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Controversy stalks Nobel Peace, Literature prizes.
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Controversy stalks the Nobel prizes for peace and literature in a way it rarely does for science.
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true
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AP Top News, International News, Norway, General News, Entertainment, Business, Nobel Prizes, Science, Europe, Donald Trump
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The revamped panel at the Swedish Academy who will hand out the Nobel Literature prizes Thursday for both 2018 and 2019 would relish arguments about the winners, rather than intrigue about the #MeToo scandal that forced the institution to suspend the prize last year. And U.S. President Donald Trump has done his part to kindle intrigue about the 2019 Peace Prize winner, by simultaneously seeming to pitch himself for the prize while also slamming the Norwegian panel that awards it. “Controversy is a natural effect of the Literature Prize,” says Mats Malm, the Swedish Academy’s new permanent secretary, appointed to head a reformed 18-person panel after two years of convulsions at the prestigious institution. “We want to contribute to the international discussion about literature and what it is supposed to be.” The literary science professor is leading an overhaul of the body, which was ripped apart in late 2017 and 2018 by sex assaults involving Jean-Claude Arnault , the husband of a former academy member and a once-notable figure on Sweden’s cultural scene. Arnault was convicted last year of two rapes in 2011 but not before accusations of abuse had led to an exodus of academy committee members, the ouster of then-Permanent Secretary Sara Danius and the absence of a Nobel Literature prize for the first time since 1943 at the height of World War II. With a threat hanging from the Nobel Foundation — the body behind the Nobel Prizes — that the Swedish Academy could be stripped of its right to award the prize, the academy brought in five external members to help adjudicate the two literature awards this year. At the same time, it ousted everyone involved in the scandal and it “no longer includes any members who are subject to conflicts of interest or criminal investigations,” according to the foundation. Across the border, the five-person Norwegian Nobel Institute that oversees the Peace Prize usually claims not to enjoy the controversy that accompanies its choices. But Geir Lundestad, the non-voting secretary of the committee from 1990 to 2014, says some members have traditionally thrived on the controversies that the high-profile prize inevitably brings. “I am not sure the differences between the two committees are so big. The literature and peace prizes are more accessible to ordinary people than the prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry,” he says. “Some of the members enjoy the controversy that brings. It varies tremendously between members. But many recognize that some sort of controversy goes with the territory.” The Nobel committees never announce the names of candidates and nominations are not revealed for 50 years. Lundestad was in charge when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to former U.S. President Barack Obama within months of his inauguration in 2009 — a prize that has attracted the ire of Trump, his successor. Obama was there “for about 15 seconds” before he was awarded the prize, Trump told a press conference in February. Trump has been nominated for the Peace Prize by U.S congressmen for opening a dialogue with North Korea. “I’ll probably never get it, but that’s OK,” Trump said. “They gave it to Obama. He didn’t even know what he got it for.” Second-guessing the thinking of the secretive panel is rarely fruitful, but the committee is not immune from the charms of U.S. presidents. As well as Obama, Theodore Roosevelt won it in 1906, Woodrow Wilson took the prize in 1920 and Jimmy Carter was chosen for the award in 2002. However, a better signal for this year’s award might be former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who won the Peace Prize alongside the International Panel on Climate Change in 2007. Gore at the time was the face of the climate movement, a mantle now sitting on the slender shoulders of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg of Sweden. The teenage activist bolstered her profile last month, stepping onto the global stage at the U.N. to berate world leaders. “How dare you?” she kept saying to some of the world’s most powerful people, accusing them of ignoring the science behind climate change. “You are failing us.” Last month, Thunberg won the Right Livelihood award, often called the “Alternative Nobel.” British bookmakers have Thunberg as the hot peace prize favorite this year, with Trump listed as a rank outsider behind several other world leaders, including two prime ministers, Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia and Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The panel could also choose to acknowledge the joint leadership of Greece’s Alexis Tsipras and North Macedonia’s Zoran Zaev. The two prime ministers put 30 years of acrimony between their neighboring countries behind them when they agreed that the former Yugoslav republic should officially be renamed from Macedonia to North Macedonia and Greece should drop its objections to its neighbor joining NATO. On the literature side, the British website Nicer Odds has solved the dilemma of having two winners announced this year by only taking bets on the 2019 winner. Among the favorites are Canadian poet Anne Carson, novelists Maryse Conde of Guadeloupe and Can Xue of China and Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which has been made into a hit TV series. The Nobel week begins Monday with the awards for physiology or medicine. The Physics Prize is handed out Tuesday, chemistry the following day, this year’s double-header Literature Prizes will be awarded Thursday and the Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. The economics prize — officially known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, which is the only prize not created by the Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite — will be awarded on Oct. 14. Nobel’s reason for having an institution in Norway hand out the Peace Prize while others are awarded in Sweden is unclear, but during his lifetime the two Scandinavian countries were in a union, which was dissolved in 1905. Nobel fame this year comes with a 9-million kronor ($918,000) cash award, a gold medal and a diploma. The laureates get them at elegant ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on Dec. 10 — the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896. ___ This story has corrected the spelling of Barack Obama’s first name and Jacinda Ardern’s last name. ___ Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen and Sheila Norman-Culp in London contributed to this report. ___ Read more stories on the 2019 Nobel Prizes by The Associated Press at https://www.apnews.com/NobelPrizes ___ Read more stories on climate issues by The Associated Press at https://www.apnews.com/Climate
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23951
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On the National Animal Identification System.
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"Staples voted for allowing agency to require livestock owners to ""tag"" their animals, but later said he opposes ID mandate"
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mixture
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Agriculture, Candidate Biography, Texas, Todd Staples,
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"At a Tea Party rally in El Paso on April 15, Todd Staples, the state agriculture commissioner, beefed about the government poking where it doesn't belong. ""America's farmers and ranchers have seen firsthand just how quickly a big, intrusive government really can be,"" said Staples, a Republican who seeks re-election. ""And it starts with overzealous environmental lawyers abusing the Endangered Species Act and depriving people of the use of their own property. It includes bureaucrats who try to mandate that you put a $5 microchip in the ear of a $70 goat. That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?"" Crowd members laughed, but Hank Gilbert, the Democratic nominee for ag commissioner, later accused Staples of misleading voters about his record on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The federal program aimed to prevent outbreaks of animal disease by tracking individual livestock, or in the case of pigs and poultry, groups of animals, using a radio frequency ear tag with an electronic identification number (as opposed to a microchip inserted into the animal's ear). President George W. Bush's administration started developing the program in 2004 after the discovery in Washington state of a cow infected with mad cow disease — a degenerative brain disorder that can lead to animal deaths and contaminate the food supply. Three cases of infected cows have been identified in the United States, including one in Texas in June 2005. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced its timeline for the program in April 2005, livestock owners would have been required to register their ""premises"" and animals by January 2008 and required to report their animals' movements around the state by 2009. The USDA later changed its mind about that, but in the meantime Texas had taken steps to address the issue of animal ID. Enter Gilbert, who now seeks to remind voters of that history. In a May 13 press release, Gilbert said that no matter what Staples says lately, the record shows he previously supported the NAIS. ""He was for it, he voted for it, and he did nothing whatsoever to stop it when he was on the front lines in the (Texas) Senate,"" Gilbert said. Did Staples flip-flop on the cow chip? Gilbert's campaign pointed to February 2005 legislation revising the state's agriculture code by allowing the Texas Animal Health Commission to develop an animal identification program. To wit: ""In order to provide for disease control and enhance the ability to trace disease-infected animals or animals that have been exposed to disease, the commission may develop and implement an animal identification program that is consistent with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Animal Identification System."" Minutes of two House hearings show representatives from the Texas Farm Bureau, Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association and the Texas Cattle Feeders Association endorsed the proposal, which sailed through committee and cleared the House with only one vote recorded in opposition. Prior to the Senate vote, the Senate Committee on Natural Resources, of which Staples was a member, also heard public testimony. A Burnet rancher was the only witness recorded against the bill, according to a list of people who testified at the hearing. Committee members unanimously advanced the bill to the Senate, though Staples was absent from the hearing and action. Next, it was placed on the Senate's Local and Uncontested Calendar, an indication it had drawn no senatorial objections. Like other proposals on that calendar, it passed with all senators, including Staples, marked as voting ""aye."" The bill authorized the commission to require livestock owners to pay a fee to register their ""premises"" with an official ID number by a commission-set deadline. The commission could also tell owners to tag their livestock individually. Finally, the commission was permitted to levy fines for failure to comply. Does that mean, as Gilbert implies, that Texas lawmakers passed a bill that created a mandatory animal ID program? Not exactly. In 2005, responding to the witness who testified against the proposal, Sen. Mike Jackson, R-Pasadena, who carried the measure in the upper chamber, said: ""You are aware that this is a permissive bill that says the department may develop a program? It does not say that they shall do it, and the reason that it says that is because the federal government is going to come down here and tell us what to do in another year or two years... that's kind of the premise on why this thing is done."" Bill Powers, the commission's governmental relations coordinator, also testified, saying: ""What this legislation does is gives the animal health commission the authority to set up and develop a premises and animal identification program so when the federal program becomes mandatory, we're ready to go."" In 2006, commission members were poised to vote on the first phase of the program, which required livestock owners to register their premises. They backed off, however, in the face of protests by farmers and ranchers, who said it was an unfair tax. A second phase — never implemented — was to require tagging of individual animals. Meanwhile, the USDA was having problems with the federal animal ID program. In November 2006, the USDA backpedaled on its initiative, making it voluntary only. Farmers and ranchers still objected and this February, the Obama administration scrapped the animal ID program in favor of a new one that would only tag livestock being moved between states. Under the Texas law, the commission could still mandate that livestock owners identify and track their animals. Yet Gene Snelson, the commission's general counsel, told us that it won't act until the USDA defines its new program. And where does that leave Staples, who voted for the law? We sought to interview Staples; he wasn't available. Earlier, Cody McGregor, Staples' campaign manager, said: ""Commissioner Staples has stated his opposition to mandatory animal identification as recently as 2009 when he authored a letter to the USDA outlining the burden it would place on the agriculture community and Texas taxpayers."" Staples' May 20, 2009, letter to Tom Vilsack, the U.S. secretary of agriculture, states: ""I support the voluntary structure of animal identification... mandating animal identification for every animal owner in the United States would certainly have unintended consequences."" We found earlier instances of Staples objecting to a mandatory program — all from late 2006, when he was making his first race for ag commissioner. A sample: On Oct. 26, 2006, the ag weekly Country World quoted Staples saying, ""I oppose mandatory NAIS, and instead support a true voluntary program that allows for rapid trace back for animal diseases to ensure we maintain an open market for Texas animal products here and abroad."" Our judgment? As a senator, Staples voted for a proposal authorizing the state to develop an animal ID program in conjunction with a federal effort that seemed headed toward mandating tags. Significantly, the new law didn't require anyone to tag animals, though it empowered the animal health commission to issue a mandate. But save Staples' 2005 vote, which was in step with nearly every other legislator, he appears to have consistently opposed mandatory identification and tracking — which surely counts for something. Yet Staples' Senate vote counts as well. On the Flip-O-Meter, the contrast between his legislative action and his statements as a candidate and commissioner is a ."
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26591
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“Donald Trump would receive $17 million for three hotels closed for four days under Republican bill! How in the hell is this right?!”
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The Senate-approved bill prohibits Trump family hotels from getting coronavirus aid from a $500 billion fund that would be set up to help businesses that incurred losses from the coronavirus. It’s possible that Trump businesses could be eligible for other types of assistance under the bill’s provisions.
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false
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Corporations, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"At one of President Donald Trump’s daily news conferences on the coronavirus, a reporter referenced a bill that was being debated in the Senate to provide billions of dollars in relief for state and local governments, as well as the cruise and hotel industries. ""Will you commit publicly that none of that taxpayer money will go towards your own personal properties?"" Trump was asked. Trump didn’t make that commitment. He responded by saying that he hadn’t been thanked for forgoing his salary and said: ""So I’ve learned — let’s just see what happens because we have to save some of these great companies. They can be great companies, literally, in a matter of weeks. We have to save them."" The following day, March 23, 2020, a post on Facebook claimed: ""Donald Trump would receive $17 million for 3 hotels closed for 4 days under Republican bill! How in the hell is this right?!"" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) No such provision ever surfaced. In the wee hours of March 25, 2020, the Senate reached agreement on a roughly $2 trillion bill in response to the pandemic that includes $500 billion to help distressed businesses, as well as aid to the jobless and direct payments to taxpayers. The bill passed 96-0 on March 26 and moved on to the House. In its final form, the Senate bill included a provision, insisted upon by Democrats, to block Trump family businesses — and those controlled by other senior government officials or their immediate families — from receiving loan money under the programs. That conflict-of-interest provision applies to the president, the vice president, the head of an executive department, or a member of Congress; and the spouse, child, son-in-law, or daughter-in-law of those officials. Businesses they control are not eligible for money from a $500 billion fund to be set up to provide aid to municipalities, states and businesses that incurred losses as a result of the coronavirus. The president’s real estate empire could still benefit from other parts of the bill, the New York Times reported. Some hotel owners will be eligible for small-business loans, a provision that could potentially help Trump’s company continue to pay wages for its employees. The Trump Organization could also benefit from the $15 billion change to the tax code won by restaurants and retailers, the Times said. A Facebook post said, ""Donald Trump would receive $17 million for three hotels closed for four days under Republican bill! How in the hell is this right?!"" In discussions about legislation that would provide federal relief to businesses hurt by the coronavirus, Trump did not rule out the possibility that his businesses would apply for such aid. But no GOP bill contained language that would have given hotels owned by the Trump family $17 million. And a relief bill passed by the Senate would actually prohibit businesses owned by Trump, his family, or other top government officials from tapping into a $500 billion pool of aid to businesses, though the Trump hotels could benefit from other provisions of the aid bill."
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7341
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Brazil’s health minister resigns after one month on the job.
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Brazil’s health minister resigned Friday after less than a month on the job in a sign of continuing upheaval over how the nation should battle the coronavirus pandemic, quitting a day after President Jair Bolsonaro stepped up pressure on him to expand use of the antimalarial drug chloroquine in treating patients.
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true
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Brazil, AP Top News, Health, General News, Latin America, Caribbean, Sao Paulo, Pandemics, Donald Trump, Virus Outbreak, Economy
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Dr. Nelson Teich, an oncologist and health care consultant, took the job April 17 faced with the task of aligning the ministry’s actions with the president’s view that Brazil’s economy must not be destroyed by restrictions to control spread of the virus. Teich’s predecessor, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, also had rejected the use of chloroquine, which also had been touted by U.S. President Donald Trump as a treatment. Four government ministers who spoke after Teich’s resignation defended the idea of patients being allowed to use the drug if they want to, including Economy Minister Paulo Guedes and the Cabinet chief of staff, Gen. Walter Braga Netto. Officials say almost 15,000 people have died in Brazil from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, though some experts say the figure is significantly higher due to insufficient testing. The peak of the crisis has yet to hit Latin America’s largest nation, experts say. Gen. Eduardo Pazuello, who had no health experience until he became the Health Ministry’s No. 2 official in April, will be the interim minister until Bolsonaro chooses a replacement. Brazilian media have said that Teich’s ability to do his job had been weakened by the appointment of dozens of military personnel to jobs in the ministry. “Life is made up of choices and today I decided to leave,” Teich told journalists in capital Brasilia. He did not explain why he left the job and refused to answer questions. Braga Netto, the Cabinet chief, said Teich left the job “for personal reasons.” Bolsonaro did not comment. Teich’s resignation came one day after Bolsonaro told business leaders in a videoconference he would ease rules for using chloroquine to treat people infected with the coronavirus. Teich has frequently called use of the drug “an uncertainty,” and this week warned of its side effects. The Health Ministry previously allowed chloroquine to be used in coronavirus cases only for patients hospitalized in serious condition. At Bolsonaro’s urging, the country’s Army Chemical and Pharmaceutical Laboratory boosted chloroquine production in late March. Researchers last month reported no benefit in a large analysis of the drug or a related substance, hydroxychloroquine, in U.S. hospitals for veterans. Last month, scientists in Brazil stopped part of a study of chloroquine after heart rhythm problems developed in one quarter of people given the higher of two doses being tested. Governors who have recommended quarantine measures and refrained from touting the drug’s unproven potential said Teich’s resignation reflects Bolsonaro’s failure to manage the pandemic. Rio de Janeiro Gov. Wilson Witzel, a former ally of Bolsonaro, said “no one can do serious work with interference in ministries.” “That is why governors and mayors need to lead the pandemic crisis, and not you, Mr. President,” Witzel said on Twitter. The governor of Ceara, one of Brazil’s most hard-hit states, said Teich’s exit “brings enormous insecurity and concern.” “It is unacceptable that in the face of this serious health crisis, the focus of the government is still on political and ideological discussions. That is an affront to the nation,” Camilo Santana said. On April 16, Bolsonaro fired Teich’s predecessor, Mandetta, who had become the embodiment of challenges to the president’s opposition to governors’ quarantine recommendations and restrictions on businesses. Bolsonaro was eager to resume economic activity and warned failure to do so would cause Brazil to descend into “chaos”. Teich took office pledging to balance health care concerns and the president’s economic worries. He did not openly challenge the president’s views, but did defend stay-at-home measures. Miguel Lago, executive director of Brazil’s non-profit Institute for Health Policy Studies, which advises public health officials, said Teich wasn’t able to build his own team, didn’t have Mandetta’s political strength and wasn’t willing to violate the scientific recommendations. “He clearly had limitations,” Lago said. “He would not challenge what has been consensus among the scientific community. He would never accept the chloroquine thing that Bolsonaro wanted him to do, to recommend publicly that chloroquine was a remedy to be used in the public health system.” Hours after Teich left the job, the Health Ministry began listing figures on chloroquine distribution as part of its main charts about government initiatives against the pandemic, alongside intensive care unit beds, personal protection equipment, tests and flu vaccines. Risk consultancy Eurasia Group analyst Filipe Gruppelli Carvalho said that the Health Ministry’s capacity for ”an effective coordinating role looks to have dropped with Mandetta’s exit,” . “Ultimately, Teich’s dismissal reinforces our view of increasing risks from the government’s poor response to the pandemic, which could contribute to a weaker presidency and decline in support for Bolsonaro in the post-pandemic phase,” he said. The newspaper Folha de S.Paulo published an editorial after Teich’s exit saying Bolsonaro is trying to “put his own survival above state policies and national interest.” “The resignation of another health minister — in less than a month and during the most serious sanitary emergency of contemporary history — exposes the downfall of a president that doesnt’t even pretend to govern the country,” the newspaper said. “As if the economic and sanitary calamities were not enough, he turned himself into a crisis to be faced.” After Teich’s resignation was announced, pot-banging protests were heard in different regions of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. _____ Associated Press writers David Biller and Diane Jeantet in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.
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13455
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The gun epidemic is the leading cause of death of young African-American men, more than the next nine causes put together.
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"Clinton said, ""The gun epidemic is the leading cause of death of young African-American men, more than the next nine causes put together."" As long as you define ""young"" as being between the ages of 15 and 24, Clinton’s statement is accurate, according to CDC data."
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true
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National, Race and Ethnicity, Public Health, Guns, Hillary Clinton,
|
"During the first presidential debate at Hofstra University, Hillary Clinton decried gun violence, especially as it impacts young African-Americans. ""The gun epidemic is the leading cause of death of young African-American men, more than the next nine causes put together,"" she said. This is a claim Clinton has made before, and it’s accurate. We found the relevant data on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Using this search form, we collected data on the 10 most common causes of death for African-American men and boys between the ages of 15 and 24, for 2014: There were 2,256 gun-related homicides in 2014, compared to 2,119 deaths in the next nine categories combined. This makes Clinton’s statement correct. If you add in the accidents and suicides related to guns, the gap between gun-related deaths and other types of deaths expands even further. There were 2,533 gun-related deaths in all 10 categories combined, compared to 2,002 deaths in the top 10 categories that had nothing to do with guns. We should note that this statement is dependent on the age range chosen. For instance, the statement is not correct for African-American boys between age 10 and 14. There were 38 gun-related homicides in that age and racial group in 2014, plus 10 gun suicides and three unintentional injuries caused by guns, for a total of 51. By contrast, the top 10 causes of death for that age and racial group included 271 deaths that had nothing to do with guns, such as diseases. That said, we think using the definition of ""young"" as 15-24 is a reasonable one. Our ruling Clinton said, ""The gun epidemic is the leading cause of death of young African-American men, more than the next nine causes put together."" As long as you define ""young"" as being between the ages of 15 and 24, Clinton’s statement is accurate, according to CDC data."
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2490
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Britain plans world's first go-ahead for '3-parent' IVF babies.
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Britain is planning to become the first country in the world to offer controversial “three-parent” fertility treatments to families who want to avoid passing on incurable diseases to their children.
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true
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Health News
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The methods, currently only at the research stage in laboratories in Britain and the United States, would for the first time involve implanting genetically modified embryos into women. Critics said the technique was ethically suspect and would eventually lead to a eugenic ‘designer baby’ market. It involves intervening in the fertilization process to remove faulty mitochondrial DNA, which can cause inherited conditions such as fatal heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and muscular dystrophy. The methods are designed to help families with mitochondrial diseases - incurable conditions passed down the maternal line that affect around one in 6,500 children worldwide. Mitochondria act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells. The potential treatment is known as three-parent in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the offspring would have genes from a mother, a father and from a female donor. After a national public consultation showed Britons broadly favor the idea, the government’s chief physician said on Friday it should be allowed to go ahead under strict regulation. “Scientists have developed ground-breaking new procedures which could stop these diseases being passed on, bringing hope to many families seeking to prevent their children inheriting them,” Sally Davies, chief medical officer, told reporters. “It’s only right that we look to introduce this life-saving treatment as soon as we can.” But David King, director of the Human Genetics Alert campaign group said “the techniques are unnecessary and their use is ethically unsound” and criticized the government for failing to conduct a more comprehensive public consultation. “They cross the ethical line that has been agreed by government around the world that we should not genetically alter human beings,” he said in an emailed statement. Davies said the government’s health department is drafting regulations to cover the new treatments and plans to publish them later this year. The move would make Britain the first country in the world to give patients an option of mitochondrial DNA transfer to avoid passing the diseases on to their children. Scientists are researching several three-parent IVF techniques. One being developed at Britain’s Newcastle University, known as pronuclear transfer, swaps DNA between two fertilized human eggs. Another, called maternal spindle transfer, swaps material between the mother’s egg and a donor egg before fertilization. A British medical ethics panel which reviewed the potential treatments for mitochondrial diseases decided last year they were ethical and should go ahead as long as research shows they are likely to be safe and effective. Because Britain is in the vanguard of this research, ethical concerns, political decisions and scientific advances here are closely watched around the world - particularly in the United States where scientists are also working on DNA swap techniques. Pro-life campaigners have already criticized the scientific research, saying that creating embryonic children in a lab abuses them by subjecting them to unnatural processes. Critics like King also worry that modifying embryos to avoid disease is the first step towards the creation of “designer babies”, whose genetic makeup could be modified as embryos to ensure certain traits such as height or hair color. Asked whether she was “comfortable” with taking such a major step along the way to allowing human genetic modification, Davies said she had debated and considered the ethical implications with many experts over many years and had come to the conclusion the techniques should be allowed. Any final decision on putting the regulations in place to allow the new treatments to be offered will be subject to a vote in parliament, but Davies said she hoped the first patients may be able to get the new treatments within two years.
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9301
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Drugs that activate brain stem cells may reverse multiple sclerosis
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Our review team had a lively debate as to the extent to which this National Institutes of Health news release exaggerates the findings of the study it reports on. We agreed that the release waits far too long to warn readers that this exciting study of potential multiple sclerosis drugs was conducted in petri dishes and mice. One has to read through more than half of the release before that crucial caveat is introduced. But we had mixed opinions about the headline, “Drugs that activate brain stem cells may reverse multiple sclerosis.” Some of us felt this was misleading because readers would assume the release is talking about human disease, and there’s nothing in the release or the underlying study to support a “reversal” of disease in humans. The opposing view is that the headline accurately reflects what happened in the study in mice and is therefore not an exaggeration. According to this view, the release is deficient mainly because it failed to qualify that the findings were from mice in a timely manner (ideally the first paragraph), but not because of the headline. We welcome reader perspectives on this debate in the comments. The lackluster performance of the pharmaceutical industry in developing new treatments has led to coordinated efforts to repurpose existing drugs for new uses. The research highlighted in this NIH news release is important because it represents one of the earliest examples for this new form of drug development. Multiple sclerosis can be a devastating disease causing significant dysfunction and early death in some patients. Treatments at the moment consist of drugs that target the immune system. While effective, they come with a host of side effects and are very costly. The approach highlighted here provides a potentially new avenue of attack: promoting myelin repair. With that said, this is very early in the game and the drugs — clobetasol and miconazole — have only been shown to work in the test tube and in a mouse model. As we have said on many occasions, success in the mouse model is just that: success in the mouse model.
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true
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animal research,clobetasol,miconazole,NIH
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While one could argue that we should give the release a pass given the early stage of the research, the drugs discussed are commercially available and it would have been easy to provide cost information. The release provides insufficient detail regarding what occurred in this study and the outcomes that were reported. The release states that “both drugs were effective in activating OPCs to enhance myelination and reverse paralysis. As a result, almost all of the animals regained the use of their hind limbs.” But how many animals were studied, and how many of them regained use of their limbs? Was there total resolution of symptoms or only partial resolution, and how was this measured? The release never quantifies these results. Dr. Tesar provides a cautionary note related to the potential harms of this approach; “Off-label use of the current forms of these drugs is more likely to increase other health concerns than alleviate multiple sclerosis symptoms.” Given the stage of research, we think this is sufficient to rate this criterion as satisfactory Our major concern with the description of evidence is that the release waits too long to inform readers that these results were obtained in petri dishes and mice. We have to read more than halfway through the release to learn of this crucial caveat. We also had concerns about the headline as noted above in the Review Summary section. To its credit, the news release does provide an important cautionary statement: “…more research is needed before miconazole and clobetasol can be tested in multiple sclerosis clinical trials.” But this statement, coming late in the release, is too little to counterbalance the enthusiasm generated earlier in the release based on an incomplete and possibly misleading description of the evidence. No disease mongering is evident. We are told up front that the study was funded by a division within the National Institutes of Health, and there is no apparent conflict of interest according to the paper. The news release earns a Satisfactory rating by speaking to the current treatments that are available: “Current therapies for multiple sclerosis include anti-inflammatory drugs, which help prevent the episodic relapses common in multiple sclerosis, but are less effective at preventing long-term disability.” To earn extra credit here, the release could have provided a comment about other research into improving myelin production. This includes ongoing clinical trials being conducted by Biogen and others targeting myelin production in MS. The story makes it clear that the two drugs highlighted (clobetasol and miconazole) are available and adds the important precatuionary note, “…are currently approved for use as creams or powders on the surfaces of the body but their safety administered in other forms, such as injections, in humans is unknown.” This is indeed first of its kind research and that is appropriately noted in the news release. With the possible exception of the headline — an issue we’ve already addressed elsewhere in this review — no hyperbole is evident.
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29003
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A can of wasp spray is a preferable alternative to pepper spray for protection against assailants.
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Is a can of wasp spray a preferable alternative to pepper spray for protection against assailants?
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mixture
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Crime, Crime Prevention Tips, wasp
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Canisters of pepper spray (also known as “OC spray” or “oleoresin capsicum”) are a common non-lethal, self-defense product which dispense a solution containing capsaicin, a chemical typically derived from cayenne peppers: Example: [Collected via e-mail, May 2009] Wasp SprayI have a friend who is a receptionist in a church in a high risk area who was concerned about someone coming into the office on Monday to rob them when they were counting the collection. She asked the local police department about using pepper spray and they recommended to her that she get a can of wasp spray instead. The wasp spray, they told her, can shoot up to twenty feet away and is a lot more accurate, while with the pepper spray they have to get too close to you and could overpower you. The wasp spray temporarily blinds an attacker until they get to the hospital for an antidote. She keeps a can on her desk in the office and it doesn’t attract attention from people like a can of pepper spray would. She also keeps one nearby at home for home protection. Thought this was interesting and might be of use… Capsaicin is an inflammatory agent which causes a burning sensation of the mucous membranes; when sprayed into the face and eyes of an assailant, it can effectively disable the attacker by temporarily inducing tears, pain, blindness, and choking: A very small amount of this powerful inflammatory agent making contact with the eyes will cause the eyelids to immediately close. When sprayed in the nose and mouth area, it will incapacitate your assailant by causing the contraction of the esophagus, trachea, and respiratory tract forcing uncontrolled choking and restricted breathing. The item quoted above advocates keeping a can of wasp spray at home or in the office as a preferable alternative to pepper spray, on the basis that the former can be dispensed with more accuracy and over a greater distance, thus allowing the wielder to disable a potential assailant from farther away and minimize the chances of being overpowered. Wasp spray can have effects similar to pepper spray when used for self-defense, and some have advocated its use for this purpose: Val Glinka teaches self-defense to students at Sylvania Southview High School. For decades, he’s suggested putting a can of wasp and hornet spray near your door.Glinka says, “This is better than anything I can teach them.” Glinka considers it inexpensive, easy to find, and more effective than mace or pepper spray. The cans typically shoot 20 to 30 feet; so if someone tries to break into your home, Glinka says “spray the culprit in the eyes”. It’s a tip he’s given to students for decades. It’s also one he wants everyone to hear. Wasp spray has also been employed by criminals as an offensive weapon, as noted in the following 2002 news report: Three men have been charged in the attempted holdup of an Amish couple riding a buggy on their way back from church.According to sheriff’s reports, the three struck the buggy with their car before two of the men directed wasp spray at the couple and threatened them with baseball bats. They demanded money and frisked the husband, but they found he had no cash, police said. Nearly an hour later, a sheriff’s deputy spotted a car trying to force another buggy off a road in the same area. After a short chase, a car containing the suspects was pulled over and they were arrested. However, some have advised against adopting wasp spray as an alternative to pepper spray, primarily for two reasons: Some of our pepper spray will produce a concentrated stream of about 8 feet up to 25 feet in distance. Other sprayers produce a cone spray pattern and others models produce a fog that covers a larger area.
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11018
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Study: Cancer drug may endanger heart
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The introduction of Gleevec represented a major advance in the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). This story reports on a study printed in Nature Medicine describing 10 patients who developed heart failure while taking the drug. The authors of the study suggest that this drug needs to be thoroughly evaluated to quantify the magnitude of the heart risk. This does not adequately describe the nature of the existing evidence, which is very preliminary. Although the story focuses on the heart risks associated with Gleevec, it does not adequately describe the harms of treatment. What other side effects are there? How common are they? How common is heart damage? Although the main focus of the story is on new reports of toxicity from Gleevec, the story still allowed some promotional claims to enter into the story. (e.g., “Gleevec is a wonderful drug and patients with these diseases need to be on it. It’s a lifesaving drug for sure” and “Novartis said Force’s work does not change ‘the positive benefit/risk ratio of Glivec for thousands of patients being treated for cancer and other life-threatening diseases.’ “) Yet there are no data given to back up these claims of benefit. The story also does not mention alternative treatments. The story should have explain why Gleevec is consider to be better and provide some perspective as to whether it still would if indeed heart failure is found to be a significant side effect. The story never mentions the cost of Gleevec, which is very expensive. These new reports on side effects may decrease the cost-effectiveness of the drug. Cost should not have been left out of the story. Furthermore, the story only quotes the author of the study and a statement from Novartis. The story should have quoted other, independent researchers or clinicians who could have provided additional perspectives.
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false
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The story never mentions the cost of Gleevec, which is very expensive. These new reports on side effects may decrease the cost-effectiveness of the drug. Cost should not have been left out of the story. Although the main focus of the story is on new reports of toxicity from Gleevec, the story still allowed some promotional claims to enter into the story. (e.g., “Gleevec is a wonderful drug and patients with these diseases need to be on it. It’s a lifesaving drug for sure” and “Novartis said Force’s work does not change ‘the positive benefit/risk ratio of Glivec for thousands of patients being treated for cancer and other life-threatening diseases.’ “) Yet there are no data given to back up these claims of benefit. Although the story focuses on the heart risks associated with Gleevec, it does not adequately describe the harms of treatment. What other side effects are there? How common are they? How common is heart damage? The story does not adequately describe the nature of the existing evidence. It does not provide evidence from prior studies on heart failure. The story does not engage in disease mongering. The story only quotes the author of the study and a statement from Novartis. The story should have quoted other, independent researchers or clinicians who could have provided additional perspectives. The story does not mention alternative treatments. The story should have explained why Gleevec is considered to be better and provided some perspective as to whether it still would be if indeed heart failure is found to be a significant side effect. The availability of the drug is clear in this story. The story states that Gleevec is an existing therapy for leukemia. There is no way to know if the story relied on a press release as the sole source of information.
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41742
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Remember after the shooting in Las Vegas, he [Trump] said, yeah, yeah we’re gonna ban the bump stocks. Did he ban the bump stocks? No.
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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand claimed President Donald Trump failed to keep his promise after a mass shooting in Las Vegas to ban bump stocks. In fact, Trump has enacted a bump stock ban, which went into effect in March.
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mixture
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bump stocks, gun control, gun violence,
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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand claimed President Donald Trump failed to keep his promise after a mass shooting in Las Vegas to ban bump stocks. Trump may not have moved as quickly as Gillibrand would have liked, but Trump did enact a bump stock ban, which went into effect in March.At a town hall event hosted by Fox News on June 2, the Democratic presidential candidate from New York was asked what she would do as president to reduce gun violence. Gillibrand blamed the influence of the National Rifle Association for blocking popular gun control measures, such as universal background checks. She also said she would “make sure we ban the bump stock, the large magazines, the assault rifles, the military style weapons.”A “bump stock” is a plastic or metal device that can be attached to the rear of a semiautomatic rifle to make it shoot almost as fast as a fully automatic weapon. The stock uses recoil to make the weapon bump back and forth between the shooter’s shoulder and trigger finger, causing the firearm to fire rapidly.Fox News host Chris Wallace asked Gillibrand if there’s anything that could have been done to stop the mass shooting in Virginia Beach on May 31. (It was later learned that the shooter had legally purchased the handguns used in the attack. The guns were not enhanced by a bump stock, but the shooter did have multiple extended magazines that allowed him to fire more rounds. )“Yeah, stop being beholden to the NRA like President Trump is,” Gillibrand said. “Remember after the shooting in Las Vegas, he [Trump] said, yeah, yeah we’re gonna ban the bump stocks. Did he ban the bump stocks? No, because the NRA came crashing down and said, ‘Don’t you dare do any restrictions on our guns around this country.’ It is such a false choice.”Gillibrand was referring to the mass shooting in Las Vegas in October 2017 perpetrated by 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, who used AR-style rifles affixed with bump stocks to shoot people attending an outdoor concert. That day, 59 people were killed and hundreds more were injured.Several days after the shooting, Trump was asked if bump stocks should be banned, and he vowed his administration would “be looking into that over the next short period of time.”The NRA seemed supportive of the idea. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and NRA political strategist Chris Cox issued a statement saying, “The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semiautomatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.” The NRA later clarified that it did not support a total ban, and that it was opposed to legislative action, preferring instead a revised regulation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). (That position led some gun control advocates to speculate the NRA was not sincere about regulating bump stocks, and was merely trying to divert attention from a legislative effort that might have ended with a complete ban. )Two months after the Las Vegas shooting, the Justice Department and the ATF announced that it had begun the regulatory process to determine if bump stocks were prohibited under existing federal laws that ban the use of machine guns. As we have written, the ATF determined several times since 2008 that certain models of bump stocks could not be prohibited under existing gun lawsOn Dec. 26, 2017, the ATF published an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register to clarify whether “bump fire” stocks fell within the definition of “machinegun.” According to the White House, public comment on that notice concluded on Jan. 25, 2018, with the Department of Justice receiving over 100,000 comments.The mass school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Feb. 14, 2018 — which left 17 dead — brought gun control back into the forefront of the national debate.On Feb. 20, 2018, Trump announced that he had signed a memorandum directing the attorney general to “dedicate all available resources to complete the review of the comments received, and, as expeditiously as possible, to propose for notice and comment a rule banning all devices that turn legal weapons into machineguns.”That ultimately led the Department of Justice and ATF to issue a new federal regulation on Dec. 18, 2018, officially banning bump stocks.ATF, Department of Justice Final Rule, Dec. 18, 2018: The Department of Justice is amending the regulations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to clarify that bump-stock-type devices — meaning “bump fire” stocks, slide-fire devices, and devices with certain similar characteristics — are “machineguns” as defined by the National Firearms Act of 1934 and the Gun Control Act of 1968 because such devices allow a shooter of a semiautomatic firearm to initiate a continuous firing cycle with a single pull of the trigger. Specifically, these devices convert an otherwise semiautomatic firearm into a machinegun by functioning as a self-acting or self-regulating mechanism that harnesses the recoil energy of the semiautomatic firearm in a manner that allows the trigger to reset and continue firing without additional physical manipulation of the trigger by the shooter. Hence, a semiautomatic firearm to which a bump-stock-type device is attached is able to produce automatic fire with a single pull of the trigger. With limited exceptions, the Gun Control Act, as amended, makes it unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun unless it was lawfully possessed prior to the effective date of the statute. The bumpstock-type devices covered by this final rule were not in existence prior to the effective date of the statute, and therefore will be prohibited when this rule becomes effective.The rule required the owners of any bump stocks to destroy the devices or turn them in at an ATF office prior to March 26, when the rule went into effect.NRA spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said the NRA was “disappointed” with the president’s rule because it did not provide a grandfather clause allowing gun owners who already had the devices to keep them.Giffords, a gun control group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, said the new rule is “a positive step, but it is not enough.”“Congress still failed to take any action and instead passed the buck to the ATF, complicating the situation and opening the door to prolonged judicial disputes,” Giffords Senior Policy Advisor David Chapman said in a press release. “It’s horrifying to think that for over 500 days [after the Las Vegas shooting], bump stocks have remained available for purchase — and in danger of falling into the wrong hands. In that same time, our country’s gun violence crisis has continued unabated, while Republican leadership and the Trump Administration have done nothing to stop it.”Chapman was right that the regulation would be challenged by gun rights groups, but to date, the courts have upheld the rule.So, contrary to Gillibrand’s claim, Trump banned bump stocks and he did so despite the NRA’s objection.We asked her campaign what she meant when she said Trump did not ban the bump stock “because the NRA came crashing down” on him.“Senator Gillibrand’s statement during the town hall referred to the time immediately following the Las Vegas shooting, when President Trump first expressed openness to banning bump stocks, then backed down after being forcefully rebuffed by the NRA, who took victory laps over his retreat,” Evan Lukaske, national press secretary for the Gillibrand campaign, told us via email.Lukaske pointed to a New York Times story on Dec. 18, 2018, that said the NRA’s Cox “bragged in an interview with a gun enthusiast that the organization’s actions had succeeded in slowing down momentum for legislative reform.”“Senator Gillibrand acknowledges that five months after the Las Vegas shooting, bump stocks were eventually banned — much to the NRA’s chagrin,” Lukaske said. “Her statement supports the larger point; the NRA uses money and influence to control members of the Republican Party, and prevent common sense gun reforms that the vast majority of Americans and gun owners support.”One can take issue with the speed of the Trump administration’s efforts to ban bump stocks, or fault the president for not quickly rallying Republicans to support legislation to ban bump stocks. But Gillibrand’s comment — “Did he ban the bump stocks? No.” — leaves the impression that the president never enacted a bump stock ban.In fact, Trump spoke consistently about banning bump stocks and his administration did move methodically through the bureaucratic channels and ultimately enacted a regulation to ban them.
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22223
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For every 33 pregnant women that walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic, 32 receive an abortion.
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Rep. Jean Schmidt says 32 of every 33 pregnant women who visit Planned Parenthood get abortions
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false
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Abortion, Ohio, Deficit, Federal Budget, Jean Schmidt,
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"Soon after taking control of the House of Representatives, Republicans opened a new front in the abortion war by attempting to block Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal money. Federal law already prohibits tax dollars from paying for abortions, but Republicans argue that the $363 million that Planned Parenthood gets each year for Title X family planning services actually subsidizes abortions indirectly because money is fungible. The April 14 measure that would have stripped federal funds from Planned Parenthood passed the House by a 241-185 margin but failed in a 42-58 U.S. Senate vote. During debate over the bill, Democrats portrayed Planned Parenthood clinics as a major provider of many types of health services to low income women, while Republicans claimed that Planned Parenthood steers pregnant women into getting abortions. ""For every 33 pregnant women that walk into a Planned Parenthood clinic, 32 receive an abortion,"" Rep. Jean Schmidt, a Cincinnati-area Republican, said in a speech in the House of Representatives. That ratio got PolitiFact Ohio’s attention. So we asked her office where the numbers came from. Schmidt was president of Right-to-Life of Greater Cincinnati before she was elected to Congress and currently chairs the House Pro-Life Women’s Caucus. She referred us to reports produced by several anti-abortion organizations, including Americans United for Life, Concerned Women for America, Liberty Counsel Action, Family Research Council Action, and the Chiaroscuro Foundation. All stated that roughly 98 percent of Planned Parenthood’s services to pregnant women consist of abortion. They derived their information from a March 2011 fact sheet from Planned Parenthood. That fact sheet says the group performed 332,278 abortions in 2009, referred 977 patients to other agencies for adoptions, and provided prenatal care to 7,021 patients. The anti-abortion groups came up with the 98 percent figure by comparing the number of abortions to the number of procedures in the other two categories. Schmidt’s 32 out of 33 statistic works out to 97 percent - the approximate percentage her sources provided. But there are problems with that calculation. First, it assumes that pregnant women only go to Planned Parenthood for one of those three options. Planned Parenthood representatives say that interpretation overstates the ratio of abortions among its pregnant clients. It ignores other statistics, such as the 1,158,924 pregnancy tests the group provided, and the fact that those 332,278 abortions were just 3 percent of the 11,383,900 total procedures that Planned Parenthood health centers provided that year to its 3 million patients. Thirty five percent of its services consisted of providing contraception and another 35 percent consisted of testing for sexually transmitted diseases and treatment. The fact sheet stats also don’t reflect the fact that only a tiny proportion of Planned Parenthood centers around the country provide prenatal care - just 63 out of more than 800, said Tait Sye, a spokesman for the organization. Those that don’t offer prenatal care refer pregnant women to other health care providers for those services, and Planned Parenthood doesn’t keep track of those referrals. And the 7,021 figure for prenatal clients that was used in the calculations doesn’t include pregnant women who went to Planned Parenthood for prenatal care and were sent to outside obstetricians. The group doesn’t ""ask the pregnancy status of every woman that walks into Planned Parenthood,"" and plenty of pregnant women use the organization for other services, like breast exams, Sye said. Consequently, he says it’s ""impossible to calculate an accurate percentage if you don’t know the total number of pregnant women it is based on."" In an emailed statement, Planned Parenthood Vice President for Communications Stuart Schear called Schmidt’s assertion ""a meaningless and unverifiable statistic since Planned Parenthood does not collect information on the pregnancy status of every female patient who comes into our health centers."" When Schmidt was asked about the points made by Planned Parenthood’s spokesmen, she said the group ""obfuscates the truth by comparing apples to oranges – or services to patients."" ""They say 90 percent of the services they provide are preventative, but more than 10 percent of their patients are provided an abortion,"" Schmidt said in an email. ""They say they don't know the number of pregnant women they serve. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out. Whether a patient is pregnant or not should be one of the first questions they ask."" Schmidt is correct that women of childbearing age are routinely asked whether they might be pregnant when they visit a doctor’s office. Sye acknowledged that Planned Parenthood’s intake form contains a question that asks whether female patients are pregnant. ""But, we don’t tally the number of women we see every year who are pregnant or not pregnant,"" he said. PolitiFact recently fact checked a statement Sen. John Kyl made about Planned Parenthood. In that item we noted a few caveats that are worth repeating. First, we think many people would acknowledge a difference between providing an abortion and, say, handing out a pack of condoms or conducting a blood test. The former is a significant surgical procedure, whereas the latter are quick and inexpensive services. So Planned Parenthood’s use of ""services"" as its yardstick likely decreases abortion’s prominence compared to what other measurements would show. Using dollars spent or hours devoted to patient care would likely put abortion above 3 percent in the calculations. So Schmidt does have a point about citing services, rather than patient numbers. Second, it’s worth noting that Planned Parenthood self-reported these numbers, although the group says each affiliate’s numbers are independently audited. (There is no single, national audit.) So we have no choice but to accept their accuracy more or less on faith. What certainly is true is that without knowing the total number of pregnant women that Planned Parenthood sees, it is impossible to compute an accurate ratio for how many of them get abortions. PolitiFact places the burden of proof on the speaker. In this case, Schmidt cannot meet that burden because information needed for that showing is unknown. Anti-abortion groups and Schmidt can try to fill the information vacuum by using Planned Parenthood’s incomplete data to come up with their own number. But that doesn’t mean that their number is correct. The fact sheet shows that Planned Parenthood does a sizable number of abortions. But the ratio she cites (97 percent) is extreme. Sye noted that just 63 out of more than 800 Planned Parenthood centers provide their own prenatal care. That means that pregnant women seeking prenatal care from more than 700 centers would be referred to outside providers. Women seeking prenatal care are not likely to be seeking an abortion, and none of those women are included in the totals cited by Schmidt’s sources. Schmidt’s claim also overlooks that pregnant women who ""walk into"" a clinic could be there for any reason, not just for pregnancy-related services."
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39290
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There are various rumors surrounding the events of the bombing at the April 15, 2013 Marathon in Boston, MA. At least three people have been killed and 140 people have been injured as a result of two bombs that exploded near the finish line.
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Various Rumors about the Terrorist Attack at the 2013 Boston Marathon
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false
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9/11 Attack on America, Crime / Police, Terrorism
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Updated April 19,2013: Suspects Identified. One killed after shoot out with police. According to an April 19, 2013 article by the Associated Press the two bombing suspects were “identified by law enforcement officials and family members as Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, brothers from a Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings. They lived near Boston and had been in the U.S. for about a decade.” A search on the Internet found an online profile for Dzhokhar (aka: Djohar) Tsarnaev showing his religious world view as Islam. Friday morning police continued to conduct a door to door search in the manhunt for the suspects in the Watertown, a town just east of Boston where the bombing took place. The article said that thousands of officers took place in the man hunt and 26 year old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who the FBI referred to as Suspect No. 1 was killed. “His 19-year-old brother – dubbed Suspect No. 2 and seen wearing a white, backward baseball cap in the images from Monday’s deadly bombing at the marathon finish line – escaped.” The city of Boston has suspended all mass transit and warned residents of the city and surrounding suburbs to stay indoors as the manhunt continues to bring the suspect to justice. At 08:45PM Eastern Time Boston Police announced that bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was in custody. The injured prisoner was taken to the hospital for treatment and was listed in serious condition. This according to an April 19, 2013 timeline by ABC News. Update April 18, 2013: Photos and videos on the Internet of the bombing suspects Since the bombing, conflicting information and images describing the bombing suspects have gone viral on the Internet. One photo even made headline news but it turned out that the two men in the photo are not suspected of any terrorist activity. According to an April 18, 2013 article in the New York Post, “the two men whose photos were being circulated internally among police have been cleared as authorities determined that neither man had any role in the Boston Marathon bombings.” The FBI has asked the pubic that if anyone has visual images, video, and/or details regarding the explosions along the Boston Marathon route and elsewhere to submit them on on their local Boston Office website: https://bostonmarathontips.fbi.gov/. They have a toll free number to call with tips: Earlier Boston Marathon Bombing Rumors According to an April 16, 2013 article by CCN several hoax rumors have gone viral on the World Wide Web in the aftermath of the tragic bombing at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Here is a synopsis: Man was ready to propose to his girlfriend at the Marathon but she was killed in the bombing – Fiction! The photo to the right was taken in Boston after the bombing but the description of it that is travelling in social media was inaccurate, according to CNN. The photo appeared in the Boston Globe and the caption described the scene as an injured woman on the finish line being comforted by a man. Young Girl Running for the Sandy Hook Victims Killed in Boston Marathon Bombing – Fiction! A photo a young girl allegedly running for the marathon in remembrance of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting has also been circulating the Internet. CNN found out that bib on the runner was for the Joe Cassella 5K in Great Falls, Virginia and that the young girl did not meet the age requirement to run in the Boston Marathon. Race organizers will donate for retweets – Fiction! Phoney Boston Marathon Accounts appeared to say that the race organizers would donated $1 for every post Re-tweeting “#BostonMarathon victims #PrayForBoston.” on Twitter, according to the CNN article. Authorities shut down cell phone service- Fiction! Reports that the City of Boston ordered the shut down of cellular telephone services to prevent the accidental detonation of unexploded bombs found on the scene were false. The incident caused a flooding of cell phone calls, which overwhelmed the network, according to the CNN article. Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung killed by explosion at Boston Marathon- Fiction! This photograph is circulating on Facebook with the caption, “Whoa! Government is slipping up! This lady supposedly died in the elementary school shooting & apparently died again in the bombing at Boston. They have to be smarter than this, right?” Dawn Hochsprung was shot and killed by Adam Lanza on December 14, 2012 during his killing spree at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. The image appeared to have been digitally manipulated to trick people into thinking it was related to the Boston incident. The caption on the right incorrectly showed Hochsprung’s first name as Donna. Posted 4/16/13 Updated 4/18/13 Comments
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37852
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A photograph appears to show small schoolchildren playing alone in marked-off chalk squares drawn on playground asphalt.
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‘Striking’ Photograph of Children Playing in ‘Chalk Squares’ During Coronavirus Pandemic
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On May 12 2020, the following image of small children separated by “chalk squares” on a playground during the COVID-19 pandemic began circulating:In a caption on the above iteration, the user wrote “Their reality …😢🌈,” but did not include any contextual information about the image or the events it showed. In it, five seemingly lonely children were seen in the photograph, each confined to the inside of their own chalk square.One of the five in the upper right corner sat at the edge of her square, her legs outside the boundary. Each chalk square appeared to delineate a solitary play area for every child, and spaces between seemed to ensure the children would not come too close to one another as they engaged in socially distant playground activity.Images of the “chalk square” children circulated concurrently alongside an unrelated viral post by “Americas Mom” on Facebook (archived here), in which a photograph of a crying woman is accompanied by a lengthy rant about the woman’s “quarantine fatigue” and ancillary concerns that her child was becoming lonely and/or irritating her.That post began by outlining the purported social effects of quarantine on children, before devolving into a rant decrying the use of masks and disinfectant:Written by a Mom, thank you 🙏: “I’ve had enough. People need to seriously look around and see what it’s doing to our kids. To kids too young to understand what’s going on. Kids that are by themselves with no siblings to play with, no cousins around, no friends. No secret play dates. No interaction with anyone besides mom or dad. What do you think that’s doing to our kids biologically and psychologically?The answer is we don’t know!But when you’re a parent you can see the hurt that your child is going through every day and you can explain to them why.. Do you know what I’ve been telling her, the truth! People are afraid of getting sick sweetheart. People are dependent on the government to protect them from everything. You might not agree with that and honestly I don’t care. Because I don’t agree with anything that’s going on right now.Every time I get into the car with my child she begs to go someplace, crying. Should I record it for you? Should I make you hear it on the daily like I do? Will that make you change your mind?You say that you care about these kids. You don’t. You fear for these kids, that is a difference. You fear that they’re going to be sick.. but are you fearing that their minds are now going to be ill and stunted in growth with no Social interactions? I hope you know those social interactions are how they build their immune system.So put a new spin on essential employees that are allowed to send their kids to childcare. These kids are allowed the ability to socially interact with one another, and have the ability to build their immune system. Nonessential employees or people that never put their child in daycare and relied on social interaction for play are now being stunted. So you’re telling us our kids are no longer essential? Our kids aren’t essential enough to build their immune system’s or build their social connections?You say you are not wanting to open the playgrounds because you can’t socially distance and you can’t disinfect. Where was your concern with disinfecting prior to coronavirus? Are you telling us that you never sanitized the parks before so they were riddled with viruses and bacteria that our child was going to become ill?Open the playgrounds, stop the social distancing, stop the masks that are POINTLESS. And I swear to god if the medical professional comes on here and says I wear a mask for 12 hours a day, I’m gonna put your ass on blast. Because you do not wear a mask all throughout your 12 hour shift. Stop lying to yourself.If you don’t agree with me that’s fine. But step the f**k out of my way while I try to fix the future for my child. Because I’ll be damned if she cries every day wanting to play with somebody or wanting to go do something and she can’t because you live in fear. Live in fear in your own f**king house.”As for the children playing in chalk squares, that image was originally tweeted by French journalist Lionel Top on May 12 2020:Les enfants font leur rentrée aujourd’hui (un petite partie d’entre-eux plutôt). Ambiance très étrange, voire dérangeante… pic.twitter.com/g91y5hLatJ— Lionel Top (@lioneltop) May 12, 2020That tweet, automatically translated by Twitter, read:The children are coming back today (a small part of them rather). Very strange, even disturbing atmosphere …In a second tweet, Top provided additional detail about the photograph:Contexte :Pour faire respecter les distances, tout en profitant des récrés, l’équipe pédagogique a dessiné des carrés au sol pour les + petits. Les enfants jouent, dansent, sautent, rient ensemble… mais depuis ce carré.De ce qu’on a vu, ils ne le vivent pas comme une punition https://t.co/i98ZltvteN— Lionel Top (@lioneltop) May 12, 2020Ils apprennent à vivre ensemble mais différemment.Les photos sont marquantes et la plupart des réactions sur Twitter témoignent d’une même émotion, celle d’une école qui ne correspond pas à ce que l’on connaît, mais les enfants ce matin n’étaient pas « malheureux »— Lionel Top (@lioneltop) May 12, 2020Twitter translation:Context: To ensure that distances are respected, while taking advantage of recreation, the teaching team has drawn squares on the ground for the little ones. The children play, dance, jump, laugh together … but from this square. From what we’ve seen, they don’t see it as a punishmentThey learn to live together but differently. The photos are striking and most of the reactions on Twitter show the same emotion, that of a school which does not correspond to what we know, but the children this morning were not “unhappy”A viral photograph of children in “chalk squares” after returning to school during the COVID-19 pandemic was real, shared by a French journalist on May 12 2020. Top captured the image at a preschool in Tourcoing, France, and emphasized that the children were not suffering or unhappy.Comments
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376
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U.S. ambassador says don't let farming 'smears' stop post-Brexit trade deal.
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Britain should not follow the European Union’s “Museum of Agriculture” and let false concerns over U.S. farming practices get in the way of a post-Brexit trade deal, the U.S. ambassador to London said on Saturday.
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true
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Environment
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On Thursday, the United States laid out its objectives for a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain, seeking to entirely eliminate or reduce barriers for U.S. agricultural products and streamline regulatory differences. Opponents of Brexit have argued that such a U.S. accord would open up Britain’s markets to the likes of chlorine-treated chicken and genetically modified crops, while ministers have said the government would not lower food standards to win trade deals. “You have been presented with a false choice: either stick to EU directives, or find yourselves flooded with American food of the lowest quality,” Ambassador Woody Johnson wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper. “Inflammatory and misleading terms like ‘chlorinated chicken’ and ‘hormone beef’ are deployed to cast American farming in the worst possible light. It is time the myths are called out for what they really are: a smear campaign from people with their own protectionist agenda.” Johnson said American farmers were using all scientific and technological tools to help meet the challenges of a growing global population and the resulting health and environmental pressures that brought. “It is not sustainable for the whole world to follow the EU’s ‘Museum of Agriculture’ approach. We have to look to the future of farming, not just the past,” he said. Johnson said washing chicken was a “public safety no-brainer” and using growth hormones for cattle allowed more meat to be produced at a lower cost to the consumer and environment while being completely safe to eat. “The fact is that farmers in America have the same priorities as farmers in Britain”, he said. “It would be a genuine missed opportunity to buy into the idea that the EU’s traditionalist approach to agriculture is Britain’s only option for a quality and efficient agriculture sector moving forward.” In a separate story on Saturday, the Telegraph reported that Britain would follow all EU food and farming regulations for nine months should it exit the bloc without having secured a withdrawal deal to protect British farming. The newspaper said the move sent a signal that the United Kingdom wanted to stay aligned with European and not U.S. agricultural standards.
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5731
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Couple asks state for quick decision about vaccination data.
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A Connecticut couple seeking to stop the public release of additional information about schools’ immunization rates is asking the Department of Public Health to expedite its decision.
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true
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Immunizations, Health, General News, Connecticut, Bristol, Public health
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Brian and Kristen Festa, of Bristol, said Saturday they asked the department for a declaratory ruling on their petition because officials plan to release additional data this month. A Superior Court judge dismissed their lawsuit in September. The couple had sought to stop the release of additional immunization information and have school-by-school immunization data from 2017-18 removed online. The judge said they hadn’t exhausted their “administrative remedies” with public health officials. Parents of an unvaccinated son, Brian and Kristen Festa say they’ve suffered mental and emotional distress due to hateful statements from the public since the release of immunization rate data in May.
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36249
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"North Carolina has banned ""sharia law."
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Did North Carolina Ban Sharia Law Statewide?
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mixture
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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On July 29 2019, frequent Facebook disinformation purveyor Joseph Rudy Rullo posted a meme (archived here) claiming that North Carolina had banned sharia law.Above a map highlighting North Carolina, the meme read:NORTH CAROLINA HAS BANNED ISLAMIC SHARIA LAW AND REGARD IT AS CRIMINAL, AS IT SHOULD BE….LETS MAKE IT NATION-WIDE!However, no recent news articles or other citations accompanied the post and none appeared in its immediately visible comments. Readers who relied on Google to determine the veracity of the claim might also be led to believe it was substantiated. A 2013 Deseret News article bore a headline that seemed to verify its claims:North Carolina becomes 7th state to ban Muslim Sharia lawThat headline definitely made it seem like the meme was very accurate. However, a date (Aug 28, 2013) appeared just under it, indicating that whatever had taken place was six years before the appearance and circulation of this particular unsourced meme.But it wasn’t just a matter of being “old news.” In the first few paragraphs of the article, the headline was effectively debunked:North Carolina has become the seventh state to prohibit state judges from considering Islamic law in family cases, joining what critics say is a national anti-Muslim campaign.Gov. Pat McCrory allowed the law, which was passed by state lawmakers in July [2013], to take effect without his signature.In an interview with The Associated Press, McCrory said the measure doesn’t do anything. “I didn’t think it was worth the time to pass, nor do I think it’s worth the time to have someone come back and vote on it again,” he said.… [A similar] law in Oklahoma was struck down in court as unconstitutional, according to the Progressive Pulse, because it discriminated among religions without justification.North Carolina lawmakers tried to avoid that problem by not mentioning Sharia in the legislation but instead banning enforcement of all foreign laws.A few contextual details became clear from the introductory paragraphs. First, the governor of North Carolina in 2013 simply allowed what he considered a pointless and toothless bill to pass because he considered it not worth the trouble to even bother challenging. Similar laws were deemed unconstitutional due to religious bias inherent in them, and the North Carolina bill was broad and vague, referencing “foreign laws.”Finally, the “ban on sharia law” that was actually a “ban on foreign law” was described as applying only to the small scope of family law — not civil cases or criminal ones. Memes typically do not provide much space for detail, but the oversimplification in the “North Carolina bans sharia law” rumor in particular was egregiously misleading.Nevertheless, the meme can and does argue that whatever North Carolina did in 2013 (political theater so pointless the governor didn’t even bother to engage with it) was an effective ban of “sharia law” in the state. And to verify that, we have to understand what sharia law is and whether or not such a bill could effectively be described as ban of the practice.According to the Islamic Networks Group (ING), sharia is guidance used by individual Muslims in their day-to-day lives. In other words, it is not used in place of actual legal codes or directives:The term Sharia comes from an Arabic word meaning “path to the water,” which reflects the concept that Sharia is divine guidance drawn mainly from the Qur’an and Sunnah (teachings and guidance of Prophet Muhammad) for the purpose of helping humanity draw close to God and live in kindness and justice with His Creation. The term Sharia is used by Muslims to refer to the values, code of conduct, and religious commandments or sacred laws which provide them with guidance in various aspects of life.While Sharia is often translated as “Islamic law,” a more accurate term for “Islamic law” in Arabic is fiqh which refers to the human endeavor to interpret and apply Sharia.Sharia is not the practice of applying Islamic tenets to the legal system — that is a concept known as fiqh. Sharia is relevant as a guide for people of the Muslim faith — not the legal system — to live their lives. In a separate section about what sharia addresses with respect to Muslims and religious guidance, ING explains:Sharia addresses both personal and communal aspects of life. For the most part, Sharia is concerned with personal religious observances such as prayer and fasting. Sharia can be divided into two broad areas:So what is called “sharia law” as it is applied by Muslims is not law at all, but a guide for issues like worship and how it occurs, and family or related matters. ING did not mention relevance to the state, but North Carolina’s “foreign laws” bill did have to do solely with “family court.” Theoretically a small crossover could occur at that juncture, but overall, sharia is applied by Muslims in their daily lives and the North Carolina bill did not in any way ban that.Finally, ING addressed the fact that many other common religions such as Judaism or Catholicism have features very similar to sharia:Most religions have sacred laws or religious standards for the different areas of life. For example, Jews have halakhah, which is very similar to Sharia in method and content. Catholics have the teachings of the magisterium (teaching authority), which deal with things like marriage, business practices, and social justice.As PolitiFact noted in May 2019, the meme is grossly misleading and the bill itself was itself disinformation, useless because no foreign laws were being applied in any court proceedings (family or other) when it was passed in 2013:While the claim has some basis, it takes a state law vastly out of context to make it appear as if Muslims living in North Carolina are banned and criminalized from personally practicing Sharia law, when it is, in fact, that all foreign laws are prohibited from being applied in state court proceedings.North Carolina is not alone in outlawing a personal religious practice as if it were actual legal practice. A July 2019 USA Today piece described anti-sharia laws as “copy-and-paste legislation.” The article, titled “These copycat bills on sharia law and terrorism have no effect. Why do states keep passing them?” explained that nearly identical bills on this topic are commonplace, despite a lack of actual instances where sharia principles influenced a court case:Since 2010, some version of the model bill has been debated in 43 states and signed into law in 12, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center tracking of the legislation. USA TODAY and The Arizona Republic’s investigation, which used a computer algorithm to detect similarities in language, found during that period nearly identical copies of American Laws for American Courts had been introduced 40 times in 17 states.Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute in Washington, D.C., which advocates for Arab people of all faiths, said the copycat legislation isn’t intended to fix any real problem. “It’s an organizing tool for hate groups,” she said. Supporters of the legislation can cite few instances where Sharia factored into court rulings, and those that violated American laws were overturned on appeal.In 2016, the St. Cloud Times examined a similar effort in Minnesota, and legal experts once again explained that existing laws already prevented “foreign law” from influencing proceedings in any American court:We asked two constitutional law scholars from the University of Minnesota about Brown’s bill, and what role Sharia law plays in U.S. courts right now.Both said it’s not needed because of Article 6 of the Constitution, which states that the Constitution “shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby.”“The bill is unnecessary because it really just restates what the rule is now,” said Fred Morrison, who teaches constitutional and international law at the U of M’s Law School and has served as the Counselor on International Law for the U.S. Department of State.To recap, a July 2019 meme claimed North Carolina banned sharia law, with no indication the referenced “ban” occurred in 2013. Enough time had elapsed by that point for most readers to have forgotten that the state’s governor at the time deemed both signing and arguing with the bill pointless, as it simply reiterated law as it already stood. Sharia isn’t even a system of governance, but a set of guiding principles for Muslims to adhere to their religion — similar to aspects of Judaism and Catholicism. Although the 2013 legislation did exist, it in no way functioned as a “ban on sharia law” in North Carolina from any legal or meaningful angle, and instead shines a light on how disinformation can permeate the American court system — and thus policy.
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32257
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The discovery of a vaccine for the autoimmune disease diabetes has been announced.
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Type 2 diabetes is often referred to as “adult onset” and, depending on the severity, can in some cases be controlled with diet and lifestyle changes. It results from cells becoming resistant to the effects of insulin and is often linked to obesity.
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false
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Junk News, diabetes, Health Care, scams
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On 18 September 2016, the English-language clickbait web site called Time for You shared an article reporting that “The vaccine against diabetes promises to be the solution for the advance of the illness and even reverses its effects.” The story cited work of two supposed Mexican scientists, Salvador Chacón Ramírez, president of the “Live Your Diabetes Foundation,” and Lucila Zárate Ortega, of the “Mexican Association for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Autoimmune Diseases,” along with Doctor Jorge González Ramírez, using a therapy called “auto-chemotherapy.” According to the Time for You article (which appeared to rely on a bad auto-translation), the procedure for immunizing against diabetes works as follows: About 5 cm of blood were extracted from each patient and then they were injected with 55 milliliters of blood solution. It is refrigerated at five degrees centigrade. When the temperature changes to 37 grades, since it goes out of the body to a new temperature, a shock happens takes place and what was a problem turns into the solution inside the bottle, in such a way that the genetic and metabolic flaw is corrected or inmunometabolised in the vaccine. The vaccine lasts for 60 days and the treatment is about one year. This vaccine is much more than a medicine; it is a medical practice that has turned into an alternative, a possible solution to stop the complications that are chronically degenerative: embolism, loss of ear; amputation, renal insufficiency and blindness, etc. The article referred to events in Mexico that transpired in November 2015. According to the Spanish-language daily newspaper, La Jornada, the organization Live Your Diabetes held a press conference announcing their alleged discovery on 25 November 2015, but they were shut down by the Mexican government within 24 hours for hawking a bogus therapy. The English language version of the La Jornada article misrendered the treatment “Autohemotherapy” as “auto-chemotherapy”: Staff of the Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risk (COFEPRIS) closed the offices of the Live Your Diabetes Foundation, which announced a vaccine against the disease. The Ministry of Health (SSA) denied that there is any drug approved to prevent this disease and issued a warning about the “fraud on the public and the health authorities of the 32 states.” SSA said in a statement that it has not authorized any vaccine against diabetes and that the foundation has not submitted the clinical protocol to evaluate the quality and safety of the supposed therapy called “auto-hemotherapy.” Without health registration or advertising permission , its facilities were closed “to prevent health risks.” We couldn’t find any evidence that autohemotherapy, the practice of injecting patients with their own blood cells, is currently being used by the legitimate medical community for treatment any medical ailments. A 9 December 2014 article in the peer-reviewed journal Cureus notesdthat while autohemotherapy was used in the past for the skin conditions urticaria and eczema, evidence of its efficacy for that purpose wasn’t reliable: The injection of autologous whole blood or serum, known as autohemotherapy, was a standard dermatologic treatment in the early 1900s. Conventional dermatologists eventually abandoned autohemotherapy due to a lack of supporting evidence, even though there had been no formal attempts to assess its effectiveness. Recently, several investigators have evaluated autohemotherapy as a treatment for urticaria and eczema. I conducted a systematic review of the literature on autohemotherapy, focusing on treatment outcomes. The available evidence indicates that autohemotherapy does not have major side effects, and that minor adverse effects are short-lived and similar in frequency to those from placebo injections. Overall, autohemotherapy tends to be somewhat more effective in reducing symptoms than control therapy across studies, although the advantage is not statistically reliable. Urticaria patients who test positive on the autologous serum skin test display a moderately better response to autohemotherapy than patients who test negative. Based on the limited evidence available, autologous whole blood and autologous serum injections appear to have similar effectiveness. Furthermore, the severity of symptoms prior to treatment is not consistently related to patients’ apparent response to autohemotherapy. Currently there is no known cure for diabetes, an autoimmune disorder that produces high blood sugar levels over a prolonged period. There are two forms of the disease, the first of which (Type 1) typically onsets during childhood and results from the body’s immune system attacking insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Insulin is key to glucose metabolism, and the absence of insulin in the blood stream results in a build-up in the body which over time becomes life-threatening. This deficiency is primarily controlled through insulin injections.
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28929
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A Virginia lawmaker proposed a bill that mandates on-site physical examinations of children's genitals to determine which gendered bathroom they're authorized to use.
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"What's true: Virginia lawmaker Mark Cole proposed controversial bill HB663, which in part requires the use of bathrooms be based on ""anatomical sex"" in public schools. What's false: Cole's proposal explicitly stated that schoolchildren would be subject to ""genital checks"" before being allowed to use restrooms."
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mixture
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Politics, bathroom controversies, transgender
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On 12 January 2016, the web site Raw Story published an article (with the grammatically incorrect headline “Virginia GOP bill would require schools to verify children’s genitals before using the restroom) reporting that Republican Delegate Mark Cole had proposed a bill mandating that schools physically examine children to determine whether they were using boy’s/girl’s bathrooms that matched their genitals (rather than their asserted gender identity): A bill filed by a Virginia lawmaker would require schools to be certain that children are using the restroom corresponding to their “correct anatomical sex.” The legislation, which would prohibit transgender students from using the bathroom matching their gender, is being sponsored by Republican Del. Mark Cole. House Bill 663 defines “anatomical sex” as “the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person’s anatomy.” “Local school boards shall develop and implement policies that require every school restroom, locker room, or shower room that is designated for use by a specific gender to solely be used by individuals whose anatomical sex matches such gender designation,” the measure states. Civil rights advocate Tim Peacock noted that “adults would be required to inspect children’s genitals before they use the bathroom” for the legislation to be enforceable. “This is what the conservative movement has devolved into: forcing children to allow adults to examine their genitals out of misplaced fear that transgender kids and adults might commit a hypothetical never-before-seen act of violence or sexual aggression (that would still be against the law with or without transgender protections),” Peacock wrote. Many online articles on this topic cited Richmond Sunlight, a web site that provides both the text of bills and “a plain English description” of pending legislation for residents of the state of Virginia. The Richmond Sunlight highlighted in yellow changes to the Code of Virginia proposed by Cole in that a href=”https://www.richmondsunlight.com/bill/2016/hb663/fulltext/” target=”_blank”>bill (HB663): A. For purposes of this section, “anatomical sex” means the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person’s anatomy. B. Local school boards shall develop and implement policies that require every school restroom, locker room, or shower room that is designated for use by a specific gender to solely be used by individuals whose anatomical sex matches such gender designation. Such policies may also provide that a student may, upon request, be granted access, to the extent reasonable, to a single stall restroom or shower, a unisex bathroom, or controlled individual use of a restroom, locker room, or shower. C. Any student who willfully and knowingly violates this section shall be liable for a civil penalty not to exceed $50. Civil penalties assessed under this section shall be paid into the Literary Fund. Any law-enforcement officer may issue a summons regarding a violation of this section. Although Cole’s legislation was a fairly clear shot across the bow at concessions to transgender students in the United States, none of the language in his bill specifically mandated physical genital checks be performed by school officials (or, as some headlines insinuated, Cole himself). Critics argued that the language of the bill was worryingly vague and that it could not possibly be enforced without requiring direct genital inspections, but other options were possible (such as accepting documentation from a pediatrician already knowledgeable about a child’s “anatomical sex”). Cole also proposed a fine on students for violating the law, an aspect pinpointed by many transgender advocates as particularly objectionable. At a basic level the bill required proof of “anatomical sex” as defined by its provisions, but much of the media coverage led readers to believe children would be genitally inspected at school bathroom doors, which was misleading. Cole’s law indeed proposed such “checks” be codified into law (to prevent transgender individuals from using bathrooms that matched their gender but not their genitals), but not in the specific manner widely described on social media.
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34317
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GlaxoSmithKline is recalling 600,000 Ventolin inhalers.
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On 21 February 2018, the company announced a separate recall of certain lots of the Ventolin Accuhaler in the U.K. Once again, the cause was a manufacturing problem which led to “a small number of units not delivering the full number of doses,” according to the U.K. government’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Agency.
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unproven
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Inboxer Rebellion, FDA, product recalls, safety recalls
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Hundreds of thousands of Facebook users in February 2018 shared an article warning that the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline had issued a massive recall of Ventolin inhalers, an essential medicine for many people with asthma. The post. by TodayViral.News, was a hoax. It rehashed an actual Ventolin recall which took place in April 2017: GlaxoSmithKline is recalling nearly 600,000 prescription inhalers over defects, the FDA announced. The voluntary recall targets Ventolin HFA (albuterol sulfate) Inhalation Aerosol, distributed via prescription nationwide. The manufacturer said the drug delivery system is defective. TodayViral.News used the sensationalist headline, “600,000 inhalers recalled for defects — ‘Share’ to Save a Life! !” lending a false urgency to the fake story, which could put people’s health at risk. A check of the web sites of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and GlaxoSmithKline showed there was no new Ventolin inhaler recall in February 2018. In April 2017, GlaxoSmithKline announced they were recalling almost 600,000 Ventolin HFA inhalers because a propellant leakage in the inhalers had caused them to emit a lower dosage of the medication albuterol. The following month, the company expanded the recall, including additional batches of the Ventolin HFA inhaler, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America reported. A spokesperson for GlaxoSmithKline told Reuters at the time that the recall did not represent a risk to the public, and that the public were not required to return any affected inhalers. On 18 February 2018, after this article was originally published, the company announced a recall of a different product, Ventolin Diskus, which is a dry powder inhaler used to relieve bronchospasm. That recall was limited to Canada.
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10135
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Acupuncture May Help Restore Lost Sense of Smell
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How journalism has changed – when a journalist gets a byline and a paycheck for a meager rewrite of a news release. In the daily drumbeat of news like this – a study of 15 people – we drown the audience with a firehose of incomplete information. And HealthDay’s client, BusinessWeek, picked up the story as is and republished it. It’s just shovelware.
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false
|
"No discussion of costs. Again, because the scope of the benefits (how improved smell function was measured) was not explained, it’s almost meaningless to say that there was improvement in 8 people in the acupuncture group. How much improvement? How significant was the improvement? And how limited is the conclusion one can draw from improvement in 8 people? No discussion of potential harms. Even if few or none, it should be mentioned. Why would only benefits be mentioned? Not applicable, however the story gives no estimate of the number of people with post-viral olfactory dysfunction. No independent source was quoted. We’re told that ""In the literature, systemic and topical steroids as well as vitamin B supplements, caroverine, alpha lipoic acid, and other drugs were used to treat patients"" – but we’re not told anything about what that literature reveals about these approaches. So no meaningful comparison was made. And, again, not much comparison could be made anyway after a study in 15 people. Not applicable. The availability of acupuncture is not in question. We are not given any sense of whether this approach has been tested before. The story admits it was based on a news release. Worse, it appears to be only a meager re-write of the news release. For example: Story: ""There is no validated drug treatment for PVOD. Current treatments include systemic and topical steroids, vitamin B supplements, caroverine, and alpha lipoic acid. In addition to these treatments, many patients use complementary and alternative medicines, the researchers noted."" News release: ""..there is no validated pharmacotherapy for PVOD, but attempts have been made to establish a standardized treatment. In the literature, systemic and topical steroids as well as vitamin B supplements, caroverine, alpha lipoic acid, and other drugs were used to treat patients. The researchers point out that in addition to these treatments, complementary and alternative medicines are currently being employed by many patients on their own."" And somebody gets a byline and a paycheck for this?"
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22138
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"Benzene has ""never been proven to be harmful."
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State Rep. Rick Hardcastle says benzene has never been proven to be harmful
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false
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Environment, Texas, Rick Hardcastle,
|
"During House debate, state Rep. Rick Hardcastle brushed off a colleague’s concerns about benzene emissions near Texas schools. ""Are you aware benzene is also a compound in soap?"" Hardcastle said April 28. ""Found at every car wash in this state — and several other industries in this state? And it’s never been proven to be harmful."" The Vernon Republican was opposing an amendment by Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, that would prohibit the Oil and Gas Commission from issuing drilling permits for gas wells within 1,200 feet from a public school unless they meet a set of conditions, including installing emission controls and ensuring certain pollutants, such as benzene, fall below certain concentrations. Members tabled Burnam’s proposal. Still, we wondered if benzene has really never been proven harmful? First, a benzene primer: According to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, benzene is an organic chemical compound found most often in the air as a result of emissions from burning coal and oil, drilling for natural gas or in gasoline vapors, car exhaust, cigarette smoke and other sources. The chemical also is used as a solvent for inks, paint and plastics and to manufacture detergents. EPA spokesman Joe Hubbard told us benzene is a ""widely used chemical formed from both natural processes and human activities."" Still, in 1986, the agency classified benzene as a ""human carcinogen and hazardous air pollutant,"" he said. When we reached Hardcastle, he agreed that benzene is ""a proven carcinogen"" but said that’s only so when a person is ""overly-exposed to it"" for a long period of time. Otherwise, he said, it hasn’t been proven harmful. ""It’s a carcinogen, but everything’s a carcinogen,"" he said. ""You eat too much white bread and it’s a carcinogen."" Texas Commission on Environmental Quality spokesman Terry Clawson told us that benzene is harmful depending on its concentration in air and how long someone is exposed to it. ""Typical outdoor concentrations"" of benzene, less than one part per billion, are ""much lower than concentrations that have been shown to cause harmful effects in people,"" he said. But exposure to higher concentrations, tens of thousands of parts per billion, over a period of many months to years ""has been shown to cause harmful effects on blood,"" he said. Longer exposures, over many years, have ""been shown to cause leukemia in workers,"" he said. A fact sheet issued by the agency in October 2007 says as much: ""Permitted levels of benzene should not cause adverse health and welfare effects,"" but breathing high levels of the chemical compound can damage blood cells, human studies indicate. ""Some occupational workers, who have been exposed to some of the highest air concentrations of benzene for years, experienced a decrease in the number of white blood cells circulating in their blood."" According to the EPA’s web page on hazards associated with benzene, chronic exposure for a year or more has caused blood disorders, including reduced numbers of red blood cells and aplastic anemia — a risk factor for developing acute non-lymphocytic leukemia. The EPA site says short-term exposure to benzene may cause drowsiness, dizziness, headaches, eye, skin and respiratory tract irritation, and, at high levels, unconsciousness. And a February 2009 study funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences found that leukemia risks could be greater at ambient levels of benzene exposure — that is, benzene in the air where people live, rather than where they work — than previously thought. A 2009 EPA summary says that some studies, such as those gauging links between childhood exposure to benzene and childhood cancer, are equivocal. A 2001 study found a connection between Hodgkins lymphoma and young children who lived in high-traffic ares with higher concentrations of benzene during pregnancy or early childhood, while a 2002 study found no connection between childhood cancer rates and benzene concentrations in high-traffic neighborhoods. Closer to home, a 2010 study by researchers at the University of Texas and the Texas Department of State Health Services found that women living in Texas neighborhoods with high levels of benzene (more than 3 micrograms per cubic meter of air) were more likely to bear children with spinal bifida — a serious birth defect that can cause paralysis and neurological disorders. According to an August 2007 benzene fact sheet published by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, ""some women who breathed high levels of benzene for many months had irregular menstrual periods and a decrease in the size of their ovaries."" But, according to the fact sheet, ""we do not know for certain that benzene caused these effects."" Recent studies have found that environmental exposure to benzene increases the risk of childhood cancer, birth defects and lowers birth weight, he said. ""Cancer is not the only concern. ""While it’s true that the only ‘proven’ effects are in occupationally exposed workers, studies strongly suggest that adverse effects on children and pregnant women are probably at lower environmental levels. Finally, Martyn Smith, a toxicology professor at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, who has studied the health effects of benzene, told us that Hardcastle is ""wrong."" There is no known threshold for when benzene becomes carcinogenic, Smith said. According to a study Smith authored that was published in the Annual Review of Public Health in April 2010, ""there is probably no safe level of exposure of benzene, and all exposures constitute some risk."" Where does that leave us? It’s true that benzene is a common air pollutant and is found in everyday products such as detergents. But to claim that airborne benzene has not been proven harmful flies in the face of scientific evidence that long-term exposure in the workplace can cause cancer and other negative health effects — not to mention studies suggesting lower levels of environmental exposure may also be unsafe. ."
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6554
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Measles cases confirmed in Vancouver and Portland.
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Authorities in Vancouver, Washington, have confirmed a case of measles in a child while the Oregon Health Authority has confirmed a separate measles case in Portland, Oregon.
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true
|
Health, Washington, The Dalles, Vancouver, Oregon, Measles, Portland
|
Clark County Public Health says people who visited PeaceHealth Urgent Care - Memorial in Vancouver in the afternoon Dec. 31 may have been exposed. The Oregon Health Authority said a measles case was confirmed in a person who spent time in The Dalles and Hood River. People in The Dalles may have been exposed Dec. 29 at the Discovery Center or Dec. 31 at Fred Meyer. People in Hood River may have been exposed Dec. 30 if they were at Doppio Cafe, Goodwill or Full Sail Brewery in the early afternoon. People who were at the Oregon Health & Science University Emergency Department Jan. 2 in the morning may have been exposed. Officials advise anyone who may have measles symptoms to call before visiting a medical office. Measles symptoms begin with a fever, cough, runny nose and red eyes, followed by a rash.
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26554
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“We were slow with the testing, but very quick with the travel ban. And that's been much more critical in saving lives.”
|
When the Trump administration had imposed restrictions on people traveling from China or Europe to the United States, the virus had already reached communities across the country. Travel restrictions can buy a government some time in stopping viral spread. But with that time, research shows, authorities need to put a dent in local transmission – by testing robustly, and then quarantining people who are positive. The American travel restrictions may also have created a false sense of security, experts said, when more essential precautions weren’t taking place.
|
false
|
Immigration, National, Public Health, Health Check, PunditFact, Coronavirus, Jesse Watters,
|
"Defending President Donald Trump’s coronavirus response, Fox News commentator Jesse Watters highlighted federal efforts to restrict international travelers who may be infected – a ban he claimed mattered more than diagnostic testing. ""We were slow with the testing, but very quick with the travel ban. And that's been much more critical in saving lives,"" Watters said in a March 31 episode of ""The Five"" on the Fox News Channel. The administration has attracted stinging criticism from public health experts and state officials, who say the dearth of COVID-19 tests has made it impossible to get a handle on the disease’s spread. But the impact of the restrictions Trump had imposed – both on people traveling from China and, by March, from Europe and the United Kingdom – is another story. So we decided to dig in. We contacted Fox News to find out the evidence on which Watters based his comment but did not hear back. Early on, those restrictions won plaudits. After the March restrictions, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and is a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said there was ""compelling evidence"" to justify restricting travel from those high-infection areas. But the implementation is another story. Global health specialists told us there is little to no evidence that Trump’s restrictions have restrained COVID-19 – they came too late and didn’t have the follow-up necessary to make a real dent. By contrast, they said, better and earlier testing could have saved countless lives. Targeted, quick travel restrictions can be part of the public health arsenal to control the spread of an illness such as COVID-19. The idea is to stop people in hot spots from carrying the virus to uninfected areas. The restrictions also tamp down on the risk that an infected traveler will expose others in the closed quarters of an airport, airplane or other mode of transportation. But the experts we spoke to made clear that these restrictions can work only as one (smaller) part of a comprehensive strategy. Without other aggressive public health measures, they would have little value. The timing of American restrictions – and how they interacted with other domestic efforts – rendered them ineffective. The administration’s first coronavirus-related travel restrictions took effect Feb. 2, targeting non-citizens who had recently traveled to or from China. On Feb. 29, it took similar steps with people who had traveled to or from Iran. For context, the incidence of a severe respiratory illness began to emerge in China late last year. These cases were confirmed to be a novel coronavirus by Jan. 7, and the first American case was reported Jan. 20 – almost two weeks before any travel restrictions were in effect. Expanded travel restrictions took effect March 13 and 16 to include people in Europe, including the United Kingdom and Ireland. Experts told us those measures represented the wrong approach at the wrong time. ""When the travel ban was put in place, the risk of importation from China was quite small,"" said William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. For one thing, China had also put in place its own limitations on travel – limiting travel to and from Wuhan starting Jan. 23. And, by then, there were already several cases of coronavirus across both the United States and in other countries that had not been targeted by restrictions. And while European cases shot up in early March – particularly in Italy – even those travel restrictions were misplaced, he said. At that point, Americans already faced a domestic threat from the virus. So was the administration ""very quick"" with a travel ban? Not really. If anything, the travel limitations gave people ""a sense that something with a big impact was being done,"" said Jennifer Kates, a vice president and global health expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) That security, others said, distracted from the reality that more essential precautions weren’t in place. Well-implemented travel restrictions can buy time on the margins, research suggests. But that time has to be used effectively – to ramp up emergency preparedness and bolster activities like testing and isolating people who may have been exposed. And there’s no way to know if the Trump administration’s initial travel restriction – barring people who had been to China – reduced the spread of coronavirus. That’s because the administration limited testing for the virus to people who were sick enough to be hospitalized or who had been to Wuhan specifically. Those are people with a heightened risk of exposure, and not representative of the broader swath of people affected by the travel limitations, said Jennifer Nuzzo, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. ""Had we expanded testing during this time and still found few cases I would be more convinced that the travel ban had an impact. But we didn’t."" Available research on travel bans isn’t promising, either. A March 20 analysis run by Think Global Health, a project of the Council on Foreign Relations, compared countries that did and didn’t restrict travel with China. The researchers found no correlation between travel restrictions and preventing a pandemic outbreak. ""The combination of the travel restrictions within China and international travel restrictions against China may have delayed the spread of COVID-19, but more so in nations that used that time to reduce community spread of the virus,"" the researchers wrote. That last part is crucial – travel restrictions may have bought time, but that mattered only if countries actively fought domestic spread. Other research backs that up. A paper published in Science last month found that when China imposed its own travel restrictions, it made only a modest difference in curbing the spread of the coronavirus, both domestically and to other countries -- at most, buying a few days’ time. And, this paper also notes, travel restrictions were effective only when coupled with other efforts to halt transmission. By contrast, researchers were unanimous in noting the effectiveness of robust testing of people who may have been exposed -- and then isolating those who test positive for the virus. This test-and-quarantine approach has been proven effective in South Korea, which experienced its first case on the same day as in the U.S. but where the number of new COVID-19 cases is now on a dramatic decline. If you could pick only one strategy – travel bans or testing – the choice is clear, Nuzzo argued. ""We don’t have any evidence that travel bans did much to stop or slow the spread,"" she said. ""Conversely, testing is essential. Had we been better able to find and isolate cases and traced their contacts, we could have kept case numbers down."" The World Health Organization makes a similar point: It says temporary restrictions are justified only in narrow circumstances and as a way to buy time. But that time, the organization says, must be used to ""rapidly implement effective preparedness measures"" – like testing. Another point that supports this position: the real-world experience unfolding in the United States. The ""travel ban didn’t work,"" said Lawrence Gostin, a university professor at Georgetown Law, who specializes in global health law. ""This is self-evident, because the U.S. is now the global epicenter."" Arguing in support of the White House coronavirus response, Watters said the United States was ""very quick with the travel ban"" and that was ""much more critical in saving lives."" This is incorrect. Travel restrictions could have bought a bit of time. But they were instituted after the coronavirus had already entered the United States. And the evidence at hand suggests that travel restrictions are most effective in combating viral spread if they are accompanied by targeted, robust testing and quarantining, which are the areas in which the administration stumbled. If you were to pick only one area to excel in – testing people for coronavirus or travel restrictions – experts told us that the research clearly supports testing, even without travel bans. Watters’ claim has no factual basis and misrepresents real-world evidence on multiple levels."
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26606
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JB Pritzker Says it was “unquestionably” not within his “legal authority” to postpone Illinois’ primary election by changing the date or shifting to vote-by-mail.
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It’s difficult to know for sure that Pritzker could not have done anything to delay the March 17 election. But experts told us the governor spoke correctly in describing the limits of his powers under existing law.
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true
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Elections, Illinois, Coronavirus, JB Pritzker,
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"The coronavirus pandemic has governors grappling with the implications of holding primary elections even as some are insisting everyone stay at home until the public health crisis subsides. Of 23 states that have not yet held primaries, at least eight are now postponed, according to news reports. Illinois was one of three states that allowed voting to continue as scheduled on March 17, even after Gov. J.B. Pritzker closed schools, barred restaurants from serving dine-in customers and prohibited mass gatherings. Ohio, which was also scheduled to vote that day, shuttered polling places hours before they were set to open by declaring a public health emergency. Following Ohio’s 11th-hour move, Pritzker responded to criticism from Chicago’s city election board over why he did not act to postpone in-person voting in Illinois. At an Election Day news conference, Pritzker said the city’s board had asked him a week before ""to do something that is unquestionably not within my legal authority."" ""They wanted me unilaterally to cancel in-person voting on March 17, convert Illinois to an all-vote-by-mail state, and extend vote by mail to May 12,"" Pritzker continued. ""They could not even begin to explain the legal basis for their request."" It’s impossible to say what would have happened had Pritzker’s administration forced a delay like Ohio’s, so calling it ""unquestionable"" is a bit of an exaggeration. But experts told us the governor’s on firm legal footing to claim he cannot — on his own — interfere with the democratic process. During a state of emergency, which Pritzker declared earlier this month, public officials have broad authority to make drastic changes that may alter people’s daily lives and undercut businesses’ ability to operate. For example, Illinois’ Emergency Management Agency Act allows the governor to control the movement of people within a ""disaster area,"" which in this case covers the entire state. It also permits him to seize property and suspend the sale of items such as alcohol or firearms. But it says nothing about postponing elections. In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine acknowledged he also lacked the authority to delay an election, according to the Columbus Dispatch. So he backed an attempt to get a court to change the date. When a judge denied that request, his public health director ordered all polling places closed. That action prompted a legal challenge, but Ohio’s supreme court dismissed it, declining to stop the state from shuttering the polls. Experts told us Pritzker’s administration may have been able to try something similar, potentially forcing the Illinois General Assembly to sort out a new date, as Ohio’s is now doing. But the experts warned that doing so could have set a troubling precedent for future elections. ""You can say that even though the motivations here (in Ohio’s case) were completely pure and even though the decision here was completely reasonable, this is a dynamic that is not particularly healthy to have a situation where a person who is elected himself is deciding not to hold elections,"" said Nadav Shoked, a local government expert at Northwestern University’s law school. Indeed, Pritzker made a similar point during his press conference, warning ""it is exactly in times like these when the constitutional boundaries of our democracy should be respected above all else."" When we asked his office why the governor’s administration had not tried to close polls like Ohio’s did, spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh responded in an email that ""breaking the law and then hoping the Supreme Court agrees with you isn’t how this administration prefers governing."" So who can set a new election date or shift voting entirely to mail-in ballots in Illinois? Abudayyeh told us state lawmakers would have to pass legislation in order to make that happen. The legislature was not in session the week before the election. The state’s election board also said it could not act unilaterally, noting in a March 16 press release that moving the election would require either a court order or legislative action. ""The Election Code is silent on the issue of canceling or postponing an election,"" spokesman Matt Dietrich told us in an email. ""It would require the General Assembly amending the Election Code to give us (or some other official or entity) such authority."" Dietrich said the same goes for mandating election authorities send mail-in ballots to voters. Experts said it stands to reason that state lawmakers must take action in order to alter how elections are conducted. ""Who represents the people of the state? It’s the state legislature,"" said Jaime Dominguez, an urban politics expert at Northwestern University. ""Voters are indirectly involved through their representative in the legislature."" Pritzker said it was ""unquestionably"" not within his ""legal authority"" to postpone Illinois’ primary election by changing the date or shifting the election to vote-by-mail. While there are too many hypotheticals to be certain Pritzker’s administration could not have delayed the election in any way, experts told us the governor spoke correctly in describing the limits of his powers under state law. — The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information."
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7430
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Charges dropped against Florida pastor over stay-home order.
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Misdemeanor charges were dropped Friday against a Florida pastor accused of violating stay-at-home orders by holding Sunday services with hundreds of people in March amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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true
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Health, General News, Florida, Arrests, Virus Outbreak, Public health, Tampa
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Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren said in a statement that the prosecution of Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne of the River at Tampa Bay Church would not proceed. Warren said Howard-Browne has conducted operations responsibly since his arrest in March. Howard-Browne had been charged with unlawful assembly and violating quarantine orders during a public health emergency. The pastor held services at the church despite local orders to limit gatherings to no more than 10 people, authorities said. “Our office has determined that further prosecution or punishment would not provide increased protections for our community and is not needed to achieve any additional change in Pastor Howard-Browne’s behavior,” Warren said. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel that represents Howard-Browne, released a statement Friday calling the Howard-Browne’s arrest “politically motivated”and that the case should never have been brought. “Neither the pastor nor The River at Tampa Bay Church did anything wrong,” Staver said. “We are pleased that all the charges have been dropped. It is now time to move forward with healing and restoration.” Shortly after the arrest, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis exempted houses of worship from a statewide stay-at-home order.
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10572
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New inhaler protects lungs against effects of air pollution
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This is a romp through a field of unsubstantiated claims on the benefits and promise of a new device that purports to protect the body from air pollution-induced illnesses. The hyperbole begins with the title and continues through the story. The story hints at evidence but provides no substantiation of the claims made by the sources in the story. The clinical and financial impact of air pollution is an important public health issue that deserves coverage. While attempts to reduce the production of pollutants has been somewhat successful, other strategies are newsworthy, including the potential for a low cost and non-toxic preventive. Although the research to date has been “promising” it is a long way from promise to fruition. Resorting to excessive claims of benefits leads readers astray and compromises the integrity of the research effort.
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mixture
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The Guardian
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The expected cost to UK consumers is noted ($17 pounds/month). The reader is provided with no information on the presumed benefit of ectoine other than glowing comments and two references available via URL. The two studies noted include one in rats and one in human cell culture. No information is provided about studies in humans, although one source says the “inhaler has been tested in three small groups of patients particularly at risk from air pollution, due to asthma, COPD and bronchitis, with the positive results due to be published soon.” This begs the question of the need for this story now rather than after the publication of the results. Harms are not explained. The comments of one doctor in the story suggest that the compound is inert, supporting the notion that there are no harms. But a quick check of a material safety data sheet reveals some concern about the potential for ectoine to produce pulmonary edema if inhaled, in addition to eye and skin irritation. Dr. Andreas Bilstein is quoted saying, “The inhaler has been tested in three small groups of patients particularly at risk from air pollution, due to asthma, COPD and bronchitis, with the positive results due to be published soon.” How many patients? Under what conditions? For how long? How were the benefits measured? Other than a series of positive quotes about ectoine, the reader is provided with little in the way of substantiation. There is a suggestion that all of us who live in cosmopolitan areas where particulate pollution is a problem will need to start and end our day with an ectoine inhaler or risk type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, COPD and a host of other maladies. Also, the article should be mindful of statements such as the ones below, which may unintentionally incite fear in the public. “Outdoor air pollution is a global health crisis that kills over 3 million people a year…” “In the UK, at least 40,000 people a year die prematurely from air pollution, with a cross-party committee of MPs calling it a “public health emergency.” These types of statistics are, first of all, hard to wrap one’s mind around. Overuse of them has numbed people to their impact and effect. Comments from one independent source are provided and the potential conflicts of interest of Dr. Klutman and Bilstein are in part duly noted. The article does provide at least one alternative strategy, though it wasn’t explained clearly: “Antioxidants can also provide some protection but there has been controversy over the effectiveness of such food supplements, he said: ‘Personally, I think it is much better to eat lots of vegetables and fruit rather than taking any supplements. '” It also mentioned the need to reduce harmful vehicle emissions, though it said more short-term solutions were needed. The story makes it relatively clear that the inhaler isn’t available but should be soon. More specifics would have been helpful, though. The use of a ectoine for prevention of pollution-related illness is novel and the story provided sufficient backstory with this detail: “The protective effect of ectoine was discovered by Prof Jean Krutmann and colleagues at the Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine, while investigating whether the molecule could protect skin against sun damage. Bitop funded a series of studies, now published in prominent scientific journals.” Technically, the story was not pulled from a press release. We do wonder however why the story was thought to be newsworthy at this time since trial results are apparently to be published soon.
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36089
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"Excess consumption of coffee during periods of high stress can cause people to experience ""schizophrenic-like symptoms."
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Can Consuming Too Much Coffee Under Stress Cause Schizophrenia Symptoms?
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On October 15 2019, the Facebook page “Weird Facts” shared the following “fact meme,” which claimed that the combination of a lot of coffee and a lot of stress could cause symptoms of schizophrenia — presumably in people not already diagnosed with the condition:Underneath a stock image of coffee beans, text read:Consuming too much coffee while under high amounts of stress can cause you to experience schizophrenic-like symptoms.Like the balance of content on the page, no additional information such as a link to an article or other corroborating content accompanied the post. Within a few days, the image racked up a five-figure share count, with sharers commenting things like:I’m extremely stressed and hopped up on coffee right now. I don’t believe this at all and neither do I.When the experiment was reported, it tended to involve specific phrasing. In June 2011, Fox News declared “Large Amounts of Coffee Cause Hallucinations, Study Finds.” Finding the apparent basis of the claim was fairly straightforward. Also in June 2011, ABC Australia published an article reporting:A team at Melbourne’s La Trobe University were researching mechanisms between the onset of schizophrenia and stressful life situations. They were trying to discover what caused stressed individuals who did not have a diagnosis of schizophrenia to show symptoms of the disease.Lead researcher Simon Crowe says a sample of 92 undergraduate students were played White Christmas by Bing Crosby before being played static white noise for several minutes. The students were then asked to press a buzzer to indicate when, if at all, they could hear White Christmas playing in the background of the white noise.Lead researcher Simon Crowe says, however, White Christmas was never played during the white noise.The outlet paraphrased Crowe as saying that subjects who were “both highly stressed and had a high intake of caffeine were three times more likely to report hearing the song.” A 2011 La Trobe University press release discussed the experiment:Five coffees a day or more was found to be enough to increase the participant’s tendency to hallucinate says Professor Crowe.‘High caffeine levels in association with high levels of stressful life events interacted to produce higher levels of ‘hallucination’ in non-clinical participants, indication that further caution needs to be exercised with the use of this overtly “safe” drug,’ he says.The participants were assigned to either a high or a low stress condition and a high or a low caffeine condition on the basis of self-report. The participants were then asked to listen to white noise and to report each time they heard Bing Crosby’s rendition of “White Christmas” during the white noise.The song was never played. The results indicated that the interaction of stress and caffeine had a significant effect on the reported frequency of hearing “White Christmas”. The participants with high levels of stress or consumed high levels of caffeine were more likely to hear the song.An abstract for “The effect of caffeine and stress on auditory hallucinations in a non-clinical sample,” published in April 2011 in Personality and Individual Differences, stated:Both the diathesis-stress model and the continuum theory of schizophrenia attempt to explain the mechanism by which stress may facilitate the expression of the symptoms of schizophrenia in non-clinical samples. Caffeine has also recently been reported to increase proneness to hallucinate. In this study, 92 non-clinical participants were assigned to either a high or a low stress condition and a high or a low caffeine condition on the basis of self-report. After they had been primed, the participants were asked to listen to white noise and to report each time they heard the song “White Christmas” during the white noise. The song was never played. The results indicated that the interaction of stress and caffeine had a significant effect on the reported frequency of hearing “White Christmas”. The results demonstrated that high caffeine levels in association with high levels of stressful life events interacted to produce higher levels of “hallucination” in non-clinical participants, indicating that further caution needs to be exercised with the use of this overtly “safe” drug.We were unable to access the full text of the research, which involved 92 individuals who had “been primed” via a suggestion the song “White Christmas” was playing alongside white noise. However, the suggested song did not play — only the white noise. Incidentally, 1998 research indicated it appeared “patients with schizophrenia have high caffeine intakes,” for which the reasons are, it said, unclear.Researchers also found that people with schizophrenia “do not develop anxiety at high doses of caffeine.” Separate 2013 research on hallucinations stated in its abstract that “it has been suggested that auditory hallucinations are an entity by themselves and not necessarily indicative of transition along the psychosis continuum,” i.e., hallucinations and psychosis do not necessarily go hand in hand. And in 2009, researchers using an emailed survey found that coffee drinkers might hallucinate more often.In June 2012, an Association of Psychological Science article reported on new research on the power of suggestion, or priming:In a new article, psychological scientists Maryanne Garry and Robert Michael of Victoria University of Wellington, along with Irving Kirsch of Harvard Medical School and Plymouth University, delve into the phenomenon of suggestion, exploring the intriguing relationship between suggestion, cognition, and behavior. The article is published in the June issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.Over their research careers, Garry and Kirsch have both studied the effects of suggestion on cognition and behavior. Kirsch focused mostly on suggestion in clinical psychology, while Garry, whose work is supported by the Marsden Fund of New Zealand, was interested in the effects of suggestion on human memory. When the two got to talking, “we realized that the effects of suggestion are wider and often more surprising than many people might otherwise think,” says Garry.Across many studies, research has shown that deliberate suggestion can influence how people perform on learning and memory tasks, which products they prefer, and how they respond to supplements and medicines, which accounts for the well-known placebo effect.But what can explain the powerful and pervasive effect that suggestion has in our lives? The answer lies in our ‘response expectancies,’ or the ways in which we anticipate our responses in various situations. These expectancies set us up for automatic responses that actively influence how we get to the outcome we expect. Once we anticipate a specific outcome will occur, our subsequent thoughts and behaviors will actually help to bring that outcome to fruition.The coffee experiment involved a sample of 92 participants, and subjects were specifically directed to “hear” a single song — “White Christmas.” The June 2012 article noted that the power of suggestion, research suggests, is not limited to direct suggestion, and that indirect pushes can be just as strong:But it’s not just deliberate suggestion that influences our thoughts and behaviors — suggestions that are not deliberate can have the very same effects. As the authors point out, “simply observing people or otherwise making them feel special can be suggestive,” a phenomenon termed the Hawthorne effect. As a result, people might work harder, or stick to a task for longer. And this case is more worrying, says Garry, “because although we might then give credit to some new drug or treatment, we don’t realize that we are the ones who are actually wielding the influence.”In January 2013, The Chronicle of Higher Education examined myriad findings involving inherent suggestion, overt suggestion, and known difficulties in replicating the results of social and behavioral research — with a mention of “headline-making” research:At the same time, psychology has been beset with scandal and doubt. Formerly high-flying researchers like Diederik Stapel, Marc Hauser, and Dirk Smeesters saw their careers implode after allegations that they had cooked their results and managed to slip them past the supposedly watchful eyes of peer reviewers. Psychology isn’t the only field with fakers, but it has its share. Plus there’s the so-called file-drawer problem, that is, the tendency for researchers to publish their singular successes and ignore their multiple failures, making a fluke look like a breakthrough. Fairly or not, social psychologists are perceived to be less rigorous in their methods, generally not replicating their own or one another’s work, instead pressing on toward the next headline-making outcome.Much of the criticism has been directed at priming. The definitions get dicey here because the term can refer to a range of phenomena, some of which are grounded in decades of solid evidence—like the “anchoring effect,” which happens, for instance, when a store lists a competitor’s inflated price next to its own to make you think you’re getting a bargain. That works. The studies that raise eyebrows are mostly in an area known as behavioral or goal priming, research that demonstrates how subliminal prompts can make you do all manner of crazy things. A warm mug makes you friendlier. The American flag makes you vote Republican. Fast-food logos make you impatient. A small group of skeptical psychologists—let’s call them the Replicators—have been trying to reproduce some of the most popular priming effects in their own labs … What have they found? Mostly that they can’t get those results. The studies don’t check out. Something is wrong.One defense of researchers’ inability to replicate results in some priming research is that it involves confounding factors that make it difficult to replicate overall. However, dissenters say they haven’t found that to be the case:One possible explanation for why these studies continually and bewilderingly fail to replicate is that they have hidden moderators, sensitive conditions that make them a challenge to pull off. Pashler argues that the studies never suggest that. He wrote in that same e-mail: “So from our reading of the literature, it is not clear why the results should be subtle or fragile.” … Pashler can’t quite disguise his disdain for such a defense. “That doesn’t make sense to me,” he says. “You published it. That must mean you think it is a repeatable piece of work. Why can’t we do it just the way you did it?”Regarding priming and coffee, a 2019 study published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition found that “people responded the same with thoughts of coffee and by drinking coffee.” In that research, the mere suggestion of drinking coffee (without its actual consumption) led to physiological arousal similar to that of drinking coffee directly.Research on recall and memory has also dovetailed significantly with the topic of suggestion. Researcher Elizabeth Loftus is well known for findings about the reliability of memory and experiments involving a suggestion about an event that never occurred. In one widely-referenced experiment, a quarter of participants reported recalling an event that never occurred:In a ground-breaking experiment, Loftus and her student Jacqueline Pickrell gave participants short narratives, all supposedly provided by family members, describing childhood events, and asked them to recall the events. Unbeknownst to the participants, however, one of the narratives was entirely false. It told of the person, as child of 5 or 6, being lost in a shopping mall for an extended period of time before finally being rescued by an elderly person and reunited with his or her family. In the study, nearly 25% of the small sample of participants reported to be able to remember this event, even though it never actually occurred. Many people were able to provide embellishing details that were not supplied by the investigators. Loftus interpreted this to mean that the very act of imagining the events led to the creation of false memories.In 1997, Loftus wrote of the experiments:My students and I have now conducted more than 200 experiments involving over 20,000 individuals that document how exposure to misinformation induces memory distortion. In these studies, people “recalled” a conspicuous barn in a bucolic scene that contained no buildings at all, broken glass and tape recorders that were not in the scenes they viewed, a white instead of a blue vehicle in a crime scene, and Minnie Mouse when they actually saw Mickey Mouse. Taken together, these studies show that misinformation can change an individual’s recollection in predictable and sometimes very powerful ways.In terms of a single suggestion, Loftus — who has also warned of the dangers of disinformation and propaganda in this context — said:In one example, participants viewed a simulated automobile accident at an intersection with a stop sign. After the viewing, half the participants received a suggestion that the traffic sign was a yield sign. When asked later what traffic sign they remembered seeing at the intersection, those who had been given the suggestion tended to claim that they had seen a yield sign. Those who had not received the phony information were much more accurate in their recollection of the traffic sign.… Although strong suggestion may not routinely occur in police questioning or therapy, suggestion in the form of an imagination exercise sometimes does. For instance, when trying to obtain a confession, law officers may ask a suspect to imagine having participated in a criminal act. Some mental health professionals encourage patients to imagine childhood events as a way of recovering supposedly hidden memories.We were unable to find additional research into hallucinations induced by coffee or caffeine intake, although there is a lot of existing peer-reviewed research into recall and suggestion. As noted by the Los Angeles Times‘ more balanced coverage of the research in 2011, the underlying research “has some flaws — [the study] was small, it was published in an obscure journal, and it wasn’t well-controlled.”The meme claimed that “consuming too much coffee while under high amounts of stress can cause you to experience schizophrenic-like symptoms,” based on research involving 92 subjects and the false claim they heard a song they did not. In contrast with the meme, the abstract of the research in question proposed that “high caffeine levels in association with high levels of stressful life events interacted to produce higher levels of ‘hallucination’ in non-clinical participants.” The research does exist, but it was not as definitive as the meme implied.
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34715
|
Part of the process of determining that a Pope has died and is not merely sleeping calls for him to be tapped on the forehead with a silver hammer.
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Legend holds that part of the process of determining that a pope has died is to call for him to be tapped on the forehead with a silver hammer.
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unproven
|
Religion
|
The Vatican customs surrounding the passing of a Pope and the election of his successor seem mysterious to outsiders, both because of their arcane nature and because members of the general population gain exposure to them only at those rare instance in their own lifetimes when the Pontiff dies. Consequently, just about any act said to be part of those rituals seems somewhat believable. One particularly odd belief asserts that after the Bishop of Rome passes on, he is struck in the head with a silver hammer to confirm that he is well and truly gone and not merely sleeping soundly: My son came home last night, and told me that when the Pope passes away, to ensure his death, he is struck on the head with a silver or gold hammer three times. Is it true that when a pope dies, they perform a ritual where someone strikes his head with a silver hammer? Some say it’s an old practice that has been abolished and others say that they still do it. Disagreement exists as to whether such a procedure is part of the parting process. We do know that once a Pope appears to have left this world, a pronouncement is made in Latin that he is dead, with this news certified by a physician. The camerlengo (chamberlain) calls out the pontiff’s baptismal name three times over the corpse in an effort to prompt a response. Failing to get one, he defaces with a silver hammer that particular Bishop of Rome’s Pescatorio (Ring of the Fisherman), along with the dies used to make lead seals for apostolic letters. The pope’s quarters are then sealed, and funeral arrangements are begun by the camerlengo. Some believe after the deceased has failed to answer to his name being called three times, and before his ring and seals are defaced, he is tapped on the forehead with a small silver hammer. That intelligence has been sped along by Stephen Bates, a journalist who penned a widely quoted-from article on rituals attaching to the passing of Popes. For instance, in 2003 The Guardian quoted Bates thus: After the pope dies, an event confirmed when a senior member of staff strikes him on the forehead with a silver hammer and calls his baptismal name to make sure he is not just asleep, the cardinals will gather within a fortnight in the Vatican to deliberate in great secrecy on the choice of his successor. Yet The Guardian ran the following correction a few weeks later: The article below included the assertion that the corpse of a Pope is ritually struck on the head with a silver hammer to ascertain that there is no sign of life. According to the Vatican, this is a myth. While many news outlets continue to tout the silver hammer information as factual (which further adds to the confusion, as the resulting proliferation of articles appears to add credence to the claim, even though all such articles spring from the same wellhead), some offer counter information, such as this snippet gleaned from a 2005 Associated Press report: As for the silver hammer, it was indeed used to verify the pope’s death, for centuries, until the practice ended with reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. But the camerlengo is still thought to use a silver mallet to destroy the papal ring and seals, symbolizing the end of the dead pope’s reign. Symbolism aside, though, the act provides a safeguard against forgeries. It is not inconceivable that at least at one time such a macabre test was administered, because history is dotted with numerous instances of those presumed to have passed away suddenly springing back to life. At one time, the fear of being misdiagnosed as dead and consequently being buried alive prompted some to specify in their wills their desire to have special tests performed on their bodies to make some sure they were actually deceased. Surgical incisions, the application of boiling hot liquids, touching red-hot irons to their flesh, stabbing them through the heart, or even decapitating them were all specified at different times as a way of making sure the presumably deceased didn’t wake up six feet under. Some persons opted for being buried with the means to do themselves in, and guns, knives, and poison were sometimes packed into coffins along with the deceased. (These days, given western society’s passion for embalming its departed loved ones, the chances of being prematurely buried are almost nil, because none so preserved stand a chance of surviving the process.) In the wake of the death of Pope John Paul II on 2 April 2005, news outlets and other sources have issued a variety of contradictory statements about the use of a silver hammer in connection with a pope’s death: it’s an old, discontinued practice, or it remains a current practice; the use of the hammer once served a functional purpose, or its use is (and always has been) purely symbolic. In light of these competing claims, we await a pronouncement from an identifiable (i.e., non-anonymous) Vatican official on the subject before declaring this one either ‘True’ or ‘False.’ One final note for those who are pondering the coincidence: the Beatles song “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” has no connection to papal traditions involving a silver hammer. As Steve Turner noted in A Hard Day’s Write, his volume on the origins of Beatles songs: “John told me that ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was about the law of karma,” says former Apple employee Tony King. “We were talking one day about ‘Instant Karma’ because something happened where he’d been clobbered and he’d said that this was an example of instant karma. I asked him whether he believed in that theory. He said that he did and that ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was the first song that they’d made about that. He said that the idea behind the song was that the minute you do something that’s not right, Maxwell’s silver hammer will come down on your head.” Paul said at the time that the song “epitomizes the downfalls of life. Just when everything is going smoothly, ‘bang, bang’ down comes Maxwell’s silver hammer and ruins everything.”
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35087
|
"The COVID-19 coronavirus disease is ""spreading quickly from gas pumps."
|
What's true: Gas pump handles are a potential source of surface contact transmission of the COVID-19 coronavirus. What's false: Gas pumps are only one of many commonly-handled objects that could transmit the COVID-19 coronavirus, and we have found no substantiated reports of anyone's having been infected in that fashion yet.
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mixture
|
Medical, COVID-19
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In March 2020, during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic, social media users began sharing warnings about the virus’ allegedly “spreading quickly from gas pumps.” Such warnings cautioned readers to use gloves or paper towels while pumping gas and to discard them immediately afterward: One particular version of this class of warning attributed the advice to “Galway Hospital” in Ireland: However, University Hospital Galway told TheJournal.ie that “we’ve not issued any such advice.” As for the content of the message (regardless of its source), as with many coronavirus-related pieces of advice, it’s something of a mixed bag. We’re not aware of any credible reports of COVID-19 being spread via gas pump handles (something that would likely be difficult to determine as the specific source of any particular infection). It is true that surface contact is one of the means of transmission of the novel coronavirus, and since gas pumps are objects that are typically handled by many different people throughout the course of a day — in many places without being regularly cleaned between uses (especially in areas where self-service is the norm) — they are a potential route for the virus to spread from person to person. How much risk pumping gas poses relative to other ordinary day-to-day activities is difficult to determine. Consumer Reports, for example, offered advice consistent with what was expressed in social media warnings: For many [persons] the occasional trip to the gas station is inevitable, as is touching the pump handle and payment keypad. Pump handles and credit card keypads, which are high-touch areas, could have the virus present, which experts say can stay alive for hours or even days on hard surfaces … [T]here are a few things you can do that will help you stay safe when you have to pump gas. • Consider carrying some disposable nitrile or latex gloves in your car to use when gripping the pump handle. Short of that, you can try to use paper towels that are sometimes available at the pump or have some with you to cover your hands when you grip the handle. • Invert the gloves and throw them away, and also any paper towels you might have used. Use hand sanitizer to make sure your hands are clean after you’re done and before you get back into your car. On the other hand, TheJournal.ie quoted the Irish Petroleum Industry Association as dismissive of the advice in the social media messages: Our members are implementing enhanced hygiene protocols in our service station shops. In line with HSE [Health and Safety Executive] advice, our workers regularly wash and sanitise their hands and the areas customers interact with such as fuel nozzles, credit card PIN pads, door handles and food areas. We are aware of messages being shared on social media and wanted to inform customers that pump handles are no more or less prone to the spread of infection than any other hard surface and to outline the significant steps we are taking to combat the spread of Covid-19 and keep our valued customers safe. Gas pumps could be considered somewhat more of a concern because consumers typically touch other surfaces — such as the door handles and interiors of their vehicles — immediately afterwards and could thereby create yet another pathway of contamination for themselves or others. However, gas pumps are just one of many objects that multiple people commonly handle in similar fashion during the course of a day, including ATMs, payment processing systems, shopping cart handles, and currency, all of which pose varying degrees of risk.
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29348
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There is a proven natural cure for cancer called sour honey, but pharmaceutical companies and politicians are trying to keep it under wraps for financial gain.
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To the latter point, the entire concept of the “Clinton Cartel” and a “sour honey” subversion conspiracy is rooted in a company with a history of promoting extremely dubious claims using politically motivated narratives. As such, we rate this claim, allowing only that there has been some legitimate research into bee propolis as a cancer therapy.
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false
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Politics Conspiracy Theories, cancer, cancer cures, propolis
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In the buildup to the November 2016 presidential election, a viral marketing campaign attempted to promote a substance dubbed Brazilian “sour honey” as a cure for cancer which Hillary Clinton and her “Crooked Cartel” were trying to hide from the public for their own personal financial gain. Examples of this narrative can be found all over the internet in the form of sponsored articles targeting right wing web sites and text-only YouTube videos, both of which come with and offers of a free* ebook at the end. (*Free with a $74 membership fee). Within that lengthy litany of anti-pharmaceutical talking points and wild Clinton conspiracies, the relevant portion in terms of “sour honey” are these brief statements : In the heart of the Brazilian jungle, a tiny, remote area exists where special bees create one of the rarest substances on earth… It’s a type of “sour honey” that has remained untouched for thousands of years. Until it was recently tested in a lab and delivered these near-miraculous results. Within 24 hours, Sour Honey was shown in vitro to demolish breast cancer cells on the spot – killing 13% of the cancer in just the first day alone! And in a separate study, looking at human-like tumors on mice, tumor growth was halted a full 50% with Sour Honey.And on two different aggressive types of prostate cancer cells, Sour Honey was shown in vitro to boost the speed in killing the cancer… destroying up to 75% of the cancer cells in the study! […] From early to late-stage cancer… there’s virtually nothing that’s too tough for Sour Honey. There are even over 299 lab studies on Sour Honey and cancer – with remarkable results! Yes, study after study confirms… FINALLY. We have a natural, safe way to beat cancer. Such claims, however, must be interrogated on two fronts: 1) How valid are the scientific claims; and 2) How reputable is the person or entity making the claims? Science and “Sour Honey” Probably the first thing to clarify is the fact that sour honey is not, in fact, honey in any sense of the term. What the viral campaign markets as sour honey actually refers to a substance termed propolis, which is a substance created by bees and described in a 2016 study that sought to uncover its chemical variability: Propolis is characterized as a complex and resinous mixture produced by bees (Apis melífera) through the collection of variable vegetable sources. Propolis is constituted by a variety of chemical compounds, including the derivatives of cinnamic acid, such as p-coumaric acid and Artepillin C, substituted benzoic acids, phenolic acids, flavonoids and amino acids. Having cleared that up, we can turn to the medical claims. In general, they overstate the implications of legitimate (though limited) laboratory investigations and animal studies. More accurately, it would valid to say that some specific chemicals identified in Brazilian propolis may have potential as a cancer therapy if the results of animal or cell-line studies are shown to hold relevance to humans. According to the ebook these viral posts link to, the main chemicals of interest for anti-cancer properties are artepillin-C, CAPE, vestitol and formononetin: Brazilian green propolis contains a potent cancer inhibitor called artepillin-C that takes on a particularly vicious cancer promoting enzyme known as PAK1. Brazilian brown contains very high levels of CAPE, or caffeic acid phenethyl ester, which thwarts many different kinds of cancer, as,well as a novel compound called diterpene 3. Brazilian red propolis contains mainly newly discovered unique cancer-fighting compounds, including vestitol and formononetin. And though their make up is very different, all three forms of Brazilian bee propolis have been shown to effectively defeat several cancers… both in the lab and animal studies (there haven’t yet been any published human trials) and in practice. From a basic fact checking standpoint, the above chemicals are present in the forms of propolis listed above. And indeed, animal studies of artepillin-C from Brazilian propolis have demonstrated potential in fighting breast or prostate cancer. CAPE sourced from propolis has been shown to be effective at inhibiting the growth of breast cancer in cell line studies. Brazilian red propolis, in general, has been shown to combat colon cancer in studies as well. Whether or not these studies hold relevance to humans remains to be seen, but it is important to note that the above studies, for the most part, have tested isolated chemicals in regulated doses, and the chemical makeup of propolis varies considerably sample by sample. This is one of many issues that would need to be resolved before it could become a true therapy, as mentioned in a 2011 review: Propolis is a heterogeneous product constituted by several groups of compounds. Moreover, the chemical composition depends strongly on the [vegetation around] the collection site, as honey bees can only use the plant species existing in their habitats. The chemical variability can give rise to diverse types of biological activities, or diverse structures may present similar properties. Therefore, to make a standardization and quality control of this product is very difficult, particularly if we take into account the quantification of the active substances. These preliminary results, as well, do not point to a massive coverup of the cure we have all been waiting for. There are myriad natural chemicals that have been discovered and researched that show promise as an anti-cancer agent that have yet to make it to market. “Sour Honey” and the “Health Sciences Institute” The claims presented about Hillary Clinton’s role in stifling research about “sour honey” can be traced to an organization that goes by the name “Health Sciences Institute”. They publish a variety of ebooks, including Insider’s Book of Secrets: The Real Cures Buried by Clinton’s Cartel, the product to which the viral stories and videos link with the offer of a “free” download if you join the institute. A 2015 investigation by Mother Jones looked into this group, finding it to have a long history of using politically charged language to promote unverified or fringe ideas: The Health Sciences Institute is part of a company called NewMarket Health, which is just one asset of a Baltimore-based publishing empire named Agora Inc. Agora’s subsidiaries and affiliates publish more than 40 newsletters and sell more than 300 books on a range of topics, including biblical health tips, natural-healing supplements, and “insider” investment advice […]. To find new readers for its ever-expanding catalog of publications, Agora’s subsidiaries have tapped into a network of conservative heavyweights, including Huckabee, Ron Paul, and Newt Gingrich, who sell access to their massive email lists to advertise Agora’s products. A notable example of this practice can be found in the 1996 book Who Murdered Vince Foster, published through an Agora company, which used the death of presidential aide Vince Foster (a popular topic among anti-Clinton conspiracy theorists) to sell investment tips. HSI’s sour honey campaign relied heavily on the claim that Hillary Clinton (who HSI at that point appeared to assume would become president, and through illegal means) had, along with an ill-defined group of corporate fat cats dubbed the Clinton Cartel, devised a secret scheme nicknamed the “Executive Plan Five” to discredit the work of five key natural cures, one of which was sour honey. In another instance, HSI promoted a cure for cancer allegedly found in the Bible to the mailing list of evangelical presidential candidate and former governor Mike Huckabee. The company has been fined by multiple regulatory agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, over an alleged cancer cure. In a letter written in response to the Mother Jones investigation, the founder of Agora Inc., Bill Bonner, made it clear that accuracy is not the first priority of their work: We are extremely reticent to censure our analysts and writers. Instead, we encourage them to speak boldly. And let readers decide for themselves. Of course, we will be wrong often. And embarrassed occasionally […]. Fortunately, our customers don’t pay us to be right. And we’re certainly not paid to be timid. Instead, we’re expected only to be diligent and honest, and to explore the unconventional, the often disreputable, and always edgy shades of the idea spectrum. While specific components of bee propolis, like many compounds found in nature and studied by researchers, have had demonstrable anti-cancer effects in the laboratory, the research so far does not in any way merit claims that “the cure” for cancer has already been found, or that its lack of attention is caused by a large political conspiracy.
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26685
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Viral image Says if you donate blood, “they HAVE to test you” for coronavirus.
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Blood donors don’t get a coronavirus test if they donate blood. The American Red Cross is asking for donations in anticipation of a blood shortage caused by the coronavirus.
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false
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Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Viral image,
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"""CORONAVIRUS LOOPHOLE!!!!"" screams a screenshot of a tweet being shared on social media. ""If you don’t have insurance and can’t afford to take the $3,200 test for the virus ($1,000 with insurance), DONATE BLOOD. They HAVE to test you for the virus in order to donate blood. Tell your friends! Tell your family!!!!!"" This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We’ve already looked into claims that coronavirus testing costs $3,200. This claim, that blood donation centers have to test donors for coronavirus, won’t fare as well. The American Red Cross, which runs blood drives around the country, told PolitiFact that this isn’t true. ""There is no test to screen blood donations for the coronavirus and other respiratory viruses,"" the organization said in an email. ""It’s important to emphasize that there are no data or evidence that this coronavirus can be transmitted by blood transfusions and there have been no reported cases of transfusion transmission for any respiratory virus including this coronavirus."" But the Red Cross is urging healthy, eligible Americans to donate blood to help avoid potential shortages caused by the coronavirus. It’s also asking people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or come into contact with a person who has or is suspected to have the disease to postpone making a donation for 28 days. Kate Fry, chief executive officer of America’s Blood Centers, told the Associated Press that the network of nonprofit blood centers ""do a whole range of testing on blood donations as required by the FDA, but screening or testing is not happening."" The account that tweeted the information in the Facebook post has since deleted it, writing: ""I don’t want to contribute to hysteria or medical misinformation."" But the screenshot lives on. So tell your friends! Tell your family!!!!!"
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4673
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Michigan halts sale of marijuana e-cigs unless re-tested.
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Michigan on Friday halted the sale of marijuana vaping products until they are tested for a compound that has been identified as a culprit in e-cigarette-related lung illnesses.
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true
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Medical marijuana, General News, Marijuana, Vaping, Michigan
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The state Marijuana Regulatory Agency’s emergency rules, which prohibit vitamin E acetate, apply to existing medical marijuana businesses and those in the process of being licensed to sell for recreational use as soon as Dec. 1. Regulators noted that U.S. health officials found the compound in the damaged lungs of 29 patients across the country who were sickened from vaping. “It is absolutely vital that patients and consumers know, with certainty, the ingredients in the products that they are using,” Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist said in a written statement. “These rules require stringent testing and will continue to prioritize the health and safety of Michiganders.” Effective immediately, businesses cannot sell previously made marijuana vaping products unless they pass new testing. Processors making new products are barred from using inactive ingredients that have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Regulators said they will inspect processing facilities twice a month to ensure compliance. Inactive ingredients added to marijuana products must be clearly listed on the label. Vitamin E acetate is used as an additive, most notably as a thickener in e-cigarette products that contain THC, which gives marijuana its high, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though vitamin E is safe as a pill or to use on the skin, inhaling oily droplets of it can be harmful. Fifty-five vaping-related lung injuries have been identified in Michigan, including a 17-year-old boy who needed a life-saving double lung transplant. This is the second time since September that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration has taken emergency steps to limit vaping. Her ban on the sale of flavored e-cigarettes has been blocked by a state judge and is being appealed. An industry group backed the latest rules on Friday. “We’re fully supportive of the governor’s decision,” said Robin Schneider, executive director of the Michigan Cannabis Industry Association. “Our member’s No. 1 priority is providing safe, tested medicine to medical marijuana patients across the state. We think this will contribute significantly towards that goal.” ___ Follow David Eggert on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DavidEggert00
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28413
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"An animator for the ""My Little Pony"" cartoon series was arrested for child pornography, proving that the PedoGate conspiracy is real."
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"What's true: Animator Tom Wysom, who worked on children's productions including 'My Little Pony,' was sentenced to 28 months in prison for possession of child pornography. What's false: #PedoGate is part of a far-ranging but bogus conspiracy theory about a large ring of ""elite"" child predators."
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mixture
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Viral Phenomena, #QAnon, conspiracy theories, pedophilia
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On 31 July 2018, the Ottawa Citizen reported that Tom Wysom, an animator for several children’s cartoon series including My Little Pony, had been sentenced to more than two years in prison after pleading guilty to charges associated with possession of child pornography: Tom Wysom, 55, has worked on TV productions such as My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Littlest Pet Shop, according to the Internet Movie Database. Wysom was sentenced earlier this month after pleading guilty to the charges in December, two months after police executed a search warrant at his home in Old Ottawa South. Police found 60,165 pictures — many of them duplicates — along with 1,626 videos, some of which depicted adults engaging in sexual behaviours with children. In some of the images, young girls had their hands and feet bound. Although this part of the story, reported by a legitimate news source citing court records, is true, the case prompted backers of popular conspiracy theory known as “QAnon” to link it with “#PedoGate,” a viral phenomenon and outgrowth of PizzaGate — a belief that powerful Democrats and Hollywood “elites” were running a pedophile ring out of a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor basement (even though the restaurant, Comet Ping Pong, has no basement): ANIMATOR OF “My Little Pony” TOM WYSOM, HOLLYWEIRD #pedophile RECIVES MILD SENTENCE FOR OVER 3,000 IMAGES OF CHILDREN, SOME WITH HANDS AND FEET TIED! #SICK #pedogate #hollywoodConnectionpedophiles #Qanon #MAGA @POTUS @SenTedCruz @MAGA_POTUS45 @1776Stonewall @seanhannity @RandPaul — Rita Williams ❌❌ (@RitaWil92435229) July 30, 2018 “Qanon” conspiracy theory enthusiasts believe that a highly-placed government agent who goes by the moniker “Q” is dropping “crumbs” of information for his followers (“bakers”) to pick up. As Dutch psychologist and researcher Jan-Willem van Prooijen described the phenomenon: If it sounds crazy, that’s because it is. The mostly right-wing conspiracy theory makes a series of mind-blowing allegations that include Democrat-run centers for pedophiles and Satanic cults. The theory first appeared on various online message boards like “8Chan,” where followers shared “bread crumbs” — clues — about the dark and powerful forces that supposedly run their country. According to RationalWiki, the conspiracy is often referred to as “The Storm” because President Trump made a vague reference to “the calm before the storm” in 2017: The Storm’s central premise is that President Trump is secretly working to take down a global ring of elite, cannibalistic, satanic pedophiles. And the investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election, led by former FBI director Robert Mueller, is actually an investigation into the so-called “deep state”, where a cabal of evil, money-grubbing globalists, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, are responsible for everything from a global pedophile ring to the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017. Despite sounding “crazy,” the QAnon conspiracy has grown in influence, becoming most obvious to outsiders when supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump began sporting “Q” tee shirts en masse at Trump rallies. The Guardian referred to it as a “volatile mix of Pizzagate, InfoWars and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, multiplied by the power of the internet and with an extra boost from a handful of conservative celebrities.” Internet users along with disreputable web sites often either fabricate pedophilia claims involving celebrities and prominent Democrats or lump real cases of criminal activity in with the conspiracy, despite lacking evidence of a link. Wysom’s case falls into the latter category. The idea that Wysom’s case was somehow associated with the #PedoGate conspiracy theory was helped along by followers of media personalities who heavily promoted PizzaGate, such as alt-right social media character Jack Posobiec and Alex Jones’s conspiracy network InfoWars, which republished (then deleted) the Ottawa Citizen report: But #PedoGate……that’s just a conspiracy, right? 😉😊 — 🍿IT HAS BEGUN🍿 (@trumps_all) July 30, 2018
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15890
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Georgia lawmaker pushes bill banning creation of ‘glow in the dark’ human-jellyfish hybrids.
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Human-jellyfish headline misleading, but spawned by real bill
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mixture
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Georgia, Science, States, Raw Story,
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"Let’s be honest. The headline looked like it belonged in Florida. ""Georgia lawmaker pushes bill banning creation of ‘glow in the dark’ human-jellyfish hybrids,"" it screamed over a photo of a contorted face adorned in fluorescent paint. Sure, back in 2010, the state Senate was roundly mocked for voting to oppose forcing microchips into people. (That measure died, maybe from embarrassment). So certainly Peach State lawmakers learned their lesson about drafting bills based on internet rumor and speculation. So PolitiFact Georgia set out to right this gross error, easy peasy. Except … Well, first the good news. The headline makes a giant leap based on a strict reading of House Bill 287. The bill makes no mention of jellyfish. The ""Ethical Treatment of Human Embryos Act"" would, however, ban human embryos with non-human cells injected into them as well as ... wait for it … any ""human-animal hybrid."" The specifics about the gelatinous sea creatures come from the website of the bill’s lead sponsor, state Rep. Tom Kirby, R-Loganville. The bill is one of his priorities, which his office webpage describes this way: ""The mixing of Human Embryos with Jellyfish cells to create a glow in the dark human, we say not in Georgia. "" What in the name of SpongeBob Squarepants is happening here? Kirby points to news articles, touting scientists’ latest successes in introducing jellyfish genes into various mammals who grow up to glow under a black light. Of particular concern to Kirby is a 2008 New York Times article that details researchers who successfully put the jellyfish’s fluorescent protein gene into a single-celled human embryo. That test-tube embryo was described as nonviable, which scientists said would never have resulted in a baby. Kirby – who once used his agricultural economics degree to implant cattle embryos to breed stronger cows – isn’t so sure. His proposal would be proactive, to draw an ethical line in the sand for such research in Georgia. ""I’m not trying to hurt good, valid research that helps people, but I don’t think we should create life like this, just for research,"" Kirby said. ""I don’t think Georgians want what they did, creating a human-jellyfish hybrid, here."" So maybe the bill is not explicit in its language. But the driving force is a concern about mixing humans with what makes jellyfish illuminate. There is no evidence of any abuse of this technology. Federal guidelines, not to mention the reputation of research facilities, would quash even the idea for the most part. Of course, injecting a fluorescent gene to make a designer glowing baby could be done in theory. And to an ethicist, that is enough to warrant at least discussion, no matter how silly. ""Could someone who is crazy enough, with enough money, say ‘I want a glow-in-the-dark baby?’ Sure,"" said Kevin FitzGerald, a professor of oncology at Georgetown University and chair of the Catholic Healthcare Ethics. ""You or I would consider that crazy. But there are some who would claim it as a right to free expression. That’s why there is value in discussing how protective the state needs to be."" Those debates about human-critter hybrids are all fun and games, until a centaur loses an eye. Or until scientists and researchers push back on the speculation. Experts helped kill a previous version of Kirby’s bill, House Bill 481 in the 2013-2014 legislative session, with testimony that it would harm their ability to save lives. Those objections remain, especially given what is a fundamental misunderstanding about the role of jellyfish in medical and scientific research. Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2008 for their work in finding jellies’ green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene, and developing it for research. It’s now commonly used to track genetic changes as cells divide, giving researchers insight into ways to treat genetic diseases. Explained that way, injecting some jellyfish into cells doesn’t seem so wacky. But fears about the ""what if"" abuses have created a proposal that could stymie other legitimate research, said Dr. Mark A. Kay, a professor of pediatrics and genetics at Stanford University. For example, the bill would allow a human embryo to be created only through fertilization from a sperm and egg. Scientists, though, are able to and often create them for research purposes (not viability) by using a cellular nucleus –where the genes live. Kirby’s bill would put an end to that, and halt approaches being tested to develop human organs for transplants and other efforts. ""This is an example where you’re trying to make a law to stop something quite ridiculous and end up limiting the legitimate efforts to understand genetic developments that can save people,"" Kay said. If that’s not enough for Georgia to be embarrassed, there’s more. The proposed bill does not stop animal genes from being introduced to human embryos. Kay describes genes as the equivalent of a sentence buried in an encyclopedia. Cells, which Kirby’s bill bans, are the equivalent of the house where those volumes sit on the shelf. ""It does not explicitly state you can’t transfer a gene into a human chromosome, so it doesn’t even stop the ridiculous idea it claims is the threat,"" Kay said. Why? Because the GFP, which can be created synthetically or extracted from a jellyfish, is a gene that would still be permitted. And wouldn’t that set the stage for Perimeter road rage incidents where people look like the Hulk, not just act like him? If it seems we’re getting silly, it’s only because we are. The headline about glow-in-the-dark Georgians overstates the bill itself. But it captures the intent of the proposal -- to ban human embryos with non-human cells injected into them as well as any ""human-animal hybrid."" And, weirdly, it captures some of actual discussion happening under the Gold Dome."
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308
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Will Europe's clampdown on faulty medical devices hurt patients?.
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When a Californian company founded by a U.S. veteran wounded in Afghanistan sought to register a new medical device this year, it turned to Europe before the United States. The European approvals system had long been quicker, the company said, but the introduction of new rules is changing all that.
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true
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Health News
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"“Now it has flipped,” said Bill Colone, CEO of San Clemente-based Spinal Singularity, which hopes to launch a ‘smart’ catheter for men with spinal injuries or disease early next year after squeezing in its application under the old European rules. Colone is part of a chorus of industry voices warning that a switch to stricter European rules governing medical devices, due to come into force a year from now, will slow or even halt the release of products in Europe that could transform patients’ lives. Defenders of the regulations say they will not significantly complicate the process and are vital to prevent problems like rupturing silicone breast implants and debris from all-metal hip implants damaging tissue and bones. Many patient advocates say the new rules do not go far enough to reform a European system in which a top U.S. official suggested in 2011 patients may be ""guinea pigs"" here The comment drew a sharp response from the European Union, which still firmly rejects that characterization. That transatlantic spat, and the subsequent evolution of medical device certification around the world, are part of a wider global struggle by governments to attract businesses seeking light-touch regulation without scaring off their voters. The new medical devices rules agreed by the European Union in 2017 will tighten control of devices before they come to market, improve transparency and strengthen surveillance by national authorities, a European Commission spokesperson said. The new system changes less than some proposals - which envisaged regulation by a public body, along U.S. lines, replacing the existing practice of certification by profit-making private firms. But players in medical technology - which ranges from surgical implants to scans - say it is too burdensome and is being built too slowly, risking not only hampering innovation but also harming patients by interrupting supplies. “Immediate action is needed now to avoid severe disruption of product supply to patients and hospitals,” seven European Associations said in a joint statement last week. All 55,000 devices certified under the old directives have to be re-certified along with other products such as reusable scalpels, nasal saline sprays and dental imaging software. The industry says there are not enough Notified Bodies - the private firms charged with certifying the safety of devices ranging from bandages to pacemakers, and that manufacturers may have to take products off the market or delay new launches. The situation is further complicated by Brexit, with Britain’s BSI one of just two notified bodies to have got the go-ahead to certify devices under the new Medical Devices Regulation (MDR). If Britain leaves the EU in October without a deal, certificates issued by British bodies would be invalid. Germany, home to Europe’s biggest medtech sector, is pressing the European Commission to smooth the transition, suggesting three solutions to overcome any Brexit-related supply problems in a March 27 letter to the Commission seen by Reuters. These include giving firms 12 more months to sell products in the EU in the case of a disorderly Brexit, as long as they plan how to regain compliance, the letter from German Health Minister Jens Spahn said. Trade groups have suggested delaying implementation of the rules beyond May 2020 or faster designation of notified bodies. The European Commission rejects the need for contingency plans and said it was focusing on a timely implementation of the regulation, which includes requirements for manufacturers to monitor product safety once devices are on the market. More than 20 notified bodies could be accredited by the end of the year, it said. This is around a third of the number of firms currently certified to assess medical products. “That is a massive reduction in capacity when adding a considerable volume of work,” said Gary Slack, senior vice president for global medical devices at the notified body BSI. To hedge against any Brexit risk, BSI has set up a subsidiary in Amsterdam and has transferred most of its clients’ certificates there, but is still waiting for its Dutch body to be certified under the MDR. For Medtech conglomerates with thousands of devices, the bill to meet the new regulations could stretch into the millions of dollars - especially for those that make riskier devices. Smith and Nephew, which manufacturers hip and knee implants, put its MDR compliance costs at $15-$20 million for 2018 and around $60 million this year. As a result of the regulation, more than 55 percent of those surveyed by Germany industry association ZVEI said they would reduce the number of products on offer. The Commission said many products are eligible for a so-called ‘grace period’ which means they can be sold under the old rules until May 2024 at the latest if certificates are reissued, something BSI said many firms are rushing to do. But the other certified body, Germany’s Tuev-Sued, said many manufacturers had yet to catch on to the regulatory changes. “We are definitely expecting chaotic years,” said Bassil Akra, Tuev-Sued’s vice president in charge of medtech. The medical technology industry is worth $129 billion and employs 675,000 people in Europe, according to MedTech Europe. Experts agree that many new devices are invaluable to patients, but the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists said in November that faulty ones were linked to 1.7 million injuries and nearly 83,000 deaths over the past decade. A key part of the new regulation is how much access doctors and patients will have to the pan-European Eudamed database, to strengthen surveillance and prevent repeated adverse incidents. A Commission spokesperson said discussions were ongoing with authorities, patient groups and other stakeholders. While medtech giants like Siemens Healthineers and Germany’s Fresenius have the regulatory staff to navigate the new rules, most firms are much smaller and will struggle, said MedTech Europe CEO Serge Bernasconi. Spinal Singularity said it had managed to apply under the old system by hiring contractors to help it submit all the paperwork to a notified body by May 27 - two months before it had planned. It is hoping for certification by the end of the year, but is dreading renewing it in four years’ time because of what he said were many “incredibly burdensome” new requirements. German surgical instrument maker Asanus said it plans to take around five highly-innovative surgical products off the market and will discontinue several hundred minimally-invasive devices, as well as stop new development in this area. “If the paperwork costs for the product are five times the amount you can achieve in sales, you simply won’t do it anymore,” said Chief Executive Armin Schorer, who expects many smaller makers of lower risk devices to shut up shop. Bernasconi and Colone said start-ups are now looking to launch their products in other markets, like the United States or China first, denying European patients access to innovations. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal body that approves medical devices, is toughening up its own approval process after faulty medical devices harmed patients there too. But Colone noted that was only for some products. His firm plans to file for U.S. approval this autumn. “Because of the pending new EU MDR, overall the FDA process may even be slightly easier,” he said. Kurt Racke, a medical ethics expert at Bonn University, said he did not think Europe’s new regulations would make it harder to win approvals than in the United States. “I think Europe has the most lax market for medical devices,” he said. “I don’t think so much will change there in principle.” The European Commission rejects suggestions its rules are not tough enough. “The Commission takes patient safety very seriously,” a spokesperson said, “and has led various regulatory reforms to ensure the highest possible quality, safety and reliability of medical devices on the EU market.”"
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30394
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"Sen. John McCain was referred to as ""Songbird John"" following his imprisonment during the Vietnam War."
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The remark harkened back to the long-running series of clashes between McCain and President Donald Trump. In July 2015, then-candidate Donald Trump said of the lawmaker, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
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false
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Politics, john mccain
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A Fox News analyst was fired from the right-wing network in May 2018 after regurgitating a long-standing, long-debunked smear against Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and his experiences as a prisoner of war. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney was terminated from Fox just one day after insulting the lawmaker for opposing the nomination of Gina Haspel to head the Central Intelligence Agency. McInerney told host Charles Payne that Haspel cannot employ torture (or “enhanced interrogation”) against prisoners: “The fact is, is John McCain, it worked on John. That’s why they call him “Songbird John.” The fact is those methods can work, and they are effective, as former Vice President Cheney said. And if we have to use them to save a million American lives, we will do whatever we have to.” The allegation that McCain was a “songbird” during his captivity originated with the group Vietnam Veterans Against McCain, which distributed a flyer to media outlets in South Carolina during his 2008 campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination. The flyer reportedly referred to him as a “Hanoi Hilton Songbird,” a reference to the “Hanoi Hilton,” the nickname for Hỏa Lò Prison. McCain was imprisoned there between 1967 and 1973 during the Vietnam War, and was tortured by North Vietnamese troops. The late author Robert Timberg, who interviewed several Vietnam POWs while writing the biography John McCain: An American Odyssey, said: “I’ve never known of any occasion in which Sen. McCain provided the North Vietnamese with anything of value.” Rolling Stone magazine reported in October 2008 that McCain was quoted in a North Vietnamese newspaper story as saying that the war was “moving to the advantage of North Vietnam and the United States appears to be isolated.” The magazine also reported that McCain provided “the name of his ship, the number of raids he had flown, his squadron number and the target of his final raid” and that he was tortured for a two-year period (as opposed to the entirety of his time in Hỏa Lò). However, the magazine added, “it is difficult to judge McCain’s experience as a POW; throughout most of his incarceration he was the only witness to his mistreatment.” The two men responsible for the flyer, Gerard “Jerry” Kiley and Ted Sampley, formed a similar group in 2004 targeting another Vietnam veteran running for the presidency, then-Democratic Party nominee John Kerry. The duo has been cited as sources by right-wing blogs pushing the claim that McCain was a “songbird.” Sampley also called McCain a “Manchurian Candidate,” but as the Phoenix New Times reported in 1999, “Sampley offers no credible proof of these allegations, other than quotes from unnamed former POWs and suggestions that the Vietnamese still have film of McCain’s activities in the prison camps.” Questionable and conspiracy-minded blogs have also tried very hard to promote the false claim that McCain was to blame for the July 1967 fire aboard the USS Forrestal that ended with the deaths of 134 sailors and injuries to McCain and 160 other service members. McInerney’s remark came after McCain encouraged fellow senators to reject Haspel, who was allegedly the person in charge of a CIA “black site” during the waterboarding of a prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. The network reportedly said that he would not be asked to appear with them again. In a statement, McCain — who chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee, said: “I believe Gina Haspel is a patriot who loves our country and has devoted her professional life to its service and defense. However, Ms. Haspel’s role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying. I believe the Senate should exercise its duty of advice and consent and reject this nomination.” We contacted McCain’s office seeking comment but did receive a response. On 10 May 2018, Payne posted an apology on Twitter to the since-deceased senator and his family: “I regret I did not catch this remark, as it should have been challenged,” Payne said. “As a proud military veteran and son of a Vietnam Vet these words neither reflect my or the network’s feelings about Senator McCain, or his remarkable service and sacrifice to this country.” The same day that McInerney insulted the lawmaker, McCain — who was diagnosed with brain cancer in July 2017 — was also reportedly mocked by a White House official, special assistant Kelly Sadler. Sadler allegedly said of McCain’s opposition to Haspel’s nomination, “It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway.”
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8987
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Blood test predicts spastic cerebral palsy
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This release focuses on a small study (22 children with spastic cerebral palsy and 21 controls) that examined whether a new method for sequencing blood samples might be a way of identifying people with cerebral palsy (CP) earlier than the methods used now. The work centers on the early findings of differences in methylation sequences in the DNA that might point out patients with the disease. The proposed method of genetic testing is still comparatively expensive and the release makes no mention of costs. The release gives very little numerical data on the outcomes of the research and neglects to address the harm that might arise from false negatives and false positives, even though the release points out the diagnostic accuracy was only 73% in a pilot study involving younger children. This means at least one in four results were wrong. The release applies the term “breakthrough” in its headline, when it clearly is no such thing, and states unequivocally in the lead that the test works, although it is far too early to make such claims. Cerebral palsy is a devastating condition both for patients and their families. Patients are currently diagnosed as toddlers when they begin developing motor problems. There is currently no diagnostic test that can identify patients at earlier ages. The annual health care costs for a patient with CP, according to the release, is “10 to 26 times higher than for those without CP,” making this a costly public health problem. If a blood test were available to identify patients soon after birth, it may allow for earlier intervention and ultimately, better outcomes. But the work explained by the release is much too preliminary to lay claim to that solution. Although earlier detection of CP would almost certainly drive more interventions/consultations, it is less clear that these interventions would actually lead to better outcomes. If the findings are so subtle that they are not evident on exam or by developmental milestones in early life, then it is not clear that an intervention (aggressive PT or early surgery, as suggested in the “pull out quote” in the news release) would be beneficial. Therefore, it is possible that “early detection” would simply increase costs, and possibly, parental anxiety, in the long run.
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false
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blood test,cerebral palsy,Nemours Children's Health System
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There is no mention of the cost of this proposed diagnostic approach anywhere in the release. The entire approach to the claims made in this release relies on next generation sequencing of blood samples which can run into hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars. The research paper points out that the approach relies on the use of parallel computing facilities, a highly expensive capability for many medical centers. The release doesn’t provide much numerical context to tell us how this test would benefit patients. It does state that the test predicted with 73% accuracy whether a blood sample came from a child with CP. This phrasing could be misleading to readers since 73% accuracy means that just over one-in-four of the samples was wrong. There is no mention of potential harms that might arise from the use of such a test. A blood draw is a low risk procedure; the real potential harm comes from over- or under-diagnosis and that should have been clarified. The release doesn’t tell us how many samples were analyzed in the studies. It also relies on “a strong set of methylation markers, or patterns, that indicate differences in the genome between children with spastic CP and those without it” as an indication of the likelihood of CP. It doesn’t offer readers any details on what the differences were between children with CP and controls, or how they were measured. The release doesn’t engage in disease mongering. It provides some context about the disease, including its prevalence. The release names the various funding sources for this work and is clear in pointing out the commercial role, and potential economic benefit, to some of the authors. The release mentions that currently, cerebral palsy patients are identified “by monitoring motor milestones.” It says also that there is currently no blood test available to identify CP patients younger that about two years old. This was a small pilot study and the release states, “Many issues will need to be addressed, but we predict routine screening for CP in the near (<10 years) future.” While many may differ with whether the “near future” is define by “fewer than 10 years,” the release gets credit for spelling this out. The release states there is no established diagnostic blood test for identifying cerebral palsy patients but it’s too early to claim that this test, still under development, is the novel “game changer” to fill that need. The release is premature in claiming the test is a “breakthrough” in the sub-headline and a “game changer” in the lead researcher’s quote.
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9687
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Sleeping in on weekends may help reduce diabetes risk
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This article describes results of a very small observational study suggesting some tantalizing links between sleep and diabetes risk. But it’s probably fair to say that this article, although it pretty accurately reflects the proffered data and does a solid job of pointing out study limitations, may have served readers better by not being written. The notion that sleep deprivation is linked epidemiologically to temporary insulin resistance has been reported in animal and human observational studies for more than a decade. The confounding factors — obesity, overeating, sleep apnea — are well known. The scope of the study was acknowledged to be extremely limited and perhaps unmoored from what “might happen in reality,” and it appears that at best, the observational letter to the editor on which the article is based adds only two possible and very preliminary new pieces of information to what is known: it did control for calorie intake, but only over a very few weeks of observation; and there is a slim bit of evidence that “catch up” sleep after four nights of sleep deprivation may improve insulin sensitivity by 23 percent. In sum, although the article states correctly that the study “doesn’t prove that catching up on sleep will prevent diabetes” or that sleep deprivation actually does increase diabetes risk, it doesn’t add much beyond that of a decade of similar investigations. Type 2 diabetes is indeed reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S., along with its major risk factors, obesity and metabolic syndrome. Readers of health news stories will in large numbers therefore be looking for anything that will help them prevent or reduce their risk of the disorder, particularly anything that doesn’t sound too hard to do, like getting more sleep. They may grasp at mattresses if not straws, however, even though the article goes to some lengths to lower expectations for individual risk. There is nothing in this story that should lead anyone to conclude that getting more sleep on a weekend will help them avoid diabetes risk factors, and the data for 19 healthy young men offer nothing to say about older, obese patients, women, or interactions with other important factors, including exercise, stress, and gender.
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true
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sleep problems
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The cost of the ‘intervention’ (catching up on sleep) is what is at issue here, and that is ‘free’. So we’ll rule this Not Applicable. Benefits are not quantified in a meaningful way. The story says, “insulin sensitivity had fallen by 23 percent and their bodies had started to produce extra insulin. But when researchers checked again after two nights of extended rest, the men’s insulin sensitivity, and the amount of insulin their bodies produced, had returned to normal.” A 23% drop sounds substantial, but was it clinically important? What were the absolute numbers? We think the story could have done more here to help readers understand what was observed and what it means. Hard to imagine the “harms” of getting more sleep, so we’ll rate this Not Applicable. The story includes some useful qualifiers regarding the quality of the study and what conclusions can be drawn: The study doesn’t prove sleeping late every weekend can counter the ill effects of insufficient rest every other night of the week, Broussard cautioned. And it doesn’t prove that catching up on sleep will prevent diabetes. It also notes: “The results from the present study are unlikely to be fully reflective of what may occur in persons who are older, overweight or obese, or have other potent risk factors for diabetes,” said James Gangwisch, a researcher at Columbia University who wasn’t involved in the study. The story could have provided more detail about the subjects, the relationship between insulin resistance and sleep deprivation vs other lifestyle issues, and previous research showing similar results. None here. Insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes are important public health problems. The article did a good job, as noted earlier, of highlighting the limitations of the study, and quotes an outside researcher saying as much. Kudos! This article would have been greatly strengthened if it had at least mentioned the lifestyle and other interventions that can indeed reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes or its complications, including weight reduction, good diets, exercise and medications. The issue of detecting and addressing diabetes risk factors such as insulin resistance issues in children and teenagers also could have put this article in better perspective, with respect to the apparent young age of the subjects. The availability of sleep is not in question. The article did point out the calorie control part of the protocol, and the possibly novel notion that two days of non-deprived sleep can reverse the insulin resistance increase observed in the subjects. It is clear what this small study aimed to add to the science. Since the story includes commentary from an independent expert, we can be sure it didn’t rely excessively on a news release.
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4623
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Sweden: No Ebola virus detected in hospital patient.
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Swedish health officials say a suspected Ebola case reported by a hospital has turned out to be a false alarm with tests carried out on the unidentified patient showing no signs of the deadly virus.
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true
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Health, Ebola virus, Africa, Sweden, Stockholm, Burundi, Europe
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Medical authorities said late Friday that the young male patient was admitted to an isolated emergency ward at a hospital in Enkoping, northwest of Stockholm, with symptoms including blood in his vomit and stools. Officials said the condition of the man, who had spent several weeks in Burundi, improved over the course of the day. Tests also showed the man isn’t suffering from yellow fever, dengue, Marburg virus or Rift Valley fever either. All major Ebola outbreaks have been in Africa, though isolated cases have been reported outside the continent.
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37368
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A forwarded email turned into a social media meme uses statistics to show the effects of undocumented immigration.
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List of ‘Facts and Figures’ About Undocumented Immigrants?
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks, Immigration, Politics, Viral Content
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Immigration is a topic filled with disinformation and misinformation, which is often offered up in fact-free (but media-friendly) soundbites and their online corollary, memes. That they often contain no citation whatsoever is no hindrance to their spread.One such enduring meme, which incidentally started out as a chain email at least a decade and a half before it came roaring back just in time for the immigration debate of the Trump administration, shows just how inaccurate such sources can be:Immigration is a significant issue for Americans and deserves attention, but whoever authored this did not help their cause. Most of the figures are either difficult to prove or don’t match known facts. Some seem to be completely fabricated. Some versions say the figures are from the Los Angeles Times, which is not true. Others say they are statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is not true either.One of the challenges with this topic is that many undocumented immigrants live out of sight of many studies and surveys. Instead, the best figures about unauthorized immigration are mostly based on deductions from those who are either in professional positions working with immigrant issues or doing research on immigration. None of the estimates should be considered the last word on unauthorized immigration, but all of the estimates dramatically contradict the assertions made in the meme.Here is our research on each of the points of the email:1. 40 percent of all workers in Los Angeles County are unauthorized?Fiction. The Economic Roundtable issued a report in 2005 on what it called “L.A’s off-the-books labor force.” Its research was about the city of Los Angeles, not the entire county; it concluded that there were 3,908,000 wage earners in the city and about 972,000 “informal workers,” meaning they were getting paid under the table. It does not break down how many of them might have been unauthorized workers, but even considering every under-the-table worker, the percentage was nowhere near 40 percent. The Los Angeles Almanac estimated that the number of “unreported jobs” in 2005 in Los Angeles County at 643,000 with a number of workers at 4,090.630.2. 95 percent of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for undocumented people? Unproven. The only source we were able to find for this specious number is a report by Heather McDonald and published by the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration group that is not considered at all reliable.Despite this, McDonald repeated her conclusions on April 13, 2005 in testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on “Immigration, Border Security, and Claims” saying that 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide in Los Angeles targeted undocumented immigrants.There is no source or statistic for this number, which she said she received as a “rough estimate” from a lone police detective in 2005. Given that more than a decade has elapsed since this claim with no further proof that this number was anything but made up to begin with — and considering its source and that we have found absolutely no other numbers to back this shocking claim in Los Angeles County or anywhere else. However, it is almost certainly complete fiction.3. 75 percent of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are undocumented?. Another specious number that is most likely completely false. We could not find anything to substantiate this number. It appears to be entirely made up, but since we could find nothing to specifically disprove it either, we’re rating this one Unproven. 4. More than two-thirds of all births in Los Angeles County are to undocumented Mexicans on MediCal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers?Fiction. Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid, paid for a little more than half of all births in the state as of 2011, the most recent numbers we could find. As Medi-Cal exists to support low-income people amid skyrocketing living and healthcare costs and having a baby can be expensive, that figure makes sense. What does not make sense is the false statistic given in this claim.5. Nearly 25 percent of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals in the United States without documentation?Fiction. National statistics show this claim is simply not true. A 1993 report to the California Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations estimated that around 15 percent of the 116,000 state prison inmates were undocumented at that time. In 2018, the Cato Institute used census data to look at the numbers throughout the country, with a caveat:A major limitation of the ACS data is that our estimates of the illegal immigrant population will include some legal migrants who are here on other visas but whose answers are consistent with those of illegal immigrants. As a result, we likely overestimate the number of illegal immigrants who are incarcerated. Thus, because of ACS’s data limitations, our estimates of the illegal immigrant incarcerated population and incarceration rate are likely greater than the actual population and rate. […]An estimated 1,955,951 native-born Americans, 117,994 illegal immigrants, and 43,618 legal immigrants were incarcerated in 2016. The incarceration rate for native-born Americans was 1,521 per 100,000, 800 per 100,000 for illegal immigrants, and 325 per 100,000 for legal immigrants in 2016 (Figure 1). Illegal immigrants are 47 percent less likely to be incarcerated than natives. Legal immigrants are 78 percent less likely to be incarcerated than natives. If native-born Americans were incarcerated at the same rate as illegal immigrants, about 930,000 fewer natives would be incarcerated. Conversely, if natives were incarcerated at the same rate as legal immigrants, about 1.5 million fewer natives would be in adult correctional facilities.We were unable to find updated statistics for California alone. However, given that study after study has shown that immigrants (authorized or not) commit violent crimes at a far lower rate than native-born Americans, and that California had an estimated population of 2.35 to 2.6 million undocumented immigrants living in the state as of 2014, we are comfortable extrapolating the data and rating this one Fiction.6. More than 300,000 undocumented people in Los Angeles County are living in garages?Fiction. This was just made up. We could not find anyone who kept statistics on garage-dwellers of any national origin, nor have we any idea how anyone could know those numbers. The estimated population of undocumented people in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, according to the Los Angeles Times, is about one million total. The idea that more than a quarter of the population of both those counties would then retire to garages in Los Angeles at the end of the day is a fever dream.7. The FBI reports that half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely undocumented from south of the border?Fiction. It is known that some gangs do include undocumented people as well as American citizens (including that reliable old bugbear MS-13, which originated in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles but was exported with stricter deportation policies; after that, it became a multinational gang.) Nowhere has the FBI reported this.8. Nearly 60 percent of all occupants of HUD properties are undocumented?Fiction. Housing and Urban Development requires proof of citizenship applying for public assistance and has for many years:Key Requirements1. Assistance in subsidized housing is restricted to the following: a. U.S. citizens or nationals; and b. Noncitizens who have eligible immigration status.2. All applicants for assistance must be given notice of the requirement to submit evidence of citizenship or eligible immigration status at the time of application. The entity responsible for receiving the documentation, where possible, must arrange to provide the notice in a language that is understood by the individual if the person is not proficient in English. (See Exhibits 3-3 and 3-4 for a sample notice and its accompanying Family Summary Sheet.)3. All family members, regardless of age, must declare their citizenship or immigration status.Families who are found to have undocumented members living in HUD properties receive a prorated rate of assistance. This claim appears to simply be made-up red meat for the “immigrants don’t contribute to the public at large” crowd.9. Twenty-one radio stations in Los Angeles are Spanish language?Mostly truth. As Los Angeles — like every other large city — has a significant Spanish-speaking population, it also has Spanish-language media. Given the nature of the radio format beast, the exact number varies by year, but there is a significant number of Spanish-language stations in Los Angeles and throughout the entire region.10. In L.A. County 5.1 million people speak English, but 3.9 million speak Spanish?Mostly fiction. This assertion does not provide further details or specifications, and thus it is meaningless. Do they mean only English? Only Spanish? Languages spoken at home? Languages used to salt phrases? Place names? It’s unclear, so we went with languages primarily spoken at home.As we previously mentioned, there is a large contingent of Spanish speakers in California. This is largely due to its unique history and relative proximity to the Mexican border, Los Angeles County (thanks in large part to the Californios who settled in the region and their descendants) has the largest proportion of Spanish speakers of any American city:Spanish is the second most spoken language at home in Los Angeles County where 39 percent of residents, age 5 and older (3,582,992 persons), speak Spanish at home. Many more may not speak Spanish at home, but speak it well at work or in the marketplace. English-only speakers make up 44 percent of Los Angeles County residents, age 5 and older.Spanish was the first non-Native American language regularly spoken in Los Angeles and, in fact, was the first such language spoken in almost all of what would become the southwestern United States. Spanish has been regularly spoken in Los Angeles County since 1771 when Spanish missionaries established the Mission San Gabriel. Los Angeles did not get its first permanent English-speaker until 1818 when American merchant sailor Joseph Chapman was captured by Spanish authorities while raiding the California coast from an Argentine privateer. Chapman decided to stay in California and settle in Los Angeles.11. Fewer than 2 percent of undocumented workers are picking crops, but 29 percent are on welfare? A 2016 Department of Labor study of agricultural workers broke down the demographics, indicating that fewer than half of farm laborers are unauthorized:Just more than half of all farm workers in 2013-2014 had work authorization (53%): 31 percent were U.S. citizens, 21 percent were legal permanent residents, and one percent had work authorization through some other visa program.Among citizens, 87 percent were born in the U.S. and 13 percent were naturalized citizens. On average, foreign-born farmworkers interviewed in 2013-2014 first came to the U.S. 18 years before being interviewed.As of 2016, an estimated 856,300 agricultural labor jobs are available in the United States; 47 percent of that number is 402,461. Assuming that number is accurate, that’s around 3 percent of 11 million.However, the claim falls apart with its welfare numbers, as undocumented immigrants are not eligible for most kinds of welfare programs except for elementary and high school education and emergency medical care. Children born in the U.S. are citizens and qualify for certain public assistance, but as with the Housing and Urban Development claim, what is generally thought of as “welfare” is available only to citizens or authorized immigrants — and requires proof of immigration status to participate.12. More than 70 percent of the United States’ annual population growth (and over 90 percent of California, Florida, and New York) comes from undocumented immigrants?Fiction. The Pew Research Center covered this claim in a 2016 blog post titled, “Overall Number of U.S. Unauthorized Immigrants Holds Steady Since 2009”:Across the United States, most states saw no statistically significant change in the size of their unauthorized immigrant populations from 2009 to 2014. In the seven states where the unauthorized immigrant population declined, falling numbers of unauthorized Mexican immigrants were the key factor. Meanwhile, among the six states that had increases in their unauthorized immigrant populations, only one – Louisiana – could trace this to a rise in the number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico. 1A related, more in-depth look at the numbers indicates that between 2009 and 2014, California’s undocumented population dropped by 190,000 and New York and Florida had changes so small as to be considered statistically insignificant.This meme and all of its claims fail to make any sort of case for ending immigration, authorized or unauthorized. All it does prove — and, to be fair, it does do a good job of showing this — is that using chain emails or memes as sources in an incredibly complex and important public conversation does no one any favors at all. Given the sheer volume of errors and outright invented “facts” in this relatively short meme.
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10893
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Adding To Aspirin’s Reputation
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"This is a 230-word story done by the Los Angeles Times but picked up by the Hartford Courant. It is described as a ""capsule."" There are often inherent problems with such brief stories, as we discuss elsewhere on this site. The story describes a study in which aspirin use was associated with a lower risk of developing adult asthma. The story failed to explicitly describe the limitations of such observational studies. The data provided obscure the fact that the absolute difference is really quite small (1.0% vs. 1.3% of aspirin and non-aspirin participants developed asthma–figures which were not provided but are calculable). See our primer on absolute vs. relative data. The story also failed to describe potential harms of treatment. And it only provides information from the lead author and does not obtain independent input."
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mixture
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"The story does not mention the costs of daily aspirin treatment, but the relatively inexpensive over-the-counter cost is well known. The story states the benefit was a 22% reduction, which is a relative vs. absolute risk. However, the story then provides absolute numbers of people experiencing asthma. Yet, the numbers that are provided still obscure the fact that the absolute difference is really quite small (1.0% vs. 1.3% of aspirin and non-aspirin participants developed asthma–figures which were not provided but calculable). See our primer on absolute vs. relative data. The story does not mention any harms of aspirin treatment, particularly when one considers that a sizable proportion of patients with asthma can develop life-threatening exacerbations when exposed to aspirin (i.e., those with aspirin-sensitive nasal polyps). The evidence is based on an observational study, which isn't explicitly mentioned. And there is no explicit discussion of the limitations of this type of study. But the story did include some cautions from the lead author about interpretations of the findings, so we'll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. While there is no obvious embellishment about the nature of adult asthma, there is also virtually no information about it (no info given on how common this, who gets it, how much of a problem asthma is, etc.). The story only provides information from the lead author and does not obtain independent input. The story does not describe alternative treatment options, but it does state that ""aspirin alone is unlikely to trump"" other powerful factors in asthma development, such as genetic inheritance and environmental exposures. We'll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. Although the story does not explicitly state aspirin is available over-the-counter, aspirin is so commonly known, that this is not necessary. The story describes that it's been 20 years since the protective heart effects of aspirin were discovered, implying that this is not a new drug, but rather, a potential new application of an existing drug. We can't be sure if the story relied solely or largely on a news release, although it did cite only one author of one journal study."
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8936
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Tiny implantable device short-circuits hunger pangs, aids weight loss
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UW-Madison graduate student Guang Yao (left) and Xudong Wang (right) hold a small implantable device for weight loss This release about an experimental implanted device to promote weight loss tells readers that it has been tested only in rats (though not until the third paragraph), but then it goes on to proclaim that the new device has “several advantages” over an existing FDA-approved device that also works by stimulating the vagus nerve to alter hunger perception, despite the fact that these comparative claims have not been tested. The release implies that the device could help all people who have obesity, without noting that the existing device is restricted to a subset of people. The release makes claims of benefits that have yet to be tested and does not mention harms that similar devices cause. The study was published in Nature Communications. The history of medical research is littered with “successful” animal experiments that failed to produce useful human treatments. While animal experiments that support a novel concept may be of general interest, this experimental device appears to be a refinement of an existing type of device. In this case then, the story is not the underlying concept, but whether this new device is better or worse than the existing one. Until the two are compared directly, no one can say (and news releases should not claim) that they expect a device tested only in some rats will prove to be superior to an approved device or other alternatives. Let’s wait for the evidence.
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false
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implant,University of Wisconsin-Madison,weight loss
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Although this device is still in early testing, the news release notes that it is intended to improve upon a similar device that is already available. The procedure to implant the existing device may cost more than $20,000. This release could have told readers what the current price range is for such a device. If the researchers have reason to expect their device to be more or less expensive than the existing device, that information should be included. The news release refers to “several advantages over an existing unit that stimulates the vagus nerve for weight loss;” however, since this device has yet to be tested in human subjects, it is too early to claim that it offers benefits greater than the FDA-approved device. What’s more, while the release states that rats in this trial lost almost 40% of their body weight, studies of the existing weight loss device say people lost less than 10 percent of their body weight, and that was when they were in a program that included diet and exercise counseling. These important caveats should have been included. The release does not discuss potential harms, even though the similar, approved device has caused a number of harms, such as: “Nausea, pain at the neuroregulator site, vomiting and surgical complications were among the serious adverse events reported in the clinical trial. Additionally, some patients experienced pain, heartburn, problems swallowing, belching, mild nausea and chest pain.” The release should have addressed the possibility that this experimental device could present similar risks. We will give the release a satisfactory rating on this criterion because it clearly notes that the trial was done in rats and that further tests in larger animals, followed by human clinical trials, have yet to be done. However, news releases about animal trials should point out that the vast majority of “successful” animal trials fail to ultimately lead to clinical treatments in people. (See our toolkit for more reasons why you should be cautious of health claims based on animal and lab studies.) The lead sentence of the release proclaims that more than 700 million adults and children worldwide have obesity. However, many people who are obese are not considered candidates for treatment with this type of weight loss device. Obesity is defined as a Body Mass Index greater than 30. The existing similar device is approved only for certain patients with a BMI greater than 35 or 40, depending on other health factors and previous treatment. In other words, the release overstates the number of people who might be candidates for receiving this experimental device, if it ever comes to market. The release states that funding was provided by grants from the National Institutes of Health. It’s noteworthy that the journal article reporting the trial results states the authors declared no competing interests. However, the release discloses that the researchers patented the device. This is a glimpse at the varying and incomplete ways in which conflicts of interest are (or are not) reported in journals and in downstream news coverage. The release does report that there is an existing FDA-approved device for weight loss that uses a similar vagus nerve stimulation method. However, as mentioned above, the release improperly makes claims of superiority that have yet to be tested. Besides implantable devices there are, of course, a whole hosts of non-invasive means of losing weight, including the newer drug liraglutide which may lead to losses greater than those seen with implantable devices. The release states that the device is experimental, and that further animal and human testing lie ahead. The release says this device could be an improvement on an approved device that also stimulates the vagus nerve to alter hunger perception. It states that what is new is that the experimental device uses motion of the stomach, rather than batteries, to produce electrical pulses that stimulate the vagus nerve. It also claims that the pulse patterns are superior because they are triggered by stomach motion; however, since the new device has not been compared to the existing model, it is too early to make this claim. By definition, researchers do not know whether an experimental device is better or worse than existing devices or other alternatives, so the release should not have included quotes that jump to conclusions, such as, “Our expectation is that the device will be more effective and convenient to use than other technologies” or that the stomach-motion trigger is superior to the control method of the existing vagus nerve stimulator, since the methods have not been compared.
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34632
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Nike didn't sign Steph Curry because the NBA star insisted on putting a Bible verse on his sneakers.
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Neither Curry nor Nike stated or implied that the endorsement deal fell through because of Curry’s religious beliefs, nor did Curry claim that Nike would not let him put Bible verses on his shoes. We could find no articles that stated religion was a motivating factor for Curry’s deal with either Nike or Under Armour; these rumors appear to have sprung wholly from one person’s Facebook page.
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unproven
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Politics, nba, nike
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On 18 February 2016, a Facebook post appeared claiming that NBA star Steph Curry refused to sign a contract with Nike because the shoe company wouldn’t allow him to put Bible verses on his sneakers: Nike approached Steph Curry to endorsed their shoes but Steph said I will sign a contract only in one condition to put… Posted by Ronnie Magtibay on Thursday, February 18, 2016 While the claims made in the above-displayed Facebook post were reiterated by several faith-based web sites such as The Radicals and Charisma News, these publications didn’t provide any verifiable evidence: I have read articles speculating on why Nike chose not to sign him, but we do know that before he signed with Under Armour, he made clear that he wanted to put Phil 4:13 on the tongue of the sneaker with the underside reading, “I can do all things.” The message is from Philippians 4:13 which states, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Some have claimed that this was another factor in Nike’s decision not to match Under Armour’s offer, but I have not been able to verify that. (If you can find any verifiable information about this, please post it in the comments section.) However, there’s no evidence to back these claims, besides the fact that Curry signed with Under Armour after Nike passed on an endorsement deal with him. Curry signed on with Under Armour in 2013. At that time he was a rising basketball star, but not the well-known player he would become by 2016. Fame and perceived influence play major roles in any sports celebrity endorsement decision, and in that same vein, an ESPN article from May 2015 noted that Nike simply didn’t believe that Curry could sell signature shoes. They ended up refusing to match Under Armour’s far more lucrative endorsement offer: Two years ago, Nike had a chance to pay Curry a lot of money and lock him up for the future. After offering less than $2.5 million a year, Nike had a second chance — this time to match Under Armour’s new offer. Unsure that Curry would ever be able to sell signature shoes, Nike let him go. A more detailed ESPN article March 2016 essayed the litany of reasons why Nike lost Steph Curry to Under Armour: The August [2013] meeting took place on the second floor of the Oakland Marriott, three levels below Golden State’s practice facility. Famed Nike power broker and LeBron James adviser Lynn Merritt was not present, a possible indication of the priority — or lack thereof — that Nike was placing on the meeting. Instead, Nico Harrison, a sports marketing director at the time, ran the meeting (Harrison, who has since been named Nike’s vice president of North America basketball operations, did not respond to multiple interview requests). In truth, there had been other indications that Nike lacked interest before this meeting. There was the matter of whether Curry would get to lead a Nike-sponsored camp for up-and-coming players. These camps aren’t high on the list of fan concerns, but they matter deeply to the game’s elite. They’re a chance to teach a younger generation, to have interactions more meaningful than strangers clamoring for autographs on the street. Getting to run such a camp meant something to Curry, in part because participating in one meant something to him. When he was younger, Curry had gone to Chris Paul’s camp and the experience made a lasting impression. Says Curry’s friend and former roommate Chris Strachan, “He was always at Chris Paul’s camps as a young guy, and he always looked up to Chris Paul. He took a lot of the stuff that CP does with film sessions and he implemented it.” Strachan recalls of 2013, “That summer, when it was really decision time, [Nike] were looking at Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis coming up. They gave Kyrie a camp and they gave Anthony Davis a camp. They didn’t give Steph a camp.” The pitch meeting, according to Steph’s father Dell, who was present, kicked off with one Nike official accidentally addressing Stephen as “Steph-on,” the moniker, of course, of Steve Urkel’s alter ego in Family Matters. “I heard some people pronounce his name wrong before,” says Dell Curry. “I wasn’t surprised. I was surprised that I didn’t get a correction.” It got worse from there. A PowerPoint slide featured Kevin Durant’s name, presumably left on by accident, presumably residue from repurposed materials. “I stopped paying attention after that,” Dell says. Though Dell resolved to “keep a poker face,” throughout the entirety of the pitch, the decision to leave Nike was in the works.
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41834
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"After 44 years, we just got it passed ... veteran's choice. ... I said, I have the greatest idea. We're going to do this."" "
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In his midterm campaign rallies, President Donald Trump has repeatedly made the preposterous claim that he came up with “the greatest idea” for “veterans choice” — a program that was launched in 2014 during the Obama administration. He also claimed it took “44 years” to get the legislation passed.
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false
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health care, veterans, veterans choice program,
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In his midterm campaign rallies, President Donald Trump has repeatedly made the preposterous claim that he came up with “the greatest idea” for “veterans choice” — a program that was launched in 2014 during the Obama administration. He also claimed it took “44 years” to get the legislation passed.In fact, nothing he said about the program’s origin is true.Trump, Nevada, Oct. 20: And we just passed — after 44 years, we just got it passed, I signed it two months ago, veteran’s choice, so that if they have to wait on line for 12 days or 14 days or 32 days, or much longer than that — can you believe it? …They go immediately to see a doctor privately. We pay for their bill. …But I thought it was so brilliant, I came back to my group, I said, I got the greatest idea, because I haven’t been doing this that long, so, you know, it wasn’t like high on my list, but it became high. I did know the veterans were never treated fairly. But I said, I have the greatest idea. We’re going to do this. If a veteran has to wait, we’re going to send them to a private doctor. We’ll pay the bill. What a genius — I said, I said, how good is that? They said, “Sir, we’ve been trying to get it passed for 44 years.” So I was good at getting things passed. That’s what I did.Ten days earlier, at a rally in Pennsylvania, the president told the crowd: “When I first heard about it, I mean, it’s not like I was studying it for my whole life. But I heard about it three-and-a-half years ago. I said, I have an idea. Let’s — when they wait on line for 10 days, 22 days, 38 days, you have to see, months and months, why don’t we let them go see a private doctor and we pay the bill? It will solve our problem. And I told everybody: I am the most brilliant guy in the world. Who else would think — who else would think of that?”And at his rally in Kentucky on Oct. 13, Trump said this was “the greatest idea I think I’ve ever had.”In fact, that was the idea for the Veterans Choice Program, which was created by the bipartisan Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act, signed by President Barack Obama on Aug. 7, 2014. The legislation, which garnered a 91-3 vote in the Senate and a 420-5 vote in the House, followed a scandal over wait times at Veterans Affairs facilities.The VA summary of the 2014 bill said it would “allow those Veterans who are unable to schedule an appointment within 30 days of their preferred date or the clinically appropriate date, or on the basis of their place of residence to elect to receive care from eligible non-VA health care entities or providers. This is separate from VA’s existing program providing Veterans care outside of the VA system.”If a veteran lives more than 40 driving miles from the closest VA medical facility or faces other travel burdens, or the VA can’t provide the services required, that veteran can receive care from another provider, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, which says on its website that Veterans Choice is “one of several programs through which a Veteran can receive care from a community provider.”Since Trump took office, he has continued the program, signing legislation to provide funding for the program and to eliminate the expiration date. In June of this year, Trump signed the bipartisan VA MISSION Act, which provided funding to keep the Veterans Choice program for one more year, and then called for consolidating it and other private-care options into a new Veterans Community Care Program.The MISSION Act — a “significant portion” of which came from earlier bipartisan legislation from Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson and Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, according to the senators — says that under the consolidated program a veteran can go to a private medical provider if “the covered veteran and the covered veteran’s referring clinician agree that furnishing care and services through a non-Department entity or provider would be in the best medical interest of the covered veteran,” based on criteria to be set by the VA secretary. Those criteria will include distance from a medical facility, type of services needed, and the timeliness of appointments.A June Government Accountability Office report said that it wasn’t clear whether the Choice Program had “improved the timeliness of veterans’ care because VA’s data are incomplete and unreliable,” and Tester has said the new law “streamlines community care.”So, Trump has continued the Veterans Choice Program and the new law could expand eligibility for such services. But how can Trump say a law that was passed years before he took office was both his idea and 44 years in the making? We asked the White House press office but haven’t received a response.In some of his rallies — such as Oct. 12 in Ohio — Trump merely claims that “I got done what they’d been trying to do for 44 years.” But on several occasions he has expanded that falsehood into a story about “the greatest idea I think I’ve ever had.”
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3895
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Tennessee officer fired after working 2nd job while on duty.
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A Tennessee police officer has been fired after an internal investigation found he was working a second job as a psychiatric social worker while on duty.
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true
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Chattanooga, Police, Mental health, Health, General News, Tennessee
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The Chattanooga police investigation found Shawn Hickey had counseled at least six Moccasin Bend Mental Health Institute patients who had been criminally charged by the department, creating a conflict of interest, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports, citing an internal affairs report. In January, the 23-year department veteran was spotted arriving late to mandatory in-service trainings and leaving early. He was placed on administrative leave in August pending the internal investigation. When asked about his training attendance, Hickey told investigators that he did leave at least one class early, but he didn’t remember why. He also acknowledged having a second job at the mental health institute where he worked “almost every day except for the weekend.” He was pretty sure he took time off from that job for the training though, he told investigators. Hickey’s captain and assistant chief knew about Hickey’s other job, but were told that it was only part time and wouldn’t interfere with his police responsibilities. The investigation found Hickey was actually working as a full-time social worker, clocking more than 37 hours at the institute during the week of police training. Hickey was fired from the mental health institute this summer after an internal investigation by the state Department of Mental Health found a previously undisclosed conflict of interest with Hickey’s role at the police department. The state alerted the police department to the six cases in which Hickey counseled patients criminally charged by the department. It said he also didn’t disclose his role with the department to those patients. A review of the GPS records for Hickey’s department-issued vehicle found that he would park the vehicle overnight at locations that weren’t his home address. He told investigators that he had been staying with his girlfriend, according to the report, which says he described the relationship as “great friends who travel together” and was trying to hide it from his wife. During a subsequent interview, Hickey told investigators, “OK, you caught me,” according to the report. He was fired last month and declined to comment when contacted by the newspaper on Tuesday.
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26400
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“Ultraviolet Radiation is administered into the body as a disinfectant to kill bacteria and viruses and this has been used for a while now.”
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Health experts say there is no evidence that injecting ultraviolet light into the body would kill viruses like the novel coronavirus. There is no scientific evidence to support alternative health treatments like ultraviolet blood irradiation.
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false
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Public Health, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"Health experts have debunked President Donald Trump’s idea to potentially use sunlight to treat coronavirus patients. But some social media users say the president is onto something. An April 24 Facebook post shows an image of what appears to be someone hooked up to an IV that is emanating blue light. The caption claims it shows a ""UV radiation"" treatment. ""For all you dummies that have absolutely no idea what trump is talking about... INTERNAL DISINFECTANT aka Ultraviolet Radiation is administered into the body as a ‘disinfectant’ to kill bacteria and viruses and this has been used for a while now,"" reads the post. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) (Screenshot from Facebook) During an April 23 press briefing, Trump floated the idea of using light to treat COVID-19 patients after a Department of Homeland Security official presented a preliminary study that found sunlight kills the coronavirus on certain surfaces. We found no evidence to suggest such a treatment would work on patients, but we wanted to take a closer look at this recent Facebook post. While the exact origin of the image in the post is unclear, its central claim — that some health care providers inject UV light into patients to kill bacteria and viruses — is inaccurate. We reached out to the original poster for evidence, but we haven’t heard back. We used a reverse image search to scour the internet for the source of the photo in the Facebook post. While we couldn’t find the source, we did find several tweets from the same day that included the image. One user who shared the photo claimed it shows ultraviolet blood irradiation (UBI). The treatment involves drawing a patient’s blood, then exposing that blood to an external light box before returning it to the body. It was popular in the mid-20th century before the development of antibiotics and was used to treat conditions including pneumonia, tuberculosis, arthritis and asthma.. Now UBI is mainly used in the alternative-medicine community. But UV light is not ""administered"" into patients’ bodies, as the Facebook post claims, and experts who have experimented with the treatment say there is no scientific evidence that it kills bacteria or viruses. Dr. Edzard Ernst, an emeritus professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, said the research into UBI and related methods has been limited in scope. ""Yes, there are quite a few papers on UBI and related methods. But most of them are in-vitro studies, while robust clinical trials are missing completely,"" Ernst wrote in an April 25 blog post. ""Needless to say also that UBI is an invasive treatment where lots of things might go badly wrong."" The first makes up the majority of radiation that reaches the Earth, the second can cause sunburn and skin cancer, and the third destroys genetic material. Applying UVC light to rooms and surfaces has helped some hospitals cut the transmission rate of diseases like MRSA, which can linger in rooms after patients are discharged. The light waves kill bacteria and viruses by disrupting their DNA. But applying UVC light directly to the body would damage genetic material and cause burns within seconds, experts told PolitiFact. Physicians do sometimes use UVA or UVB light to treat skin lymphoma, but they avoid giving patients too much, as it could increase their chances of developing skin cancer later in life. ""There is a modified version of this in which a drug can be injected ahead of time to increase cell sensitivity to externally applied UV, but in general it’s not possible to inject UV light itself,"" said Dr. Angela Rasmussen, an associate research scientist at Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity, in an email. Health care providers also sometimes treat donated blood or plasma with radiation before performing infusions to prevent certain diseases, but most American blood banks use gamma rays or x-rays. That’s different from using UV light to treat blood or plasma that’s still inside a patient. ""There is no evidence that injecting UV light into the body will kill bacteria or viruses,"" said Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, a clinical assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Stanford University, in an email. ""We irradiate blood that has been taken out of the body, but that is different than using UV light. I am not sure what that picture is in the Facebook post."" The Facebook post is inaccurate."
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38055
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The deadly Klebsiella plague from China is coming to the United States, and citizens have been warned to take action.
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Deadly Klebsiella Plague from China Poses Public Health Threat to U.S.
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false
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Health / Medical
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Chinese researchers have identified a form of pneumonia that’s drug-resistant, very deadly and spreads easily. It’s a new strain of Klebsiella pneumoniae, and an outbreak caused five deaths in China in 2016. The threat is real, and serious. But it’s also been overblown by scammers looking to make a quick buck on what they call “the deadly Klebsiella plague from China.” First, it’s important to note that Klebsiella pneumoniae are not new or uncommon. They originate in Southeast Asia and have had worldwide distribution for at least the last three decades. Klebsiella pneumoniae can be fatal, but they’re typically sensitive to antibiotics. The strain that emerged in China in 2016, however, was “hypervirulent,” highly transmissible and drug-resistant. A study published in the Lancet medical journal in 2016 states that all five people who were diagnosed had recently undergone surgery and were on mechanical ventilators. It also points to the fact that the new strains could be particularly deadly: … the strains pose a substantial threat to human health because they are simultaneously hypervirulent, multidrug resistant, and highly transmissible. Control measures should be implemented to prevent further dissemination of such organisms in the hospital setting and the community. As it turns out, the drug-resistance of Klebsiella pneumoniae has been building since at least 2013. In that year, a study concluded: “This emerging problem presents a major threat to public health and warrants due diligence in future surveillance efforts.” So, the new strain’s highly transmissible nature adds to the previously identified threat of drug-resistance. But scammers have tried to cash in on that threat by making false claims about “the deadly Klebsiella plague from China,” and their ability to treat it. A group known as the Alliance for Advanced Health has warned that “a new bacterial plague from China is targeting American seniors this year,” and “it’s already killed its first American.” Then, on the same page, readers are encouraged to purchase a membership for its product, “Uncensored Health.” It’s built on the idea that the American medical community is trying to keep hidden from the general public. There are two main problems with rumors about the deadly Klebsiella plague from China.” First, we couldn’t find any confirmed cases of the new, hypervirulent, highly transmissible form of Klebsiella pneumoniae reported in the United States. There also haven’t been any credible public health warnings issued about it. In fact, there was no indication that Americans were at an elevated risk when the rumor went viral in March 2018. But it does remain a threat. Second, there are no known cures for the drug-resistant strains of Klebseilla pneumonia — which is what makes them drug-resistant. CDC researchers are currently working to use genomic sequencing to extract resistance gene data that could lead to development of a cure. Anyone who claims to have a cure would be years ahead of the world’s top researchers — which seems highly unlikely. Given that Klebsiella pneumoniae poses a real, serious public health threat — but the threat has been taken out of context by scammers trying to sell cures that don’t appear to exist, we’re calling this rumor “mostly fiction.” Comments
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4287
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Malawi fights tsetse flies, disease after wildlife relocated.
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The relocation of hundreds of elephants to Malawi’s largest wildlife reserve was meant to be a sign of hope and renewal in this southern African nation. Then nearby residents began falling ill.
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true
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Wildlife, Elephants, Southern Africa, General News, Africa, Health, Malawi
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The cause of the headaches, weakness and pain were trypanosomes, tiny parasites spread by the bite of the tsetste fly — a companion of the elephants. Trypanosomiasis, or sleeping sickness, is the result. Local families described the toll the disease can take. “I feel too weak,” said Chiomba Njati, who was still recovering after a week in the hospital. He said he was bitten while farming near the wildlife reserve. “I cannot even carry a hoe and farm. The home is lacking food and other important things because it is my wife doing everything on her own. This is so worrying.” Authorities said the Nkhotakota wildlife reserve has seen a surge in tsetse fly numbers since around 2015 when the elephants and other game animals were reintroduced. The local hospital said it did not have a number of sleeping sickness cases. One community resident, Group Village Ngondo, recalled at least five deaths from the disease. The World Health Organization says sleeping sickness is endemic in 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa but cases have been dropping. Last year just under 1,000 cases were recorded, a new low. The majority of cases are reported in Congo. The disease is “notoriously difficult to treat” with drugs and easier to treat when caught early, WHO says. The health agency says it is usually fatal when untreated as the parasite moves into the central nervous system and eventually can cause seizures and coma. Dr. Janelisa Misaya, a Malawi College of Medicine principal investigator, underscored the need to control the tsetse fly population. “One tsetse can actually infect a lot of people at once,” she said. “So we don’t want to take chances.” Some villagers expressed concern about the reintroduction of wildlife and the enlargement of the nearby reserve. The African Parks field operations manager for the reserve, David Robertson, acknowledged that the reintroduction of animals in 2015 led to an increase in tsetse flies. “It is a bit ironic because it is a negative symptom of the success we are having,” he said. “By increasing animal numbers, one of the unfortunate consequences could be an increase in tsetse fly numbers. Even though they are a natural part of the system, they contribute to biodiversity.” The tsetse flies are something the parks workers need to manage differently, Robertson said. “We don’t want to have neighboring communities or tourists to the park having an unpleasant experience or dangerous experience though contact with tsetse flies so we will do our best to manage that in the future.” To address the problem, African Parks in collaboration with Malawi’s government has introduced pesticide-impregnated targets and traps that attract the flies. So far 600 have been placed in the wildlife reserve. They are placed near the edge of thickets in areas that will receive morning and evening light but are shaded from the most intense sunlight during midday hours. The area surrounding each is slashed and cleared with hoes to produce a firebreak to protect it from occasional wildfires. Controlling the flies and animal populations are ways to help fight the disease. More assertive diagnosis and treatment are others. Local medical personnel are receiving more training to screen for and diagnose trypanosomiasis. The community has benefited from African Parks’ support for screening efforts, said Tenson Mkumbwa, deputy lab manager at the Nkhotakota District Hospital. “This leads to early diagnosis and treatment,” he said. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa
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26889
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"Scientists ""are shocked to discover that weed kills corona virus”"
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Marijuana not shown to treat 2019 novel coronavirus
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false
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Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Instagram posts,
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"An instagram post claims that weed can kill the novel coronavirus. It isn’t true, bud. The image resembles a breaking news story with a picture of a cannabis bud in the background. Similar to another claim that cocaine kills the coronavirus, this picture was made using a breaking news generator. There is no proof that marijuana can treat the novel coronavirus. The CDC still reports that there is ""currently no vaccine to prevent"" and ""no specific antiviral treatment recommended"" for the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19. And the World Health Organization said specifically that smoking and ""taking self-medication"" are not recommended as coronavirus remedies. Even though marijuana is used sometimes to treat chronic pain, it’s likely to give users ""short-term problems with attention, memory, and learning,"" the CDC says, and it can be harmful for developing brains. So, maybe not helpful for the coronavirus. It’s legal to recreationally use marijuana in 11 states, but we wouldn’t recommend trying to treat the novel coronavirus with it."
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5978
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Elevated opioid risks found at Native American hospitals.
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U.S. government hospitals put Native American patients at increased risk for opioid abuse and overdoses, failing to follow their own protocols for prescribing and dispensing the drugs, according to a federal audit made public Monday.
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true
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Opioids, Health, General News, Native Americans, Epidemics, Business, AP Top News, U.S. News, Protocols
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The report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General does not say whether patients suffered because of the hospitals’ practices. But all five Indian Health Service hospitals that were reviewed had patients who were given opioids in amounts exceeding federal guidelines, the report said. “There are vulnerabilities with this particular population in the opioid prescribing and dispensing practices,” said Carla Lewis, one of the auditors. The overdose epidemic that has killed more people than any other drug epidemic in U.S. history has hit indigenous communities hard. Native Americans and Alaska Natives had the second-highest rate of opioid overdose out of all U.S. racial and ethnic groups in 2017, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez called the audit’s findings “very concerning” and said the tribe plans to reach out to its congressional members and the Indian Health Service to ensure the recommendations are addressed. New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, vice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said the report “is a deeply troubling indication that structural issues at the IHS are potentially worsening the opioid crisis in Indian Country.” The report made more than a dozen recommendations to the Indian Health Service to better track patients’ health records and pain management, ensure opioids are stored under tighter security and update its information technology systems. The agency agreed on every point and said changes are coming. The Indian Health Service, the federal agency that administers primary health care for Native Americans, has put an increased focus on opioids lately with a new website and the creation of a committee focused on decreasing overdose deaths, promoting culturally appropriate treatments and ensuring that communities know how to respond. The audit covered five of the 25 hospitals directly run by the Indian Health Service: the Phoenix Indian Medical Center in Phoenix; Northern Navajo Medical Center on the Navajo Nation in Shiprock, New Mexico; the Lawton Indian Hospital in Lawton, Oklahoma; the Cass Lake Indian Hospital on the Leech Lake reservation in Cass Lake, Minnesota; and the Fort Yates Hospital on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in Fort Yates, North Dakota. Auditors considered the amount of opioids each hospital dispensed and the percentage increase over three years when deciding which ones to review. They looked at 30 patient records at each hospital, visited the facilities and interviewed staff. The auditors found that the hospitals strayed from guidelines in the Indian Health Manual in reviewing treatment for patients and their causes of pain every three months. Patients also must sign a written consent form and an agreement to treat chronic pain with opioids so they know the risks and benefits, as well as the requirement for drug screenings. More than 100 patient records did not include evidence of informed consent, and dozens did not have evidence that providers adequately educated patients. The Centers for Disease Control recommends that patients be prescribed no more than 90 morphine milligram equivalents per day, a measure used to compare an opioid dose with morphine. The audit found that each hospital met or exceeded that amount at times. At the Shiprock hospital, the daily dosage was more than four times as high. The auditors also found some patients were prescribed opioids and benzodiazepines — commonly used to treat anxiety and insomnia —at the same time, which “puts patients at a greater risk of a potentially fatal overdose.” The Indian Health Service said all of its facilities now submit that data so the agency’s top leadership can track it. Among the report’s other findings: —More than two dozen records showed no evidence patients were screened for drugs with urine tests when they started opioid treatment and periodically after. Providers did not have an alert system to know when patients were due for the urine tests. The Phoenix hospital has since implemented one. —Pharmacists are supposed to review patients’ files before filling prescriptions from an outside provider, but that was not done at four of the hospitals. In one case, Fort Yates filled a prescription from an outside provider despite the hospital discontinuing treatment because the patient violated a pain management agreement. The Indian Health Service said it would issue a directive in December for prescribers to track that information. —Only the Lawton hospital had opioids secured in a storage cabinet requiring employee authentication for access. One photo attached to the report showed the combination to a safe listed on the safe itself. The Indian Health Service said it has revised its manual to require opioids awaiting pickup to be locked up. —Agreements with their states require that hospitals report daily on opioid prescriptions that are filled so patients do not seek the drugs from multiple providers at the same time. Fort Yates and Phoenix now are complying. The Indian Health Service said the reporting would be automated by June 2020. At all hospitals, auditors noted that providers did not always review the data before seeing new patients or during the time patients were on opioids for pain. “Part of it is to ensure the holistic approach of providing care,” Lewis said. Hospital officials and providers often said they were overwhelmed by the number of patients or could not control how regularly they came in — sometimes due to the long distances between patients’ homes and the hospitals. Lewis said auditors try to be reasonable in their requests. “We try to make recommendations that are going to be actionable and cost-effective for an organization,” she said.
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35123
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"COVID-19"" is named so because it is the 19th ""Chinese-Originated Viral Infectious Disease."
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There are different processes and purposes for naming diseases.
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false
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Junk News, COVID-19
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As the World Health Organization (WHO) has noted, viruses and the diseases they cause often have different names: “For example, HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. People often know the name of a disease, such as measles, but not the name of the virus that causes it (rubeola).” During the pandemic of 2020, most everyone was familiar with the name of the coronavirus disease that was sweeping across multiple countries (COVID-19), but less so with the name of the virus that caused it (SARS-CoV-2). In either case, many people weren’t aware of the derivations of those names, leading some to take japes like the following seriously:
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36896
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A report that the assassination of a top Democratic Party official named Seth Rich while he was on his way to testify about Hillary Clinton has led to the FBI capturing a so-called Clinton “Hit Team.”
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Assassination of Top Democratic Official Leads to Capture of Clinton Hit Team
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false
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Crime / Police, Government, Politics
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It’s true that Seth Rich was an employee of the Democratic National Party that was murdered in Washington, D.C., in July 2016. But reports that Rich was on his way to testify about Hillary Clinton, or that his “assassination” has led to the FBI capturing a Clinton “hit team” are false. WUSA 9 in Washington reported that Rich was shot and killed in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Northwest D.C. in what appeared to be a robbery gone wrong: The shooting happened in the 2100 block of Flagler Place NW on Sunday at 4:19 a.m., Metropolitan Police said. Police arrived at the scene and found Conrad conscious and breathing. He was suffering from gunshot wounds. Conrad was taken to the hospital where he later died from his injuries. “A lot of my girlfriends around here are talking about this and looking out for one another. We don’t want anyone walking by themselves,” neighbor Katie Ferguson said. “It’s scary. I want something done and so far there is a lot of talk, but what’s really being done?” Officials said they are looking into the possibility that Rich’s murder is connected to other recent robberies in the area. The sad story of Seth Rich’s death took a turn in state-sponsored Russian media. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, issued a propaganda piece that reported Hillary Clinton or her campaign had been connected to Conrad’s death, and that the FBI had “captured” them. What Does It Mean quickly spread the Russian propaganda in the U.S. with a story appearing under the headline, “Assassination of Top U.S. Democratic Party Official Leads to FBI Capture of Clinton Team,” that reports: A somber Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report circulating in the Kremlin today says that a top American Democratic Party staffer preparing to testify against Hillary Clinton was assassinated this past Sunday during a secret meeting in Washington D.C. he believed he was having with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, but who turned out, instead, to be a “hit team”—and who, in turn, were captured yesterday after a running gun battle with US federal police forces just blocks from the White House. [Note: Some words and/or phrases appearing in quotes are English language approximations of Russian words/phrases having no exact counterpart.] According to this report, SVR “electronic specialists” performing counter intelligence “missions/operations” noted on 7 July an “enormous/gigantic” increase of computer and telephonic traffic between the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in Washington D.C. and the Clinton Foundation (CF) offices in New York City. Upon a “deeper/broader” investigation into this “odd/strange” increase in communications between these believed to be separate organizations, this report continues, SVR analysts determined that the original initiating person responsible was a 27-year-old DNC official named Seth Rich who was that political organizations Deputy Director Data for Voter Protection/Expansion who had helped develop a computer program for the Democratic National Committee allowing people to type in their address and get a map to their polling place. There’s been no indication that Seth Rich’s killing was related at all to politics or Hillary Clinton in particular. And the idea that he was a “top” Democratic Party official is false. Rich was a 27-year-old who worked as the voter expansion data director at the DNC. In that role, he fought for voters’ rights. While robbery has been cited as a motive in Rich’s death, it’s still not clear why he was murdered. His parents told the Inquisitor that if it was an attempted robbery, his attacker had failed since Rich still had cash on him when he was found So, while it’s not clear why Rich was murdered, reports that he was assassinated by a Clinton hit team that came from Russian propaganda should be considered fiction.
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18367
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Buono voted 154 times to raise our taxes -- like the sales tax, the income tax, health care taxes, even small business taxes.
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"A Christie for Governor TV ad claims, ""Buono voted 154 times to raise our taxes -- like the sales tax, the income tax, health care taxes, even small business taxes."" Although a narrator only mentions tax increases, scrolling text in the ad also mentions fee increases. And in this case, the ad is accurate: Buono did vote on 154 bills that would increase fees and taxes on things ranging from the purchase of new vehicle tires to those New Jerseyans earning six-figure incomes exceeding $400,000."
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true
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New Jersey, Taxes, Chris Christie,
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"The gloves are off. Chris Christie may be more popular than ever, but the Republican isn’t taking any chances with seeking re-election in a majority Democrat state. Witness a new TV ad released Monday by his re-election campaign, Christie for Governor. The ad starts off with pictures of Christie’s Democratic challenger, state Sen. Barbara Buono, as a narrator introduces her as former Gov. Jon Corzine’s budget chair. Buono chaired the Senate’s Budget and Appropriations Committee for two years during Corzine’s tenure. ""Buono voted 154 times to raise our taxes -- like the sales tax, the income tax, health care taxes, even small business taxes,"" the narrator states as text in the commercial states she voted to raise taxes and fees. This ad is a variation on a theme mentioned previously by Christie, and it’s also right on target. First, some background about tax increases. During his State of the State address earlier this year Christie noted that New Jersey saw more than 100 increases in taxes and fees in the eight years before he became governor, which is similar to the new TV ad about Buono, the Democratic challenger in the November gubernatorial race. In addition, state Sen. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) made a similar claim in an Oct. 7, 2011 news release when he tied 115 votes for tax increases to jobs leaving New Jersey. For both previous fact-checks, Republicans provided us with a list that included tax and fee hikes as well as tax policy changes that occurred between fiscal years 2003 and 2010. Now let’s review the 154 increases. The Christie for Governor camp provided us with a list of the 154 increases they claim Buono supported both in the Senate and when she served in the Assembly. We reviewed each vote and found that the list given us mirrors the previous Republican-provided lists, plus additional votes. Although Democrats sponsored most of the bills in question, a few had Republican support. Democrats held legislative majorities in the eight years before Christie became governor. His predecessors during that time were Jim McGreevey, Richard Codey and Corzine. Among the increases were raising the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent and applying the tax to services such as tanning and limousine rides; increases in the cigarette tax; and allowing towns to impose parking taxes and surcharges. Also, the state twice increased the gross income tax on New Jerseyans with six-figure incomes: in 2004 for those with income exceeding $500,000 and again in 2009 for those incomes above $400,000. In addition to tax increases were hikes in dozens of fees, such as a new $1.50 fee on the sale of new vehicle tires; imposing fees on certain realty transfers; on hotel/motel occupancies; increases in the minimum casino hotel parking charge; and raising the fee to file for divorce. Overall, the lists provided by Republicans showed that there were dozens of increases in taxes or fees or other tax policy changes that could result in individuals or businesses paying higher taxes. We calculated the votes and confirmed that Buono did vote 154 times in favor of higher taxes and fees. After we shared the list with Buono for Governor spokesman David Turner, we received a list back pointing out cuts that Christie has made to various tax credit rebates and programs; legislation the governor signed resulting in assessments on ambulatory care facilities and insurers; and other legislation signed by Christie allowing government authorities to charge fees. ""Barbara Buono has spent her life in public service fighting for New Jersey's middle class and working people,"" Turner said in an e-mail. ""Throughout her career she has pushed to make large corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share and reduce the tax burden on New Jersey's working families. And she has consistently voted to hold lawbreakers accountable—if Governor Christie believes it was wrong to stiffen penalties for deadbeat dads, impose tougher fines on tax cheats and force polluters to help pay for damaging our environment and threatening public health, he should say so."" Christie for Governor spokesman Kevin Roberts declined comment. Our ruling A Christie for Governor TV ad claims, ""Buono voted 154 times to raise our taxes -- like the sales tax, the income tax, health care taxes, even small business taxes."" Although a narrator only mentions tax increases, scrolling text in the ad also mentions fee increases. And in this case, the ad is accurate: Buono did vote on 154 bills that would increase fees and taxes on things ranging from the purchase of new vehicle tires to those New Jerseyans earning six-figure incomes exceeding $400,000. To comment on this story, go to NJ.com."
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29793
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Canada was placed under a nationwide boil-water notice in the spring of 2019.
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As such, the article’s core claim is false and appears to be no more than a cynical effort to manipulate the public’s concern about water safety in order to gain shares on social media. Genuine drinking-water advisories are periodically put in place across Canada, just as they are in many other countries, but concerned residents should consult official government sources for information about their local areas.
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false
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Junk News
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In mid-May 2019, concerned readers inquired about the accuracy of a blog post, spread widely on social media at the time, claiming that the nation of Canada had been placed under a “boil water” notice after the discovery of E.coli in the water supply. The 16 April post on the website “Canada Eh?” bore the headline, “Canada Is Under a Boil Water Advisory After Dangerous E.coli Bacteria Found in the Water” and went on to report that: “Montreal, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan tests water on a regular basis to evaluate the quality of the water that the residents use to cook, clean, and drink. Inspectors made the discovery on Saturday following a routine test. E. coli can cause infections that result in nausea, vomiting, headache, mild fever, severe stomach cramps, and watery or bloody diarrhea. Though many recover from E.coli infections on their own, some infections result in hospitalizations. This advisory affects 20,900 households, or around 25,700 people.” Elements of the blog post were plagiarized from a 2 April article on the “MTL Blog” website, which notified readers about a genuine boil-water notice that affected only part of the city of Montreal and not the entire country of Canada. That advisory was based on the detection of the E.coli bacterium in part of the water supply, but the issue was resolved after four days. The “Canada Eh?” website published an almost identical blog post on 2 April which also plagiarized from MTL Blog’s report about Montreal, but on that occasion falsely claimed that the city of Toronto had been placed under a water notice due to the discovery of E.coli in their water supply. “Canada Eh?” appears to have a pattern of periodically re-purposing and re-publishing the template of an article about an E.coli-related boil-water notice in an effort to garner shares on social media. A boil-water notice is a type of drinking water advisory issued by governments when tests have shown that the water supply in a specific area contains disease-carrying viruses or bacteria, such as E.coli (Escherichia coli), which can cause food poisoning. According to Indigenous Services Canada, the national government department with responsibility for water advisories, consumers under a boil-water notice are advised to boil their tap water for at least one minute before drinking it or using it to cook, wash food, brush their teeth, or prepare infant formula. Indigenous Services Canada keeps a frequently updated tracker of any localized, short-term water advisories across the country. According to that data, there was no nationwide, short-term boil water notice in effect on 17 May 2019 or in mid-April, at the time “Canada Eh?” published their article. According to a similar official tracker of long-term drinking water advisories, there was also no nationwide long-term boil water notice in effect on 17 May 2019, or at the time “Canada Eh?” published their report on 16 April.
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19057
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Jason Isaac Says that over the past 20 years, Texas public school spending rose 142 percent and per-pupil spending more than tripled when adjusted for inflation.
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India’s health ministry has proposed a ban on the production and import of electronic cigarettes, documents seen by Reuters showed, potentially jeopardizing the expansion plans of big firms like Juul Labs and Philip Morris International.
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false
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Education, State Budget, Texas, Jason Isaac,
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The ministry has proposed that the government issue an executive order banning the devices in the public interest, saying it was needed to ensure e-cigarettes don’t become an “epidemic” among children and young adults. “E-cigarettes and similar technologies that encourage tobacco use or adversely impact public health are hazardous for an active as well as passive user,” the health ministry said in an internal note seen by Reuters that the federal cabinet is expected to consider. Health officials are proposing jail terms of up to three years, with a penalty of up to 500,000 rupees ($7,000), for repeat offenders against the new rules, according to a draft of the executive order. First-time offenders would face a prison term of up to one year and a fine of 100,000 rupees. Such orders are typically issued in India as an emergency measure when parliament is not in session. It can lapse if it is not approved when lawmakers convene against in the next session, which will most likely be held around November. It was not immediately clear whether the draft executive order will face changes, or when it will be approved. India’s health ministry did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. The ministry’s plans would deal a blow to U.S.-based Juul Labs Inc, which is hoping to launch its e-cigarette in India and has hired several senior executives in recent months. Philip Morris also has plans to launch its heat-not-burn smoking device in India, Reuters has reported. Advocates for the devices say e-cigarettes are far less harmful than smoking tobacco, because users do not inhale the same dangerous matter. But many tobacco-control activists are opposed to e-cigarettes, saying they could lead to nicotine addiction and push people to consume tobacco. “There is evidence that these products are a gateway to tobacco products and induce adolescents and young adults to nicotine use leading to addiction,” the health ministry said in the document. India has 106 million adult smokers, second only to China in the world, making it a lucrative market for firms such as Juul and Philip Morris. More than 900,000 people die each year in the country due to tobacco-related illnesses. Sixteen state governments in India have prohibited e-cigarettes but there is as yet no federal legislation to deal with what the health ministry termed the “hazardous product”. Justifying its call for a ban, the health ministry argued that e-cigarettes can also be used as delivery devices for other substances such as cannabis, and could promote dual use with conventional cigarettes. “These devices are injurious to health and proliferation of these products has a negative impact on public health,” the draft said. Reuters reported in March the health ministry had called for Juul’s entry into India to be blocked, saying such products were “addictive and could potentially undermine our tobacco control efforts”. Juul, whose sleek vaping devices that resemble USB flash drives have become a sensation in the United States, has previously said it aims to improve the lives of smokers by offering a “satisfying alternative to combustible cigarettes”.
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8530
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Global coronavirus death toll hits 100,000, cases over 1.6 million.
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The number of deaths linked to the novel coronavirus reached 100,000 on Friday, as the tally of cases passed 1.6 million, according to a Reuters tally.
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true
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Health News
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The first death came in the central Chinese city of Wuhan on Jan. 9. It took 83 days for the first 50,000 deaths to be recorded and just eight more for the toll to climb to 100,000. The toll has been accelerating at a daily rate of between 6% and 10% over the past week, and there were almost 7,300 deaths globally reported on Thursday. The death toll now compares with that of London’s Great Plague in the mid-1660s, which killed an estimated 100,000 people, about a third of the city’s population at the time. But it is still far short of the so-called Spanish flu, which began in 1918 and is estimated to have killed more than 20 million people by the time it petered out in 1920. The novel coronavirus is believed to have emerged in a Wuhan market where wild animals were sold late last year. It quickly spread through China and around the world. Much remains to be determined about it, including just how lethal it is. Estimates vary widely. Friday’s figures - 100,000 deaths of out 1.6 million cases - would suggest a fatality rate of 6.25% but many experts believe the actual rate is lower given that many mild and asymptomatic cases, when infected people don’t show symptoms, are not included in case totals. Some countries, including Italy, France, Algeria, the Netherlands, Spain and Britain are reporting that more than 10% of all confirmed cases have been fatal. One of the largest studies of the fatality of the disease, involving 44,000 patients in China, put the rate at about 2.9%. The same study reported that 93% of recorded fatalities were people over the age of 50, and more than half were over 70. Despite that, there are growing numbers of young adults and teenagers included in the global toll. While North America now accounts for more than 30% of cases, Europe has reported a disproportionate number of fatalities, as countries with older populations like Spain and Italy have been severely affected. Southern Europe alone accounts for more than a third of global deaths, despite recording just 20% of cases. In many countries, official data includes only deaths reported in hospitals, not those in homes or nursing homes. Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: open tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser
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15128
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Just about half of rural hospitals operate in the red in Virginia. They operate at a loss.
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Mannix said about half of the rural hospitals in Virginia are operating at a loss. Figures from the group that tracks hospital finances back her claim and suggest, if anything, her estimate is on the low end.
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true
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Health Care, Virginia, Mary Mannix,
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"Hospital officials from across Virginia flocked to Richmond last week to air concerns about tightening revenues at their facilities. Among them was Mary Mannix, president and CEO of Augusta Health, a rural hospital in Fishersville about 90 miles west of Richmond. Mannix said her facility is on solid financial footing but that many other rural hospitals are not. ""Just about half of rural hospitals operate in the red in Virginia,"" Mannix said at a news conference organized by the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, a lobbying group. ""They operate at a loss."" The struggles of rural hospitals across the nation have been well reported in recent years. Facing declining population bases and tightening Medicaid reimbursements, many have struggled to remain open and some have shut down, including Lee Regional Medical Center in Southwest Virginia in 2013. Many hospital officials hoped the General Assembly would ease the stress by expanding the state’s Medicaid program to reduce the medically uninsured. Under provisions of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, the federal government would pay all of the costs of expanding the program through 2017 and at least 90 percent in the future. Republican lawmakers have blocked the expansion and say Uncle Sam can’t be trusted to pay his promised share. The debate is sure to continue when the General Assembly convenes in January. The hospital association says it will lobby lawmakers to find solutions to financial problems at hospitals -- although what solutions, the group isn’t saying. In the past, the association has backed Medicaid expansion. So we wondered whether Mannix was correct in saying ""just about half"" of Virginia’s rural hospitals are running in the red. We reached out to Lisa Schwenk, a spokeswoman for Augusta Health, to find the source for Mannix’s statistic. Schwenk referred us to Julian Walker, the spokesman for the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association. Walker sent us a hospital association chart showing that 17 of 37 rural hospitals in Virginia -- or 46 percent -- had operating losses in 2013, the latest year data are available. The chart listed basic ""acute care hospitals"" - facilities where people get care for illnesses and injuries. It does not include psychiatric, rehabilitative or other specialized medical centers. The underlying information for the hospital association chart comes from Virginia Health Information, an independent, non-profit group that contracts with the Virginia Department of Health to provide information on the cost and quality of health care in the state. The group releases an annual report looking at the operating margins of all hospitals around the state. Michael Lundberg, executive director at Virginia Health Information, sent us a link to the group’s database showing the fiscal 2013 financial results for the hospitals. It lists 36 rural hospitals, 17 of which had a negative operating margin. That comes to 47 percent. In this database, the hospitals were allowed to determine for themselves whether they should be classified as rural or urban. Lundberg also sent us a second batch of data in which hospitals were sorted as rural or urban based on definitions from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. This grouping listed 25 rural hospitals in 2013, 16 of which ran in the red. That comes to 64 percent. By comparison, Lundberg’s figures show that of the 60 urban hospitals in Virginia under the federal definition, 13 had operating losses. That means nearly 22 percent of urban hospitals in the commonwealth had an operating loss in 2013. Our ruling Mannix said about half of the rural hospitals in Virginia are operating at a loss. Figures from the group that tracks hospital finances back her claim and suggest, if anything, her estimate is on the low end."
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36512
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Active duty Naval officer Jordan Lee Grinnell assaulted a black middle schooler.
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Did a 38-Year-Old White Active Duty Naval Officer Assault a Black Middle School Student?
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On January 23 2019, a Facebook user shared what appeared to be a screenshot of an unlinked Facebook post, alleging that a man named Jordan Lee Grinnell assaulted an unnamed black middle school student:Above three images (a handcuffed man sitting on steps, presumably the same man in an unrelated photograph, and what looked to be an injured black teenager) was a caption, which read:This 38-yr-old white “man” beats the hell out of a a black 8th grader over a children’s soccer game. The “man” is Jordan Lee Grinnell, a Navy active duty E7, working in Richmond, VA.Let’s make him famous!In the space of a few weeks, the post was shared more than 100,000 times. A search of Facebook revealed an identical post (not in screenshot form) posted in July 2018. That post did not garner many shares or much engagement. The claim dated back at least that far, and an iteration of it appeared on the message board Democratic Underground along with a tweet. The tweet displayed tens of thousands of engagements in the form of shares and discussion.As it happened, there was extensive news coverage of an incident involving a man named Jordan Lee Grinnell from June 2018. On June 15 2018, The Virginian-Pilot reported about an altercation at a soccer game that month, which apparently began when two boys on opposing teams got into a fight.Witnesses at the event said that a conflict between the boys escalated, and an adult male approached the pair. Although parents believed the man intended to “break up” the fight, he instead allegedly “knocked one of them down, jumped on him and began punching him in the face”:Near the end of a sand soccer game [in June 2018] at the Oceanfront, two boys on opposing teams began pursuing the ball.After it went out of bounds, a brawl broke out between the two.What happened next stunned onlookers, and left some of the players who witnessed it feeling fearful and traumatized. It also led to a hospital visit and stitches for one of the teens, and caused police to arrest the father of the other player.Jordan Lee Grinnell, 38, of Virginia Beach, was charged with misdemeanor assault, police said. He was released on bond afterward.It happened at the annual North American Sand Soccer Championship. More than 10,000 players, age 8 and up, participated this year, said Lauren Bland, executive director of Hampton Roads Soccer Council.Witnesses said they saw Grinnell knock a boy to the ground and punch him in the face.Timothy Vickerie, 14, of Chester, received four stitches above his right eye and suffered a concussion and bloody lip, according to his mother, Nicole Vickerie. When the eighth-grader returned to the tournament the next day to cheer on his teammates, his eye was swollen shut and bruised.Parents who witnessed the incident said it weighed on them for days, telling the paper that they confronted Grinnell:“I still can’t get it out of my mind,” said Jennifer Moss, who was standing just feet away. “I didn’t sleep for two days and I’m still having trouble sleeping. The kids who witnessed it are all shaken.”[…]Nicole Vickerie said it appeared her son was about to grab the other boy’s shirt when Grinnell ran over and punched him, knocking him off his feet.“It was breathtaking to see that and surreal. It still is,” Nicole Vickerie said. “By the time we got there, people had pulled him off and took him away.”Moss said he [sic?] called police and confronted Grinnell.“I yelled at him, ‘You just beat up a 14-year-old kid,’” Moss said. “He said, ‘That’s my son.’ And I said, ‘They were fighting over a ball. That’s what soccer’s about.’”Nicole Vickerie said she also confronted Grinnell. “I asked him did he feel better now. ‘Does that make you feel like a big man?’ ” she said. “He said, ‘No, it doesn’t. I’m sorry.’”On June 17 2018, KIMT3 published an article confirming Grinnell’s rank and including a statement from the North American Sand Soccer Championships about the incident:Police say a soccer player was assaulted while playing at the North American Sand Soccer Championship on June 9 [2018].Jordan Grinnell, 38, was arrested and has been charged with simple assault.A spokesperson with the U.S. Navy Recruiting Command said Grinnell is active duty Navy. He is a Chief Petty Officer assigned to NAVY RECRUITING DISTRICT RICHMOND, the spokesperson said. […]NASSC released a statement below in response to the incident:“For 25 years, the North American Sand Soccer Championships has promoted a safe, fun and family friendly weekend of competition, attracting more than 200,000 participants over that time. We take very seriously any acts of violence and condemn any bystander from entering the field of play. Our hearts go out to the victim in this unfortunate incident, and we want to assure everyone that we will redouble our efforts to make the 2019 tournament and all future ones even more safe and secure for our athletes, coaches, officials, parents and other visitors who attend this world class event.”Navy Times covered the aftermath of Grinnell’s arrest extensively, reporting on June 24 2018:A Navy chief who allegedly charged into a youth soccer game as his teenage son jostled with his opponent is being charged with assault and battery, the Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office told Navy Times.Chief Engineman Jordan Lee Grinnell, 38, was arrested by Virginia Beach Police last month after he reportedly knocked Timothy Vickerie, 14, to the ground and began punching him in the face.Vickerie was hospitalized with a concussion and required four stitches, the report said … Grinnell has no prior criminal record, the Pilot reported, and his Navy records show that he’s the recipient of five Good Conduct Medals.The outlet reiterated its reporting three days later. In October 2018, the outlet reported that Grinnell had been convicted and sentenced. The outlet was unable to obtain information regarding whether Grinnell faced additional sanctions from the Navy:A Navy chief who charged into a youth soccer game and beat up a 14-year-old boy made a scheduled court appearance [in October 2018], where he pleaded no contest and was found guilty of assault and battery, the Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office told Navy Times.Chief Engineman Jordan Lee Grinnell, 38, was sentenced at the Virginia Beach Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court hearing to 12 months in jail, with the entire sentence suspended except for 60 days. He will be allowed to serve out the 60 days in jail over the course of 30 consecutive weekends, starting Oct. 19 [2018]. […]Multiple attempts were made by Navy Times to inquire what punishment, if any, Grinnell received from the Navy but officials would not specify exactly what ramifications he is facing.“The Navy is following our administrative protocols regarding civilian convictions,” Lt. Cmdr. Jessica McNulty, spokesperson for Navy Recruiting Command, told Navy Times.The January 2019 Facebook post claimed that active duty Naval officer Jordan Lee Grinnell “beat the hell out of a black 8th grader at a children’s soccer game.” Grinnell, 38, was found guilty on assault and battery charges stemming from an incident at a June 2018 soccer game in Virginia, resulting in injuries to a 14-year-old boy. However, the incident received extensive news and social media attention when it occurred in June 2018, and Grinnell was arguably already “famous” when the claim was re-shared in early 2019. The story is true.
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10378
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Medical Breakthrough: Amazing New Heart Valve Procedure
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"Open heart valve replacement is a major procedure, involving risks and a long recovery period. To be able to do a minimally invasive valve replacement would represent a major improvement for the patient but would need to be demonstrated as effective and safe as the open procedure. At Columbia, a clinical trial of minimally-invasive valve replacement is ongoing but results have not been released or published. As a result, many questions remain about the procedure. However, this story makes it sound as if this new procedure is a fait-accompli. Referring to it as ""groundbreaking"" and ""the biggest thing since the heart transplant"" imply that all patients who are candidates for this procedure should run out and get it. This story provides little in the way of real information to patients or family members who would be seriously considering valve replacement. It quotes no sources other than doctors at Columbia who have an interest in how this procedure is evaluated. The story also does little to provide information on the availability of the procedure, the evidence to support its use, the costs and potential harms. The story appropriately describes the procedure as novel, but otherwise, this rather lengthy story falls short on all other criteria."
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false
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The story does not mention the costs of the procedure. The story does not quantify the benefits of the new procedure. The story does not mention any harms of the procedure. The story does not comment on the strength of the available evidence to support the new procedure. The story does explain that the procedure is now being studied only in people with aortic stenosis. The story speculates a lot on how this procedure could be extended to other patients, but does not really provide any justification for this other than it hasn’t been studied. The story quotes two experts but they are both from the same institution. The story should have quoted more experts who can provide more perspective. The story mentions open heart surgery but does not discuss the pros and cons of the less invasive procedure or mention any other treatment options. The story mentions that the procedure would be hard to get outside of a trial. The story should have done more to explain the limited availability of the procedure at this time rather than focus on how widely it could be used in the future. Clearly the procedure is new. There is no way to know if the story relies on a press release as the sole source of information.
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3417
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Growing algae bloom in Arabian Sea tied to climate change.
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The Gulf of Oman turns green twice a year, when an algae bloom the size of Mexico spreads across the Arabian Sea all the way to India.
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true
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Climate, AP Top News, Climate change, Local food, Oman, Middle East, Gulf of Oman, Algae, International News, Science, Awash in Algae, Asia Pacific, Muscat
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Scientists who study the algae say the microscopic organisms are thriving in new conditions brought about by climate change, and displacing the zooplankton that underpin the local food chain, threatening the entire marine ecosystem. Khalid al-Hashmi, a marine biologist at the Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, wrinkles his nose as the research vessel nears the bloom. “Sea stench,” he says, referring to the algae’s ammonia secretions. “It’s here, you can smell it.” He signals the boat to stop as it speeds beneath a gigantic rock arch off the coast of Muscat, the capital of Oman, an arid sultanate on the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. The captain kills the engine and drops anchor into a slick of bright green muck surrounded by crystal-clear blue water. The swarms of microscopic creatures beneath the surface of the Gulf of Oman were all but invisible 30 years ago — now they form giant, murky shapes that can be seen from satellites. Across the planet, blooms have wrecked local ecosystems. Algae can paralyze fish, clog their gills, and absorb enough oxygen to suffocate them. Whales, turtles, dolphins and manatees have died, poisoned by algal toxins, in the Atlantic and Pacific. These toxins have infiltrated whole marine food chains and have, in rare cases, killed people, according to the U.N. science agency. In the Great Lakes of North America, Thailand and the Seychelles, the algae bloom green. In Florida they are red, in the North Atlantic they are chalky white, and in Puget Sound they are orange. The Irish call it the “sea ghost,” and the Taiwanese refer to the blooms as “blue tears.” NASA uses satellites and floating robots to monitor the blooms, said Paula Bontempi, the manager for ocean carbon and biology projects at the U.S. space agency. “It’s like a Van Gogh painting,” she said, referring to satellite images of swirls of chlorophyll spiraling across the world’s oceans. “Absolutely beautiful.” It’s less attractive up close, where it can be “almost guacamole-like” in some lakes. “It smells bad, it looks bad,” she said. The satellite technology has enabled scientists to link the algae to higher levels of air and water pollution in recent decades, but Bontempi said questions remain. “We know that our Earth is changing,” she said. “It may be in a direction we might not like.” Scientists based at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University trace Oman’s blooms to melting ice in the Himalayas. Less ice has raised temperatures in South Asia and strengthened the Indian Ocean’s southwest monsoon. As this weather front moves across the Arabian Sea every year, it churned up oxygen-poor water thick with nutrients that have fueled the rise of a 1.2-billion-year old algae called noctiluca scintillans. For the past 15 years, observatory biogeochemist Joaquim Goes, al-Hashmi and biological oceanographer Helga do Rosario Gomes have tracked blooms in the Arabian Sea using boats, satellites and remote sensors. Goes said the blooms have caused a “short-circuiting of the food chain,” endangering other marine life. “Normally these things happen slowly, usually we talk about tens of hundreds of years. Here it’s happening overnight,” he said. “The transformation is happening before our eyes.” The algae blooms pose a number of threats to Oman, whose fishing and trading ships have plied these waters for centuries. Thick blooms reduce visibility, making it difficult for divers to repair undersea gas infrastructure. It can also clog the intake pipes of the desalinization plants that produce up to 90 percent of the country’s fresh water. Fishermen call Oman’s marine research center when they spot blooms. Marine ecologist Ahmad al-Alawi adds these reports to four decades of observations before comparing them with satellite images of the swirling chlorophyll. He says the blooms are growing bigger and lasting longer, displacing the zooplankton at the bottom of the local food chain. The algae has attracted more whale sharks — a major draw for divers — but many tourists have cancelled their trips at the sight of the green, murky waves, said Ollie Clarke, a dive instructor at the Bandar al-Rowdah marina near Muscat. It also poses a threat to the country’s fisheries. An outbreak of a different kind of algae in 2008 led to the beaching of 50 tons of oxygen-starved fish, which rotted up and down the coast, al-Alawi said. The researchers have found cause for both despair and hope by studying a live noctiluca culture in their lab: The blooms will likely spread as the Indian Ocean continues to absorb greenhouse gas emissions, but could be contained if they are sprayed with fresh water. Goes and Gomes hope to develop an early-warning system for Oman modeled on one operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Florida But Saleh al-Mashari, who learned to sail and fish as a boy in the small coastal village where he still lives, and who now captains a researcher vessel, said the damage is already done. “The fish are migrating,” he said. “They can’t get enough air here.”
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10202
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A Better Option? A trial of cancer drugs yields a surprise–and questions
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This article story does an excellent job of reporting the initial results of the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene Trial (STAR) for post-menopausal women at high risk of developing breast cancer. Tamoxifen is currently the only drug with FDA approval for both treatment and prevention of breast cancer in high-risk women. The story is optimistic about new hormone therapy options for the prevention for breast cancer, but appropriately cautious about the early results of the STAR trial and use of raloxifene for chemoprevention. There is discussion that hormone therapy for the prevention of breast cancer is only for post-menopausal women at higher risk of developing the disease, and a side note which discusses who might be in this category. There is also discussion that women who have a history of blood clots and heart disease were not included in this study, as the risk of hormone therapy might exacerbate these conditions and outweigh the preventative benefit of hormone therapy for breast cancer. The article adequately discusses the STAR trial design in which post-menopausal women at higher than average risk of developing breast cancer were randomly assigned to take tamoxifen or raloxifene (Evista) as chemoprevention for invasive breast cancer. However, the story fails to mention that only estrogen-receptor positive women should take this medication. Because of the initial positive results of the STAR trial, namely, there were fewer uterine cancers and blood clots in the raloxifene group, the trial was unblinded at 4 years. The story does not report that these results did not reach statistical significance, or that the study was unblinded early due to these statistically non-significant results. This information was not readily available on the NCI (National Cancer Institute) website or in reports of the study, balanced infomation on side effects for both tamoxifen and raloxifene are presented. The caveat provided here is important: results of this trial await further analysis and the data have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. Clinical decisions about switching hormone medications should wait until these data are carefully reviewed. Cost comparison of the medications is provided, as well as a note that these drugs must be taken daily for 5 years. Tamoxifen has been studied for over 30 years and has been shown to reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence in both a breast treated for cancer, as well as the other breast. Raloxifene is currently used to prevent osteoporosis, and while it appears to have similar benefits to tamoxifen in the prevention of invasive breast cancer, it has not been studied for as long as tamoxifen, and as this articles notes, it does not appear to prevent as many cases of non-invasive breast cancers (which are more common) as tamoxifen.
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true
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The cost of treatment is provided in a side bar: raloxifene is about $75 for a month’s supply, while tamoxifen is about $100. Story notes that medication is taken daily for 5 years. Provides relative risk reduction of chemoprevention with hormone therapy for high-risk women, however, no absolute risk reduction provided. No quantitative risks mentioned for taking hormone therapy for chemoprevention. Incomplete discussion of reduced rate of side effects in raloxifene group. Mentions harms of hormone therapy, such as an increased risk of blood clots and uterine cancers. Notes that there were “fewer side effects” (i.e. blood clots and uterine cancers) in the raloxifene group, but does not mention that the difference in side effects was not statistically significant for uterine cancer and blood clots. This information was not readily available on the National Cancer Institute (NCI) website or in reports of the study, the story presents caveats on the drugs. Mentions reduction in the risk of cataracts with raloxifene, which was statistically significant. Does mention that raloxifene, like tamoxifen, has bothersome side effects such as hot flashes and vaginal discharge, which are reported as comparable and mild to moderate in the NCI press release of the initial results of this trial. The story discusses study design and notes that results have not yet been peer-reviewed in a medical journal. Story also notes that tamoxifen protects women from DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) and LCIS (lobular carcinoma in situ) better than raloxifene. However, no quantitative evidence is presented on benefits or side effects of either drug, and no mention that the study was unblinded early. Chemoprevention is for a small number of women and tamoxifen should only be offered to women with a 5-year projected risk for breast cancer of 1.6% in order to reduce their risk. The side bar is helpful, providing a clearer understanding of who might be at higher risk. Also, this medication is for women with estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer. This article does a good job of explaining that this drug is only for postmenopausal women with a greater chance of malignancy and the benefit of the drug must be weighed against the health risks for each woman. This study was partially funded by Eli Lilly and AstraZenaca, makers of Evista and tamoxifen, though this is not mentioned. There is also no mention of whether the breast cancer expert cited from the American Cancer Society has financial ties with these drug companies. The story does mention another chemoprevention hormone drug, tamoxifen. It also mentioned aromatase inhibitors as options being investigated for chemoprevention. Does not mention need for mammograms (screening as early detection shown to improve outcomes) in post-menopausal women at a higher risk of breast cancer. It should be noted that the results presented in this story are initial findings after 4 years of raloxifene. Tamoxifen is usually taken for 5 years and there is much more long-term clinical data on safety and efficacy for this drug. The study was unblinded early due to the improved side effect profile for raloxifene, which was not statistically significant. The story mentions that raloxifene is currently available for use in post-menopausal women to prevent osteoporosis and that use in chemoprevention has only been in clinical trials–more data is needed prior to FDA approval for use as chemoprevention. Use as chemoprevention would be off-label and only women with an increased risk of breast cancer. Notes that use of raloxifene (Evista) as chemoprevention is new. Evista is already approved to prevent osteoporosis. Does not appear to be directly from a press release and there is a link for more information on study at NCI website. Breast cancer experts not affiliated with the NCI trial provide perspective in interpreting the results.
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27416
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IKEA released a magazine ad which includes a pregnancy test.
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We contacted Akestam Holst seeking further comment. A spokesperson for IKEA’s U.S. division confirmed the veracity of the advert, and told us that there are not plans for the advertisement to run in any other markets.
|
true
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Business, Akestam Holst, ikea, Pregnancy tests
|
In 2012, a New York Times Magazine article sparked privacy concerns by describing big box retailer Target’s attempts to use data to find out whether their customers were pregnant. An IKEA ad campaign in January 2018 takes away the need to gather complex data to determine whether customers are pregnant by simply asking women to dab their own urine on the advertisement itself. If the woman is pregnant, the paper shows a coupon for a crib. Swedish ad agency Akestam Holst created the ad, which appears in what IKEA called “a limited edition” of the women’s magazine Amelia and reads, in part, “Peeing on this ad may change your life”: IKEA – Pee Ad from Ourwork on Vimeo. Why do retailers care when women get pregnant? According to journalist Charles Duhigg, the birth of a child is the most optimal time to recruit customers: There are, however, some brief periods in a person’s life when old routines fall apart and buying habits are suddenly in flux. One of those moments — the moment, really — is right around the birth of a child, when parents are exhausted and overwhelmed and their shopping patterns and brand loyalties are up for grabs. Akestam Holst told Adweek: The pregnancy test strip was used as a starting point, which relies on antibodies that bind to the pregnancy hormone hCG, resulting in a color change. For scaling up of this technique and adopting it to the physical format of a printed ad, Mercene Labs has used their experience in development of surface active materials for microfluidics and medical diagnostics. Careful selection of materials, together with a controlled capillary flow have been crucial for the success of this project. Technical advancements made during the work with this campaign have the potential to improve medical diagnostics.
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10116
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CVS Health Research Institute Study Shows that Home Infusion Care Improves Patient Outcomes and Quality of Life While Reducing Overall Costs
|
This news release describes the cost savings and safety of home infusion services from 13 previously published studies compared with infusion services at a clinic or hospital. Home infusion appears safe and clinically effective while saving money in the studies reviewed, but the release does not address limits in the review. We aren’t given any numbers to back up the claims that clinical outcomes were equal and that patients preferred the home setting. The release notes that CVS has a home infusion business–Coram–so at least they make this transparent. We applaud CVS for attempting to quantify the cost savings and other potential benefits of the service — and the claim that there are advantages are likely valid — but some context/background from other, independent studies would be helpful. Besides the lack of quantification, the release doesn’t delve into the potential risks from using the home infusion service. Treatments for chronic diseases, which often require drugs administered through infusion, are one of the fastest growing costs in the US health care system. If patients can be served at home, rather than in outpatient clinics or hospitals, it saves both money and time. But outcomes studies, which compare outcomes and safety between locations, are essential to judging whether home infusion is equal to clinic or hospital infusion. This release does not go far enough with numbers to quantify benefits and risks. We also see that CVS has a conflict of interest, because they have a business arm, Coram, that sells home infusion services. It appears this release (and study) are getting attention just as Congress is “discussing how to implement a comprehensive home infusion benefit for Medicare beneficiaries.”
|
true
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Health care costs,industry/commercial news releases
|
The news release includes information about costs. We would have liked a little more context. The release states: “The costs associated with home infusion were also consistently lower than services provided in a health care facility, with savings ranging between $1,928 and $2,974 per course of treatment.” We need to know what percentage of savings that is per course of treatment. If the whole course costs $100,000, then saving $1,928 is a pretty small percentage. If the whole course is $10,000, than a savings of $1,928 looks more substantial. We found the news release skimmed over giving crucial numbers and metrics for benefits. Separate from the cost benefit to home infusion versus hospital or clinic infusion, the release should have given us some numbers for safety. Here is what the release stated (emphasis ours): “The research showed that patients receiving intravenous therapy at home had as good or better clinical outcomes as those patients who received the same therapy in a traditional health care setting. In addition, patients overwhelmingly preferred receiving their infusion therapies at home, reporting fewer disruptions in personal schedules and responsibilities. We need numbers to demonstrate how “as good” the clinical outcomes were. We need numbers to represent “overwhelmingly preferred.” By what percentage did what number of patients demonstrate preference? This is where the release could have taken some quantitative data from the study. The word “harms” does not appear in the news release. During intravenous infusions there are complications that may arise. The release does not mention harm, even to dismiss the probability as rare. The study being reported is a systematic literature review that only considered 13 prior studies. The release does not address the limitations of a literature review or give us the total number of patients represented by the 13 studies. Only 5 of the 13 studies used in the analysis addressed outcomes. One had no comparison group (“However, no adjustment for confounders was performed, and higher OPAT success rates were likely due to purposeful selection of younger, healthier patients for OPAT therapy,” according to the published study). In another study, “IPAT patients were selected from a time period during which OPAT was not available for any patients, minimizing selection bias by the matching fact.” In any case, less than half of the studies looked at outcome data and those that did involved different diseases from different time periods, some had control groups and some did not. We don’t think the evidence is strong enough to suggest outcomes were improved. The bias inherent in CVS employees culling the studies is also concerning. A better description of the review’s search and selection process may have helped allay any concerns about studies being cherry-picked. There is no disease mongering. The release is clear that the study was done by the CVS Health Research Institute. Since this is a news release from a profit-making company that operates directly to sell services under study, we hope the readers quickly understand there is an inherent conflict. This is the equivalent of a Coca Cola study about the benefits of drinking their product. The release explains the alternatives of clinic or hospital infusion compared to home infusion. Home infusion services are widely available. Their reimbursement is not widely available. The release says “clinical outcomes and quality of care have not previously been systematically evaluated.” The release doesn’t rely on any unreasonable or unjustified language. However, we do not think the news release proves the words used in the headline that say “Home Infusion Care Improves Patient Outcomes and Quality of Life While Reducing Overall Costs.” Based on a literature review, which does not randomize people into apples-to-apples comparison, you cannot claim to show better outcomes. The release does not offer any quantified benefits to support medical outcomes and doesn’t provide quantified information about quality of life improvement. The fact that patients prefer home infusion to travel to a clinic is not by itself a proof that their lives have been improved. As we wrote in the benefits section above — we are not given numbers to prove by what amount patients prefer home infusion.
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34695
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An 8-year-old Yemeni girl was forced to marry a 40-year-old man and then died of vaginal injuries on their wedding night.
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Two Meedi residents contacted by Reuters confirmed the incident and said tribal chiefs had tried to cover up the incident when the news broke, warning a local journalist against covering the story.
|
unproven
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Politics
|
In September 2013, the Kuwaiti daily Al Watan (citing a local Yemeni newspaper called Al Mashhad) reported that an 8-year-old girl named Rawan had died of internal hemorrhaging related to vaginal tearing the night after she was married to a 40-year-old man in northwestern Yemen. That story was then picked up and spread internationally by English-language news media: An eight-year-old Yemeni girl has died of internal bleeding on her wedding night after marrying a man five times her age, a social activist and two local residents said, in a case that has caused an outcry in the media and revived debate about child brides. Arwa Othman, head of Yemen’s House of Folklore and a leading rights campaigner, said the girl, identified only as Rawan, was married to a 40-year-old in the town of Meedi in Hajjah province, north-western Yemen. “On the wedding night and after intercourse, she suffered from bleeding and uterine rupture which caused her death,” Othman said. “They took her to a clinic but the medics couldn’t save her life.” Othman said authorities had not taken any action against the girl’s family or her husband. Shortly afterwards, the Dubai-based Gulf News ran a story stating that Yemeni law enforcement officials had investigated the report and denied there was truth to it: Mosleh Al Azzani, the director of Criminal Investigation in Harradh district where the marriage was thought to have taken place, said that he personally sent for the girl and her father to question them about the incident. The girl’s name is Rawan. “When I heard the rumours, I called the girl’s father. He came with his daughter and denied the marriage and death of his daughter. I have the photos of the girl and will show it to anyone.” The official said that the girl was eight years old and her father was in his late 40s. “The man moved to Haradh 20 days ago. He is the father of Rawan, another married daughter, and a son. I am ready to call them again if any journalist wants to investigate this issue.” he said, adding that he did not receive any information from the local hospital about the death of the girl. Aziz Saleh, a journalist who runs a local website, said that he contacted the local authority’s office who denied the news. “All of them maintained that neither the marriage nor death had taken place,” he said In the capital, Ahmad Al Qurishi, the head of SEYAJ Organisation for Childhood Protection, an independent NGO that advocates children’s rights, said that government and judicial officials in the province of Hajja denied the information about the marriage and death. “I got in touch with the director of Criminal Investigation, Hajja’s prosecutor and the province’s security chief who all flatly denied the story,” he said. Al Qurishi said that his organisation conducted its own investigation into the issue by sending some activists to the area. “The preliminary results show that the story was untrue.” The journalist who wrote the controversial story insisted that his story was correct and based on the accounts of the girl’s neighbours, but the truth was being covered up by officials: Mohammad Radman, a freelance journalist from the province, commented on the officials’ denial by saying that the girl’s neighbours told him the girl was dead and buried. “They are willing to give their testimony on this issue. I think the officials are trying to bury the story.” he said.
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6342
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State finding better air during new tests at Howell factory.
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State regulators say follow-up tests near a factory in Livingston County show low levels of a chemical linked to cancer.
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true
|
Health, General News, Michigan, Howell
|
The health department says emissions at Diamond Chrome Plating in Howell reveal TCE levels below “health screening values.” TCE stands for trichloroethylene, which is used to remove grease from metal parts. Diamond Chrome turned off the degreaser this week. Earlier tests had revealed TCE levels that were considered a health hazard. A public meeting was held Thursday night. Hugh McDiarmid Jr. of the Michigan Department of Environment says the “recent results are encouraging.” Elevated levels of TCE can cause birth defects and raise the risk of kidney cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
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36627
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Leeds Trinity University banned capital letters to avoid upsetting or frightening delicate students into failing classes.
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Did Leeds Trinity University Ban Capital Letters to Avoid Frightening Students?
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false
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Disinformation, Education, Fact Checks, Viral Content
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In November 2018, an odd little article about a leaked internal memo at Leeds Trinity University appeared in the British tabloid the Express. According to the story, the university told professors not to use all capital letters in order to avoid “frightening” students:Staff at Leeds Trinity’s school of journalism have also been told to “write in a helpful, warm tone, avoiding officious language and negative instructions”. Some blasted the move as “more academic mollycoddling” of the snowflake generation. An “enhancing student understanding, engagement and achievement” memo lists dos and don’ts – with “do” and “don’t” among words frowned upon.Course leaders say capitalising a word could emphasise “the difficulty or high-stakes nature of the task”.The memo says: “Despite our best attempts to explain assessment tasks, any lack of clarity can generate anxiety and even discourage students from attempting the assessment at all.Other news outlets quickly got wind of the article, and soon think piece writers, evidently short on material, were jostling to be the first to offer their warmed-over take on how jettisoning capital letters is emblematic of the weakness and delicacy of today’s youth — such as this story, which bears the headline “Liberal College Bans Capital Letters Because They Trigger Students”:A spokesperson for the university said that the memo was written to teach lecturers better understand how they might help students reach their full potential.This isn’t the first case of “social justice” lunacy on British campuses this year.In October, Kent University adopted a list of banned costumes that included anything that related to an ethnicity or religion.Unfortunately, it appears that many of these pundits failed their classes in reading comprehension as well as headline writing; even the original story, misleading as it was (and failing to reproduce the full text of the memo on which it was reporting for context), mentioned no ban.Leeds put out a statement refuting the claims, which despite being a perfectly rational response was mischaracterized as “a bizarre twist” by some tabloids:In response to today’s comments in the media which allege we have banned capital letters (we haven’t! ), we’re really proud of our approach to teaching and learning at Leeds Trinity.Here’s why: pic.twitter.com/yGXh9JABNK— Leeds Trinity Uni (@LeedsTrinity) November 19, 2018We’re proud to offer a personal and inclusive university experience that gives every student the support to realise their potential. We follow national best practice teaching guidelines and the memo cited in the press is guidance from a course leader to academic staff, sharing best practice from the latest teaching research to inform their teaching.For every assignment, academic staff have an ‘unpacking’ session with students so the students are clear on what is expected. The majority of universities do this. It is also about good communication and consistent style. For example, it is best practice not to write in all capital letters regardless of the sector.As Leeds Trinity’s statement clearly says, sharing recommendations to best inform pedagogical practice is standard at universities worldwide, and despite claims made by “many social media users,” there is a very marked difference between making recommendations and outright bans.Leeds lecturers also refuted the claim on social media — using capital letters to drive their point home:I AM A LECTURER AT LEEDS TRINITY UNIVERSITY AND I HAVE NEVER BEEN TOLD TO STOP USING CAPITAL LETTERS. #passiton #uttertripe https://t.co/FhsQPIu7rT— Dr. Alison Torn (@AlisonTorn) November 19, 2018Pedagogy, or the study of teaching and learning as an academic concept, is far from settled; it is dynamic by its very nature, as both teaching and learning are dependent on social, cultural, and political contexts. Paulo Freire, who wrote the heavily influential Pedagogy of the Oppressed, had this to say about the concept:Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.This is not an easy concept to implement. Because of this, discussions about how best to teach and learn are ongoing at many universities, and recommendations (not bans) are made often.In the end, this appears to be yet another case of publications taking universities to task over common pedagogical practices that tabloid writers have vastly inflated and distorted because they simply do not understand how academia functions.
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38700
|
Some are questioning the old adage that eating carrots improves your vision.
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Eating Carrots Improves Your Vision
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mixture
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Food / Drink, Health / Medical
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Eating carrots can help improve vision in certain conditions, but the effect of carrots on eyesight has been exaggerated for decades. The reason carrots have been given too much credit for improving vision is rooted in World War II. Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF) began using on-board Airborne Inception Radar (IA) to shoot down German planes over London during night in 1940. Because the radar technology was a secret, the Ministry told newspapers that RAF fighter pilots were so precise at night because they ate carrots, which supposedly improved their night vision, the Smithsonian magazine reports: Whether or not the Germans bought it, the British public generally believed that eating carrots would help them see better during the citywide blackouts. Advertisements with the slogan “Carrots keep you healthy and help you see in the blackout” (like the one pictured below) appeared everywhere. So, the RAF essentially fibbed that carrots were behind its pilot’s nighttime accuracy, and the public ate it up. At some point, it became generally accepted that carrots improve overall vision — not just night vision — and that’s been repeated at countless dinner tables around the world. When it comes to night vision, Emily Chew, the deputy clinical director at the National Eye Institute, backs up the claim that carrots can help. Carrots are rich in beta-carotene, which the body uses to make vitamin A. Vitamin A helps the eye convert light into a signal that’s transmitted to the brain, which can help improve vision nighttime vision, Chew told Scientific American magazine: But exactly how many carrots would be needed to optimize night vision remains less clear. Most studies have so far looked at the benefits of beta-carotene or vitamin A supplements, not carrots specifically. One randomized control study in 2005 examined how consumption of roughly 4.5 ounces of cooked carrots six days a week stacked up against other vitamin A–rich options such as fortified rice, amaranth leaf and goat liver for helping address night blindness in pregnant women. The result: all the foods performed roughly the same, although the vitamin A supplement did best of all. The study found that a regular diet of the cooked carrots for six weeks helped to bring women’s response to darkness to normal levels. (In Western nations about 30 percent of dietary vitamin A comes from beta-carotene but in some developing countries it is the sole source of vitamin A.) When it comes to improving overall vision and eye health, however, the answer is a balanced diet of fruits and vegetables, not carrots alone, according to the National Eye Institute: You’ve heard carrots are good for your eyes. But eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, particularly dark leafy greens such as spinach, kale, or collard greens is important for keeping your eyes healthy, too.i Research has also shown there are eye health benefits from eating fish high in omega-3 fatty acids, such as salmon, tuna, and halibut. But, when it comes to using carrots or any other foods to improve your eyesight, don’t expect too much. Research has found that the body protects itself against excessive amounts of vitamin A because it can become toxic at high levels. So, if you eat nothing but carrots in hopes of gaining 20/20 vision, your body will be working against you the entire time. In conclusion, carrots can improve vision in certain conditions (i.e. at night), and they’re good for overall eye health. Just don’t believe reports that eating carrots (or any other vitamin A rich food) will improve your overall vision. Comments
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11182
|
Experimental diet pill shows promise, little risk
|
So, yes, it mentioned the drop out rate but then said it wasn’t unusual. But didn’t ever explain why so many dropped out. Yes, it said the drug hadn’t been priced yet, but we don’t find that sufficient (details given below). Yes, it had one external perspective, but that was someone who works for another diet drug company (a fact that at least the story notes). In cheerleading fashion, the story let unnamed experts predict FDA approval. Yet the story never evaluated the quality of the evidence sufficiently enough to let readers know whether a study like this could be trusted. This story matters because obesity is an incredibly common problem in the US, with major impacts on morbidity, mortality, quality of life, and costs. People, doctors, health plans, and drug companies all want treatment options that help people lose weight and keep it off safely. This story reports on several new drugs that are likely to gain market approval by the FDA, which would effectively double the number of drug treatment options currentlly available to patients and providers. The biggest problem with weight loss drugs in the past has been that the side effects seemed to greatly overshadow their impact on body weight, and all weight loss drugs deserve close scrutiny on their side effect profile. Given the high prevalence of obesity in our country (1/3 of all adults), close attention should be paid to the cost of any new interventions, which if applied broadly could dramatically impact national health care expenditures. There is so much hype right now about this coming wave of diet drugs, and reporters need to dial the company claims back a notch (at least) and examine how much better these drugs work than lifestyle changes or existing therapies.
|
mixture
|
"At least this story thought about the cost issue, when it stated: ""San Diego-based Arena hasn’t put a price on lorcaserin."" But we don’t think that’s good enough. At the very least, the story could have mentioned what the other currently-available drugs cost for some frame of reference. And we also know that SOME estimate of cost is possible when a drug has advanced to this stage where it’s up for approval by the FDA. As stated above, given the high prevalence of obesity in our country (1/3 of all adults), close attention should be paid to the cost of any new interventions, which if applied broadly could dramatically impact national health care expenditures. The story presents the % losing 5% (and what that means in terms of pounds) and it presents the % who maintained that weight loss. They also present the drop out rate in the study. The story says, ""Some experts described the drug’s effectiveness as moderately good, and its safety as apparently very good. The findings are probably sufficient to meet FDA benchmarks and win approval, they predicted."" What exactly does this mean? Who are these experts? These unattributed comments are vague and cheerleading. At least the story noted that the current study is insufficient to rule out heart vale problems. The lead makes it sound as if we are looking at an incredibly promising drug, but as the story wades into the evidence, it doesn’t provide enough details to back that claim up. The story doesn’t give a hard nosed critique of whether we should trust this study — is it rigorous enough? We appreciated their comment about the valve disease issues – that ""larger studies are needed to conclusively rule out this risk."" But the story should have made this point stronger — this ONE study ISN’T ENOUGH EVIDENCE to know that the drug is truly SAFE! No overt disease-mongering, although the story could have done a better job addressing some of the foundational problems that are preventing people from eating healthy and getting the exercise that they need to maintain a reasonable weight. The story gives no perspective from an independent expert. The ""external"" perspective comes from someone who advises a company making another experimental diet drug. Why not someone without such ties? As noted above, this story does place the drug into the broader context of existing drugs. But there’s no direct comparison with exercise or diet. That’s a big flaw in most of the reporting on this new drug. The story makes it clear that this is a trial on the way to FDA approval. This one does the best job of placing this new drug into the broader scope of current drugs and up and coming competitors. This graph about some of the other drugs was particularly helpful and should have made the reporter ask tougher questions about lorcaserin: It does not appear that the story relied solely or largely on a news release."
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|
11059
|
Stem cell therapy for macular degeneration
|
It’s a tough thing for a reporter to write about a study that hasn’t been conducted yet. Without any actual data to work with, the temptation is talk too much about what the researchers hope they will find in the study; discussion of harms and other caveats often gets overwhelmed by this optimistic speculation. The story we review here didn’t succumb to the worst excesses that these kinds of reports are subject to, and it did some things very well. For example, when discussing the new treatment that’s set to be studied — an embryonic stem cell therapy for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) — it gave some interesting and detailed background on how AMD develops and how the new treatment might work. But in the end, we thought the discussion of hypothetical benefits was out of balance considering the very early stage of the research, and there was no mention of potential costs or harms. The story also didn’t explain carefully enough who might be a candidate for this treatment, should it eventually make it to market. There are no effective treatment options for the dry form of AMD, which is a leading cause of vision loss in older adults. The use of embryonic stem cells represents an exciting new approach to this disease, but given the early stage of development for such therapies, news coverage needs to pay appropriate respect to cautions and caveats about the research. Otherwise such stories may provide readers with false hope instead of information.
|
mixture
|
Los Angeles Times
|
Although it’s too early in the game to know exactly what this treatment is going to cost, our rule of thumb is to expect some kind of cost discussion whenever there is talk of benefits. This story didn’t meet that standard. The story could at least have said that we do not know how much the new treatment will cost, but that it is likely to be expensive. With the lack of any real data to discuss, this story needed to be exceptionally disciplined to avoid pumping up hypothetical benefits. But the speculation in this story, while relatively restrained, is still out of balance considering the early stage of the research. In one passage, the story relays company hopes that the new treatment might “keep vision intact — or even restore it to some degree.” Later, it suggests that the treatment might “buy time for patients, delaying vision loss for perhaps years.” Such speculation might have been acceptable had the story provided a more forceful and sober assessment of the slim chances this therapy has of ever reaching the market. As it stands, though, the coverage unduly raises hopes for what remains a longshot bid at successful treatment. Injecting substances into the eye is bound to cause problems for some people, but this story doesn’t mention any possible harms. This is especially troublesome considering that safety assessment is the primary objective of a phase I study. Other treatments involving eye injections are associated with increased risk of potentially serious eye infections, which would seem to be a potential risk here. In addition, animal studies suggest that undifferentiated embryonic stem cells can cause a certain type of tumor known as a teratoma. While the treatment being offered here is supposed to include only differentiated stem cells, which presumably don’t carry this risk, the point again is that we just don’t know whether or not the treatment is safe — hence the need for the study. Since the study discussed in the story has yet to be conducted, there’s really not much evidence to evaluate. However, the story makes the most of what it has to work with. It does an admirable job of explaining the physiology of the macula and how AMD develops. It also presents some animal data suggesting that there is reason to believe the approach being studied has merit. The story cautions that success in these animal studies “doesn’t always translate to humans,” and it notes that it will be especially tough for new cells to take hold in the eyes of older patients. The story also does a reasonable job of describing the design of the new study and emphasizing its focus on safety. What the story fails to adequately explain is what kinds of patients might be candidates for the new treatment. Although it takes considerable pains to explain the differences between the “wet” and “dry” forms of AMD, it never explains that the new treatment is targeted at the more common dry form of the disease, which usually is slower to progress and less severe than wet AMD. The upshot is that the story may generate false hope for individuals with wet AMD, which often causes significant vision loss. We also thought it was potentially confusing to readers that the story led with an estimate of about 10 million Americans who suffer some degree of vision loss from age-related macular degeneration, then jumping to the fact that the company developed this approach to treat a rare childhood version, but then jumping to the assertion (even though the trials haven’t been done) that if this works, the cells would have a much bigger effect for the age-related problems. We think it’s best to be cautious about predictions of efficacy for a problem that hasn’t been treated yet – especially when the preliminary proof-of-concept human trials haven’t even been done. A close call here given the excellent job in some areas, but the failure to describe appropriate treatment candidates is a significant gap that warrants an unsatisfactory. Although this story should have been more clear about who might be a candidate for this treatment (an issue discussed more thoroughly under the Evidence criterion below), the tone of the story was reasonably cautious and we don’t think it crossed the line to disease-mongering. Two expert sources not affiliated with the research are quoted. As far as we are aware, there are no conflicts that weren’t disclosed to the reader. While treatment options are limited, individuals with dry AMD may benefit from taking a supplement containing a specific formulation of vitamins. This has been shown to help prevent intermediate dry AMD from progressing to severe AMD. There are also several effective therapies, including drugs and laser treatments, for the wet form of AMD. It wouldn’t have required much time or space for the story to at least mention these. The story makes it clear that this treatment is in the early stages of experimental research. It doesn’t speculate inappropriately about when the average patient might have access to it. The use of stem cells to treat macular degeneration is just being translated from mice to humans, so the story is correct to characterize the treatment as novel. It could have noted that the treatment discussed in this story is just one of many new approaches researchers are studying. The story features interviews with two independent experts, so we can be sure it didn’t rely on a news release.
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36272
|
People are putting hair removal creams in conditioner, causing hair loss.
|
Is Someone Putting Nair in Hair Conditioner Bottles?
|
unproven
|
Fact Checks, Viral Content
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A pair of posts shared to Facebook on July 28 and 29 2019 carried a warning to consumers, claiming that a woman’s hair had “fallen out in clumps” because someone had added Nair (or another cream-based depilatory) to conditioner purchased at Walmart.The first post was shared by the mother of the woman who purportedly bought the adulterated conditioner. Information was subsequently edited into the post, which in its original form said:Attention new Richmond Walmart shoppers be aware of shampoo and conditioner you buy there as my daughter Ashley bought some 2 days ago and someone mixed nair in her conditioner bottle!!! !A second post shared by daughter of the first poster, the apparent victim of conditioner tampering, included additional photographs and her claim of purchasing the conditioner on July 26 2019:As I type this I’m crying bc that’s all I have done since this incident. This is raw and has hit me like no other. My hair was finally the way I loved it to be and now it’s gone. These photos I’m sharing are personal to me but apparently needs to get out there, most of these were from last night, through the night and morning on hair had fallen out and still was falling out in clumps before I shaved it. Picture do not do it justice or show the 100% damage it has caused me. My heart hurts terribly I don’t even have any words to say to anyone as I just can’t get anything out but that it hurts and has been scary. My only intentions for sharing is to prevent it from happening to anyone else. Check your bottles where ever you get them, nothing can be trusted anymore…Please do not bash me.According to the second post, the New Richmond, Wisconsin woman purchased a Pantene conditioner at her local Walmart. Appended pictures appear to show squares of missing hair at her hairline and the base of her neck. Also missing from the first-person account was information about whether the product demonstrated signs of tampering. Nair and other hair removal creams have a distinct, overpowering scent similar to sulfur, which is stronger still when it is undiluted.The New Richmond Police Department put out a press release saying they are investigating the incident:On July 28, 2019 The New Richmond Police Department received a complaint of alleged product tampering. A 21 year old female subject indicated she used hair conditioner, recently purchased, and upon using the product for the first time reported immediate significant hair loss on her head. The product was reported to have a different smell and color than the original product. Product tampering can be a felony offense and is cited under Wisconsin State Statute 941.327. Due to the significance of this offense, New Richmond officers and detectives have been working with Wal-Mart staff to identify potential suspects and review video surveillance. The New Richmond Police Department will continue to follow the facts of this case.While this appears to be an isolated case at this time, the New Richmond Police Department is asking anyone in this area that has been a recent victim of this type of activity to please report it immediately to your local police/sheriff’s department.The New Richmond Police Department is also reminding people to be diligent in checking products for safety seals and prior to any use to make sure it is consistent with the product you are expecting.Some news sites reported on the Facebook post as an isolated incident (“Woman loses hair ‘in clumps’ after Nair was allegedly mixed into conditioner bought at Walmart”), while others leapt to the conclusion that this was a trend:People Are Now Putting Hair Removal Creme In Shampoo BottlesSomeone had replaced the brand new product with Nair hair removal creme.I remember the rumors about people putting Nair in the conditioner and shampoo bottles of their worst enemies, but this is something entirely worse! Continuing into the post, she claims that she reported the incident to local police, and they are working to watch camera footage from the Walmart, to see if they can get to the bottom of the incident.Warning! People Are Putting Hair Removal Cream in Shampoo BottlesGreat, it looks like we all have one more thing to worry about. A mother is urging shoppers who purchase products at Walmart to double-check if any of the items have been tampered with before buying them. This after her daughter discovered her conditioner bottle contained Nair inside the product. Nair is a hair removal product that works by breaking the “disulfide bonds of the keratin molecules in hair” which makes it easier for hair to be wiped away easily without using a razor.As the first of the two sites noted above, claims about contaminating conditioner with hair removal creams like Nair are old urban legends, which does not mean that someone, somewhere has not attempted to execute such a prank. Further, the post alludes to targeting a person in that fashion; as presented, the purported victim in the Facebook posts appeared to have been randomly selected.In the second excerpt, the site made reference to the manner in which Nair and other chemical depilatories function. In contrast with most conditioners (which sit on the hair for one to three minutes), Nair and hair removal creams sit on the skin for five to ten minutes — or even longer — to dissolve hair. On their website, Nair provides the following instructions for one product:Smooth on a thick, even layer to cover hair. Leave cream on for 5 minutes.Check a small area for hair removal. If your hair is thick, you may need more time. (Don’t leave on longer than 10 minutes. )Gently wipe off the cream and hair with a damp washcloth. Don’t rub!Rumors about contaminating conditioner (or shampoo) with Nair very likely antedate the internet. However, their plausibility was discussed on the Straight Dope message board back in 2001; forum members provided a laundry list of reasons the prank was impractical. It was cited other forums in undated posts, and appeared in 2010 on a forum for people with long hair. In an unrelated 2010 video, the “Nair in shampoo” prank appeared on YouTube.In 2016, the “Nair in shampoo” rumor was the subject of a viral hoax. In 2018, a Reddit user claimed a disgruntled roommate put hair removal cream in her shampoo, and that same year the likelihood of the prank working was discussed on Quora. On the latter post, a self-identified hairdresser claimed to have witnessed the aftermath of one such incident.In photographs, the woman making the claims appeared to be missing neatly bordered sections of scalp hair, not a diffuse amount throughout her scalp. Conditioner is distributed through hair, and whether strands had been shortened or unevenly dissolved was also not clear from the photographs.In the photograph on the left side of Timm’s post, the conditioner is shown to be a large bottle with a pump, supposedly purchased just two days earlier. Hair removal cream surreptitiously added to the bottle in a Walmart aisle would be situated at the top and unlikely to move to the bottom of the bottle, whereas the pump would retrieve product from the bottom up. If an ill-intentioned shopper decanted hair removal cream into a very large pump bottle of conditioner, it seemed unlikely the affected product would migrate into the pump in the first day or two of use.It is also possible that the uneven distribution was due to a tampered but unshaken product, where pockets of pure “Nair” were next to pockets of conditioner. However, massaging the product through hair ought to have diluted the “Nair” as well, making it less efficient. Presumably, a then-diluted formula would have sat on the skin for a shorter period of time than five minutes, lowering the possibility of hairless patches.Another issue is that the articles quoted above asserted that “people” are “now putting” hair removal cream in conditioner; we found no other reports of such tampering in the time period during which the reports appeared. We emailed Nair for information about the feasibility of the rumor, but have not yet received a response.In short, a woman claimed that a chemical hair remover was added to hair conditioner she purchased at Walmart, leading to hair loss. It is possible that Nair-tainted conditioner caused the hair loss shown here, but it is also possible that the hair loss was due to another reason and that the poster assumed that unexpected loss of hair was because of product tampering. The latter issue — product tampering in a store — had been recently reported, making it a possibility that news about product tampering led the woman to conclude that it had also happened to her.We found no additional, similar reports to suggest that the claim indicated a widespread trend. Articles claiming it was more than an isolated assertion were misleading.We will update this story as more details become available.
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13333
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If you look worldwide, the number of terrorist incidents have not substantially increased.
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"Obama said, ""If you look worldwide, the number of terrorist incidents have not substantially increased."" There is no universally accepted definition of a terrorist incident, so there is no universally accepted count. Based on State Department data, there’s been a 7 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide from 2009 to 2015. But the State Department’s criteria for what can be counted as a terrorist attack is stricter than that of other databases. According to START’s Global Terrorism Database, for instance, there was a 214 percent rise in terrorist attacks from 2009 to 2015, a substantial increase. Obama’s statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression."
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false
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National, Homeland Security, Terrorism, Barack Obama,
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"President Barack Obama spoke with veterans and active military members at a CNN town hall, discussing extended wait periods at VA hospitals and and the threat of terrorism. A major serving in the West Virginia Air National Guard asked Obama if the United States is doing anything greater to combat Islamic jihadists. He prefaced his question by saying that since Obama took office in 2009, ""there has been a substantial increase in terror attacks around the world"" and in the United States. Obama contradicted the premise of the question, though. ""It's important to recognize that if you look worldwide, the number of terrorist incidents have not substantially increased,"" Obama said. ""What we've seen are some very high-profile attacks, mostly in the Middle East, also in our European theaters."" Obama said the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also called ISIS) underscored ""that the ideology of hatred and killing had metastasized"" even after the killing of Osama bin Laden and the dismantling of al-Qaida. He also said military efforts, intelligence work and other improvements had made large-scale terrorist attacks more difficult. Obama said there had not been a ""substantial"" increase in terrorism. Even though there’s no hard number to measure that against, we decided to look into it. Obama’s numbers, and a caveat When we asked, the White House referred us to data from the State Department’s counterterrorism bureau. Terrorism is defined as ""premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents."" Looking at Obama’s time in office, worldwide terror attacks increased about 7 percent, from 10,999 in 2009 to 11,774 attacks in 2015. That’s an increase, not a decrease, but in recent years the numbers have been declining. In 2015, the total number of terrorist attacks decreased by 13 percent compared with 2014. Deaths due to terrorist attacks also decreased in 2015 compared to 2014, by 14 percent, according to the State Department figures. ""This was largely due to fewer attacks and deaths in Iraq, Pakistan, and Nigeria,"" the report said. ""This represents the first decline in total terrorist attacks and deaths worldwide since 2012."" It’s problematic, though, to compare years between 2009 and 2015, because in 2012 the State Department changed the way it collected data about terrorist attacks. In 2012, the State Department began using data from the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, from the University of Maryland. While the old count and the new count used similar methods -- data from open source information such as TV reports, specialized journals and think tank studies -- they are not exactly the same. The State Department said that due to the collection change, the data is ""not directly comparable."" ‘Conservative filter’ Erin Miller, who manages START’s Global Terrorism Database, says the numbers it provides the department amount to ""a conservative filter"" on the broader definition used in START’s own database. Totals presented by the State Department don’t include attacks targeting people in combat. They also exclude incidents in which there are mixed reports or vagueness. START’s overall count of global terrorism attacks in 2015 is at least 3,000 more than the State Department’s 2015 figure, because it includes some combat deaths and less definitive incidents. By START’s measure, there was a 214 percent increase in terrorist attacks from 2009 to 2015. Joseph Young, an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs and School of International Service at American University, said it is tough to make claims about trends in terrorism since 2009. Obama’s statement is one possible interpretation of the data. There have been small increases and decreases in attacks over recent years, shifts in targeted locations, more suicide attacks and a small decline of other terror actions, Young said. ""(Obama’s) statement is consistent with a range of outcomes,"" Young said. START and State Department data both show there were fewer attacks in 2015 than in 2014. More than 55 percent of all terrorist attacks in 2015 happened in five countries — Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nigeria, according to State Department data. The department also reported 382 terrorist attacks in Syria in 2015 (up from 232 in 2014), but says they are conservative estimates given limitations of media coverage in that country. On top of attacks and fatalities rising, terrorist arrests are also up, noted Max Abrahms, a political science assistant professor at Northeastern University. A December 2015 report from the Program on Extremism at George Washington University said 56 individuals were arrested in 2015 in the United States for ISIS-related activities, ""the largest number of terrorism arrests in a single year since September 2001."" Brent Smith, director of the Terrorism Research Center at the University of Arkansas, said there are attacks, like the one in San Bernardino, Calif., last year, where there were no arrests because the perpetrators were killed in the incident. Our ruling Obama said, ""If you look worldwide, the number of terrorist incidents have not substantially increased."" There is no universally accepted definition of a terrorist incident, so there is no universally accepted count. Based on State Department data, there’s been a 7 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide from 2009 to 2015. But the State Department’s criteria for what can be counted as a terrorist attack is stricter than that of other databases. According to START’s Global Terrorism Database, for instance, there was a 214 percent rise in terrorist attacks from 2009 to 2015, a substantial increase. Obama’s statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression."
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32135
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Washington, D.C., has no 'J' Street because city designer Pierre L'Enfant bore a grudge against Chief Justice John Jay.
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Old historical legends holds that architect Pierre L'Enfant omitted 'J' Street from his plans for Washington, D.C., because he disliked John Jay.
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false
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History, American History, district of columbia, john jay
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Our natural tendencies drive us to find order in randomness, to make sense of the nonsensical, to seek an explanation for the inexplicable … even if we have to make stuff up to achieve that satisfaction. One of the conundrums that has puzzled our orderly American minds for hundreds of years is why the neatly laid out grid of numbered and lettered streets of our nation’s capital is lacking a ‘J’ street. None of the numbered streets appears out of sequence; none of the other letters of the alphabet is passed over. Why, then, the seemingly arbitrary gap between ‘I’ and ‘K’ streets? Surely something so simple could not have come about through mere oversight, so it must have a rational explanation. Or does it? Finding the answer requires a review of how Washington, D.C., came to be our national capital in the first place. After the fledgling United States of America replaced the Articles of Confederation with a new constitution in 1788 to create a stronger federal government and “form a more perfect union,” one of the tasks that befell its First Federal Congress and its first President, George Washington, was to create the national capital called for in Article I of that constitution: To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings. The new nation was to have a new capital, built from the ground up, and the first order of business was deciding where to put it. The final choice in 1790 of a site on the Potomac River (its location between the slave states of Maryland and Virginia a tacit promise that the federal government would accept the institution of slavery) was the product of many years of political wrangling that began well before the adoption of the Constitution and the first in a series of political compromises between the commercial North and the agrarian South. (Seventy years later, unwilling to compromise any further, the two regions would engage in a four-year-long civil war.) The task of designing, laying out, and building a national capital from scratch was a daunting one, and President Washington’s first and only choice for the job was Pierre L’Enfant, a French-born artist, architect, and civil engineer who had served with the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. L’Enfant began surveying land in the new federal district in March 1791 and soon completed plans for a city featuring a system of radial avenues imposed on a grid of streets. That grid, when finally built, would lack a ‘J’ Street, giving rise to the legend that L’Enfant deliberately left the street off his plans because he bore a grudge against someone whose name began with J; the omission was allegedly L’Enfant’s sly way of thumbing his nose at the object of his enmity. Who could have been this J-named enemy of the French architect? The person most frequently mentioned is John Jay, who was named the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by President Washington in 1791 and was elected Governor of New York in 1795. The choice is obvious: Jay was a prominent member of the new federal government, both his first and last names began with the letter ‘J’, and his surname was J(ay) itself! The claim sounds even more plausible when one considers that from 1801 (when the Supreme Court relocated from Philadelphia to the new capital) until 1819, the United States Supreme Court met in a tiny committee room in the basement of the Capitol building because the original plans for Washington, D.C., failed to include a courthouse — supposedly yet more evidence that slaps directed at the face of John Jay were being engineered by Pierre L’Enfant. Why would L’Enfant bear such ill will towards John Jay? The reason usually proffered is that L’Enfant was upset with the controversial Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation (more commonly known as the Jay Treaty) that Jay negotiated with Great Britain in 1794 to settle several disputes between the two nations about matters such as British interference with American shipping, the presence of British troops in northwestern North America, and the settlement of Revolutionary War debts. The treaty was unpopular with many Americans who considered its terms far too favorable towards Great Britain, and it was seen as a betrayal of the French who had been the United States’ ally during the Revolutionary War and were now engaged in a war of their own with Great Britain. L’Enfant, a French-born American resident who had taken part in the Revolutionary War, presumably was doubly insulted by the Jay Treaty. Unfortunately, this intriguing theory falls apart when the chronology of events is considered: L’Enfant was removed from the national capital project by President Washington in early 1792 for refusing to submit to the authority of the commission in charge of the project and thus was off the job when the Jay treaty was still two years in the future. Did L’Enfant perhaps have other reasons for disliking John Jay (such as Jay’s alleged disapproval of L’Enfant’s design), or could he have borne ill will towards someone else whose name began with the letter ‘J’ (such as Thomas Jefferson)? Possibly, but L’Enfant’s plans were subject to the scrutiny of a board of commissioners who were unlikely to have allowed an architect’s personal prejudices to intrude on the orderly and functional layout of the new capital. As well, since L’Enfant was fired by President Washington before he had a chance to turn his plans into an engraving, the task was completed by Andrew Ellicott, a Baltimore surveyor with no known grudge against Jay. So, what did happen to J Street? Was it merely skipped over by accident? The disappointingly mundane explanation is that J Street was likely omitted simply because the letters I and J were often indistinguishable from each other (especially when handwritten), and in 18th century English they were still largely interchangeable. (The 1740 “New General English Dictionary” published in London had a single section for I and J, and the standard identification Thomas Jefferson used on his personal possessions was “T.I.”) Having both an “I” and a “J” street would have been redundant at best and confusing at worst, so “J” ended up as the odd man out.
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3519
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Know what to say when postpartum depression hits a loved one.
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Gwyneth Paltrow, Chrissy Teigen, Adele: The charge to destigmatize postpartum depression has never before had so many high-profile sufferers willing to share their stories.
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true
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AP Top News, Mental health, New York, Gwyneth Paltrow, North America, Lifestyle, Health, Sports, California, Serena Williams, Chrissy Teigen, Postpartum depression, Depression
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Add Serena Williams to the list. The 23-time Grand Slam champion playing in the U.S. Open took to Instagram last month after a loss in San Jose, California, to describe her feelings of inadequacy as a mother since the birth nearly a year ago of her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. “Talking things through with my mom, my sisters, my friends let me know that my feelings are totally normal,” she wrote. Postpartum depression, or PPD, does not have a single cause, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. It likely results from a mix of physical and emotional factors. The condition can last up three years after giving birth, with symptoms ranging from feelings of sadness beyond the “baby blues” to thoughts of self-harm or doing harm to the baby. According to the American Psychological Association, up to 1 in 7 women experience the serious mood disorder or worse after giving birth. The World Health Organization says about 20 percent of mothers in developing countries around the globe experience clinical depression after childbirth. Though public discourse on postpartum depression has never been higher, a stigma persists. Friends, co-workers and loved ones who haven’t experienced depression themselves may be at a loss for how to help. “I think people are scared to talk about it, but many people suffer and want to know they are not alone,” said Talya Knable, a Baltimore counselor with friends and clients who struggled. “People need a lot of support.” When it comes to attempting that support, she said, there are sentiments to avoid: “Everyone has a hard time, you will get used to it. I didn’t feel depressed when I had a baby. It can’t be that bad. You don’t need medication to get through this. Don’t you love your baby? This is what you always wanted, you should be happy!” Developing a more positive vocabulary when looking from the outside in is a matter of reassurance, Knable said: “You are a great mother and doing a great job. This part is really hard. It will get better. You are not alone in this. I am here to help if you need me. I know you are trying really hard. You can do this!” Amanda Munday in Toronto suffered from severe postpartum depression and was hospitalized for 18 days following the birth of her first child, a daughter who is now 4. Her list of what not to say includes: “Is the baby healthy, though? Sleep when the baby sleeps” and “It’s just your hormones, it will pass.” She suggests reaching out instead with: “You are a good parent. Those dark thoughts do not define you” and “You are allowed to put yourself first.” Heidi McBain is a Flower Mound, Texas, therapist who specializes in maternal mental health. She struggled with postpartum anxiety herself after a miscarriage and went into therapy for grief and loss when she got pregnant again. The anxiety continued after the birth of her son, who is now 9. Her what-to-say list is short and to the point: “How can I help?” Her do-not-utter list covers some common missteps: “Why would you need medication from your doctor? Are you sure this isn’t all in your head?” Seeing a doctor is precisely what a woman should do if she fears the “baby blues” have crossed into more dangerous territory, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The term “baby blues” is often used to describe “feelings of worry, unhappiness and fatigue that many women experience after having a baby,” the agency said. Up to 80 percent of mothers experience such feelings in a somewhat mild form, lasting a week or two and going away on their own. Postpartum depression is when sadness and anxiety can be extreme and interfere with a woman’s ability to care for herself or her family, the institute said. It usually requires treatment. “Finding a therapist who specialized in postpartum mood disorder and the right medication under supervision of a psychiatrist is what helped me get better. It’s an illness that needs professional treatment,” said Jen Schwartz, co-founder of the blog motherhood-understood.com. Getting out of the house as a new mother suffering severe PPD can be a problem, said Carole Brody Fleet in Orange County, California. She suffered after the birth of her now 29-year-old daughter, at a time when fewer women were willing to speak out. Finding it difficult to leave the house, she received over-the-phone counseling from La Leche League. “The most important step for me in treating PPD was understanding that reaching out for help was not a sign of weakness or failure as a new mother,” she said. Dr. Adeeti Gupta, who founded Walk In GYN Care with two clinics in New York, has one sentence that loved ones should never let slip out: “Are you depressed and unhappy about being a mother?”
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27959
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Teachers have gotten into trouble over using 'The L.A. Math Test,' a piece of online humor, in the classroom.
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Teachers have been censured over using 'The L.A. Math Test,' a piece of online humor, in the classroom.
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true
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Humor, Qwazy Questions
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The Internet humor piece variously entitled “The L.A. Math Proficiency Test” or “The City of Los Angeles High School Math Proficiency Exam” has been part of online lore since at least 1993, and some of our readers recall having seen photocopied versions of it as far back as the mid-1980s: Name:__________________________ Gang:__________________________ 1. Johnny has an AK-47 with an 80-round clip. If he misses 6 out of 10 shots and shoots 13 times at each drive-by shooting, how many drive-by shootings can he attempt before he has to reload? 2. Jose has 2 ounces of cocaine and he sells an 8-ball to Jackson for $320 and 2 grams to Billy for $85 per gram. What is the street value of the balance of the cocaine if he doesn’t cut it? 3. Rufus is pimping for three girls. If the price is $65 for each trick, how many tricks will each girl have to turn so Rufus can pay for his $800-per-day crack habit? 4. Jarone want to cut his 1/2 pound of heroin to make 20% more profit. How many ounces of cut will he need? 5. Willie gets $200 for stealing a BMW, $50 for a Chevy, and $100 for a 4X4. If he has stolen 2 BMWs, 3 4X4s, how many Chevies will he have to steal to make $800? 6. Raoul is in prison for 6 years for murder. He got $10,000 for the hit. If his common law wife is spending $100 per month, how much money will be left when he gets out of prison and how many years will he get for killing the bitch that spent his money? 7. If the average spray can covers 22 square feet and the average letter is 3 square feet, how many letters can a tagger spray with 3 cans of paint? 8. Hector knocked up 6 girls in his gang. There are 27 girls in the gang. What percentage of the girls in the gang has Hector knocked up? 9. Thelma can cook dinner for her 16 children for $7.50 per night. She gets $234 a month welfare for each child. If her $325 per month rent goes up 15%, how many more children should she have to keep up with her expenses? 10. Salvador was arrested for dealing crack and his bail was set at $25,000. If he pays a bail bondsman 12% and returns to Mexico, how much money will he lose by jumping bail? Over time the “exam” has gone through some changes, notably the inclusion of questions 9 and 10 (which were not part of the earlier versions). Its humor is obvious: it simultaneously deplores the state of education in large urban centers and furthers the myth that teens from such regions are thoroughly steeped in a drugs, guns, gangs, and promiscuity culture by asserting that even the math questions directed towards them have to be framed in that context to be relevant to their lives. None of the Norman Rockwellian “Johnny has three apples; if he sells two to Ben, then Becky gives him five, how many does he now have?” innocence appears here — even the test’s header furthers the jape by asking for the student’s name and gang affiliation, presenting the casual presumption that all the high schoolers being given the test are gang members. Obvious humor or not, the “test” has landed a number of educators into trouble over the years. The Canadian National Post reported that a teacher at the Juniper School in Thompson, Manitoba, was suspended from her duties in June 2002 for distributing this test to students: A Manitoba school district has barred a Grade 8 instructor from classroom teaching for a year after she distributed a math quiz that used pimps and cocaine trafficking to illustrate questions of arithmetic. The 10-question quiz asked how much Willie would make for stealing a number of luxury cars, the distance a thief could travel on a stolen skateboard before he gets “whacked,” and how many “tricks” a day three prostitutes must turn to support their pimp Rufus’s cocaine habit. The School District of Mystery Lake in Thompson, Man., suspended the veteran Juniper School teacher on June 5, two days after irate parents brought the “joke” test to the district’s attention. This week the district disciplined her further by assigning her to non-classroom teaching until June, 2003. The teacher has not been identified. “I don’t know where she got the idea to give this to kids. We were outraged,” one student’s father, who asked not to be identified, told The Winnipeg Sun. The father saw the “Juniper School Math Proficiency Exam” after his young son brought his copy home from school. (Diana Hiscock, general manager of the Thompson Citizen, said that the controversial quiz wasn’t given out as an official school assignment or test: “The teacher gave it to a few of her grade 8 students to read as a fun thing. They took it home, and one of the parents saw it and complained to the school board.”) In 2007, Will Klundt, a teacher at Moriarty High School in Moriarty, New Mexico, incorporated the following question into the final exam he administered to his fall semester algebra freshman class: Smoky J. sells meth. Smoky’s source says he has to sell a G’s worth of meth by the end of the month. If Smoky sold $240 the first week and $532 the second week, how much money must Smoky make if he wants to avoid the beat down from his connection? Wayne Marshall, the school’s principal, declined to discuss whether any disciplinary action would be taken against the teacher. In 2008, a Barrie, Ontario, police officer was suspended from duty for forwarding a version of the “L.A. Math Test” to other officers via e-mail: A Barrie police inspector in charge of professional standards has been relieved of his duties after sending an e-mail containing racially inappropriate material to fellow officers. James Farrell, a 30-year police veteran, admitted to forwarding the inappropriate message to officers under his command. The offensive e-mail with the subject line “Afrocentric MATH for Toronto’s new black only school” was initially addressed to three officers and the entire street crime unit. It was then forwarded and passed along within the organization eventually coming to light when an officer contacted The Toronto Star. The message resembles a school math test with 10 “problems” based on firearms use, drug deals, pimping, theft and other criminal offences. In 2016, an Alabama teacher on the verge of retirement was put on leave after she reportedly gave the test to a middle school math class: On the eve of retiring from her long career as an educator at Burns Middle School in Mobile, Ala., a teacher gave a math test that students and parents say had racist overtones and references to inappropriate subject matter. Questions included: Tyrone knocked up 4 girls in the gang. There are 20 girls in his gang. What is the exact percentage of girls Tyrone knocked up? Those named in these later examples are far from the first persons to have been disciplined for distributing the “L.A. Math Test.” In 1997, six teachers at the Elsie Robertson High School in Lancaster, Texas, and another at the Norte Vista High School in Riverside, California, were suspended for doing the same thing. Likewise, in 1994, a Chicago elementary school teacher who gave a similar test was suspended for thirty days without pay and then resigned. Also in 1994, an Indiana high school teacher who gave the test apologized but was suspended anyway. And in 1993, a similar test was printed on phony school letterhead and passed around at workplaces in Redwood City, California.
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36973
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The United States government is paying people $3,000 a week to smoke marijuana through a federal clinical study.
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Does the Government Pay People $3,000 a Week to Smoke Marijuana?
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false
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Fact Checks, Politics, Viral Content
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A rumor that the United States government is paying people $3,000 a week to smoke marijuana through a federal clinical study has all the ingredients it needs to go viral: Money, marijuana, and federal involvement.This particular rumor began with now-defunct repeat offender News Watch 33, which only published hoax and satire stories, but which was formatted to look like a site belonging to a local television station in order to hoodwink unsuspecting readers into sharing its articles.In a story that has since been removed from the site (which itself is now defunct), News Watch 33 appeared to report in September 2015 that a clinical study paid participants $3,000 per week to smoke weed.Then, in November 2015, the false report resurfaced when two blog sites rekindled the flame. A website called The Joint Picked up the story with a story headlined,“Federal Study Will Pay You $3,000 Per Week to Consume Cannabis”:The United States National Research Center (NRC) has been commissioned by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) to conduct comprehensive research evaluating the effects of cannabis on the human body.The research, which will take part in seven facilities across the nation, is intended to determine whether or not cannabis can be used to relieve stress and stress-related disorders, while allowing consumers of the plant to maintain normal function in their lives.“This is one of the first, very promising studies, that will finally reveal the answer of the age old acquisition that stoners are ‘Just Lazy’,” says lead researcher Michael Gregory. “It’s an exciting new study that may push the legality of marijuana to all 50 states.”For the research, participants will be required to stay at the facility for six months (making it immediately un-doable for many if not most people), while performing various everyday activities such as cleaning, watching TV and reading, while also regularly consuming cannabis. During all of this, participants will be evaluated by medical staff.The Joint Blog later posted an update saying that the National Institute of Drug Abuse had informed them that there was no such study, and apologized for the confusion.However, as is the nature of such things, the original false claim went much further than the correction. The site Green Rush Daily then picked up the report, which never was retracted or corrected — but it is also false.Also, it should be noted that Congress voted in July 2015 to block federal studies on medical marijuana. House Republicans shot down an amendment that would have encouraged the National Institutes of Health and the Drug Enforcement Agency to work together on studies to determine its potential medical benefits. While there are indications that attitudes toward marijuana are softening throughout the federal government, the timing of that particular vote underscores the satirical intent behind this story.
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15579
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Georgia is on track for 1,200 traffic fatalities this year, a reversal of nine years of declines.
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Georgia DOT Commissioner Russell McMurry said in recent news reports that the state is on pace to see 1,200 people die in traffic accidents this year – all before the start of the busy summer driving season. Transportation numbers back up that claim. That data, and figures about the number of registered vehicles in the state, also confirm that would be the first time in nine years that Georgia has not seen a decline in those deaths.
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true
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Georgia, Public Safety, Transportation, Russell McMurry,
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"PolitiFact Georgia was revving up for the summer driving season when a statement from the head of the Georgia Department of Transportation caught our attention. The state is on pace to see 1,200 people lose their lives on Georgia roads this year, Commissioner Russell McMurry said in news reports. If that happens, it would be a reversal after nine years of declines. Is that possible, even before the busy season of summer? We set aside our packing – we’ll decide on a bikini or one-piece later – and decided to check. As recently as January, PolitiFact Georgia confirmed that road fatalities appeared to be declining again in Georgia. But by April, when five Georgia Southern nursing students died in a pileup crash outside Savannah, scores of single-car crashes had sent the trend line in the other direction. As of Tuesday morning, 465 people had been killed in vehicle crashes in Georgia, state DOT data show. That’s 69 more deaths, or 17 percent more, than during the same period in 2014. That keeps Georgia with an average of 100 deaths a month, which would result in a year-end total of 1,200 deaths for the first time since 2011. It would also be the first year-to-year increase in nine years, as this chart shows: Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Totals 1,505 1,298 1,250 1,236 1,199 1,189 1,169 So the GDOT commissioner is right on the overall numbers – a scary enough prospect. But to compare apples to apples, it’s worth calculating the rates of death as well. That is, would the current pace create the first year deaths don’t decline relative to the number of cars on the road, too? Yes, according to data from the state Department of Revenue. The number of vehicles registered annually is: Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Totals* 8.64 8.57 8.59 8.71 8.92 8.32 8.80 9.12 *In millions, rounded In 2008, there were about 8.6 million registered vehicles in Georgia. That translates into 1.7 deaths for every 10,000 registered car or truck. In 2014, with nearly 8.8 million registered vehicles but fewer fatalities, the rate dropped to .1.3 deaths for every 10,000 vehicles. Should Georgia stay on pace to an even 1,200 deaths – improbable but an exact number to compare against the 9.1 million vehicles registered this year – the rate holds at 1.3 deaths. It’s not an increase, of course. But it’s not the steady decline in rate, as well as overall numbers, that transportation officials had hoped to see continue and that McMurry noted. And, the rate still means that more people are dying in traffic accidents at a time when the state has seen 95 percent compliance in seat belt usage – a large factor in reducing fatalities, said Teri Pope, a spokeswoman for the Northeast DOT region. DOT data shows that 62 percent of people killed in crashes are not wearing the simple safety devices. ""A lot of these deaths are preventable, and that’s the heartbreaking part of it,"" Pope said. In other words, driver behavior is the, well, driver of the spike in roadway deaths. In an effort to counter that, the DOT has partnered with the Governor’s Office on Highway Safety and the state Department of Public Safety to launch the Drive Alert, Arrive Alive campaign. The effort focuses on education efforts about the dangers of driving drowsy or while using mobile phones – both considered distracted driving – and greater enforcement of seat belt usage and safe driving. In other words, PolitiFact Georgia expects to see lots of safety reminder signs and state troopers on the roads. You should, too. Our ruling Georgia DOT Commissioner Russell McMurry said in recent news reports that the state is on pace to see 1,200 people die in traffic accidents this year – all before the start of the busy summer driving season. Transportation numbers back up that claim. That data, and figures about the number of registered vehicles in the state, also confirm that would be the first time in nine years that Georgia has not seen a decline in those deaths."
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"When New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer wanted to ""provide driver’s licenses to those who are undocumented. (Hillary Clinton) said don’t do it."
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Climate change protesters blocked traffic across London’s government district of Westminster on Monday as they launched two weeks of peaceful civil disobedience to call for urgent action to curb carbon emissions.
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true
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Immigration, Florida, Bernie Sanders,
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Police said they had arrested 135 activists from the Extinction Rebellion group by 1130 GMT. The group expects 10,000 people will come to the capital from across Britain to join the two-week protest, which is part of a coordinated international movement. There were similar climate protests on Monday in Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam, Madrid and other cities around the world. Large crowds of protesters blocked some of Westminster’s largest and busiest roads, bridges and squares, carrying banners with slogans such as “Climate change denies our children a future unless we act now”. Banging drums and chanting, they took over the tourist hotspot of Trafalgar Square and marched down the Mall, the broad tree-lined avenue that leads to Buckingham Palace. Some activists glued or chained themselves to cars parked in the middle of roads or to street lamps, making it hard for police officers to detain them. “We’re here because the government is not doing enough on the climate emergency,” said protester Lizzy Mansfield. “We only get one planet and so we’re here to try and defend it.” Extinction Rebellion rose to prominence in April when it disrupted traffic in central London for 11 days. More than 1,000 activists were arrested, of whom 850 were prosecuted for various public disorder offences. So far, 250 have been convicted. The Metropolitan Police has adopted more proactive tactics this time. Police chiefs said last week they would mobilise thousands of officers to handle the protests and that anyone who broke the law, even as part of non-violent civil disobedience, would be arrested. On Saturday, officers used a battering ram to enter a building in south London where the activists had been storing materials to use during the two-week protest. Eight people were arrested during the raid. Extinction Rebellion said the police response showed that British authorities considered the group a significant movement. Early on Monday, a group of activists locked themselves to a mock nuclear missile outside the Ministry of Defence, calling on the government to redirect funds spent on Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent towards policies to combat climate change. “Climate not Trident” read a banner by the fake missile. Richard Dyer, a retired doctor from Scotland who was taking part in the street protests, said he regarded it as an extension of his medical career because climate change was the biggest threat yet to public health. “People in the environmental movement and climate scientists have been trying to persuade the public and government to take serious action and nothing has happened,” he said. “We want to use any way we can to make people and governments sit up and notice.”
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Wichita VA hospital moves to remove former Missouri doctor.
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The Department of Veteran Affairs hospital in Wichita has begun the process required to remove a doctor who is under scrutiny for allegedly harming patients in Missouri while performing robot-assisted surgeries that were beyond his capabilities.
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true
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Michael Brown, Health, General News, Kansas, Wichita, Business, Veterans
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The VA hospital said it has proposed that Christel O. Wambi-Kiesse be removed from the hospital but declined to give a reason After the proposal for removal is made, the employee has seven business days to respond. The VA then must make a final removal decision no later than 15 business days from the date the proposed removal was delivered to the employee. The hospital began investigating the 44-year-old urologist after The Kansas City Star reported that Missouri’s Board of Registration for the Healing Arts was seeking to discipline Wambi-Kiesse. The board cited three examples, all during 2013, while he was working for a now-defunct urology clinic associated with Centerpoint Medical Center in Independence. One woman died from an infection two months after Wambi-Kiesse punctured her bladder while performing a biopsy and failed to repair the damage, according to the complaint. In the two other cases, men aged 71 and 68, suffered complications after prostate surgeries that took three times longer than they should have, the board said. The Star reported Wambi-Kiesse declined to comment Monday. Wambi-Kiesse’s medical license is up for renewal at the end of January. The disciplinary complaint that could strip him of his license is pending and no hearing date has been set. ______ This story was first published on December 30, 2019. It was updated on December 31, 2019 to make clear that the Veterans Affairs hospital in Wichita has started the process of removing a doctor under scrutiny for allegedly injuring patients in Missouri but the doctor has not yet been fired.
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Amendments end California governor’s unease on vaccine bill.
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Amendments to an emotionally fraught bill designed to crack down on fraudulent vaccine exemptions change the legislation’s focus just two days before a key Assembly committee hearing.
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true
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Immunizations, Health, General News, Legislation, California, Gavin Newsom
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The bill’s author, Sen. Richard Pan, negotiated the amendments after Gov. Gavin Newsom expressed reservations about shifting too much power to state bureaucrats. He now says he’ll sign it. Among the changes: — Instead of every medical exemption, state health officials would target their reviews to doctors who issue five or more exemptions in a year, and to exemptions at schools where the vaccination rate dips below 95%. — Instead of limiting exemptions to those used by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it now also allows criteria developed by the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the American Academy of Pediatrics. It also permits consideration of “other contraindications or precautions, including consideration of family medical history” if they are “consistent with the relevant standard of care.” — The amendments require physicians to file the exemptions under oath, which critics fear open doctors to the possibility of prosecution for perjury. — If a child’s medical exemption is revoked, the amendments would allow parents to appeal the decision to a panel of doctors appointed by the secretary of Health and Human Services.
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3208
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Florida governor calls for teacher raises, new abortion law.
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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called for teacher raises, the eradication of Burmese pythons in the Everglades and a new law to force girls to get their parents’ permission before getting an abortion during his State of the State address on Tuesday.
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true
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Legislature, General News, Florida, Ron DeSantis, Environment, Education, Laws
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DeSantis said keeping taxes low, improving education and protecting the environment will help Florida continue to grow. He said he wants to build on some of his successes from his first year in office. “In 2019, we took bold steps to expand educational opportunities, protect our environment and natural resources, reform health care, invest in infrastructure and bolster public safety — all while reducing taxes and maintaining healthy budget reserves,” DeSantis said. “While we should look with favor on these bold beginnings, we have much more to do.” The speech marked the opening of the Legislature’s annual 60-day session. He spoke in the House chamber, where lawmakers desks’ were covered in flowers. Members of the Supreme Court and the state’s three Cabinet members also attended the address. While touting a boost in adoption rates, DeSantis told lawmakers he wants them to pass a bill that would require girls under the age of 18 to get their parents’ permission to get an abortion. The state already requires girls’ parents be notified if they have an abortion. DeSantis also said he wants lawmakers to pass a wide-ranging bill to address Florida’s algae problem. The goal is to reduce fertilizers and nutrients flowing into the state’s waterways. “I believe that stewardship of our natural resources is key to our economic well-being — our water is the foundation of our tourism industry, makes Florida the top fishing and boating destination in the world and enhances our property values,” DeSantis said. DeSantis also called for a bill that would require employers to use E-verify, a system that ensures people are legally allowed to work in the United States. “Lower-income workers ... shouldn’t have their wages depressed by cheap foreign labor. Assuring a legal workforce through E-verify will be good for the rule of law, it will protect taxpayers, and it will place an upward pressure on the wages of Floridians who work in blue collar jobs,” DeSantis said. “We need to make sure that our Florida citizens from all walks of life come first.” DeSantis also wants the Legislature to raise the state’s minimum salary for teachers to $47,500, which he says will boost the pay for 100,000 educators. In addition to raises, he wants to make sure students are taught American civics and the U.S. Constitution. “This means understanding the source of our rights, and it means understanding the theory of the Declaration of Independence, understanding the structure of the Constitution and as well as key amendments such as the Bill of Rights, the post-Civil War amendments and the Nineteenth Amendment. This also means developing an appreciation for how these enduring principles animated key points in American history,” DeSantis said. Much of his agenda would build on his policies for education, the environment and immigration. “He’s focused on the vision that he cast last year. This was a ‘We don’t need major course corrections. I understand the direction that we want to take the state. We’re doing many things right. Let’s stay on course’,” said Republican Sen. Jeff Brandes. “Education, the environment, immigration — all of those issues were part of the overall bold vision last year. He’s riding a high after last year.” Democratic Rep. Loranne Ausley said she was pleased the governor spent much of his speech talking about the environment and education. “He is leading on these issues that have strong bipartisan support,” Ausley said. But while she agrees teachers should get raises, she said the governor’s approach doesn’t go far enough. “$600 million is a start, but we need to make a long time commitment to our schools and our teachers,” Ausley said.
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24812
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The biggest job of the surgeon general is to translate health care and health care needs into plain English.
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Surgeon General is more than spokesman, oversees public health
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mixture
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National, Health Care, Howard Dean,
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"President-elect Barack Obama's widely reported intention to appoint Sanjay Gupta, a 39-year-old neurosurgeon and CNN reporter, as the nation's surgeon general has drawn flak from several directions. Gupta is known primarily for his work as a TV reporter, though he's clearly identified as a medical doctor. A number of commentators have attacked Gupta's health care reporting for criticizing Michael Moore's film Sicko in a segment on CNN. A blogger at Gawker joked that Gupta must have beat out Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. Some advocates of the Commissioned Corps, a team of federal health workers led by the surgeon general, say the job should go to someone who rose through the ranks. Defenders of the choice, including former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean, and the consumer advocates at the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, have cited Gupta's communication skills. Here's how Dean put it in a Jan. 7, 2009, appearance on MSNBC's Hardball : ""I think he's a great appointment,"" Dean told host Chris Matthews. ""I'll tell you why he's a great appointment. The biggest job of the surgeon general is to translate health care and health care needs into plain English that people can understand, ordinary people can understand. That's what Sanjay Gupta has been doing for a living for quite a while."" Communication is indeed a major part of the job. Surgeons general have long held the symbolic post of the ""nation's doctor,"" offering advice on smoking cessation, obesity, AIDS prevention and a host of other public health issues through speeches, news conferences, congressional testimony and formal reports. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under which the surgeon general serves, lists this sort of public outreach as the first of seven official duties of the surgeon general. In congressional hearings about the nature of the position in 2007, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said ""he or she should be the health educator for Americans par excellence."" A subsequent surgeon general, David Satcher, said the office has evolved since its inception in 1873 but ""what has not changed about the Surgeon General’s Office is its direct responsibility for communicating with the American people based on the best available science, and its responsibility for responding to public health emergencies."" So yes, by job description, tradition and widespread consensus, the surgeon general is the medical communicator in chief, you might say. But that's not the whole truth. The surgeon general also oversees the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service, 6,000 uniformed public health workers assigned to other government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health. His administrative duties over the corps are limited, to be sure, because the positions are funded and the officers overseen day-to-day by the heads of the agencies to which they're assigned. But he sets standards for the corps, has significant administrative responsibilities and serves as the group's titular leader. More significant is the surgeon general's customary responsibility to represent the federal government on various elite boards and commissions. Past surgeons general have sat alongside national and global health experts at the National Library of Medicine, the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization, for example. In these settings, medical gravitas would seem to matter far more than mass-communication skills. But most importantly, Dean glossed over a crucial component of the public outreach part of the job — you have to know what to say. Surgeon generals don't just present public health initiatives, they craft them. Surgeon generals' reports — the landmark example of which is Smoking and Health, the 1964 report in which the government first spelled out to the public that smoking causes lung cancer — are generally years in the making. ""It's not like you just sit down and write this report,"" Richard Carmona, who served as the 17th surgeon general, from 2002 to 2006, said in a telephone interview. ""They take a long time and they only happen if you have the credibility and knowledge to extract this information properly. You're working with people at the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, you're looking at heart science, clinical science — your credibility comes in. Your peers have to respect you and see you as a nonpartisan arbiter of the best science."" Gupta is a practicing neurosurgeon and an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Emory University School of Medicine, and he writes a column for Time magazine in addition to reporting for CNN. We'll leave it to Congress and others to decide whether that qualifies him to be surgeon general. And if Gupta does get the position, he and Obama have a certain amount of latitude to make of it what they like. But being doctor to the nation has traditionally involved more than just advising it on health issues — you have to check up on it first. Surgeon general is a public health position, not a public affairs position. Communication may be the ""biggest part of the job"" in a sense, but many other medical and administrative skills are required. We find Dean's statement ."
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36288
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People sometimes ingest metal fragments from grill brushes and become seriously injured.
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Can Grill Brushes Cause You to Ingest Metal and Become Ill?
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On July 14 2019, a Facebook user shared a photograph purportedly illustrating the risks posed by grill brushes and the metal they can leave behind attaching to food that is consumed. In an attached status update, the poster warned:I would suggest to anyone that has a metal brush to clean your grill get rid of it. This is the result of eating a bristle off of one. I am looking at a long recovery. — at Pelham Medical Center.In the attached image, an exposed abdomen bears a long and painful-looking scar with more than twenty staples. No other details about the image were included with the post, but the obvious inference was that this was the result of surgery that was required after inadvertently ingesting metal fragments left on a grill by a cleaning brush.No information was included about how the injury manifested or which symptoms people already exposed to grilled foods might exhibit. However, news stories from previous years indicated that even if rare, summer grilling has occasionally led to people accidentally consuming food with grill brush debris attached.In May 2015, CBS reported that a Connecticut woman had been treated for the same injury. Her symptoms were described as a “sharp” and “unusual” pain:[In May 2015], a woman in Connecticut needed emergency surgery to remove a wire barbecue brush bristle from her digestive tract — and doctors say she’s not the first. Cheryl Harrison of Wallingford, Connecticut, was rushed to the hospital by her husband after feeling a sharp and unusual pain in her stomach.That pain was caused by a single stray bristle that had fallen off the metal grill cleaning brush and found its way into the hamburger she ate. She came into the emergency room within a day because of severe abdominal pain. After a CT scan showed the wire, doctors were able to remove it from her stomach through laparoscopic surgery.The article went on to describe a similar case in which the patient was not made aware of the injury as quickly. One doctor stated the injury was difficult to identify because the small size of the bristles meant they were difficult to find:Dr. Aziz Benbrahim, her general surgeon at MidState Medical Center, told CBS News she was lucky because she came in right away. A previous patient of his who had a grill brush wire stuck in his system waited for a couple of weeks. It had punctured his intestine.“I had to open him up completely, ” said Benbrahim. “Then we remove this wire and we found out also why he had chest pain — because he also had pulmonary embolism, which is a blood clot in his lungs.”“He was just lucky he was still alive,” he added. “All from this wire.”[…]“Nobody knows the statistics, that’s the problem. The only paper published talks about 6 or 7 cases and I believe it’s a much, much more common,” Benbrahim said. “When I was talking to my colleagues at the hospital, I was surprised that all of them had at least one or two patients like this. I didn’t think it was that common. And this isn’t a very big hospital, so I assume that in a bigger hospital they would have more.”The story further noted that in one hospital, at least six patients had similar injuries from ingesting grill brush wire over an 18-month period. One year later, WTSP reported that a man in Florida was injured the same way:A warning if you plan to fire up the grill this holiday weekend. A Lakeland man discovered a hidden health hazard the hard way, and it could be on your grill right now.“This is my little parting gift,” says Clif Hennecy. It’s a souvenir from the doctor’s office that Hennecy never imagined his doctor would find stuck in his stomach during a routine checkup.“It’s just a tiny, little bristle, but it’s stainless steel,” says Hennecy.The Lakeland man says the metal bristle came from the brush he used to use to clean his grill.“It’s a scary proposition having one of those lodged inside your stomach. It can cause abscesses, and cause infections, and it can cause people to die,” Hennecy says.And in July 2017, a boy in Canada was hurt when he swallowed wire fragments:Jenna Kuchik was kicking back after a July 4 [2017] barbecue with her fiance and three children when her 4-year-old son, Oliver Schenn, began to scream in pain.Terrified, Kuchik ran for the EpiPen. Oliver, whom Kuchik and her fiance, Matt Schenn, affectionately call Ollie, has a severe nut allergy. But the boy was not exhibiting any of symptoms of a reaction — only choking, screaming and crying.Twenty-four hours and two hospitals later, Ollie would emerge from surgery after doctors removed two tiny metal fibers from his esophagus. The culprit: the family’s wire barbecue brush.That outlet included some statistics about frequency, noting it was low but acute, and possibly underreported:Barbecue brushes have caused an estimated 1,698 emergency room visits from 2002 to 2014, according to a study published in 2016 in the journal Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. The rate of injuries is low when compared to similar emergencies, like children ingesting batteries, but the study’s lead, Dr. David Chang, associate professor at the University of Missouri’s department of otolaryngology, believes the data underrepresents the total volume of injuries. Urgent care clinics and primary care doctors likely see many similar cases that aren’t covered by the data in Chang’s study.A 2018 Consumer Reports article provided alternative methods of cleaning a grill without the ubiquitous wire brush:Consider alternative cleaning tools. Depending on what type of grill you have, you might try cleaning warm grill grates with a tool such as a pumice stone or a coil-shaped bristle-free brush. Check your owner’s manual for recommendations … You can also brush loose food particles off a warm grate with a wad of crumpled-up aluminum foil. Make sure grill grates are not hot enough to burn you.The claim about ingesting grill brush wires and requiring hospitalization represents a known but rare risk. Experts advise anyone who experiences symptoms like stomach pain after consuming grilled food to seek medical attention. Instead of using a wire grill brush, consumer safety advocates advise alternative grill cleaning methods, such as aluminum foil.
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26531
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Viral image Says Queen Elizabeth said Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte “is the kind of leader who knows the way .... Filipinos are very lucky to have him.”
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Queen Elizabeth delivered a speech addressing the coronavirus on April 5, but she didn’t mention President Rodrigo Duterte.
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false
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Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Viral image,
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"Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned that people who flout the country’s lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus could be shot. On April 5, Al Jazeera reported that police had killed a man for refusing to follow restrictions. Did Queen Elizabeth offer words of support for the president the following day? A Facebook post claims that during her ""message of hope amid the coronavirus pandemic,"" the queen called Duterte ""the kind of leader who knows the way."" ""Filipinos are very fortunate to have him,"" the quote continues. ""Seriously, he looked so overworked. He may not be perfect, but he truly loves his country. Philippines doesn’t have the worst government. It actually has the worst citizens."" This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Queen Elizabeth did deliver a rare speech on April 5 (not April 6, like the Facebook post says), thanking United Kingdom residents for staying inside and vowing that they would succeed in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. She didn’t mention Duterte or the Philippines. Searching for the quote online, we didn’t find any credible sources showing that she said it elsewhere, either."
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"A COVID-19 protester held a sign that said ""muzzles are for dogs and slaves,"" alongside an illustration of a masked woman of color."
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‘Muzzles are for Dogs and Slaves’ COVID-19 Protest Sign
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On May 18 2020, a photograph purportedly from a COVID-19 anti-lockdown protest began circulating, which showed a white woman holding a sign reading “muzzles are for dogs and slaves” alongside an illustration of a black woman wearing a mask or a face covering:Inside the mind of white conservatives. pic.twitter.com/wflisE1mUX— Chad Loder (@chadloder) May 18, 2020In the above tweet, the woman is holding what appeared to be a box top with the image of the black woman on the left, and the “muzzles and slaves” verbiage on the right. The image was the first Google result for “slave mask,” and it led to a Wikimedia Commons page featuring a woman who was called Escrava Anastacia (“Slavewoman Anastacia”):That same image was featured on the full page for Escrava Anastacia, who is an unofficial saint venerated in Brazil:A slave woman of African descent, Anastacia is depicted as possessing incredible beauty, having piercing blue eyes and wearing an oppressive facemask. Although not officially recognized by the Catholic Church, Anastacia is still an important figure in popular Catholic devotion throughout Brazil. She is also venerated by members of the Umbanda and Spiritist traditions. She has also been portrayed in Brazil in books, radio programs and a highly successful television miniseries bearing her name.That page goes on to say that Escrava Anastacia lacks an official history, and that the details of her life story vary but in all versions, “she is enslaved and cruelly treated by her owners” and “Anastacia stoically bears these traumas and treats all people with love.” According to that same Wikipedia page, she eventually died of tetanus:Eventually, she is punished by her owners by being forced to wear a muzzle-like facemask, which prevents her from speaking, and a heavy iron collar. The reasons given for this punishment vary: some stories report her aiding in the escape of other slaves, others claim she resisted the amorous advances of her master, and yet another places the blame on a mistress jealous of Anastacia’s beauty. After a prolonged period of suffering, all the while performing more miracles of healing and peace, Anastacia dies of tetanus from the collar. It is often claimed that she healed the son of her master and mistress, and forgave their cruelty as she died.In a section about the hagiography of Anastacia, the page emphasizes her portrayal wearing a mask:While there are reports of black Brazilians venerating an image of a slave woman wearing a facemask throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, the first wide-scale veneration of the Saint began in 1968 when the curators of the Museum of the Negro, located in the annex of the Church of the Rosary of the Brotherhood of St. Benedict in Rio, erected an exhibition to honor the 80th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Brazil. Among the displays was an engraving of a female slave wearing a punishment facemask. The image soon became the object of popular devotion and members of the Brotherhood began collecting Anastacia stories in the early 1970s.As for the sign, it was real and unaltered. It appeared on May 16 2020 in two separate images attached to a post on KymKemp.com, and at :03 in this video. A woman shown in one photograph was identified as Larkin Small, 37:Larkin Small said it was her first time ever coming to a demonstration and that this is what it took to get her out of her house at the age of 37.For the more widely circulating version of a woman in sunglasses holding the sign, a caption read:Gretha Stenger came out to stand with people who were deeply concerned about the Stay-at-Home orders and their repercussions.One of many comments on the post read:The sign that Larkin Small and Gretha Stenger are holding made me nauseous. Although I do not agree with the position of this protest, I do support the right of people to raise their voices for something they believe in, but the blatant ignorance and racism that the sign reflects is outrageous. Equating enslaved African American with dogs, and humans being chained and muzzled with a mandate to wear masks–WTF?? ?The post itself covered a small May 15 2020 protest in Eureka, California, at the Humboldt County Courthouse. Some of the additional signs visible read:Pan-Demic caused entirely by Dem-PanicSocial-ISM DistancingCOVID-19 has a 99% survival rate. Why are we locked up?An image of a woman holding a sign reading “muzzles are for dogs and slaves” at a COVID-19 anti-lockdown rally in Eureka, California was one of many similar signs from weeks of astroturfed and inauthentically organized and promoted demonstrations that have gone viral. Previous iterations included one urging leaders to “sacrifice the weak,” an anti-Semitic “the real plague” sign, Nazi imagery, and myriad iterations with poor spelling.Update, May 19 2020, 1:37 PM: Stenger, one of the women depicted, provided a statement to a local news outlet after her “muzzles are for dogs and slaves” sign went viral, and claimed she did not make the sign herself:“Holding that sign up at the lockdown protest was a grave mistake and I ask forgiveness from all those who I have caused pain. As I had no sign of my own, it was handed to me by another protester and a photographer took the picture before I considered the racist implications. My intent was to take a stand for the freedom of all human persons and I mistakenly held a sign that conveyed the opposite. Please know that I respect the dignity of all people and I sincerely regret any suffering it has caused.”Stenger did not directly address several of the Times-Standard’s questions about the ongoing stay-at-home order or the equivalencies drawn between that and slavery.The outlet was unable to reach Small for comment.Comments
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36445
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"Each week, 21 fathers die by suicide influenced directly by ""child access issues"" or child custody disputes."
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Do 21 Fathers Die of Suicide Each Week Because of Child Custody Disputes?
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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In March 2019, a photo-based Facebook image post (archived here) contained the claim that 21 fathers died by suicide every week specifically because of “child access issues”:The post included a status update comment and a message on a sign which read, respectively:To all you women who play god with your kids just to get one up on the babies dads this is for you!! !🖕🏻every week 21 FATHERS TAKE THEIR OWN LIFE DUE TO CHILD ACCESS ISSUESNeither citations nor a source were included alongside the image and commentary. One initial unclear aspect of the claim was its scope — was it intended as a global figure, or did it represent suicide deaths in a specific country? And by what means was this purported statistic reached? Commenters largely accepted the claim as fact, and did not offer up any clues about possible sources for the figure. The image was shared to Reddit’s r/pics in February 2019 (“There is a socially accepted gender bias in the family court system, and I just wanted to remind everyone that its not ok”), and received significant traction.The specific claim that 21 fathers died by suicide each week due to custody issues was fact-checked by TheConversation.com in November 2017, which provided some details about the original version of the claim. According to that piece, the claim originated in Australia (not the United States or United Kingdom) in 2017.Specifically, it originated from a member of Australia’s far-right political party One Nation:But the truth of the matter is, we’ve got to see what is going on in that family unit, because there are up to 21 fathers killing themselves every week in this country and people need to be aware of that.– One Nation Queensland leader Steve Dickson, speaking to media, November 11, 2017.Discussing One Nation’s domestic violence policy at a campaign event on the Sunshine Coast, One Nation Queensland leader Steve Dickson said “up to 21 fathers” were taking their lives in Australia every week.The same number was cited in a media statement quoting Tracey Bell-Henselin, the party’s candidate for the Sunshine Coast seat of Glass House.Bell-Henselin said there had been “an increase in male suicide, with estimates as high as 21 suicides per week because of the family breakdown nationally.”This earlier iteration (emphasis ours) included immediate caveats that did not appear in subsequent versions — for example, that the quoted number of suicides was the purported high end of an estimate (“up to” is not “the same as”) and that originally the claim was about “family breakdown,” an exceptionally nebulous term that was exceptionally vague and may have covered custody disputes, but also divorce and myriad other issues relating to familial dysfunction.Observing that there were “no data available to support Steve Dickson’s assertion” and that “national statistics do not provide detail to show whether men who have died by suicide were fathers,” TheConversation.com added that their attempts to validate the claim were unsuccessful, and that its source was, at best, a number based on nothing but anecdotes and guesswork:Asked for sources to support Steve Dickson’s and Tracey Bell-Henselin’s claims, a One Nation spokesperson sent The Conversation a statement which quoted Dickson as saying:I am being told by ambulance officers that they are attending more and more cases where a man has taken his own life after being through the family court system.The Conversation also included the additionally dubious context of the comments at their origin in November 2017. At the time Dickson made them, he was arguing to weaken domestic violence protections:Queensland One Nation leader, Steve Dickson … claimed credit for One Nation’s domestic violence policy, which potentially could allow fathers to continue to see their children, even if an emergency protection order had been awarded.“Many people say that domestic violence is only about the lady,” Dickson said.“We absolutely respect women, I’ve been married for 31 years, as we all should respect women. But the truth of the matter is, we’ve got to see what is going on in that family unit, because there are up to 21 fathers killing themselves every week in this country and people need to be aware of that.At the same event, Dickson rather oddly claimed that young children were being exposed to explicit sex education lessons involving dildos and masturbation, a rumor that bears a marked resemblance to years-old, thoroughly debunked rumors about American schools:[Dickson then addressed] what he termed “the controversial safe schools program” which One Nation have vowed to ban if they win the balance of power.“We are having little kids in grade four, at school, these are young girls being taught by teachers how to masturbate, how to strap on dildos, how to do this sort of stuff, that is the real problem in this country,” he said.“Our state is being infiltrated by mad lefty people who want to destroy the family unit. That is the question you should be asking.”Skepchick’s Rebecca Watson reiterated the original November 2017 fact check in a February 2019 post, adding that the claim did not hold for the United States either:But does the system keep men away from their children? The research says absolutely not, at least here in the United States. More than half the time, fathers don’t even ask for custody. When they do, the cases that end up in court are vanishingly small: only about 5% of all custody cases are decided by a court. And in those cases, the gender of the parent isn’t significant according to research like an in-depth meta-analysis from 2013, which found that the most important factors in gaining custody were mental stability, criminal history, and financial resources. They did find that in some cases fathers (but not mothers) were less likely to get sole custody if they were poor, but mothers (and not fathers) were less likely to get custody if they had ever been hospitalized for a psychiatric condition.The population of Australia was estimated at approximately 24.6 million to the United States’ 325.7 million, which would skew the figure of 21 suicides quite a bit if it was accurate, which it was not. Adjusted, the 21 suicides weekly in Australia would average 279.3 in the United States, at which point the claim beggars belief even more.The claim that 21 fathers died by suicide each week due to “child access issues” fell flat on a number of levels. First, no such data has ever been collected by any agency in the United States or Australia, the country in which the dubious claim was first made. Further, research indicates that absent factors such as fathers declining custody, few disparities exist in custody courts between women and men in either country.
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18255
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The United States has never stood by and seen innocent people slaughtered to the extent that's happening in Syria.
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"Chambliss said, ""The United States has never stood by and seen innocent people slaughtered to the extent that's happening in Syria."" That claim is undercut by myriad examples in which more than 100,000 civilians were killed yet the United States did not take direct and significant action."
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false
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National, History, Foreign Policy, Military, Saxby Chambliss,
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"Last week, the United States announced that it was convinced that the Syrian regime led by Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons, thus crossing a line set by President Barack Obama that would trigger U.S. involvement in the three-year-long rebellion and resulting civil war. On CNN’s The Situation Room, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., made the case for U.S. involvement in Syria. Chambliss serves as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. ""The United States has never stood by and seen innocent people slaughtered to the extent that's happening in Syria,"" Chambliss said. ""The United States does not need to be the world's policeman, but the United States does need to step in when tyrants like this, really, in a very militant way, kill innocent people on a regular basis."" We wondered: Is there a precedent for the United States failing to intervene in the slaughter of innocents on a scale as large as, or larger than, the conflict in Syria? The first part of answering this question is to determine how many people have been killed in Syria. As in the case of most conflicts, estimating the number of deaths tends to be imprecise. However, an office of the United Nations reported this month that the death toll in Syria reached at least 93,000 by the end of April. Of course, the United States has combated, in one way or another, cases of mass civilian deaths, including World War II Japan, North Korea during the Korean War, the former Yugoslavia, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Taliban-led Afghanistan. A spokeswoman for Chambliss said the senator was referring to ""tragedies like Bosnia, where the United States had full knowledge of the abuses occurring, and had the ability and resources to intervene. The United States now has confirmation that Assad used chemical weapons on his own people, and so appropriate action must be taken."" But there are numerous examples in which the U.S. had initelligence about mass killings and chose not to intervene. The most obvious example of a genocide not directly challenged by the United States, of course, is the Holocaust. ""You need search no further"" to debunk Chambliss’ comment than the genocide of European Jewry, said Debórah Dwork, director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. All told, Nazi Germany ""deliberately killed about 11 million noncombatants, a figure that rises to more than 12 million if foreseeable deaths from deportation, hunger, and sentences in concentration camps are included,"" Timothy Snyder, a Yale historian, has written. The United States fought Nazi Germany in World War II, of course. The U.S. government had a pretty good idea what was going on by at least April 1943, when the U.S. and the United Kingdom called a conference in Bermuda to discuss refugees amid growing public urgings to save Jewish populations in Europe, Dwork said. But the parties to the conference essentially sidestepped the question, and diverting military assets to directly challenge the infrastructure of the Holocaust remained off the Allies’ agenda until the war ended in 1945. There are other examples -- lots of them. While politics and historical uncertainty makes it impossible to create a perfect list, there are quite a few examples that would seem to undercut Chambliss’ claim. • Communist China. While the United States was hardly friendly toward Mao Zedong’s China prior to President Richard Nixon’s rapprochement in the 1970s, the U.S. didn’t directly intervene when millions in China were killed in such government programs as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Frank Dikötter, a Hong Kong-based historian, told the British newspaper The Independent that in just the four-year period between 1958 and 1962, at least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death. Measuring a longer period, the death toll would surely be higher. • The Soviet Union. As for the United States’ World War II ally, Snyder estimates that a variety of policies under Josef Stalin -- including the elimination of relatively prosperous peasants known as ""kulaks,"" ethnic cleansing, preventable famine and political purges -- resulted in the deliberate killing of 6 million noncombatants and the preventable deaths of an additional 3 million. • Cambodia. Dictator Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, is believed to have killed approximately 2 million people between 1975 and 1979 through execution, starvation and disease. • The Armenian genocide. The widespread killing of Armenians in the Ottoman empire starting in 1915 is hotly contested historical turf between Armenians and present-day Turks, but the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has estimated that a total of 1.5 million Armenians died over the course of several years. • Ethiopia. Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam is blamed for as many as 500,000 deaths as a result of his ""red terror"" political campaign in 1977 and 1978, according to Amnesty International. A subsequent famine, for which he is at least partially blamed, claimed the lives of an estimated 1 million. • Biafra. From 1967 to 1970, Nigeria went to war against the breakaway state of Biafra. The war, combined with a resulting famine, may have claimed 1 million people. • Rwanda. In just 100 days, perhaps 1 million ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Earlier this year, former President Bill Clinton told CNBC that if his own administration had acted sooner, 300,000 lives might have been saved -- an enormous regret for the former president that led to the creation of his nonprofit foundation. ""If we'd gone in sooner, I believe we could have saved at least a third of the lives that were lost,"" he said in the interview. ""It had an enduring impact on me."" • Uganda. During his rule from 1971 to 1979, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin is blamed for between 300,000 and 500,000 deaths. • Darfur. Over the course of a decade, Sudanese government attacks in the southwestern region of Darfur led to the deaths of an estimated 300,000 people. • Liberia. Liberian Dictator Charles Taylor and the wars he started are blamed for the deaths of more than 300,000 people. • Bangladesh. The war that led to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 -- previously a geographically isolated portion of Pakistan -- led to the deaths of 269,000 people, according to a study in the British Medical Journal. • Burundi. Ethnic violence starting in 1993 led to the deaths of about 200,000 people in Burundi. All in all, Chambliss’ statement ""is clearly incorrect,"" said Herbert Hirsch, a political scientist who specializes in genocide at Virginia Commonwealth University. Indeed, the list above is not comprehensive. University of Hawaii political scientist R.J. Rummel lists no fewer than 219 cases between 1900 and 1987. ""While I definitely do not endorse Rummel’s entire catalog, his basic point is surely sound: Government-led or government-caused slaughter has been a good deal more lethal than traditional state-on-state war,"" said Ted R. Bromund, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. ""I would therefore not be able to agree with Sen. Chambliss's statement."" Bromund and Brookings Institution senior fellow Michael O’Hanlon did agree, however, that the decision on whether to intervene in Syria needs to be made on its own merits, not decided by adherence to the United States’ track record. ""There are many cases where we’ve stood by with much larger death tolls,"" O’Hanlon said. ""But that doesn’t really justify inaction in Syria."" Then again, ""adopting a rule to intervene against all and any regime that kills innocents on a regular basis would mean getting involved in numerous countries around the globe,"" said Robert Gellately, a historian at Florida State University. ""Rushing into a hot conflict like the one in Syria does not appear to be prudent at this stage."" Our ruling Chambliss said, ""The United States has never stood by and seen innocent people slaughtered to the extent that's happening in Syria."" That claim is undercut by myriad examples in which more than 100,000 civilians were killed yet the United States did not take direct and significant action."
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7537
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Fauci warns: More death, econ damage if US reopens too fast.
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The U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert issued a blunt warning Tuesday that cities and states could “turn back the clock” and see more COVID-19 deaths and economic damage alike if they lift coronavirus stay-at-home orders too fast -- a sharp contrast as President Donald Trump pushes to right a free-falling economy.
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true
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AP Top News, International News, Anthony Fauci, General News, Politics, Health, Infectious diseases, Travel, Donald Trump, Asia Pacific, Virus Outbreak, Europe, Economy
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“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” Dr. Anthony Fauci warned a Senate committee and the nation as more than two dozen states have begun to lift their lockdowns as a first step toward economic recovery. The advice from Fauci and other key government officials — delivered by dramatic, sometimes awkward teleconference — was at odds with a president who urges on protests of state-ordered restraints and insists that “day after day, we’re making tremendous strides.” Trump, whose reelection depends to a substantial degree on the economy, talks up his administration’s record with the virus daily. Underscoring the seriousness of the pandemic that has reached Congress and the White House, Fauci and other experts testified from their homes. Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander chaired the hearing from the study in his cabin in Tennessee, although several committee members attended in person in an eerily empty Capitol Hill chamber, masked and sitting 6 feet apart. The tension in balancing people’s safety from the virus, which is still surprising doctors with the sneaky ways it can kill, against the severe economic fallout is playing out in many other countries, too. Italy partially lifted lockdown restrictions last week only to see a big jump in confirmed COVID-19 infections in its hardest-hit region. And Lebanon relaxed a national lockdown late last month but said Tuesday the restrictions are being reinstated for the rest of the week after a spike in reported infections. More infections and deaths are inevitable as people again start gathering, but how prepared communities are to stamp out those sparks will determine how bad the rebound is, Fauci told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “There is no doubt, even under the best of circumstances, when you pull back on mitigation you will see some cases appear,” Fauci said.. Move too quickly and “the consequences could be really serious,” he added. It not only would cause “some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to try to get economic recovery.” With more than 30 million people unemployed in the U.S., Trump has been pressuring states to reopen. A recent Associated Press review determined that 17 states did not meet a key White House benchmark for loosening restrictions — a 14-day downward trajectory in new cases or positive test rates. Yet many of those have begun to reopen or are about to do so, including Alabama, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah. Of the 33 states that have had a 14-day downward trajectory, 25 are partially opened or moving to reopen within days, the AP analysis found. Other states that have not seen a 14-day decline, remain closed despite meeting some benchmarks. Fauci expressed optimism that eventually vaccines will arrive, along with treatments in addition to the one drug that so far has shown a modest effect in fighting COVID--19. But it would be “a bridge too far” to expect them in time for fall when schools hope to reopen, he said. For now, “all roads back to work and back to school go through testing,” said Alexander, the Republican committee chairman. Although Trump declared this week, “we have met the moment, and we have prevailed” in increasing and improving virus testing, Republican senators on the panel were noticeably less sanguine. A lack of testing has dogged the U.S. response from the beginning, when a test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ran into numerous problems. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney said the U.S. may finally have outpaced testing leader South Korea but that country has far fewer deaths because it started testing early. “I find our testing record nothing to celebrate whatsoever,” Romney said. Trump administration “testing czar” Adm. Brett Giroir said the U.S. could be performing at least 40 million to 50 million tests per month by September. That would work out to between 1.3 million to 1.7 million tests per day. Harvard researchers have said the U.S. must be doing 900,000 by this Friday in order to safely reopen. And a test only tells if someone is infected that day — they could catch the virus the next day. Pushed by Alexander on how the nation’s 100,000 schools and 5,000 colleges could reopen in August, Giroir expressed confidence there would be enough tests for schools to devise safe strategies, perhaps by testing a certain number of students every few days. Worldwide, the virus has infected nearly 4.2 million people and killed over 287,000 — more than 80,000 deaths in U.S. alone, the world’s highest toll. Fauci said U.S. deaths likely are higher than the official count. While Fauci has become the trusted science voice for millions of Americans, Sen. Rand Paul expressed frustration with his cautions. The Kentucky Republican said Fauci was not the “end all” in knowledge about the coronavirus and it’s “kind of ridiculous” to suggest children shouldn’t go back to school -- something Fauci never said. “We don’t know everything about this virus and we really better be pretty careful, particularly when it comes to children,” Fauci said. While children do seem less susceptible, doctors in New York are investigating about 100 youngsters whose COVID-19 may be linked to a rare and dangerous inflammatory reaction. Three have died. COVID-19 is devastating nursing homes as well, with infections and deaths soaring among residents and their caregivers. “If we are able to get masks to everybody in the White House, I hope we can get masks to every nursing home employee who needs it,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., who also asked why those vulnerable populations were having a hard time getting tested when employees in contact with Trump get a daily test. The White House recently recommended that states test all nursing home residents and staff within the next two weeks. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., blasted the Trump administration for “criminally vague” guidance on how states can safely reopen their economies. He pressed CDC Director Robert Redfield on why detailed recommendations prepared by agency experts had been shelved, as reported by The Associated Press. Redfield replied that those recommendations should appear on the agency’s website soon. Three of Tuesday’s experts, Fauci, Redfield and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn, are in “modified quarantine” after two White House staffers recently became infected but they’re allowed to attend critical administration meetings, masked and keeping their distance. ___ Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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34492
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Panhandling is a lucrative business, averaging an hourly rate of $50.
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We have contacted Sims as well as the original article’s author, but have not yet received a response to our question about the origin of the $50 figure.
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unproven
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Business, begging, homeless, panhandlers
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On 12 December 2016, the Dallas Morning News published an article about a new initiative to recruit panhandlers for day labor — but as is sometimes the case, a single excerpt of the piece caught readers’ attention: The proposed jobs program would pay people $10.37 an hour for day labor, either cleaning up litter or working in parks. The effort mimics an initiative in Albuquerque, NM. But city leaders caution the program might not work, at least not on panhandlers. Some can make more than $50 an hour, making other work unappealing. “The reason why they’re doing this is it’s very lucrative,” said Alan Sims, Dallas’ chief of Neighborhood Plus. The origin of the $50 per hour figure was not immediately clear, but both the author of the piece and the person quoted (Alan Sims of Neighborhood Plus) made statements about the potential profitability of panhandling. But the assertion that panhandlers make large sums of money is not new; one version posted to our message board in 2009 repeated the rumor that many downtrodden beggars were “secret millionaires,” made wealthy by posing as people in need: Maybe it’s the economy – people have money on the mind – or maybe it’s because I recently moved to Los Angeles, which (believe it or not) has a lot more panhandlers than my native New York. Whatever the cause is, the old “I heard some panhandlers are actually millionaires” has come up in conversation much more often recently. Whenever it does, it’s always accompanied by statements like “I saw it on TV once” or “My Mom swears it’s true.” I’m still waiting on proof. It seems more like a popular construct than truth; if I can believe a grubby panhandler is really a secret millionaire, I can feel less guilty when I don’t give him any change. We’re all hurting for money in one way or another right now, and perhaps the fantasy of panhandling ones way to fortune is a nice thing to think about. Rumors about dishonest beggars often serve as parables to illustrate our broader fears and attitudes about panhandling and being swindled, vulnerability to those who would fleece us, and general anxiety about to how often our trust in others might be misplaced. Kindly people getting defrauded or harmed by those posing as victims is a perennial theme in modern folklore, inviting us to test and reframe our true opinions about the poor, needy, and down on their luck. A stranded or distressed person isn’t just often a potential con artist in these tales of caution, but also frequently a violent individual, gang member, or murderer. Because of the inherent risk of extending trust, the rumors say, we’re more likely to become a victim than to help one. As for the age of the trope itself, readers pointed to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1891 Sherlock Holmes short story “The Man with the Twisted Lip”; a primary plot point involves the discovery of an apparently destitute man who is in fact living a secret “reputable” life. Just as its impossible to produce even a ballpark figure of how many folks on the streets are truly, desperately in need, so too is figuring out how much the average panhandler can make. Location, season, visibility, personality, appearance, the economy, and a giver or mark’s own views of the activity are among the variables that affect how lucrative it can be. Numerous articles including “estimates” of panhandling incomes are available; one penned by a self-identified panhandler described an “average is closer to $15 than $30,” adding that panhandling for more than a few hours at a time was “nearly impossible” due to police, weather, and public aggression. A 2002 paper from the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, typically cited other police materials or dated research in an excerpt about the “Economics of Panhandling”: Most evidence confirms that panhandling is not lucrative, although some panhandlers clearly are able to subsist on a combination of panhandling money, government benefits, private charity, and money from odd jobs such as selling scavenged materials or plasma. How much money a panhandler can make varies depending on his or her skill and personal appeal, as well as on the area in which he or she solicits. Estimates vary from a couple of dollars (U.S.) a day on the low end, to $20 to $50 a day in the mid-range, to about $300 a day on the high end. Women—especially those who have children with them—and panhandlers who appear to be disabled tend to receive more money. For this reason, some panhandlers pretend to be disabled and/or war veterans. Others use pets as a means of evoking sympathy from passersby. Panhandlers’ regular donors can account for up to half their receipts. The absolute highest estimate was placed at about $300 a day, or $50 per hour for six hours of begging. But the report estimated a daily average of $20-50 was more common, and came from the perspective of policing panhandlers. Research conducted in Toronto and published in 2002 referenced both some more rigorously collected average panhandler “takes,” as well as one of myriad news articles alleging that begging was surprisingly lucrative: Panhandlers in Toronto reported a median monthly income of $300 from panhandling and $638 from all sources. The amount of payment that panhandlers were willing to accept for participating in a 20-minute survey was generally consistent with their self-estimated earnings from panhandling for the same length of time. This suggests that few panhandlers earn extremely large amounts of money. Their single largest reported expense was food, followed by tobacco, then alcohol and/or illicit drugs. These findings differ significantly from those of John Stackhouse, a journalist who briefly lived on the street in Toronto working as a panhandler and who reported that panhandlers can earn more than $200 per day and typically spend “almost all their begging money on their addictions” and very little on food. Informal findings collected by one individual and reported by a news outlet in 2013 tracked more closely with the actual research than the “wealthy panhandler” trope: He said a panhandler can make more than minimum wage. His informal “study” took place at the exit ramp off highways 205 and 99 in Oregon City. The man behind the study, David Spears, spent two weeks last summer on that Oregon City exit ramp — and recorded his findings. “I got my oldest pair of work pants, a ratty T-shirt, I grew out my beard as far as it would go,” Spears told KOIN 6 News. And he made — on average — $11.10 an hour. That’s more than $2 above Oregon’s minimum wage of $8.95. A $300 monthly average income and spending donated money on food was far less attention grabbing than the trope of the wealthy panhandler, but research didn’t indicate anywhere near a $50 hourly take was common for beggars under the best of conditions. That dichotomy was present in a November 2015 article titled “How Much Do Panhandlers Make? New York City Homeless Man Earns $200 An Hour Sitting On Sidewalk With Dog[. ]” Although the headline suggested yet another tale of street beggars drowning in money, its content belied the commonly referenced idea: A myriad of perceptions and myths about panhandlers in the United States abound, with the predominant one being that those who sit on the sidewalk asking for handouts are lazy and spending whatever money they get on alcohol or drugs. In 2013, researchers in San Francisco surveyed 146 panhandlers and found that most make less than $25 per day. And while it found that 94 percent spent that money on food, it also found that 44 percent would use it for drugs or alcohol and that 25 percent and 32 percent of those surveyed were addicted to alcohol and drugs, respectively. A survey conducted in 2001 on panhandlers’ income and spending patterns in Toronto found that 70 percent would prefer a minimum-wage job over panhandling. The median monthly income from panhandling was found to be $300. “Few panhandlers earn extremely large amounts of money,” the researchers said their findings indicated. Although hard, reality-based numbers about panhandler income are difficult to track down, no credible source suggests that panhandlers are regularly earning $50 an hour under any conditions. Most studies indicate that a monthly average is well below minimum wage earnings (and that money was determined to most likely be spent just on food). Although panhandlers intermittently do report random incidents of extreme generosity, “wealthy panhandlers” seem to exist primarily in questionably authenticated news exposés about begging scams.
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8949
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Surgery technique reduces strokes in atherosclerosis patients
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This release from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center describes a phase 2 clinical trial that looked at whether an existing surgical procedure could be used to reduce the rate of recurrent strokes or death among patients with severe brain artery blockages. It gives a numerical comparison between those benefiting from the surgery and those who only received “intensive medical management.” And the researchers state that those results show that the procedure — encephaloduroarteriosynangiosis (EDAS) — “significantly decreases the rate of stroke recurrence and death.” However, the difference between these groups for the main outcome of the study was not statistically significant — which should have been clearly disclosed and which contradicts the stated claim that the surgery is more effective. We call on Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and EurekAlert! to retract or correct the release before it leads to misleading news coverage about this procedure. It’s clear that patients with intracranial atherosclerotic disease (a condition involving severe brain artery blockages) are at considerable risk of both strokes and death, so any new alternative approach to treating this condition would be a welcome addition to the options these patients and their families can consider. But like any brain surgery, this procedure would be complicated and information about its risks and benefits and the evidence behind it needs to be clearly communicated to patients.
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mixture
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atherosclerosis,Cedars-Sinai Medical Center,stroke
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The release doesn’t mention cost although the surgical procedure used in the research is both already established practice and a complicated and extensive operation. Given that the surgery is being compared to simple medical management, the cost of the new approach will be substantially higher, and therefore deserves mention in this release. The release provides readers with a numerical comparison of the study’s results, in this case, the prevention of subsequent strokes or death among these patients. According to the release, in those receiving the EDAS procedure, after one year, 9.6% of patients had a later stroke or died, compared to more than twice that number (21.2%) from a matched control group who didn’t receive this surgery. (We discuss the limitations of these results under the Evidence criteria, below.) The release addresses harms criteria with the following statement: “Two of the EDAS patients had small wound openings that required additional surgical interventions, but there were no intracranial hemorrhages or other serious adverse events, the researchers reported.” While we’ll award a borderline satisfactory, we wish that the release had cautioned that a study of 52 people is incapable of identifying harms that might occur with a larger and broader sample of patients. The release adequately explains that this was a phase 2 trial enrolling 52 patients with severe brain atherosclerosis, also known as intracranial atherosclerotic disease, or ICAD, who showed symptoms of either a recent stroke or a mini-stroke, called a transient ischemic attack. These patients received the EDAS procedure and intensive medical management. The comparison control group used patients who “received only intensive medical management,” which included “diet and lifestyle changes, blood thinners and other medications to control blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels.” However, the study results were not statistically significant. (Reviewer Dan Mayer, MD, who is a retired professor of emergency medicine at Albany Medical College and taught statistics for 22 years, calculated the absolute difference as 11.5% with a 95% confidence interval of -2.6% to +25.5%, therefore not statistically significant.) Accordingly, the claim that the surgery “significantly decreases the rate of stroke recurrence and death” is inaccurate and misleading. The 11.5% difference between the groups met the researchers’ “criteria for non-futility and advancement to phase 3,” meaning that they believe the results warrant additional study in a larger trial. But the results do not establish that the surgery was more effective than medical management as claimed in the news release. The release should be corrected by both the issuing institution, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and the EurekAlert! public relations newswire which carried it. No disease-mongering here. The release includes context on the annual rates of recurrent stroke or death for ICAD patients. The release explains that the study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health. The release covers alternatives to the EDAS surgery with the following: “Current ICAD therapies — in addition to intensive medical management — include bypass surgery to connect a blood vessel from outside the brain to a vessel inside the brain, as well as angioplasty with stenting, which involves inflating a tiny balloon inside a cerebral artery to open it up and placing a stent device inside the artery. Despite advances in medical care, annual rates of recurrent stroke and death remain high, at 15 percent or more for ICAD patients, according to published research.” Since the therapy was compared to intensive medical therapy only, it is not clear how this procedure compares to other vascular surgical therapies (such as bypass surgery or angioplasty with stenting, both named in the release). If 52 patients with 9.6% recurrent stroke (5 patients) were compared to 52 hypothetical patients with a 15% recurrent stroke rate (8 patients), the results would not be statistically significant and would have a significantly high likelihood that they occurred by chance alone. This kind of statistics manipulation can mislead readers into believing there is a big difference between this new therapy and older vascular surgical therapies. This procedure is currently available, as explained here: “EDAS has been used for moyamoya disease, a rare cerebrovascular disorder that affects younger patients.” However, there are relatively few facilities that treat moyamoya disease. Saying how many sites have the ability and expertise to do the EDAS procedure would have been more helpful. The release quotes an expert stating that “This clinical trial moves us significantly closer to preventing strokes and death in high-risk populations.” But is that really the case when the results show lack of statistical significance? This release and potential news coverage of it could lead to false hopes by patients who have had a TIA or stroke and are looking for any available therapy to reduce their risk of recurrence. The release claims that the described procedure “significantly decreases the rate of stroke recurrence and death for patients with severe atherosclerosis of the brain arteries” but as noted under the Evidence criteria, the results did not demonstrate statistical significance.
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24735
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"Claims that former Sen. Tom Daschle said, ""Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them."
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Daschle didn't say seniors should accept rather that treat conditions that come with age
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false
|
National, Health Care, Chain email,
|
"Some chain e-mails remind us of a bad Three's Company episode. One roommate overhears something a little wrong and leaps to all sorts of misguided conclusions. Hijinks ensue. The latest chain e-mail sent to us from a reader puts some words into the mouth of former Sen. Tom Daschle that raised our eyebrows. Daschle, you may recall, was once President Barack Obama's choice to be secretary of health and human services. He stepped down from consideration amid revelations about tax problems, but some think his fingerprints can be seen in some of the health provisions in the economic stimulus package signed by the president in February. According to the e-mail (read the full text here ), Daschle was quoted in a Bloomberg story saying, ""Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them."" We thought that sounded a bit impolitic, and fairly callous, for a former senator to say, and so we decided to check it out. As with most e-mail claims, it starts with a grain of something. Bloomberg did run a story about health provisions in the stimulus package on Feb. 9, 2009, under the headline ""Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey."" It was a commentary piece written by Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York and an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. McCaughey warned that the stimulus included several troublesome provisions identical to ideas outlined by Daschle in his 2008 book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis. Midway through the article, McCaughey includes this paragraph: ""Daschle says health care reform 'will not be pain-free.' Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt."" We contacted McCaughey to see which parts of this were her words and which were Daschle's. The phrase that health care reform ""will not be pain-free"" is a direct quote from Daschle, she explained. She said the sentence beginning ""Seniors should be more accepting"" was her paraphrasing of an argument in Daschle's book in which he quotes David Mechanic, a health care policy expert at Rutgers University, saying, ""more and more of what were once seen as social, behavioral, or normative aspects of every day life, or as a normal process of aging, are now framed in a medical context. ... Whether wrinkles, breasts, or buttocks, impotence or social anxieties, or inattention in school, they all have become grist for the medical mill."" We think it's a stretch to summarize Daschle's position as saying that seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. Not treating wrinkles is one thing. Not treating, say, heart disease, is another. But that's fair enough for McCaughey to opine. This is labeled an opinion piece. The point is that these are McCaughey's words, not Daschle's. The last sentence, ""That means the elderly will bear the brunt,"" was her conclusion, McCaughey said. McCaughey said she is a meticulous scholar and ""I regret any misrepresentations made by others of my work or Mr. Daschle's views."" Our efforts to reach Daschle for comment were not successful. In the chain e-mail, quote marks are shifted, clouding the issue of who is actually speaking, and the e-mail suggests that Daschle actually said that. The e-mail begins: ""Apparently, seniors are expendable — treating us is not worth the expense (unless you're a congressman!). Then later: Tom Daschle was credited today by Bloomberg with the following statement. Bloomberg: ""Daschle says health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them."" The e-mail ends, urging, ""Please use the power of the Internet to get this message out. Talk it up at the grassroots level. We have an election coming up in one year and nine months. We have the ability to address and reverse the dangerous direction the Obama administration and its allies have begun and in the interim, we can make their lives miserable. Let’s do it!"" A few shifted quote marks make all the difference here. Instead of McCaughey's words, they become Daschle's. That kind of thing may have made for '70s sitcom gold, but here it just muddies the debate. We rule the claim in this e-mail ."
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1623
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Venom experts say global snake bite death tolls 'grossly underestimated'.
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Venom specialists said on Wednesday disease and disability caused by snake bites is far higher than official global health estimates suggest and antivenom stocks are running dangerously low.
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true
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Health News
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In a joint statement after a five-day conference in Britain, the international experts said snake bites kill more people than all other so-called Neglected Tropical Diseases combined, yet get little attention or funding from the World Health Organisation (WHO) or from governments. Citing new evidence from a study in India and Bangladesh, the experts said around 46,000 people died annually of snake bites in India, plus another 6,000 in Bangladesh. The WHO estimates the annual death toll in India from snake bites is 10,000. “Snake bite ... is almost completely ignored and grossly underestimated,” said Alan Harvey, head of the International Society of Toxinology, who led the meeting. “WHO and governments need to ... rank snake bite where it belongs — as a very real public health and medical concern which needs funding, training and focus.” Bites from snakes such as cobras, mambas and vipers mainly affect people living in rural areas of sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia with scant health facilities nearby. Antivenom treatment can cost between $250 and $500, the experts said, meaning many victims either seek no treatment at all or go to local witch doctors or herbalists. Despite high death rates, the WHO in 2013 downgraded snake bite to a “neglected condition” with no formal program on how to address it as a health threat, the experts said. The specialists also warned that antivenom stocks are running “dangerously low” in many risk areas and said there is a “real crisis in the quantity and quality of antivenoms in rural areas, where they are needed most”. Even where antivenom stocks are good and of high quality, there is often a shortage of medical staff trained in how to administer them safely or effectively.
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33822
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"The nursery rhyme ""Ring Around the Rosie"" is a coded reference to the Black Plague."
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People love to create and spread invented backstories for simple nursery rhymes.
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false
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Language, Literary Legends
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“Ring Around the Rosie” is simply a nursery rhyme of indefinite origin and no specific meaning, and someone, long after the fact, concocted an inventive “explanation” for its creation. Every child has happily joined hands with friends and recited the familiar nursery rhyme, “Ring around a rosie, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” Few people realize to what this seemingly happy little nursery rhyme actually refers. This nursery rhyme began about 1347 and derives from the not-so-delightful Black Plague, which killed over twenty-five million people in the fourteenth century. The “ring around a rosie” refers to the round, red rash that is the first symptom of the disease. The practice of carrying flowers and placing them around the infected person for protection is described in the phrase, “a pocket full of posies.” “Ashes” is a corruption or imitation of the sneezing sounds made by the infected person. Finally, “we all fall down” describes the many dead resulting from the disease. If “few people realize” that a “seemingly happy little nursery rhyme actually refers” to the Black Plague, so much the better, because the explanation presented above is apocryphal. The “Black Plague” was the disease we call bubonic plague, spread by a bacillus usually carried by rodents and transmitted to humans by fleas. The plague first hit western Europe in 1347, and by 1350 it had killed nearly a third of the population. Although some of the details of the plague offered in this putative “Ring Around the Rosie” explanation are reasonably accurate (sneezing was one of the symptoms of a form of the plague, for example, and some people did use flowers, incense, and perfumed oils to try to ward off the disease), the notion that they were behind the creation of this nursery rhyme is extremely implausible for a number of reasons: [“Ring Around the Rosie” is sometimes said to have originated with a later outbreak of the plague which occurred in London in 1665, to which all of the following reasoning applies as well.] Ring a ring a rosie, A bottle full of posie, All the girls in our town, Ring for little Josie. Round the ring of roses, Pots full of posies, The one stoops the last Shall tell whom she loves the best. Ring-a-ring o’ roses, A pocket full of posies, One for Jack, and one for Jim, And one for little Moses. A-tischa! A-tischa! A-tischa! Ring, a ring o’ roses, A pocket full o’ posies, Up-stairs and down-stairs, In my lady’s chamber — Husher! Husher! Cuckoo! Quite a fervent imagination is required to maintain that any of these variations has anything to do with a plague, and since they were all collected within a few years of each other, how could anyone determine that the “plague” version of “Ring Around the Rosie” was the original, and the other versions later corruptions of it? (And why is it that this rhyme supposedly remained intact for five centuries, then suddenly started sprouting all sorts of variations only in the late nineteenth century?) The explanations of the rhyme’s “true” meaning are inconsistent, and they seem to be contrived to match whichever version of “Ring Around the Rosie” the teller is familiar with. For example, the purpose of the “pocket full of posies” is said to be any one of the following: Likewise, multiple meanings are claimed for the repetition of “ashes” at the beginning of the last line: The word “ashes” cannot be “a corruption of the sneezing sounds made by the infected person” and a word used for its literal meaning. Either “ashes” was a corruption of an earlier form or a deliberate use; it can’t be both. Moreover, the “ashes” ending of “Ring Around the Rosie” appears to be a fairly modern addition to the rhyme; earlier versions repeat other words or syllables instead (e.g., “Hush!”, “A-tischa!”, “Hasher”, “Husher”, “Hatch-u”, “A-tishoo”) or, as noted above, have completely different endings. Children were apparently reciting this plague-inspired nursery rhyme for over six hundred years before someone finally figured out what they were talking about, as the first known mention of a plague interpretation of “Ring Around the Rosie” didn’t show up until James Leasor published The Plague and the Fire in 1961. This sounds suspiciously like the “discovery,” several decades after the fact, that L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was written as a coded parable about Populism. How come no contemporaries of Baum — those much closer in time and place to what he was writing about — ever noticed this? The answer is that Baum merely authored a children’s book, and it was only much later that someone invented a fanciful interpretation of it — an interpretation that has become more and more layered and embellished over the years and has now become widely accepted as “fact” despite all evidence to the contrary. It isn’t difficult to imagine that such a process has been applied to “Ring Around the Rosie” as well, especially since we humans have such a fondness for trying to make sense of the nonsensical, seeking to find order in randomness, and especially for discovering and sharing secrets. The older the secret, the better (because age demonstrates the secret has eluded so many others before us), and so we’ve read “hidden” meanings into all sorts of innocuous nursery rhymes: The dish who ran away with the spoon in “Hey Diddle, Diddle” is really Queen Elizabeth I (or Catherine of Aragon or Catherine the Great), or “Humpty Dumpty” and “The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe” describe the “spread and fragmentation of the British Empire.” (The process is aided by a general consensus that some nursery rhymes, such as “Old King Cole,” quite likely were actually based on real historical figures.) So, what does “Ring Around the Rosie” mean, then? Folklorist Philip Hiscock suggests: The more likely explanation is to be found in the religious ban on dancing among many Protestants in the nineteenth century, in Britain as well as here in North America. Adolescents found a way around the dancing ban with what was called in the United States the “play-party.” Play-parties consisted of ring games which differed from square dances only in their name and their lack of musical accompaniment. They were hugely popular, and younger children got into the act, too. Some modern nursery games, particularly those which involve rings of children, derive from these play-party games. “Little Sally Saucer” (or “Sally Waters”) is one of them, and “Ring Around the Rosie” seems to be another. The rings referred to in the rhymes are literally the rings formed by the playing children. “Ashes, ashes” probably comes from something like “Husha, husha” (another common variant) which refers to stopping the ring and falling silent. And the falling down refers to the jumble of bodies in that ring when they let go of each other and throw themselves into the circle. Like “A Tisket, A Tasket” or “Hey Diddle Diddle” or even “I Am the Walrus,” the rhyme we call “Ring Around the Rosie” has no particular meaning, regardless of our latter day efforts to create one for it. They’re all simply collections of words and sounds that someone thought sounded good together. As John Lennon once explained: We’ve learned over the years that if we wanted we could write anything that just felt good or sounded good and it didn’t necessarily have to have any particular meaning to us. As odd as it seemed to us, reviewers would take it upon themselves to interject their own meanings on our lyrics. Sometimes we sit and read other people’s interpretations of our lyrics and think, ‘Hey, that’s pretty good.’ If we liked it, we would keep our mouths shut and just accept the credit as if it was what we meant all along.
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33845
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The lobster with which a woman was masturbating defecated into her vagina, implanting brine shrimp eggs which hatched inside
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See Brine Shrimp Direct's FAQ: Hatching for more than you likely would ever want to know about raising brine shrimp.
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false
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Risqué Business, bestiality, Juvenilia
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[Collected via e-mail, 2000] If you read one disgusting story this year . . . LET IT BE THIS ONE ! Susy DeLucci and the Miracle of Life. One morning around 5am 22 year old Susan DaLucci of Kittery Maine, woke up with a painful need to urinate. At first she thought she had diarrhea, but when she stood up out of bed, she realized that it was urinary pain. It was very similar to the feeling of having diarrhea, just out the wrong hole. She wobbled to the toilet and upon sitting on it, her vagina erupted into the most horrific messy farting noise anyone has ever heard. In paralyzing pain, Ms. DeLucci for the next few minutes continued to push and squirt out of her vagina a burning tide of wretch and filth while she gripped the sides of the toilet, white-knuckled. She was screaming wildly, and the neighbors called the police. When medics arrived they found Ms. DeNucci unconscious lying on the floor of her bathroom wearing nothing but her bath robe. Running down her leg, was a stream of brown and green syrup. The medic had to transfer her to a stretcher, so he grabbed her left leg which was bent crossing her other leg, to straighten her out. She was lying there all twisted up. When he lifted her left leg to straighten her body out, he exposed her vagina at which point a creature, no larger than the tip of a finger wormed its way out of her genitals and landed on the floor with a wet popping sound. Shocked, the medic stared at the creature that was lying on the tile bathroom floor in a casing of mucous. It was a tiny mud shrimp and it sat there on the cold floor gasping for water while flipping itself back and forth. The horrified medic turned to the toilet as he felt the nausea setting in. When he put his face down into the toilet to puke what he saw was so horrific that to this day he cannot look into a toilet without convulsing. The entire toilet bowl was boiling with baby brown mud shrimp flipping and splashing at a furious pace. If you think that is bad – wait until you hear how it happened: Ms. DeLucci official death was the result of a combination of shock and severe head trauma. She stood up over the toilet in pain and when she saw what she had done, she went into shock and fell, smashing her head on the toilet and then on the floor. It is believed by medical police that on two nights before the accident she had purchased a live lobster at a fish market. While lying in a tub, she gently inserted the creature’s tail into her vagina to derive pleasure. At that point, she held a lighter under the creature’s face causing it to flip its tail in a violent snapping motion. The medics found a lesbian XXX video in the VCR and the TV was positioned on a table in front of the tub. The lobster was found in the kitchen garbage can wrapped in a paper bag. Traces of Ms. DeLucci’s DNA were found on the lobster along with pubic hairs that had wedged themselves between the lobster tail joints. The lobster’s face was lightly burned with the same fuel used in lighters. The lobster’s digestive track and colon were found to be full of mud shrimp egg casings. Doctors believe that the lobster had eaten them (they are common in the water at fish markets and are usually harmlessly boiled to death) and the lobster had crapped them out into Ms. DeLucci’s cunt when she was torturing it. Maine mud shrimp only take two days to gestate and Ms. DeLucci was only four days away from getting her period, doctors believe that at that point of her menstrual cycle, her womb was the perfect PH balance to grow these mud shrimp which are a much larger version of the popular “Sea Monkey” pets sold throughout the US. Over night the eggs had hatched and the mud shrimp began doubling in size every ten minutes. You can imagine the pain she was in when she woke up that morning and gave birth to well over 1,000 mud shrimp in her toilet. After scanning this little piece of junior high school scatology, we truly hope we will “read [only] one disgusting story this year.” Unfortunately, it’s only January, so our chances of success are dim. What else can one say but someone had too much time on his hands? The silly little gem quoted above appeared on the Internet in January 2000. It combines the bestial impregnation motif of the “woman impregnated with octopus eggs” with the “animal used as masturbatory toy” motif of the gerbil tale. The kinky masturbation theme from the “girl and the hot dog” tale gets worked into the mix, too. As usual, we have a detail indicating homosexuality — “the medics found a lesbian XXX video in the VCR” — because we all know from similar tales that no woman ever masturbates unless she can’t (or won’t) find a real man to pleasure her. (This same notion is found in the legend about the woman, her dog, and some peanut butter.) Considering the deviance of the fictional woman’s crime, it’s no wonder the author of the piece has her die. Considering his writing skills, we think it’s a shame he didn’t pen a similar ending for himself. The “writer” at least managed to include a few details in his piece (i.e., the woman’s name and home town), but that’s about all he got right in terms of credibility. The narrative has a few glaring plotting errors: As well, brine shrimp take a day to hatch, not two. They also won’t hatch out in anything less than extremely salty water, a substance not found in a woman’s vagina. It also takes more than salty water and eggs to bring about hatching — exposure to light within the first few hours of incubation is key. Brine shrimp growers recommend the eggs be exposed to a light source throughout incubation. Constant aeration (bubbling) is also necessary to provide sufficient oxygen levels for the eggs to hatch, this is also not a condition found in a woman’s vagina.
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34700
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"Disputed parentage of a child born aboard a ship was resolved by listing the newborn as a ""son of the gun."
|
A more believable postulation for the origin of the term shifts the focus onto the occupation of the father and away from the location of the whelping (which fanciful lore would have us believe was on a deck between two guns, rather than in a cot in an officer’s cabin or in a screened-off corner of the sick bay). In that explanation, “gun” refers to “soldier” (equating arms with the man, as it were), making any soldier’s or sailor’s male child — conceived in wedlock or not — a “son of a gun.” Alliteration (repetition of sounds) and well-cadenced rhymes were just as well-loved centuries ago as they are now, thus our forefathers would have delighted in “son of a gun’s” inherent ear appeal in the same way we were slyly pleased by “the Thrilla in Manila” and “in like Flynn.”
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unproven
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Language, folk etymology, Phrase Craze, son of a gun
|
The faintly derogative epithet “son of a gun” has been documented as part of the lexicon of the English language since 1708, but no one can really lay claim to knowing how it began or what the phrase originally signified. Numerous interesting backstories have emerged in the centuries since, and it’s possible one might even be the right one, but we no longer have any way of knowing. We can, however, dismiss some of the more fanciful “explanations” that have come along: We can dismiss many of the recurring elements in the four fanciful explanations touted above. First, wives and girlfriends (i.e., prostitutes) were not routinely brought along by ordinary sailors on naval vessels which were often out on a commission for months or years at a time. Can you imagine how much extra space would have to be built into these ships, and how many extra rations they’d have had to carry, if all crew members brought their wives and girlfriends along? And where did these women stay? There was barely enough room below decks to accommodate the regular crew (even though only half the crew was ever asleep at once), and women couldn’t be out on deck where they’d interfere with the operation of the ship. Were they just all stuffed into the hold for six months at a time? Yes, some officers on some voyages were permitted to bring along wives, but this happened infrequently at best, making the presence of non-passenger females (pregnant or otherwise) aboard sailing ships unusual. The vast majority of such voyages had nary a female aboard, thus the notion that a popular phrase sprang from the common occurrence of women’s so overrunning vessels that they were routinely whelping on the high seas is seriously flawed. (Larger naval vessels often included a berthing deck which was distinct from the gun deck. This is where the crew on such ships would sleep, not amidst the guns on the gun deck.) Second, we should look askance at the claim that when in port, and with the crew restricted to the ship, women typically gave birth aboard ship. Crews were usually restricted to ship only in hostile ports, which we can fairly assume their home berths were not. And even when shore leave was denied because the captain was intent upon being underway quickly and feared losing some of his crew (either to desertion or drunkenness) if they were let off the ship, the wives were under no such restrictions. Not being necessary to the running of the ship, nothing would have prevented expectant lasses from returning to their homes to give birth. Their husbands not only wouldn’t accompany this hypothetical exodus, they wouldn’t have wanted to even if they could. In the era of sailing ships, the role of the father during the birth process was not what it is now — dads of modern times may make it their business to be in the delivery room cheering matters on, but papas of more distant ages made certain to be elsewhere, and the farther away the better. Bringing babies into the world was considered wholly the province of women (doctors were summoned only if matters had taken a decidedly bad turn, and even then only rarely), and men were present at such events only when it could not otherwise be avoided. Men certainly did not voluntarily insert themselves into the proceedings, nor would their presence have been welcomed by the women straining to bring children into the world, the midwives attending them, and the array of female relatives that inevitably gathered by the bedside. Third, although a certain convoluted train of logic might tie the firing of large guns to hastening a difficult birth (e.g., inspiration by example, a cornerstone of sympathetic magic), there’s no reason to believe anyone living in those times even tried this, let alone that the practice was so widespread that the firing of guns to ease childbirth begat a distinct phrase. Histories of life in the 1700s and 1800s are thunderous in their silence about this practice, and it can safely be assumed that quiet reflects a stunning truth about the matter — that whatever tales we’re now telling ourselves, cannonfire wasn’t being used to hasten babies into the world. Granted, gunfire had been employed in distant times to fend off disease (it never worked), so there is some historical basis for a tie between the discharge of firearms and medical emergencies. During the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, many took to firing muskets both in the street and indoors under the mistaken assumption that introducing the acrid fumes of burnt gunpowder into the air would kill off the mysterious illness daily making away with hundreds of citizens. Such practice was even recommended by the city’s government, so this wasn’t even a case of a few badly-educated members of the populace seizing upon a fanciful notion; at the time it appeared to have the backing of the scientific community. However, it was the fumes of the spent gunpowder, not the report of the guns, that was supposed to effect the cure. In the realm of superstition, sudden noise is espoused as a way to drive away evil (we toll wedding bells for this purpose, and the New Year’s Eve hullabaloo springs from that same wellspring of belief), but there is only one reported tie in that area of study between abrupt racket and the induction of labor, and it involves the ringing of church bells. Rather, the canon of superstition advises the loosening and opening of items to assist during a difficult childbirth: windows are to be flung open, doors unlocked, and shoelaces undone to help the impending mother in her travails. Nothing in superstition, however, advises frightening women into giving birth, much less introducing roaring cannons into the procedure. Another explanation for “son of a gun” ties the phrase to the reason for shotgun weddings — the child of such unions was deemed a “son of the gun.” That might seem a more reasonable origin, but that meaning did not appear in connection to the term until 1922.
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7343
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More Guatemalan deportees from US test positive for virus.
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Three Guatemalans deported from the United States this week tested positive for the novel coronavirus upon arrival in their country, Guatemala’s Foreign Ministry said Friday.
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true
|
Alexandria, Health, General News, Latin America, Guatemala City, Caribbean, Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei, Virus Outbreak, Louisiana, Protocols, United States
|
The May 13 flight from Alexandria, Louisiana carried 65 adults, according to the country’s immigration institute. More than 100 Guatemalan deportees have tested positive after arriving from the U.S. The Foreign Ministry said that after the infections were detected, the Health Ministry was asked to get in touch with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to review the protocols and decide what new measures would be necessary. A deportation flight scheduled for Friday was cancelled after President Alejandro Giammattei announced Thursday night that the country would be on round-the-clock lockdown through the weekend because of a resurgence in COVID-19 infections. On April 13, a deportation flight from Alexandria, Louisiana carried at least 71 infected Guatemalans. The CDC sent a team after that flight to confirm Guatemala’s testing. Guatemala suspended flights several times, including after that case, to pressure the U.S. government to better screen deportees. The country’s health officials have complained that the deportees represent a significant portion of Guatemala’s infections. The U.S. had started testing deportees for the virus before their flights, but another deportee tested positive this month even after the U.S. certified he had tested negative before leaving. Guatemala has 1,487 confirmed cases and 31 deaths.
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8781
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Study finds 140,000 bad reactions to antibiotics.
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Bad reactions to antibiotics, mostly allergic ones, send people to U.S. emergency rooms more than 140,000 times each year, government researchers reported on Wednesday.
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true
|
Health News
|
The findings offer another reason for doctors to limit their use of the drugs, which are overused in the United States, the team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. “This number is an important reminder for physicians and patients that antibiotics can have serious side effects and should only be taken when necessary,” said the CDC’s Dr. Daniel Budnitz, who led the study. For the first report ever done on adverse reactions to antibiotics in the United States, the researchers used the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-Cooperative Adverse Drug Event Surveillance project, a sample of 63 U.S. hospitals, between 2004 and 2006. They found more than 6,600 emergency visits were due to an adverse reaction to an antibiotic. They used formulas to extrapolate this to the whole country and estimated that 142,000 such emergency visits are made every year. “Systemic antibiotics (pills or injections as opposed to creams) were implicated in 19.3 percent of all emergency department visits for drug-related adverse events,” they wrote in the September 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases. Penicillin and related antibiotics such as amoxicillin, widely prescribed and widely seen as safe, accounted for half the emergency visits. Other classes of antibiotics such as cephalosporins, fluoroquinolones and newer antibiotics accounted for the rest. “Persons aged 15-44 years accounted for an estimated 41.2 percent of ED visits. Infants accounted for only an estimated 6.3 percent of ED visits,” they wrote. Budnitz and colleagues said 78 percent of the adverse events in the study were allergic reactions, ranging from rash to a serious reaction known as anaphylaxis, and the remaining 22 percent were caused by errors and overdoses. Many studies have suggested that half of the estimated 100 million antibiotic prescriptions written for respiratory tract infections in the United States are unnecessary. Most such infections are caused by viruses, and antibiotics are useless against them. But, Budnitz and colleagues said, doctors still often believe their patients are exceptions to the rule and continue to write the prescriptions. “Because antibiotics are frequently used, both appropriately and inappropriately, if doctors would reduce the number of antibiotics they prescribe to their patients by even a small percentage, we could significantly reduce the number of emergency visits for antibiotic adverse events,” Budnitz said in a statement. “Antibiotics are among the most frequently used medications in the United States. Annually, antibiotics are prescribed to an estimated 16 percent of patients during ambulatory care visits, and pharmaceutical manufacturers spend $1 billion promoting antibiotics,” Budnitz wrote.
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37765
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Four charts show the respective COVID-19 infection rates in the United States, France, Italy, and Spain.
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‘In Case You’re Wondering What Utter, Abject Failure Looks Like’: Are These USA, France, Italy, and Spain COVID-19 Charts?
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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In late June 2020, a series of four COVID-19 charts began spreading across social media, captioned: “In case you’re wondering what utter, abject failure looks like,” purportedly contrasting COVID-19 infection rates in the United States, France, Italy, and Spain:In case you’re wondering what utter, abject failure looks like. pic.twitter.com/Eqbj2U6zgG— Chris Fradkin (@chrisfradkin) June 28, 2020On r/LateStageCapitalism, the chart was shared on June 29 2020, titled “We. Are. Fucked. ….. unless we use a convention of states”:We. Are. Fucked. ….. unless we use a convention of states from LateStageCapitalismIf accurate, it was likely the charts represented a snapshot in time. However, the lack of contextual information was limiting, and it wasn’t clear when the images were created.USA, France, Italy, and Spain in ChartsThat post appeared to feature a screenshot of the above tweet, with the same text appearing above the charts. Clockwise from the top left of the charts were the United States, France, Italy, and Spain. No source was provided for the chart either on Twitter or in the original post to r/LateStageCapitalism.In the line-graph charts shown, France, Italy, and Spain all showed a “5,000 cases” vertical axis mark, and all three sharply crested up above it; the United States’ vertical axis was “100,000 cases.” All four countries (USA, France, Italy, and Spain) stood on a horizontal axis of February, March, April, May, and June 2020.All four countries demonstrated a similar initial trajectory. Cases in February and March were minimal, spiking dramatically in April. France, Italy, and Spain all seemed to begin dropping in cases in April and May, with June roughly equivalent to early March for those three. In essence, France, Italy, and Spain experienced a COVID-19 spike in April 2020, returning to near-normal by June 2020.By contrast, the United States’ vertical axis itself was different — 100,000 versus 5,000 cases. And where France, Italy, and Spain seemed to both peak and begin falling in April, the United States seemed to plateau at the point where other countries began dropping.On top of that, the plateau appeared not to remain as such. Between May 2020 and June 2020, cases on the chart began yet another steady spike upwards, trailing upwards still as the horizontal axis of June 2020 trailed off.USA, France, Italy, and Spain: Respective Population FiguresThe chart showed a vertical axis of 5,000 cases for the three European countries, and 100,000 cases for the United States.Each country’s estimated population on July 2 2020 was as follows:France, Italy, and Spain averaged out to about 57 million people; the United States, 329.8 million — or about 5.8 times more people in the U.S. than in the three countries, averaged. On the charts, France, Italy, and Spain’s vertical axis of 5,000 adjusted to the population of the United States (multiplied by 5.8) would be about 29,000 — not 100,000.If the charts were accurate and correctly described, the United States appeared to demonstrate 3.44 times the per capita rate of COVID-19 infections:Did Trump Say There Are ‘Many Per Capitas’ During a COVID-19 Discussion?A Wild Source AppearsIn the Reddit thread linked above, u/grilledchzisbestchz wisely requested a source for the data — after all, any information could be dumped into chart form to make a point:In response, u/alt228 linked to a New York Times “Coronavirus Map,” and u/trahoots explained that the chart labeled “U.S.A.” was in fact “total global cases.” However, u/trahoots also said the “actual comparison” looked “basically as bad” as the mislabeled chart and shared another image:In that screenshot, the chart labeled “USA” did not have a vertical axis of “100,000 cases,” but France, Italy, and Spain were still measured at 5,000 cases. In the top left “USA” chart, two metrics appeared — 20,000 cases and 40,000 cases.In the screenshot, France, Italy, and Spain still peaked and fell in April, and the United States showed a slight drop in what could still accurately be described as a plateau. But by the middle of June 2020, the number of cases rose to higher than the first spike in April 2020.The New York Times‘ ‘Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak’ Page, and Charts as of July 2 2020On the New York Times website, a regularly-updated page — “Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak” — featured visually similar charts to the “utter, abject failure” chart.Here are the charts as they appeared on July 2 2020 — first, Italy, which was similar to the viral four-chart image:Then France:Spain:All three were markedly similar to the graph in the meme; all three were measured with a vertical axis of 5,000 cases.In the Reddit thread, one user said the graph marked “U.S.A.” was in fact global cases. As of July 2 2020, global cases looked like this, with a vertical axis of 100,000 cases:As the user indicated, the “global cases” chart closely resembled the chart labeled “U.S.A” in the initial tweet.The Times‘ interactive map for cases in the United States was slightly different, showing a slight decline beginning in May 2020 through June 2020. From there, the chart showed an alarming and sharp incline over and above the April 2020 peak as the chart bled into July 2020 (and a vertical axis between 20,000 cases and 40,000 cases; the adjusted average per capita would be roughly 29,000 cases to 5,000 in the three European nations):Is the ‘In Case You’re Wondering What Utter, Abject Failure Looks Like’ Accurate?Ultimately, the answer is “yes and no.” Almost certainly, all four charts — the US, France, Italy, and Spain — were screenshots of the New York Times’ interactive “Coronavirus Map” feature. As u/trahoots discovered, the chart labeled “U.S.A.” was in fact global cases. France, Italy, and Spain were all nearly identical on the map on July 2 2020, and the “global cases” chart resembled the graph for the United States. The actual United States graph was very similar to the “global cases” graph, albeit with a slight reduction in cases between May and June 2020. By the middle of June 2020, the case rate began spiking higher than its first April 2020 peak.Comments
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33526
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The government forced KFC to stop using the word 'chicken' in their name because they serve meat derived from mutant animals.
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Sightings: A scientist breeds headless, boneless chickens on a high-tech farm in the 1967 Italian film Death Laid an Egg (La Morte ha fatto l’uovo).
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false
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Food, contaminated food, Food Contamination
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Every fast food chain gets its own urban legend these days, from claims of worms in McDonald’s hamburgers to roaches in Taco Bell tacos to snakes in Burger King’s ball pits, we’re determined to demonize corporate purveyors of cheap, industrial food products. It appears to be KFC’s turn in the spotlight again (their original legend about the fried rat having become a bit long in the tooth), and they have become the proud owners of a legend intended to reflect another modern fear: genetically engineered food: Versions of this legend have been circulating for decades now, as indicated by the e-mail’s reference to Kentucky Fried Chicken’s “recent” name change, an event that took place in 1991. Earlier versions of the tale featured six-legged chickens (“How do they taste?” “Dunno; no one’s ever been able to catch one”) or birds so plumped by chemicals that their gigantic breasts made it impossible for them to keep their balance well enough to walk. It’s easy to see why this legend has suddenly made such a strong resurgence. Our continual progress in understanding and manipulating the genetic codes of plants and animals has fueled debate over the environmental and health concerns raised by the creation and growth of transgenic food crops and the marketing of food products derived from animals that have been given artificial hormones. Additionally, to those who already feel that our killing and eating other animals is morally wrong, this legend highlights the complete disregard most humans hold for the rights of animals and the increasingly inhumane conditions under which food animals are raised. “The government that’s supposed to be looking out for our health and safety doesn’t really care about us” theme also makes an appearance here: a private company has supposedly created a genetically altered form of an animal that is raised and eaten by the hundreds of millions every year, and all the government has done about the situation is to require them to stop using the word ‘chicken’ to describe this product? Nothing like the Frankensteinian laboratory scenario described here is taking place, however. Raising chickens that have been genetically modified so that they are born without beaks, feathers, or feet, or with additional legs is still beyond the reach of modern science for the time being (although selective breeding has been used to enhance some features, such as breast size), nor did the University of New Hampshire perform a “study of KFC.” As well, the claims about Kentucky Fried Chicken’s name change are easily belied: Kentucky Fried Chicken decided to change its name to KFC in 1991 for several reasons, none of which had anything to do with governmental regulations about mutant animals: Nonetheless, the “Great KFC Mutant Chicken Myth” grew so prominent online that KFC eventually addressed it on their web site: The Internet is good for lots of things: cat videos, questionable medical diagnoses, and wildly imaginative urban legends, including the KFC mutant chicken myth. This myth has been perpetuated over several decades by a widely circulated email hoax. The hoax claimed that Kentucky Fried Chicken changed its name to KFC because it was forced to eliminate the word “chicken” from its brand name—purportedly because KFC meat came from “mutant chickens” with extra legs and no beaks. We can set the record straight: no mutated or genetically engineered chickens are involved in making our delicious KFC chicken. Just 100% real chicken from US farms, which have to pass over 30 quality checks and USDA inspection before being hand-prepared by one of our cooks. Ultimately, less than 10% of chickens meet KFC’s high standards for quality, which includes no artificial hormones or steroids—a federal regulation. No mutated chickens are involved in making our delicious fried chicken As with all chicken sold in the United States, KFC chickens are bred using age-old techniques to produce healthy birds and the high-quality products that our customers expect. They’re also raised humanely in a cage-free environment on trusted American family farms—the same that supply your local supermarket—based on standards established in consultation with our Animal Welfare Advisory Council. In addition, KFC chicken farms must adhere to parent company Yum! Brands’ Supplier Code of Conduct, which helps maintain the ethical sourcing and supply of our food. So let’s put the Great KFC Mutant Chicken Myth to rest, shall we? Though urban legends about mutated KFC meat are good for a laugh, on a KFC chicken farm, the chicken is 100% real—just like the Colonel’s time-honored secret recipe. How concerned we should be about genetically engineered food products is one thing, but no amount of concern or protest is going to “make KFC start using real chicken again”: “real chicken” is what KFC has been using all along.
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28287
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"If implemented, the provisions of Texas Senate Bill 17 would ""allow doctors to refuse LGBTQ patients."
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What's true: SB 17 could reasonably be expected to encourage and embolden licensed professionals to refuse to serve individuals due to religious objections to their identities, and to discourage licensing agencies from punishing those licensed professionals for such behavior. What's false: The bill does not formally and explicitly confer upon licensed professionals an affirmative right to refuse to serve certain individuals, and it includes disclaimers stating that illegal discrimination would still be punished under the bill. Federal and Texas law already appear not to have definitive prohibitions against medical professionals' refusing to treat LGBT patients.
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mixture
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Politics
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In March and April 2019, online reports asserted that Texas state legislators had voted for a bill that would allow medical professionals to refuse to treat LGBT patients for religious reasons. On 26 March, for example, the website LGBTQ Nation published an article under the headline “Texas Republicans advance a bill that would allow doctors to refuse LGBTQ patients,” which reported that: A bill that would allow state-licensed professionals to refuse to serve LGBTQ people if they cite their religion has advanced out of committee in the Texas senate. Senate Bill 17 would prevent state licensing agencies from denying or revoking licenses from professionals – including doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, and even barbers – if they claim to be following a ‘sincerely held religious belief.’ That article was shared widely on social media and prompted multiple inquiries from Snopes readers about its veracity. Senate Bill 17 (SB 17) would impose restrictions on professional licensing bodies in the state of Texas, limiting their ability to hold individuals’ “sincerely held religious belief” (or actions or statements they made based on such beliefs) against them in rendering decisions about whether to issue, renew, or revoke professional licenses. Republican State Senator Charles Perry introduced SB 17 on 7 March, and four weeks later the Texas Senate voted 19-12 to pass the bill. The next day it was put before the House of Representatives committee for State Affairs, and as of 9 April it was still under consideration by the House of Representatives. As of 3 April 2019, the text of the legislation stated the following: Sec. 57.003. A state agency that issues a license or otherwise regulates a business, occupation or profession may not adopt any rule, regulation, or policy or impose a penalty that: (1) limits an applicant’s ability to obtain, maintain, or renew a license based on a sincerely held religious belief of the applicant; or (2) burdens an applicant’s or a license holder’s (A) free exercise of religion, regardless of whether the burden is the result of a rule generally applicable to all applicants or license holders; (B) freedom of speech regarding a sincerely held religious belief; or (C) membership in any religious organization. The bill would also allow licensed professionals (such as lawyers, doctors, nurses, etc.) to offer their religious beliefs as a defense in an administrative proceedings against them: “Sec. 57.004. A person may assert that a state agency rule, regulation, or policy, or a penalty imposed by the agency, violates Section 57.003 as a defense in an administrative hearing or as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding under Chapter 37, Civil Practice and Remedies Code …” It appears that in practice, this section in the legislation would have the effect seen in the following example: A physician is qualified to perform abortions, but declines to perform an abortion for a patient who approaches them due to the doctor’s sincere religious objection to abortion. If that would-be patient were to file a complaint against the doctor, and a review or disciplinary proceeding ensued in which there was, theoretically, the potential that the physician’s license to practice medicine could be revoked, that physician would, under the legislation, be able to offer the fact that their actions were based upon a sincerely-held religious belief as a defense against that outcome. The text of the bill also contains several conditions and stipulations, including: The bill was not exclusive to medical professionals, nor did it make any mention of the LGBT community, specify the kinds of actions that might be regarded as being grounded in a person’s “sincerely-held religious belief,” nor explicate how a licensing body might determine the sincerity of a claimed religious defense. The text of the bill also alluded to the complexity of the broader legal and philosophical conflict between an individual’s right to live in accordance with their religious faith and an individual’s right not to be subjected to discrimination, stipulating that the bill would not “limit any right, privilege, or protection granted to any person under the constitution and laws of this state and the United States.” An important point is that the legislation would not guarantee that the “religious belief” defense would be successful in an administrative proceeding. During a 2 April Senate debate on SB 17, the bill’s author, Republican State Senator Charles Perry, explained that the bill would only provide an additional “enumerated defense” against the revocation of a license, but that a licensing body could still proceed to take away an individual’s license, notwithstanding their “sincerely-held religious belief” defense, if their actions constituted a violation of state or federal law or the requirements of their professional license. Democratic State Senator José Rodriguez teased out that clarification in an exchange with Perry during the Senate debate on 2 April. (That exchange can be viewed here, starting at 1:33.00. The entire debate starts at 0:58.00): Perry: … This bill doesn’t do anything to undermine existing state or federal law. So if it’s against the law to discriminate — and “discriminate” can include a lot of different things, based on religion or based on race or based on a whole host of enumerated items already — then I’m in violation of federal and state law. Senate Bill 17 doesn’t apply. Rodriguez: I guess I’m having trouble understanding, then, the purpose of this defense. Perry: It’s an administrative defense. Rodriguez: But it’s intended to prohibit the agency from taking away your license because of your refusal to provide a service, isn’t it? Perry: No Sir. It’s intended to provide a defense, and then the agency can decide, and if you want to take [the license] away [despite an] application of sincerely-held religious belief, then that’s the agency’s decision, and it would go to the next level [an appeal through the courts]. So according to the text of the bill, as well as clarification offered by its author, SB 17 would not permit acts of discrimination which were already illegal under federal or Texas law, or were a violation of a particular licensing agency’s requirements. The text of the bill itself does not actually explicitly confer upon doctors or other licensed professionals an affirmative right to refuse to serve anyone. Formally speaking, SB 17 does not do that. For that reason, LGBTQ Nation’s headline claim that the bill would “allow doctors to refuse patients” is something of an over-simplification of the reality. The next issue is whether the religious belief defense provides enough protection to licensed professionals that it effectively amounts to permission to refuse to serve or treat certain people — a “license to discriminate,” as the ACLU of Texas has described the provisions of SB 17. Notwithstanding the fact that the law would not explicitly give doctors, for example, the right to refuse LGBT patients, a scenario in which they were assured that discriminating in this way would not lead to their licenses being revoked could quite reasonably be described as one which effectively permitted or allowed them to act in that way. However, it’s not clear that SB 17 would in fact grant such de facto permission. One section of the text states that the bill “may not be construed to … limit any right, privilege, or protection granted to any person under the constitution and laws of this state and the United States.” This indicates that a licensed professional would not be protected from having their license revoked if their act of discrimination (refusal to serve) violated federal or state law, but they would be able to specifically cite their religious belief as the reason for their refusal to serve. As SB& 17’s author Charles Perry said, “This bill doesn’t do anything to undermine existing state or federal law.” However, to complicate matters further, it appears that federal and Texas state laws do not definitively prohibit the kind of discrimination described by LGBTQ Nation in the first place — that is, a doctor’s refusing to serve a patient due to religious objections to the patient’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Christy Mallory, Director of State Policy and Education Initiatives at UCLA’s Williams Institute, told us by email that “Federal and Texas state laws do not explicitly protect people from being refused service based on their actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity. Texas state law does prohibit discrimination based on sex. A number of courts have interpreted the term ‘sex’ in non-discrimination laws to also prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, so a court could interpret Texas’s public accommodations non-discrimination law to prohibit service refusals based on an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity.” Title 3 of the Texas Occupations Code sets out the rights and obligations of licensed health professionals in the state, as well as the penalties and procedures related to misconduct. Nothing in those regulations prohibits a health professional from refusing to treat or serve an individual on the basis of the patient’s perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. The code does not mention “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” “gender” or any of the descriptors which make up the LGBTQ initialism. We contacted a spokesperson for the Texas Medical Board seeking clarification on whether any rule that regulates the conduct of health professionals in the state could prevent them from refusing to treat an LGBT patient, but we did not receive a response in time for publication. So if, as appears the case, the regulations and requirements specific to medical professionals in Texas do not prohibit them from refusing to treat someone based on an objection to the patient’s sexual orientation or gender identity, and neither does federal law, then SB 17 would not “allow doctors to refuse LGBTQ patients,” because doctors are already allowed to refuse LGBTQ patients. In an effort to remove any ambiguity from the situation and definitively prohibit refusals to serve LGBT patients, Democratic State Senator José Menéndez proposed an amendment to SB 17 which would have stated that licensed professionals could not refuse to provide a service “based on the sexual orientation or gender identity of the person requesting the service.” That amendment was voted down, 18-13. It’s difficult to argue that the legislation itself would “allow” or “permit” a doctor to refuse to treat an LGBT patient, especially since it appears federal and Texas law already effectively allow such discrimination. However, some activists have expressed concerns that introducing SB 17 could indirectly encourage and embolden religiously-motivated service refusals that target LGBT persons, as well as make it more complicated and difficult for licensing agencies to hold such behavior to account. Logan Casey, a policy researcher at the Movement Advancement Project think tank, outlined those concerns in an email, writing: SB 17 would prevent state agencies and licensing boards from setting and enforcing the standards of how all Texans ought to be treated fairly and equally. In other words, it would tie the hands of those whose job it is to prevent discrimination whenever possible. Because the bill would allow individuals to cite their religious beliefs as a reason to refuse service, no matter what their licensing board says is required for their job, SB 17 would effectively embolden discrimination in any state-regulated or -licensed profession, from barbershops and cab drivers to medical and mental health providers. For example, a doctor could refuse to serve a patient based on the doctor’s religiously-based beliefs about marriage — which could mean they could refuse to serve unmarried couples, same-sex couples, interfaith couples, and more. State licensed agencies in multiple states have also used similar laws to discriminate against people of different faiths who wish to serve as foster parents. Furthermore, while the legislation would, according to its author Charles Perry, still give licensing agencies the ability to revoke professional licenses in the event of illegal acts of discrimination, it is reasonable to expect that SB 17 might discourage them from doing so. SB 17 would allow a licensed professional such as a doctor or lawyer to put on record the fact that their actions were an expression of their sincerely-held religious beliefs. In the event that their license was revoked anyway, this could very plausibly strengthen that doctor or lawyer’s case, if they decided to appeal the decision through the courts. Under SB 17, they could argue to a judge that because they put on record the reasons for their behavior, the licensing agency had knowingly and explicitly violated their 1st Amendment right to freely express their religious beliefs, by revoking their license. This could set in motion a protracted or high-profile legal saga which invoked profound constitutional principles and could place the licensing agency under increased public scrutiny and even civil liability. Rather than risk being exposed to those negative outcomes, the licensing agency might decide against revoking a license, or opt for a less severe punishment, thereby potentially creating a set of expectations which encourage license-holders to engage in religiously-motivated service refusals. Finally, the introduction of SB 17 could also quite reasonably be expected to embolden religiously-motivated doctors, nurses, lawyers and others to engage in service refusals in the first place, where previously they might not. Even if the bill would not necessarily innoculate professionals from the risk of having their licenses revoked, it could quite plausibly create a sense that their actions had been given an additional layer of protection. As Senator Perry said during the 2 April debate, SB 17 would add “one more tool in the tool chest.” That sense of emboldenment might be especially strong in the case of medical professionals’ refusing treatment to LGBT patients, something which federal and Texas law does not appear to definitively prohibit in the first place.
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9031
|
Diet shown to reduce stroke risk may also reduce risk of depression
|
The release focuses on a forthcoming, preliminary study that will be presented at a conference in April. The release reports that people who closely follow the so-called “DASH diet” are less likely to report symptoms of depression than people who do not adhere to the DASH diet. However, there are a number of unanswered questions. For example, the study appears to have focused on older adults with an average age of 81 so it’s not clear whether the findings would be relevant for younger adults. It’s also unclear whether depression leads to a change in dietary patterns. Common sense suggests lack of energy and motivation are negatively affected by depression and consequently may lead people to cook less frequently. And it’s not clear how closely any of the groups being studied adhered to the DASH diet. For further analysis of the study, the news release and resulting news coverage see our blog post. Clinical depression is a significant health issue, which can have profound ramifications for a patient’s well being and quality of life. There are a variety of treatment options available, but many of those options can be expensive or raise the possibility of adverse side effects. As a result, the idea that a lifestyle change, such as diet, could reduce the risk of depression is an attractive one. However, adopting a new diet is a big step for many people. It’s important for readers to understand the evidence behind the claims that a diet can significantly affect mental health risks. This release does some things well — such as noting at the very end that the study shows an association, not cause and effect. However, the release lacks key details that would allow people to clearly understand the underlying study.
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false
|
American Academy of Neurology,DASH diet
|
Costs are not discussed. However, the “treatment” at issue is not a drug or medical technology with clearly defined costs. Rather, the DASH diet focuses on an individual’s food choices. While there are cost constraints associated with any diet, and many people do not have easy access to the fruit and vegetables that are at the heart of the DASH diet, it would be challenging to address those issues in any meaningful way in the context of a news release like this one. That being the case, we’ll rate this as “not applicable.” The release states that “The odds of becoming depressed over time was 11 percent lower among the top group of DASH adherers versus the lowest group.” Here the release is relying on relative risk reduction figures which are far less meaningful to patients than numbers that explain the absolute risk reduction. We also are left wondering how closely the “top group of DASH adherers” followed the DASH diet? To what extent did that differ from the “lowest group”? The release does not address potential harms. However, there are few (if any) harms associated with adopting a well-balanced diet that is high in fruits and vegetables. While it is always wise to consult a physician before making significant lifestyle changes, we feel that this is not necessarily something that a news release needs to state explicitly. With that in mind, we give this a satisfactory rating. One of the biggest problems with the release concerns lack of evidence concerning the DASH diet’s potential impact on depression. Does depression lead to a change in dietary patterns? Fatigue and lack of motivation — both hallmarks of depression — may lead people to cook less frequently. Research also suggests that sugary foods lower cortisol levels more than other foods and consequently people with depression may choose them preferentially over a DASH style diet since they provide them with some therapeutic relief. And further, these are older adults (average age of 81). If they were to develop conditions that affected their energy, mobility, chronic pain, etc. this would also influence their dietary choices and impact these results. The release includes a caution at the end stating the study doesn’t prove cause and effect. That’s good, but we think the causal claim in the headline — “may also reduce depression” — will overshadow that message. No disease mongering here. The release notes that the study was supported by the National Institute on Aging, which is good. However, conflicts of interest are not explicitly addressed. Given that only one of the researchers involved with the study was named, it is impossible for readers to determine if there are any conflicts of interest. For example, one can buy any number of DASH diet cookbooks online — are any study co-authors associated with those? Given the paucity of information in the release, it’s impossible to tell. (As noted above, we obtained a copy of the study abstract and didn’t see any obvious conflicts of interest — but the information isn’t readily available in the release.) One alternative raised in the release is the Mediterranean diet. But the release doesn’t describe the Mediterranean diet or quantify how adherence to that diet was associated with a decreased risk of depression symptoms. Other factors that can contribute to reduced risk of depression aren’t discussed. The release refers repeatedly to the DASH diet. However, while the DASH diet has been around for years, many readers will likely never have heard of it. The release appears to assume that the DASH diet is common knowledge. While the DASH diet isn’t a secret, it’s not something you can assume readers are familiar with either. This could have been addressed by simply noting that the DASH diet has, well, been around for years. It could even have referred readers to a description of the plan on an NIH website. This is far from the first study to assess relationships between diet and depression. For example, a 2013 paper in Annals of Neurology that looked at (among other things) nine different studies involving the Mediterranean diet and depression. How does this forthcoming conference paper fit into that expansive body of work? It’s not clear. Based on the release, readers may think this is the first study to consider a link between diet and depression. To be clear, this research may well address novel research questions, but the release doesn’t make clear what those are — particularly in the context of previous work in the field. This is a tricky one. The release does one thing that we don’t like — and it does that thing more than once. The headline says “Diet…may also reduce risk of depression” (emphasis added). The first sentence says “People…may have lower rates of depression…” (emphasis added). In either instance, the release could just as easily have said “may not.” It begs the question of why the news release was issued at this point. However, we want to applaud two things the release does do. First, the release explicitly states that “the study does not prove that the DASH diet leads to a reduced risk of depression; it only shows an association.” That is such an important point to make, and we think that is great. Second, the release also quotes one of the researchers as saying “Future studies are now needed to confirm these results and to determine the best nutritional components of the DASH diet to prevent depression later in life and to best help people keep their brains healthy.” Again, this is an important point and we are very glad to see it addressed. All in all, we give it a satisfactory rating here.
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