidelines maintained that when all PPE courses of action were exhausted, handmade or homemade masks could be used to protect doctors and nurses for whom no N95 masks were available. However, the CDC also emphasized that such an approach was acceptable only when absolutely necessary.
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30209
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A species of spider new to the U.S. has a lethal bite which killed five people in the summer of 2018.
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The author of the post, Gary Neaderhiser, appears to have something of a penchant for fake, scare-mongering Facebook posts, such as the one he published on 21 August 2018, which bore the heading “HEADLESS MANNEQUIN STABS MAN IN MALL WITH KNIFE.”
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false
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Critter Country, animals, spiders
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Invasive and exotic animals have long been common subjects of scarelore, and messages alerting readers to the supposed threat posed by some new or previously unheard-of species often spread like wildfire across message boards, social networks and email inboxes. These posts typically take the form of a “public service announcement” and are shared in good faith, and without hesitation, by people who sincerely wish to alert their friends and loved ones to an unfamiliar threat. For these reasons, the “dangerous animal alert” is also a frequent source of misinformation, deliberate scare-mongering, or even downright trolling. On 21 August 2018, one Facebook post went viral after it warned of a “new deadly spider” breed which was purportedly spreading across the United States and had killed five people in one week. Presenting several close-up photographs of a scary-looking spider, the post proclaimed: NEW DEADLY SPIDER SPREADS ACROSS USA THE SPIDER FROM HELL. FIVE PEOPLE HAVE DIED THIS WEEK DUE TO THE BITE OF THIS DEADLY SPIDER .THIS SPIDER WAS FIRST SEEN IN SOUTH CAROLINA IN JULY SINCE THEN IT HAS CAUSED DEATHS IN WEST VIRGINIA ,TENNESSEE AND MISSISSIPPI. ONE BITE FROM THIS SPIDER IS DEADLY. US GOVERNMENT WORKING ON A ANTI VENOM AT THIS TIME PLEASE MAKE YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS AWARE This spider is not new to the United States (although it is native to the Mediterranean region), and its bites are not fatal to humans, according to multiple reliable sources including a 2006 study in the scientific journal Toxicon, which concluded that “Bites by the woodlouse spider, Dysdera crocata, are virtually innocuous. The main symptom is minor pain, typically lasting less than 1 h, probably due mostly to mechanical puncture of the skin.” Pennsylvania State University’s College of Agriculture Sciences describes the species as follows: Dysdera crocata is a hunting spider found from New England to Georgia and west to California. It is also a commonly encountered spider in England, northern Europe, and Australia. The woodlouse hunter preys on pill bugs or sow bugs … D. crocata bites have been implicated in causing a localized, intensely itching erythema 4 to 5 millimeters in diameter. The bites apparently do not result in any systemic neurotoxicity or cytotoxicity. “Araneae (Spiders of Europe)” is a database of spiders hosted by the Museum of Natural History in Bern, Switzerland. It too describes woodlouse bites as itchy but relatively harmless to humans: “This species can bite humans. The bite may be moderately painful and has a median duration of 40 minutes, in one third of cases pain is described as severe. There may also be moderate local itchiness and redness.” Furthermore, neither this nor any other “new deadly spider” species killed five people in several southern states during the summer of 2018. We could find no corroboration whatsoever for this claim, despite our consulting several federal and state-level authorities. The Facebook post is therefore also false in claiming that the U.S. government is “working on an anti-venom.”
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8839
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Blood pressure drug Micardis cuts heart risk: study.
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The blood pressure drug Micardis was as effective in preventing serious heart problems in high-risk patients as certain older drugs, but with fewer side effects, international researchers said on Monday.
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true
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Health News
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The Boehringer Ingelheim drug Micardis, or telmisartan, is typically used in patients with heart failure, but the study found it worked as well as the ACE inhibitor ramipril, marketed in the United States as Altace by King Pharmaceuticals Inc. “We have one more alternative to use,” said Dr. Salim Yusuf of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. “This is probably key for the 20 to 30 percent of people who don’t tolerate an ACE inhibitor,” said Yusuf, who presented the study at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Chicago. Telmisartan is an angiotensin receptor blocker, or ARB. Ramipril is an angiotensin converting enzyme, or ACE, inhibitor. Both act on a compound called angiotensin in different ways to regulate blood pressure. A team of international researchers compared the drugs in a study of more than 25,620 patients with heart disease or diabetes and other heart risk factors, but not heart failure. Telmisartan and ramipril alone worked equally well to reduce cardiovascular death, stroke, heart attack or hospitalization for heart failure, but telmisartan was easier to tolerate than ramipril, with fewer patients experiencing cough or other side effects. Micardis is the first ARB to be shown to have heart benefits in patients who do not have heart disease. But since the drug is more costly than the typical ACE inhibitor, the study may not change practice, doctors said. “The newer drug is certainly not better,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist from the Cleveland Clinic. “The drugs were equivalent in the trial, which means that the same results can be achieved with an ACE inhibitor,” Nissen said in an interview. “I think most physicians will choose the drugs that are generically available,” he said. The study, published online in the New England Journal of Medicine, also tested to see if Micardis combined with an ACE inhibitor might work even better. But the researchers found the combination caused a number of negative side-effects in patients who do not have heart failure. Yusuf said the findings mean doctors need to be careful not to use both drugs in patients. “What was even more important was adding the two together could cause harm,” he said.
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10449
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Scientists reverse diabetes in monkeys
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This television story on pig islet cells being transplanted into monkeys makes a huge leap from a finding in 12 monkeys (some of which rejected the transplant) to “hope for millions of people with diabetes.” And it uses the predictable television approach of finding an 8-year old diabetic and his parents who talk about this being “a huge step.” The story delivered no details of the research findings, didn’t quantify the results or the length of followup. In projecting possible human use, the story failed to address potential risks or costs. If a story is going to project potential benefits, it should offer the balance of potential harms and costs. And it is a critical omission to leave out any mention of potential side effects from powerful immune-suppressing drugs. Finally, it is bad practice for journalists to pass along predictions of being three years away from human testing without giving a basis for that prediction. But that is also a flaw in a single-source story when no independent expert opinion is sought.
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false
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No projection of cost was given. Some comparison could have been made based on the current costs of human-to-human islet cell transplants, but the story virtually ignored that angle. As stated above, no details of the study were given. As stated above, no details of the study were given. The story provides no data on the trial. Viewers should know this was done in only a dozen monkeys and the followup time was only six months. Some monkeys rejected the cell transplants. These are critical facts. If you’re going to cover animal research and make the leap to possible use in humans, it’s important to tell the whole story. The story says there is “new hope..for millions of people with diabetes.” But even the University’s news release frames this in the context of “tens of thousands of people with difficult-to-manage diabetes.” How did the journalist make the leap from “difficult-to-manage” diabetes to millions? Only the lead researcher was interviewed. No independent expert opinion was used. Except for a brief mention at the very end, the story seems to ignore islet cell or pancreas transplants from human donors. In addition, there is no discussion of the possible harms and risks from a pig cell islet transplant. Story explains that human testing is three years away, but that doesn’t allow for any safe prediction of when “experiment” becomes “therapy” and when it would be available for humans. The history of “promising” animal research that didn’t pan out in the transition to human use is long and deep. The story could have made that clear. The story only includes a line from the researcher about more research needed “to make this type of therapy safe.” First, for now it’s an experiment in animals, not a therapy in humans. So it’s not just safety that needs to be shown; it’s effectiveness in people. That note should be emphasized, not hidden. The story provides no context for the history of human islet cell transplants, which are not uncommon. It’s not islet cell transplants that are new; it’s using an animal source that would be new. But even that is not new; other animal-to-animal islet cell transplants have been done. There is no evidence that the story relied solely on a news release. But there is also no evidence that any journalistic research or exploration took place.
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10007
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Diabetes Drug Has Good Results In Long Trial
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New Zealand police said on Wednesday they would be scaling down search operations for the two people who are missing after a volcanic eruption last week, admitting the bodies may never be found.
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false
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The official death toll from the eruption on White Island, also known by its Māori name of Whakaari, stands at 16. Six bodies were retrieved from the island on Friday. Those still missing, presumed dead, are Winona Langford, a 17-year-old Australian, and Hayden Marshall-Inman, a 40-year-old New Zealand tour guide. Their bodies are believed to be in the waters around the island. “We have not given up ... but have reached a phase where we are literally at the hands of the sea,” New Zealand’s Deputy Police Commissioner Mike Clement told reporters at a press conference in Whakatane, the town close to White Island. “We have to wait for mother nature to produce those bodies ... it may or it may not,” he added. Clement said search operations will now be continued by regional officers while the nationally run teams would return. He said experts believe the two missing bodies were washed out to sea. The tides in the area are such that if a body in the bay reached the open sea, they would be taken in the direction of East Cape, the tip of the North Island, he said. There were 47 people on the White Island when it erupted last Monday. Of them, 27 are still being treated at hospitals in New Zealand and Australia for severe burn injuries. There has been criticism that people were allowed on the island, a popular destination for day-trippers, given the risks of an active volcano. That has led to speculation the tragedy could lead to major changes for New Zealand’s thrillseeker tourism industry. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has said official inquiries by coroners and work safety regulators into the eruption could take up to a year, and will carry potential criminal penalties of up to five years in jail.
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35208
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Warmer weather will inhibit the spread of the new coronavirus.
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What's true: Some viral strains, such as those that cause common cold and influenza, are less likely to spread during warmer seasons. What's false: However, according to the World Health Organization, COVID-19 “can be transmitted in ALL AREAS, including areas with hot and humid weather.” This disease will not “go away” due to warmer weather. What's undetermined: It's too early to tell if the spread of the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will be dampened by warm weather.
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unproven
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Politics, COVID-19
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On Feb. 10, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump told the crowd at his rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, that the new coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, could, in theory, miraculously go away in April when it gets a little warmer. Trump said: “The virus, they’re working hard, looks like by April you know in theory when it gets a little warmer it miraculously goes away. I hope that’s true.” Trump has repeated this claim a few times. On Twitter, for instance, he wrote that as “the weather heats up” the virus will hopefully become weaker. And during a meeting with various state governors in February, he said “a lot of people think that goes away in April with the heat — as the heat comes in. Typically, that will go away in April.” It is simply too early to tell how warm weather will impact the spread of COVID-19. What we do know is that this strain of coronavirus can spread during warm weather, and that it won’t just “go away” in April. Some strains of coronavirus, such as those that cause the common cold or influenza, typically spread during cold weather and then subside as the weather heats up. Elizabeth McGraw, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University, explained to Time Magazine: “The droplets that carry viruses do not stay suspended in humid air as long, and the warmer temperatures lead to more rapid virus degradation.” Another reason why some diseases flourish during colder months is because people spend a lot of time indoors and in crowded, poorly ventilated public places. As Auda Fares, a researcher at the University Hospital Bochum, Germany, put it: “Pathogens like crowded environments. With the onset of cooler weather, people spend most of their time indoors. Inadequate and poorly designed ventilation in crowded public places and urban transit systems may boost exposure to air-borne pathogens.” However, health experts do not know how the spread of COVID-19 will be impacted by warm weather. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that all the evidence so far shows that COVID-19 “can be transmitted in ALL AREAS, including areas with hot and humid weather.” WHO writes: From the evidence so far, the COVID-19 virus can be transmitted in ALL AREAS, including areas with hot and humid weather. Regardless of climate, adopt protective measures if you live in, or travel to an area reporting COVID-19. The best way to protect yourself against COVID-19 is by frequently cleaning your hands. By doing this you eliminate viruses that may be on your hands and avoid infection that could occur by then touching your eyes, mouth, and nose. WHO also produced an infographic explaining that people should take precautionary measures (such as washing their hands) regardless of the current season or where they live: The fact that cases of COVID-19 have been reported all around the globe also shows this disease can spread regardless of the temperature outside. Here’s a map from John Hopkin’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) showing “Countries and Territories with Confirmed Cases of Coronavirus” as of March 12, 2020: This strain of coronavirus can spread during warm weather. However, it is possible that warm weather will help to slow the spread of this disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) writes: It is not yet known whether weather and temperature impact the spread of COVID-19. Some other viruses, like the common cold and flu, spread more during cold weather months but that does not mean it is impossible to become sick with these viruses during other months. At this time, it is not known whether the spread of COVID-19 will decrease when weather becomes warmer. There is much more to learn about the transmissibility, severity, and other features associated with COVID-19 and investigations are ongoing. Marc Lipsitch, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, said that while we may “expect modest declines in the contagiousness” of this disease during warmer, wetter weather, it will not completely stop the spread of the disease.
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6493
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Madagascar forest overwhelmed by thousands seeking sapphires.
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A sapphire rush has brought tens of thousands of people into the remote rainforests of eastern Madagascar, disfiguring a protected environmental area and prompting calls for military intervention.
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true
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Africa, Madagascar, International News, Forests, Environment, Sapphire, Asia Pacific, AP Weekend Reads
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More high-quality sapphires have been found in the biodiverse area known as Corridor Ankeniheny-Zahamena in the past six months than were found in the entire country over the past 20 years, according to Vincent Pardieu, a French gemologist who has been visiting mines there for more than a decade and was in the area last month. “I can tell you this is big,” Pardieu said. Gem trade shows around the world now have “nice, big, super-clean sapphires” from the region. “It’s the most important discovery in Madagascar for the past 20 or 30 years.” Tens of thousands of miners and gem traders have poured into the rainforests around the village of Bemainty, said local officials. The miners have cut down thousands of acres of forest in the protected area, which environmental group Conservation International helps to manage, said the officials. This island nation is renowned for its biodiversity and the protected forests in the eastern corridor area are “one of Madagascar’s most precious resources,” according to the World Bank. The corridor is home to more than 2,000 plant species found nowhere else on earth and 14 endangered species of lemur, according to the Ministry of Environment, Ecology, and Forests. With local officials unable to control the situation, Conservation International has called for a military intervention. “We have made many requests to the government to call the army,” said Bruno Rajaspera, the group’s director of projects. “But there are too many influential people that are involved in the trade of the stones. The government doesn’t dare take concrete action.” The prime minister’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Madagascar produces about half of the world’s high-end sapphires, according to Michael Arnstein, president of The Natural Sapphire Company, a U.S.-based gemstone business. Arnstein, who has been visiting the country for two decades, said about 70 percent of its sapphire market is controlled by Sri Lankans, who smuggle the gems back to their country to be cut and exported for sale. About $150 million worth of sapphires might leave Madagascar every year, though the exact figure is impossible to know as the industry is not well regulated, he said. “You have all these small-scale, Wild West operations,” he said. “Everything’s pretty much illegal. There’s no oversight, no taxes. It’s chaos.” The latest rush for sapphires began about six months ago, leading Madagascar’s government to hold meetings in November and declare the corridor’s protection a national priority. Environmentalists hoped the government would send in the army, as it did during a smaller rush in 2012 after the gems were first discovered in the area. At the time, the government arrested and deported several Sri Lankan gem traders. The gem traders bring laborers from other parts of Madagascar to the corridor, Rajaspera said. The workers carry in food and equipment by hand, trekking at least five hours through the jungle to reach the mining sites, which are inaccessible by car or motorcycle. As more and more miners entered the area, Conservation International tried to help maintain security by paying police forces, but the it said the situation remained out of control. By October, the population at the main mining site was growing by about 1,500 to 2,000 people a day, according to Rosey Perkins, a British gemologist who was there at the time. The jungle paths saw a heavy flow of traffic, with people carrying rice, chickens and even goats out to the mining sites. The main site “looked quite wild,” Perkins said. “It was a real surprise to see a whole field of humanity out in the wilderness.” Many residents of the Didy area that includes Bemainty and surrounding villages also want the national government to take action, according to Didy’s mayor, Davidson Radoka. Only a small percentage of locals profit from the mines, he said. Some schools have staffing issues as teachers leave to try their hand at mining. And with so many new mouths to feed, demand for goods has increased, sending the prices of staples such as rice up 50 percent or more. Above all, people worry about their safety. “Security is a very, very, very serious problem right now,” Radoka said. Bandits are often out at night, and eight people have been murdered in the Didy area since Dec. 21, he said. The conditions at mining sites, with tens of thousands of people living in close quarters without sanitation facilities, can cause diseases that spread to local villages. Recently there was an outbreak of typhoid fever in the Didy area, Radoka said. Despite the living conditions, aspiring miners keep coming to the corridor. Two years of drought in many parts of Madagascar have led farmers to seek out alternative means of income. The mines are attractive to the newcomers because most of the sapphires are found within six feet (two meters) of the surface. “You have a lot of people who are employed. Without this discovery, they would be in serious trouble,” Pardieu said. “That’s why the authorities are not doing anything. They are letting people mine. They don’t want to have 20,000 people starving in town, with no money.” Local officials believe the number of miners in the Bemainty area is far higher, perhaps as many as 200,000. Officials say they worry that if the mining remains uncontrolled, it could spread. In November, a group of about 500 miners went deeper into the protected area to search for gemstones. “They arrived suddenly, and we saw that this could be a big problem for our area,” said Nestor Rafenonirina, the director of the northernmost park in the corridor. His agency, Madagascar National Parks, used a police brigade to remove the miners. But if their numbers grow, such action would be harder to take, he said. Pardieu said he expects many more sapphire and ruby mines to be discovered in the protected area over the next five to 10 years: “There is just one deposit after another.”
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10047
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Research shows promise in reversing Type 1 diabetes
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Responsible reporting of a promising, but very preliminary finding in diabetes research. The caveats and context were all there. Nice job. As one of the independent experts was quoted saying, ” If this is reproducible and correct, it could be a phenomenal finding.” The story emphasized that this is still a big IF.
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true
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Los Angeles Times
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Not applicable. Costs were not discussed, which is understandable at this early stage of research which the story emphasized. Adequate explanation of the results from a tiny study. There was no discussion of potential harms. The story could have at least emphasized that not much can be known about potential harms after such a small, short-term study. The human trial was under-powered to detect harm. At the same time BCG vaccine has been around for a long time and has been widely used throughout the world, so there is data on the known side effects and complications of the vaccine. At the same time, this is a new use and larger trials and post marketing surveillance will be needed before the potential harms are known. The story did an excellent job evaluating the quality of the evidence and providing readers with an explanation of how “the findings contradict an essential paradigm of diabetes therapy.” No disease-mongering of Type I diabetes. Good sourcing, with two independent expert comments. The philanthropic funding source for the work was also mentioned. The story offered this solid context: “The findings contradict an essential paradigm of diabetes therapy — that once the insulin-secreting beta cells of the pancreas have been destroyed, they are gone forever. Because of that belief, most research today focuses on using vaccines to prevent the cells’ destruction in the first place, or on using beta cell transplants to replace the destroyed cells. The new findings, however, hint that even in patients with long-standing diabetes, the body retains the potential to restore pancreas function if clinicians can only block the parts of the immune system that are killing the beta cells.” The story clearly explained the experimental nature of the research. The story did a good job on this criterion, estabiishing the relative novelty of the work while explaining that there has been related animal research. It’s clear the story did not rely on a news release.
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37412
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Blue Buffalo Dental Bones pose a severe risk of injury or death to dogs, gravely injured a dog named Dallas, and led to the deaths of other dogs.
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‘Blue Buffalo Dental Bones Hemorrhagic Gastritis’ Facebook Warning
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unproven
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On January 5 2020, Facebook user Nikki McDonald shared the following post about the brand Blue Buffalo’s Dental Bones product, reporting that her dog Dallas was gravely injured and nearly killed after she gave him the product:In under a week, the post was shared hundreds of thousands of times. Facebook’s “view edit history” function was not operational for the post, which had clearly been updated to include responses to comments, information about a lawsuit, and captions indicating the user had licensed the photographs to an agency.In the edited version of the post visible to users on January 10 2020, the poster wrote “Dallas is continuing to improve and should make a full recovery,” beginning:There are hundreds, possibly getting into the thousands of cases like Dallas. I can’t go through all the comments 😞Attorney handling the class action lawsuit against Blue Buffalo is Michael Reese at [email protected]If your pet got sick please report it to the FDA at https://www.fda.gov/…/SafetyHe…/ReportaProblem/ucm182403.htm and on www.consumeraffairs.com and contact Blue Buffalo for a complaint form.Vets diagnosis is hemorrhagic gastritis (HGE) same as so many others💔. It is a severe reaction to one of the ingredients (unknown which) in this product. I’ve received hundreds of messages from people who have endured the exact same thing (especially since November/December) from various Blue Buffalo products 😥💕I’ve added a few screenshots of other people’s stories with permission****I can’t add them all there are so many 😞McDonald’s original post appeared to be the portion below, and started with describing how she purchased Blue Buffalo Dental Bones on January 4 2020 at a PetSmart location. She stated she gave Dallas one of the bones on the night of January 4 2020, adding that her pet vomited blood overnight.After watchful waiting, Dallas’ condition purportedly deteriorated and he was transported to a veterinarian for additional testing:OP—>Don’t buy this shit. I grabbed these at Pets Mart on Saturday thinking Blue Buffalo $40 dental “bones” would be good stuff (heathy, holistic, wheat free, no chemical dye) for a bit of tartar buildup. My dog Dallas had one yesterday evening (we supervised him and he chewed it up). Sometime overnight he started throwing up blood ( total was 14-18 times before the vet got it under control with meds). I initially wrote it off to a bit of gastro upset and the red in his vomit to the dehydrated beets in it. But he wouldn’t eat chicken and rice and couldn’t even keep water down. Then he started drooling and dragging his feet and then couldn’t even stand.Needless to say we rushed him to the vet. When I looked up this brand I was shocked to find similar experiences posted online, especially in the last few weeks.He tested negative for pancreatitis. X-ray showed no obstruction (which we were fairly positive of even beforehand seeing as we watched him eat it) but it showed that his stomach is super irritated and pancreas was a bit off too. Bloodwork is all wonky cause his RBC is so high from dehydration.At that point, McDonald noted that the veterinarian’s tests were inconclusive — her conclusion that Blue Buffalo Dental Bones had caused Dallas’ idiopathic illness was based on information she obtained by searching on Google for complaints about that specific product. McDonald said that Dallas was infrequently ill and rarely had stomach problems, that she supervised his consumption of the Blue Buffalo Dental Bones, and that she located several similar complaints from owners whose dogs had fallen ill after consuming the same product:He’s staying overnight at the vet on IV fluids. Endoscopy showed a lot of damage in his stomach, too much for surgery. We will know more tomorrow. This has been a nightmare 💔 feels so wrong being at home without my dog and I’m beating myself up for not doing my research first like I usually do 😥I’m sharing because;1. This guy has an iron stomach and usually nothing gets to him. 5 yo and NEVER had any previous health issues or food allergies ☹️2. He ate ONE and it was supervised, he broke it down and consumed it properly3. If you google this brand there are eerily similar complaints especially in the last few weeks. Diagnoses I keep seeing are pancreatitis and HGE.If it saves even one person the heartache we are enduring right now then it’s worth it. A higher price doesn’t mean better quality or safe!ETA: If you can’t share my post you might have to click the original post. It is shareable on my wall but some page settings have sharing turned off.According to McDonald, the diagnoses mentioned by other distressed dog owners were pancreatitis and HGE, presumably “hemorrhagic gastroenteritis.” McDonald also updated to include additional anecdotal reports from dog owners whose pets became ill or died in a similar fashion. Those commenters also believed that their pets were sickened by Blue Buffalo Dental Bones (or possibly other Blue Buffalo products. )We checked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) animal/veterinary recalls site for any complaints involving Blue Buffalo Dental Bones; the only result related to Blue Buffalo on a whole involved a 2017 voluntary recall of “one production lot of BLUE Wilderness® Rocky Mountain RecipeTM Red Meat Dinner Wet Food for Adult Dogs, as the product has the potential to contain elevated levels of naturally-occurring beef thyroid hormones.”That release described a specific “lot” of one variety of canned dog food, and a completely different and unrelated risk posed by that voluntarily recalled product:Dogs ingesting high levels of beef thyroid hormones may exhibit symptoms such as increased thirst and urination, weight loss, increased heart rate and restlessness. These symptoms may resolve when the use of the impacted food is discontinued. However, with prolonged consumption these symptoms may increase in severity and may include vomiting, diarrhea, and rapid or difficulty breathing. Should these symptoms occur, contact your veterinarian immediately.According to the release, it appeared that illness in one dog — not a large number, as the Facebook post implied about Blue Buffalo’s Dental Bones — triggered the widespread recall. In that instance, the FDA and Blue Buffalo monitored the case, and the dog made a full recovery:Although the Blue Buffalo Customer Care Resource Team has not received any reports of dogs exhibiting these symptoms from consuming this product, the FDA advised Blue Buffalo of a single consumer who reported symptoms in one dog, who has now fully recovered. Blue Buffalo immediately began an investigation, however, and after working with the FDA, Blue Buffalo decided it would be prudent to recall the one production lot in question.An absence of reports was not due to the FDA not logging reports like the one in the Facebook post. On page 10 of 12 unlabeled consumer reports, a separate brand of dental bones were cited by a consumer as the cause of her dog’s euthanization. Unlike the dog in the Facebook post, that pet had consumed many of the dental bones over a long period before falling ill:My dog began vomiting at around 7:00pm on Monday, February 4, 2013. He continued to vomit throughout the night, at least once per hour. He became very lethargic and would cry out in pain if touched. I took him to the vet the next morning when he had not improved. He was on IV fluids all day and put out < 2cc of urine, and that urine was mostly blood. The blood tests revealed that he was in complete renal failure. The veterinarian told me that he would die within 24 hours due to his complete loss of kidney function, and that my best option was to have him euthanized because he was in pain and would continue to get worse as death grew closer. Prior to this, he was a happy and healthy indoor dog. He was playful and loving, and I took care of him as if he were my child. He was on a diet of Blue Buffalo Brown Rice and Lamb formula, and he was not allowed any table scraps or other foods. I recently began feeding him “Dingo Dental Bones For Total Care Minis” at a rate of about one bone per day or every other day. This is the only product out of the ordinary that he came into contact with.In the consumer-submitted report, the dog’s owner described a dental bones brand separate from Blue Buffalo as “the only product out of the ordinary that he came into contact with.” That descriptor alluded to the difficulty in pinpointing sudden and severe illness in a beloved pet, particularly dogs.More to the point, the majority of pet owner reports involving a pet’s meals in the day or days before the pet fell ill were likely to include one or more prominent national brands, of which Blue Buffalo was one. Dogs could consume any number of non-food items before falling ill in the night, and the pet’s owner would recall having given their pet Purina, Alpo, or Blue Buffalo just prior to their sudden illness. In that respect, narrowing down the cause of illness would be perpetually likely to involve a major brand of pet food consumed the day before the pet fell ill or died.McDonald appended several screenshots of messages to her post, which had roughly thirty images in total. Of all the times readers shared this post, that indicated that perhaps one or two dozen users contacted her with suspicions about the safety of Blue Buffalo Dental Bones or other Blue Buffalo products.The two messages visible on McDonald’s main post involved complaints about dog food, but not Blue Buffalo Dental Bones. The first complaint was from a woman who urged fellow dog owners not to feed their pets Blue Buffalo brand dog food, not chews. The second was even more vague, albeit heartbreaking, containing a woman’s claim that she switched her dog to Blue Buffalo “a few months” prior to the dog’s death due to unspecified causes — not due to dental bones, nor specifically something like pancreatitis or hemorrhagic gastroenteritis.It is important to remember that Blue Buffalo and similarly prominent pet food brands are fed to millions of pets in the United States on a daily basis. Pets who fall ill or die suddenly are extremely likely to have eaten a brand’s pet food due to their ubiquity and necessity alone. Pets are also unable to provide their owners with information about their illnesses or diets, leading heartbroken “pet parents” to attempt to piece together a definitive account of what sickened their dog or cat. In these examinations, a prominent brand of pet food is almost always likely to be on the list.Brand-related pet panics typically seem to center at least first around food, an issue addressed during a different panic in 2013. During that investigation, veterinarian Dr. Stephen Ettinger noted that “it is rare that their food is responsible for the illness.”Ettinger further pointed out that anecdotal claims often take center stage when consumers feared danger in pet products:“When a pet is sick, pet owners often look first to the pet’s food as the cause. However, it is rare that their food is responsible for the illness,” said Dr. Stephen Ettinger in an article published by DVM360.com, a trade publication for veterinarians. Ettinger, an academic veterinarian at Cornell University, recently commented in a ConsumerAffairs story about similar complaints involving Beneful dog food.“These statements (the consumer postings) are not backed by any scientific studies, and the conditions described in the postings are amongst the most common conditions seen in everyday veterinary practice,” said Ettinger said after reviewing many of the posted Beneful reports.Veterinary hospital organization VCA Hospitals maintained a page about hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, explaining the condition and citing “dietary indiscretion” as a primary cause:Acute hemorrhagic diarrhea syndrome (AHDS) (also known as hemorrhagic gastroenteritis [HGE]) is an acute (sudden) disorder of dogs characterized by vomiting and bloody diarrhea. Most cases occur without warning in otherwise healthy dogs. The main and most disturbing clinical sign is large amounts of bloody diarrhea, very often bright red. Some dogs may have a painful abdomen, decreased appetite, lethargy (fatigue), or fever. […]What causes AHDS? The exact cause of AHDS remains unknown (idiopathic). It may be related to dietary indiscretion (ingesting non-food items or different foods), immune-mediated disease, toxins, or pancreatitis. Stress, anxiety, and hyperactivity are thought to be possible contributing factors in many cases.On January 6 2020, Blue Buffalo specifically acknowledged the viral Blue Buffalo Dental Bones complaint on Facebook, writing:We’ve heard from many of you on the recent social posts regarding our BLUE Dental Bones. As pet parents ourselves, there is nothing we hate more than hearing of a sick pet. Thank you for reaching out and showing your concern.We’ve contacted this pet parent to learn more about their pup’s recent health issue and would like to assure our loyal BLUE customers that our BLUE Dental Bones undergo significant quality and digestibility testing to ensure we provide the safest and healthiest product possible. We take all customer complaints very seriously and will continue to investigate this issue.Many of the top comments came from pet owners lodging complaints about their dogs’ illnesses and Blue Buffalo products. The top comment was from a user who did not mention Blue Buffalo Dental Bones, but rather “product”:Our healthy 2 year old dog spent days in the er with hemmoragic gastronitis on the 22nd after eating your products as well. Many many dogs are all having the same symptoms. All at the same time all with you being the common denominator. We are getting our food and treats tested. We will never use your products again and are warning everyone we can to never use your products! You are making dogs sick and some are dying horrible deaths!Other users referenced a completely separate set of anecdotes (regarding reported heart problems in dogs), and several commenters left well wishes for Dallas while also adding that their dogs were healthy users of Blue Buffalo Dental Bones. A second commenter also referenced what appeared to be kibble, not dental bones:Now we are another customer that just got back from the vet with a dog diagnoses of pancreatitis and a very hefty bill after opening a brand new bag Sunday morning. Luckily he only ate that one meal and then threw it up within the hour and hasn’t had a bite since. We thought we might loose him. Hopefully our wallet will keep him alive because you’re food wants otherwise.One person relayed a story of a different product being blamed for heart issues in humans, a product purportedly vindicated after a viral controversy. And a third shared a story of a recently deceased pet, referencing similar symptoms but not any specific mechanism or product:Alarming that your dog food and treats are still on shelves. My 5 year old completely healthy fur baby showed the same symptoms on the 23rd of December, took her to the vet and she passed away on Christmas. I will never buy a single product of yours again, and I will make sure everyone I know with fur babies is aware of these incidents and hopefully will also stay away from your products.A fourth person confidently claimed that 99 percent of veterinarians do not recommend Blue Buffalo. When asked to back up that assertion, the commenter said that they were “just repeating what they heard” from a single veterinarian.A highly viral January 2020 claim was one of several Facebook pet-related safety warnings, urging dog owners to steer clear of Blue Buffalo Dental Bones due to the purported grave illness of one individual dog and based on a distressed owner’s Google searching. A handful of fellow dog owners came forward to report similar suspicions, but many of their shared stories involved either different health conditions or different Blue Buffalo products. The Food and Drug Administration had no information regarding a safety risk with Blue Buffalo Dental Bones, and its only result among recalls was a voluntary one based on the symptoms of one dog that later recovered. Although it remained possible Blue Buffalo Dental Bones were causing illness and death, the claim was difficult to narrow down due in part to the fact most dogs are fed commercially produced dog food from a handful of national brands — including Blue Buffalo.Correction: A previous version of this story had the date of the original post as January 5 2019, not January 5 2020. We apologize for the error. -bb
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President Donald Trump sent a video message to Belgian citizens criticizing their government for being part of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
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Bayer AG had hoped a new trial strategy focusing jurors on scientific evidence could stem a burgeoning tide of U.S. lawsuits over its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup, but a second jury finding on Tuesday that the product caused cancer has narrowed the company’s options, some legal experts said.
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false
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Politics
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Bayer shares tumbled more than 12 percent on Wednesday after a unanimous jury in San Francisco federal court found Roundup to be a “substantial factor” in causing California resident Edwin Hardeman’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The jury decision was a blow to Bayer after the judge in the Hardeman case, at the company’s request, had split the trial, severely limiting evidence plaintiffs could present in the first phase. Tuesday’s defeat on terms considered advantageous to Bayer sets up the second phase to be even tougher and limits the grounds on which the company could appeal any final verdict, the experts said. “The fact that Bayer lost this trial despite it being set up in the most favorable way for them is a huge setback,” said Thomas Rohback, a Connecticut-based defense lawyer. Bayer in a statement on Tuesday said it stood behind the safety of Roundup and was confident the evidence in the second trial phase would show that Monsanto’s conduct was appropriate and the company not liable for Hardeman’s cancer. The company, which bought Monsanto last year, on Wednesday declined to comment beyond that statement. Tuesday’s finding did not address liability, which will be determined following the second trial phase that began on Wednesday. Bayer denies glyphosate or Roundup cause cancer. The German company faces more than 11,200 lawsuits over the popular weed killer. Last August, following the first Roundup trial, a California state court jury issued a $289 million verdict against the company. Two weeks after that verdict, which was later reduced to $78 million and is being appealed, Bayer Chief Executive Werner Baumann reassured analysts that the company had a new legal strategy based on focusing jurors on the scientific evidence. “Bayer and the joint litigation team are working to ensure that, going forward, this overwhelming science will get the full consideration it deserves,” Baumann said in an Aug. 23 conference call. There is a lot at stake for Bayer, which acquired Roundup maker Monsanto last year for $63 billion. Though Bayer does not break out sales figures for Roundup, glyphosate is the world’s most widely used weed killer, and Roundup is the leading brand. Bayer’s new strategy was focused on keeping out plaintiffs’ allegations that the company improperly influenced scientists, regulators and the public about the safety of Roundup. Bayer has denied it acted inappropriately and said in public statements following the August verdict that it thought the jury was inflamed by the claims of corporate misconduct. Vince Chhabria, the San Francisco federal judge overseeing the Hardeman case, agreed with the company’s argument that such evidence was a “distraction” from the scientific question of whether glyphosate causes cancer. He agreed to split the trial in a January order. Had Bayer had won the first phase, there would have been no second phase looking at company liability. Now that it has lost, almost all of the previously excluded evidence can be presented to the jury. Plaintiffs’ lawyers hit Bayer with those allegations in their opening statements for the second phase on Wednesday. Aimee Wagstaff, one of Hardeman’s lawyers, said Monsanto influenced the science around Roundup through its “cozy” relationship with regulators. Bayer could convince the jury in the second phase that, despite their finding that Roundup played a substantial role in Hardeman’s cancer, the company was not liable. Experts said that was unlikely. “They could present evidence of how careful they were in developing Roundup, but that’s an uphill battle given that the scientific evidence was their strongest argument,” said Alexandra Lahav, a law professor at the University of Connecticut. A lawyer for Bayer on Wednesday argued that Bayer could not be held liable because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as other regulators worldwide, approved Roundup without a cancer warning. If the Hardeman trial had not been split and a final verdict went against Bayer, the company might have been able to appeal any damages award to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals by claiming the jury had been improperly swayed by inflammatory evidence, said Lori Jarvis, a Virginia-based mass tort defense lawyer. That argument will now be difficult to make. “It would not be surprising at all for the 9th Circuit to uphold what the jury did in this case, particularly given the great effort Chhabria put into creating a level playing field for Monsanto,” Jarvis said. Some lawyers said Bayer could still argue on appeal that plaintiffs’ experts and their scientific evidence were insufficient and statistically invalid and should not have been admitted at trial. But they noted the 9th Circuit, which oversees the San Francisco federal court, has generally been permissive in allowing expert testimony. However, experts said it was probably too soon to write off Bayer’s legal strategy, noting future Roundup cases could result in different outcomes. “It’s a relatively early phase in this litigation as a whole and we just need to see more trials to understand Bayer’s liability,” said Adam Zimmerman, a law professor at Los Angeles-based Loyola Law School.
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"Milwaukee police and firefighters ""are routinely getting 4 percent raises annually while everybody else is either getting zero or one percent raises."
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"Kovac said police and fire workers ""are routinely getting 4 percent raises annually while everybody else is either getting zero or one percent raises."" That scenario was seen in 2012, but so far has not reappeared. Uniformed workers have had a leg up on general employees since Act 10, but only marginally in a time of austerity."
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false
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Workers, Wisconsin, Nik Kovac,
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"Some city employees would get a New Year’s gift under a proposal by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett to soften Act 10’s effect on their pocketbooks. After losing a legal fight, the city is complying with Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011 collective-bargaining law and will begin deducting pension contributions from those workers not already making them. To help offset the pension contributions, Barrett wants to give 3.9 percent raises for general city employees. The plan, which carries a price tag of $4.8 million, would not apply to police and firefighters. They were exempted from the provisions of Act 10. City officials say most fire and police personnel pay little or nothing toward their pensions and -- unlike most other city employees -- still can negotiate over benefits and pay. East Side Alderman Nik Kovac said Barrett’s plan for raises seems reasonable. And in a Sept. 30, 2014 Fox6 TV interview, Kovac addressed the disparities between different groups of city employees under Act 10. Police and fire officials ""are routinely getting 4 percent raises annually while everybody else is either getting a zero or 1 percent raise,"" Kovac said. ""That imbalance, the longer it continues, is going to hurt morale and make it harder and harder to run the city in a fair manner."" Four percent vs. nothing? Routinely? That got our attention. On Facebook, a few firefighters pushed back on Kovac’s claim, saying they have not seen a raise in two or three years. ""Nic, where are you getting 4% annually?"" a Fire Department employee commented. ""This is not just misleading, it’s wrong."" What are the real numbers? When we asked Kovac for backup, he said he spoke off the cuff with the TV reporter. In doing so, he misspoke. After checking the recent history of raises with the city budget office, Kovac said he should not have said ""routine"" or ""annual"" in regards to 4 percent raises for police and fire. Maria Monteagudo, the city’s employee relations director, sent us the base pay increases for city employees back to 1991. Here are the percentage raises from 2010 to present. (Fire and police unions ratified contracts for 2010-2012 after Act 10 took effect in 2011). Fire Police General Managers 2010 0% 0% 0% 0% 2011 0.5%-0.8% 0% 0% 0% 2012 4.3% 3.55%* 0% 0% 2013 n/a** n/a** 1.5% 1.5% 2014 n/a** n/a** 1.0% 1.0% **Contract negotiations ongoing In 2012, firefighters and police received raises in the 4 percent range while general employees received nothing. But that was a one-year blip. With that exception, across-the-board raises have been small or nonexistent for all city employees dating to 2010, the year before Act 10. One important note: For 2013 and 2014, public safety employees have not yet negotiated a contract with the city. So while they have received nothing so far, they could still receive raises retroactively once a contract agreement is reached. General city workers and managers received small raises for those two years. That was done without collective bargaining for most of those workers, because the largest labor union representing city employees was not recertified under Act 10 rules, Monteagudo said. Before 2010, city employees of all types typically got 2 percent to 3 percent raises with small variations. Unionized workers typically were around the top of that range, with non-represented managers closer to the low end. Within the union ranks since 2007, police and fire raises have outstripped those for general workers. Mandatory furloughs, including of police and fire workers, have cut further into pay. Barrett’s 2015 budget would eliminate furloughs for non-uniformed workers, while their future use for police and fire workers would depend on the outcome of labor negotiations. Our rating Kovac said police and fire workers ""are routinely getting 4 percent raises annually while everybody else is either getting zero or one percent raises."" That scenario was seen in 2012, but so far has not reappeared. Uniformed workers have had a leg up on general employees since Act 10, but only marginally in a time of austerity."
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32370
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Donald Trump dropped out of the presidential race in August 2016 due to a brain tumor.
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Needless to say, we hope, this story was a complete fabrication. NTMY News is an entertainment web site that publishes “political news and satire,” and this article was clearly the latter.
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false
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Junk News, donald trump, election 2016
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While there are many real world reasons to criticize the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, a subset of the internet became intent on smearing Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump with a number of fictitious health issues in August 2016. Clinton has been subjected to various conspiracy theories concerning her health, and on 7 August 2016 the web site NTMY News published (what sadly should have been painfully obvious) fake news reporting that Donald Trump had dropped out of the presidential race due to a brain tumor discovered during a “colonoscopy”: After a tough week in the polls, Donald Trump has dropped out of the presidential campaign. Trump’s public relations vice president John Miller spoke to the press. “Donald Trump had a routine medical exam, which included a colonoscopy. During that part of the examination, it was discovered that Mr. Trump has stage one brain cancer. In order to focus on treatment, he has decided to withdraw his bid for the presidency.” Miller, who gave the release by phone, explained that Trump’s campaign was not at all influenced by the existence of a tumor and that everything “The Donald” had said to date should be taken at face value.
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1840
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New Jersey may be first state to ban smoking on beaches, in parks.
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New Jersey could become the first state in the nation to ban cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products in all public parks and beaches if Governor Chris Christie signs into law a sweeping anti-smoking bill approved by lawmakers.
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true
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Health News
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The bill passed both houses of the New Jersey legislature with strong bipartisan support and was sitting on Chistie’s desk on Friday but the Republican presidential hopeful would not indicate his intentions. The legislation would completely prohibit smoking inside all state, county and municipal parks. Public beaches would also be smoke-free, though local officials can opt to save 15 percent of beach land as a designated smoking section. “This is definitely groundbreaking,” said Karen Blumenfeld, the executive director of Global Advisors on Smokefree Policy, a proponent of the New Jersey bill. “We would be the first state to impose such a wide ban in all public outdoor spaces and the legislation will continue the trend of New Jersey being a model for other jurisdictions’ anti-smoking policies,” she said. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, and second-hand smoke exposure has been linked to asthma, lung cancer, and stroke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Supporters say the ban will allow New Jersey residents and visitors to enjoy parks and beaches without the distraction of wafting cigarette smoke and would drastically reduce litter, fire risks and children’s exposure to smoking. “No one needs to sit in an ashtray when enjoying the beach,” state Senator Joseph Vitale, a sponsor of the bill, told local media. Blumenfeld said the measure has a “critical mass” of support in the state. But some residents said the measure would trample on personal liberties. “I don’t think the government needs to be involved,” said Bryan Adamson, 32, of Blairstown. “As a smoker I use common sense and respect for the environment and those around me,” he said. Others said it was time to put an end to the outdoors as a last sanctuary for those who choose to light up. “Even when I smoked and was on the beach next to a smoker I would be frustrated because frankly I don’t want to be stuck around it if I don’t have to be,” said Lauren DiGenova, 26, of Waldwick. New Jersey has some of the strictest anti-smoking policies in the country. It was the first state to prohibit smoking in college dormitories in 2005, Blumenfeld said. A year later, Trenton banned indoor smoking in bars and restaurants. More than 200 New Jersey cities, towns and boroughs have already passed their own restrictions on cigarette and tobacco use in parks and beaches. The legislation would cover outdoor public spaces across the state. Offenders would face a $250 fine for the first offense, $500 for the second and $1,000 for each additional citation. Christie’s office would not say where the governor stood on the bill.
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36809
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It’s been rumored that George Soros and pro-Clinton groups funded protests and paid professional protesters after Donald Trump was elected president.
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George Soros, Pro-Clinton Groups Fund Trump Protests
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unproven
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Politics
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We haven’t found any proof that George Soros or pro-Clinton groups have funded anti-Trump protests. After Donald Trump’s upset victory in the 2016 election, thousands of Trump protesters were reported in cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and Philadelphia, CNN reports: Protesters are upset about Trump’s policies on health care, the environment, LGBT rights and other issues. Some are questioning the legitimacy of Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton by noting that although he took the Electoral College, Clinton won the popular vote. Over the weekend, Los Angeles saw anti-Trump protests swell to 8,000 people on Saturday. In New York, thousands peacefully marched two miles on Saturday and gathered outside Trump Tower, the President-elect’s home in Manhattan, where they chanted “not my president.” As protests stretched into a sixth day, rumors persisted that George Soros or pro-Clinton groups were organizing the protests and even paying “professional protesters.” Those rumors are based on a number of theories, and we’ll take a look at few of them. Photos Show Protestors Being Bused into Austin, Texas –Fiction! Photos that appeared to show protestors being bused into Austin have been debunked. A man named Eric Tucker created a stir on social media when he posted multiple photos of charter buses with the caption “Anti-Trump protestors in Austin today are not as organic as they seem. Here are the busses they came in.” #fakeprotests The photos quickly went viral. Many pointed to them as proof that Soros (or someone else) had been organizing the anti-Trump protests — going as far as busing in professional protesters from outside the state. However, a FOX affiliate in Austin found that the charter buses were actually being used to shuttle people from hotels to the Tableau Conference being held at the Austin Convention Center. The buses had nothing to do with protests: Before Eric Tucker took the tweet down Friday, it had nearly 17,000 retweets and became part of a national controversy. ”I thought going on Twitter was not a big deal, I thought, I have 40 followers, I post twice a year on Twitter, I’m not a professional blogger at all,” Tucker said. Tucker said seeing a bunch of charter buses lined up on 5th Street near Waller on Wednesday, coincidentally around the same time an anti-Trump rally was being held in downtown Austin he said was unusual. So he took to Twitter with the claims the buses were being used to ship in protesters. “I hadn’t really fact checked at all, it was just all kind of circumstantial and then before I know it, it’s a story, I am over 10,000 tweets by the next day. …But when people started questioning Tuckers claim, so did he. Turns out the buses were being used as hotel shuttles for the Tableau Conference being held at the Austin Convention Center. “Was I wrong in this case, yes I was,” Tucker said. These viral photos don’t actually show protestors being bused in by outside groups. Craigslist Ads Recruit Professional Protestors for $15 Per Hour There’s no way to prove that Craigslist ads that appear to be recruiting professional protesters are real. Craigslist ads are free and easy to create. Someone could easily create a fake ad for professional protestors as a joke, to mislead people into believing that protesters are actually being paid, or to take advantage of people who respond to the post. In a widely circulated Craigslist ad, the Washington Community Action Network (Washington CAN) appeared to be recruiting professional protestors that would be paid $15-$22 per hour. The position even supposedly came with medical, dental and paid time off: Contact information in the ad doesn’t appear to match the contact information listed on the organization’s website. We reached out for comment from a Washington CAN rep and future updates will be posted here. Leaked Documents from Soros’ Group Point to Paid Protestors Open Society Foundations (OSF), a group that was founded by Soros primarily to help countries transition away from communism, was hacked in June 2016 — but leaked files don’t prove that Soros is behind Trump protests. It appears that Russian hackers stole the documents. They were shared at “DCLeaks,” a site similar to (but not affiliated with) Wikileaks, Bloomberg reports: Open Society Foundations, the Soros group, reported the breach to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in June, said spokeswoman Laura Silber, who added that an investigation by a security firm found the intrusion was limited to an intranet system used by board members, staff and foundation partners. In the case of Soros’s Open Society, hackers stole a trove of documents after accessing the foundation’s internal intranet, a system called Karl, according to a person familiar with its internal investigation. On August 3, the DCLeaks.com Twitter account tweeted “Check George Soros’s OSF plans to counter Russian policy and traditional values,” attaching a screenshot of a $500,000 budget request for an Open Society program designed to counter Russian influence among European democracies. The hackers may have had access the foundations’ network for nearly a year, according to another person familiar with the investigation. Although Open Society has about 800 full-time staff, as many as 7,000 people have access to Karl, which is used to circulate draft program proposals, budgets and other internal documents. The $500,000 budget proposal from Open Society Foundations to help counter Russia’s growing influence in the European Union was among the most notable leaked documents. Included in a “background” section of the proposal was this statement: “Our inclination is to engage in activities and with actors that will understand and counter Russian influence and support to movements defending traditional values.” That statement has been used to argue that Soros’ group has supported and organized protestors to sway public opinion and elections in the past, so he’d likely doing it again in response to Trump’s victory. However, the statement is pretty broad and it’s not clear that “actors” refers to protesters. Soros Funded Protests in Ferguson; He’d Do it Again We looked into reports that Soros had paid millions to help protests in Ferguson after a grand jury decided not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in Michael Brown’s death in December 2014. We them to be both true and misleading. At the time, the Washington Times reported that Soros had paid $33 million directly to groups organizing protests in Ferguson. And, while we found that OSF had given $33 million to support community groups involved in the protests, those funds were earmarked for various initiatives — not protests themselves. OSF wrote in a December 2014 blog post, however, that it had made $2.5 million in investments to support “frontline community groups in Ferguson as well as develop a national database on the use of police force.” Then, two days later, OSF announced that it would award $2.9 million in grants in response to ongoing events in Ferguson and Staten Island, where protests followed the death of Eric Gardner: To supplement those efforts, we are this week making additional investments totaling $2.9 million in response to the recent events in Ferguson and Staten Island. One portion of the investment is intended to help community groups in Missouri advance initiatives to promote police accountability. A second component will further the development of a nationwide database involving police stops and use of force, thereby addressing one of the systemic flaws that limits the ability of police departments and communities to address bias-related issues. So, it’s true that Soros’s OSF group supported groups organizing protests in Ferguson. However, it appears that OSF mostly supported larger police accountability initiatives like nationwide databases — not the protests themselves. That’s why we called this one “true and misleading” at the time. Right now, there’s no proof to support claims that Soros is paying or organizing anti-Trump protestors. Check back for updates.
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11493
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Researchers develop test for pregnancy complication
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"This story took preliminary research on a diagnostic test for a common and urgent pregnancy complication—preeclampsia—and made the research appear to be a life-saving medical breakthrough. In the study, an international group of researchers reported identifying a “metabolic signature”—a group of 14 biomarkers in the blood of pregnant women—that might aid in the diagnosis of preeclampsia in its early stages. The diagnostic test, like any complex diagnostic technology, faces years of research development and clinical trials. The article offered a best-case scenario for the development of this test. It did not provide a single cautionary note to balance out this hopeful view. The main question that goes unanswered in this story is whether a diagnostic test that was studied in 120 women and then validated in 79 pregnant women in Australia will be equally valuable for millions of women around the world. Will it turn into a test that can be administered simply and interpreted easily? Could it be just as useful in Mali, Cambodia, or Micronesia as it might be in developed nations? Will the test have adequate predictive value—both positive and negative—in a wide range of ethnic groups and among women with differing health problems? Only time and further research will tell. If this test lives up the diagnostic potential envisioned in the Reuters story, it would be a major step forward indeed. But the story should have provided more independent experts to give a more balanced view of the evidence that supports it. The Reuters article closed with an optimistic quote from Eleni Tsigas, Executive Director of the Preeclampsia Foundation, on the potential of this test to identify women at risk. But perhaps the article should have included another quote from Tsigas that appeared in a Canadian newspaper: “I am not going to be breaking out the champagne yet…” (See Wingrove J, Globe and Mail, September 13, 2010). Preeclampsia is a common but poorly understood pregnancy complication characterized by dangerously high blood pressure and elevated levels of protein in the urine. It affects up to 8% of pregnancies worldwide, with a particularly damaging impact in developing nations. In the United States preeclampsia is the root cause of 18% of maternal deaths. For babies born prematurely because of maternal preeclampsia, it is an important precursor of developmental abnormalities. The identification of a diagnostic test for preeclampsia has been termed the ""Holy Grail of obstetrics."" If preeclampsia could be recognized early in pregnancy, it might be possible to ward off some of its potentially serious consequences through vigilant surveillance of mother and baby. And identification of early changes that precede preeclampsia might boost research efforts into finding more effective treatments."
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mixture
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"Costs are not mentioned in this story. This is partially excusable because the diagnostic test is still under development, but, given the possibility of applying this test in low-resource settings, it would have been important for the reporter to ask the researchers for a cost range to show whether it is going to make any sense for most of the world. Many tests like this are too expensive to be applied widely, and there would be comparable tests that could be mentioned as a cost comparison. The story says that the study ""identified 40 organic molecules to be significantly elevated and 5 that were reduced in plasma at 14 to 16 weeks’ gestation,"" quoting the study. It would have been nice to have some context for those numbers. Is elevation bad? Is reduction good? The numbers just float and don’t add to our understanding. The story goes on to say, ""From this series of compounds they narrowed down a list of 14 sugars, fats and amino acids that were different in the women who developed the condition. It detected around 90 percent of the cases, with a false positive rate of about 24 percent, meaning 24 percent of the women flagged in the test as having a risk of pre-eclampsia would never actually develop it."" Given that the sample size is so small, the story should have provided the numbers both in percentages and in absolute terms. That 90 percent figure sounds huge, but we are still only talking about 71 women. And, of those, 17 were false positives. Those numbers would have been good context for helping readers understand the findings. The study itself is actually fairly easy to understand. The preliminary nature of the research makes it difficult to accurately assess potential risks associated with the diagnostic test. At the same time, high in the story the lead author touts the huge potential benefits of the research. ""Such a ""metabolic fingerprint"" test could save the lives of thousands of women, Philip Baker of the University of Alberta in Canada, who helped lead the study, said in a statement."" With all screenings and ""early warning sign"" tests there are opportunities for overtreatment and potentially harmful treatment, this should have been addressed in some fashion. For example, the main treatment right now for preeclampsia is magnesium sulfate. As the Preeclampsia Foundation, which is quoted in this story, points out on its website, ""Nevertheless, magnesium sulfate, is not a benign drug and must be used by a skilled health care provider with appropriate support facilities. Overdoses can and do occur."" The author did not convey clearly the preliminary nature of the evidence on this diagnostic test and did not present the study in an accurate context. There is little evidence of disease mongering in the article. Preeclampsia is a serious and potentially lethal condition for both mother and child, and that is made clear. The article did include a comment from Eleni Tsigas, executive director of the Preeclampsia Foundation. A better source would have been another researcher, perhaps one of the many cited in the article. The article did not mention whether any of the researchers had conflicts of interest regarding the development of the diagnostic test. The study itself says the authors had no disclosures and reports the study to be entirely government funded. Given that at least one outside source was contacted and that there were no obvious conflicts to disclose, we give this one a pass. The article made it clear there are no validated diagnostic tests for preeclampsia early in pregnancy. This is an experimental diagnostic test and not available beyond research settings. The story makes that clear. The article makes it clear that this is a novel diagnostic test. The article appeared to draw from the journal’s press release and on the press release from the University of Alberta. But there is enough original reporting here to make it squeak by."
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27903
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Planned Parenthood health centers do not perform mammograms.
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That care management program includes providing women with information about mammograms, referring them to health centers where they can obtain mammograms, and assisting them in covering the costs of the procedure by referring them to government programs that provide free mammograms or by using grant funds to reimburse the medical providers who perform the mammograms. (Referrals for mammograms often require the patient have undergone a breast exam within the previous year.)
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true
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Politics
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During a debate between presidential candidates on 16 October 2012, President Barack Obama mentioned Planned Parenthood several times, on one occasion stating women “rely on Planned Parenthood for … mammograms, for cervical cancer screenings.” That statement drew criticism asserting that President Obama had falsely implied that Planned Parenthood health centers themselves conduct mammogram procedures: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2012: Schedule your imaginary mammogram at Planned Parenthood! We all know Planned Parenthood DOES NOT PERFORM MAMMOGRAMS. However, President Obama, Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, celebrities in Hollywood and countless Planned Parenthood supporters claim over and over that they do. They absolutely refuse to admit that the largest abortion organization in the country does NOT PERFORM MAMMOGRAMS. It is true in a literal sense that Planned Parenthood health centers do not themselves conduct mammograms (a procedure which requires specialized equipment and the expertise to use it). Planned Parenthood offers comprehensive breast health care management, which includes manual breast exams as well as patient education on breast health, but not mammograms.
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41788
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"The Green New Deal would ""permanently eliminate all Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military."" "
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We explain what the Green New Deal includes — and doesn’t — and why there is confusion over some of the content.
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false
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climate change, environment, Green New Deal,
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On Feb. 7, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced her Green New Deal in the House and Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts introduced a companion resolution in the Senate. The text of the legislation, which is a nonbinding resolution, lays out a broad vision for how the country might tackle climate change over the next decade, while creating high-paying jobs and protecting vulnerable communities. Unlike a bill, this type of legislation is not presented to the president and cannot become law. Even if the Green New Deal passed in one or both chambers of Congress, separate legislation would have to be introduced to make any of the resolution’s goals a reality.Much of the response to the proposal has focused on details that don’t appear in the resolution text. President Donald Trump, for example, suggested on Feb. 9 in a tweet that the plan would “permanently eliminate all Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military.”I think it is very important for the Democrats to press forward with their Green New Deal. It would be great for the so-called “Carbon Footprint” to permanently eliminate all Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military – even if no other country would do the same. Brilliant!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2019Two days later, at a rally in El Paso, Trump repeated some of those claims, saying that he really doesn’t like “their policy of taking away your car, taking away your airplane flights, of ‘let’s hop a train to California,’ of ‘you’re not allowed to own cows anymore!’”Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming made similar claims when she warned in a subcommittee hearing on Feb. 12 that the Green New Deal would “outlaw” plane travel, gasoline, cars and “probably the entire U.S. military.”The Green New Deal doesn’t call for any of these prohibitions. But documents about the resolution released by Ocasio-Cortez’s office did address some of the issues raised by Trump and others. In a Feb. 8 interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, an adviser to Ocasio-Cortez incorrectly said that an FAQ document promising all Americans economic security, even if they were “unwilling to work,” was doctored, and was not put out by Ocasio-Cortez’s office. Although the resolution does not include that language, it was part of a fact sheet Ocasio-Cortez provided to media outlets and at one time was available on a blog post on the representative’s website. Her adviser, Robert Hockett, later admitted he was wrong. Here we explain what the Green New Deal includes — and doesn’t — and why there is confusion over some of the content.The Green New Deal is modeled in part after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which was a large federal program designed to stabilize the economy and recover from the Great Depression. The Green New Deal focuses on tackling climate change, but isn’t concerned just with reducing emissions. There are five goals, which the resolution says should be accomplished in a 10-year mobilization effort: The primary climate change goal is to reach net-zero greenhouse emissions in a decade. “Net-zero” means that after tallying up all the greenhouse gases that are released and subtracting those that are sequestered, or removed, there is no net addition to the atmosphere. The goal, then, is slightly less ambitious than calling for no greenhouse gas emissions at all.In October, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in a special report that in order to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — and thereby avoid many climate change impacts — the world would have to reach net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide by the year 2050.The resolution goes on to propose additional aims and projects to accomplish these overarching goals, but generally does not stipulate how the country will reach them. The resolution is also silent on cost and funding mechanisms.We’ll go through some of the specific topics that have received the most attention.One of the most ambitious and prominent goals of the Green New Deal is to meet “100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources.”The resolution doesn’t offer any more details, other than to say that this would include “dramatically expanding and upgrading renewable power sources” and “deploying new capacity.”One point of confusion has been what sorts of energy sources the Green New Deal would allow for electricity generation. Ocasio-Cortez’s office released an FAQ document that specifically said that new nuclear plants would not be permitted, although existing nuclear plants could stay. And in response to a question about carbon capture, utilization and storage, or CCUS, the fact sheet read, “We believe the right way to capture carbon is to plant trees and restore our natural ecosystems. CCUS technology to date has not proven effective.”But the text of the resolution does not mention nuclear power or carbon capture, and as written, does not prohibit either method of generation.In a press conference on Feb. 7 announcing the proposal, Markey told reporters that the fact sheet’s thoughts on nuclear power were not part of the resolution. He also added that while the resolution doesn’t mention carbon capture, “we are open to whatever works.”The power sector is one of the biggest contributors to the nation’s carbon footprint, although in recent years emissions have begun to fall. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, generating electricity accounts for about 28 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.If the country wants to reach net-zero emissions in a decade, one of the most important areas in which emissions reductions need to occur is transportation. Transportation recently surpassed power generation as the sector with the highest greenhouse gas emissions, and is responsible for about 28 percent of the U.S. total.As with electricity generation, the text of the resolution that discusses transportation is open-ended. The Green New Deal requires “overhauling transportation systems in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible, including through investment in— (i) zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and manufacturing; (ii) clean, affordable, and accessible public transit; and (iii) high-speed rail.”Some people, including the president, have said that the Green New Deal gets rid of cars or air travel. And as we’ve detailed elsewhere, some popular memes online have even suggested that the plan advocates building “trains over the oceans.”The resolution does not call for that. It only states that transportation emissions should be reduced “as much as is technically feasible,” and suggests three ways of reaching that goal, including high-speed rail and zero-emission vehicles, which would include electric cars. There is no mention of air travel.But air travel was mentioned in various FAQ materials produced by Ocasio-Cortez’s office. In one FAQ that was given to NPR, one of the highlighted projects was to “totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle.”At another point, the FAQ was trying to explain why the goal was net-zero emissions, rather than none at all, and said that was “because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”Corbin Trent, Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director, said in a phone interview that any such interpretation of the fact sheets was not intended. “Obviously, no, we’re not trying to ban air travel,” he said. Trent iterated that the Green New Deal does not include details in any other documents. “The resolution is what we’re focused on,” he said.A third major industry the Green New Deal targets is agriculture. About 9 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gases stem from agricultural activities, including the release of nitrous oxide from soil and methane from livestock. Once again, the agriculture section of the resolution is vague, stating only that one of the goals of the Green New Deal is “working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible, including— (i) by supporting family farming; (ii) by investing in sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health; and (iii) by building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food.”Although the resolution doesn’t say anything about cows, the animal is frequently mentioned by critics of the Green New Deal. The president referenced cows twice — once in his tweet, and again in El Paso. And on Feb. 12, Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming incorrectly said livestock would be banned and that ice cream was “another victim” of the proposal. “Say goodbye to dairy, to beef, to family farms to ranches,” he said. “American favorites like cheeseburgers and milkshakes will become a thing of the past.”Cows were discussed in two FAQ documents, which likely explains the preoccupation. As mentioned earlier, the fact sheet sent to NPR reads, “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”The same idea also appeared in a blog post on Ocasio-Cortez’s website, although the language was tweaked to omit “farting.” The post was taken down and no longer appears.Cows are one of several animals that produce methane as a result of digesting food. In a process known as enteric fermentation, microbes in the cow’s stomach help break down cattle feed, releasing the gas. The majority of the gas is actually exhaled from the mouth, or belched, not released from the back end. In the U.S., methane production from livestock accounts for almost a third of the greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, and more than a quarter of all methane emissions. Methane is about 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a century.Along with its environmental goals, the Green New Deal aims to provide economic security for Americans. One of the proposal’s key goals is to “create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States.” The plan also guarantees “a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States.”Both FAQ sheets — the version sent to NPR and the one posted to Ocasio-Cortez’s website — however, go further, and include a provision guaranteeing economic security to “all who are unable or unwilling to work.”There is nothing in the Green New Deal about providing for people who are “unwilling to work,” but the inclusion in the FAQ materials has proven to be one of the most contentious aspects of the Green New Deal’s rollout. In his Feb. 8 interview on Fox News, Hockett, a Cornell law professor and adviser to Ocasio-Cortez, falsely said that no materials released by the congresswoman included the “unwilling to work” language, and must have come from a doctored version. He later told the Daily Caller that he had been mistaken, and had been thinking of a doctored version of the Green New Deal that Ocasio-Cortez had tweeted about. That fake version of the Green New Deal falsely claimed that men would be required to urinate in “an empty milk jug instead of a toilet.”On Feb. 9, after a Washington Post reporter noticed the disconnect, Ocasio-Cortez responded on Twitter, noting that there were various versions of the Green New Deal and the FAQs.There are multiple doctored GND resolutions and FAQs floating around. There was also a draft version that got uploaded + taken down. There’s also draft versions floating out there.Point is, the real one is our submitted resolution, H.Res. 109: https://t.co/ZlgWmNQn57— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 9, 2019Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, also replied, saying that “an early draft of a FAQ that was clearly unfinished and that doesn’t represent the GND resolution got published to the website by mistake.” There separately IS a doctored FAQ floating around. And an early draft of a FAQ that was clearly unfinished and that doesn’t represent the GND resolution got published to the website by mistake (idea was to wait for launch, monitor q's, and rewrite that FAQ before publishing).— Saikat Chakrabarti (@saikatc) February 9, 2019“Mistakes happen when doing time launches like this coordinating multiple groups and collaborators,” he added. “But what’s in the resolution is the GND.”Corbin Trent, Ocasio-Cortez’s communications director, told us, “There was a mistake on the FAQ,” and said that he was personally responsible, but would not comment further. He pointed us to Chakrabarti’s Twitter thread and the resulting Washington Post article, which he said explained things well.Whether done accidentally or not, much of the confusion about what the resolution contains originates from discrepancies between the official resolution and documents that Ocasio-Cortez’s office distributed to news outlets and posted on her website, not because of “doctored” copies.The president’s Feb. 9 tweet also suggested that the Green New Deal would “permanently eliminate” the military. But the resolution does not mention the military at all, and neither do any of the FAQ materials Ocasio-Cortez’s office released or posted. Where did the idea come from? When we contacted the White House, the press office did not provide us with an on-the-record explanation. But one possibility is a separate proposal by the Green Party of the United States. The party’s policy also goes by the name “Green New Deal” and includes cutting military spending “by at least half” and closing military bases overseas, although it does not call for a complete end to the military. Despite some similarities, the two plans are distinct and should not be conflated.
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The governor’s cuts would kick over 8,000 people out of their homes.
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Our ruling Quade and Merideth said that the governor’s cuts would cause 8,000 people to lose their homes.
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false
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Corrections and Updates, Housing, State Budget, Missouri, Crystal Quade,
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"After Eric Greitens vetoed a bill in late June that would have created a possible mechanism for funding in-home care for Medicaid eligible seniors, veterans and people with disabilities, Rep. Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, and Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis City, wrote an open letter condemning the governor. In the letter published on Aug. 9, 2017, and picked up by several other newspapers, Quade and Merideth tried to rally support for a veto-override. The letter said, ""The governor’s cuts would kick over 8,000 people out of their homes."" But is the governor solely responsible for this outcome? And 8,000 people losing funding seems plausible, but physically kicked out of house and home? After talking to the chief of the public information office at the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, we found the representatives’ claim is not actually the case. (PolitiFact's database only allows us to check one speaker at a time, so we will check Quade here. The rating would also apply to the co-author, Merideth.) To start, Quade and Merideth put responsibility for the loss of funding squarely on the shoulders of the governor. In a literal sense, that’s true: Greitens’ veto means there will be no funding in place once the budget cuts go into effect. In early February, Greitens presented the annual budget proposal, which included cuts to Medicaid coverage for in-home care and nursing home services. Legislators scrambled to come up with a way to keep funding for vulnerable seniors in the budget. In the last minutes of the 2017 session, a bill was passed that authorized the government to divert funds from other boards and commissions to senior services. But Greitens called it a ""budget gimmick."" Because the bill failed to specify which funds were to be diverted, there was no guarantee there would be enough money to make up the difference. Greitens proposed the original cuts. Legislators tried to make up the difference, and they got a bill over the finish line. Greitens vetoed that bill. While legislators could have considered other methods of funding, the cuts to the budget ultimately fall on the shoulders of the governor, and a significant number of people will lose funding for in-home care as a result of them. We talked to Carol Hudspeth, director of the Missouri Alliance for In-Home Care, to get a better understanding of who these 8,000 people are that would supposedly be kicked out of their homes. State funding allows senior citizens, veterans and people with disabilities to receive care in their own homes instead of being moved to a nursing home facility. Hudspeth said eligibility for in-home care is assessed on a points system. The number of points given to a Medicaid-eligible senior is based on things like the number of medications taken, a state-issued health assessment and other needs. Currently, those assessed at and above 21 points are eligible for state funding for care. But budget cuts mean that now only those assessed at and above 24 points are eligible. When we reached out to Quade and Merideth about where they found the 8,000 figure, they directed us to several different sources, but those sources ultimately pointed us back to the Department of Health and Senior Services. Sara O’Connor, chief public information officer at the Department of Health and Senior Services, said people are rated on a scale with intervals of three, which means no one can be assessed at 22 or 23 points. The exact number of people currently assessed at 21 points, and effectively the amount of people currently eligible for funding that won’t be once these changes go into effect, is 7,913, according to the department. That’s pretty close to 8,000, but that’s 8,000 people losing state funding, not 8,000 people losing their homes. When a senior is assessed by the state as being eligible for assistance with care, families can opt for a variety of ways to obtain it. Hudspeth said some families move loved ones into assisted care facilities, but others hire in-home care providers who help, often on an hourly basis, with cooking, cleaning and bathing. When cuts go into effect, certain seniors, veterans and people with disabilities will lose the funds to hire in-home care providers, and Hudspeth said that means they will also lose funding to receive care at nursing homes or assisted-care facilities. When these individuals are assessed as to whether they are eligible for state funding, that assessment applies to both in-home care and nursing home care. So when funding is cut, they may only get care at the hospital in emergent situations. There are cases when these seniors, veterans and people with disabilities were initially assessed that they opted for their state-funded care providers to be family members. Though spouses are not eligible to receive state funding, children and other family members can be paid by the state to provide care. In fact, Hudspeth said that is a ""very common"" arrangement. In cases like this, it is likely some families would be able to continue to care for the senior in their home without the funding. Other community organizations also make that kind of care possible. The point is, without funding, vulnerable seniors, veterans and people with disabilities will certainly have to make adjustments that might put significant strain on families. Those adjustments don’t necessarily dictate loss of home. Quade and Merideth said that the governor’s cuts would cause 8,000 people to lose their homes. Greitens proposed the original budget cuts to in-home care and nursing home services for qualified seniors, veterans and people with disabilities. Legislators tried to come up with another way to fund these services, but Greitens vetoed that bill. The numbers suggest that just about 8,000 people will lose their funding when the budget cuts go into effect, but that doesn’t mean these people will lose their homes. These seniors, veterans and people with disabilities will lose the funding for both in-home care and nursing home services. But in some cases, they may employ other mechanisms to receive care, or depend more heavily on family-provided care that is not funded by the state. CORRECTION, Sept. 13, 2017: This article has been changed to reflect that when seniors, veterans and people with disabilities lose funding for in-home care, they also lose funding to go to a nursing home (or state-assisted living facilities) to receive care. An earlier version had said that the affected group would be forced to move into state-assisted living facilities."
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Scientists plan DNA hunt for Loch Ness monster next month.
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A global team of scientists plans to scour the icy depths of Loch Ness next month using environmental DNA (eDNA) in an experiment that may discover whether Scotland’s fabled monster really does, or did, exist.
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true
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Science News
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The use of eDNA sampling is already well established as a tool for monitoring marine life like whales and sharks. Whenever a creature moves through its environment, it leaves behind tiny fragments of DNA from skin, scales, feathers, fur, faeces and urine. “This DNA can be captured, sequenced and then used to identify that creature by comparing the sequence obtained to large databases of known genetic sequences from hundreds of thousands of different organisms,” said team spokesman Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago in New Zealand. The first written record of a monster relates to the Irish monk St Columba, who is said to have banished a “water beast” to the depths of the River Ness in the 6th century. The most famous picture of Nessie, known as the “surgeon’s photo”, was taken in 1934 and showed a head on a long neck emerging from the water. It was revealed 60 years later to have been a hoax that used a sea monster model attached to a toy submarine. Countless unsuccessful attempts to track down the monster have been made in the years since, notably in 2003 when the BBC funded an extensive scientific search that used 600 sonar beams and satellite tracking to sweep the full length of the loch. The most recent attempt was two years ago when a high-tech marine drone found a monster - but not the one it was looking for. The discovery turned out to be replica used in the 1970 film “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes”, which sank nearly 50 years ago. Gemmell’s team, which comprises scientists from Britain, Denmark, the United States, Australia and France, is keen to stress the expedition is more than just a monster hunt. “While the prospect of looking for evidence of the Loch Ness monster is the hook to this project, there is an extraordinary amount of new knowledge that we will gain from the work about organisms that inhabit Loch Ness,” Gemmell said on his university website. He predicts they will document new species of life, particularly bacteria, and will provide important data on the extent of several new invasive species recently seen in the loch, such as Pacific pink salmon. Their findings are expected to be presented in January 2019.
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Africa, Latin America fragile targets for coronavirus spread.
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The West African nation of Mali has roughly one ventilator per 1 million people — 20 in all to help the critically ill with respiratory failure. In Peru, with more than 32 million people, about 350 beds in intensive care units exist.
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true
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AP Top News, Health, Ebola virus, Latin America, Africa, International News, Senegal, West Africa, Virus Outbreak, General News
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The coronavirus is now moving into parts of the world that may be the least prepared. Some countries in Africa and Latin America lack the equipment or even trained health workers to respond. Many of their nations are slamming shut borders and banning large gatherings in the hope of avoiding the scenes in wealthier countries such as Italy and the U.S., but local transmission of the virus has begun. Containing that spread is the new challenge. Africa has more than 900 confirmed cases and Latin America more than 2,500, but an early response is crucial as fragile health systems could be quickly overwhelmed. With such limited resources, experts say identifying cases, tracing and testing are key. “We have seen how the virus actually accelerates that after a certain ... tipping point. So the best advice for Africa is to prepare for the worst and prepare today,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday. “We have different and significant barriers to health care in Africa, which could be a real challenge,” said Dr. Ngozi Erondu, a senior research fellow at the Chatham House Center for Global Health Security. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa do not have the isolation wards or large number of health care workers to respond to a surge of COVID-19 patients, she said. Liberia and Burkina Faso only have a few ventilators for their millions of people. Dr. Bernard Olayo, founder of the Kenya-based Center for Public Health and Development, said most countries in Africa can’t afford ventilators. Even if ventilators were provided by other countries, it’s not sufficient because of the lack of qualified people to use them. “It’s complex, it’s very very complex because the patients that end up on ventilators require round the clock care by larger teams,” he said. Many patients could do well with just oxygen, he said, but close to half of health facilities in African countries don’t have reliable oxygen supplies. Oxygen concentrators can be used, but given the frequent electricity cuts in many countries, oxygen generators and pressure cylinders are needed because they can function while power is out. The WHO regional Africa director, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, said the lack of ICU facilities and ventilators is one of the biggest challenges facing the continent. “We have been able to identify importing a field hospital-type of facility that can be set up and equipped with some of the key items needed, such as ventilators,” she said. Training has begun in Republic of Congo and Senegal so health care workers will be ready to operate it, and World Bank funding is being made available, she said. It’s not all grim. Elsie Kanza, head of Africa at the World Economic Forum, said many countries are deploying lessons learned from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2016 that killed well over 10,000 people. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was created to respond to that Ebola outbreak. As of Thursday, 43 countries can test for the coronavirus, it said. In addition, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma this week pledged to donate 1.1 million testing kits, 6 million masks and 60,000 protective suits and face shields to share among all African countries. Meanwhile, Senegal is helping to develop a fast COVID-19 test that is expected in June. But some including Adama Dempster, a human rights advocate in Liberia, warned that support for African nations’ efforts might dry up if cases soar. “It’s something that is worrisome because other countries that are so powerful and have the sophistication to deal with things like this are themselves concerned about their own situation,” she said. Africa isn’t the only continent worried about what’s to come. Several countries in Latin America are among the least prepared in the world for a pandemic, with healthcare systems already stretched thin. Peruvian Minister of Defense Walter Martos told local America TV on Monday that the nation has less than 400 respirators available. “It’s not a lot,” he said. “Really, we don’t have the infrastructure that developed nations do.” Peru and other nations in Latin America are looking to the experience in Europe as a cautionary tale and hoping to curtail the spread of coronavirus cases before they overwhelm hospitals. Epidemiologist Cristian Díaz Vélez said those measures could potentially create a slower rise in cases that is more manageable for Peru’s medical system. He said the country has around 300 to 350 beds in intensive care units, half of which are now in use. “It will overwhelm our healthcare system,” he said, if cases skyrocket. Other countries in Latin America could fare far worse. Venezuela ranks 176th of 195 nations worldwide in preparedness for a health crisis, according to the Global Health Security Index, a project of the John Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Nuclear Threat Initiative. The nation’s healthcare system has been crippled by years of economic contraction, political chaos and a humanitarian crisis, with rising infant mortality rates and critical shortages of water and medicine. A migration crisis in which over 4.5 million people have fled – one of the largest exoduses in the world today – could exacerbate the spread of the virus throughout the region. That is of particular concern in Colombia, where nearly 2 million Venezuelans now live. Hospitals along the border have seen their capacity stretched. The coronavirus pandemic could tip them further over the edge. “The health system obviously has a capacity that could be clearly surpassed, in Colombia and in any country in Latin America,” said Dr. Alfonso Rodríguez-Morales, vice president of the Colombian Association for Infectious Diseases. __ AP reporters Clarence Roy-Macaulay in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia, Babacar Dione in Dakar, Senegal, Sam Mednick in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso; Christine Armario in Bogota, Colombia, and Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.
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"Florida First Project Says Carlos Beruff ""supported (Charlie) Crist even after he switched parties."
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"Florida First Project said Beruff ""supported Crist even after he switched parties."" Beruff had supported Crist’s 2010 Senate run when Crist ran as a Republican, giving the maximum legal amount in donations. After Crist switched to an independent run, Beruff also attended a Crist fundraiser, although he denied supporting Crist in any way at that event. The Bradenton developer was listed as dependable Crist supporter in a news report prior to the switch, and didn’t ask for a refund of his donations. We found nary a mention of Beruff beyond that. But the bottom line is, even if Beruff denies it now, there's evidence that he didn't give Crist the same cold shoulder other Republicans immediately did."
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true
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Candidate Biography, Florida, Florida First Project,
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"Florida’s GOP primary for U.S. Senate has turned into mutual finger-pointing over which candidate is possibly more like former Republican Charlie Crist. A super PAC called the Florida First Project released an ad July 14 calling Sen. Marco Rubio’s primary opponent Carlos Beruff a ""Charlie Crist Republican,"" a major insult among the Florida GOP faithful. The PAC supports Rubio’s re-election bid and is managed by several staffers from Conservative Solutions PAC, which backed Rubio’s presidential run. ""Beruff supported Crist even after he switched parties, and stabbed Republicans in the back,"" the ad says. The line refers specifically to the Bradenton developer’s support for Crist’s 2010 Senate campaign against Rubio. Former Gov. Crist switched from Republican to having no party affiliation as Rubio’s campaign gained steam. After losing that race, Crist lost a 2014 re-election bid for governor as a Democrat, and currently is running as a Democrat for a U.S. House seat held by Rep. David Jolly, R-Indian Shores. Beruff has released his own ad counterattacking Rubio, accusing him of being a ""political opportunist"" like Crist. We wondered whether Rubio’s challenge of Beruff’s Republican bona fides was correct. Did Beruff still support Crist after Crist became an independent candidate? His actions at the time don't indicate Beruff shunned Crist entirely, despite what he says now. Grist about Crist Beruff likes to claim that he is a political outsider, but he has long been involved in Florida politics. Crist as governor appointed Beruff to three political boards: the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport Authority, the State College of Florida Board of Trustees, and the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Beruff also has donated thousands to Republican candidates over the years, including to Crist’s Senate campaign. Crist announced his Senate candidacy in May 2009. Federal Election Commission reports from June 2009 showed Beruff gave Crist the maximum allowed for individuals — $2,400 for the primary and $2,400 for the general elections. (Beruff’s companies also had donated to Crist when he ran for governor in 2006.) As Rubio gained traction, Crist toyed with the idea of switching his registration. An April 2010 story in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune listed Beruff as a donor who would continue to support Crist if he made such a move. The story also listed other Republicans as faithful to Crist, including former Sarasota Republican Party chairmen Bob Waechter and Eric Robinson, and prominent chiropractor Gary Kompothecras. By the end of April 2010, down 20 points to Rubio in the polls, Crist announced he would cede the Republican nomination for Senate by switching to no party affiliation. Several weeks later, in June 2010, Beruff attended a fundraiser for Crist (with several Democrats) at Kompothecras’ Siesta Key home. It seems peculiar that Beruff would have gone to any Crist event during the politically charged atmosphere of the 2010 Senate race had he disagreed with Crist’s decision. At the time, Republicans faced a bitter rift in their party over Crist's defection, and choosing sides was a very public issue. To give you an idea of how contentious Crist's decision was, state Rep. David Rivera of Miami called it ""one of the biggest betrayals in American history since Benedict Arnold."" Beruff’s political opponents have made hay of his attendance at the fundraiser, repeatedly. U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, who faced Beruff in the primary before dropping out, made the same accusation back in February, starting a website called CharlieCristRepublican.com. Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera dropped out of the Senate race and also lobbed the attack at Beruff earlier this summer. But Beruff has recently denied supporting Crist, despite going to the fundraiser, and said he gave up on Crist after he ""got stupid"" and left the Republican Party. A Crist spokesman declined to say whether Beruff threw support to Crist at the fundraiser. We couldn’t find any other reports from six years ago listing Beruff as a vocal Crist advocate when he turned NPA. We also didn't find an instance of Beruff speaking out against Crist. Through campaign spokesman Chris Hartline, Beruff told PolitiFact Florida he voted for Rubio over Crist, but was ""disappointed"" in Rubio’s performance. The Washington Free Beacon asked Beruff about the 2010 fundraiser after Lopez-Cantera’s comments. Beruff admitted he was there, but said he was no longer supporting Crist at the time. There’s no record of Beruff donating to Rubio. ""If Dr. Gary (Kompothecras) invites me to something at his house, I go, unless I am out of town,"" Beruff told the Free Beacon. ""He’s a good friend, even though we don’t share political roadways all the time."" Beruff also said he had not donated to Crist after the party affiliation switch, saying ""follow the money."" Hartline echoed the sentiment when we asked him about it. ""It's a lie, and Marco Rubio knows it,"" Hartline told us in a statement. ""Carlos never supported Charlie Crist after he left the Republican Party. His last donation to Crist was June 1, 2009, almost 11 months before he became an independent."" Of course, there’s good reason why Beruff didn’t donate any more money, even if he wanted to. He had reached the $4,800 legal limit and was prohibited from giving further. ""Beruff could not have given more in the 2010 cycle, but he gave at a time when Crist was running for the Republican nomination,"" Douglas Weber, senior researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics, told PolitiFact Florida via email. There is no evidence of Beruff giving Crist money since. Furthermore, news reports at the time said some donors demanded refunds after Crist’s party switch. Beruff did not. Hartline said it was because Beruff ""turned his focus to helping Rick Scott in his run for governor."" Our ruling Florida First Project said Beruff ""supported Crist even after he switched parties."" Beruff had supported Crist’s 2010 Senate run when Crist ran as a Republican, giving the maximum legal amount in donations. After Crist switched to an independent run, Beruff also attended a Crist fundraiser, although he denied supporting Crist in any way at that event. The Bradenton developer was listed as dependable Crist supporter in a news report prior to the switch, and didn’t ask for a refund of his donations. We found nary a mention of Beruff beyond that. But the bottom line is, even if Beruff denies it now, there's evidence that he didn't give Crist the same cold shoulder other Republicans immediately did."
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27572
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Kissing bugs in the U.S. carry a disease-causing parasite.
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In late February 2017, the discovery of a Chagas-infected kissing bug in Lubbock, Texas led to renewed interest in risks posed by the parasite, and in July 2017 the warning spread about “barber beetles.”
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true
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Critter Country, barber beetle, barber beetles, chagas
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A group of researchers reported in October 2014 that the Triatomine bug, a reduviid bug living in the United States, can carry a parasite that causes Chagas disease. Examples: Is the barber beetle dangerous even causing fatality with its bite while you sleep? Looking for info on a bug named the Barber Beetle. The Pink Penguin website states that this bug can infect one with a parasite and the parasite carries the Chagas disease. Website states you must kill the bug and if you don’t you need to call an exterminator immediately. Sound like an African bug if nothing else. Have several friends who never check out what they are sharing, rely on your site a lot. Thank you. Read an article about a bug that sounds to be the new insect of the plague. Aids is the similar disease this “Insect” supposedly spreads through its bite. Chagas and Trypanosome were the diseases also known to be spread. Is this real? Gross Bugs with a Cute Name Moving North: Kissing Bugs & Chagas Disease https://t.co/OSP8aSHcjc pic.twitter.com/OAPUPGgyKV — InfectionControl (@PreventionTips) March 13, 2017 Melissa Nolan Garcia, a research associate at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, presented two studies at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. For one study, Garcia and her team collected 40 triatomine bugs in Texas and discovered nearly 75% of the bugs were carrying the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. For the second study, Garcia’s team examined 17 blood donors who had symptoms consistent with Chagas disease: “We are finding new evidence that locally acquired human transmission is occurring in Texas. We were surprised to find that 36 percent (of the blood donors) had evidence of being a locally acquired case. Additionally, 41 percent of this presumably healthy blood donor population had heart abnormalities consistent with Chagas cardiac disease.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) believes nearly 300,000 people may be infected with the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi in the United States. Garcia believes this number may be higher, however, since many people infected with the disease are asymptomatic and undiagnosed: “It’s a silent killer. People don’t feel sick, so they don’t seek care, but it causes heart disease in about 30 percent of those who get infected. Physicians should consider Chagas when patients have swelling and enlargement of the heart not caused by high blood pressure, diabetes or other causes, even if they do not have a history of travel.” The CDC has classified Chagas Disease as one of five Neglected Parasitic Infections in the United States. Chagas, as well as cysticercosis, toxocariasis, toxoplasmosis, and trichomoniasis, are considered NPIs in the United States since little attention has been dedicated to their surveillance, prevention, and treatment. A CDC factsheet about NPIs in the United States reads: Most people think of parasitic diseases occurring in poor and developing countries, something they might pick up on an overseas trip. However, parasitic infections still occur in the United States, and in some cases, affect millions of people. Often they can go unnoticed, with few symptoms. But many times these infections cause serious illnesses, including seizures, blindness, heart failure, and even death.Anyone, regardless of race or economic status, can become infected, although minorities, immigrants, and people living in poor or disadvantaged communities appear to be most at risk. The good news is that most of these infections can be prevented, and many are treatable. However, these infections are often undetected and untreated. Why? Most people do not know they are infected or at risk, or don’t have access to appropriate care. And often, health care providers are unfamiliar with these parasitic infections, and may not diagnose or treat them appropriately. We have limited understanding about how many people are infected, or who is most at risk.” Triatomine bugs (also called reduviid bugs, kissing bugs, assassin bugs, cone-nosed bugs, and blood suckers) have been found in the Southern United States, Mexico, Central America, and South America: The parasite that causes the disease is in the bug feces. The bug generally defecates on or near a person while it is feeding on his or her blood, generally when the person is sleeping. Transmission occurs when fecal material gets rubbed into the bite wound or into a mucous membrane (for example, the eye or mouth), and the parasite enters the body. Shortly after Garcia reported her findings, several publications ran sensational headlines claiming Chagas disease was the “new AIDS.” Although the threat is real, it is unlikely for someone in the United States to be infected by a kissing bug: “There have been a few reports of people becoming infected with these bugs here in the United States. We don’t know how often that is happening because there may be cases that are undiagnosed, since many doctors would not think to test their patients for this disease. However, we believe the risk of infection is very low.” Chagas Disease can be fatal, but many people infected by Trypanosoma cruzi never develop the disease and remain asymptomatic for life. According to the CDC, only about 30% of infected people will “develop debilitating and sometimes life-threatening medical problems over the course of their lives.” A November 2015 report on the discovery of kissing bugs in Georgia noted that there had not been a reported case of Chagas in that state since 1855: The “kissing bug,” which can carry a parasite in its feces that can cause a deadly disease, has been found in Georgia, according to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.However, according to Dr. Susan Montgomery of the CDC, the bugs have been around Georgia since 1855 and there has never been a reported case of the disease via the bug in the state. There’s a low chance in the United States of getting Chagas from a triatomine bug, according to the CDC. The species of bug in the U.S. is more often found in wooded areas than in people’s homes, Montgomery said. It often feeds on wildlife. Nationwide, there have been less than 30 total reported cases of Chagas acquired through the bugs, Montgomery said.
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Death toll from new China bird flu rises: WHO.
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Six more people in China have been confirmed as infected with the new H7N9 strain of bird flu and one of them has died, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday.
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true
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Health News
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Three of the other five patients are in either a serious or a critical condition in hospital, while the remaining two have mild symptoms, the United Nations health agency said in a disease outbreak update. H7N9 bird flu emerged last year in China and has infected around 150 people so far there and in Taiwan and Hong Kong, killing at least 46 of them. The latest death was a 38-year-old man from China’s Fujian Province who became ill with H7N9 on January 3, was admitted to hospital on January 8 but died 2 days later. He had underlying illnesses, including tuberculosis and pneumoconiosis. China’s state news agency Xinhua reported another death from H7N9 in the southwestern Guizhou province on Monday, but this has yet to be confirmed by the WHO. A 65-year-old man infected with H7N9 also died in Hong Kong, the government said on Monday. The WHO reiterated there is no evidence as yet of any easy or sustained person-to-person transmission of the strain, and that the source of the human infections is still under investigation. Researchers in the United States said last month that while it is not impossible that H7N9 could become easily transmissible between people, it would need to undergo multiple mutations to do that. Scientists around the world are keeping a watchful eye, on alert for any sign the virus might develop that potential and start to spread rapidly.
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8272
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Britain reports two cases of coronavirus, evacuation flight from China lands.
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Two patients from the same family in England have tested positive for coronavirus, the first such cases in Britain, health chiefs said on Friday as an evacuation flight brought Britons home from the centre of the outbreak in China.
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true
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Health News
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Officials had warned that the United Kingdom was highly likely to have cases of the new coronavirus, which first emerged in China’s central province of Hubei and has killed 213 people so far. “The patients are receiving specialist National Health Service (NHS) care and we are using tried and tested infection-control procedures to prevent further spread of the virus,” said England’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty. He said the two infected patients, who local media said had been staying at a hotel in the city of York, had been transferred to a specialist infectious disease unit in Newcastle, northeast England. Whitty said it could turn out to be a relatively minor infection as there was only a 2% mortality rate. Staff, other patients and the general public would not be at risk, he said, and health officials were tracing those who had been in close contact with the pair. Whitty also said they were extending their advice so that anyone who had returned from China should “self-isolate” if they developed symptoms of any kind. On Thursday, Britain raised the perceived risk level to the country to moderate from low after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global health emergency. A plane transported 83 British nationals from Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, to Britain on Friday before flying on to Madrid to deposit another 27 European Union (EU) citizens, mostly Spaniards. The Spanish passengers will be quarantined at a military hospital in Madrid, while four Danish citizens and one Norwegian will be flown back to their home countries, according to Spain’s Health Ministry. The returning Britons will be quarantined for 14 days at an NHS facility in northwest England. One of those on board, Ben Williams, told BBC TV he had just got married in China and had been on his honeymoon. He said he had been forced to leave behind his wife, a Chinese national, because they had not had time to arrange for her to come. “Hopefully it’s only a few months,” he said. “It’s good to be back but I also miss China as well.” Whitty said the intention was to keep those who had returned close to medical services in case they needed them. “What we hope is that all these people will have 14 days isolated from the general public, but not in the sense of solitary confinement, and then they will be able to be released without any symptoms at all,” he said. Senior British minister Michael Gove said Britain would send another plane to Wuhan if necessary.
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17923
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"The Capitol Police force is ""going so far as to use paramilitary equipment"" in dealing with singing protesters in Madison"
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"Larson said the Capitol Police force under Walker is ""going so far as to use paramilitary equipment"" at daily singalong protests in Madison. There’s an element of truth to his claim, in that these devices have paramilitary and military uses. But they also are used by a variety of non-military agencies for communication and mass notification, and Capitol Police appear to have used them predominantly, if not almost exclusively, to make sure protesters are clued in that arrests will follow if they don’t disperse. Unlike in Pittsburgh and other cities where police have used the devices, we found no scenes here of stunned protesters scurrying away in the face of ear-splitting noise. Editors note: This item was updated Sept. 19, 2013 to clarify in the first paragraph the judge's ruling."
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false
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Criminal Justice, Wisconsin, Chris Larson,
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"Arrests and escalating tension became routine at the longrunning Solidarity Sing Along protests at the Capitol rotunda in Madison after a judge left in place for now the state's authority to require a permit to protest when more than 20 demonstrators gather. Many refused to get permits after the July ruling, and Capitol Police responded with arrests after trying futilely to shout warnings into bullhorns as a chorus of protesters drowned them out. The noontime protests began in 2011 in reaction to Gov. Scott Walker’s move to sharply curtail union collective bargaining power. In early September 2013, trying to break the standoff over the singalong arrests, a top legislative Democrat took both the singers and the Walker administration to task. ""I think the singers are in the wrong and should get a permit if they are going to protest on a continuous basis and they know they are going to be there,"" Senate Minority Leader Chris Larson of Milwaukee said Sept. 5, 2013 on ""The Devil’s Advocates Radio show (WXXM-FM 92.1 in Madison). ""I agree with many of their protests, I agree with where they’re coming from, but I think it’s a simple act ..."" Then Larson caught our attention with this: ""At the same time, I think that Walker is overstepping his bounds and is in the wrong by enforcing this to the extent that he is, in giving his police chief a raise in a shadowy way, and is going so far as to use paramilitary equipment to try and shut down the voices of the protesters. So both sides could take a step towards the middle."" We’re familiar with the controversy over the use of a ghost job to give the new Capitol Police chief a double-digit pay raise. But Larson’s line about ""paramilitary equipment"" employed by the Capitol cops was a new one for us. The phrase conjures up images of officers in riot gear and flak jackets, and advanced weaponry inside the Capitol, where -- we should note -- arrests have tapered off dramatically in September. Larson’s office told us the ""equipment"" in question is one device that broadcasts a message warning protesters they are subject to arrest unless they disperse. The machine can emit a high-pitched noise, we were told. With a bit of research, we found that protesters here and elsewhere call the machine a ""sound cannon"" or ""sonic weapon."" And with a bit more research, we learned that state officials term it an ""advanced microphone."" Sounds like a job for the Truth-O-Meter. The equipment in question is described by its manufacturer as the hand-held LRAD 100X ""long range acoustic device."" It and its much larger cousins have come under scrutiny as crowd-control and communication mechanisms in clashes between police and protesters in Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, at the NATO summit in Chicago and elsewhere. The device’s loudspeaker function cut through crowd noise and clearly communicate at up to 1,000 meters, its maker, San Diego-based LRAD Corporation, says. Protesters who’ve labeled it a cannon have focused on the high-pitched, high-decibel ""warning tone"" the machine can emit. The continuous squeal sent street protesters scurrying away at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh in 2009. Regarding the warning tone on the LRAD 100X model used at the Capitol, the company’s website says: ""The warning tone provides a non-lethal deterrent, shapes behavior, and supports intent determination while preserving time for force escalation."" Translation: the tone can get people’s attention, get them to momentarily stop what they are doing or move out of the way. At very close range (about 3 feet), the 100X’s warning tone puts out 137 decibels continuously. Brief exposure to noise at 120 dB (a nearby clap of thunder) or 140-190 dB (gunshot) can cause immediate hearing damage, according to the Dangerous Decibels project. LRAD spokesman Robert Putnam told us that putting hands over your ears or stepping six feet out of the narrow sound field can remove the risk of injury. But here’s the deal: With the exception of a brief test, it appears that Capitol Police in Madison are not using the warning tone. We watched dozens of YouTube videos taken by protesters, and talked to people who’ve observed most of the rallies, and could find evidence of only one rally at which police briefly sounded the continuous shrill warning tone. That was on July 18, 2013, which our research shows may have been the first day the police put the device into use. A spokeswoman for the state agency that oversees the Capitol Police, told us the device is not being used ""in that manner"" but declined to discuss the July 18 video. ""It would be inaccurate to say that the (Capitol Police Department) uses the LRAD in a harmful manner – they use it make an announcement,"" state Department of Administration spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said. ""There is a brief beeping right before the announcement starts ..."" On July 18, the video shows, uniformed officers accompanied by a man in street clothes walked the device in with the warning squeal activated. ""Watch out, there’s a sleeping child,"" an off-camera man says to them. The warning tone sounded for at least 20 seconds and crowd reaction to it appeared minimal. In Madison, a story in Isthmus, the Madison weekly newspaper and website, on the July 18 protest called the device a ""loudspeaker."" On that day and others we observed on video, officers stationed themselves one floor above the ground floor of the rotunda where most singers gather. One officer holds up the 14-inch by 14-inch black speaker while another works the microphone and MP3 player containing the message to disperse. It did not appear that arrests were made on July 18. Overall, then, the evidence strongly suggests that police are using the machine to get a message out before making arrests, not to drive people off with an annoying or threatening warning tone. Paramilitary in nature? Larson described the device as ""paramilitary"" in nature. In recent years, as critics have complained about the militarization of police forces, the ""paramilitary"" label has been attached to a variety of gear, notably that used by military-style special weapons and tactics (SWAT) units. Things like body armor, shields, night vision goggles, armored vehicles. The marketing of the acoustic devices suggests it fits into multiple categories, including military, paramilitary, and traditional law enforcement. LRAD Corporation created it following the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole. Since then, the military, companies -- and more than 100 law enforcement agencies including National Guard units -- have put them to use in diverse ways including fending off pirates, issuing storm warnings, serving warrants and for SWAT operations, riot control, hostage situations and crowd control at large events and protests. In war zones, soldiers have mounted units to vehicles or used them at security checkpoints to communicate with civilians in order to avoid potentially lethal misunderstandings, said Putnam. So there’s no doubt they have military and paramilitary applications, and are marketed as such. Still, they can also be used purely as communications devices, as the Capitol Police in Madison appear to be doing. The devices, we found, do not appear on a list of ""paramilitary"" equipment outlined in United Nations sanctions documents banning batons, clubs, riot sticks, body armor, riot shields and whips. A detailed 2011 Canadian police review of law enforcement use of LRADs said they have been called both ""weapons"" and ""devices."" The review recommended that police factor in volume control and standoff distances when using the warning alarm function. Our rating Larson said the Capitol Police force under Walker is ""going so far as to use paramilitary equipment"" at daily singalong protests in Madison. There’s an element of truth to his claim, in that these devices have paramilitary and military uses. But they also are used by a variety of non-military agencies for communication and mass notification, and Capitol Police appear to have used them predominantly, if not almost exclusively, to make sure protesters are clued in that arrests will follow if they don’t disperse. Unlike in Pittsburgh and other cities where police have used the devices, we found no scenes here of stunned protesters scurrying away in the face of ear-splitting noise. Our definition of is that a statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We think that fits here. Editors note: This item was updated Sept. 19, 2013 to clarify in the first paragraph the judge's ruling."
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12537
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Alex Jones Says police officers smoke marijuana once a year as part of their jobs.
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"Defending his own use of marijuana, Jones said police officers ""smoke it once a year, too."" He didn’t offer any proof of his claim that cops light up joints annually to test the strength of cannabis, and we couldn’t find any. Perhaps Jones anecdotally knows or has heard of police officers who don't keep off the grass, but we didn't find a cop shop that said that was a policy. Law enforcement agencies generally test marijuana potency in a laboratory setting, and not by lighting up in the squad room (or elsewhere). "
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false
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Drugs, PunditFact, Marijuana, Alex Jones,
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"Texas-based radio show host Alex Jones admitted during a child custody hearing that he has smoked cannabis, in violation of state law. But he only smoked it once per year, he reasoned — just like law enforcement does. Locked in a custody battle over his three children with his ex-wife, the conservative media personality made the admission during testimony in Austin, Texas, on April 20. That’s right, 4/20. Jones said that he tries marijuana annually to gauge its potency. He argued from the stand that he thought marijuana was too strong, a shortcoming he blamed on billionaire George Soros, a frequent scapegoat of conspiracy theorists. Why smoke cannabis annually? ""That’s what police do,"" Jones said, according to the Austin American-Statesman. ""They smoke it once a year, too."" Jones has admitted to smoking marijuana before, and notably sparked up on Joe Rogan’s podcast earlier this year. While marijuana is illegal in Texas, it is decriminalized in California, where Rogan’s show was recorded. PolitiFact has checked claims about marijuana potency before, the gist being that cannabis is as much as 800 percent stronger now than it was four decades ago. We attempted to contact Jones through his InfoWars website to suss out the basis of his claim that cops rolled their own, but did not receive a response. Jones may have been speaking anecdotally, with or without firsthand knowledge of stoner cops. Law enforcement agencies, however, suggested that Jones was just blowing smoke. Where there’s smoke In general, when people talk about marijuana’s potency, they mean the levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. That’s the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, which contains hundreds of chemical compounds. There’s plenty of research that shows THC levels have increased over the years. A 2010 study by researchers at the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi, for example, found that the THC concentrations had risen by about 171 percent in just a 16-year time period. That study used 46,000 samples of marijuana seized during law enforcement raids. But there was no indication that cops smoked the ganja to find out how strong it was. That’s a job for a laboratory. There are a couple of methods for measuring the chemical compounds in cannabis, but all of them take a certain level of scientific proficiency and technical equipment. Many states that have medical or recreational marijuana have labs that test for these compounds; one company in California has even developed testers for business use outside of a lab. But it’s not like you can take a few hits and spit out a THC percentage, the way Jones implied. We don’t know how he concocted his theory, or which police department he believed was letting officers light up, but we checked with a few places. The Texas Department of Public Safety said they did not have any specifics about departmental drug testing, either for seized evidence or for employees. The state does operate several crime labs that test drugs seized as evidence. The Texas Police Association also did not tell us any particular procedure used by law enforcement agencies. They only said that each department in the state would have its own policies and methods. Since Jones is in Austin, we went to the local P.D. to ask them if it’s possible cops spark up the local dank to get an idea of how strong the weed is there. In a word, no. Jennifer Herber, a spokeswoman for the Austin police department, pointed out that the department’s policy manual prohibited marijuana use. The department does not test cannabis, she said. On a federal level, Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Russ Bayer said the DEA operates its own labs to gauge potency and purity of all kinds of drugs, including marijuana. Depending on the case, the labs may test evidence from federal cases or helping local authorities. But agents toking up to give drugs a personal test? ""It’s laughable. Not plausible,"" Bayer said. ""Frankly, it’s insulting. The DEA would never allow consumption of any controlled substance."" Our ruling Defending his own use of marijuana, Jones said police officers ""smoke it once a year, too."" He didn’t offer any proof of his claim that cops light up joints annually to test the strength of cannabis, and we couldn’t find any. Perhaps Jones anecdotally knows or has heard of police officers who don't keep off the grass, but we didn't find a cop shop that said that was a policy. Law enforcement agencies generally test marijuana potency in a laboratory setting, and not by lighting up in the squad room (or elsewhere)."
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8975
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"Liquid biopsy"" test improves health outcomes and can save over $500 million annually for the U.S. healthcare system"
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Many cases of prostate cancer would benefit from a wait-and-see approach, but the available diagnostic instrument, PSA testing, leads to hundreds of thousands of prostate biopsies each year and, for some 18% of those tested, complications such as infections and sexual dysfunction arise. This news release describes a recent modeling exercise of the impacts of a non-invasive urine test, SelectMDx, that is already being used to identify cancers serious enough to warrant a full biopsy. The exercise found that the test was of modest value to individual patients, leading on average to fewer than 20 additional healthy days, but could lead to significant societal cost savings over the course of a year for more than 300,000 patients by reducing the number of cases that move on to a full biopsy. Prostate cancer was the leading solid tumor and second leading cause of death from cancer in American males in 2017. Paradoxically, it also can simmer at a low ebb without medical intervention or harm for many men. Figuring out whose cancer can be left alone and whose deserve a full-on attack has proved challenging, making the development of non-invasive screening tests important. SelectMDx is one of several such tests. All screening tests are non-invasive, the issue is that PSA is elevated not only in men without cancers but in men with low-risk cancers. Making biopsy decisions based on PSA alone leads to unnecessary biopsies in men without cancer and often to unnecessary treatment in men with a low-risk cancer who undergo active treatment.
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false
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liquid biopsy,MDxHealth,prostate cancer
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Although a major aim of the study was to examine societal costs of employing this test, the actual cost of the test to an individual patient is nowhere to be found. It appears to be in the hundreds of dollars, and there is no sign that Medicare is covering it as of yet. The release notes that a number of US-based insurance companies have contracted to use the test. The release does a good job of explaining the benefits of the SelectMDx test at both individual and societal levels. Those benefits are pretty modest for a patient: a gain of 16 days of health at a cost savings of nearly $1700, on average. But they are impressive when one ramps up to a societal level, given that more than 300,000 patients a year consider undergoing biopsies. But it needs to be recognize that benefits and cost savings are estimated. The authors acknowledged that literature estimates for clinical benefits may not be applicable for the general population and the actual cost savings are uncertain because commercial payment rates are unknown. Although providing urine for the test involves little to no risk, choosing not to move forward with a biopsy as a result of the test does bring with it a risk of being wrong, should the cancer be aggressive (a false negative). The likelihood of that error would be an important piece of information. The study cites a reference suggesting that the sensitivity for detecting high-risk cancers was 95.7%. The researchers appear to have built a mathematical decision model to simulate survival and cost outcomes of two conditions: a prostate diagnosis aided by a traditional biopsy or, alternatively, the initial employment of the SelectMDx test to judge if a biopsy is recommended. The news release offers little in the way of explanation. The release seems to gloss over the fact this is a modeling study. The author’s quote that the study demonstrated that using the test improves health outcomes and lowers healthcare costs is misleading. The modeling results only suggest that it might. We don’t know how the test would be applied or interpreted in real-world decision making so any actual benefits remain speculative. The release doesn’t engage in disease mongering. It provides helpful context on the numbers of prostate cancer diagnosed each year, as well as the complications associated with testing and followup treatment. Given the relatively high rate of complications stemming from the many prostate biopsies that are conducted each year, this effort to validate a non-invasive diagnostic test could have value. Neither element shows up in the text. Since the news release comes from the company MDxHealth, which is marketing the test, one might assume that the company paid for the study. But the text of the research report suggests otherwise, indicating funding from the American Cancer Society and a foundation focused on urological research. That would have been a useful addition to the release. Although the text does a good job of explaining the risks of a prostate biopsy, it does not make clear that the gains found in the study stem from a comparison of employing the SelectMDx test to determine if a particular prostate cancer warrants further diagnostic efforts versus using a PSA test or ultrasound to make such a judgment. The traditional alternative is actually to make biopsy decisions based on PSA alone–not ultrasound (which is used for the biopsy). However, MRI is increasingly being used to identify potential high-risk tumors and guide guide biopsy decisions: MRI-targeted or standard biopsy for prostate-cancer diagnosis. Kasivsisvanathan V, et al. N Engl J Med 2018; 378:1767. It is clear that the test is already in use. The lead correctly identifies the research as a “new” study but fails to acknowledge the publication of a very similar piece of research more than a year earlier that generated almost identical results in Europe. Much of the release focuses, appropriately, on the cost-effectiveness of the test at an aggregate level.
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1755
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Scientists find rare burial site of Ice Age infant in Alaska.
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Archaeologists working in Alaska’s remote interior have discovered the burial site of an Ice Age infant and a late-term fetus believed to be the youngest remains found in the Americas dating from that period.
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true
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Science News
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The burials, found underneath the cremated remains of an Ice Age toddler, date to about 11,500 years ago and provide new insights into mortuary practices of the people who lived in the area of the Upward Sun River site at the time. The largely complete skeletons were found in a circular pit with associated “grave goods” that included four antler rods and two stone projectile points, all decorated with red ochre, according to research carried out last year by a team led by University of Alaska anthropologist Ben Potter. In a paper published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team said skeletal and dental analyses indicate one of the skeletons was of an infant that died shortly after birth, while the other was of a late-term fetus. The site represents the youngest-aged late Pleistocene individuals known in the Americas, it said, as well as the continent’s only known prenatal burial dating from the period. The pair, both tentatively believed to have been female, were found buried about 16 inches (40 cm) beneath the cremated remains of a 3-year-old child that was previously excavated by the team during work at the site in 2010. “Two interred infants with associated grave goods and a third cremated child represent the earliest known human remains from the North American subarctic, and they provide evidence for novel mortuary behaviors at the end of the last Ice Age,” the authors wrote. The team, which included Joel Irish of Liverpool John Moores University, said the site shares characteristics with other burials from the same periods, including interment in pits, red ochre, and grave goods consisting of functional tools, as opposed to ornaments or trinkets. The archaeologists believe the stone projectile points were once attached to the antler rods to make tools or weapons, and could reflect the importance of hunting implements in the burial ceremony. But they said they also noted the predominance of fish and small game remains at the site.
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16097
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When Colorado eased its medical marijuana laws, fatal accidents involving pot-using drivers soared while overall traffic fatalities decreased.
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"""Drugged driving"" claim based on flawed data"
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mixture
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"Georgia, Public Safety, Marijuana, Charles ""Chuck"" Spahos, "
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"Cautions abound from opponents and supporters alike in Georgia’s debate about whether to legalize medical marijuana. The most likely measure to pass is a bill that gained traction last year and is being reintroduced this year by state Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, to allow cannabis oil for treatment of certain seizure disorders and other health problems. But a second bill to allow vaporized, edible and smokeable marijuana for medical use has prompted new claims about safety problems and other unintended consequences. Chuck Spahos, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, told a joint legislative committee that no district attorney in the state will prosecute those caught with cannabis oil. But he warned lawmakers about smokeable marijuana, saying that Colorado has seen the number of traffic fatalities go up among drivers who test positive for marijuana, at the same time that state’s overall traffic fatality rate declined. ""Colorado has seen a decrease in traffic fatalities by 14.8 percent between 2007 and 2012,"" Spahos said. ""But it’s up 100 percent for operators who tested positive for marijuana."" ""We don’t want to stand in the way of this oil being available,"" he said. ""This is how bad it’s going to be if we let it go too far."" So did medical marijuana really lead to such a dramatic uptick in stoned drivers? PolitiFact Georgia decided to check it out. First, it’s important to understand Colorado’s history on the issue. Voters there approved medical marijuana in its smokeable form in 2000. But commercialization of the drug did not really begin until 2009, when federal officials announced they would not seek prosecution of those complying with state medical marijuana laws. Voters approved recreational use of the drug last year. So the statistics Spahos referenced covered just before the rapid growth of marijuana dispensaries but before recreational use was permitted. He cited an August 2014 report from the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Traffic Area as his source. The report is unequivocal. The exact figures cited by Spahos are found in the findings under the report’s section for impaired driving. A chart breaks down the actual numbers: Year Statewide Fatalities Operators Testing Positive 2007 554 39 2008 548 43 2009 465 47 2010 450 49 2011 447 63 2012 472 78 Based on this report, Spahos’ claim appears accurate. However, there are several complications with the data. No one from the RMHIDTA responded to requests for comment. The report cites the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and its own research for its data. But when contacted, a spokesman for the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration referred us back to the Colorado Department of Transportation for the figures, saying each state reports different information. No federal data could confirm the report’s claim. Meanwhile, the statistics from Colorado’s DOT don’t match the RMHIDTA report. The DOT figures are: Year Statewide Fatalities Drivers Testing Positive 2007 554 26 2008 548 31 2009 465 37 2010 450 42 2011 447 52 2012 474 36 The DOT figures confirm an overall decrease in traffic fatalities, but show about a 39 percent increase for drivers who tested positive for marijuana. That’s still an increase, but hardly a 100 percent jump. More importantly, Colorado DOT spokeswoman Amy Ford said the agency is cautious to use their own data to make any pronouncements. That’s because the data is incomplete. Not every driver in a fatal crash is tested for drugs. Colorado law long allowed a conviction based on just drunken driving – at .08 percent blood alcohol level – so some agencies never bothered with any additional testing. The state only began tracking drugged driving – driving high – this year, so there is no historical data to compare, Ford said. ""We do not draw an incredible amount of conclusions from that data,"" she said. The federal data for all states likewise focuses on drunken, not drugged, drivers. Several studies show that marijuana can slow reaction time and similarly impair drivers in much the way alcohol does. One study found that dead drivers were three times more likely to test positive for cannabis in 2010 when compared to those who died in 1999. But the marijuana will show up longer in blood work and does not appear to increase the chances of a fatal accident as much as booze, according to a 2013 study by researchers at Columbia University. So if Georgia were to legalize smoking marijuana, does that mean there would not be a rash of high drivers risking their safety and that of others? Colorado’s research indicates specific drivers – essentially young men – are more likely to drive high when the drug is legal. The state has launched a public awareness campaign to the new law that allows police to cite those motorists for driving under the influence, Ford said. In other words, there are clear dangers to driving under the influence of marijuana, much as there are for driving intoxicated. But while a regional report claims that those risks have led to a 100 percent increase in fatal crashes where the driver tested positive for cannabis, official state figures directly contradict those figures. Spahos was citing that published report, but the report and figures surrounding the topic are flawed."
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34339
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More than four times as many people are stabbed to death than killed with rifles of any kind.
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The most recent UCR report, which contains annual homicide figures from 2014 through 2018, can be viewed here. The report features this disclaimer: “NOTE: The Uniform Crime Reporting Technical Refresh enables updating of prior years’ crime data; therefore, data presented in this table may not match previously published data.”
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unproven
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Politics, breitbart, crime statistics, gun violence
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On 16 October 2017, Breitbart.com posted a story reporting that according to 2016 crime statistics published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, more people are murdered with knives or by beaten to death than with rifles: According to FBI: UCR Table 12, there were approximately 374 people shot and killed with rifles of any kind. There were 1,604 people killed with “knives or cutting instruments.” Table 12 also shows that more people were killed via the use of “hands, fists, feet, etc.,” than were killed by rifles of any kind. In fact, the tally shows that the death numbers were not even close. While approximately 374 people were shot and killed with rifles, roughly 656 people were beaten to death with “hands, fists, feet, etc.” (The article failed to mention that in thousands of cases, the type of firearm used was not specified or reported to the FBI.) Every year, the FBI releases the Uniform Crime Report (UCR), a national set of crime statistics which is compiled from data submitted by the nation’s roughly 18,000 police departments. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the UCR is one of the two official sources, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Fatal Injury Reports, from which the nation’s homicide rate is measured. Unlike the FBI, the CDC’s report collects data from death certificates reported by physicians, medical examiners and coroners. Per the UCR, 9,103 murders were committed with firearms in 2015, while the CDC’s figure is significantly higher — 12,979. For murder data, the FBI figures are broken down by type of weapons used in the following categories: Total firearms; handguns; rifles; shotguns; firearms — type unknown; knives or cutting instruments; other weapons; and hands, fists, feet, et cetera. These figures are provided to the FBI by state agencies that collect encoded crime data from individual police departments. According to the most recently updated (as of 2018) FBI data for 2016, the year referenced in the Breitbart article, 10,372 of the 15,318 murders in the United States were committed with firearms. Handguns were the most common type of firearm used in 6,762 cases. In 2,891 cases, the type of gun was not reported to the FBI or was listed as “other” while in 1,853 instances, the weapon was not identified or was listed as “other.” It’s unlikely that a total of only 374 murders in the U.S. (a figure since revised to 300) were committed with rifles in 2016, given the fact that in more than 4,000 cases the weapon or type of gun was not specified in the UCR. What is clear from the figures, however, is that handguns are by far the most-used murder weapon, probably because they are easier to transport and conceal. Phillip Cook, Terry Sanford Professor Emeritus of Public Policy Studies at Duke University, told us: [H]andguns are used far more often to kill people than are rifles. Almost all homicides occur away from the perpetrators’ place of residence, suggesting that the gun had to be transported. Handguns are more convenient to carry and to deploy than are rifles Broadly speaking, there are simply more handguns in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ annual Firearms Commerce in the United States report — the only official source available estimating the number of guns in the U.S. In 2015 more than 4.4 million pistols and revolvers were manufactured domestically versus nearly 3.7 million rifles. In 2016, nearly 3.7 million handguns were imported versus nearly 730,000 rifles. These are the most recent figures available. The parameters selected for the article appear to be contrived to oppose calls by politicians to limit access to assault weapons in the wake of of the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, in which 58 people were killed and hundreds injured. The shooter, Stephen Paddock, used a modified weapon to rain automatic gunfire into a country music concert crowd from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Per Breitbart: This is not to diminish the deaths of those who did die via a rifle. But it does show that the Democrats’ relentless focus on banning “assault weapons” is a focus on something that is not used for homicide with anywhere near the frequency of knives and/or fists and feet. Based solely on the numbers provided in the UCR, we don’t know definitively how many crimes were committed with which type of weapons in a given year — but we have an overview that shows the vast majority of murders are committed with firearms, regardless of type. However, since 1990, reported violent crime in the United States has been on a downward trend. According to the UCR, there was an uptick in murders by 1,320 crimes from 2015 to 2016 — 1,226 of those due to firearms.
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28463
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A meme presents accurately describes Japan's healthcare and health insurance system.
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That’s true. More specifically, the fees are set by a government-appointed body called the Central Social Insurance Medical Council. A 2016 study in the journal Risk Management and Healthcare Policy described the system as “a uniform fee schedule at national level,” noting that “All providers, no matter whether private or public, share the same prices for their medicines, devices, and services under this nationwide fee schedule.”
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mixture
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Politics, health insurance, healthcare, japan
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Healthcare reform has been a perennial political project in American politics, from the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and those of Richard Nixon through Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and now Donald Trump. Both those for and against the concept of the United States’ adopting a universal health care system often use comparisons between the U.S. and other countries to advocate for their positions, as exemplified by a 20 April 2018 post on the “U.S. Democratic Socialists” Facebook page featuring a widely-shared meme purportedly outlining the main features of the Japanese healthcare system: We examine this meme point-by-point below: 1. 100 percent of Japanese have health insurance. This is basically true. Japan has universal health care, which means that everyone who lives there (except undocumented immigrants and short-term visitors) can access affordable care and is required by law to be covered by some form of insurance. For the most part, residents do this through two kinds of insurance, which are administered by the government: employment-based health insurance, and National Health Insurance (known as “Kokumin Kenko Hoken“). However, Japan’s aging population, low birth rate, and economic stagnation have placed a burden on the country’s universal health care system, so reforms to that system are under way. 2. Costs are half of what is spent for healthcare in the United States. By the two most commonly-used metrics, this is about right. A country’s health spending is most often measured in a couple of ways: the percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) spent on healthcare, and healthcare spending per capita (the total amount spent on health care divided by the number of people living in the country). According to 2016 data published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United States spends 17.2 percent of its GDP on healthcare, by far the highest proportion among developed countries. Japan spends 10.9 percent of its GDP, about two-thirds the relative amount the United States does. In 2016, total healthcare spending in the United States worked out to be $9,892 per person per year, again by far the highest level in the developed world. In Japan that figure was $4,519 per person, which is less than half than the United States spends. 3. Japanese can choose their own doctors and see them twice as often as Americans Japan has what is known as a “free access” system, which means — as the meme correctly states — that for the most part patients can use whichever doctors and hospitals they choose. According to the Health and Global Policy Institute, patients should get a referral letter before presenting at larger hospitals. This is partly because the free access system can sometimes mean individuals with only minor ailments present at hospital emergency rooms, creating a backlog for patients in more urgent need of care. Japanese people visit doctors even more than twice as often Americans do, at least according to OECD data. Figures from 2011 (the most recent year for which a direct comparison is possible) show that United States residents averaged four doctors’ consultations per person that year in the United States, while in Japan the figure was more than three times higher, at 13 doctors’ consultations per person that year. (In 2014, that figure was 12.7 doctors’ visits per person per year in Japan.) 4. Japanese have the world’s longest life expectancy and the second lowest infant mortality. This is true. According to United Nations data, a Japanese person born in 2014 could expect to live, on average, until the age of 83.6, the highest life expectancy figure of more than 200 countries. (Children born in Hong Kong can expect to live to 84, but Hong Kong is a territory of China, not a sovereign nation.) Research has shown that the relatively healthy diet and lifestyle of Japanese people, as well as good healthcare, plays a significant role in their longevity. United Nations data also show that in 2013, the most recent year for which data are available, Japan had the joint second-lowest rate of infant mortality in the world, defined as the number of children who died under the age of one for every 1,000 live births. With 2.1 infant deaths per 1,000 live births, Japan was ranked second, along with Finland and just behind Iceland and Luxembourg. 5. 95 percent of Japanese healthcare is not-for-profit. It’s not clear what this claim means, so we can’t really evaluate its accuracy. Does this mean 95 percent of healthcare providers operate on a not-for-profit basis? That 95 percent of procedures are performed on a non-profit basis? That 95 percent of all health care expenditures relates to not-for-profit providers? We do know that by law, hospitals in Japan cannot operate for profit, with the exception of large for-profit companies who build hospitals for their own employees. According to an analysis by Ryozo Matsuda, a health policy expert at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, 80 percent of hospitals are privately run. Facilities that provide care for elderly and disabled people (e.g., nursing home care, respite care, home care) can operate for profit, and according to Matsuda, most do. 6. The government sets all fees for medical services and drugs.
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Migraine patients can now try three new drugs for prevention
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The story reports on three drugs recently approved by the FDA to prevent headaches in people who get frequent migraine headaches. The drugs, known as calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) inhibitors, are erenumab (Aimovig), fremanezumab (Ajovy), and galcanezumab (Emgality). The story did some things well–for example, it included the prices of the drugs and mentioned the lack of long-term safety data. However, the story didn’t disclose that one of the physicians quoted in the story has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from companies that make these and other migraine drugs. We also wanted to know more about the design and veracity of the clinical trials behind these drugs. Migraines can be disabling. Better treatments that reliably ward them off could dramatically increase the quality of life for millions. But given their high costs and short track records, these new drugs need to be written about cautiously by journalists. Financial interests of sources should be made clear.
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mixture
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migraine
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The story reported the drugs all cost about $600 a month and insurance is expected to offset the cost, “but patients will be eligible only if they have tried other drugs first and found they didn’t help.” This was a tough call. The story reported that the drugs “appeared to be equally effective. About half the patients had a 50 percent or greater reduction in the number of headaches they experienced. Almost three-quarters had at least a 30 percent reduction.” That’s not really enough information to assess the benefits (what was the frequency of headaches per month? ), but the story follows that up with: It also reported that chronic migraine patients “had about two fewer headache days a month than those who took placebos. The placebo group had a small reduction in headaches, too. In the treatment groups, the intensity of the headaches also went down.” While this is more informative, it still doesn’t give readers a sense of the scope–how many migraine days were people experiencing before taking the drug, and then after? What about the placebo group? For example, in a trial for Emgality, patients who averaged 19.4 migraine days per month saw their migraine days reduced by 4.8 or 4.6 days per month depending on their dosage, versus a reduction of 2.7 days for those who took a placebo. This gives a more specific sense of the benefits than what the story included. It’s especially interesting to see how the drug compared to the placebo. The story addressed the major concern with these medications: that it “remains to be seen how patients who take them for long periods will fare. As new drugs, their long-term impact is not yet known.” The story story also reported the new drugs have “a lower side-effect profile” than other medications commonly used for migraine, and mild constipation was the most serious side effect of the drugs in the trials. The story could have mentioned other adverse events. For example, with Emgality, hypersensitivity reactions such as rashes were reported in clinical studies. We think readers deserved to know at least a few details about the quality of the data. The story didn’t give any. For example, how many patients were these drugs tested on, and how typical were they of people with chronic migraines in term so age and health status? Were any of the drugs tested by independent researchers, or were all of the trails sponsored by the drugs manufacturers? And how did the drugs perform on the primary endpoints that their clinical trials had actually been designed to measure? Although Dr. Silberstein suggests that these new drugs are equally as effective as existing preventive drugs, there are no comparative studies to confirm the statement. Studies to date have only compared the new drugs to placebo. The story didn’t engage in disease-mongering. It said migraines affect 40 million people in the U.S., and one to 2% of the population falls into the category of chronic migraines patients, defined 15 migraines per month for at least three months. The story used one source who appears to be independent, Katherine Hamilton, MD, of Penn State. However, it didn’t disclose that another source, Stephen Silberstein, MD, has substantial conflicts of interest. He personally received more than $620,000 from companies that make those and other migraine drugs from 2013 to 2017, according to CMS’s Open Payments database. Most of the payments were for consulting, but he also pocketed money for such things as travel, food and beverages, and speaking fees. The story did mention that Silberstein was involved in testing one of the drugs — erenumab — and helped design and run the trial for another — fremanezumab. But that didn’t fully inform readers. The story didn’t offer meaningful comparisons of these drugs with existing alternatives. The lead somewhat dismissively stated that people with migraines have had to “make do with drugs originally developed for other medical conditions, such as high blood pressure or depression.” The story reported that all three drugs have been approved for sale by the FDA and a fourth — which isn’t named — is in development. As the story suggested, these new drugs are the first on the market that are designed to block CGRP in migraine patients. The story did not appear to rely on a news release.
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"Donald Trump Says that when Michelle Fields ""found out that there was a security camera, and that they had her on tape, all of a sudden that story changed."
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"Trump said that when Michelle Fields ""found out that there was a security camera, and that they had her on tape, all of a sudden that story changed."" We see no evidence that Fields’ story about her altercation with Trump’s campaign manager has changed. She gave an initial account and hasn't backed off of it."
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false
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National, Legal Issues, Donald Trump,
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"Donald Trump is maintaining the innocence of his campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who was arrested March 29 and charged with simple battery for forcefully grabbing a reporter. Following a March 8 press conference in Jupiter, Fla., Michelle Fields, at the time a writer for the conservative website Breitbart, tried to ask Trump a question as he was leaving. Lewandowski allegedly grabbed Fields’ arm and pulled her away, leaving bruises. When news of the incident started to spread, Lewandowski tweeted at Fields, saying, ""you are totally delusional. I never touched you."" But security footage of the event released by the Jupiter Police Department March 29 appears to show Lewandowski grabbing Fields. (video from the Washington Post) Despite the recent video, Trump said Lewandowski didn’t misrepresent what happened. Rather, it’s Fields who is being deceptive, he said. ""(Fields) said she went to the ground, or something to the effect of she almost went to the ground,"" Trump said at a March 29 CNN town hall. ""She was in pain. She went to the ground. When she found out that there was a security camera, and that they had her on tape, all of a sudden that story changed. She didn't talk about it."" Trump asked on Twitter why no one was checking to see how Fields’ story changed, and Fields responded, ""Because my story never changed. Seriously, just stop lying."" Did Fields change her story on what happened between her and Lewandowski? It appears not. We couldn’t find an example of her publicly retelling what happened since the second week of March when the story first unfolded. And since the security footage became public March 29, Fields has not yet given an interview. We tried to reach Trump and Fields and did not hear back. At the CNN town hall, Trump said Fields’ initial claim was that she fell to the ground or that she almost fell to the ground. It was the latter. ""I was jolted backwards,"" Fields wrote March 10. ""Someone had grabbed me tightly by the arm and yanked me down. I almost fell to the ground, but was able to maintain my balance. Nonetheless, I was shaken."" The Washington Post’s Ben Terris witnessed the incident and wrote a similar account the same day. ""As security parted the masses to give him passage out of the chandelier-lit ballroom, (Fields) pressed forward to ask the Republican front-runner a question,"" Terris wrote. ""I watched as a man with short-cropped hair and a suit grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the way. He was Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 41-year-old campaign manager."" Lewandowski and the Trump campaign immediately denied Fields’ accusation. ""The accusation, which has only been made in the media and never addressed directly with the campaign, is entirely false,"" spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement. ""As one of the dozens of individuals present as Mr. Trump exited the press conference I did not witness any encounter. In addition to our staff, which had no knowledge of said situation, not a single camera or reporter of more than 100 in attendance captured the alleged incident."" Fields stood by her account of what happened in a March 14 interview with Fox’s Megyn Kelly. ""This is a campaign that continues to lie,"" she said. ""I never wanted it to get this way. Those bruises will heal. My problem is the smearing of my name, my reputation."" Following the incident, Breitbart editor-at-large Joel Pollak published a report where he questioned whether it was actually Lewandowski who grabbed Fields rather than another man. Claiming Breitbart was standing with the Trump campaign instead of its own employees, Fields and several other Breitbart employees resigned. Since the security footage came out in the past couple days, though, Pollak has admitted that his report was incorrect. Trump, conversely, said the footage ""exonerates"" Lewandowski ""totally."" It doesn’t; it looks from the video as if he did grab her — and the police report says the video is consistent with what Fields alleged. Trump also criticized Fields for allegedly grabbing him to ask a question and for holding a pen. While somewhat expected for a reporter to have a pen handy, Trump said it could have been a ""little bomb"" or a knife. Our ruling Trump said that when Michelle Fields ""found out that there was a security camera, and that they had her on tape, all of a sudden that story changed."" We see no evidence that Fields’ story about her altercation with Trump’s campaign manager has changed. She gave an initial account and hasn't backed off of it."
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11507
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Cravings for High-Calorie Foods May Be Switched Off in the Brain by New Supplement
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This news release describes results of a small, preliminary study that adds a bit more tantalizing evidence that a dietary supplement derived from a gut bacteria product may reduce appetite for high-calorie foods. The product is inulin propionate ester, a concentrated form of a compound released by normal gut bacteria when they digest a form of fiber called inulin. In turn, that compound is thought to send signals to the brain’s appetite centers that reduce food cravings. The release, issued by Imperial College London and the University of Glasgow, does a good job of explaining how the gut-brain-satiety issues were studied in 20 human volunteers, and a decent job of framing the findings as evidence for — if not proof of — the principle that altering the gut’s microbiome can affect the regulation of appetite, food choices and possibly weight gain. But the release is much too light on quantification of the results, the limitations of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies and information on the 20 participants. It also omits information on any potential risks associated with the experimental supplement and the fact that an inulin powder supplement product has already made it to market. It’s hardly news that obesity and its disease consequences are epidemic in the developed world, especially, and that any “quick and easy” method that claims to reduce cravings for the most appealing foods (sweets, carbs, etc.) would find a multitude of buyers. Research efforts that succeed in filling in details of the complex mind-brain-gut-appetite pathways are important and difficult to achieve. The research described in this release — framed by one of the investigators as “filling in a missing bit of the jigsaw” by demonstrating that the supplement decreases activity in brain areas linked to “food reward” and even “reducing the amount of food” the volunteers ate — is likely to grab attention. But we’d also caution readers that studies involving fMRI statistical analyses have recently come under fire for questionable validity since they tend to generate a high number of false-positive results.
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mixture
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Academic medical center news release,Weight loss
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Granted, the study is preliminary but the release could have included an estimated cost for the supplement, particularly since a form of inulin powder is already available commercially in supplement shops and online. We’re told by the release that participants who drank a milkshake with inulin-proprionate ester had “less” activity in areas of their brain linked to reward when shown pictures of high calorie foods. But no information is given about how much less, whether all of the participants experienced the same effect (or how many actually did and did not), or how many of the participants who drank the supplement ate 10 percent less than the control group that drank a shake with an apparently less concentrated form of inulin (the fiber) alone. Similarly, the reader is told that “overweight volunteers” who got the ester supplement daily “gained less weight” over six months, but not how much less or how overweight they were. It’s impossible to tell from the release (but it would have been very useful to know) the age and gender of the volunteers. If they were college students, for example, or mostly female, metabolic and hormonal factors might have played an outsized role in the results. Finally, references to “previous studies” were nonspecific, and did not even mention if they were animal or human studies. Even if there were no direct harms/side effects of the supplements, it would have been useful to say so explicitly. It would also be useful to know if there’s a risk from long-term use since there was the suggestion it might have an impact on the body’s microorganisms. It also appears as if the MRI was a form of fMRI which may have carried some risks, however small. The release gave only a sketchy description of the make-up of the study population and didn’t mention any of the specific weaknesses — or limitations — of the study methods. The published study noted that energy intake data (calories consumed) wasn’t available for a quarter of the volunteers (5 out of 20) which could limit the reliability of the measured outcomes. The study group was also limited to normal weight males. The authors noted that the study findings would need to be be confirmed in obese individuals who may have altered reward and emotional responses to food. The release would have been stronger with some discussion on the calorie content of the milkshake whereby the supplement was delivered. The calories matter a fair bit since the study found that the supplement in the milkshake reduced consumption compared to the milkshake with just inulin by 10 percent. The study did not find that the supplement alone decreased consumption and while one might hope that it does, it can’t be deduced from this research. Other components of the milkshake and its viscosity may affect subsequent energy intake. Does eating 10 percent less of one bowl of pasta after taking the supplement, as mentioned in the release, tell us anything meaningful about how this might work over the long term and whether it would really impact weight? The published study noted that long-term effects of inulin use are not yet known. No mongering detected. The release discloses funding sources. The release notes that eating the amount of fiber to produce the same effects on the gut biome as the experimental supplement would be difficult, and notes that the average amount of daily fiber intake in the UK is just 15 grams, compared to the 60 grams that would be needed. As noted in the summary above, an alternative inulin-based product is already on the market. That would have been a useful addition to the release. The release implicitly makes the point that the powder used in the experiment is not available to the public, but the release would have been better if this had been explicit. The release does a good job of saying what is “new” about this particular piece of research, compared to previous studies. The release is somewhat weakened by “omissions” of information, rather than by unjustifiable language.
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15169
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"Reid Ribble Says Donald Trump ""wants to replace"" Obamacare ""with a single-payer system."
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"Ribble said Trump ""wants to replace"" Obamacare ""with a single-payer system."" Trump continues to praise single payer -- a health care system in which the government pays for care for all citizens -- at least as it used in other countries. But he has spoken a number of times, if vaguely, about a private system and at one point said he does not support single payer in the United States. Since then, his responses have been less clear."
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mixture
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Health Care, Public Health, Wisconsin, Reid Ribble,
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"As the Summer of Trump wore on, a quiet congressman from Wisconsin decided he'd had enough of his party's ostentatious presidential frontrunner. Reid Ribble, a Republican from the Green Bay area, went public not only to blast Donald Trump's name calling -- particularly Trump’s calling Fox News talk show host Megyn Kelly a ""bimbo"" -- but to call him out as not being a conservative. In one interview, Ribble made several claims about Trump's non-conservatism to Milwaukee conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes. One was about a so-called single-payer health care system, in which the government pays for care for all citizens. ""The interesting this is, I'm not the guy who's saying we should have completely socialized medicine,"" Ribble said Sept. 8, 2015 on WTMJ-AM (620). ""I want to repeal Obamacare and replace it with (a) free-market system. He wants to replace it with a single-payer system. That's hardly a conservative posture."" Sometimes Trump's positions can seem to be a moving target; and whether they are conservative can be open to interpretation. But does Trump want to install a single-payer health care system? Twice in the past two months our colleagues have reviewed claims similar to Ribble's. So let's start there. First True In July 2015, conservative columnist Erick Erickson wrote that Trump ""has supported a Canadian-style universal health care system."". In 1999, during his short-lived 2000 Reform Party presidential bid, Trump told CNN's Larry King: ""If you can’t take care of your sick in the country, forget it, it’s all over. ... I believe in universal healthcare."" And in his 2000 book ""The America We Deserve,"" Trump made a strong pitch for universal health care. As to how the country might achieve universal coverage, Trump focused on a Canadian-style, single-payer plan. So, Trump has supported single payer in the past. Then On Aug. 2, 2015, GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry, the former Texas governor, said Trump is ""for single-payer"" -- essentially a present-tense version of the columnist’s claim. Our colleagues found that earlier in 2015, Trump voiced admiration for Scotland’s health care system, which is single payer. But in another interview -- while stopping short of rejecting single payer -- he talked about offering private plans made through ""deals with hospitals"" that allow the government to help people ""at the lower levels."" A spokesperson for Trump insisted at the time that Trump has ""never supported socialized medicine,"" but is for ""a universal ‘market-based’ plan that would offer a range of choices."" So as the 2016 campaign unfolded, Trump has said he admires single payer, but also suggested he prefers free-market models, as well. PolitiFact National’s rating of Perry’s claim was . The two fact checks were what Ribble’s office cited to us to back Ribble’s claim. (Trump’s campaign didn’t reply to us.) But Trump has since had more to say on the subject. Then what? Two days after the more recent fact check, Trump was asked on MSNBC’s ""Morning Joe"" talk show: ""Are you for single-payer health care?"" Trump replied: ""No, but it’s certainly something that in certain countries works. It actually works incredibly well in Scotland. Some people think it really works in Canada. But not here, I don’t think it would work as well here. What has to happen -- I like the concept of private enterprise coming in ….You have to create competition. And you have to go back to a system of private."" The no part of Trump’s answer, even as he repeated praise for single payer, seemed to indicate Trump does not favor it for the United States. But he has since been less clear. Two days later, at the first Republican presidential debate on April 6, 2015, Fox News host Bret Baier asked Trump: ""Now, 15 years ago, you called yourself a liberal on health care. You were for a single-payer system, a Canadian-style system. Why were you for that then and why aren’t you for it now?"" Trump answered first by speaking about foreign policy, then said: ""As far as single payer, it works in Canada. It works incredibly well in Scotland. It could have worked in a different age, which is the age you’re talking about here. ""What I’d like to see is a private system without the artificial lines around every state …..Get rid of the artificial lines and you will have yourself great plans. And then we have to take care of the people that can’t take care of themselves. And I will do that through a different system."" Again, a mixed bag: praising single payer, but advocating, if vaguely, for a private system. More recently, Trump essentially gave no answer when conservative talk show host Sean Hannity asked him about single payer on Hannity’s Sept. 1, 2015 radio program. After covering other topics, Trump replied by saying: ""As far as single-payer and all — there’s so many different things you could have. Honestly, Sean, to do, to have great health insurance. The one thing I do tell people, we’re going to have something great. We’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare, which is a total disaster."" Our rating Ribble said Trump ""wants to replace"" Obamacare ""with a single-payer system."" Trump continues to praise single payer -- a health care system in which the government pays for care for all citizens -- at least as it used in other countries. But he has spoken a number of times, if vaguely, about a private system and at one point said he does not support single payer in the United States. Since then, his responses have been less clear."
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London HIV patient becomes world's second AIDS cure hope.
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An HIV-positive man in Britain has become the second known adult worldwide to be cleared of the AIDS virus after he received a bone marrow transplant from an HIV-resistant donor, his doctors said.
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true
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Health News
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Almost three years after he received bone marrow stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that resists HIV infection - and more than 18 months after he came off antiretroviral drugs - highly sensitive tests still show no trace of the man’s previous HIV infection. “There is no virus there that we can measure. We can’t detect anything,” said Ravindra Gupta, a professor and HIV biologist who co-led a team of doctors treating the man. AIDS experts said the case is a proof of the concept that scientists will one day be able to end AIDS, and marks a “critical moment” in the search for an HIV cure, but does not mean that cure has already been found. Gupta described his patient as “functionally cured” and “in remission”, but cautioned: “It’s too early to say he’s cured.” The man is being called “the London patient”, in part because his case is similar to the first known case of a functional cure of HIV - in an American man, Timothy Brown, who became known as the Berlin patient when he underwent similar treatment in Germany in 2007 which also cleared his HIV. Brown, who had been living in Berlin, has since moved to the United States and, according to HIV experts, is still HIV-free. Some 37 million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV and the AIDS pandemic has killed about 35 million people worldwide since it began in the 1980s. Scientific research into the complex virus has in recent years led to the development of drug combinations that can keep it at bay in most patients. Gupta, now at Cambridge University, treated the London patient when he was working at University College London. The man had contracted HIV in 2003, Gupta said, and in 2012 was also diagnosed with a type of blood cancer called Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. In 2016, when he was very sick with cancer, doctors decided to seek a transplant match for him. “This was really his last chance of survival,” Gupta told Reuters. The donor - who was unrelated - had a genetic mutation known as ‘CCR5 delta 32’, which confers resistance to HIV. The transplant went relatively smoothly, Gupta said, but there were some side effects, including the patient suffering a period of “graft-versus-host” disease - a condition in which donor immune cells attack the recipient’s immune cells. Most experts say it is inconceivable such treatments could be a way of curing all patients. The procedure is expensive, complex and risky. To do this in others, exact match donors would have to be found in the tiny proportion of people — most of them of northern European descent — who have the CCR5 mutation that makes them resistant to the virus. “Although this is not a viable large-scale strategy for a cure, it does represent a critical moment,” said Anton Pozniak, president of the International AIDS Society. “The hope is that this will eventually lead to a safe, cost-effective and easy strategy...using gene technology or antibody techniques.” Specialists said it is also not yet clear whether the CCR5 resistance is the only key - or whether the graft-versus-host disease may have been just as important. Both the Berlin and London patients had this complication, which may have played a role in the loss of HIV-infected cells, Gupta said. His team plans to use these findings to explore potential new HIV treatment strategies. “We need to understand if we could knock out this (CCR5) receptor in people with HIV, which may be possible with gene therapy,” he said. The London patient, whose case was set to be reported in the journal Nature and presented at a medical conference in Seattle on Tuesday, has asked his medical team not to reveal his name, age, nationality or other details.
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Donald Trump Says N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo “rejected buying recommended 16,000 ventilators in 2015 for the pandemic, for a pandemic, established death panels and lotteries instead. So, he had a chance to buy, in 2015, 16,000 ventilators at a very low price, and he turned it down.”
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A 2015 New York state report said that in the case of a “severe” pandemic, the state would be short about 16,000 ventilators during the peak week. But the report did not recommend buying 16,000 ventilators, and did not indicate whether the state was at a fiscal position to purchase them. The state did not plan to increase its ventilator stockpile because it anticipated that in the event of a severe crisis, there would be shortage of trained staff to operate them and demand would outweigh any emergency stockpile. The report said the state had to balance the likely ventilator shortage with the need for adequate funding for current and ongoing health care expenses.
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false
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New York, Coronavirus, Donald Trump,
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"President Donald Trump didn’t like that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said on TV that the federal government should provide the state stockpiled ventilators to help New Yorkers battling the coronavirus pandemic. Trump said his administration was helping Cuomo, and Cuomo ""shouldn't be talking about us, he’s supposed to be buying his own ventilators."" Trump used a moment in his Fox News town hall to say Cuomo had the chance a few years ago. ""Right here, I just got this out,"" Trump said March 24, shuffling through papers. ""This says New York Governor Cuomo rejected buying recommended 16,000 ventilators in 2015 for the pandemic, for a pandemic, established death panels and lotteries instead. So, he had a chance to buy, in 2015, 16,000 ventilators at a very low price and he turned it down. I’m not blaming him or anything else."" New York is, as of March 25, the worst-hit spot in the United States, with more than 25,000 people diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Cuomo has repeatedly said New York needs thousands more ventilators and that the federal government should lend ventilators it has in its reserves. PolitiFact wondered if Trump was right that Cuomo a few years ago rejected buying ventilators, and ""established death panels and lotteries instead."" He’s not. The White House did not reply to our requests for evidence backing Trump’s claim. But Trump appeared to be reading, word-for-word, a March 22 headline on the Gateway Pundit, a conservative website. The website linked to a March 18 post on creators.com, by Betsy McCaughey, a Republican who served as lieutenant governor of New York in the 1990s. McCaughey’s post said that Cuomo in 2015 ""could have chosen to buy more ventilators"" after learning that the state’s stockpile had 16,000 fewer ventilators than needed in case of a ""severe"" pandemic. Instead, a task force drafted rules for rationing the ventilators they already had, McCaughey wrote. ""Patients assigned a red code will have the highest access, and other patients will be assigned green, yellow or blue (the worst) depending on a ‘triage officer's decision. In truth, a death officer. Let's not sugarcoat it. It won't be up to your own doctor,"" she wrote. Cuomo, a Democrat, has been New York’s governor since 2011. New York’s health department in 2015, as part of its emergency preparedness plans, issued a report on ventilator allocation guidelines the state could follow if it had to deal with an influenza pandemic. It modeled data to examine scenarios under a ""moderate"" pandemic (1957 and 1968 flu pandemics characteristics) and a ""severe"" pandemic (similar to the 1918 pandemic). A task force estimated that under a severe scenario, more than 800,000 people would be hospitalized, and during peak week demand, around 18,600 ventilators would be needed. During that peak week, the state would likely be short about 16,000 ventilators, the report said. (Under a moderate scenario, the state would have a surplus during the peak week.) The state had ""no current plans"" to buy enough ventilators for the most severe scenario, the report said. ""The state’s current approach to stockpiling a limited number of ventilators balances the need to prepare for a potential pandemic against the need to maintain adequate funding for current and ongoing health care expenses,"" the report said. Buying ventilators beyond a threshold would not save more lives because there wouldn’t be enough trained staff to operate them anyway, the report said. And if the health care system became overwhelmed, the state wouldn’t have enough ventilators despite an emergency stockpile. The report does not indicate that the state had the funds to buy 16,000 additional ventilators ""at a very low price,"" as Trump said. It also does not say that the task force recommended to the governor buying 16,000, or that he turned down that suggestion. Cuomo’s communications director told PolitiFact that Trump ""obviously didn’t read the document he’s citing."" ""This was a five-year-old advisory task force report, which never recommended the state procure ventilators — it merely referenced that New York wouldn't be equipped with enough ventilators for a 1918 flu pandemic. No one is, including Mr. Trump,"" said Cuomo spokesperson Dani Lever. The phrase ""death panels"" dates back to 2009, when former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin used it to argue against President Barack Obama’s healthcare proposal. She argued that the government would ration medical care and that the elderly and disabled would suffer under such a plan. Trump and the Gateway Pundit article he appears to have quoted do not give a complete picture of the state’s findings. The state did acknowledge that in case of ventilator shortage, hospitals would need to make difficult decisions about what patients would get access to the available ventilators in order to save the most lives. It outlined protocols for adults, children, and infants less than 28 days old. Top priority would be given to patients with the highest likelihood of survival with ventilator therapy. Lower priority would be patients with the highest likelihood of survival without medical intervention, and patients with the smallest likelihood of survival with medical intervention. The report said hospitals had the option to designate a triage officer or triage committee to make these decisions. A patient’s attending physician would provide all clinical data to the officer or committee so that they could then determine the patient’s level of access to a ventilator. The state in 2015 said that race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, advanced age, perceived quality of life, ability to pay, role in the community, or other subjective criteria would never be part of the evaluation in determining who receives ventilator therapy. The task force also explored non-clinical approaches, including a lottery system that randomly allocated ventilators. But the report said those non-clinical approaches should not be used as the primary method because they could be subjective and/or not support the goal of saving the most lives. The report also didn’t say its guidelines were final rules to follow. It said the guidelines were a ""living document, intended to be updated and revised"" based on new clinical information, societal norms, and feedback from clinicians and the public. Trump said Cuomo ""rejected buying recommended 16,000 ventilators in 2015 for the pandemic, for a pandemic, established death panels and lotteries instead. So, he had a chance to buy, in 2015, 16,000 ventilators at a very low price and he turned it down."" A 2015 state report said that in the case of a ""severe"" pandemic, the state would be short about 16,000 ventilators during peak week. But the report did not recommend buying 16,000 ventilators, and did not indicate whether the state was at a fiscal position to purchase them. The state did not plan to increase its stockpile because it anticipated that in the event of a severe crisis, there would be shortage of trained staff to operate them and demand would outweigh any emergency stockpile. The report said the state had to balance the likely ventilator shortage with the need for adequate funding for current and ongoing health care expenses. The report issued guidelines on ventilator allocation if there weren’t enough for everyone and suggested that hospitals designate a triage officer or committee. It explored a lottery system, but did not recommend it as the primary option. Cuomo did not establish one. Trump’s statement is inaccurate."
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4040
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Collins bill to combat Lyme and other tick diseases moves on.
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A U.S. Senate committee is advancing a proposal from Sen. Susan Collins to improve research about Lyme disease and other tick-borne infections.
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true
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Health, Tina Smith, Ticks, Lyme disease, Susan Collins, Kay Hagan, Bangor, Maine
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Collins, a Republican, introduced the proposal with Democratic Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith. It’s also designed to beef up prevention, diagnostics and treatment for tick-borne diseases, and it’s headed to the full Senate next. The proposal’s named the Kay Hagan Tick Act in honor of former Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina who died in October of complications from Powassan virus, a tick-borne infection. Cases of Lyme disease nearly doubled in Maine from 2010 to 2018. Collins describes the surge of tick-borne diseases as a “burgeoning public health crisis.” The proposal would require the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop a national strategy about the diseases.
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6452
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First-of-its-kind US nuclear waste dump marks 20 years.
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In a remote stretch of New Mexico desert, the U.S. government put in motion an experiment aimed at proving to the world that radioactive waste could be safely disposed of deep underground, rendering it less of a threat to the environment.
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true
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Deserts, Technology, North America, Environment, Business, Science, New Mexico, U.S. News, Nuclear waste
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Twenty years and more than 12,380 shipments later, tons of Cold War-era waste from decades of bomb-making and nuclear research across the U.S. have been stashed in the salt caverns that make up the underground facility . Each week, several shipments of special boxes and barrels packed with lab coats, rubber gloves, tools and debris contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements are trucked to the site. But the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant has not been without issues. A 2014 radiation leak forced an expensive, nearly three-year closure, delayed the federal government’s cleanup program and prompted policy changes at national laboratories and defense-related sites across the U.S. More recently, the U.S. Department of Energy said it would investigate reports that workers may have been exposed last year to hazardous chemicals. Still, supporters consider the repository a success, saying it provides a viable option for dealing with a multibillion-dollar mess that stretches from a decommissioned nuclear weapons production site in Washington state to one of the nation’s top nuclear research labs, in Idaho, and locations as far east as South Carolina. If it weren’t for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, many containers of plutonium-contaminated waste would be outside, exposed to the weather and susceptible to natural disasters, said J.R. Stroble, head of business operations at the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office, which oversees the contractor that operates the repository. “The whole purpose of WIPP is to isolate this long-lived radioactive, hazardous waste from the accessible environment, from people and the things people need in order to live life on Earth,” he told The Associated Press. Stroble and others in the communities surrounding the repository are steadfast in their conviction that the facility is a success. They point to 22 sites around the nation that have been cleaned up as a result of having somewhere to put the waste — including Rocky Flats, a former nuclear weapons plant outside Denver that had a history of leaks, spills and other violations. For critics, that success is checkered at best since the repository is far from fulfilling its mission. “It’s 80 percent through its lifetime, and it has disposed of less than 40 percent of the waste and has cost more than twice as much as it was supposed to,” said Don Hancock with the watchdog group Southwest Research and Information Center. “How great of a success is that?” Officials initially thought the facility would operate for about 25 years. Rather than wrapping up in the next few years, managers have bumped the timeline to 2050. The repository was carved out of an ancient salt formation about a half-mile (0.8 kilometer) below the surface, with the idea that the shifting salt would eventually entomb the radioactive waste. It was the National Academy of Sciences in the 1950s that first recommended disposing of atomic waste in deep geologic formations. Scientists began taking a hard look at the New Mexico site about two decades later. The scientists had to convince themselves and then federal regulators that it was safe. One of their tasks was determining that the ancient seawater trapped between the salt crystals and bound up in thin bands of clay within the salt deposit would pose no problems thousands of years later. “It was exciting to be working on what was then going to be the world’s first deep-geologic repository for that class of waste,” said Peter Swift, a senior scientist at Sandia National Laboratories. “Nothing that radioactive had been put that deep underground before. And that’s still true 20 years later.” While the real test will be what happens generations from now, Swift is confident in the science behind the project. But the wild card in whether the repository is ultimately deemed a success will be the human factor. After all, missteps by management were blamed for the 2014 radiation release. With some areas permanently sealed off due to contamination, more mining will have to be done to expand capacity. The federal government also is spending more than a half-billion dollars to install a new ventilation system, sink more shafts and make other upgrades aimed at returning to “normal business.” Hancock and some former elected leaders involved in early discussions about the facility worry about the subterranean landfill becoming a dumping ground for high-level waste or commercial nuclear waste. But it would take an act of Congress to expand the repository’s mission, and getting consent from New Mexico’s delegates would be a tall order since the federal government still has no long-term plan for dealing with such waste. Nevada’s proposed Yucca Mountain project is mothballed, and no other permanent disposal proposals are on the table. Toney Anaya, who served as New Mexico governor in the 1980s, remembers the heated debates about bringing more radioactive waste to the state. He said there were concerns about safety, but the promise of jobs was attractive. Some also argued New Mexico had a moral obligation given its legacy of uranium mining and its role in the development of the atomic bomb. Another former governor, Bill Richardson, was on both sides of the tug of war — first as a young Democratic congressman who wanted to impose environmental standards and keep 18-wheelers loaded with waste from passing through the heart of Santa Fe. Then, he became U.S. energy secretary during the Clinton administration and pressured the state to clear the way for the repository to open. “For New Mexico, we’ve done our share of storing waste, and we’ve done it safely and effectively,” Richardson said. “It’s provided jobs, but I just think the future of the state is not nuclear.” Southeastern New Mexico’s ties to nuclear run deep and will continue for at least the next 30 years under the plans being charted now. Robust state regulation will be key in ensuring responsible management going forward, said Hancock, with the watchdog group. The problem, he said, is that besides the Cold War-era waste that has yet to be dealt with, the federal government and nuclear power plants keep generating more. “We need to decide what our capacities are actually going to be — how much nuclear power waste are we going to create, how much nuclear weapons waste are we going to create — so that we can then put our arms around the problem,” Hancock said.
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26344
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“New York is one of only 12 states where the average gallon of gas costs more than $2.00.”
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According to AAA data, New York was one of 12 states that had unleaded regular gasoline that cost more than $2.00 a gallon on April 27, as long as the District of Columbia is included as a state. All told, among the 50 states and D.C., New York ranked the seventh-highest for unleaded regular prices per gallon.
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true
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Energy, Transportation, New York, American Automobile Association,
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"With the coronavirus pandemic sending automobile miles plummeting — and with it, demand for gasoline — Americans are finding prices at the pump to be lower than they’ve been in years. But New York state remains on the higher end of that range. That’s what WKBW-TV, Buffalo’s ABC affiliate, reported on April 27, citing the American Automobile Association. ""New York is one of only 12 states where the average gallon of gas costs more than $2.00, according to numbers provided by the AAA of Western and Central New York,"" the report said. Is that correct? Yes. We asked AAA for the gas price data for April 27, and they provided us with the full list of 50 states plus the District of Columbia. The data comes from surveys of up to 120,000 gas stations across the country. We looked at the price per gallon for unleaded regular. Here’s the list of states, from most expensive to least expensive: According to this list, New York, at $2.18 a gallon, was the seventh most expensive state for gasoline, trailing Hawaii, California, Washington state, Oregon, Nevada, and the District of Columbia. (D.C. isn’t a state, but we’ll grant some leeway.) The other five states with gas prices above $2.00 were Arizona, Pennsylvania, Utah, Alaska, and New Jersey. That adds up to 12 states above $2.00, as the statement said, as long as you include D.C. as a state. Three states had gas below $1.40 a gallon: Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin. AAA isn’t the only source of this data. We also looked at data from the wesbite GasBuddy. GasBuddy sent us their own state-by-state prices from April 27 and it shows a similar pattern, but slightly different due to data sampling. New York, at $2.13, was one of eight states with gas prices above $2.00. In descending order, they were Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington state, Nevada, New York, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. That’s fewer than the 12 states that AAA found with $2.00-plus gasoline, but four additional states on the GasBuddy list had prices just under $2.00. Utah, Alaska, the District of Columbia, and New Jersey all had gas prices at between $1.95 and $1.95. One reason why gas prices are relatively high in New York is the tax burden, according to an interactive map produced by the American Petroleum Institute. In 2018, New Yorkers paid more than 45 cents a gallon in state taxes and 18 cents a gallon in federal taxes, for a total of 63 cents a gallon. That’s nearly twice what Ohio motorists pay in taxes. New York is one of just a handful of states where motorists pay more than 49 cents a gallon in gasoline taxes. Since the article appeared, the situation hasn’t changed much. By the following week, only 10 states had average gas prices above $2.00 per gallon, and New York remained one of them. With some states beginning to re-open portions of their economies, gasoline prices have increased slightly in some states, according to AAA and GasBuddy data. But the average price per gallon in the United States had only risen a couple of cents per gallon, In New York, the changes were also minimal. AAA had New York’s average price per gallon at $2.15, while GasBuddy had a slightly lower price, $2.12. A news report cited the American Automobile Association in saying that ""New York is one of only 12 states where the average gallon of gas costs more than $2.00."" AAA provided us the full data, confirming that the statement is correct, as long as the District of Columbia is counted as a state. Among the 50 states and D.C., New York ranked seventh highest in per-gallon prices for regular unleaded. Another gasoline price metric, from GasBuddy, had eight states above $2.00, with four additional states between $1.95 and $1.99."
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15347
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"If women seeking an abortion see their ultrasound, ""the odds are pretty high they're going to keep the baby."
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"Walker said that if women seeking an abortion see their ultrasound, ""the odds are pretty high they're going to keep the baby."" There is some evidence that some women considering an abortion opt to continue the pregnancy after seeing their ultrasound, although experts said that decision is typically based on counseling or other services that are offered along with the ultrasound. Meanwhile, the latest academic study we found shows that nearly all women who are more certain about their decision proceed with an abortion even after seeing the ultrasound. And we found no independent studies to back Walker’s statement. For a claim that has an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression."
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false
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Abortion, Children, Health Care, Public Health, Technology, Women, Wisconsin, Scott Walker,
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"Two days after Gov. Scott Walker announced for president, conservative commentator Laura Ingraham wanted to know if the Wisconsin Republican planned to mislead voters. Interviewing the governor July 15, 2015 on her nationally syndicated radio show, Ingraham referred to a National Journal article that was published on the eve of Walker’s announcement. An anonymous longtime Walker adviser had said Walker would run as a conservative early in the campaign, then position himself as more moderate. ""Is that what you’re going to do?"" Ingraham asked. ""Move to the middle after arguing that you’re the real conservative in this race?"" Walker said no, and then went on to list a number of his accomplishments as governor that are important to conservatives. One is a law that requires women seeking an abortion to first get an ultrasound -- although they are not required to view it. ""We know if people can see that unborn child, particularly with the latest technology, the odds are pretty high they’re going to keep the baby,"" Walker said. Do most women seeking an abortion change their mind after seeing their ultrasound scan? Previous fact check We’ve previously reviewed a claim similar to Walker’s. A couple of weeks before Walker signed the ultrasound requirement law in July 2013, conservative pundit Rachel Campos-Duffy, the wife of U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., said ""upwards of 90 percent"" of women seeking an abortion decide not to have an abortion after seeing an ultrasound. One anti-abortion organization claimed a figure of nearly 90 percent for its ultrasound program among a certain group of women. But there was no solid evidence to back Campos-Duffy’s claim, which was more sweeping than Walker’s. Evidence backing Walker Walker’s campaign cited two pieces of evidence that have surfaced since our Campos-Duffy fact check. 1. Anti-abortion group The first is a short news release issued in March 2015 by the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, which describes itself as a ""national legal network of prolife pregnancy centers."" The release described a survey that the group said it did of some of its centers. According to the release, 410 of the group’s 1,050 centers that offer ultrasounds responded to the survey. And in 75,318 cases in 2013 in which ultrasounds were given -- to what the group labeled as ""abortion-minded"" or ""abortion-vulnerable"" women -- 78 percent of the women decided against having an abortion. The release did not say whether there was follow-up to see if the women gave birth, which is what Walker claims. And like much of the evidence we reviewed in the Campos-Duffy fact check this evidence is self-reported by a group that actively advocates against abortion. 2. Academic study Walker’s campaign also cited an academic study published in January 2014 in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. The researchers reviewed medical records for 15,575 visits by women seeking abortion care at Planned Parenthood clinics in Los Angeles in 2011. Among women who viewed their ultrasound images, over 98.4 percent of the pregnancies were terminated. But Walker’s campaign highlighted a narrower finding of the study. Some 93 percent of the women had entered the clinic expressing what the researchers characterized as a high degree of certainty that they wanted an abortion. Among the 7 percent who expressed medium or low certainty about their decision, viewing the ultrasound ""was significantly associated with deciding to continue the pregnancy."" But, clearly, that involves a small percentage of the women in the study. Two experts We spoke with one of the authors of the study, University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine professor Katrina Kimport; and with Michele Chadwick, executive director of the anti-abortion ICU Mobile, which is based in Akron, Ohio. They agreed on two points: 1. Neither had seen any peer-reviewed academic research to back Walker’s claim. 2. For some women, particularly those less sure about having an abortion, viewing an ultrasound can be one factor in deciding to continue a pregnancy. And often that decision to continue is not made simply as a result of viewing the ultrasound, but because counseling and other services are provided in addition to the scan. Kimport added that research shows the most common reason women state for getting an abortion is not being able to afford caring for a child, and viewing an ultrasound wouldn’t change that circumstance. Our rating Walker said that if women seeking an abortion see their ultrasound, ""the odds are pretty high they're going to keep the baby."" There is some evidence that some women considering an abortion opt to continue the pregnancy after seeing their ultrasound, although experts said that decision is typically based on counseling or other services that are offered along with the ultrasound. Meanwhile, the latest academic study we found shows that nearly all women who are more certain about their decision proceed with an abortion even after seeing the ultrasound. And we found no independent studies to back Walker’s statement. For a claim that has an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, our rating is ."
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36067
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"An ""extreme haunted house"" called McKamey Manor possesses and awards $20,000 to attendees who can ""make it through."
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Does McKamey Manor Award $20,000 to Successful ‘Extreme Haunted/Horror House’ Attendees?
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unproven
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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In late October 2019, a number of news organizations ran stories essentially advertising an “extreme haunted house” known as McKamey Manor, widely reporting that anyone who successfully endured the attraction would be awarded $20,000 by its proprietors.An aggregated Associated Press item claimed:WFLA-TV reports that owner Russ McKamey offers thousands of dollars to anyone who completes the tour, but says no one ever has. He records each tour on video — for his own protection he says — and then posts them online, showing them quitting in humiliation.Associated Press seemed to have gathered all its information from an October 21 2019 WFLA-TV story headlined “Scariest haunted house in U.S. requires 40-page waiver, doctor’s note, safe word.”That headline made Russ McKamey’s McKamey Manor sound like a well-organized endeavor with numerous safeguards, promising horror enthusiasts a fantastic adventure. It, like many similar articles, emphasized a supposed $20,000 prize—- which likely played a role in driving interest into the purported horror attraction:Think you have what it takes to tour the Manor? If you do, it only costs a bag of dog food– Russ has five dogs. And if you complete the tour, Russ will hand you $20,000.So why wouldn’t you want to do this?It’s not as easy as just a bag of dog food, as you’ve probably gathered by now. The Manor’s website lists seven must-do items before the tour can begin. […]Russ says he doesn’t curse and doesn’t allow cursing during the haunted tours. If you do, and many obviously can’t help themselves, he deducts cash from your potential $20,000 prize.WFLA-TV took McKamey’s word for much of what he was claiming, including assertions that he is capable of “hypnotizing” guests to make them believe preposterous things. One such example, according to McKamey and WFLA, involved a children’s pool with less than half a foot of water and the suggestion that it contained a “great white shark”:How is Russ so good at playing make-believe? He says hypnosis is a great tool.“When I use the hypnosis I can put you in a [kiddie] pool with a couple inches of water and tell you there’s a great white shark in there, and you’re gonna think there’s a shark in there,” he said. “And so, when you have that kind of power over people, and have them do and see things that you want them to see, then they can leave here thinking it really happened, and they’ll go to the authorities and say, ‘oh, whatever,’ and I have to come back and show the footage and say, ‘it didn’t go that way at all.’“It’s saved me a thousand times.”Notably, McKamey Manor’s FAQ makes no mention of the $20,000 prize so prominently mentioned in national coverage of McKamey’s “haunt.” Even more interesting is that a site-wide search on mckameymanor.com on October 28 2019 returned no results for any permutation of $20,000. If mention of the “prize” existed, it was very well hidden. (Using the same functionality did return results for terms such as “waiver” and “drug test” on mckameymanor.com. )McKamey Manor was not new to reporters on the seasonal news beat in 2019, but claims about a $20,000 prize seemed to pop up at some point in 2018. An October 2015 Fast Company article about the project (“Running A Haunted House Is Scarier Than You Think”), which carried the subheading “Lawsuits, drained finances, and death threats: Inside the real terrors of Russ McKamey’s notorious McKamey Manor,” similarly leaned on claims from the same source as 2019 coverage, McKamey himself:Before stepping foot inside, participants are required to sign a 10-page waiver, have notes from a doctor and a psychiatrist assuring peak physical and mental health, and they must go through a thorough background check. And even if someone successfully checks everything off McKamey’s laundry list, there’s still a slim-to-none chance that person will ever go through the manor because according to McKamey’s last count, the waiting list is 27,000-people deep.Another aspect of the 2015 piece was about money as McKamey’s motivator, as he had lost his job that year:Russ McKamey just got back from McLeansboro, Illinois and things did not go well.Earlier this summer [of 2015], McKamey left $35,000 worth of equipment behind in a building at the corner of Cherry and Pearl but was only able to retrieve a fraction of it during his recent trip … Despite financial straits and the drama in McLeansboro, there are glimmers of hope for McKamey: He’s in the process of securing an interim location should his 29-acre, undisclosed spot falls through, and he’s currently in talks with a major TV network to develop a reality game show based on the manor.He recently shot a sizzle reel, funded by the network, and he’s feeling hopeful that the show will be picked up–even though it’ll be a very diluted version of what McKamey Manor is really about.Fast Company reported that McKamey was seeking a way to fund his ongoing endeavor, launching a since-deactivated GoFundMe page and discussing plans to charge $200 to raise admissions revenue:Since losing his job, McKamey started a GoFundMe campaign to help cover the cost of his new location and will begin charging customers upwards of $200 in lieu of donating dog food cans. But even if he meets his $25,000 goal and admissions revenue starts coming in, the cost of upkeep alone, and the fact that he only allows two people in per run, will ensure that McKamey will always be in the red–and he’s okay with that.Other coverage from that time mentioned the GoFundMe, adding that McKamey Manor was “indefinitely out of business.” By 2016, blog posts about McKamey Manor claimed that it had cost McKamey $500,000 to build and a waiting list had “grown to over 24,000 and the owners currently charge over $1,000 per guest, making it one of the most expensive haunted houses in the world.” In contrast, 2015 pieces quoted McKamey about a waiting list of over 27,000 people. And in 2014, the Daily Mail referenced many of the same figures about $500,000 invested to create it and the same 24,000 person waiting list repeated years later.The first mentions of “20,000” we came across were in February and March 2018, before the annual Halloween coverage of whatever McKamey happened to be claiming that year came around. In that iteration, McKamey mentioned a waiting list of 20,000 people, without elaborating what happened to the 4,000 to 7,000 eager waiters from prior years. By October of that year, the $20,000 prize money claim appeared in one article we found.That coverage also seemed to lean heavily on two unverified, recursive sources: Once again, McKamey himself, and also previous media reports based — once again — on his own statements:People from all 50 states — and others from as far away as Europe and Kuwait — have traveled to experience McKamey Manor, which came to Summertown after spending more than a decade in San Diego. The house of horrors has been profiled by the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian and the New York Daily News, and it’s been featured on the Travel Channel’s Halloween Craziest and in a full-length documentary, Haunters: The Art of the Scare (currently available on Netflix). But no one in Summertown seemed to know what the manor was when McKamey moved to town in the spring.Another element frequently referenced alongside McKamey’s “haunted house” is a purported waiver. That issue arose during an October 2017 Reddit “Ask Me Anything” hosted by a filmmaker who in part portrayed the project in the a film called HAUNTERS: The Art Of The Scare. Incidentally, amid extensive discussion of McKamey Manor, no one mentioned a prize of $20,000 or any other amount, but aspects of the waiver were often disputed.A February 2018 Nashville Scene story referenced the waiver and prize together:You may be exposed to mind-altering drugs or weapons like whips, paintball guns and Tasers. McKamey also apparently has a vast assortment of bugs, including cockroaches, bees, crickets and mosquitos, all waiting to eat and/or be eaten.But before a contestant makes it through McKamey Manor’s door, he or she must go through the tedious process of reading aloud and signing a 20-plus-page legal waiver that lists more than 100 disgusting, dangerous and disturbing scenarios they may face. The contract itself is so daunting that some people quit right then.Reddit was a major source of promotion for McKamey Manor and its many articles. Posts appeared on r/todayilearned (TIL), and r/horror (quite frequently.) An October 2019 post to the latter subreddit purported to show screenshots of some of the pages in the McKamey Manor waiver:McKamey Manor waivers leaked. from horrorAlthough the main post linked to partial pages, one person linked to a purported McKamey Manor full waiver on Google Drive [PDF]. That document (if authentic) was dated 2017, and did not include any mention of a prize of $20,000 or any other amount. A portion called “Non-Disparage Agreement” said that “Participant understands that if they violate this Agreement that Participant agrees to pay McKamey Manor $50,000 as damages.”McKamey and McKamey Manor have made the Halloween “weird news” rounds annually since at least 2014, with various claims featured with the stories in an apparent attempt to enhance its virality. Early coverage maintained a tenor of financial distress on McKamey’s part; a possibly-linked Instagram account still promoted a GoFundMe page for the attraction. At some point in 2018, claims of a 20,000-27,000 person waiting list (still unverified) seemed to collide with claims of a haunted house so scary anyone who completed it would receive a $20,000 prize. Many major news outlets reiterated that claim, but we were unable to verify whether any prize money was actually available.We contacted Russ McKamey to ask if he was able to verify the $20,000 prize’s existence, and we will update with his comments when we hear back.
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27998
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A photograph of Michael Jackson's face taken during a court trial is real and undoctored.
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On 25 June 2009, Michael Jackson died of cardiac arrest at a hospital in Los Angeles.
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true
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Fauxtography, michael jackson
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If there was anything more remarkable about Michael Jackson than his transformation from a singing and dancing wunderkind fronting the Jackson 5 into the world’s most popular entertainer (his 1982 Thriller album remains one of the two best-selling albums of all time), it was his metamorphosis from a dark-skinned, broad-nosed, Afro-haired adolescent into a pasty, slender-nosed, long-haired, dimpled adult whose chiseled facial features have long since crossed the boundary of the grotesque. So unreal had his physical appearance become that many people questioned whether genuine photographs of him (such as the one shown above, taken during Jackson’s 13 November 2002 appearance in Santa Maria Superior Court) had been doctored, amidst rumors that multiple cosmetic surgeries had taken such a toll on his face that he was sporting a prosthetic nose: This is an actual photo — not doctored — of Michael Jackson in a court appearance this week defending himself against charges that he backed out of concert appearances. The judge made him take his surgical mask off. “What’s up with Michael Jackson’s nose?” rumors floated anew when he showed up to testify as a defendant in a breach of contract case in Santa Maria with a swollen face, a seemingly scarred and discolored nose, and an upper lip that appeared to be covered with scabs. Press photos made it appear that the pop star’s face bore a pointed, collapsed proboscis, and within the next few days several prominent plastic surgeons assessed the possible causes of the unusual appearance of Jackson’s nose for the press: “In his zeal to have this sharply defined nose, he’s had so many things done, the tissue is no longer able to withstand it. The skin is so thin from operations that the bone or cartilage or silicone implant is pushing through,” said Dr. Les Bolton, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. “If what is protruding is artificial material such as an implant, the treatment of choice would be to remove the implant, let the nose heal and reconstruct it later with some of his own tissue, such as cartilage from the ear or bone from the rib.” “What he’s done is to go from a Negroid or black nose, which is round and broad and flat, to a Caucasian nose that’s narrow and projecting,” said Dr. Harvey Zarem, a former chief of plastic surgery at UCLA who practices in Santa Monica. “To do that, you have to put cartilage or silicone or bone in the nose like a tent stake to make the nose stick out. But when you do that enough, the cartilage or silicone or bone pokes through.” “Clearly, he had some sort of nasal-tip disaster,” said Dr. Gerald Imber, a celebrity plastic surgeon based in Manhattan. “What probably happened is that he had some sort of support put in there and the tissue broke down. Now, it looks like he has skin grafts or something to close it up. A collapsed nose is very unusual — I’ve never seen one, and I’ve done 15,000 rhinoplasties.” Dermatologists also suggested that Jackson had probably undergone Botox injections in his forehead, had plastic surgery on his eyes, had his chin squared off, lightened his skin using a hydroquinone compound (not legal in the U.S.), and had tattooed eyebrows and eyeliner. Unfortunately, as Dr. Edward Domanskis, a Newport Beach plastic surgeon, said, drawing a line with some cosmetic surgery patients is particularly difficult: “He probably should have stopped three or four noses ago. But it becomes very difficult with a person who is powerful and wants his way. There are enough plastic surgeons out there who are going to feel special if he comes to them that he is probably always going to find someone willing to operate.” Jackson testified for three days. The first day he appeared in court wearing a surgical mask which the judge ordered him to remove, revealing a bandage over his nose. The second day Jackson showed up without the mask, but he had switched to a skin-colored bandage. On the third day the singer testified wearing neither mask nor bandage. Viewers who did not look closely at the photographs taken the second day (such as the one shown above) and failed to realize Jackson was wearing bandage matching the color of his skin might have concluded that the wrinkled, irregular surface of his nose and the fleshy substance dangling from it were his natural appearance, rather than the texture of the bandage covering it. Possibly some of the surgeons who commented on the state of Jackson’s nose were similarly misled by these pictures.
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18323
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"The Obama administration has put out ""more of these major rules than the Clinton administration or the Bush administration during comparable times."
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U.S. Sen. Rob Portman says the Obama administration has put out more major rules than other recent administrations
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true
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Ohio, Regulation, Rob Portman,
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"Because we deal with lots of loose rhetoric at PolitiFact Ohio, we’re attracted like a magnet to any claim that tries to actually quantify a political or ideological point. Ohio U.S. Sen. Rob Portman delivered such a tidbit during a conference call with Ohio reporters on May 23. Portman was explaining a bill he co-introduced that could require additional cost-benefit analysis and allow more business flexibility before new federal regulations and rules could be issued. Portman says too many government regulations are imposed without a commonsense assessment of their burden on businesses and jobs. And he said that President Barack Obama’s administration has put out ""more of these major rules than the Clinton administration or the Bush administration during comparable times."" We won’t attempt to assess whether current and pending regulation of the environment, worker and food safety, healthcare, wildlife or fuel efficiency are good or government overkill. But has the Obama administration finalized more of these ""major"" rules than other recent presidents? That part of the claim is measurable and has, in fact, been examined by groups of all political stripes, all using the same sources of government data. If all regulations were counted, Obama’s record would be nowhere near Portman’s description, especially considering a sizeable flurry of rulemaking during Bill Clinton’s first two years, as the liberal group OMB Watch, now known as the Center for Effective Government, said in a report last September. In fact, when 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney claimed that federal regulations quadrupled under Obama, PolitiFact ruled it False. But Portman said ""major"" rules."" ""Major"" has a specific meaning when used by the government in this context. It means any rule with an economic impact of at least $100 million. And the White House Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, keeps track of these very rules, as does the Government Accountability Office. OMB calls them ""economically significant"" rules, which also has a distinct definition but is so close to ""major"" that there is no need to split hairs here. We looked at three analyses of major or economically significant rules, all broken down by year and presidency and all using OMB data. One was provided by Portman’s Senate staff, which is familiar with the data because Portman used to run OMB. Another was from the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University, headed by Susan Dudley, a former regulatory affairs administrator at OMB. A third was from the Center for Effective Government. Portman’s office compared rules that were finalized in the first three years of Obama’s tenure with the first three of Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s. To guard against counting rules finalized by one administration but published by another, it excluded those that were published in the first few weeks of an incoming president’s term. Portman’s staff counted only executive branch departments and agencies and not those of independent agencies that do not report to the president. It found 162 major rules for Obama, 115 for the same period under Bush, and 135 for the same period under Clinton. A similar analysis by George Washington University’s Regulatory Studies Center had a similar conclusion, though the raw numbers were slightly different from Portman’s because of a technical variation in the timeframes counted. Among other things, the analysis counted every year the presidents served, allowing for comparisons of first and second terms for Clinton and Bush and the full four years of Obama’s first term. This made no substantive difference in terms of Portman’s claim. It showed that Obama still had more economically significant rules -- 217 in his first four years, compared with the next highest, 190, in Bush’s second term. Finally, there was the data from the Center for Effective Government, nee OMB Watch. Last September, it examined new regulations since 1992, and found the level fairly constant across presidencies, save for Clinton’s first years. But when it came to regulations labeled as economically significant, Obama’s record for the first 42 months of his presidency was 38 percent higher than the comparable period of Bush’s first term and 36 percent higher than the comparable period in Clinton’s. In an interview and in her report, Randy Rabinowitz, director of regulatory policy at the Center for Effective Government, cautioned that some of these comparisons can be misleading because the ""major"" rule threshold of $100 million has not changed since 1978, despite inflation. A rule costing $100 million in 1993, the first year of Clinton’s presidency, would cost $161 million today, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ online inflation calculator. We know of no analysis of regulations that has taken this into account. Rabinowitz also noted that many regulations grow directly out of laws passed by Congress or ordered by courts, so presidents are not merely riding roughshod over the will of lawmakers or the public. Some of Obama’s biggest rules resulted from court rulings dating to Bush, with courts requiring environmental regulation after Bush balked. But Obama’s share of these or similar statutory or judicially required rules -- 48 percent of all the rules his administration finalized -- was not much different from the share Clinton had to deal with in his first term, nor the share Bush had in his second term. This doesn’t change the facts or statistics as stated by Portman: The Obama administration has put out ""more of these major rules than the Clinton administration or the Bush administration during comparable times."""
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8472
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France's rate of coronavirus infections, deaths accelerating again.
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France said its total death toll from COVID-19 infections rose above 15,000 on Tuesday, becoming the fourth country to exceed that threshold after Italy, Spain and the United States, while the rate of increase in cases and fatalities is re-accelerating.
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true
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Health News
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But the number of people in intensive care units fell to 6,730 from 6,821 over 24 hours - declining for a sixth consecutive day, suggesting the national lockdown put in place on March 17 is having some success in containing the disease. On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron announced a second extension of this lockdown until May 11, saying that progress had been made but also that the country had not been sufficiently prepared early on to surmount the challenges posed by the outbreak of the new coronavirus. Jerome Salomon, head of the public health authority, told a news conference that the number of COVID-19 deaths in French hospitals and nursing homes had risen by 5% in a day to a cumulative total of 15,729, versus 4% on Monday and Sunday. He added that the total number of confirmed infections had climbed by 5.3% to 103,573, compared to a rate of increase of 2.8% on Monday and of 1.7% on Sunday. There were also 26,680 suspected coronavirus cases in nursing homes, taking the total to more than 130,000 confirmed and possible cases, the fifth highest in the world. According to various running simulations, Salomon said that, depending on calculations for different regions, 5%-10% of the French population had probably contracted the disease.
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2190
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France detects mild bird flu virus on duck farm: OIE.
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France has detected a low-pathogenic H5 bird flu virus on a duck farm in the centre of the country, the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said on Thursday, citing a report from the French agriculture ministry.
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true
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Health News
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The virus was discovered among a flock of 2,600 ducks on a farm in the village of Marolle-en-Sologne in the Loir-et-Cher administrative department, the report posted on the OIE’s website showed. The birds, which were free-ranging and bred for hunting, are to be culled. The disease was detected as part of planned surveillance and the ducks had shown no clinical signs, the report added. France reinforced bio-security measures after outbreaks of more severe forms of bird flu in recent years decimated duck and goose flocks notably bred to produce foie gras.
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9534
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Can’t Get to Sleep? Lay Off the Drugs
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This story explains why those suffering from insomnia should take heed of the American College of Physicians’ recommendation to use cognitive behavioral therapy as a first-line treatment, before turning to prescription or over-the-counter drugs. Rather than focusing on the benefits of cognitive behavioral therapy, as a New York Times story we reviewed earlier this year did, the Wall Street Journal story lays out the serious side effects associated with insomnia drugs, providing a clear and easily understood discussion of why drug treatment should be considered a last resort, to be used only by those for whom cognitive behavioral therapy has failed. However, the story would have been stronger if it had discussed the costs of treatments, and provided more specific numbers on how beneficial these treatment options are in clinical research. Lack of sleep is a big concern for many Americans, especially older adults. This story specifically addressed why sleep medications are not ideal for this age group, in terms of potential harms. But it didn’t dig deep enough into the data on the effectiveness of the various options. This helps readers assess the all-important question: Do the benefits outweigh the harms? And, without cost information, readers can’t answer another important question: Can I afford it?
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true
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cognitive behavioral therapy,insomnia,sleep problems
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Unfortunately, like the earlier Times story, the WSJ story doesn’t mention costs, either those associated with taking prescription or over-the-counter drugs to treat insomnia or those associated with cognitive behavioral therapy. The closest the story comes to mentioning cost is when it notes that one problem with the use of prescription sleep aids is that insurance may not cover long-term use; this would have been an obvious point at which to note how expensive these drugs can be. The story suggests that cognitive behavioral therapy can be effective after as few as two sessions, but it doesn’t say how many sessions the average patient requires, how expensive those sessions are likely to be nor how likely it is that insurance would cover this type of therapy. The story notes that one study of cognitive behavioral therapy showed that it reduced chronic insomnia and helped patients function more effectively during the daytime for up to two years. However, it does not specify whether the relief from chronic insomnia meant that patients had no bouts of insomnia or simply had less prolonged instances of insomnia, nor does it quantify how much improvement patients experienced in daytime functioning. In its discussion of chemical sleep aids, the article provides no specifics about effectiveness; rather, it focuses on the mechanisms by which the prescription drugs encourage sleep. (For an example of how to provide more specifics, see this criterion in our review of the Times’ story on this same data.) The article focuses on why many doctors now recommend cognitive behavioral therapy rather than drugs as the first-line treatment for insomnia. As such, it does an excellent job of laying out all the negative potential side effects of anti-insomnia drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter. Given the seriousness of these potential harms – including fatigue, sleep-walking and -eating, impaired balance and increased risks of falls and motor vehicle accidents and possibly even dementia – this careful discussion of harms provides a valuable public service. Cognitive behavioral therapy does not appear to cause any harm, a point the story might have made more clearly, especially given that it describes the benefits as lasting for “up to two years,” which could lead some readers to assume that CBT stops working after a relatively short time. Nonetheless, overall, the article is more than adequate in its discussion of the harms of the two approaches. This story is not focused on one specific study, but it notes that the American College of Physicians reviewed 15 years’ worth of scientific evidence before issuing guidelines recommending that drugs should be used to treat insomnia only if cognitive behavioral therapy has failed. More could have been said about how thorough the review was that contributed to the guidelines, and if there were any notable gaps in research that limit the findings. The story does not exaggerate either the frequency or the severity of insomnia. The story had several independent sources and we detected no conflicts of interest. The primary focus of this story is explaining why cognitive behavioral therapy is the better alternative for treating insomnia due to the negative side effects of insomnia drugs. The story also includes a great deal of practical information about “sleep hygiene,” as well. The story notes that CBT can be provided by any trained therapist or nurse. The story could have been more helpful if it had specified how common this training is and how a patient seeking CBT could go about finding a health care professional trained in the technique. The article also might have mentioned that systematic analysis of studies has shown that even web-based versions of cognitive behavioral therapy can effectively treat insomnia, making it even more widely available. The story does not suggest that cognitive behavioral therapy is new. It does, however, refer to the relatively new (as of May 2016) American College of Physicians guidelines recommending cognitive behavioral therapy over drug treatment for insomnia. The story does not appear to rely on a news release.
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8192
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Confusion, concern as locked-down Philippines starts coronavirus quarantine.
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Millions of people woke up confused, confined and frustrated in the Philippines on Tuesday, as a sweeping home quarantine order kicked in with just a few hours of warning, and Southeast Asia prepared tighter measures against a surge in coronavirus cases.
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true
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Health News
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With many unaware that half the population of 107 million had been told to stay home for a month, stranded workers crowded checkpoints on the edges of Manila as vehicles tried to duck suspensions and police impounded taxis that were still running. “I need to make a living for my family,” said Albert Santos, 42, the driver of a passenger jeep, adding that he would try to make as much money before being forced to stop. “I can’t stop or they have nothing to eat.” The Philippines is the first regional nation to take such drastic steps against the virus, which President Rodrigo Duterte described as “the fight of our lives”, after deeming existing curbs on movement and gatherings insufficient. In just 10 days, virus infections in the Philippines climbed to 142 from three, with 12 deaths. Malaysia will follow suit from Wednesday, closing borders, schools and most businesses, while restricting internal movement, after a daily jump of 125 cases to 553, nearly two-thirds of them linked to a major event at a mosque. Cambodia’s infections doubled to 24 on Tuesday and Thailand reported 30 new ones, taking its tally to 177, for a nearly threefold jump in a week. The regional trend casts more doubt on the view that warmer weather might stem the spread. Thailand’s cabinet agreed on Tuesday to close schools, cinemas, bars and entertainment centers, and postpone next month’s festivities for New Year in the mainly Buddhist nation. Manila’s usually busy business areas were almost deserted on the first morning of home quarantine, with only delivery trucks, police patrols and occasional private vehicles on the roads. City workers in protective suits disinfected public areas, security guards sat outside banks and convenience stores and workers trickled home after night shifts at call centers and medical clinics, among the few exemptions to Duterte’s curbs. Many shift workers were stranded after transport was suspended. Police pulled over dozens of taxis, with drivers - and many commuters - unaware of the new quarantine measures, announced on Monday afternoon and only clarified late at night. “I need to work. I don’t get paid if I don’t show up,” said Sheila Reyes, 24, as she waited hopefully for a ride to a factory, some of which are allowed to operate. “If I have to, I’ll walk to work.” The measures widen a lockdown since Friday that brought immigration limits, curfews, closures of schools and malls, bans on gatherings, social distancing, and restrictions on movement for the capital. The Philippines suspended financial markets on Tuesday, the first trading shutdown in a world struggling to rein in the virus. Malaysia postponed a meeting this week of APEC finance officials. Philippine authorities said international airports in Manila and Clark would be closed to citizens, amid an expected exodus of foreigners before the expiry of a 72-hour deadline to leave. Teething troubles from the quarantine were inevitable and stranded people would receive help to get home and stay there, said Jonathan Malaya, an interior ministry official. “As expected, there still are people uninformed on last night’s announcement,” he said. “We have some kinks to fix ... it will normalize once people understand that they really need to stay home.” In Bangkok’s Patpong area, famed for racy nightlife and counterfeit handbags, bar owners and workers said they were already suffering from the virus effect, and mandatory closures were probably for the best. “We have to follow the government’s measures,” said one bar worker, Kornpisit Kutakorn. “We have to do this for the common interest.”
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26621
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Dan Crenshaw Says longstanding Food and Drug Administration regulations “created barriers to the private industry creating a test quickly” for the coronavirus.
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Food and Drug Administration regulations in place since 2004 require labaratories to get an Emergency Use Authorization from the agency to use diagnostic tests and medical treatments that haven't gone through the typical clearance process. The policy was intended to speed up the process, but researchers reported significant delays between seeking an application and getting approval and these regulations played a role in that. The FDA has since changed the regulations to allow labs to start utilizing tests before receiving clearance.
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true
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Government Regulation, Texas, Coronavirus, Dan Crenshaw,
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"Accusations about the responsible party behind the United States’ struggle to accelerate coronavirus testing have come from every which way and the blame has fallen, often inaccurately, on the shoulders of different public officials. In a March 13 tweet, President Donald Trump said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied its testing system for decades but wasn’t prepared for a large scale pandemic, an issue that was complicated by policy changes made by former President Barack Obama. U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., retweeted Trump’s remark and added his own comment: ""Trump is once again trying to blame the previous administration for the number of tests available. This is his #DailyLie."" U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, retweeted Schumer’s remark and said: ""It’s not Obama’s fault and it’s not Trump’s fault. We have stringent FDA regulations, long in place, that created barriers to the private industry creating a test quickly."" PolitiFact looked at a different Trump claim blaming Obama for a lack of testing. We also looked at a claim from Democrat Joe Biden about the Trump administration rejecting tests from the World Health Organization (they were never offered). Trump also inaccurately stated that any individual who wants to be tested for the coronavirus can get a test. We wanted to dig deeper into Crenshaw’s claim, which attributes the delays in the availability of widespread testing to Food and Drug Administration regulations. Justin Discigil, spokesman for Crenshaw, pointed to articles from ProPublica, the New Yorker, The Atlantic and the Washington Post, all of which highlighted the role FDA regulations played here. He added: ""Just to be clear – nowhere did we say that these regulations were the sole/only reason for the testing issue, we said that they created barriers."" A timeline of events The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States came at the end of January, when a man in Washington state developed symptoms after returning from a trip to Wuhan. One month later, federal health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was inevitable that the U.S. would experience a spread of the virus and urged people to take precautions. In these early days of the virus, tests were not widely distributed to local and state laboratories. Instead, testing for the new coronavirus was conducted almost entirely by the CDC — samples collected at the local level were sent to the agency. Initial test kits developed by the CDC for use in local and state labs were flawed and produced inaccurate results in some labs, meaning they couldn’t be distributed. As the agency worked to correct the tests, health officials turned to the FDA. The U.S. Association of Public Health Laboratories submitted a letter asking the agency to use ""enforcement discretion"" and authorize local and state labs to develop and use their own tests. During a public health emergency, labs and drug manufacturers must seek an Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA to use diagnostic tests and medical treatments that have not gone through the typical clearance process — to share them faster in the emergency. (These authorizations were begun in 2004 under President George W. Bush.) For laboratory-developed tests, like the ones in question, FDA policy has stated that they cannot be used in clinical diagnoses without the FDA’s approval during an emergency. Although the goal of these regulations is to ensure only accurate lab tests are conducted, health officials have said they prevented them from quickly responding to the virus. One doctor in a Seattle lab described the process for getting an Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA and said the agency asked for a level of testing that didn’t make sense in the context of an emergency, according to a GQ profile. A doctor in North Carolina told NBC News that she had developed a test using the World Health Organization’s protocol but had yet to receive the use authorization from the FDA, putting the state ""way behind"" in its ability to test patients. On Feb. 29, the FDA announced a change in the process: Labs would still need to seek the agency’s approval for their tests, but the labs could begin testing while waiting for the official green light. On March 16, (three days after Crenshaw made his claim) the FDA announced another change to its policies and put state officials in charge of coronavirus tests developed by laboratories in their states, meaning labs would engage with state officials and not the FDA. It also removes the requirement for these labs to apply for an Emergency Use Authorization for their tests. The changes also expand which labs and manufacturers are included in FDA guidelines and which kinds of tests can be developed. ""We believe the unprecedented policy set forth in today’s updated guidance, which addresses laboratories and commercial manufacturers, will help address these urgent public health concerns by helping to expand the number and variety of diagnostic tests, as well as available testing capabilities in health care settings, and reference and commercial laboratories,"" reads a release from the agency. After the changes After the FDA announced changes to its policies, Labcorps and Quest Diagnostics both announced plans to start testing for the new coronavirus, crediting changes in federal policy with their ability to do so. ""We applaud the FDA for providing the flexibility for innovative, quality lab developed tests to be brought to patients and providers quickly to advance effective response to the coronavirus outbreak,"" said Steve Rusckowski, chairman and chief executive officer of Quest Diagnostics, in a statement. But even as state and local authorities move to ramp up testing, the number of available tests is still lacking. In Austin, for example, there is still a gap between available test kids and demand for testing, as officials prioritize testing for health care workers, people living in nursing homes and people at high risk for complications from the virus. Our Ruling Crenshaw said in a tweet that longstanding FDA regulations ""created barriers to the private industry creating a test quickly"" for the coronavirus. Crenshaw’s statement is accurate. FDA procedures adopted in 2004 meant laboratories had to seek the agency’s approval before developing and using tests in communities, a policy many health care officials have said prevented the country from taking early action in response to the novel coronavirus. It is important to keep in mind that other factors have contributed to the low levels of testing for the virus, beyond the FDA regulations. But Crenshaw’s statement is accurate."
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13587
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It has been 269 days since (Hillary) Clinton has held a press conference.
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"Trump’s email said, ""It has been 269 days since Clinton has held a press conference."" Only one event in the past 269 days -- Clinton’s appearance before the minority journalists’ convention -- could reasonably be considered a press conference, and there are good arguments for why it isn’t. The questioners were limited to a small pool of convention participants, leaving most of the Clinton campaign press corps -- the dozens of journalists who know the campaign the best and who had complained the most about lack of access -- without an equal shot at asking a question. The statement is accurate but needs clarification. "
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true
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National, Candidate Biography, Donald Trump,
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"Donald Trump and his allies have seized upon a statistic that they believe reflects poorly on Hillary Clinton -- and they’re hammering it home on a daily basis. On Aug. 30, 2016, the Trump campaign blasted out an email titled, ""HIDING HILLARY: DAY 269,"" going on to explain that ""it has been 269 days since (Hillary) Clinton has held a press conference."" Among other things, the email pressed Clinton to take reporters’ questions on aspects of her relationship to the Clinton Foundation. The Trump campaign was joined in this call by the Republican National Committee, which sent its own email headlined, ""269 days since Hillary Clinton held a press conference."" ""Today and every day until Hillary Clinton holds a formal press conference, the Republican National Committee (RNC) will issue a reminder of the number of days since Hillary Clinton has faced members of the media in an environment not carefully controlled by her campaign."" Is the Trump campaign correct that, as of Aug. 30, ""it has been 269 days since Clinton has held a press conference""? (On our publication day, the number would have risen to 270 — an email from Trump's campaign on publication day declared ""HIDING HILLARY: DAY 270."") Much depends on the definition of ""press conference,"" which is to some extent in the eye of the beholder. Many independent media outlets have supported Trump’s point. The Washington Post even created a real-time widget showing how long it has been since Clinton last held a press conference: For context, Post political writer Chris Cillizza has written, ""The last time Clinton held a press conference was Dec. 5, 2015. That was before: 1. A single state had cast a vote in either a presidential primary or caucus. 2. Major terrorist attacks in Nice, Brussels and Orlando. 3. FBI Director James Comey issued his scathing report on Clinton's email practices while at the State Department. 4. The Bernie Sanders phenomenon. 5. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was run out of the Democratic National Committee in the wake of a massive email hack/leak. 6. This whole Ryan Lochte international gas station incident."" And we should note that the Trump campaign has some bona fides for calling Clinton out in this regard: A tally by NBC News counted 17 Trump press conferences in 2016. The Clinton campaign has argued that Clinton has regularly made herself available to the press in ways that are equivalent to press conferences. But with one debatable exception, Trump can make a strong case that Clinton hasn’t given a press conference. The Fort Dodge press conference Clinton’s Dec. 5, 2015 event -- which is the consensus date of her last press conference among reporters and media outlets covering the Clinton campaign -- was held in Fort Dodge, Iowa. (And yes, we counted to make sure Trump's email blast came 269 days later.) The Clinton campaign provided us with a transcript of the exchange, which we’ve posted in full here. Clinton answered eight questions. They were heavily focused on substantive topics, including gun control, terrorism, mental health policy, visa waiver rules, and civil liberties. Given the serious tone of the exchanges and the mix of unfiltered questions by members of the traveling press corps, we think the Fort Dodge event qualifies as a genuine press conference, albeit a fairly brief one by standards of a sitting president. And at least one reporter, CNN’s Dan Merica, referred to the exchange as a ""press conference."" While stopping short of labeling them press conferences, the Clinton campaign did offer PolitiFact transcripts of four subsequent events for possible comparison to the Fort Dodge exchange. The Queens press availability On April 4, Clinton visited the Jackson Diner, an Indian buffet in the immigrant-heavy Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, N.Y. The transcript provided by the Clinton campaign is here. This time, the number of questions Clinton took was slightly smaller -- six -- and several were about substantive topics of local interest, including immigration reform and policy toward Wall Street. Other questions, however, were more about campaign tactics and the horse race between Clinton and Sanders. One was on debate preparations, another on incivility among Sanders supporters, and a third was about whether she thought she and her supporters could eventually unify with Sanders and his backers. Notably, none of the articles about the event that we found referred to this as a ""press conference."" One dispatch, in amNewYork, wrote that Clinton ""stopped to take questions from reporters before heading out"" from the restaurant. And the Guardian blogged that Clinton ""has just taken questions from reporters."" The Compton press availability The next event highlighted by the Clinton campaign took place on June 6 in Compton, Calif., a predominantly African-American jurisdiction near Los Angeles. It came one day before the California presidential primary, the last major contest of the Democratic nominating season. Clinton took eight questions, with very little about policy matters. Rather, the questions revolved around her electoral prospects in the primary, her battle with Sanders and when President Barack Obama would begin campaigning for her. Many dispatches cited a more formal news conference by Sanders on the same day, but most didn’t use the term ""press conference"" for the media’s exchange with Clinton. The Associated Press and the Orlando Sentinel used the phrase ""speaking to reporters,"" while the Guardian used ""told reporters."" CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin and Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin referred to it as a ""gaggle,"" a term for an impromptu -- and typically brief -- question-and-answer opportunity, often with the politician finishing one event and moving on to another. Griffin referred to it as taking ""a few last-minute questions"" in Compton. Indeed, by the time of Clinton’s Compton visit, some journalists had begun to specifically question the campaign why she hadn’t taken questions for so long. As Fox News reported, reporters covering the campaign rejected Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon’s assertion on CNN that she often ""comes out after an event has concluded"" and ""she'll literally stand there for 15, 20 minutes and answer questions from her traveling press corps."" Washington Post media reporter Callum Borchers called Fallon’s comments ""not true."" ""Talking to reporters in a scrum isn't particularly conducive to live television -- and the comparison here is to Trump's regularly scheduled news conferences, which cable channels often air live -- but at least Clinton would be submitting herself to a similar level of questioning,"" Borchers wrote. (A ""scrum"" is essentially the same thing as a ""gaggle."") Borchers cited calculations by Liz Kreutz of ABC News, who counted ""only nine"" such availabilities, ""none lasting as long as Fallon claimed. In fact, the total duration of all nine was less than 50 minutes, a length that Trump has eclipsed at one single news conference."" For the Compton event, Kreutz reported that it lasted ""about eight minutes -- still well shy of the 15-20 that Fallon said was customary,"" Borchers reported. The Ashland press availability The Clinton campaign also pointed to a joint exchange between Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, and the media on July 31 in Ashland, Ohio. Here’s the transcript. Reporters got to ask a small number of questions of the running mates, mainly focusing on Trump’s controversial comments about the parents of a fallen soldier, Capt. Humayun Khan, and whether the four fall debates would go off as planned. The opening segment of the exchange is dominated by discussion of the milkshakes they were ordering. We didn’t find any examples of journalists at the time calling this a ""press conference."" The NABJ-NAHJ conference Finally, on Aug. 5, Clinton gave a speech to a joint convention of African-American and Hispanic journalists and followed up with a question-and-answer session. Here is the full transcript. The Clinton campaign pointed to a remark by the NABJ's president, Sarah Glover, who called the event the ""largest press conference with any presidential candidate before a room filled with journalists of color"" when introducing Clinton. NAHJ president Mekahlo Medina also called it a ""press event"" to the Huffington Post. In addition, this was the longest of these events, at roughly 30 minutes. Kristen Welker of NBC and and Lori Montenegro of Telemundo, the moderators, represented the two journalism organizations; they asked multi-part questions. Three other reporters -- Yamiche Alcindor of the New York Times, Ed O’Keefe of the Washington Post and Kevin Merida of ESPN -- asked a question each. They had been pre-selected by the moderators because they had participated in a preliminary panel. However, the fact that the moderators chose the questioners from a limited pool of convention participants (and were convention participants themselves) cast doubt for many in the press corps on whether this fit the full definition of a press conference. Politico’s Jennifer Epstein, the Associated Press’ Lisa Lerer, CNN’s Merica, and the Post’s Chris Cillizza and Abby Phillip were among those making that argument on Twitter. After months of complaints from the traveling press corps that they were not getting a press conference in which they would all have an equal opportunity to ask a question, many were not satisfied that this setup met their demands. Other arguments from the Clinton camp Beyond pointing to these four examples, Clinton campaign officials have noted that Clinton has made herself available for many interviews. For instance, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, campaign manager Robby Mook said, ""She's done over 300 interviews this year, and she takes questions in a variety of formats."" When NPR looked at the campaign’s documentation on Aug. 25, they confirmed that Clinton had indeed done 350 interviews this year. The analysis also counted nine town-hall sessions from Jan. 1 to July 31, though these question-and-answer sessions were geared more towards members of the public than the media. However, the analysis noted that about one-fifth of the ""interviews"" were conducted by supporters, rather than journalists, or were done in settings not typically considered journalistic. In addition, NPR reported, ""a spot-check of interviews found most hovered between about three and eight minutes in duration, enough time to be seen on television screens and heard on the air, but short enough time to limit how deeply an interviewer could drill down."" ""Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill, who provided the database to NPR, did not take issue with the network's conclusions when they were shared with him,"" NPR reported. Cillizza, writing in the Post, found even a large number of interviews insufficient. ""Sitdown, one-on-one interviews aren't the same thing as a free-wheeling press conference,"" he wrote. ""There are lots and lots of ground rules that govern sit-downs — most notably a typically strict time limit that makes pursuing any particular line of questioning in any real depth almost impossible. And then there is the fact that an interview with, say, Jimmy Kimmel, isn't the same thing as a press conference with reporters from the Washington Post, New York Times and the TV networks. Kimmel is a comedian, not a reporter."" Our ruling Trump’s email said, ""It has been 269 days since Clinton has held a press conference."" Only one event in the past 269 days -- Clinton’s appearance before the minority journalists’ convention -- could reasonably be considered a press conference, and there are good arguments for why it isn’t. The questioners were limited to a small pool of convention participants, leaving most of the Clinton campaign press corps -- the dozens of journalists who know the campaign the best and who had complained the most about lack of access -- without an equal shot at asking a question. The statement is accurate but needs clarification, so
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8765
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Take the stairs for a healthy heart.
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Using the stairs at work instead of taking elevators could be a life saver.
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true
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Health News
|
A small Swiss study released on Monday showed that walking up and down stairs for three months, without recourse to the lift, increased levels of fitness dramatically. In fact, the improvement in aerobic capacity was equivalent to a 15 percent fall in the risk of dying prematurely from any cause. Subjects also saw marked reduction in waist size, body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol — all of which are known risk factors for heart disease. Philippe Meyer of the University Hospital in Geneva studied 69 employees of the university with a sedentary lifestyle, defined as less than two hours of exercise a week and fewer than 10 flights of stairs climbed a day. After not using elevators for 12 weeks, they increased their use of stairs to an average of 23 stories ascended or descended a day from five before, with a resulting sharp increase in fitness levels. “This suggests that stair climbing at work may have major public health implications,” Meyer told the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology. “However, the results of the pilot study need to be confirmed in a larger randomized controlled trial.”
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10898
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Dark Chocolate May Lower Stroke Risk
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Three best practices on reporting on research were violated in this story: The limitations of observational studies were not explained adequately so that readers could understand. The story is based on an abstract of a talk that won’t even be given for two months yet so true peer review hasn’t taken place. Only relative risk reduction data – not absolute risk reduction figures – were provided. This is the kind of science story that helps science and journalism fall out of favor with the public. These chocolate and Valentine’s Day stories are predictable on the calendar – and predictable in content and delivery. If the science behind it were more fully explained, it would be sweet. This wasn’t.
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mixture
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"The cost of chocolate is not in question. Used only relative risk reduction, not absolute. We have a primer on this as well. So when it talked about 22% lower stroke rate or a 46% lower stroke death rate, we’re not told 22% of what? Or 46% of what? Later there’s mention of chocolate helping to reduce blood pressure or increase blood flow but no data are provided. The story did discuss the possible harms of higher LDL cholesterol ""or perhaps higher incidence of cardiovascular disease"" from chocolate. But it didn’t provide any evidence. Nonethless we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. This story swings wildly back and forth, saying dark chocolate may lower stroke risk but then saying the findings aren’t conclusive. It said that the findings don’t prove that chocolate is good for your heart (heart? The headline and lede said this was about stroke!). And then it confusingly dropped in the researcher’s quote, ""I’d definitely go with the dark chocolate"" over white or mik chocolate. For what? Taste? Or for benefit? And if so based on what data? What the story didn’t explain is why using any language about lowering stroke risk is inappropriate, since such an observational study can’t prove cause-and-effect. We’ve just added a new guide for journalists about why the language of association versus causation is so important. The story didn’t tell us anything about stroke, so it couldn’t commit disease-mongering. A dietitian and a nutrition researcher – both apparently unaffiliated with the research – were quoted. No explanation was given for the researcher’s recommendation of dark chocolate over milk or white chocolate, and no reasons were given for why ""dark chocolate in particular"" – as the story states – may have health benefits. The availability of chocolate is not in question. The story explained this study was a review of existing studies. Since several sources were quoted, it does not appear that the story relied solely on a news release."
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5486
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Kentucky’s Medicaid enrollment dips ahead of new rules.
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After years of expansion because of a poor economy and new eligibility rules, Kentucky’s Medicaid population has been steadily declining as more people get jobs that pay them too much to be eligible for government-funded health care.
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true
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Economic policy, Health, Kentucky, Medicaid, Economy
|
Kentucky’s Medicaid enrollment is down “probably around 41,000” over the last five months, Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Adam Meier told state lawmakers Tuesday. The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy says the decline is steeper than that, with enrollment falling by more than 96,000 from January to September. A decline is also happening in other assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. “We’re seeing the No. 1 reason people are not enrolling is they are making too much income,” Meier said. The decline comes as the Trump administration has approved new rules — tentatively set to begin April 1 — for some of Kentucky’s Medicaid population that would require them to get a job, go to school or volunteer at least 80 hours per month to keep their coverage. Critics say the new rules will prevent people from getting health care, noting official estimates show it will decrease Kentucky’s Medicaid enrollment by 95,000 people over the next five years. Similar rules have been applied to Kentucky food stamp recipients this year, with about 10,000 people losing benefits because they did not comply. “The 95,000 prospective citizens that are going to lose health care coverage is problematic. I think we have to be concerned with what happens with them,” Democratic state Rep. George Brown said. But Meier said Tuesday it is a “misconception” that people will be losing coverage. He said many of those 95,000 people will likely lose eligibility because they make too much money or get a job with a company that provides health insurance. He noted the state has exemptions for people with drug and alcohol addictions, primary care responsibilities for children or the elderly and for victims of domestic violence. “If we can move more people to private market insurance coverage, that’s a good thing. And that’s what this (program) is designed to do,” Meier said. Traditionally, Medicaid has covered poor adults with children or a disability. But Kentucky, under former Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear, was one of 37 states that expanded its eligibility requirements under former President Barack Obama’s health care law to include childless adults who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which is just over $12,000 a year for single people. Kentucky’s Medicaid population exploded, adding more than 400,000 people. Republican Gov. Matt Bevin said the expansion was too expensive and does not do enough to make Kentucky’s citizens healthier. He sought permission to impose new eligibility rules on the state’s expanded Medicaid population. In January, Kentucky was the first state in the country to get approval for the new rules. But a federal judge in June blocked the rules from taking effect. The Trump administration re-approved those rules last week. But advocacy groups, including the Kentucky Equal Justice Center, say they will continue to challenge the rules in court. Meanwhile, Arkansas was the first state to implement the new rules for Medicaid. In the first three months, Arkansas officials reported 12,000 people lost coverage. Meier said he did not know how many people would initially lose access to Medicaid in Kentucky because of the new rules. But he said state officials have worked hard to “mitigate any unnecessary interference with people’s ability to have access to care.” “The same people who have access today will have access post implementation,” Meier said.
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10807
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Stem Cells Repair Heart in First-Ever Study
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This story creates a sense that this experimental approach is about to change the course of heart medicine and that, so far, it has only been made available to a very lucky few. The story notes that a “study researcher … could barely contain his excitement in an interview with WebMD.” It’s the job of journalism to dispassionately evaluate evidence and provide necessary context and caveats. But our reviewers thought too much of the uncontained excitement came through without enough of the C words. The American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions is one of the largest medical conferences in the world, generating a lot of overly effusive coverage every year. As difficult as it may be, reporters need to work especially hard during conferences to find independent sources who can provide cautious analysis of a study’s results, especially when a study is this small and has potential pitfalls built into the study’s design.
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mixture
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heart disease,WebMD
|
The story makes no mention of costs. Because this is a phase 1 study, no costs can be determined at this stage. Needless to say, the costs are likely, however, to be significant. There is widespread concern that when stem cell therapies do become available for some conditions that they will be cost prohibitive. The reason so many stem cell studies have enrolled so few patients is, in part, because research costs are so high, and that translates into higher costs for patients down the road. The story could have benefited from an info-graphic to break down all the numbers of patients used at various times in the story: 20 enrolled, “results are in for only the first 16,” 14 patients analyzed so far, 8 seen for one year. Wouldn’t that have been much more clear than scattering all of these numbers throughout the story? That makes it difficult to understand the scope of the benefits. The story spends a lot of time talking about just one patient and, in an unusual move for a study like this, the story names the patient: Michael Jones. This anecdote may not reflect the results seen to date in all the subjects treated. Preliminary results can be statistically important but may not be clinically important in the long run. The researchers saw an improvement in the ejection fraction in subjects treated (on average going from 30.3% to 38.5%) It should be noted that to be enrolled, all patients needed to have an ejection fraction of less than 40%. So, in spite of the improvement, the subjects on average still had severe heart failure at the end of this phase of the study. The story says that there were no side effects from the treatments. We would have liked to have seen more detail on how long the patients were followed (we’re only told that 8 have been followed for one year) and the types of side effects one might expect with this type of therapy. The subjects underwent cardiac surgery during which time cardiac tissue was recovered and the stem cells were injected into the heart via a catheter. Each procedure carries the potential for harm. In reporting on such a small, short-term study, we think the potential for harm is worth at least a line. The story is reporting on the preliminary results of a phase 1 study in a small number of subjects in an open label trial designed to determine the safety of the approach. All of that is explained at one point or another in the story. But it’s wrapped in language of “major breakthrough…unexpected magnitude…quite encouraging.” While the results to date are encouraging the story provides an overly optimistic view of the study results. Importantly, these are interim results in a handful of the subjects enrolled. Although there are notable attempts to temper the overall enthusiastic view, many readers may walk away with unrealistic expectations. The story makes one nod to problems with the quality of the evidence. It quotes the lead researcher on the study saying, “ Now this is an open-label trial, so patients know they are treated. This means we have to take what they say with a grain of salt.” He then quickly brushes that concern away, though, by saying, “But we see these patients not only are feeling better but doing more.” That’s the overwhelming message from this story, even though the study’s design may have skewed the results. By the definition of this criterion, the story does not commit disease-mongering about heart failure after heart attack. So we’ll give it a satisfactory score on this criterion. Many times, though, our reviewers wish to comment on what they consider to be treatment mongering. And that was the case this time as well. The story sets a tone of urgency and awe early in the story that carries through the rest of the story, culminating in the idea that people are somehow missing out on a “breakthrough” – a term used twice in the story. “ The only downside of this early success is that the ongoing study already has enrolled all 20 of the patients who will be treated. The experimental treatment simply will not be available to other patients in the near future.” Readers with heart disease worried that they may have missed their chance to find a cure are told “to maintain close contact with their doctors”. This creates a panic mentality that does not serve patients or stem cell science. The story presented one independent perspective and a quote from an editorial that accompanied the study. The experimental approach is not compared to existing alternatives. There is a passing reference to “lifestyle changes and medical management”. Were all of these patients taking the same medications and following the same diet and exercise routines prior to the study and during the study? What is currently the best course for the types of heart conditions these patients have? These are among the many questions not answered in the story. The story explains that these findings are from a small study early in the development of a stem cell therapy and that the treatment is not going to be available in the near term. It says that a “larger, phase II study is planned.” More important, it clearly states “the experimental treatment simply will not be available to other patients in the near future.” The novelty of the treatment is established. The story does note that the technique is new and was developed by one of the researchers. The story does not rely on a news release.
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2032
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Heavy drinking may raise abnormal heart rhythm risk.
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People who drink regularly, especially heavy drinkers, may be more likely than teetotalers to suffer atrial fibrillation, a type of abnormal heart rhythm, according to a research review.
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true
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Health News
|
Bar Manager Nicolas de Soto mixes a Calvados-based cocktail at ECC in Chinatown, London December 3, 2010. REUTERS/Toby Melville In an analysis of 14 studies, a team led by Satoru Kodama at the University of Tsukuba Institute of Clinical Medicine in Japan found that the heaviest drinkers were more likely to be diagnosed with the condition than people who drank little to no alcohol. Though definitions of “heavy” drinking varied, it meant at least two or more drinks per day for men, and one or more per day for women. In some studies, heavy drinkers downed at least six drinks per day. While doctors have long known that a drinking binge can trigger an episode of atrial fibrillation (AF), the findings — reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology — suggest that usual drinking habits may also matter. “What we revealed in the current (study) is that not only episodic but habitual heavy drinking is associated with higher risk of AF,” said Hirohito Sone, a colleague of Kodama’s, told Reuters Health by email. Atrial fibrillation is the most common abnormal heart rhythm and is not in itself life-threatening, but patients with it are at significantly higher risk of strokes. It may also result in palpitations, fainting, chest pain or congestive heart failure. When all the study results were combined, heavy drinkers were 51 percent more likely to suffer atrial fibrillation than either non-drinkers or occasional drinkers. Overall, the risk edged up 8 percent for every increase of 10 grams in participants’ daily alcohol intake. More than 2.6 million U.S. citizens will suffer from atrial fibrillation this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The condition becomes more common with age and additional risk factors include high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. Since coronary heart disease is much more common cause of death than atrial fibrillation, Sone said moderate drinking — up to one or two drinks per day — is probably still a heart-healthy habit for most people. A better way to show a connection is with studies that measure people’s drinking habits, then follow them over time to see who develops atrial fibrillation, said Kenneth Mukamal of Harvard University and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, who led two of the studies included in the analysis. One of Mukamal’s studies found a connection only between heavy drinking, with men who had five or more drinks a day having a higher risk of developing the condition over time than occasional drinkers. Mukamal said that, based on longer-term studies, “there’s little risk from chronic drinking in moderation, but heavier drinking — even rarely — acutely increases risk.” SOURCE: bit.ly/guQxql
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9343
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FDA approves marketing for a contraception app for the 1st time
|
This Good Morning America/ABCNews.com story reports on the FDA’s first medical device clearance of a birth control app, called Natural Cycles, which helps women track their menstrual cycles and bodily temperatures to figure out when they are fertile. The story provided some data on the reported effectiveness of the app and cautioned it’s not foolproof. But it stumbled by not interviewing an independent source, explaining where the data came from or providing more comparisons with other birth control methods. Birth control methods are plentiful; Planned Parenthood, for example, lists 18. Women need data to make good choices, and news stories about birth control methods should strive to offer comparisons on effectiveness, convenience, safety, and cost. Solid news reporting is especially important given the marketing of this app, touted as offering “more sexual freedom — minus the side effects.” As one European woman who became pregnant while using this app wrote in the Guardian: “I was sold on shiny promises, a sleek user interface and the fact that a former Cern physicist, Elina Berglund, was at the company’s helm. But four months in, it failed. Berglund helped discover the Higgs boson; but it turns out her algorithm couldn’t map my menstrual cycle.” While her experience might or might not be the norm, her broader point is valid: Marketing can create unrealistic expectations.
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mixture
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computer app,contraceptives,Pregnancy
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The story didn’t say how much the app costs. It’s $79.99 per year, or $9.99 a month. There’s also a free one-month trial, according to the company that makes it. There’s also no data on how it compares cost-wise with other birth control methods and whether it’s covered by insurance. According to Planned Parenthood, the annual cost of using the app is cheaper than most other forms of birth control such as IUDs and pills, but those are usually covered by insurance and forms of assistance. And, lastly, what is the cost compared to using the old method of taking your temperature each day and charting it? The story stated: The app had a “perfect use” failure rate of 1.8 percent in clinical studies that involved more than 15,500 women, or a “typical use” failure rate of 6.5 percent, according to the FDA. The “typical use” failure rate took into account women who sometimes did not use the app correctly or may have had unprotected sex on a day when the app flagged that they were fertile. That’s useful information, but the story could have been clearer about what these terms actually mean and how the numbers were calculated. Is this an annual failure rate? The idea of a “perfect use” and “typical use” failure rate is subject to interpretation and could lead to confusion. Is the “perfect use” number based on data from real women? The story quoted an FDA official warning that the app isn’t foolproof, “so an unplanned pregnancy could still result from correct usage of this device.” It also relayed a report that 37 out of 668 women who received an abortion at a Stockholm hospital from September 2017 to the end of December 2017 were using the app and still had an unwanted pregnancy. The story could have also cautioned that the app doesn’t protect against sexually transmitted diseases. Another harm: Because the “fertile window” can last nearly two weeks, it significantly limits the time that a woman can have sex (unless she uses condoms or another well-established form of protection). That can impact quality of life. The story didn’t explain where the effectiveness data came from. Was the trial published? How was it conducted? And what types of women participated? The story didn’t address these questions. One big limitation to the data behind this app and FDA clearance was that many of the women in the research study were “self-selecting. As explained in this BMJ piece, Sarah Hardman, director of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare’s clinical effectiveness unit in Edinburgh, has urged caution. While acknowledging the substantial size of the study, she argues it was self selecting, as it included lots of women who were specifically looking for something different for contraception, and who may have been more motivated than the “average woman on the street.” There’s no disease mongering here. The story attributes some statements to ABC News’ chief medical correspondent Jennifer Ashton, M.D. She is not an independent source, she is another journalist at the same company. We have no idea who conducted the studies and what conflicts they might have, either. This is a weak point. The story provided only one comparison, stating that “most contraception pills have a ‘typical use’ failure rate of approximately 9 percent,” which is higher than that reported for this app. But that could be because those women don’t use back-up methods during their most fertile times, as they might with the app. There are many options for birth control, and the story could have offered more comparisons on effectiveness as well as convenience, safety, and cost. For example, IUDs and skin implants have failure rates of less than 1%. It’s clear the app is readily available to women who have smartphones, and the story explained that the app uses daily body temperature data and menstrual cycle information. However, the story left out details that might prevent the app from being useful for some women. For one thing, it requires consistently taking your daily temperature with a basal thermometer immediately after waking up, which might not be feasible for some women. Also, it apparently takes some time to accumulate sufficient data to make the app useful for birth control. A medical advisor to the company that makes the app told STAT: “During the first two or three or four months, you need to use two methods.” Also, the FDA warned that the app should not be used by some women, such as those who have a medical condition in which pregnancy could present significant risk to the mother or the fetus. The story states that the FDA “for the first time ever has green-lighted a birth control app to be marketed as a method of contraception.” It could have made clear that other similar apps are likely to follow. The story relies heavily on an FDA news release and other published material. However, it did not rely solely on the news release.
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2504
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Mother says Pennsylvania girl's lung transplant a success.
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A 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl with cystic fibrosis who only became eligible for an adult organ transplant because of a federal judge’s order is out of surgery after a double-lung transplant on Wednesday and doing well, her mother said.
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true
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Health News
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Janet Murnaghan wrote on Facebook that her daughter Sarah Murnaghan was recovering in the intensive care unit after the six-hour procedure that began at 11 a.m. local time at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Her doctors are very pleased with both her progress during the procedure and her prognosis for recovery,” Murnaghan said in the posting on Wednesday night. Surgeons had no challenges resizing and transplanting the adult donor lungs, Murnaghan said, adding that the “surgery went smoothly and Sarah did extremely well.” The girl’s family, who lives in the Philadelphia suburb of Newtown Square, sued to prevent the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing a policy that prevents children under age 12 from getting adult lung transplants, even if they are extremely ill. U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson granted the family a 10-day temporary restraining order on June 5. No details were released about the identity of the donor or circumstances of the organ donation. A spokeswoman for Children’s Hospital said the hospital was not releasing any details in order to protect patient privacy. Murnaghan said that while the family was “elated” that the day of the transplant had come, it also knew “our good news is another family’s tragedy. That family made the decision to give Sarah the gift of life - and they are the true heroes today.” U.S. Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who has championed the girl’s cause, said in a statement earlier in the day that he was deeply grateful to the unidentified organ donor and his or her family. “Now that a suitable donor has been found, a prayer would help, too - a prayer Sarah’s body accepts the new organ the way doctors believe it can,” he said.
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8908
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WHO weighs science and politics in global virus emergency decision.
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Most of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) criteria for declaring a global emergency have been met, but it is awaiting clear evidence of a sustained spread of the new coronavirus outside China before doing so, some experts and diplomats said.
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true
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Health News
|
The U.N. agency is seeking to balance the need to ensure China continues to share information about the virus while also giving sound scientific advice to the international community on the risks, according to several public health experts and a Western diplomat who tracks the WHO’s work. The WHO has declared five global emergencies in the past decade, including the ongoing Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Doing so can hurt host countries because it may lead to flight cancellations and travel or trade restrictions, dragging on the economy. In the latest case, the WHO declined to declare China’s coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern(PHEIC) twice last week, although its Emergency Committee was split “50-50” over whether to do so. “What was lacking for them to declare an international emergency were deaths abroad and human-to-human transmission outside of China,” said the Geneva-based diplomat following the agency. “If there was proof of human-to-human spread among the ‘imported’ cases, the panel would lean toward another finding.” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier declined to comment beyond what he told a news briefing earlier on Tuesday. He restated that the WHO’s criteria for a global emergency include a “serious or unusual” health situation that affects other countries and may require a coordinated international response. In reply to a question, he added: “It is not ‘wildly spreading’ outside of China.” While the vast majority of the 4,500 or so confirmed cases and all 106 deaths so far have been in China, cases in Germany, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan where the virus has spread person-to-person have heightened concerns. “As information is coming in, it seems to be confirming our worst fears,” Lawrence Gostin, university professor at Georgetown Law in Washington, DC, told Reuters. “So I do believe that the WHO is going to have to declare an emergency and is going to have to take the lead ... You can’t leave this to China.” The WHO’s 16-member expert panel is being “kept in the loop” and could be reconvened at any time to reassess the outbreak. “Just because of rising numbers in China now this would not automatically trigger an Emergency Committee,” Lindmeier told the briefing. A declaration would lead to boosting public health measures, funding and resources to prevent and reduce global spread. It could include recommendations on trade and travel, although the WHO generally tries to avoid disruptive trade restrictions. The Emergency Committee deliberations are secret and its members have been told not to speak about their debate, several WHO officials told Reuters. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing on Tuesday to discuss how to protect Chinese citizens and foreigners in areas affected by the virus and “possible” evacuation alternatives, Lindmeier said. China has agreed that the WHO can send international experts there as soon as possible to increase understanding of the new coronavirus and guide the global response to the outbreak, the WHO said at the end of Tedros’ two-day visit. Some experts believe the Geneva-based health agency is in a difficult position, having drawn fire in the past for acting either too quickly or too slowly. “Essentially the WHO is between a rock and a hard place,” said Jeremy Farrar, an expert in infectious disease epidemics and director of the Wellcome Trust global health charity. Farrar noted that the organization was criticised for having called an early emergency in 2009 for the H1N1 flu pandemic, which proved mild, and then for being too late in declaring the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014.
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8506
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Greece has won a battle against COVID-19 but war is not over: PM.
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Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis praised the country’s efforts to contain the coronavirus on Monday but said there was no room for complacency before Orthodox Easter, when hundreds of thousands normally head to family gatherings.
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true
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Health News
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Greece was swift in implementing measures of social distancing after its first case of COVID-19 surfaced in late February, imposing a nationwide lockdown days later which is being respected with few exceptions across the country. “We showed our best self and this ... fills us with pride, it arms us with more courage to keep fighting,” Mitsotakis said, in a televised statement. “The war has not been won yet,” he added. Greece reported 30 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the total in the country to 2,145. Ninety-nine people have died. A week before Orthodox Easter, the conservative premier urged Greeks to stay home and not be tempted to go to church as any complacency could easily reverse the country’s successful efforts to contain the disease so far. Greeks risk stiff fines if they break the ban, and movement is allowed only with permits. Easter is the highlight of the religious calendar for many Greeks, who overwhelmingly belong to the Eastern Orthodox communion. Many normally pack churches from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. “It’s not our health which is at risk ... but the health of the faithful,” he said. “Only a thread separates victory from defeat.” Mitsotakis said the economic recession will be deep in 2020 for a country which emerged from bailouts only two years ago, but added that growth could be strong in 2021. He said the state was ready to spend up to 14 billion euros to support businesses and protect jobs from the impact of the virus along with 10 billion euros in European funds. Greece’s finance minister said earlier on Monday that coronavirus-hit countries in Europe may expect a 5-10 percent recession this year. But during the unprecedented health crisis the state was forced to push forward with reforms pending for years, and Greeks have also changed, Mitsotakis said. “It’s certain, that when the crisis is over we’ll look at the people who stack supermarket shelves differently. We will care if the man on the bike is wearing a helmet. We’ll be saying good morning to the women and men emptying our neighborhoods garbage containers,” he said. “They will no longer be invisible.”
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12147
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We stopped traffic coming through -- 78 percent.
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"Trump said, ""We stopped traffic coming through -- 78 percent."" Though Trump’s claim is vague, he’s made similar remarks about the border being ""down 78 percent"" and being ""close to 80 percent stoppage."" But the latest figures available for southwest border apprehensions do not support his claim. Only cherry-picked data would yield a 76 percent decline in apprehensions. Available information regarding drug seizures do not show a 78 percent decline, either."
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false
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Immigration, National, Donald Trump,
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"A border wall with Mexico is needed for security reasons, even though traffic coming through has stopped significantly, claimed President Donald Trump. Trump has threatened a government shutdown if Congress doesn’t pass a bill allocating funds for parts of his promised border wall, despite his campaign assurances that Mexico would pay for the costs. ""The wall is needed from the standpoint of security. The wall is needed from the standpoint of drugs -- tremendous, the drug scourge, what's coming through the areas that we're talking about,"" Trump said at an Aug. 28 press conference. ""As you know, I have General (John) Kelly here. We stopped traffic coming through, 78 percent. It's going to be, I think, 81 percent this quarter, which is a record."" Trump also claimed that during past administrations ""if they stopped it just a little bit, like 1 or 2 or 3 percent, they consider that a great thing. We're up to almost 80 percent."" Trump has made similar statements before about his administration’s control of the southwest border, using different timeframes to claim the greatest success. Has the Trump administration ""stopped traffic"" at the border by 78 percent? Not exactly. The most commonly used metric to gauge illegal immigration is border apprehensions, and the most recent data available do not support the claim. The White House did not provide information to support or clarify the president’s claim, despite our repeated requests. In past claims Trump has relied on year-over-year numbers, month-to-month data and the stretch from November 2016 (election month) to February. We compared the latest Border Patrol apprehension figures available (July 2017) to scenarios Trump has used before and did not find the 78 percent decline he claimed. U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows that in July 2017 there were 18,198 apprehensions at the southwest border. Here’s how the number of apprehensions have changed: • From July 2016 to July 2017, down 46 percent; • From June 2017 to July 2017, up 13 percent; • From November 2016 to July 2017, down 61 percent. The Washington Post’s Fact Checker has noted that apprehensions are close to an 80 percent decline by cherry-picking the highest point in fiscal year 2017 (November) to the lowest point (April). That yields a 76 percent decrease. At the press conference, Trump also commented about needing a U.S.-Mexico border wall to fight the drug trade. We wondered if Trump’s ""we stopped traffic coming through -- 78 percent"" claim might refer to drug seizures, but available data did not support that statement. Customs and Border Protection publishes data on pounds of drugs seized by both Border Patrol officers and the agency’s Office of Field Operations. The agency has information on pounds seized (cocaine, ecstasy, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine) during fiscal years 2015 and 2016, and year-to-date for fiscal year 2017 (up to July 31, 2017). But that specific information is not singled out as being just for the southwest border, and it is not broken down per month. The agency did not get back to us by deadline with those detailed numbers. Comparisons of pounds seized (for each type of drug) from fiscal year 2016 to year-to-date fiscal year 2017 do not show a 78 percent change, either. There was a 93 percent decline in the pounds of ecstasy seized by Border Patrol agents — 15 pounds in 2016, 1 pound in 2017 so far. Trump said, ""We stopped traffic coming through -- 78 percent."" Though Trump’s claim is vague, he’s made similar remarks about the border being ""down 78 percent"" and being ""close to 80 percent stoppage."" But the latest figures available for southwest border apprehensions do not support his claim. Only cherry-picked data would yield a 76 percent decline in apprehensions. Available information regarding drug seizures do not show a 78 percent decline, either."
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27428
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President Trump rolled back rules protecting residents of nursing homes.
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We reached out to the AHCA for comment, but have not received a response.
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true
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Medical, elderly, nursing homes, obama administration
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On 24 December 2017, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration was scaling back an Obama-era policy that ramped up the use of fines on skilled nursing facilities for actions that endangered vulnerable patients: The Trump administration is scaling back the use of fines against nursing homes that harm residents or place them in grave risk of injury, part of a broader relaxation of regulations under the president. The shift in the Medicare program’s penalty protocols was requested by the nursing home industry. The American Health Care Association, the industry’s main trade group, has complained that under President Barack Obama, federal inspectors focused excessively on catching wrongdoing rather than helping nursing homes improve. As would be expected, the Times report (which was published on Christmas Eve) resulted in a number of aggregated stories crafted to play up the outrage angle with sensational headlines reporting, essentially, that the president was going to kill Grandma on Christmas. Over-the-top wording as in this headline, “Trump Will Permit Abuse Of Elderly In Nursing Homes,” prompted readers to inquire whether the story was true. Elder abuse is a crime, and that has not changed. However, the Trump administration did begin the process of rolling back an Obama administration policy that uses hefty fines as leverage against facilities that cause serious harm to patients. The Trump administration issued two Notices of Proposed Rule-Making (NPRMs) in May and June of 2017 which will reverse rules requiring the presence of a designated facility grievance officer to handle allegations of wrongdoing, and prohibiting nursing homes from requiring patients to sign pre-dispute arbitration agreements as a condition of admission. These changes do not mean that rampant, unchecked abuse will be allowed to take place, as some headlines have suggested however. In November 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) also issued a moratorium on a requirement that nursing homes develop a baseline care plan for new patients within 48 hours of admission, along with seven other requirements on things like behavioral health care, psychotropic medication and facility assessments. The effects of the rollbacks are not yet known, but Toby Edelman, senior attorney for the Center for Medicare Advocacy, told the Times, “They’ve pretty much emasculated enforcement, which was already weak.” According to federal records reviewed by the Times, four in every ten nursing homes have been cited at least once since 2013 for a serious violations such as neglect, mistreatment and failing to protect residents from accidents and bed sores. CMS put an 18-month moratorium on a requirement that nursing homes develop a basic care plan for new patients within 48 hours. This rule was put in place after the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General found in a study published in 2014 that one in five Medicare patients experienced medical complications within an average 15 days of admission to nursing facilities, most of which were serious, preventable and resulted in millions in additional medical expenses billed to Medicare. However in a memo to state health departments, CMS noted that the moratorium does not mean violation of requirements will result in no enforcement. Requirements that fall under the purview of the moratorium, like the baseline care plan, will simply be handled differently until the end of the moratorium period. In a statement, Center for Medicare Advocacy policy attorney Dara Valanejad told us: The Center for Medicare Advocacy is greatly concerned by the Administration’s actions rolling back the minimum standards of care set out in the Medicare and Medicaid Requirements of Participation. CMS should be protecting the rights of residents, who should be its primary focus, not referring to the nursing home industry as its “customer.” The minimum nursing home standards were implemented because there was an unmet need for urgent resident protections. For example, the HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reported in 2014 that one in five residents experienced harm within the first month of admission (the average was 15.5 days) to a skilled nursing facility, 20 percent of these cases resulted in life-sustaining interventions or death, and 59 percent of these adverse events were “clearly or likely preventable.” The Baseline Care Plan, one of the Phase 2 Requirements that CMS placed an 18-month moratorium on, requires nursing homes to develop a basic care plan within 48 hours to address the type of problems that the OIG found. How can nursing home residents and their families feel safe knowing that such vital requirements, meant to protect them from harm, injury, or death, will not be properly enforced? Per the Times report, the American Health Care Association sent a letter to then-President Elect Trump in December 2016 asking for “relief” from regulations and complained to CMS: Rather than spending quality time with their patients, the providers are spending time complying with regulations that get in the way of caring for their patients and doesn’t increase the quality of care they provide.
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40935
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You cannot catch Covid-19 person to person.
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This is incorrect. Like other coronaviruses, Covid-19 is spread via respiratory droplets from an infected person to an uninfected person.
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true
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online
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You cannot catch Covid-19 from touching surfaces. Viruses are dead material expelled from healing cells. Everyone has thousands of viruses inside their body. There is debate about whether viruses are technically alive. The human body does contain a number of viruses that don’t do harm. Covid-19 is caused by a virus that is potentially very harmful though. Masks decrease oxygen intake, increase carbon dioxide intake, increase toxin intake, increase stress levels which directly impacts the immune system in a negative way making us more susceptible to illness. Claim 1 of 4
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17200
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There are still more people uninsured today than when Obama was elected president.
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Kingston’s claim about number of uninsured has some merit
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mixture
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Georgia, Health Care, Jack Kingston,
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"Republicans have made the case on several different fronts why the federal health care law is not the cure for the nation’s health care problems, primarily from a policy perspective. Some are now using a numbers-based argument to contend it’s not helping as many Americans as the law’s supporters predicted. ""There are still more people uninsured today than when (Barack) Obama was elected president,"" U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, a Republican from Savannah, said recently on the Fox News Channel. PolitiFact Georgia wondered if the congressman’s claim is correct. Obama, a Democrat, took office in January 2009. A year later, he signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, arguably the most sweeping rule changes on health care since Medicare was created in the late 1960s. Many Republicans mockingly called the law ""Obamacare,"" a moniker that the president later said he would proudly embrace. Kingston, who is running this year for the U.S. Senate, voted against the health care law. Earlier this month, U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said ""there are less people today with health insurance than there were before this law went into effect."" Our friends at PolitiFact in Washington examined that claim and found many problems with Boehner’s statement and rated it False. Kingston’s claim is different, primarily because of the different time frame he used, so we continued with our research. Health care data is difficult to determine. The Obama administration started its insurance marketplace accounts for enrollees to join, but sign-ups initially fell well below Congressional Budget Office projections. An estimated 6 million people have now signed up for health care through the marketplaces set up through the law, but that number is uncertain because individuals can purchase insurance outside of the marketplaces in Vermont and Washington, D.C. The open enrollment season ends Monday. One consistent statistic we found in several surveys showed there were more than 40 million Americans without health insurance in 2008, the year before Obama moved into the White House. Kingston’s office said the congressman based his claim on a recent nationwide Gallup poll on America’s uninsured. The poll shows 15.4 percent of Americans were uninsured during the first quarter of 2009. Currently, 15.9 percent of Americans are uninsured. The poll has a margin of error of 1 percentage point. Does that mean there could now be a smaller percentage of Americans uninsured, or that the percentage is basically the same between those two years? ""Technically, you could say that they were within the margin, but that margin means the ‘09 number could be as low as 14.4 and the 2014 as high as 16.9 percent,"" Greg Dolan, a spokesman for Kingston, said in one email. The Atlanta-based U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also tracks how many Americans are uninsured on an annual basis. Their data is similar to the Gallup poll. In 2008, they found 14.7 percent of Americans were uninsured at the time they were interviewed. In 2013, the number of uninsured was barely lower, at 14.6 percent. The 2013 survey was done between January and June. It’s unclear when the 2008 survey was conducted. In 2009, the CDC survey shows 15.4 percent were uninsured when they were interviewed. We also looked at data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which also releases annual statistics on the health insurance status of Americans. In 2008, 14.9 percent of Americans were uninsured. A year later, the percentage of uninsured rose to 16.1 percent. In 2012, it declined to 15.4 percent. The actual number of Americans uninsured, according to the Census Bureau data, rose from nearly 44.8 million in 2008 to nearly 49 million in 2009. In 2012, their data shows just under 48 million Americans were uninsured. The Census Bureau data does not indicate whether there is a margin of error. Obama did take office amid the nation’s worst financial situation since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate rose from 6.1 percent in September 2008 -- when the crisis began -- to 7.8 percent in January 2009, adding about 2.5 million Americans to the unemployment rolls, with many of them presumably losing their health insurance. The unemployment rate rose to 10 percent by October 2009. Should Obama get a reprieve from Kingston’s criticism because of the economic meltdown? No, Kingston’s office says. Dolan said the congressman’s point is that the health care law is not dramatically reducing the number of Americans without health insurance. The Gallup poll, however, shows the percentage of those uninsured has declined from 18 percent at one point late last year to the current uninsured rate of 15.9 percent. ""The numbers of uninsured skyrocketed in reaction to passage of Obamacare (in 2010),"" Dolan said. ""That they’ve settled out where they were before this disaster is not a positive sign for the initiative."" So where does this leave us? Kingston said in a television interview that ""there are still more people uninsured today than when Obama was elected president."" Obama came into office facing some extraordinary economic circumstances with several million Americans losing their jobs and many of them losing their health insurance. Some might say the president should get cut some slack here. Kingston’s camp says the problem worsened as a result of the health care law. The congressman based his claim on a Gallup poll detailing the percentage of uninsured between the beginning of 2009 and now. His office says the Census Bureau data we found showing more people uninsured in 2012 than in 2008 supports his argument. The percentage of Americans uninsured we reviewed in other polls and surveys mostly shows there has been a slight increase since 2008, although the numbers are close or within the margin of error. PolitiFact’s definition of is the statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context."
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6890
|
Kearney to study ban on vaping in public places.
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Kearney’s mayor has asked city staffers to study whether vaping is a threat to public health and should be banned from public places in the city.
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true
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Health, Grand Island, General News, Vaping, Kearney, Public health
|
The Kearney Hub reports that Mayor Stan Clouse made the request at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. He mentioned Grand Island’s ban on vaping in public places and Kearney Public Schools barring vaping devices from school property. He told the Kearney Hub after the meeting that he’s not a fan of “too much government,” but said: “If the schools are worried about vaping, maybe we should be too.” Public health experts have been trying to determine what’s causing a mysterious and sometimes fatal lung disease among people who use e-cigarettes. The ailment has sickened at least 530 people and killed nine. ___ Information from: Kearney Hub, http://www.kearneyhub.com/
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11187
|
Research: Healthy diet cuts risk of Alzheimer’s
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This article provided only cursory information about a study that adds to the existing literature about dietary interventions for Alzheimers prevention. While providing a fairly complete framework for what would be included in this style diet, it did not offer a balanced view of the real potential for benefit. The story said that said that “People who followed the diet were up to 40 percent less likely than those who largely avoided it to develop Alzheimer’s during the course of the research.” The story shouldn’t make the reader do the math to figure out the absolute risk reduction between the groups. See the importance of “absolute vs. relative risks,” explained in a link by that name on the home page under “Things You Should Know About Research Stories.” The story didn’t explain how or if the researchers monitored adherence to the diet during the trial. It would be useful to provide additional context (even from quotes from experts in the field) so that readers can better evaluate the evidence as they consider making dietary changes. Comparisons between benefits from dietary changes and those beneftis from other preventive strategies would also be helpful in putting this into context.
|
false
|
No costs of the diet were mentioned. Does choosing such a diet cost more, less, about the same? The story didn’t explain the differing incidence of Alzheimer’s disease in the groups following different versions of a Mediterranean-style diet. The story said that 2258 people were studied, and 262 developed Alzheimer’s disease. In a separate place, it said that ” People who followed the diet were up to 40 percent less likely than those who largely avoided it to develop Alzheimer’s during the course of the research.” The story shouldn’t make the reader do the math to figure out the absolute risk reduction between the groups. See the importance of “absolute vs. relative risks,” explained in a link by that name on the home page under “Things You Should Know About Research Stories.” Finally, the story didn’t explain how or if the researchers monitored adherence to the diet during the trial. There was no obvious disease mongering. The story explained where the research was published. It also included interview material with the lead author of that paper and with an Alzheimer’s Association spokesperson. This article did not mention any of the other interventions, similar to the Mediterranean-style diet, that are under investigation as potential means to protect against Alzheimer’s disease. Although the article makes it sound like the study involved a specific test diet, the study actually involved older people who self-selected their diet. A Mediterranean-style diet is something that anyone can choose. It is relatively easy for consumers to learn how to eat a Mediterranean-style diet, via the Internet or books. Though there is currently no diet that has FDA approval for the claim that it reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, this was not mentioned in the article. While this article was an attempt to highlight the results of a recent study, the study was not conducted in a vacuum. The idea that a Mediterranean-style diet may be associated with decreased risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease is not new. Several papers have suggested that this diet might help prevent Alzheimer’s disease and there have been a few epidemiological studies that support that idea. It would be useful to put this study into context to help readers understand that these results are in line with findings from other research. We can’t be sure if the story relied solely or largely on a news release.
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26500
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“It has been estimated that only 12% of workers in businesses that are likely to stay open during this crisis are receiving paid sick leave benefits as a result of the second coronavirus relief package.
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Bernie Sanders’ estimate that only 12% of essential workers would qualify for paid sick leave under the congressional coronavirus relief package exposes the chokehold that large-employer exemptions have on these benefits. Some experts say the limited scope of the rule could jeopardize efforts to slow the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19 if workers who are sick don’t feel they can afford to stay home to recuperate.
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true
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Health Check, Coronavirus, Bernie Sanders,
|
"The pressure is building for Congress to pass a fourth coronavirus relief bill, beyond the roughly $2.2 trillion already approved to keep people and businesses viable during an unprecedented viral attack. And Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is making his case for what a supplemental rescue package should include ― guaranteed universal sick leave for all workers. ""It has been estimated that only 12% of workers in businesses that are likely to stay open during this crisis are receiving paid sick leave benefits as a result of the second coronavirus relief package,"" Sanders argued in an op-ed published April 8 in The Guardian, just hours before he suspended his presidential campaign. Paid sick leave emerged as a sticky issue on Capitol Hill as lawmakers worked to develop a federal relief package. The Families First Coronavirus Emergency Response Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law on March 18, included a guarantee of paid sick leave for some workers, which supporters say is crucial to make sure those who contract the virus are, in fact, able to stay home. The law requires companies that employ fewer than 500 people to provide two weeks of emergency sick leave if an employee develops COVID-19 symptoms, is isolating per the advice of a medical professional or is caring for a family member with a potential case of COVID-19. These employers also must provide paid family leave for people who may need to care for children during coronavirus school closures. But the law exempts bigger companies, a category that includes often-""essential"" retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Target and supermarket chains. That concession was made to satisfy the White House and congressional Republicans, many of whom have argued that most big companies already offer sick leave packages, and a federal requirement would create unnecessary red tape. Sanders’ argument is that their employees are still vulnerable. Many of the firms exempted by the law remain open during the crisis. Employees who may become ill will not be protected by the federal guarantee of sick leave. Sanders argues that many will fall through the cracks because, while their employers can choose to provide paid time off, those benefits would not fall under the federal directive and could prove less generous than what smaller firms, which must comply with the law, will provide. We contacted Sanders’ congressional office for more information but never heard back. Our research suggests that he has the big picture right, though the precise calculations are tricky. Nuances in the law make it difficult to quantify the number of people who would benefit from the relief package’s paid sick leave requirement. Sanders’ figure appears to come from an analysis conducted by The Washington Post, which suggests that ""only 12 percent of workers in businesses that are likely to stay open will be affected."" The analysis used Philadelphia’s shelter-in-place order to determine which private-sector businesses would likely stay open because it offered a clear and publicly available list of workplaces excluded from the order. Other experts validated this approach, noting that this list was a good proxy — though not a perfect one — for locations across the country. Then, the Post used data from the Census Bureau’s Statistics of U.S. Businesses (the most recent figures come from 2017) to determine how often those excluded businesses ― such as grocery stores, pharmacies, big-box stores, hardware stores, banks and dry cleaners — employed enough people to qualify for an exemption from the paid sick leave mandate. It arrived at the rate of 12%. So, first and foremost: Sanders is correct that someone had estimated this percentage. But there’s more to consider. Because of the law’s exemptions for large companies, many of the workers Americans are counting on now may not have protection. ""The workers who are on the front lines, on the grocery chains, pharmacies and warehouses, aren’t covered,"" said Vicki Shabo, a senior fellow for paid leave policy and strategy at New America, a centrist think tank. ""The businesses that continue to operate are very likely to be those that are bigger, that have the cash flows to keep their sales going and that provide essential services."" Per the Post’s analysis, those large companies employ about 7.4 million people who would likely be deemed essential workers. The law provides other exemptions, too. In interpreting the law, the Labor Department has issued regulations saying that a company with fewer than 50 employees can exempt itself from the paid family leave element of the mandate if it burdens business operations. But the new law still requires those small businesses to provide paid medical leave to their employees, a total workforce of about 2.2 million ― a factor, some policy researchers pointed out, the Post did not include in its analysis. If you redo the math counting those workers, the measure’s sick leave promise holds up a bit better — encompassing about a third of all essential workers. But there’s another catch. The law also does not guarantee paid sick leave to health care providers and emergency responders ― another category of workers typically deemed essential during a pandemic. The Labor Department defines these categories broadly. For instance, health care providers include ""workers who are needed to keep hospitals and similar health care facilities well supplied and operational,"" not only clinicians. Back-of-the-envelope math suggests that by factoring these various exemptions into the number of likely essential employees guaranteed paid sick leave under the relief package — dividing the number of essential workers who qualify for guaranteed leave by the full count of essential workers — the true percentage of people covered hovers closer to the teens. Bottom line: ""We need people to understand just how broad the exemptions ended up being,"" said Kathleen Romig, a senior analyst at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The numerous carve-outs in the federal mandate — and the benefits it requires from eligible companies ― together illuminate a larger point. Historically, American sick leave policies haven’t been uniform across industries or organizations. The new law does build on policies some businesses already had in place, Shabo said. For instance, private-sector workers who had sick leave, on average, received seven paid days a year guaranteed. The law bumps that up to 10 days (so, two workweeks for most people) and allows those days to be used to care for someone else. That’s a big change. Even so, the majority of front-line workers are not covered by the federal promise of paid leave if they fall ill during the pandemic. Many get some kind of paid sick leave. Dillon Clair, a public policy associate at the ERISA Industry Committee — which represents large employers ― said, typically the companies his organization represents offer at least 40 hours of paid sick leave, and that medical leave is accompanied by other benefits (like vacation time) that employees can use if they fall ill after exhausting their sick leave. Meanwhile, companies like Walmart and McDonald’s have rolled out emergency coronavirus programs, offering two weeks of paid time off for people the company deems sufficiently at risk. But the issue of who is deemed at risk gets dicey. Other employers, like Burger King, Dunkin’ and Marriott International, have not instituted any emergency coronavirus policies for their workers, according to New America. And the lack of standardization means that many of the voluntary leave policies have substantial holes, Shabo said. For instance, McDonald’s and Walmart both require employees to get an official quarantine recommendation or a confirmed medical diagnosis of COVID-19 to access the sick leave benefit. Those operational barriers mean people who have developed the virus are less likely to stay home — especially because coronavirus tests are sometimes difficult to come by. That influences both individual and public health. ""They’re more likely to get sick than someone like me, who is self-isolating and working from home. They are literally putting themselves at risk every time they go to work,"" Romig said. Without a guarantee of paid leave, she added, individual workers may have to choose between taking a day off to recover from illness and earning money for groceries. And there are the public implications, too. ""We really don’t want people who have contracted this virus to be in public. We don’t want them at the grocery store where everyone has to go to get food,"" she said. ""We want them out of circulation. We want them to have the income they need to sustain that."" In his op-ed, Sanders argued that ""it has been estimated that only 12% of workers in businesses that are likely to stay open during this crisis are receiving paid sick leave benefits as a result of the second coronavirus relief package."" This is true. There are different takes on the math, but when you factor in the impact of the law’s exemptions to this requirement, it still appears that the number of essential workers guaranteed paid sick leave because of this law is in the range of 12% to the low teens. More important, Sanders is correct about the big picture: Congress’ paid sick leave guarantee exempts the vast majority of front-line workers during the pandemic, which could make containing the virus harder. Sanders’ claim could use some more context, but it is generally a fair assessment."
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29817
|
"In 2018 or 2019, Brea Olinda Unified School District in California ""taught pedophilia as a sexual orientation."
|
Taking the foregoing facts into account, we issue a rating of “false” for the claim that Brea Olinda Unified School District was “teaching pedophilia as a sexual orientation.”
|
false
|
Politics
|
In the spring of 2019, the Christian conservative website Freedom Project prompted concern among some readers by reporting that a public school district in California was “teaching pedophilia” as a sexual orientation. On 17 April, the site published an article with the headline “Pedophilia Being Taught as ‘Sexual Orientation’ in California Schools.” The article continued: Government school officials in California think it is “really important” to teach children about pedophilia and pederasty in the classroom because it is a “sexual orientation.” That is according to a top official for California’s Brea Olinda School District, who admitted to parents that it was being done — and that it would continue, despite the outrage. The implications are mind-blowing. The stunning admission came after a parent-information meeting last month for the Brea Olinda Unified School District (BOUSD). Stephanie Yates, founder of Informed Parents of California, asked school officials why they were “teaching pedophilia in school to 9th graders.” But instead of a denial that such an atrocity was taking place, a top school official confirmed it was happening and acted like there was nothing wrong with it. “This is done because we are talking about historical perspectives of how gender relations and different types of sexual orientations have existed in history,” said BOUSD Assistant Superintendent of Curricula Kerrie Torres in a matter-of-fact way, sounding almost oblivious to how the bombshell might sound to normal people. The report centered around a short clip showing an exchange between Yates and Torres, which can be viewed below: That clip was taken from a longer video, posted to the “Informed Parents of California” Facebook group. The 43-minute video was recorded on 21 March at a public information evening for parents in the Brea, California, school district, on the subject of the Healthy Youth Act. The full video can be watched here. California lawmakers passed the Healthy Youth Act, as we have outlined previously, in 2015, creating a new K-12, sex-education curriculum that remained in place as of April 2019. The law requires school districts across California to implement instruction for students related to reproductive health, sex education, personal safety, prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, child and adolescent growth, as well as programming on relationships, families, gender identity and sexual orientation. Each school district must devise its own curriculum, including specific reading materials and classroom presentations, provided the content is in keeping with the requirements of the Healthy Youth Act, including the requirement that all instructional material must be “age-appropriate.” On the subject of sexual orientation, the text of the legislation states: “Instruction and materials shall affirmatively recognize that people have different sexual orientations and, when discussing or providing examples of relationships and couples, shall be inclusive of same-sex relationships.” The legislation does not mention pedophilia (sexual activity between an adult and child) or pederasty (sexual activity between a man and a boy). The full 43-minute video shows a 21 March presentation given by Brea Olinda Unified School District (BOUSD) Assistant Superintendent Kerrie Torres, which provided attending parents with information about how the district was implementing the requirements of the Healthy Youth Act, and what the BOUSD curriculum entailed. Around 25 minutes into the video, Yates interrupted Torres’ presentation to ask about the curriculum’s component on sexual orientation, and whether parents could withdraw their children from it (a subject we have previously examined in greater detail). Yates said: “… I’m just wondering, because you did give me this Powerpoint presentation that actually goes through the history of the LGBTIQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, questioning], that talks about the practice of pederastery [sic], which is pedophilia specific to boys and men. … You said you don’t teach anything inappropriate, but you’re teaching, normalizing pederastery [sic].” Yates’ interruption was cut short, but after Torres’ presentation, Yates once again confronted the BOUSD official with claims that the curriculum was ‘normalizing anal sex’ and ‘teaching pedophilia in school.’ The following exchange ensued: Yates: Answer me why you’re teaching pedophilia in school, to ninth-graders. Torres: Teaching what? Yates: Pedophilia. Pederastery [sic]. Right here. Torres: Pederastery [sic]… this is done because we are talking about historical perspectives of how gender relations and different types of sexual orientations have existed in history. So this is something — Unidentified voice: So sex between a man and a boy is a sexual orientation? Torres: — something that’s occurred in history and this is really important for us to include.” At no point did Torres state that the school district was endorsing the practice of pederasty or pedophilia, nor even that the curriculum described pederasty as a discrete sexual orientation — the core of the claim made by Freedom Project in its subsequent report, which falsely described Torres’ remarks as a “stunning admission.” In reality, Yates was referring to an outdated version of the BOUSD Healthy Youth Act curriculum that mentioned pederasty in a section about LGBT history, but neither endorsed the practice nor described or presented it as a discrete, legitimate sexual orientation. BOUSD’s ninth-grade, health-education curriculum contains a component (Section 4.8) entitled “Introduction to Sexual Orientation,” which includes a slideshow that teachers are intended to present to students. One of the slides relates to “LGBTIQ in History,” and traces prominent milestones in LGBT history, including references to homosexuality in Ancient Rome and China. As of April 2019, the current version of that slide did not contain any reference to pederasty. However, an earlier version contained the following bullet point: “The practice of pederasty (an older upper class man would make a young free boy his partner and become his mentor) is mentioned in Homer’s Iliad [the Ancient Greek epic poem], and is evidenced to have existed at least 4500 years ago in ancient Egypt.” In a statement, a spokesperson for the school district told us that the previous reference to pederasty was removed from Section 4.8 of the ninth-grade, health-education curriculum in the fall of 2018. “After careful review of the curriculum, the district determined it [the bullet point] posed more questions than answers,” the spokesperson wrote. The description of pederasty in the original BOUSD presentation is accurate, and in tracing the history of same-sex relationships in various societies, it would be perfectly relevant to mention the Ancient Greek custom whereby older men imposed a sexual relationship on much younger males, typically teenage boys. Although modern-day observers would view such a practice as predatory, abusive and criminal, it was widely practiced and accepted in Ancient Greek society. As such, it would appear relevant for inclusion in a brief summary of prominent milestones and trends in LGBT history, while bearing in mind the clear distinction between same-sex relationships, as such, and child sexual abuse. Yates did not make that distinction when she confronted Torres for allegedly ‘normalizing anal sex’ and ‘teaching pedophilia,’ suggesting a moral equivalence existed between consensual, same-sex sexual relations and child sexual abuse. The BOUSD presentation, which is outdated anyway, did not endorse pederasty or present it approvingly, nor did it describe pederasty or pedophilia as a discrete sexual orientation. Similarly, BOUSD official Torres did not state, in her videotaped exchange with Yates, that pederasty was its own sexual orientation, or that BOUSD endorsed or approved of pederasty or pedophilia or taught students that sexual activity between men and boys was acceptable in any way. Thus Freedom Project author Alex Newman was inaccurate in claiming, during a widely shared Facebook video, that Torres had said of pedophilia “this is a sexual orientation.” In reality, she said no such thing. In fact, after concerns were raised at an earlier public meeting on 21 March, Torres added a slide to her presentation for that evening that explicitly stated “We do not teach pedophilia.”
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34350
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A Puerto Rico police officer has revealed that San Juan's mayor is sabotaging relief efforts to reflect poorly on President Donald Trump.
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Despite this lack of evidence, the rumors were immediately picked up and distributed as fact.
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unproven
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Politics Conspiracy Theories, hurricane maria, mike cernovich, puerto rico
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In late September 2017, as Puerto Rico struggled to address the damage from Hurricane Maria, mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto of the United States commonwealth’s capital city, San Juan, spoke out about its worsening humanitarian crisis, which has been exacerbated by a sluggish federal response: Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto told the world of the “horror” she was seeing as she waded through San Juan’s flooded streets. And the desperation on the island, parts of which may remain without power for months. Until then, Cruz had not been a well-known politician outside the island. But after she criticized Washington’s response to the hurricane this week — “save us from dying,” she pleaded on cable network — President Trump took direct aim at her on Twitter. “Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan,” he wrote Saturday. Democrats must have told her to say nasty things about him, he claimed. Immediately after this, rumors popped up about Cruz and her leadership (or lack thereof), up to and including a snippet from a Puerto Rico radio program purporting to be an interview with a police officer (but without any corroborating evidence or citations to support her claims; not even a name from the radio show caller claiming to be a police officer): On September 28th A cop from Puerto Rico was able to get a call through a Hispanic radio station in New York (La Mega). She is telling what she is seeing as a cop in the aftermath or Maria and the government’s injustice Transcript: Radio Announcer: What is your name? Police Caller: I cannot give my name because I work for Puerto Rico’s Police Department. I need to pass this information out because the stuff that is being brought from the U.S. is not being distributed. They are not allowing the Puerto Rican people to receive the donations. Radio Announcer: What part of Puerto Rico are you calling us from right now? Police Caller: I am right now in Guaynabo. Radio Announcer 2: Wow. Radio Announcer 3: But what information do you have? What have you seen? Police Caller: The Mayor, Carmen Yulin, is not allowing anyone to distribute… We need… what Puerto Ricans need is that the U.S. armed forces come in and distribute the aid. And that they stop the governor, Rosello, and the mayor, Yulin, on doing what they are doing… It’s an abuse, it looks like communism, in our own island (sobbing)… (sobbing continues, inaudible translation due to cries)… Police Caller (cont. ): People are helping us, but they are not accepting it, they are not accepting anymore help supposedly: “they have to wait for the license, that there are no buses.” …Let me tell you something Boricuas (Puerto Ricans) are dying of hunger (crying continues) … This is a bureaucracy, everything has to be protocol, the lines are stretched. …We can only give one box of water per person (sobbing continues). …The medics here, people are dying, the hospitals are in crisis. Police Caller (cont. ): I am embarrassed, as a Boricua to work for Puerto Rico’s police and see that we cannot do anything. There are dozens and thousands and thousands of food and when people ask we cannot give anything away because [Mayor] Carmen Yulin says that we cannot take anything out; because everything is a soap opera, everything is a show and there have to be cameras here and there. ….Because you know they are just looking for votes for the upcoming years. Radio Announcer 2: Wow Police Caller: And the governor won’t move unless there is a camera behind him; [Mayor] Carmen Yulin won’t move unless there is a camera behind her. This is how we are living in Puerto Rico, meanwhile artists are giving money and the people of Florida are sending stuff, and I don’t know how many more people are helping because we have very limited communication, very limited, and we have no idea what’s going on outside; and the people who are sending stuff, they have to come in; they have to come to help Puerto Rico and distribute what is being wasted …because what else are we going to do? You tell me, what are we going to do? Radio Announcer #2: Of course the desperation.. Radio Announcer #3: We are with our hearts broken listening to you describing this situation which is heartbreaking when we know that so many people are helping …this is a police officer speaking. Police Caller: I’ve been for one hour and a half just trying to download an application because the phones that they give to us I cannot use them as a police officer due to security measures. But I need to speak for the people because the people are suffering. Because I, as a cop, and other partners are seeing it. A lot of people have been posting videos (sobbing – inaudible) …and no-one is paying attention. Radio Announcer #3: We are truly sorry for this situation, we did not know that.. Police Caller: If Cuba and Venezuela want to help and we are grateful for that; and that the government denies their help, the government denies Cuba’s help. …That they reject Venezuela’s help, …Look for God’s sake! Tell me how is that possible, we need help. Radio Announcer #3: We are going to send this message out so that it gets to where it needs to get to… Police Caller: We want the U.S. to come in, that the strongest forces come in and take the governor out, he is not doing anything, he is just going around and around, …and everyone is like: “oh, look how nice, the governor, he is going in the mud, he is going in the water”, And where is it? Pardon the expression: WHERE IS THE FOOD? Police Caller (cont. ): Look, grab the food, grab the sausage can and take it to the families! Stop the show! The governor is just doing a show, is all a show. There are many mayors that are suffering because they cannot do anything for their people. Radio Announcer #2: What are they doing with the food? Is it being kept in storage because they are not allowing to give it out? Police Caller: They are not doing anything, and they tell the harbors (ports) that they cannot bring stuff anymore. If the U.S. government doesn’t get involved they will finish us. We are going to end up worse. …Worse than Cuba, Africa, or worse than Haiti. We are living in an era that you don’t want to see, people are desperate. The gasoline, people are already killing each other. Not to rob you, they are doing it so they can be the firsts to get food and take it to their families. Police Caller (cont. ): Do you know what it is when a woman approaches me and tells me “I don’t have any more.” “I don’t know what else to give my kids because I don’t have anymore.” “Water and crackers”! Radio Announcer #1: Sweetie, thank you for calling us and using this medium to denounce this situation; and good thing that it was you who explained this so that people don’t think that we are making up stuff; because this has nothing to do with politics. This is a very serious situation. Police Caller: Very Serious (sobbing continues) Audio/video cuts off
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346
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Antarctic ice shelves: Searching for clues on climate change.
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In a remote island outpost on the edge of the Antarctic, hundreds of miles from the southern tip of Chile, scientists at a research base are scouring the ice for clues about everything from climate change to cures for cancer.
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true
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Environment
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Chile’s Escudero base on King George Island acts as a research hub for a frozen expanse that extends to the South Pole, with more than 300 international scientists taking turns to brave the bitter Antarctic temperatures. The Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) has supported research into a biomolecule called “Antartina,” derived from a plant native to the region, which has shown positive early results in diminishing colorectal, liver and gastric cancers in mice. Scientists there also look at lichens that could treat Alzheimer’s disease, enzymes to remove lactose from milk and others to improve lettuce crops. This month a multinational team embarked on a research trip to investigate what causes the break-up of ice shelves, a phenomenon associated with climate change. In 2017, an iceberg the size of Trinidad and Tobago broke off a shelf in Antarctica, sparking widespread alarm, fears of shipping accidents and a further rise in sea levels. “There are different theories related to changes in sea temperatures eating the platforms, and another that has to do with the behavior of water and its drainage,” New Zealand glaciologist Shelley MacDonell, the team leader, as she prepared to travel to one of the icebergs affected. MacDonell’s team wants to be able to predict where and when ice shelves might rupture in future. The scientists hope their research will help the mapping of the shape of world’s southernmost continent in the decades to come, and allow island and coastal nations to plan for rising sea levels. “There is a whole dynamic (of the Antarctic ecosystem) that needs to be studied quickly, like the upcoming scenarios of climate change,” said INACH’s director, Marcelo Leppe. Ice shelves act as a retaining wall that prevent Antarctic ice from spilling more quickly into the ocean. Icebergs have historically broken off over centuries but their break-up has accelerated in recent years. The loss of ice from the “white continent” rose to an annual net figure of 252,000 million tonnes between 2009 and 2017 from the average of 40,000 million tonnes from 1979 to 1990, according to a study released in January. “Large platforms have collapsed in the past. What is not known if the collapses were gradual or instantaneous, like the ones we are seeing today,” MacDonell said. The Antarctic Peninsula, the northernmost part of the continent and site of the Chilean base, is the focus as one of the areas most affected by melting ice - scientists believe because it had more exposure to the ocean. “We have a long-term trend that is pointing to this process of warming and collapse of these platforms,” said Chilean glaciologist Francisco Fernandoy, part of MacDonell’s team. The Netherlands and several island territories are eager for the results of the study. Were the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctic to melt entirely, a 10-meter rise in sea level expected to result would inundate them, according to INACH data. MacDonell and her team have embarked on a lengthy journey by plane, boat, helicopter and on skis to reach a camp on the Müller ice shelf, which itself lost a 1.6-km long iceberg at the end of last year. They will have to brave blizzards and the sub-zero temperatures of the Antarctic summer to conduct two weeks of sampling before winter descends in the coming month. The team will use radar waves to take measurements of the icebergs and extract ice cores, columns that allow researchers to effectively look back in time. The cores will be transported to specialist labs in central Chile for analysis in chilled chambers that keep the temperature at -20 degrees Celsius. The scientists hope the models for future melts they will be able to build will serve as a basis for agreements among nations to tackle climate change. “We cannot make these political decisions but we can say what the scenarios are: if the temperature increases, stays the same or drops, this or that will happen,” glaciologist Fernandoy said. “That’s what we can contribute. The decisions themselves are in another sphere.”
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5565
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4 Wyoming schools close after possible meningitis case.
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A school district in southern Wyoming has closed four of its campuses over fears that a fourth-grade student might have contracted bacterial meningitis.
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true
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Health, Wyoming, Meningitis, Casper
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KTWO-AM reports Carbon County School District No. 2 canceled classes Thursday at the elementary schools in Hanna, Elk Mountain and Medicine Bow, as well as the high school in Hanna. Classes will resume Monday after the campuses are disinfected. Kim Deti, a spokeswoman for the Wyoming Department of Health, says meningitis has not yet been confirmed and there is no public health threat. Superintendent Jim Copeland says student involved attends Hanna Elementary, and the other schools were closed as a precaution. The child has since been hospitalized. Meningitis is an infection of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. ___ This story has been updated to correct that meningitis has not been confirmed. ___ Information from: KTWO-AM, http://www.k2radio.com/
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5325
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Actress Glenn Close aims to reduce mental health stigma.
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Actress Glenn Close says she wants to live in a world where mental illness is talked about openly and accepted as a fact of life.
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true
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Mental health, Health, Michigan, Entertainment, Glenn Close, North America, Celebrities, Ann Arbor
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The Emmy- and Tony-award-winning actress is in Ann Arbor, Michigan, this week for a gathering designed to bring awareness to efforts aimed at reducing the stigma associated with mental illness. “I’m excited about every aspect of this event. I think for those of us who are coming in to participate it’s very exciting, because I really look forward to talking to the students and learning about what they’re dealing with,” Close told The Associated Press during an interview Thursday at the University of Michigan. “There’s a lot of anxiety, depression, and stigma on campuses. I think kids are really, really open and ready to talk about it.” Close, NFL player Brandon Marshall, rapper/singer Logic and others are visiting the campus to show support for the Steven Schwartzberg Foundation, which is launching a campaign to empower students to address issues of mental health by encouraging conversations. The campaign is called “Who Can Relate?” It takes its name from a line in Logic’s hit song “1-800-273-8255,” named for the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Lyrics from Logic’s song include: “I don’t wanna be alive/I just wanna die today,” and “I want you to be alive/You don’t got to die today.” Logic is scheduled to perform Friday night with profits going to organizations that share the same goal of de-stigmatizing mental illness, including Close’s Bring Change to Mind, which she co-founded after her sister was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and her nephew with schizoaffective disorder. Also benefiting from the show will be Project375, which was founded by Marshall and his wife, Michi Marshall, after the star wide receiver was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Michi Marshall spent much of Thursday leading a mental health first-aid training session. Close stopped in to check out the training and also attended a lecture by artist and social activist Peter Tunney. The event was created by Harris Schwartzberg, who sits on the board of Bring Change to Mind and is an advisory board member of the University of Michigan’s Comprehensive Depression Center. The Steven Schwartzberg Foundation is named for Harris Schwartzberg’s brother, who died after a long struggle with bipolar disorder. “Glenn is a person and Brandon’s a person, and they struggle and their families struggle. And it should set a great example for people to come out and speak. And that’s really the most inspiring is that they’re willing to risk their public platform to spread the message it’s that important,” Schwartzberg said.
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10275
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Diabetes drug tied to bone fractures
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"This article on new research that may explain how Avandia (rosiglitazone) degrades bone health has serious problems from the outset. The first sentence reads: The popular diabetes drug marketed as Avandia may increase bone thinning, a discovery that could help explain why diabetics can have an increased risk of fractures. Contrary to the first part of the sentence, previous research has already established that Avandia increases risk for osteoporosis. Contrary to the second part of the sentence, any link between the drug Avandia and osteoporosis could not explain the increased risk for osteoporosis faced by diabetics who are not taking the drug. The description of Avandia is clinically incorrect. The article implies that it is used to augment the effect of insulin, suggesting that it is only for people who take insulin. Actually it is usually used in people with Type 2 without insulin. Probably what the author meant it that it augments the effectiveness of the patients’ ""natural"" insulin from their own pancreas. This is not clear. The story fails to clarify two essential points: This piece of research may illuminate the process by which bone health degrades in those taking Avandia. It does not report this link for the first time. The research was done on mice and used modeling. The quality of this evidence is much lower than a gold-standard clinical trial in humans. The report does not interview independent experts in diabetes and osteoporosis treatment for insight into the clinical implications for humans taking Avandia. The larger question here is whether this story should have been reported at all. First, the published report itself is a letter, not a full research paper. Letters in journals are often not subjected to peer review. Journalists should think twice before writing about research based on a letter. Further, at very best, this research sheds light on the physiological process behind a link that is already established. Even assuming that the findings apply to humans, the value of reporting them is not clear. When health journalists write about studies done on animals, the bar for potential relevance should be set very high. This story does not pass over it."
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false
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"Notwithstanding the fact that this report is about the observation of a process in a related species, quantifying the effect size with regard to harm in the mice would have been helpful. Were there twice as many fractures, 10 times as many, etc.? The report is focused on the potential harms of rosiglitazone. The study upon which this article was based is a laboratory observation of mice. The article should have said this plainly and from the beginning, and warned readers that findings from experiments on animals do not necessarily apply to humans. Further, the publication in Nature Medicine appeared as a ""letter,"" not a full research paper. This too is a lower level of evidence. The article does nothing to exaggerate the seriousness of diabetes or osteoporosis. But there also is no estimate of how often fractures happen for persons in general in this age group and for persons on this medication. Some estimate of how much the fracture risk is increased by Avandia would have been a good addition since patients need to weigh the potential risks and benefits of any medication. The published source, a research letter based on mouse modeling, falls far short of a gold-standard clinical trial in humans. The only source interviewed about the findings is the study’s lead author. The article does not mention that there are many alternative drug treatments for type 2 diabetes. Given the fear the article may provoke, this is a key oversight. The article correctly describes Avandia (rosiglitazone) as popular and widely used. Stating the number of users or prescriptions written would have been useful. The article’s first paragraph implies that a link between rosiglitazone and osteoporosis has just been discovered. This link was established in previous research. What’s new here is a possible explanation of how the drug affects the bone-building process. The article does not make this clear. Because the only person interviewed was the study’s lead author, we can’t be sure if it relied solely or largely on a news release."
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10908
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HPV Shot Prevents Genital Warts in Boys and Men
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This story shows many strengths, and wisely sets a single research report from the New England Journal of Medicine inside a larger debate about whether thousands of young men should receive the costly vaccine Gardasil. The story wades into discussions of sexual orientation and even at what age an individual knows this truth about him or herself. These difficult topics are germane to the epidemiology of the many human papillomaviruses, and which people of both sexes are at highest risk from infection. Bravo for reading the editorial that accompanied the study article, and chasing down its author on deadline to get her comments. Bravo for asking “why” when confronted with the seemingly contradictory news that Gardasil can prevent genital warts but is not recommended by the CDC for universal prevention in young men. Since Gardasil (and competitor, Cervarix) debuted a few years ago, there have been heated disagreements about the price and most helpful distribution of the vaccines and whether both sexes should receive them. This major study, demonstrating effectiveness in young men, adds important information to complex questions of cost and prevention. But it needs to be reported in a way that provides some of the history and context for readers. HPV infection is transmitted sexually, so questions of prevention within the entire US population of men and women involve potentially vaccinating both sexes. However, both sexes are not at the same level of risk for potentially deadly cancers years later. Women bear the brunt of the health risks, but men can pass the infection to their partners and can suffer from cancerous and non-cancerous effects of the virus. This new study provides additional information for the ongoing discussion about the public health role of immunizing young men against HPV.
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mixture
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WebMD
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We wish the story had provided the cost of roughly $375 for the Gardasil vaccine involved in the study. But the story did a much better job on deadline than the competing HealthDay story of posing the deeper question of the overall dispute and society-level debate over universal vaccination. It quotes one researcher saying only: “The main disadvantage is cost, because thus far the vaccine appears to be safe. It’s less cost-effective because most of the serious diseases such as cervical cancer occur in women, not men.” So why not provide the cost figures? This short story packed a lot of nuance into a small space, giving readers the ability to see into the muddy waters around the risk and benefit discussion for vaccinating young men. But the story did not give actual numbers for the benefit, and may have left an overly optimistic impression of the study results. The story provides a single comment about the potential harms of the vaccine (“…thus far the vaccine appears to be safe.”). Additional information concerning injection site reactions would have been useful. But we give the story credit for doing a good job of discussing the risks vs. benefits in the wider subject of universal vaccination of young men. The information provided is both inadequate and what is provided is incorrect. Through clumsy wording, the story suggests that the entire sample of 4065 boys and men received vaccine. Only half the subjects received vaccine. A thoughtful and careful discussion of the potential risk for genital warts, and the still-uNPRoven connection between the viruses and the development of penile and anal cancers in men. All of this does relate to the number of sexual partners, which the storyr explains. The sources included one of the study researchers and additional perspective from the author of an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. It did not point out that Merck, the manufacturer of Gardasil, contributed to the money for this study. We’ll call it barely satisfactory. Althought far from perfect as a preventive, the use of condoms should have been given some space in the story; along with limiting the number of sexual partners or abstinence. The story makes it clear that Gardasil is avaialble and has been approved for use in girls and young women as well as in their male counterparts. Good history and context given about the two vaccines – Gardasil and Cervarix. Better than competing HealthDay on this count. The quotes from several experts demonstrate independent reporting.
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24358
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"A recent Obama executive order could ""lead to a number of investigations by Interpol in the United States, potentially aimed at American officials."
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Gingrich claims Obama's order will let Interpol investigate American officials
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false
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National, Homeland Security, Foreign Policy, Newt Gingrich,
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"Conservatives have long feared that America is losing its sovereignty to international organizations, dating back to the John Birch Society issuing warnings about ""one world government"" in the 1950s. And perhaps nothing evokes this fear more than the possibility of an international police or military force with power over American citizens. A recent executive order signed by President Barack Obama dealing with the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, has reignited those fears. During a Jan. 4, 2010, appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich said: ""The president recently signed very quietly an executive order that basically releases Interpol from all American constraints. Freedom of Information Acts don't apply. All the constraints that you as a citizen could use against an American police force, based on a recent Obama-signed executive order, give Interpol, which has relationships with Syria, with Libya, with Iran, it gives them all sorts of extralegality in the United States in a way that has never ever before been offered to Interpol. And I'm very curious as to why the president is doing this. ... What I'm told is that it could lead to a number of investigations by Interpol in the United States, potentially aimed at American officials. And the question I would raise is, why would the president of the United States give that kind of extralegal protection to an international police force?"" ""So you're saying that if there was any abuse by the CIA or something like that, that Interpol now has more authority to come into the United States and investigate it?"" O'Reilly asked. ""Yes,"" the Georgia Republican replied. So Gingrich was raising the specter of an unaccountable group of foreigners coming to the United States with the approval of President Obama and arresting CIA officers or other American government officials. The key problem with this notion is that Interpol couldn't investigate CIA or American officials, because Interpol doesn't do investigations. Although Interpol is often portrayed in movies as an international police force, solving crimes and arresting bad guys, its actual purposes are modest: It helps police organizations in different countries communicate and coordinate actions, provides databases of crime information (fingerprints, stolen artwork, names of suspected terrorists), training and other support services. It doesn't arrest anyone, and doesn't even have its own officers. Instead, police forces from around the world loan their officers to the organization. ""All investigations are done by national police,"" Interpol spokeswoman Rachel Billington said. ""We don't have powers of arrest."" So if this executive order doesn't surrender American authority, what does it do? It ensures Interpol is treated the same way any other international organization that operates on American soil is treated. Like diplomats, international organizations in the United States are given certain immunities and privileges. A 1983 executive order signed by President Ronald Reagan gave Interpol some of these privileges, but others were withheld because the organization didn't have an office on U.S. soil at the time. In 2004, Interpol opened an office near the United Nations in New York, and the Obama administration has just gotten around to giving it the rights most other international organizations have. What are these rights? Most of them deal with federal and customs taxes, but one grants Interpol immunity from having its property -- including its archives -- searched or seized. We spoke with Gingrich's representatives and spokesman Joe DeSantis e-mailed this response: ""The argument that Interpol currently 'doesn't' do a certain activity misses the point. The executive order effectively removes the U.S.’s ability to know what Interpol is doing, and thus, if it wanted to start doing investigations into (for instance) American officials, it could, and the U.S. would have no way to ever know its activities since we have granted them immunity."" But there's no reason to believe Interpol will suddenly reverse 87 years of precedent and begin to investigate and prosecute crimes. And for an organization based around the sharing of information, it's hard to think it will begin top-secret investigations of high-profile Americans, particularly when the current head of Interpol, Ronald Noble, is an American who served as a top official in the Treasury Department under President Bill Clinton. Noble told the conservative Web site Human Events that ""the executive order gives Interpol no law-enforcement or investigative powers to engage in activities on U.S. soil."" Noble said that included ""searches, seizures or arrests in the U.S."" DeSantis pointed us to a National Review Online piece by Andy McCarthy. It argues that even if Interpol has no plans to investigate Americans, the ""order removes the negative legal restraints that block Interpol from conducting unauthorized police activity."" Even if no one thought other law enforcement organizations -- he cites the New York Police Department and the FBI -- were going to abuse their police powers, McCarthy argues, we still wouldn't remove the congressional and judicial checks that prevent them from doing so. But, again, Interpol doesn't have police powers to abuse. It can't arrest anyone, and it doesn't conduct investigations. And even if it did, the organization's constitution bounds it to operate ""within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries."" The only relevant law Obama's executive order waives covers search and seizure, and that right can be reclaimed if the president deems it necessary. Much of the teeth-gnashing likely has roots in Interpol's relationship with the International Criminal Court in the Hague, another landmark for those who see the erosion of American sovereignty. Some blogs have raised the possibility of Interpol arresting Bush administration officials for trial at the ICC. But this is a misrepresentation of the relationship between the two organizations. True, the ICC would theoretically be responsible for investigating and prosecuting war crimes allegations against U.S. officials. But Interpol would still lack the power to arrest those officials. Instead, it would put out a ""red notice"" alerting domestic law enforcement agencies that the person is wanted by the ICC. Regardless, the ICC can only investigate crimes that are referred to it by the U.N. Security Council, that occur on the soil of a signatory to the court or are committed by nationals of a signatory to the court. The U.S. hasn't signed on to the ICC and can use its position on the Security Council to veto any referral. So any situation in which an ICC prosecutes an American is far-fetched. As for a few other parts of Gingrich's statement: Interpol does have relationships with Syria, Iran and Libya, but its 188 members include stalwart U.S. allies like the United Kingdom, Israel and Australia. And as an international organization, Interpol never would have been subject to FOIA. The United States' National Central Bureau -- which is based at the Justice Department in Washington and is the main point of communication between the United States and Interpol -- says it will continue to respond to FOIA requests. The sheer impossibility of the claims hasn't stopped them from becoming conservative talking points. After apparently originating on the blog ThreatsWatch, the claims spread to the aforementioned National Review piece, RedState.com, a column by Chuck Norris on WorldNetDaily and have been mentioned by Glenn Beck on his TV show. Beck, perhaps looking to add some credibility to the idea, declared: ""The oddest part is the story was actually reported on in the New York Times. Yes."" While the Times did report on the executive order, the story debunked many of the claims being made about it. Charlie Savage, the reporter who wrote the story, wrote in a Twitter message: ""Debunking hysterical conspiracy theories about Obama's Interpol executive order."" That's exactly what Gingrich's claims are: conspiracy theories, based on wild conjecture, not reality.
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5782
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Sevier County may consider sales tax hike to build hospital.
|
Voters in Sevier County could be asked to approve a higher sales tax to subsidize the construction of a hospital after the county’s lone facility shut down last month, officials said.
|
true
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Access to health care, Health, Texarkana, Texas
|
Since the De Queen Medical Center Inc. closed, residents have had to travel at least 30 miles (50 kilometers) for medical care at hospitals in Howard and Little River counties or McCurtain County in Oklahoma. Dr. Steve Cole, the county’s Rural Development Authority chairman, said Thursday that building a hospital would ensure the community has access to health care, the Texarkana Gazette reported. “We want a hospital to be run by people who care,” said Cole. “We want to make sure people receive proper health care.” De Queen Mayor Jeff Brown said that he backs the proposed sale tax increase. It remains uncertain how much the sales tax would need to be hiked or when it would be put on the ballot, according to the county’s officials. An online sales tax handbook guide shows that the current sales tax rate in De Queen, Arkansas, is 9.625%, with Sevier County receiving slightly more than 2%. The De Queen Medical Center was recently put into receivership to prevent owners Jorge Perez and Ricardo Perez from spending or transferring the facility’s assets. Sevier County Circuit Judge Tom Cooper chose director of nursing Rachel Matheson as the medical center’s receiver. “DMCI is insolvent and unable to pay its debts as they become due. Employees of DMCI have either been laid off or have quit their employment because they have not been paid. Further, health care professionals essential to the operation of DMCI and to continued licensure of the hospital have discontinued providing medical services,” according to an order that Cooper signed last month. Cole said he admires the hospital’s 34 employees who worked without being compensated prior to the facility closing. “They were the 34 heroes. Few people would do what they did and not get paid,” said Cole. ___ Information from: Texarkana Gazette, http://www.texarkanagazette.com
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1849
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"Children at risk as ""button"" battery use grows: study."
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Children face a growing risk from “button” batteries, according to a U.S. study showing a near doubling of emergency room visits in the past two decades as the objects can cause electrical or chemical burns if swallowed.
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true
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Science News
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Most of those emergency room trips are due to coin-shaped batteries that have become ubiquitous in toys, remote controls and hearing aids and represent a shiny temptation to curious toddlers, according to a study in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Button” batteries carry extra risks, experts said, because they can send an electrical current through esophageal tissue, eventually even burning a hole in the trachea or the esophagus - without children showing any signs of immediate injury. “If a child swallows a button battery, the parent might not see it happen and the child might not have symptoms initially - and the clock is ticking,” said Gary Smith, head of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, one of the authors of the study. “We’ve seen children in less than two hours have severe, severe injuries from button batteries getting caught in the esophagus.” Using a nationally-representative sample of about 100 U.S. hospitals with 24-hour emergency rooms, Smith and his colleagues calculated that more than 65,000 children under age 18 had a battery-related emergency visit between 1990 and 2009. The rate of those injuries almost doubled during the study period, from about four children for every 100,000, to between seven and eight per 100,000. That’s probably due to more and more household electronics, hearing aids and toys using button batteries, rather than the previous cylindrical batteries, with more than 80 percent of all emergency room visits involving button batteries. “They’re shiny, they’re small and children explore things developmentally with their mouth - if they don’t know what something is, they put it in their mouth,” said Nicholas Slamon, a pediatrician who has treated battery-related injuries at Nemours/Alfred I. DuPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington. There are a few ways button batteries can cause injury, he added. They can lodge or wedge in the esophagus and push on its walls, or they can leak acid if the casing around the battery is eroded. But the most common fear is that they can create an electrical current flowing through tissue, even if they don’t have enough juice to power a remote control anymore. Slamon and colleagues see several children a year who need emergency surgery to retrieve a battery from the throat, nose or ear. But only a small number of visits, about eight percent, require such serious intervention. Experts agreed that parents should make sure all compartments on battery cases are screwed in or taped shut and dead batteries should be thrown into the bottom of the trash where children are unlikely to find them, Slamon added. “The real way to prevent these (emergencies) is to prevent the event from happening in the first place,” Smith said. “If (parents) suspect something, they need to get to the hospital and get an X-ray done immediately.” SOURCE: bit.ly/jsoh2P
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10517
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Fight your fear with virtual reality therapy
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As the ratings and total score show, this newspaper article on virtual reality therapy fails to apply several best practices of health journalism. To call out only the two most significant failures: The reporter makes no attempt to gather independent research on the treatment’s safety or effectiveness, which conditions and populations it is more successful for, etc. Given the fact that the company that makes this information available on its website–and that other recent press reports include some of this information–this reflects very badly on this story. The story makes no mention of costs and coverage for the treatment. For a story about an exotic new technology that might replace a standard practice whose cost is well established, this is inexplicable. The story just didn’t ask enough tough important questions. VR therapy is a fascinating topic. It is being used and researched quite a bit with war veterans and other people with PTSD. The subject should be investigated and the public informed. This story fails to accomplish either.
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false
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The article fails to report the cost of either virtual reality therapy or the equipment itself. It does not indicate whether the treatment is covered by insurance. The story makes no attempt to quantify the benefits of VR therapy either alone or in comparison to exposure therapy or other treatments. The reporter does not cite potential harms from the therapy, which would include not working despite a presumbably large outlay of money. Whether VR therapy carries risks of headache, blurred vision, balance problems, etc. is not reported. The article cites no scientific evidence that shows virtual reality therapy is either effective or safe. This is surprising, since the company that makes the equipment lists numerous studies about virtual reality therapy on its website. While the story uses an anecdote of an unusually phobic flyer who experiences some relief, the story as a whole does not exaggerate the prevalence or severity of phobias. Patients requiring treatment can indeed be debilitated by phobias. The story quotes a clincial practioner of VR therapy and the company that makes the software. No independent sources or reports are consulted. The story at least briefly describes conventional exposure therapy, the most common intervention. The article does not indicate where virtual reality therapy is available aside from the university clinic featured. The story itself has a New Frontier feel to it, but the reporting does make clear that VR has been in development for over a decade and is becoming more widely used. We can’t be sure if the story relied solely or largely on a news release.
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31398
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Photographs show a pregnant woman named Paola Lynn who was raped by a Muslim refugee in Michigan.
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There are no reports of a pregnant woman being raped by a Muslim refugee in Michigan.
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false
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Junk News, domestic violence, muslims, paola Mascabruni
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On 11 May 2017, the web site EEUU News published two photographs of a woman with a badly bruised face along with an article that included claim that the woman, identified as Paola Lynn, was pregnant and that she had been raped by a Muslim refugee in Hamtramck, Michigan: A refugee from Syria has been arrested on suspicion of raping a 38-year-old woman in HAMTRAMCK, Michigan. The woman was attacked , [sic] on Sunday. The suspect, 40, who has lived in USA since 2013, was charged with rape and placed in police custody. Paola told her about her experience on Facebook. I finish with fractured skull, broken septum and bruises all over the body. Nearly verbatim copies of this article soon found their way onto disreputable web sites such as Barenaked Islam, TEO Info, and Angry American 3, and the (unfounded) rumor quickly proliferated on social media. Although the photographs included in these reports are not doctored, the accompanying false story has no relation to the photograph. These photographs show an Argentinian woman named Paola Mascambruni (not Lynn) who shared her experiences with domestic violence in a March 2017 Facebook post: Mascabruni explained that Rodrigo Eduardo Picolini, the father of her youngest son, had hit her repeatedly since they first met in 2009. When she gave him “one more chance” in March 2017, he beat her for two hours and left her with a skull fracture and acute nasal trauma. According to Spanish-language media: “He locked the doors. He undressed me. He grabbed me by the shoulders and broke a window with my back. He kicked and punched me all over my body, tried to hang me. The nicest thing he called me was ‘whore’. I asked him to calm down. I would say, ‘Rodrigo, please, you’re going to kill me.’ And he would say yes, of course, that he was going to kill me.” The sequence of events lasted two hours and ended with Paola Mascambruni (38) jumping a railing and throwing herself into the street as if it was a pool. The woman, who is alive by a miracle, is a mother of four boys. The youngest is the son of his aggressor, Rodrigo Eduardo Picolini (35), whom she had given “one more chance”. Last Thursday he attacked her with blows: she has a skull fracture, an acute nasal trauma for which she required intervention, several loose teeth, a discolored neck, a burst blood vessel in her eye, and bruises all over her body.
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7612
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WVa providers to get substance abuse, mental health funding.
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Health in West Virginia will receive $4 million in federal funding for substance abuse and mental health treatment.
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true
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Mental health, Opioids, West Virginia, Joe Manchin
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U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito announced the funding Tuesday from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The funding will be split between FMRS Health Systems and Westbrook Health Services. FMRS serves residents in Fayette, Monroe, Raleigh and Summers counties. Westbrook serves Calhoun, Jackson, Pleasants, Ritchie, Roane, Tyler, Wirt and Wood counties. Manchin says the funding is vital to the state’s battle against the opioid epidemic. West Virginia has by far the nation’s highest death rate from prescription drug overdoses.
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2497
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Religions seen slow to go green; Pope has chance to inspire.
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Few religious communities have gone as far in fighting climate change as a church in Queensland, Australia, which has 24 solar panels bolted to the roof in the shape of a Christian cross.
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true
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Environment
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“It’s very effective. It’s inspired some members of our congregation to install panels on their homes,” Reverend David Lowry said of the “solar cross” mounted in 2009 on the Caloundra Uniting Church, which groups three Protestant denominations. Many religions have been wary of moving to install renewable energy sources on their places of worship, from cathedrals to mosques - or of taking a strong stand on climate change in general - despite teachings that people should be custodians of nature. But slowly, that may be changing, thanks to new religious leaders including Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church. Francis’s stress on environmental protection since he was elected in March and his choice of the name of a 13th century nature lover - Saint Francis of Assisi - may make a difference for all religions trying to work out how to safeguard the planet from threats including climate change. Under his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican took green steps such as installing solar panels on the roof of the Papal Audience Hall in 2008. It says it wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but has no formal target. “Religious environmentalism is slowly increasing,” said John Grim, a coordinator of the forum on religion and ecology at Yale University in the United States. “It’s very uneven. Religions tend to be very conservative in their practice and doctrine.” Grim said the pope’s influence was significant since few other religions recognize a single earthly leader - and there are 1.2 billion Catholics, amounting to a sixth of humanity, according to the Vatican. In his inaugural homily, Pope Francis stressed that people should safeguard the Earth. “Let us be ‘protectors’ of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment. Let us not allow omens of destruction and death to accompany the advance of this world!” he said. In a 2010 book “On Heaven and Earth”, when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, he said mankind sometimes lost respect for nature. “Then ecological problems arise, like global warming.” Some religions have been reluctant to be associated with climate change policies because of divisions among believers. A 2012 Pew Research Center poll showed that only 42 percent of Americans agree global warming is mainly man-made, a view overwhelmingly held by climate scientists, for example. The Church of England says it aims to cut its carbon emissions by 42 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 across widely varying energy use in 16,000 buildings, but it is an exception. “Some churches are used all week and others used very occasionally, with only one light bulb,” said David Shreeve, environmental advisor to the Archbishops’ Council. He said other religions were now asking for advice on emissions cuts. Irrespective of climate change, big savings can be made by plugging draughts and improving heating and lighting. Some believers object that solar panels can damage or disfigure fragile historic buildings. Some cathedrals, like the Catholic Saint Stephens in Vienna, have elaborate patterns on the roof. Bradford Cathedral, where the oldest parts of the Nave date from 1458, installed solar panels in 2011 and said it was the first cathedral in England - and perhaps in the world - to generate its own power. Among other examples, a planned mosque in Bursa, west Turkey, aims to use solar panels and install a vertical axis wind turbine - without big revolving blades - on a minaret. “Mosques ... can be covered with photovoltaic panels,” the mosque’s architect Çelik Erengezgin said. Green initiatives by religious leaders and groups are not new. The Jewish Temple Emanuel in Lowell, Mass., installed solar panels in 1978 in what is believed to be the first such system on a religious building in North America, the Lowell Green Building Commission says. And Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, has long been called the “Green Patriarch” for seeking to protect the environment, from organizing conferences about fresh water to writing an encyclical in 2012 urging repentance for “our sinfulness in destroying the world”. Saint Francis has long been a green inspiration. In what are known as the Assisi Declarations from 1986, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish and Islamic leaders called for people to live in harmony with nature. Baha’i, Jainism and Sikhism later added their own declarations. In the United States, many evangelical Christians stress a broad need for “stewardship of creation”, rather than man-made climate change, as a spur to action. Many evangelical Christians are Republicans who are more likely than Democrats to doubt that climate change is mostly caused by human activity, such as burning fossil fuels. “Americans allow their politics to inform their faith,” said Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian and climate scientist at Texas Tech University. In Australia, Lowry said the solar panels were saving money and cutting greenhouse gas emissions for the Uniting Church, which brings together Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians. “The solar cross ... doesn’t bring hordes of people into the church,” he said. “But it helps people understand that God is a presence in the world in which we live.” The Vatican has an observer seat at U.N. talks among 200 nations who have agreed to work out, by the end of 2015, a climate deal to avert more floods, droughts and rising sea levels. Pope Francis himself has focused on environmental protection without yet spelling out clear solutions. Raising awareness of the environment could be a step to modernize the Church, besieged by scandal for covering up sexual abuse of children by priests and whose strict moral traditions are often at odds with a increasingly secular society. “With Pope Francis there is new hope,” said Reverend Henrik Grape of the Church of Sweden, who is also a member of the World Council of Churches’ climate change group.
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1748
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Nip, tuck, click: Demand for U.S. plastic surgery rises in selfie era.
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Dental hygienist Jennifer Reynolds was always self-conscious about her looks, never took selfies and felt uncomfortable being tagged in photographs posted on social media.
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true
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Health News
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The 34-year-old from Costa Rica who lives in New York opted for plastic surgery on her nose and now feels ready for prime time on social media. “I definitely feel more comfortable right now with my looks,” Reynolds explained. “If I need to take a selfie, without a doubt, I would have no problem.” Reynolds is one of a growing number of people who have turned to plastic surgeons to enhance their image. Others are hiring specialized make-up artists in what may be an emerging selfie economy. Selfies, or self portraits, rose in popularity along with smartphones and social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Instagram as a mostly young adult crowd posted images of themselves. Now everyone from Hollywood stars to prime ministers takes selfies. Comedian Ellen DeGeneres posted a selfie with Hollywood A-listers at the Academy Awards on Twitter that became the most retweeted of all time. When Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt’s snapped a selfie with President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service it caused a media sensation. For mere mortals, going under the scalpel to create a better selfie may not seem so extreme. Plastic surgeons in United States have seen a surge in demand for procedures ranging from eye-lid lifts to rhinoplasty, popularly known as a nose job, from patients seeking to improve their image in selfies and on social media. A poll by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (AAFPRS) of 2,700 of its members showed that one in three had seen an increase in requests for procedures due to patients being more aware of their image in social media. They noted a 10 percent rise in rhinoplasty in 2013 over 2012, a 7 percent jump in hair transplants and 6 percent increase in eyelid surgery. “There has been a 25 percent increase over the past year and a half to two years. That is very significant,” Dr. Sam Rizk, a plastic surgeon, said about his Manhattan practice. “They come in with their iPhones and show me pictures,” Rizk, 47, added. “Selfies are just getting to be so crazy. Rizk, who specializes in rhinoplasty, said not everyone who requests surgery needs it because a selfie produces a distorted image that does not represent how a person really looks. “We all will have something wrong with us on a selfie image,” he explained. “I refuse a significant proportion of patients with selfies because I believe it is not a real image of what they actually look like in person.” Some patients get upset when Rizk tells them surgery is not necessary, and he knows they will simply go to another surgeon. “Too many selfies indicate a self obsession and a certain level of insecurity that most teenagers have. It just makes it worse,” he said. “Now they can see themselves in 100 images a day on Facebook and Instagram.” New York make-up artist Ramy Gafni, who has worked with clients on selfies and online dating profile photos, suggests using clean makeup, well-defined eyebrows and a bit color on the lips to produce the best selfies. “You want to enhance your features, perfect your features but not necessarily change your features into something they are not,” he said. Dan Ackerman, senior editor with CNET which tests and reviews products, said the Internet is full of tips and advice on selfies. “There are apps that apply filters to your face that smooth out wrinkles ... or put artificial makeup.... There is a sub economy of tools and advice that have built up around this,” he added.
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4265
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Eastern Idaho high school finds lead in water.
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An eastern Idaho high school is supplying bottled water to summer school students after tests found lead in the water at a number of sources.
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true
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Idaho Falls, Health, Environmental health, Public health, Idaho
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Officials tell the Post Register that tests last week found a lead level of 35 parts per billion at some sources at Bonneville High School. The level that’s considered safe is 15 parts per billion. Merrill Hemming is environmental health specialist with Eastern Idaho Public Health. He says tests are being done to determine the reason for the high lead levels. John Pymm is director of maintenance and operations for Bonneville Joint School District 93. He says the toilets and sinks at the school still work. ___ Information from: Post Register, http://www.postregister.com
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22919
|
"In Wisconsin, ""deaths from domestic violence are at the highest in 10 years."
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U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore says domestic violence deaths in Wisconsin are at their highest in 10 years
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true
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Families, Crime, Wisconsin, Gwen Moore,
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"When U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) was honored by the National Network to End Domestic Violence, she issued a statement saying ""we have a real crisis on our hands."" In Wisconsin, her Oct. 7, 2010, statement read, ""deaths from domestic violence are at the highest in 10 years."" Indeed, eight days earlier, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence released a report that made that claim. According to her spokesman, Moore based her statement on a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article about the report. The article said domestic violence ""claimed 67 lives"" in 2009. We wondered: Does that mean domestic abusers killed 67 people? And is that number, as Moore claimed, a 10-year high? The Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, like the national organization that honored Moore, is an advocacy group committed to ending domestic violence. It has produced a ""domestic violence homicide report"" each year since 2000, using data from crime report summaries from local police agencies and from various news articles. The coalition defines homicide as ""the killing of one human being by another."" But its annual homicide reports actually count more than that. As in previous years, the 67 deaths in the 2009 report included homicides in commonly understood domestic violence cases -- such as when the victims and perpetrators were spouses or partners, former spouses or partners, or adults with children in common. Homicides of other people are counted if, for example, a woman’s current boyfriend kills the woman’s former boyfriend; if a third person trying to protect a domestic violence victim kills the perpetrator; or if the domestic violence victim kills the perpetrator in self-defense. But the Wisconsin coalition -- as it clearly notes in its report -- also adds suicides committed by domestic violence perpetrators. For example, it counts the January 2009 death of a Fond du Lac County man who took his own life after shooting his wife to death outside their home. All told, the coalition says that in 2009, ""there were 47 domestic violence homicide incidents resulting in 67 deaths -- 52 homicides and 15 perpetrator suicides."" Many people would not consider a domestic violence perpetrator who committed suicide to be a domestic violence victim. The coalition says it has always included perpetrator suicides in its annual tallies because they occurred as a result of a domestic violence incident, said spokesman Tony Gibart. By the coalition’s count, the 67 total deaths in 2009 was the highest in 10 years, exceeding the previous high of 61 in 2003. Excluding the suicides, the 52 other domestic violence homicides also were the highest in 10 years, exceeding the previous high of 45 in 2003. So, Moore accurately quoted the group’s statistics, and those statistics have been consistently handled -- even though including the suicides increases the number. We checked a few other states for how they tally domestic violence deaths: ""There’s no national standard way of reporting"" domestic violence deaths, but counting perpetrator suicides is not common, said Shellene Johnson, the Minnesota coalition’s program manager. We also asked a state agency, the Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance, if there are official statistics on domestic violence deaths. The answer is, not exactly. Homicides tracked by the office are not identified in terms of whether they were the result of domestic violence, and suicides are not tracked at all. The office can infer which homicides were domestic, based on the relationship between the offender and the victim as recorded in police reports, said spokeswoman Tami Jackson. But unlike the Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence, the office does not look more closely into the circumstances of the deaths, she said. That brings us back to Moore’s claim. The Milwaukee congresswoman said deaths in Wisconsin from domestic violence ""are at the highest in 10 years."" Moore accurately quoted statistics compiled by an advocacy group for 2009. It’s important to note the group includes suicides committed by domestic violence perpetrators, which makes the death tally higher than it would otherwise be. Even so, either way you track it, the 2009 numbers were at a 10-year high."
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5056
|
EEE detected in Massachusetts for the first time this year.
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Massachusetts public health officials say the potentially fatal eastern equine encephalitis virus has been detected in the state for the first time this year.
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true
|
Health, Massachusetts, Public health, New Bedford
|
The Department of Public Health said Wednesday that EEE was detected in mosquito samples collected Monday in Easton and New Bedford. No human or animal cases of EEE have been found in the state so far this year and there is no elevated risk level associated with the finding. The virus is generally spread to humans through the bite of an infected mosquito. The last human case of EEE in Massachusetts was in 2013. Last year, a horse and a turkey, both in Worcester County, were diagnosed with EEE. Another mosquito-borne disease, West Nile virus, was detected in Massachusetts for the first this year last week.
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10251
|
Electronic Nose Sniffs Out Heart Failure
|
Even in a very short story, WebMD manages to cover many of the important issues readers need to know in order to make sense of what seems like a fascinating piece of research: an electronic nose that sniffs out heart failure. The story could have spent more time with independent experts and delved a little more deeply into the risks associated with a device that provides an incorrect diagnoses 16% of the time. Some of us are old enough to remember Dr. McCoy’s trusty Tricorder from Star Trek, a device that could give lab results and make a diagnosis possible with just a wave of a probe over the patient. It is not surprising then that journalists would pick up on yet another version of a potential real life device.That doesn’t mean, though, that it deserves all the attention and resources that a more significant medical advance based on substantial evidence would merit. Overall, though, WebMD devoted an appropriate amount of attention to this limited study on a computerized heart failure sniffer.
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mixture
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WebMD
|
The story does not discuss costs. Because the research is in its infancy and there does not appear to be a comparable device, we don’t think the cost question applies here. The story notes that, “11% of cases would have been missed and 16% of people would have been told they had a life-threatening condition when they didn’t.” There could have been a little more discussion of the ramifications of a test with this kind of error rate. The research findings were presented in a poster session at an international seminar and as such have not been subjected to peer review. The story pointed out one of the major limitations of the study: the fact that it covered fewer than 100 people. We wish it had explored other possible limitations and that it had been more explicit about the study methods and other inherent limitations The story explains clearly who might benefit from such a device. It says, “More than 5 million Americans have heart failure, which occurs when the heart muscle loses its ability to pump enough blood throughout the body. Fluid can back up into the lungs, leaving people short of breath.” One indepedent source is quoted. The story was based on a news briefing at a research conference, and we understand the need to file under deadline pressure. At the same time, we think the story would have benefited from at least one discussion with an expert outside of the study or the news briefing, perhaps another expert on a panel at the same conference. The story could have noted that a patent application has been filed for the device. There is no comparison with existing alternatives, which leaves readers a bit confused. How is heart failure detected now and why would the world need this device? There are numerous diagnostic tests used in the diagnosis of heart failure, many of them as simple as a blood test or ultrasound. The story makes it clear that this device is still in the early phases of testing. The story indicates that this would be a novel approach, but not enough evidence or context is presented to establish this. While the specifics may be unique, the concept has been the topic of research since the mid to late 1990s. The story does not rely on a news release.
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9897
|
AIDS treatment should be started sooner, study says
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"This is a Columbus Dispatch version of a story reported by the Associated Press. Since the Columbus paper changed the original article substantially, we send our comments to the Columbus paper. Taking the big view, this story about the benefits of starting the standard multi-drug AIDS treatment sooner than current guidelines suggest accomplishes its mission. It fairly describes important new research that verifies earlier work suggesting the same thing. It says, correctly, that the continuing research could drive changes in treatment. The story is well-sourced and provides a lucid description of the disease process and detailed definition of ""early"" treatment. Having said that, the report falls short of two key best practices: It fails to quantify the benefits of early treatment in a meaningful way. It uses ""relative risk"" [a percent reduction in mortality] instead of ""absolute risk"" [which would allow readers to understand the gravity of the risk and the size of the benefit. It fails to describe the limitations of the study with caveats and context. If the story had mentioned those limitations, its predictions of imminent clinical use and eventual changes to the guidelines would have been properly tempered. As presented, the story fails to check the sources’ consistent enthusiasm with journalistic disinterest. Given the credibility of the study, the opinions of multiple high-quality sources and the previous research record, the predictions seem justifiable. But the history of AIDS science, treatment and politics recommends a bit more reporting distance and care."
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true
|
"As a matter of course, stories about the increased use of drugs should report the drugs’ prices. A change in guidelines based on the study would increase the number of patients eligible for treatment by several hundred thousand in the US. The annualized cost of drug treatment is $12,000-$24,000 depending on the regimen, leading to potential new expenditures of $24 to $48 billion. While there are significant offsets, the potential for this level of additional costs should have been included in the story The story states that delaying treatment ""nearly doubles the risk of dying over the next several years"" and yields a ""70 percent improvement in survival."" This reporting is vague. The story should have compared absolute risks, not relative risks. See our primer on this issue. The story should have included the time span studied. These numbers should have stated the two death rates directly so readers can understand the magnitude of the benefit–whether the risk of death went from [say] 2 percent to 1 percent or from 30 percent to 15 percent. The story places the recommended treatment of earlier drug intervention in the context of the treatments’ known side effects, which can be very serious. The story should have described the severity of those side effects. We give this a satisfactory score, but barely. The report is based on a study presented at a major medical meeting. The story should have mentioned the fact that it has not been published or peer-reviewed. It should also have pointed out that it was a retrospective cohort study, which is considered to be less conclusive than prospective, double-blind studies. It should also have pointed out, as the NIH press release does, that a clinical trial is needed to validate the results in a way that would call for changing the current guidelines. These failures to provide caveats and context earn the story an ""unsatisfactory"" rating under this criterion. The story does not exaggerate the gravity or prevalance of AIDS. The story quotes Anthony Fauci, one of the best-known and -respected experts in the field of HIV/AIDS. The story also quotes the study’s lead investigator, and the author of AIDS treatment guidelines. That source’s link to companies that make AIDS drugs is properly noted. The story also quotes an independent clinician familiar with the guidelines and the current research. The story plainly compares the current guidelines with the regimen tested. The story explains that the drug combinations used by AIDS patients have been widely used since the mid-1990s. No claims are made for the novelty of the drug treatment. The recommendation to treat earlier is presented not as novel, but as a plan under consideration and study for quite some time. The story does not draw excessively on the NIH press release."
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28715
|
Men abandoned a groundbreaking study on male birth control due to side effects such as mood changes, muscle pain, and acne.
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What's true: A study investigating an injectable mixture of hormones aimed at temporarily reducing male sperm count to prevent pregnancy was shut down early, based on concerns about adverse effects raised by an outside medical board associated with the World Health Organization. What's false: The research has not been “abandoned” and, indeed, has been hailed as an important step in producing a reversible hormonal contraceptive method for men. The men who quit the study did not shut the study down (an outside panel of observers made that call), and the results of this study (a Phase II Trial) were never intended to produce a final marketable product.
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mixture
|
Medical, birth control
|
On October 27, 2016, the results of a large-scale, global study on the safety and efficacy of an injectable, hormone-based form of birth control for men was released ahead of publication in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. This study was the first large scale test of a specific injectable combination of hormones, but research into this form of male birth control, which slows or blocks a man’s ability to produce sperm, has been puttering along for decades. This specific study was a Phase II Trial, the middle step in the three-study process that drugs must go through to be approved. According to a press release from CONRAD, one of the groups that helped facilitate the study, the method was effective but came with some side effects: The regimen led to a near-complete and reversible suppression of spermatogenesis, or sperm production. The contraceptive efficacy compared favorably to other reversible methods available for men. However, the frequency of side effects was relatively high, which included: acne, injection site pain, increased libido, and mood disorders. Due to these adverse events, the study was terminated before its completion. According to the study, the method boasted a 96 percent success rate for the 320 men (and their non-pregnant partners) involved in the study, but “the frequencies of mild to moderate mood disorders were relatively high.” The decision to halt the study came from the independent Data Safety and Monitoring Committee established by both CONRAD and the World Health Organization’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research, as described in the study: As part of WHO/RHR’s continuing monitoring review of all its ongoing studies, the department’s Research Project Review Panel (RP2), an external peer-review committee, met in March 2011, reviewed the same data and determined that, for safety reasons, recruitment should be stopped and enrolled participants should discontinue receiving injections. This conclusion led a number of media outlets to attach a narrative to the study suggesting that the trial was cancelled because the men didn’t think the side effects were worth it, despite the fact that an international board of scientists made that call. This narrative is best summarized by Cosmopolitan magazine’s choice of headline/subtitle combo to announce the news of the study: Men Quit Male Birth Control Study Because It Was Giving Them Mood Swings Welcome to the club, dudes. Also: WOMAN UP. This narrative is rooted in the undeniable gender disparity in the world of contraceptive medicine: that the only hormone-based birth control available must be taken by women, despite the fact that many of these drugs have adverse effects similar to the ones that canceled the study into male hormonal birth control. Some reports have capitalized on this clear irony to suggest that regulatory agencies such as the FDA or WHO have a different level of tolerance for adverse effects based on gender. That assertion, in this specific case, is a challenging one to make, as the approval process that led to the adoption of female hormonal contraception (the pill) in the 1960s was very different beast than the approval process in place today. The original pill was approved for use as a contraceptive in 1960, before a sweeping 1961 overhaul of the FDA’s drug approval process (inspired by a worldwide disaster attributed to a poorly vetted drug) led to tighter regulation of drug trials. The number of women included in the trials, as well as the length of time they were studied, has led many to criticize the pill’s original approval as hasty. The number of people included in that trial (or in the recent male trial), for example, would not have been enough to win its approval by today’s FDA. And, indeed, health risks associated with the pill (most notably blood clots) appeared in the following decades, leading drug manufacturers to lower doses and experiment with different administration schedules and mechanisms. A study published in 2016 has also pointed to potential long term effects related to mood disorders tied to long-term use of the pill. The question of whether or not the pill, as presented to the FDA in 1960, would have been approved today is just as valid as the question of how this male contraceptive would have fared in the FDA of the 1960s. Unfortunately, the two studies are rooted in very different histories and scientific climates. It is also hard to compare numbers from a brief trial to those obtained over decades of studying a drug after its approval. The final claim presented in viral stories about this study is that research, because of these side effects, has been halted. In fact, researchers have not “given up” on research into male hormonal birth control, and scientists have hailed the work as a great breakthrough, as reported in New Scientist: Chris Barratt, professor of reproductive medicine at the University of Dundee, said: “This is high-quality research from a very experienced group of investigators, and as there has been no progress in male contraceptives for 40-plus years this is a very significant and welcome development.” Because this study was a Phase II Trial, its full completion would not have resulted in a new product anyway. The scientists themselves are also optimistic about the future, stating in the CONRAD press release that future research will seek to find the right combination of hormones to provide the same results with fewer side effects: It has been a long-standing goal of many researchers and organizations to develop safe, effective, reversible and acceptable hormonal regimens for male contraception. Given the efficacy and acceptability of this method, despite side effects, there continues to be a strong rationale for continuing research. A majority of participants in the study also expressed interest in further development of the drug, according to the researchers: More than 75% reported being at least satisfied with the method and willing to use this method if available, which supports further development of this approach. The irony that a male contraceptive trial was halted due to side effects commonly seen in female hormonal contraception was — for good reason — not lost on the Internet. However, using this study as an example of male disinterest in bridging the contraceptive burden disparity between genders brushes over one of the best breakthroughs yet at dismantling that disparity.
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35241
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A video clip shows former President Barack Obama stressing the need for U.S. pandemic preparedness in 2014.
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Obama stressed the importance of investing in research for the long term. “If and when a new strain of flu, like the Spanish flu, crops up five years from now or a decade from now, we’ve made the investment and we’re further along to be able to catch it,” he said. “It is a smart investment for us to make. It’s not just insurance; it is knowing that down the road we’re going to continue to have problems like this — particularly in a globalized world where you move from one side of the world to the other in a day.”
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true
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Politics, COVID-19
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In the United States, one of the most controversial issues surrounding the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic of early 2020 was a debate over whether the Trump administration failed at adequately preparing the country for such an outbreak, and in responding to it in a timely and effective manner once it hit the U.S.: President Donald Trump’s failure to respond to the coronavirus pandemic didn’t begin with the administration’s inability to send out the millions of test kits and the protective medical gear for health care workers that experts say are needed to tackle the crisis. It didn’t start with Trump’s bungled messaging downplaying the crisis even as it’s worsened, nor with his mid-March insistence that social distancing measures could be lifted by Easter (he later backpedaled). It began in April 2018 — more than a year and a half before the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the disease it causes, Covid-19, sickened enough people in China that authorities realized they were dealing with a new disease. The Trump administration, with John Bolton newly at the helm of the White House National Security Council, began dismantling the team in charge of pandemic response, firing its leadership and disbanding the team in spring 2018. The cuts, coupled with the administration’s repeated calls to cut the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health agencies, made it clear that the Trump administration wasn’t prioritizing the federal government’s ability to respond to disease outbreaks. That lack of attention to preparedness, experts say, helps explain why the Trump administration has consistently botched its response to the coronavirus pandemic. In response to such criticisms, U.S. President Donald Trump sought to affix blame on other people and entities, including his predecessor in the White House, Barack Obama: For decades the @CDCgov looked at, and studied, its testing system, but did nothing about it. It would always be inadequate and slow for a large scale pandemic, but a pandemic would never happen, they hoped. President Obama made changes that only complicated things further….. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2020 Trump’s critics countered his excuses by, among other means, producing a video clip said to date from 2014 (a full five years before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic) and seemingly showing Obama strongly urging that the U.S. invest in creating an infrastructure for dealing with an “airborne disease that is deadly” that would “allow us to see it quickly, isolate it quickly, respond to it quickly”: This is indeed a correctly identified video clip which captured Obama’s remarks when he paid a Dec. 2, 2014, visit to campus of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, to call for more funding for Ebola research: President Barack Obama visited the NIH campus on Dec. 2 to see firsthand the progress that biomedical research is making against Ebola virus disease. The President toured the NIH Vaccine Research Center and met with scientists who are working hard to develop ways to combat this deadly virus that continues to devastate West Africa. And, in a speech before a packed auditorium at the NIH Clinical Center, the President praised the contributions of NIH staff. He also emphasized the need for emergency Congressional authorization of resources to ensure that the nation’s research and public health efforts against Ebola will lead as quickly as possible to an end to this devastating outbreak.
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