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10516
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Breast cancer risk outlasts hormones
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"This story was about the elevated cancer risks associated with the use of hormone replacement therapy by women after menopause. But while highlighing an increased cancer risk, the story never explained that there was no difference in overall risk of dying from all causes for the different groups of women. So while the story quoted someone saying ""There’s no reason for alarm,"" this important statistic would have provided some framework for why there was no reason for alarm. So some of the framing provided in this article (and in the scientific paper) semantically makes it seem like women would have to be crazy to choose to take HRT (experiencing ""danger"" and suffering from ""insufficient awareness of risk"") when in fact if women have a need that may be improved the tradeoff in terms of overall risk is neutral – so that personal history and informed decision-making really should take the lead. Another point about framing: Although the story mentioned in passing the benefit of hormone replacement therapy for relief of menopausal symptoms, it failed to expand on what these symptoms were and the extent to which they were lessened by the treatment. It failed to mentioned that there was a significant decrease in overall fracture risk. There have been many critics of the ways in which the Women’s Health Initiative study findings were communicated in 2002. This story – at times – fell into that same pattern of failing to deliver the context women may need to help make decisions."
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mixture
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"There was no discussion of the costs involved with hormone replacement therapy although, with a story about risks of HRT, it is somewhat understandable that a discussion of costs was not vital. Although the story mentioned in passing the benefit of hormone replacement therapy for relief of menopausal symptoms, it failed to expand on what these symptoms were and the extent to which they were lessened by the treatment. It failed to mentioned that there was a significant decrease in overall fracture risk. The story was all about harms associated with the use of hormone replacement therapy. But it did not explain that all-cause mortality was the same whether women took HRT or not, and it did not explain that cancer risk for the entire period of follow-up was identical. Although the story mentioned that it was based on a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, it really failed to provide information about the evidence in a way that was informative and useful to the reader. Rather, it invoked the Women’s Health Initiative study ""mystique"" repeatedly – without ever describing some of the criticisms of the framing of those original findings. The story never explained an important finding: that whether or not women used hormone replacement therapy, all cause mortality was found not to differ. So some of the framing provided in this article (and in the scientific paper) semantically makes it seem like women would have to be crazy to choose to take HRT (experiencing ""danger"" and suffering from ""insufficient awareness of risk"") when in fact if women have a need that may be improved the tradeoff in terms of overall risk is neutral – so that personal history and informed decision-making really should take the lead. The story included quotes from 4 clinicians. The story did briefly explain at the very end that ""there are other drugs to protect against osteoporosis and other treatments for cardiovascular disease – though not as many for symptoms of menopause."" Not much, but an attempt was made. It was possible to see from the story that hormone replacement therapy is still available. The story accurately reported on the novelty (lack thereof) of this treatment. Because the story quoted multiple sources, it does not appear to rely on a press release."
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37546
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When stocking up for coronavirus-related social distancing, avoid WIC-approved supermarket items, because they may run out and leave families dependent on WIC with no ability to purchase food.
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WIC-Approved Items and Coronavirus #SocialDistancing
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unproven
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On March 16 2020, the Facebook page “Vote Common Good” shared a screenshot of a tweet about social distancing, WIC-approved items, and conscientious coronavirus stock-up shopping:Labeled “a practical way to show kindness,” the post involved a March 15 2020 tweet by @SuitUpMaine:When stocking up for #SocialDistancing, if an item has a WIC symbol beside the price, get something else. People who use WIC to feed their kids can't switch to another brand or kind of food. If a store runs out of WIC-approved options, they will go home empty-handed.#mepolitics pic.twitter.com/oFRts6Rcbc— Suit Up Maine (@SuitUpMaine) March 16, 2020The tweet also showed a photograph of a supermarket shelf price label. In tiny print next to the sale price of two for $5, “WIC” was visible. The tweet advised shoppers “stocking up for social distancing” to avoid purchasing items with a “WIC” symbol next to the price. According to @SuitUpMaine, those reliant on WIC for food would not be able to purchase anything if a store ran out of WIC-approved items:When stocking up for #SocialDistancing, if an item has a WIC symbol beside the price, get something else. People who use WIC to feed their kids can’t switch to another brand or kind of food. If a store runs out of WIC-approved options, they will go home empty-handed. #mepoliticsBacking up, WIC is an acronym for the US Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children:The WIC Program aims to safeguard the health of low-income women, infants, and children up to age 5 who are at nutrition risk by providing nutritious foods to supplement diets, information on healthy eating, and referrals to health care.According to the USDA’s WIC FAQ, recipients of WIC’s benefits are provided “checks or vouchers to purchase specific foods” on a month-to-month basis, with an ongoing rollout of electronic benefit transfers enabling the use of cards for WIC benefits in some states (all states by October 2020.) WIC listed some of their approved items in that FAQ section:In most WIC state agencies, WIC participants receive checks or vouchers to purchase specific foods each month that are designed to supplement their diets with specific nutrients that benefit WIC’s target population. In addition, some states issue an electronic benefit card to participants instead of paper checks or vouchers. The use of electronic cards is growing and all WIC state agencies are required to implement WIC electronic benefit transfer (EBT) statewide by October 1, 2020. A few state agencies distribute the WIC foods through warehouses or deliver the foods to participants’ homes. Different food packages are provided for different categories of participants.WIC foods include infant cereal, iron-fortified adult cereal, vitamin C-rich fruit or vegetable juice, eggs, milk, cheese, peanut butter, dried and canned beans/peas, and canned fish. Soy-based beverages, tofu, fruits and vegetables, baby foods, whole-wheat bread, and other whole-grain options were recently added to better meet the nutritional needs of WIC participants.As noted on the USDA WIC site, state-by-state variations in the administration of benefits are a factor in how WIC participants can obtain or receive food. Some states use delivery, bringing foods to WIC recipients’ homes. Benefits also vary for different categories of recipients.The tweet from @SuitUpMaine tweet made reference to stores running out of WIC-approved items as a direct result of unusual demand caused by coronavirus-related conditions, such as social distancing (reduced contact with the public) and wide-scale stocking up among all people, including WIC recipients. On the Kansas Department of Health’s website, a PDF page of guidance (from 1996) for cashiers and store employees about WIC featured a section about out of stock items.The information provided on that guidance was broadly dated and specific to supermarket employees handling WIC transactions. On page two, the item numbered “27” referenced out of stock WIC-approved items, referencing store discretion for approved items and advising clerks:If the least expensive brand – usually a store brand – is out of stock, [WIC recipients are] allowed to get the next least expensive brand available.Point number 53 did as well, reiterating:Also, the customer should always select the least expensive brand of milk available on your shelf. If the least expensive brand – usually a store brand – is out of stock, the customer is allowed to get the next least expensive brand available.Points 53 through 57 had to do solely to out of stock WIC-approved items, describing a “list of alternates” from which WIC recipients could choose should WIC-approved items be unavailable:54. Out of stock items55. Occasionally, stores may run out of a particular food item. This doesn’t happen very often because there are usually plenty of WIC items in stock.But if it does happen, we do not issue rain checks. The customer must pick an alternate from the list.56. One exception is Baby Formula. It must always be bought in the exact brand, size and quantity specified on the food instrument.57. From time to time, changes may happen on WIC approved foods that are added to the WIC Program. Your manager should keep you informed about these changes. Basically remember, if a particular brand is printed in the WIC Program Booklet, approved foods section, that brand must be purchased.Again, that guidance was specifically dated (March 1996) and relevant to a specific state (Kansas), details alluding to WIC’s changes over time and individualized features based on WIC recipients’ home states. Undated guidance for retailers in Connecticut [PDF] also mentioned that the next available, least expensive brand was acceptable to substitute.Individual state guidance, such as the New York State WIC shopping guide [PDF], often described extreme restrictions and onerous requirements. Commonly, WIC recipients were advised to go to other stores if all items were unavailable:Q. If the store is out of an item, can I get a rain check? A. No! Stores may not give you a rain check for WIC foods. If a store doesn’t have all the WIC foods listed on your check, ask the store manager if the foods are in stock. You may have to go to another store if all foods are not available.Guidance issued to stores in Delaware for 2019-2021 [PDF] said that no substitutions were allowed, as did the state of Washington’s guidance through 2021 [PDF], referenced in a broad FAQ:“Q: Can I substitute another brand if our store is out of the brand on the WIC Program Booklet? “A: No. Substitutions are never allowed. If your store is out of the specific brand the participant wants, the participant can go to a different WIC authorized vendor.”“Sell only what’s on the check—no substitutions are allowed … If a WIC customer needs a WIC approved food that is not in stock, do not issue a rain check or allow them to come back to the store to get the missing item.”The USDA’s website hosted a March 6 2020 press release about food security in Washington — the first state with a large number of COVID-19 cases. Titled “USDA Makes It Easier, Safer to Feed Children Amid Washington State Coronavirus Outbreak,” it described emergency measures to ensure food security for children in low-income families through June 2020:WASHINGTON, March 6, 2020 — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved a request from Washington State to allow meal service during school closures to minimize potential exposure to the coronavirus. These meals are available at no cost to low-income children, and are not required to be served in a group setting, to ensure kids receive nutritious meals while schools are temporarily closed.“USDA stands with the people of Washington State as a part of a federal-wide coordinated response,” said Brandon Lipps, Deputy Under Secretary for USDA’s Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services. “The flexibility provided by the waiver approved today will help ensure that our children get wholesome meals, safeguarding their health during times of need.”The waiver announced today is effective immediately and will continue through June 30, 2020. USDA stands ready to provide additional assistance to the people of Washington State and other areas impacted by the coronavirus as allowed by law and in coordination with the much larger government-wide response.All Food and Nutrition Service programs – including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); and the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs – have flexibilities and contingencies built-in to allow them to respond to on-the-ground realities in the event of a disaster or emergency situation. For more information about the coronavirus response across USDA, please visit: www.usda.gov/coronavirus.USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service administers 15 nutrition assistance programs that leverage American’s agricultural abundance to ensure children and low-income individuals and families have nutritious food to eat. FNS also co-develops the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which provide science-based nutrition recommendations and serve as the cornerstone of federal nutrition policy.In the press release, the USDA said that all three programs (including WIC) “have flexibilities and contingencies built-in to allow them to respond to on-the-ground realities in the event of a disaster or emergency situation.”Readers were directed to a specific USDA page about its coronavirus response. One of the questions answered on that page (“What is the USDA doing about access to food?”) had to do with shortages and, specifically, supplemental food assistance programs like SNAP and WIC:A: USDA is monitoring the situation closely in collaboration with our federal and state partners. FNS is ready to assist in the government-wide effort to ensure all Americans have access to food in times of need. In the event of an emergency or disaster situation, Food and Nutrition Service programs are just one part of a much larger government-wide coordinated response. All of our programs, including SNAP, WIC, and the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, have flexibilities and contingencies built-in to allow us to respond to on-the-ground realities and take action as directed by Congress.Learn more about available FNS flexibilities to help ensure food access during the pandemic response, please visit: www.fns.usda.gov/disaster/pandemic.Again, the USDA described contingencies “built-in” to WIC and SNAP for situations precisely like the COVID-19 pandemic. The USDA linked to another page (“FNS Program Guidance on Human Pandemic Response”), and a first section — “Automatic State Flexibilities.” The USDA repeated that “USDA/FNS nutrition assistance programs, including SNAP, WIC, and the child nutrition programs, have flexibilities that allow them to respond to on-the-ground realities and support response and recovery efforts,” adding more detailed information about access:In SNAP, state agencies can allow applications online (including via mobile app), by mail, or telephone, can extend certification periods to the maximum available, and can streamline the program by exempting households from certain requirements for good cause.In WIC, states may postpone certain lab tests for up to 90 days, extend certification periods for up to 30 days, and provide up to three months of benefits in advance.In school meals and other child nutrition programs, states may combine operations from multiple entities to serve and claim meals at a centralized location and expedite approval of summer feeding sites that may operate during unanticipated school closures.In the food distribution programs, states have flexibility to adjust for the types of commodities provided in The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and to provide deliveries to homes or other convenient pick-up points, or allow participants to have a trusted representative pick up their food packages from the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR) or the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP).According to that page, states might provide up to 90 days of benefits in advance to WIC recipients, extend periods of certification, and add to programs to provide food while schools were closed. Its fourth paragraph reiterated that states “have flexibility to adjust for the types of commodities provided” during emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic, and it explained additional assistance provided during such periods. Specific guidance about out of stock WIC-approved items in supermarkets and substitutions was not described.The USDA further noted that it may grant waivers when necessary and to allow substitutions so that WIC recipients are not forced to go hungry during times of crisis:In WIC, USDA can allow states to conduct certification online or by phone, waive certain documentation requirements when they present an unreasonable barrier to participation, and allow states the option to substitute certain food package items with similar items when WIC-approved foods are unavailable.Points three and four involved increased (not decreased) access to food during a crisis, emphasizing the role of states in increasing access:In school meals and other child nutrition programs, USDA can waive the requirements that meals are served in group settings, allow meals to be served at school sites during unanticipated school closures, allow school program operators to modify meal components or service times, and waive certain administrative requirements. When a Federal Major Disaster Declaration has been issued, USDA can allow summer and child care operators to modify meal components, and waive additional administrative requirements.In the food distribution programs, USDA can allow state flexibility to set TEFAP income eligibility, certification duration, method of certification, and residency requirements, allow flexibility in the foods included in the CSFP and FDPIR food packages when approved foods are unavailable, and in major Presidential disaster declarations allowing individual assistance and certain other emergency situations, allow states to provide a household commodity distribution program without verification of residency or income.… States can employ these flexibilities as they develop a pandemic response strategy customized to the needs of their respective populations. They are encouraged to work with local public health officials, in coordination with other federal, state, and local programs, to understand the conditions and constraints under which these may be most appropriate and effective.A linked, undated general Q&A about USDA programs and pandemics [PDF] mentioned “social distancing” as a factor in food access:During a human pandemic if vaccine is unavailable, the key public health intervention to slow the spread of the disease will be social distancing. Current WIC Program regulations provide flexibility with regard to physical presence, adjusting certification periods and mailing of food instruments which can be used at the State agency’s discretion, including situations that would require social distancing.In 2017, the USDA issued [PDF] guidance to states for coordinating WIC during disasters. A section for vendors described scenarios wherein WIC-approved items might not be available (both for food and formula, separately):If it is not possible to provide the exact brand items for the other foods listed on the out-of-State WIC food instrument, a similar item may be substituted from the receiving State’s WIC-approved food list.On March 14 2020, the Food Research & Action Center (FRAC) issued a press release lauding the House of Representatives’ passage of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (H.R. 6201). FRAC described new bill provisions affecting recipients of SNAP and WIC, specifically a temporary increase in funding:With this bill, USDA will have additional authority to issue waivers to support access to the child nutrition programs, including issuing nationwide waivers which would reduce paperwork for states and help more schools, local government agencies, and community organizations quickly adapt and provide meals, waivers that can increase programmatic costs, and waivers to adapt meal pattern requirements in response to disruptions to the food supply. In addition, USDA also will have the authority to allow child and adult care centers to operate as non-congregate sites.In addition, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act provides $500 million for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants and Children (WIC) to provide access to nutritious foods to low-income pregnant women or mothers with young children who lose their jobs or are laid off due to the COVID-19. The Act includes $250 million for increases in meals provided by senior nutrition programs housed in the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Community Living. Food banks and emergency food providers will also receive much-needed commodity support.Neither the press release nor the bill in question [PDF] mentioned WIC-approved item substitutions. Some states issued updates or guidance specific to WIC, but it tended to involve program eligibility and in-person appointments — such as a COVID-19/WIC memo issued by Minnesota’s Department of Health on March 13 2020 [PDF].In response to the popularity of their original tweet suggesting shoppers avoid purchasing WIC-approved items during shortages, @SuitUpMaine tweeted the following updates on March 16 2020:UPDATE: We contacted [Maine legislator] @SenAngusKing about this. His staff learned from the USDA that state WIC programs can request waivers to allow for substitutions. We’re now working with Maine legislative leaders to request these waivers. We urge people in other states to do the same!Waivers can be issued immediately, so we are hopeful the lag time won’t be too long. Meanwhile, we continue to ask people to be mindful of supplies of WIC-approved food items and choose other items for purchase.Sorry…we meant a statewide waiver from USDA that would automatically allow substitutions for all WIC recipients in Maine. It isn’t as immediate as we need, which is why we are asking others to leave WIC-approved foods on th3 shelves for those who need them.A COVID-19 economic relief bill on March 14 2020 affected (and expanded) WIC access, but it wasn’t clear substitutions for WIC were available to all WIC recipients in all states as of March 16 2020. @SuitUpMaine’s advice appeared at a time where all shoppers faced limited availability on store shelves.Nevertheless, we were unable to find information suggesting that WIC restrictions had been relaxed to allow substitutions — only information from the USDA that the agency was empowered to allow them, making @SuitUpMaine’s advice worth taking into consideration in every state.
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17313
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Seventy-five percent of the young adults in this country are not mentally or physically fit to serve.
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Bing West said 75 percent of young adults in the United States were physically or mentally unfit to serve in the military. The Defense Department and a non-governmental organization have both done research that support his claim. We find the statement True. (Comment on this ruling on providencejournal.com. If you have a claim you'd like us to check, send it to [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.)
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true
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Rhode Island, Military, Bing West,
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"Bing West, Marine veteran of Vietnam and an expert on counterinsurgency warfare, was discussing military preparedness with host Gene Valicenti last week on WPRO-AM. They were talking about Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s proposed defense budget, which includes, among other spending cuts, trimming the Army from its current level of 520,000 troops to as low as 440,000 active duty soldiers, the lowest level since before World War II. West opposes the troop reductions, saying such cuts would make it difficult for the United States to respond quickly to future military threats. If those kinds of cuts must be made, he said, it is common sense to have a backup mobilization plan in place to rapidly increase the size of the military. In other words, he said, a draft. Besides the obvious political challenges in reinstituting the draft, which ended in 1973, West said there’s a logistical problem as well: Seventy-five percent of the young adults in this country are not mentally or physically fit to serve, he said. Watch out, Valicenti warned, Politifact might hear you. Well, we did. West’s number sounded high, so we went out to muster the facts. When we called West, he said he got the figure from reports he’d read in newspapers around the country, most recently the Washington Post. We looked for the original research that might have driven those reports, and we found it. The 75 percent unfit figure has been reported for a few years now. It came from a 2009 report called ""Ready, Willing and Unable to Serve, 75 Percent of Young Adults Cannot Join the Military."" The report was prepared by Mission Readiness, an organization that includes 89 retired military officials, including a former navy secretary, and officers from generals to chief petty officers and sergeant majors. The group advocates for improvements in the United States’ education system and the health of the nation’s youth. The report said increasing obesity rates among Americans ages 17 to 24, declining high school graduation rates and criminal backgrounds were severely narrowing the pool of applicants who could meet the armed forces’ academic and physical health standards for recruits. The report noted that one in four young Americans lacks a high school diploma and 30 percent of those who have one and try to enlist fail the military’s math and reading tests. It also estimated that 27 percent of those between 17 and 24 could not hit the armed forces’ weight limits and 32 percent had other health problems, such as asthma, poor eyesight or hearing or attention deficit disorders, that ruled them out for military service. The report also said about 10 percent of the potential military service population was ineligible because of at least one prior felony or serious misdemeanor. Mission:Readiness isn’t the only one sounding that alarm. On March 3, 2009, Curtis Gilroy, then the director of the accession policy office of the undersecretary for defense for personnel and readiness, told the U. S. Congress’ House Armed Services Committee pretty much the same thing. He cited the primary drivers as obesity and low high school graduation rates when he said ""we find that only 25 percent of our young people today, aged 17 to 24, are qualified for military service. Not a good situation."" Our ruling Bing West said 75 percent of young adults in the United States were physically or mentally unfit to serve in the military. The Defense Department and a non-governmental organization have both done research that support his claim. We find the statement . (Comment on this ruling on providencejournal.com. If you have a claim you'd like us to check, send it to [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.)"
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24171
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"Several times, Obama ""has apologized for what he deems to be American arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision; for dictating solutions, for acting unilaterally ... ."
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"In reviewing Romney's book, we couldn't help but notice that Romney's diagnosis of the problems America faces are very similar to the themes Obama often repeats: The U.S. needs to educate its children better to remain competitive in the global marketplace. We spend too much money on health care. The fiscal future is ultimately unsustainable. It is in the matter of foreign policy that Romney lays out the most aggressive case against Obama, warning that the United States needs to maintain its military dominance in the world, particularly in the face of threats from China, Russia and Islamic jihadists. Obama, Romney writes, needs to ""proudly defend her rather than continually apologize for her."""
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false
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National, Foreign Policy, Patriotism, Terrorism, Mitt Romney,
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"Mitt Romney's new book is called No Apology. The first chapter makes it clear who he thinks is apologizing: President Barack Obama. ""Never before in American history has its president gone before so many foreign audiences to apologize for so many American misdeeds, both real and imagined,"" Romney writes. ""It is his way of signaling to foreign countries and foreign leaders that their dislike for America is something he understands and that is, at least in part, understandable. There are anti-American fires burning all across the globe; President Obama's words are like kindling to them."" Obama might give compliments to America here and there, Romney adds. ""But what makes his speeches jump out at his audience are the steady stream of criticisms, put-downs, and jabs directed at the nation he was elected to represent and defend. ""In his first nine months in office, President Obama has issued apologies and criticisms of America in speeches in France, England, Turkey, and Cairo; at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and the United Nations in New York City. He has apologized for what he deems to be American arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision; for dictating solutions, for acting unilaterally, and for acting without regard for others; for treating other countries as mere proxies, for unjustly interfering in the internal affairs of other nations, and for feeding anti-Mulism sentiments; for committing torture, for dragging our feet on global warming and for selectively promoting democracy."" As we did our research, we noticed that the idea that Obama has traveled the world apologizing is popular among some conservative Web sites. The Heritage Foundation, for example, published an analysis in June 2009 called ""Barack Obama's Top 10 Apologies."" Similar compilations are available elsewhere, and radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has mentioned Obama apologizing several times. But as we looked over Obama's remarks, we noticed that he never used the word that is the universal hallmark of apologies: ""sorry."" Merriam-Webster defines an apology as ""an admission of error or discourtesy accompanied by an expression of regret."" If someone is apologizing, it seems that is a discrete act that can be verified and fact-checked. We set out to discover how accurate Romney was in describing Obama as constantly apologizing. What Obama said We read the seven Obama speeches and selected the passages that seemed the most critical, apologetic or conciliatory, and then ran them by several experts with different points of view. Because of their length, we've compiled those passages into a separate document with links to the full remarks, and we encourage you to click over and read those remarks now. To summarize them here, the remarks include major speeches, press conferences, and remarks at a town hall meeting. At times, Obama uses an on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand formulation that he is tends to employ right before he asks the two sides to come together. At a town hall meeting in France, for example, Obama encouraged Europe to work with the United States, and admitted that the United States ""has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."" But he immediately said that Europe has been guilty of a ""casual"" and ""insidious"" anti-Americanism. ""On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth. They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated,"" Obama concluded. And at a major address to the United Nations, Obama said, ""I took office at a time when many around the world had come to view America with skepticism and distrust. Part of this was due to misperceptions and misinformation about my country. Part of this was due to opposition to specific policies, and a belief that on certain critical issues, America has acted unilaterally, without regard for the interests of others. And this has fed an almost reflexive anti-Americanism, which too often has served as an excuse for collective inaction."" At other times, Obama doesn't seem so much to be criticizing the United States as he is criticizing the foreign policy stances of the Bush administration. In England, a reporter said that during the 2008 campaign, Obama had said that the power and authority of the United States had diminished in recent years. Obama was quick to turn the question toward the Bush team. ""Well, first of all, during the campaign I did not say that some of that loss of authority was inevitable,"" Obama said. ""I said it was traced to very specific decisions that the previous administration had made that I believed had lowered our standing in the world.... I would like to think that with my election and the early decisions that we've made, that you're starting to see some restoration of America's standing in the world."" At a speech in Cairo on relations between the U.S. and the Islamic world, Obama got very close to regretting decades-old U.S. actions in Iran. But then he immediately countered with criticism of Iran. He did not make a formal expression of regret, but suggested both countries simply ""move forward."" Here are his exact remarks: ""In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I've made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward."" Looking at all the remarks Romney cited, we noticed that Obama is most conciliatory when discussing torture and detention at the U.S. military installation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama mentioned this in four separate instances that Romney cited in the fact we're checking. Typically, Obama would say that the U.S. must always stay true to its ideals, and that's why Obama ""unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year."" (He has not been successful with his order of closing Guantanamo; it remains open as of this writing.) Obama's most pointed remarks on Guantanamo were at the National Archives, in a major speech on fighting terrorism. Obama said that after 9/11, ""our government made a series of hasty decisions. I believe that many of these decisions were motivated by a sincere desire to protect the American people. But I also believe that all too often our government made decisions based on fear rather than foresight; that all too often our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions."" He also said that the Guantanamo prison ""likely created more terrorists around the world than it ever detained. So the record is clear: Rather than keeping us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security. It is a rallying cry for our enemies."" Did Obama apologize? We sent Obama's remarks to several different experts on foreign policy and apologies, to see if they thought Obama was apologizing. • Nile Gardiner, a foreign policy analyst with the the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Obama is definitely apologizing, and it's not good. He co-wrote the Heritage analysis, ""Barack Obama's Top 10 Apologies: How the President Has Humiliated a Superpower."" ""Apologizing for your own country projects an image of weakness before both allies and enemies,"" Gardiner said. ""It sends a very clear signal that the U.S. is to blame for some major developments on the world stage. This can be used to the advanage of those who wish to undermine American global leadership."" He noted that Obama tends to be most apologetic about how the U.S. has fought terrorism and its approach to the Iraq war. ""There is a very strong partisan element to his apologies, but the biggest driving factor is Obama's personal belief that the U.S. is not an exceptional, uniquely great nation,"" he said. • John Murphy, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studies presidential rhetoric and political language. He said Obama is using conciliatory language for diplomatic purposes, not apologizing. ""It's much more a sense of establishing of reciprocity,"" Murphy said. ""Each side says, okay, we haven't done great, but we have a new president and we're going to make a fresh start and move forward. I don't think that's an apology. ... In rhetorical history, an apology is generally considered an account of some kind of bad behavior in which you are going to take responsibility and express regret."" Romney's criticisms of Obama are part of a conservative tradition that emphasizes steadfastness in foreign policy, particularly in the wake of the Vietnam War. ""There's long been a strain of conservative rhetoric that argues that what matters most for the United States in the world is our will,"" Murphy said. ""The difficulty with that was shown in the second Bush administration, when will power is not quite enough. In Iraq, for example, you have to have a battle plan that makes sense and understand the situation you're going into'' and have enough resources to do that. • Lauren Bloom, an attorney and business consultant, wrote the book, The Art of the Apology, advising businesses and individuals on when to apologize and how to do it. She said Obama's words fall short of an apology, mostly because he didn't use the words ""sorry"" or ""regret."" ""I think to make an effective apology, the words 'I'm sorry' or 'we're sorry' always have to be there,"" Bloom said. Obama's remarks are really non-apologies, and they're not good in business or personal relationships, Bloom said. The one area where they can be useful: international diplomacy. ""Gov. Romney is trying to appeal to the inner John Wayne of his readers, and that has a certain emotional appeal,"" Bloom said. ""For the rest of us, a level assessment of less-than-perfect human behavior is perfectly reasonable."" • Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, a professor who studies international human rights, maintains the Web site Political Apologies and Reparations, a database of documents on apologies. Many of the apologies in the database relate to genocide or slavery. ""To say the United States will not torture is not an apology, it is a statement of intent,"" Howard-Hassman said. ""A complete apology has to acknowledge something was wrong, accept responsibility, express sorrow or regret and promise not to repeat it."" Obama's Cairo address in particular was a means of reaching out to the Islamic world, not an acknowledgement of wrongdoing, she said. ""Whether he's apologizing or not, he's saying 'I respect your society and I respect your customs.' Maybe that's what Romney considers an apology, that gesture of respect,"" she said. ""But a gesture of respect is not an apology."" Other presidential apologies Short of conducting a full review of all American presidents to see if any others had ever apologized, we decided to narrow our focus and look at Obama's two immediate predecessors, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Several sources we reviewed discussed Clinton's remarks about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and described them as an apology. But Clinton did not explicitly apologize, and he assigned responsibility to the international community, not just the United States. ""The international community, together with nations in Africa, must bear its share of responsibility for this tragedy as well,"" Clinton said in Rwanda in 1998. ""We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become safe haven for the killers. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide. We cannot change the past. But we can and must do everything in our power to help you build a future without fear, and full of hope."" Clinton did apologize, forcefully, to the survivors and families of the experiments conducted in Tuskegee, Ala., in which government doctors left sick men untreated as part of a research study on syphilis. ""The United States government did something that was wrong -- deeply, profoundly, morally wrong,"" Clinton said at a formal ceremony in 1997. ""To the survivors, to the wives and family members, the children and the grandchildren, I say what you know: No power on Earth can give you back the lives lost, the pain suffered, the years of internal torment and anguish. What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry."" Bush made remarks in 2002 about American slavery, which some people construed as an apology, at Goree Island, Senegal. But Bush did not formally apologize or express regret, instead opting to praise the Americans in history who worked to end slavery. ""My nation's journey toward justice has not been easy and it is not over,"" he said. ""The racial bigotry fed by slavery did not end with slavery or with segregation. And many of the issues that still trouble America have roots in the bitter experience of other times. But however long the journey, our destination is set: liberty and justice for all."" Bush did, however, specifically apologize to King Abdullah of Jordan for the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The 2004 apology took place privately, but Bush and Abdullah spoke soon after at a Rose Garden press conference. ""We also talked about what has been on the TV screens recently, not only in our own country, but overseas -- the images of cruelty and humiliation. I told His Majesty as plainly as I could that the wrongdoers will be brought to justice, and that the actions of those folks in Iraq do not represent the values of the United States of America,"" Bush said. ""I told him I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners, and the humiliation suffered by their families. I told him I was equally sorry that people who have been seeing those pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America."" Obama's praise and motivations While Obama has admitted mistakes, he has also praised America. Romney acknowledges as much when he writes that Obama ""always the skillful politician, will throw in compliments about America here and there."" In Cairo, Obama called the United States ""one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. ... We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words -- within our borders, and around the world."" At the Langley speech, Obama told the CIA staff, ""What makes the United States special, and what makes you special, is precisely the fact that we are willing to uphold our values and our ideals even when it's hard, not just when it's easy; even when we are afraid and under threat, not just when it's expedient to do so. That's what makes us different. So, yes, you've got a harder job. And so do I. And that's okay, because that's why we can take such extraordinary pride in being Americans. And over the long term, that is why I believe we will defeat our enemies, because we're on the better side of history."" And at his speech accepting the Nobel Prize, Obama said: ""Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity."" We reviewed several analyses of what Obama's foreign policy goals are in traveling the world and readily admitting to America's mistakes. One of the most interesting essays we read was written by historian Walter Russell Mead for the journal Foreign Policy. Obama's foreign policy follows in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson and more recently of Jimmy Carter, Mead writes. Obama's goal is to reduce America's costs and risks overseas. In Obama's view, Mead writes, ""Large military budgets divert resources from pressing domestic needs; close association with corrupt and tyrannical foreign regimes involves the United States in dirty and cynical alliances; the swelling national-security state threatens civil liberties and leads to powerful pro-war, pro-engagement lobbies among corporations nourished on grossly swollen federal defense budgets. ... ""Obama seeks a quiet world in order to focus his efforts on domestic reform -- and to create conditions that would allow him to dismantle some of the national-security state inherited from the Cold War and given new life and vigor after 9/11. Preferring disarmament agreements to military buildups and hoping to substitute regional balance-of-power arrangements for massive unilateral U.S. force commitments all over the globe, the president wishes ultimately for an orderly world in which burdens are shared and the military power of the United States is a less prominent feature on the international scene."" Our ruling In reviewing Romney's book, we couldn't help but notice that Romney's diagnosis of the problems America faces are very similar to the themes Obama often repeats: The U.S. needs to educate its children better to remain competitive in the global marketplace. We spend too much money on health care. The fiscal future is ultimately unsustainable. It is in the matter of foreign policy that Romney lays out the most aggressive case against Obama, warning that the United States needs to maintain its military dominance in the world, particularly in the face of threats from China, Russia and Islamic jihadists. Obama, Romney writes, needs to ""proudly defend her rather than continually apologize for her."" Here, we're checking Romney's statement that Obama ""has apologized for what he deems to be American arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision"" and a host of other reasons. If you think American presidents should never admit to any sort of error at any time, you might find yourself in philosophical agreement with Romney's criticisms. We set out to discover whether Obama really had apologized in his speeches, and what he was apologizing for. But in our review of his words, we came up short. Yes, there is criticism in some of his speeches, but it's typically leavened by praise for the United States and its ideals, and often he mentions other countries and how they have erred as well. There's not a full-throated, sincere apology in the bunch.
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6354
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Maine plans to expand syringe exchange program.
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Maine plans to launch a $1.5 expansion of syringe exchanges to combat the surge in hepatitis C cases in the state.
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true
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Health, General News, Hepatitis, Portland, Maine
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The Maine Center for Disease Control says the state has had 51 acute cases in 2019 and is running a rate nearly three times the national average. Director of the Maine CDC, Dr. Nirav Shah, says the cases of hepatitis C in Maine is “an unfortunate outcropping of the substance use crisis.” Executive director of the Health Equity Alliance, Kenney Miller, says the long-term goal’s to have at least one syringe exchange in all 16 counties. The Portland Press Herald reports there are currently exchange programs in Bangor, Ellsworth, Belfast, Machias, Portland, Augusta and Waterville. Shah says increasing the number of exchanges is one of the top priorities of the Mills administration. ___ This story has been corrected to show there are 51 cases of acute hepatitis C diagnosed in Maine this year, not 59.
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38160
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Budweiser has pulled its ads and withdrawn its support for the NFL over the league’s handling of players protesting inequality by kneeling during the National Anthem.
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Budweiser Pulls Out of NFL Over Handling of National Anthem Protests
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false
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Sports, Trump
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None of the 35 national brands sponsoring the 2017 NFL season — including Budweiser — have pulled out of the NFL in response to widespread player protests during the National Anthem. However, a Louisiana-baed distributor of Bud Light pulled point-of-sale advertising materials featuring the NFL and the New Orleans Saints in response to the protests. That led some to believe that all Bud Light ads had been pulled from the NFL, but that’s not the case. Rumors that Budweisers had pulled out of the NFL surfaced in September 2017, shortly after President Trump called on NFL owners to fire the “sons of bitches” who kneel during the National Anthem to bring attention to inequality. Anheuser-Busch Inbev, the parent company of Budweiser, expressed support for “the institutions and values that have made America so strong,” in a statement. The company also voiced support for the military, the flag and gave no indication that it would pull out of the NFL: “At Anheuser-Busch we have a long heritage of supporting the institutions and values that have made America so strong. That includes our armed forces and the national anthem as well as diversity, equality and freedom of speech. We proudly employ over 1,100 military veterans and we work every day to create an inclusive environment for all of our employees. Because only together can we achieve our dream of bringing people together for a better world.” Under Armour, Ford, Nike, Hyundai and Bose are among other NFL sponsors who joined Budweiser in voicing support for athletes’ rights for free speech, the National Anthem and the American flag in general. None of them indicated that they were dissatisfied with the NFL’s handling of the protests, or that they intended to withdraw its support. Budweiser did speak up in 2014 over the NFL’s inconsistent handling of allegations of domestic violence among players, and that’s caused some confusion. Budweiser threatened to end its $1.2 billion, six-year sponsorship deal at the time, but that never happened. The company’s 2014 statements have been misattributed to the 2017 National Anthem protests on social media. And the Lafayette, Louisiana-based Schilling Distributing Company’s decision to pull Bud Light point-of-sale materials featuring the NFL and the Saints might have also caused some confusion. The local distributor’s decision, however, doesn’t impact Budweiser’s multibillion dollar deal with the NFL. However, at least one individual player appears to have lost a sponsorship deal after kneeling for the anthem on September 24, 2017. CBS Denver reports that Phil Long Dealerships pulled ads featuring Denver Broncos player Vonn Miller. The dealership explained the decision in a statement to the station: “We are evaluating the events of the weekend. It is important to state that we haven’t fired Von. We are in the middle of contract renewal and this weekend’s events remind us that sometimes we feel that we best represent ourselves. We support Von and his first amendment rights, we know Von and he’s a good person. He donated a police car to his hometown police dept. All that notwithstanding when we bring in celebrities to represent us we run the risk of being misrepresented.” In the end, it’s not true that Budweiser has pulled out of the NFL. Comments
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23644
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There are more pain clinics in Broward County than there are McDonald's in Broward County.
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Dave Aronberg says Broward pain clinics outnumber McDonald's sites
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true
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Drugs, Florida, Dave Aronberg,
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"The proliferation of pain clinics in Florida has been a growing problem -- particularly in Broward County. Dave Aronberg, a state senator from Palm Beach County running in the Democratic primary for attorney general, has now quantified that problem by comparing it to the availability of Big Macs. ""There are more pain clinics in Broward County than there are McDonald's in Broward County,"" he told the St. Petersburg Times editorial board July 26. We at PolitiFact Florida wondered, are there really more spots to buy happy meds than Happy Meals in Broward County? Determining the number of pain clinics was more complicated than counting the number of McDonald's restaurants. Aronberg campaign spokesman Allison North Jones cited a grand jury investigation led by Broward State Attorney Mike Satz issued in 2009. That report stated that in 2007, there were four pain clinics in Broward. From August 2008 to November 2009, the number swelled from 47 to 115. A footnote in the report states that the statistic comes from the Broward Sheriff's Office Pharmaceutical Drug Diversion Unit. BSO spokesman Jim Leljedal told us that as of July 28, BSO lists 144 pain clinics in the entire county. But he warned ""sometimes it is hard to have an accurate count because these places come and go, they are thrown out of one storefront and move across the street."" Aronberg sent us a March 2 blog in the Broward Palm Beach New Times which also looked at his McDonald's comparison -- that time he had made the comment at a St. Petersburg debate. ""After dozens of phone calls and hours of research, it turns out that finding the exact number of pill mills in Broward is impossible,"" The New Times wrote. ""First, it depends on your definition of a 'pill mill.' The pain management clinics in South Florida range from legitimate medical business targeting specific patients suffering chronic pain to junkie-friendly, low-rent operations. Second, a lot of these clinics open and shut down quickly, only to reopen at a new location. Third, and most important, there is little government regulation of the industry, no agency responsible for tracking the businesses."" The New Times quoted Mike Jachles, a BSO spokesman, as saying there were ""at least 80"" in areas that BSO oversees. The New Times counted 71 McDonald's for Broward County in the phone book. We also consulted the Florida Department of Health's pain clinic registry. That spreadsheet shows about 343 clinics in Broward, but it lists several with the same addresses multiple times, making it difficult to get an accurate account. We called and e-mailed the health department's communications office in Tallahassee and did not hear back. Two other law enforcement agencies quoted in the past regarding the number of pain clinics -- the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Hollywood Police Department -- referred us to the health department. Next we tried to identify the number of McDonald's restaurants in Broward County. We e-mailed and called McDonald's media relations and after two days of no response, we typed all 31 cities in Broward into the chain's online restaurant locator. We found 73. Aronberg's Senate staff had done the same earlier this year, and found 78. (PolitiFact Florida came up with a different figure than Aronberg's team for Davie, Miramar and Pompano Beach. It's possible that some restaurants have opened and closed since Aronberg's office counted them.) We could not detemine a way to check unincorporated Broward on the McDonald's website. But there is little unincorporated land left so it's unlikely that would change the total significantly, if at all. So how is Aronberg's math? A grand jury report put the number of pain clinics at 115 by late 2009. The Broward Sheriff's Office puts the number at 144 as of July 28. We found the state health department database too confusing to evaluate, and no one to answer our questions. The best number we could determine for McDonald's locations was 73 -- Aronberg's campaign put it at 78 while the New Times said 71. No matter which number you pick, the number of pain clinics in Broward is dozens higher than the number of McDonald's."
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1835
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Gene from extinct human species fortifies high-altitude Tibetans.
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How do Tibetans thrive in high-altitude, low-oxygen conditions that would make others wither? Well, they may have received some help from an unexpected source.
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true
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Science News
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Scientists said on Wednesday many Tibetans possess a rare variant of a gene involved in carrying oxygen in the blood that they likely inherited from an enigmatic group of extinct humans who interbred with our species tens of thousands of years ago. It enables Tibetans to function well in low oxygen levels at elevations upwards of 15,000 feet (4,500 meters) like the vast high plateau of southwestern China. People without this variant would be apt to develop thick blood, leading to high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, low-birth-weight babies and higher infant mortality. This version of the EPAS1 gene is nearly identical to one found in Denisovans, a lineage related to Neanderthals - but is very different from other people today. Denisovans are known from a single finger bone and two teeth found in a Siberian cave. DNA testing on the 41,000-year-old bone indicated Denisovans were distinct from our species and Neanderthals. “Our finding may suggest that the exchange of genes through mating with extinct species may be more important in human evolution than previously thought,” said Rasmus Nielsen, a computational biology professor at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Copenhagen, whose study appears in the journal Nature. Our genome contains residual genetic fragments from other organisms like viruses as well as species like Neanderthals with which early modern humans interbred. The researchers called their study the first to show that a gene from an archaic human species has helped modern humans adjust to different living conditions. “Such exchange of genes with other species may in fact have helped humans adapt to new environments encountered as they spread out of Africa and into the rest of the world,” said Nielsen. Asan Ciren, a researcher with China’s BGI genomics center, added, “The genetic relationship or blood relationship between modern humans and archaic hominins is a hot topic of the current paleoanthropology.” The researchers said early modern humans trekking out of Africa interbred with Denisovans in Eurasia en route to China. Their descendants harbor a tiny percentage of Denisovan DNA. Genetic studies show nearly 90 percent of Tibetans have the high-altitude gene variant, along with a small percentage of Han Chinese, who share a common ancestor with Tibetans. It is seen in no other people. The researchers conducted genetic studies on 40 Tibetans and 40 Han Chinese and performed a statistical analysis showing that the gene variant almost certainly was inherited from the Denisovans. The gene regulates production of hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. It is turned on when blood oxygen levels drop, stimulating more hemoglobin production. At elevations above 13,000 feet (4,000 meters), the common form of the gene boosts hemoglobin and red blood cell production, causing dangerous side effects. The Tibetans’ variant increases hemoglobin and red blood cell levels only modestly, sparing them these effects.
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7395
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Early results boost hopes for historic gene editing attempt.
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Early, partial results from a historic gene editing study give encouraging signs that the treatment may be safe and having at least some of its hoped-for effect, but it’s too soon to know whether it ultimately will succeed.
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true
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AP Top News, Genetics, Phoenix, Health, Genetic Frontiers, North America, Business, Science, U.S. News
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The results announced Wednesday are from the first human test of gene editing in the body, an attempt to permanently change someone’s DNA to cure a disease — in this case, a genetic disorder called Hunter syndrome that often kills people in their teens. In two patients who got a medium dose of the treatment, urine levels of large sugar compounds that are hallmarks of Hunter syndrome had fallen by half, on average, four months later — a possible sign the treatment is working. Two others who got a low dose have seen little change in these sugars so far. There’s no way to know yet whether the change in the middle-dose patients is due to the gene editing or something else, but the fact their sugars have declined consistently since treatment suggests it might be. “I cannot absolutely say it’s a treatment effect” but the drop is “really encouraging,” said the study leader, Dr. Joseph Muenzer of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The main goal of early treatment studies is to test safety, though researchers also look for hints that the therapy is working. Muenzer gave the results at a conference in Greece and consults for the treatment’s maker, California-based Sangamo Therapeutics. The company’s president, Dr. Sandy Macrae, said tests in about five months will reveal more, but the change in the middle-dose group so far “looks really good.” “The most rational explanation for this is that what we hoped was going to happen has happened,” he said. Several independent experts agreed. “The results are exciting” and suggest that the gene editing is working to some degree, without safety concerns so far, said Dr. Howard Kaufman, a Boston scientist and member of a National Institutes of Health panel that reviewed the study before it began. Dr. Matthew Porteus, a genetics expert at Stanford University who consults for two other companies developing gene therapies, said more time is needed to see how the patients’ immune system continues to react to the treatment and whether the effects last, but added, “I would be excited about continuing to push along” based on these results. HOW IT WORKS Gene editing is intended as a more precise way to do gene therapy, to knock out a bad gene or supply a good one that’s missing. Doctors hope it will give a way to address a host of diseases that can’t be treated well now. In November, a Phoenix-area man with Hunter syndrome, Brian Madeux, became the first person to test this inside the body. He lacks a gene that makes an enzyme that breaks down certain large sugar compounds called GAGs. These build up in cells and cause havoc throughout the body. Through an IV, Madeux received many copies of a corrective gene and a gene-editing tool called zinc finger nucleases to help put it in a precise spot in his DNA. He was one of the two patients given a very low dose of the treatment, because this first-in-human testing called for extreme caution. EARLY RESULTS In Madeux and the other low-dose patient, levels of the tell-tale sugar compounds in urine rose 9 percent on average after four months. Muenzer said it’s hard to know whether this is a significant change; little is known about the biology of these compounds, including whether they fluctuate during the day or before or after meals. A liver biopsy on one patient given a low dose of the therapy found no evidence that the gene editing had occurred, but Sangamo scientists said this dose is far below the level at which such signs had been detected in research on primates. Two other patients were given a middle dose that was twice what the first two patients received. Their GAG levels declined by 51 percent after four months, on average. Two of the main types of these sugars that accumulate in tissues declined 32 percent and 61 percent, respectively. It is not yet known if declines like these can improve patients’ health or slow the progression of the disease. “This is not proof that this is a successful therapy yet, that these patients had enough gene editing to now supply them with the enzyme they need for the rest of their life,” Muenzer said. But he said an important goal was met: the treatment seems safe. There were two serious side effects — one patient was hospitalized for bronchitis and another for an irregular heartbeat — but those were deemed due to their disease and pre-existing conditions, not the gene treatment. Blood tests did not detect the missing enzyme. Company scientists said this could be because any that was being made was rapidly used by cells rather than getting into the bloodstream — an explanation some outside experts agreed with. What counts, they said, was seeing the result of enzyme activity, the drop in sugars. NEXT STEPS Two more patients have been given the highest dose being tested — 10 times the starting dose — for a total of six patients in the study. The next step is to start taking patients off the weekly enzyme treatments they’ve been receiving to see if the gene therapy has changed their bodies so they make enough of the enzyme themselves. More results are expected at a medical meeting in February. “We need to see sustained levels for this to be practical. If this only works for six months, that’s not very beneficial,” Muenzer said. “Time’s going to tell.” In an interview at his home in Arizona last month, Madeux, 45, told The Associated Press he volunteered for the study in hope of being able to stop the weekly, three-hour enzyme infusions, but also to help find a treatment for future generations with the disease. “I’m old and having Hunter’s has done a lot of damage to my body,” Madeux said. “I’m actually pretty lucky I’ve lived this long.” ___ Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP . ___ This Associated Press series was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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10322
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Significant Number of Medicare Patients Getting Too-Frequent Colonoscopies
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Its few shortcomings could have been overcome easily with a little more space: mentioning costs defining and taking a stab at quantifying harms. (Also fixing the typo in the final paragraph where colonoscopy was used when they meant colon cancer. We make ’em, too.) The story’s interview quotes nailed the issue: Study author Goodwin “says the health community has been ‘a little too good in terms of selling the message of screening’ for cancer. ‘There really is an excellent acceptance of the benefits of cancer screening in this country, but I don’t think we’ve educated [people] well enough’ about the possible risks.” “Durado Brooks, director of prostate and colorectal cancers at the American Cancer Society… says many physicians worry about missing a potential cancer and underestimate the risks of screening, which are even higher for older people with underlying health problems.”
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true
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Screening,Wall Street Journal
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The story didn’t discuss costs. And cost is a significant issue here. The AP story, by comparison, reported that “colonoscopy costs vary widely but typically exceed $1,000.” Adequate. The story said that almost 24% of Medicare enrollees in the study were re-examined within seven years “with no clear indication for the early repeated examination.” One of the weak points in this story – and in many of the stories we saw on this study, frankly – was that, while harms or complications were mentioned, they were not defined nor quantified. What harms? And how often do they occur? This story had a quote that “I don’t think we’ve educated [people] well enough” about the possible risks – but the story itself didn’t do so. The AP story, by comparison, at least mentioned “risks that occur more often with older patients, including complications from sedation, accidental performation of the colon and bleeding.” Adequate job. Nice touch commenting on the geographic variations seen in the Medicare analysis as well. The focus of this story was the opposite of disease-mongering. The story used an American Cancer Society spokesman as an independent source. In the last line, the story at least mentioned other approaches to colon cancer screening. The availability of colonoscopies is not in question. The relative novelty of this study was made clear in the story. It’s clear that the story did not rely solely on a news release.
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39813
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Girls are dying after receiving Gardasil and Cervarix vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV), and the vaccines were not tested by the FDA.
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Gardasil, Cervarix Vaccines for HPV Cause Death
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false
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Medical
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Various websites and blog posts have made false claims that HPV vaccines are killing young women who receive them. The FDA ruled that Gardasil and Cervarix are safe and effectively prevent cervical cancer after studying thousands of people around the world who received the vaccinations for HPV. From 2008 to 2013, about 21,000 women reported an adverse reaction after receiving an HPV vaccination, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Most of those reports were for mild conditions like dizziness, nausea and inflammation at the site of the shot. In 2013, about 7.4 percent of the cases were for more serious conditions like headache, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, dizziness, syncope and general weakness. Still, the CDC said “no serious safety concerns have been identified” with the vaccines. The CDC has also routinely examined death records among young people who died after receiving vaccinations. As of 2011, 35 deaths that occurred among 35 million young people who received the vaccinations were reviewed, according to a National Public Radio (NPR) report. No pattern was found to suggest the vaccine caused the deaths. Rare neurological disorders, heart conditions, diabetes and illicit drug use were among the causes. “We have not identified a significant likelihood of serious adverse events following vaccine,” Dr. Joseph Bocchini, who leads the CDC’s working group on HPV vaccines, told NPR. “This is a very safe vaccine.” Posted 04/09/14 Comments
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3192
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Ebola case reported not far from South Sudan border.
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Authorities have confirmed an Ebola case not far from Congo’s border with South Sudan, a country with a weak health care system after years of civil war that is vulnerable to the potential spread of the deadly disease.
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true
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South Sudan, Health, General News, Africa, Sudan, Senegal
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The 40-year-old woman had traveled nearly 500 kilometers (289 miles) from Beni, despite having been identified by health officials as having been exposed to Ebola and warned not to travel. Her case was confirmed in Ariwara, Congo, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) from the border with South Sudan’s Yei River State, according to a report from South Sudan’s health ministry that was viewed Tuesday by The Associated Press. It is the closest confirmed case to South Sudan since the outbreak began in Congo last August, according to an official with close knowledge of the outbreak who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak on the record. People who have come into contact with Ebola patients are supposed to be monitored for 21 days, the incubation period during which symptoms can emerge after exposure. Long-distance travel, particularly to regions bordering other vulnerable countries, is not recommended. More than 1,500 people have died in Congo since the epidemic began, and two other fatal cases were reported in Uganda after a family sickened in Congo returned home across the border. While no other fatalities have emerged since the scare, fears remain high that Ebola could spread through the impoverished region where people are often mobile and difficult to trace. While authorities in South Sudan have been preparing for possible spread of Ebola case across the border, the country still remains far less prepared than Uganda. A five-year civil war in South Sudan has killed nearly 400,000 people and the health system is weak. Contact tracing is critical to stopping the disease’s spread, but those efforts in South Sudan would be complicated by the fact more than 4 million people have been displaced by the war. Medical facilities, which were already far more basic than those in Congo or Uganda, have been further weakened during the conflict. The outbreak is now the second deadliest in history, surpassed only by the 2014-2016 epidemic in West Africa that caused more than 11,300 deaths. While there is an experimental vaccine that has shown a high level of protection, efforts to vaccinate people in eastern Congo have been complicated by instability. The region where the outbreak began has been plagued for decades by violence from rebel groups and armed militias. The population remains highly distrustful of the Congolese government and the health authorities now trying to fight the disease. Major international health charities have had to curtail their work following deadly attacks on treatment centers and assaults on health teams in the field. ___ Mednick reported from Bujumbura, Burundi. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa
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2651
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Weighing the benefits of balance training.
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Dick Sandhaus, a healthy and fit 62-year old, says he never gave his balance a thought until he lost it.
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true
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Health News
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Yoga instructor Michael Hayes, owner of Buddha Body Yoga, warms up before teaching his class in New York City May 7, 2011. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly A wicked sprained ankle was the result. Now he practices balancing for a few minutes each day and urges his fellow baby boomers to do the same. “Rocking toes to heels and quadriceps stretches are things anybody can do if they have a floor,” said Sandhaus, a self-described ex-hippie who dispenses fitness tips on his website, BetterCheaperSlower. “If you put yourself in instability it gives you instant awareness of what balance is about,” he explained. Having good balance means being able to control and maintain your body’s position; having poor balance can have dire consequences. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of adults 65 years and older fall each year. Falls are the leading cause of injury deaths among older adults. Dr. Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko, an expert on aging for the American Council on Sports Medicine, said lack of balance among older adults is a huge problem affecting mortality and quality of life. But he cautions against painting all older adults with the same broad brush. “Physiological decline is an inescapable consequence of ageing but the rate and extent varies tremendously,” he said. “Lots of (people) 85 and over are more than capable of functioning.” Regular walking and resistance training will suffice for many older adults, according to Chodzko-Zajko, who heads the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign. “Balance interventions need to occur for those with risk factors,” he said. And the biggest risk factor is falling. “If you can ask only one thing, ask, ‘Have you had a fall in the last six months?’” he said. “ If they say, ‘Yes,’ then follow up with further testing.” He said vision problems, multiple medications, cognitive changes, and confusion are among other risk factors for imbalance. “From a public health perspective, it’s really expensive to test for all those things,” he said. If you have an ageing parent, Chodzko-Zajko advises, first try to make sure they’re active. Then if they’re at risk, talk to their physician about medication, install non-slip surfaces, get rid of clutter. “Try to be as preventive as makes sense without being overcautious,” he said. “You don’t want people to stay at home.” Chodzko-Zajko said while he has no objection to tools such as balance boards, foam, obstacle courses, they are not a solution for everyone. As a personal trainer with Equinox, a national chain of fitness centers, Margaret Schwarz routinely assesses the fitness level of new members at the New York club where she works. The screening includes a balance component, but Schwarz says regardless of age, you can’t have balance if you don’t have strength. “I approach it from a strength perspective. I watch them do squats, walk up stairs, pick things off the floor, do regular activities. (Lack of balance) can happen in a 35-year-old who has been sitting at a desk,” she said. “Some women can’t lift a three-pound dumbbell.” She said too many people can’t feel the ground beneath their feet. “Sometimes I have them take off their shoes to feel the floor,” said Schwarz, who defines balance as being able to right yourself. “It’s about how to use your musculature in space,” she said, “so when you feel yourself falling you can stop yourself from falling.”
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193
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Sanofi to pay Lexicon $260 million for terminated partnership.
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Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc said on Tuesday France’s Sanofi SA will pay the drugmaker $260 million for the termination of their partnership to develop diabetes drug Zynquista.
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true
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Health News
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Shares of Lexicon jumped 37.8% to $2.37 in after hours trading. Under the terms of the settlement, Sanofi will pay $208 million upfront and the remainder within twelve months to Lexicon, which was eligible to receive up to $1.4 billion in milestone payments under the partnership. The four-year partnership was terminated by Sanofi in July after the results of three late-stage studies of Zynquista, which is being developed as an add-on to insulin for diabetic patients. Lexicon will regain global rights for the development and commercialization of Zynquista in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, the company said in a statement. The drug has been approved in the European Union for use in type 1 diabetic patients but failed to win U.S. approval in March, months after a panel of experts raised concerns of the risk of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). DKA is a life-threatening condition in which acids called ketones build up when the body starts to use fat instead of glucose as a source of energy.
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1827
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Vixen workouts fuse foxy cardio fitness with girls’ night out.
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Before the music begins members of the women-only exercise class, dressed in shredded tank tops, full makeup and wedged sneakers, pose seductively before studio mirrors and chant, “Yes, I’m sexy. Yes, I’m fierce. Yes, I’ve got this.”
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true
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Health News
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Empowerment is a big part of the Vixen workout, a hip-hop dance class with a night club feel that fitness experts say offers a cardio girls’ night out to women who may be keen to channel their inner Beyonce, Ciara or Rihanna, but wouldn’t be caught dead in a gym. “It’s all about wearing your sexiest leggings, putting on your brightest red lipstick and taking your hair down so you can bend over and shake it,” said Jolie Bedini, 40, a single mother who takes a Miami Vixen class up to five times a week. Fueled by the songs from rap stars Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and Pitbull, the workout mixes sultry dance moves such as booty battles, kitten stretches and twerks with body lunges and squats. “A bit of sexy dancing and you’re into the zone,” said Bedini, noting that the workout helped her lose weight. Up to 100 women attend the party-lit, hour-long, mostly evening classes, which began in Miami and have spread to New Jersey, Los Angeles and Chicago. The workout is the brainchild of Janet Jones, a former Miami Heat basketball team dancer and hip-hop performer. Jones said the concept emerged from the invisibility she felt after her pregnancy and taking a nine-to-five job, a time she refers to as her black hole. “Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, they’re all vixens. Beyonce is the ultimate vixen but I think every woman has a vixen inside her,” Jones said. She said encouraging clients to dress for a girls’ night out gets them into the performance spirit. “Most of them have never experienced themselves as performers. All of a sudden they’re focusing on getting the movement, picking up the choreography. They work harder and lose weight,” she explained. “If I have no makeup and I’m in sweats, I don’t feel like a vixen.” Shirley Archer, a spokeswoman for the American Council on Exercise, said the Vixen workout is effective. “Everyone is getting their heart rates up and moving continuously throughout the routine,” said Archer, author of “The Everything Wedding Workout Book.” Learning dance moves is also great brain exercise as it challenges the mind-body connection, coordination and memorization. “The best exercise for you is the exercise that you actually do,” she explained. “Making the workout fun, like a girls night out at a dance club, is a great way to motivate women who enjoy dancing to keep on training, which is key to getting results.” Jones said the women in the classes average 25 to 35 years old but some are in their 70’s. “My mother-in law takes the class,” she said. “All women need a time for themselves to be a little rebellious.”
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11320
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Study says bypass surgery for heart patients better than stents in the long term
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"There were enough problems with the execution of this story, which presents results of a study comparing open-heart surgery to angioplasty in patients with serious heart disease, that, in the end, one could question the decision to publish it. The story failed to evaluate the quality of the evidence and to emphasize factors which raise questions about that quality: The results were reported at a medical meeting and have not been published or peer-reviewed. (See our primer on the potential pitfalls of reporting on such stories.) It was financed by a leading maker of stents. Patients were followed for only one year. The surgery-vs.-stent topic is highly controversial, even emotional, raising questions of benefits, risks, doctors’ self-interest and medical costs – all against a background of contradictory research. Publishing an article on this topic for a mass audience without raising more questions about the quality of the evidence is not in the public interest. Having said all that, the reporter follows many health journalism best practices, including reporting absolute risks, quoting sources with no connection to the research, revealing the study’s funding source and providing context about previous research into stents. Experience suggests that the decision to report a story like this can result when a reporter attends a medical conference and feels obligated to ""come back with something."" This invites overselling of the story by the reporter or the editor. This tension may be apparent in the lede, which seeks to present a novel viewpoint on the findings. The reporter suggests the findings mean the choice to have surgery or angioplasty ""may come down to one question: How many procedures would you like to have?"" That’s a spurious question. This research does nothing to change the established considerations that should drive a surgery-vs.-stent decision: Underlying patient health, disease state, death risk, stroke risk, recuperation time, access to a highly skilled surgeon and so on. To imply this potentially life-changing decision should rest on ""how many procedures"" you want to have is foolish."
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mixture
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"The costs of open-heart-surgery and stenting should have been mentioned. Given the fact that the study implies comparable effectiveness and risks, cost is at least a legitimate matter of interest. Surgeries can cost more than four times as much as stenting. The story reports absolute rates of death, stroke and need for an additional procedure. It does not describe the rates of relief from angina. It also adequately describes the size, duration and methodology of the study. The study mentions the potential harms of surgery and stents, including death and need for additional procedures. But the story fails to distinguish in meaningful way between the 2 percent risk of stroke linked to surgery and the 8 percent greater chance of requiring a second procedure linked to stents compared to heart surgery. Stroke is a potentially debilitating, life-shortening condition; a second angioplasty presumably carries a very low risk of serious side effects. The story fails to mention the demonstrated risks of heart attack and cognitive dysfunction linked to the surgery option. Further, the story fails to indicate whether a ""second procedure"" means a heart surgery or a stent, and how that varies for each treatment group. Would someone with a stent require a heart operation as a second procedure, or another stent? That’s a big difference. Without this information, it’s impossible to compare the risks of the first procedures properly. The story is based on results of a study that were presented at a conference and sponsored by the maker of a stent. The results cover only one year. The research has not been peer reviewed. The results may be specific to the stent used in the procedures included in the study. The story never emphasized these factors to comment on the quality of the evidence. The story does nothing to exaggerate the risks or prevalence of heart disease. As noted above, the story is based on a presentation at a conference, not on published literature. But the report uses adequate sourcing otherwise. It quotes three credible cardiology experts with no connection to the research presented. It also cites an important recent article published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The story is simply wrong when it states, ""When arteries become blocked, doctors have two main options."" There is no mention of drug therapy. For left main coronary artery disease, the two-option statement is perhaps defensible – although there isn’t good modern survival data on that condition treated with current optimal drug therapy. But for the subset of patients with 3-vessel disease in the COURAGE trial, drug therapy provided a similar survival to stents. So the absence of a discussion about drug therapy may suggest to readers that only angioplasty (stenting) and surgery are appropriate treatment options. Even if one didn’t know how widely available are stents and bypass surgeries, the story makes enough reference to how widespread are these approaches. It’s clear from the story that both approaches have been in use for a long time. The story does not appear to draw from the press release issued by Boston Scientific, which paid for the study."
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11429
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New Scan May Spot Alzheimer’s
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This was a story about a new test being developed that may have potential for accurately diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease prior to post mortem examination of the brain. Interesting research. But the story would have benefited from comments from independent experts in the field about the utility of the test reported on – how far along the development is, what impact an early diagnosis could have in terms of treatment and disease progression, and how this test compares to the current methods. Concern about Alzheimer’s disease is in part due to the nature of this neurodegenerative condition, its progressive nature and lack of good treatment options. Reporting about potentially accurate means of diagnosis is exciting but needs to be tempered with information about its application in real world settings. Being able to diagnosis someone near death is one thing, being able to diagnosis them so that action could be taken to affect the course of the disease or allow them to get their affairs in order – is another.
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false
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There was no discussion about the potential costs of this test. This at least could have been estimated. PET scans are extraordinarily expensive. The story reported that the study found the test was able to correctly assign people into categories of having or not having Alzheimer’s disease in 34 out of 35 cases. It was much less clear about how accurate diagnosis in terminally ill patients (as defined as being in hospice) translates into benefit for these patients. The tests of young people without disease was still not compelling that this test will be able to parse out less severe cases correctly. The story did mention that it was not yet known if the test could be used to identify cases earlier in the course of the disease. Although the story did mention that the test involved a radioactive tracer, there was no information about the level of radioactivity exposure involved in the test or whether there were any adverse events reported with the use of this particular dye. The story did present the nature of the study and included some information about the data from the study. But it didn’t discuss the leap between the way the test was applied in this research setting and the way it would be applied in real clinical use. The story could have emphasized that there is most likely additional work needed before these results will be published and the FDA will review the utility of this test. Only then will their actually be sufficient information to suggest whether the method has utility. The story did not engage in disease mongering. The story quotes three clinicians, all of whom had ties to the company involved with promoting the test reported on or the study of that test. So while conflicts of interest were identified, there did not appear to be any independent sources interviewed on the topic. The story mentioned that ‘experts who attended said the data persuaded them that the method works’ but were they all in some way connected with the company? There was no discussion about other sorts of approaches currently under study for early and accurate identification of Alzheimer’s disease. The story was clear that it was reporting on a screening test for Alzheimer’s disease that is undergoing study. That said – it would have been better to state explicitly that this test is currently unavailable to patients. The story discussed the results of a recent study that were just presented at a meeting; in addition, it sounded as though one of the experts questioned about the study was involved in another study funded by the company but it was not clear as to whether it looked at the impact of the same or a different compound/ method. It was not clear from the story whether the results presented are the first examination of this test or not. Because of the multiple sources quoted, it’s clear this story did not rely solely on a news release.
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9149
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New Peer-Reviewed Clinical Study Successfully Validates The Use Of Proove Opioid Risk® To Predict Prescription Opioid Abuse
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This news release from Proove Biosciences Inc. reports on a test designed to identify those at risk of becoming addicted to opioids so doctors can improve their prescribing practices. The release summarizes a study showing that the company’s algorithm, which combines genetic markers with lifestyle and behavior variables, accurately distinguishes between healthy patients with no history of opioid abuse and patients receiving opioid addiction treatment. The study, however, may be comparing people with opioid use disorder with the wrong control group, given that a more useful distinction would be between those who have become addicted and those who have used opioids in similar circumstances without becoming addicted. In addition, the news release fails to provide information about the study’s funding source, nor does it note that four of the study’s six authors work for Proove. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), opioid overdose killed more than 33,000 Americans in 2015. Almost half of those who died were using a prescription opioid, although not necessarily one that had been prescribed to them. Many of those who become addicted to prescription opioids or heroin develop those addictions after being prescribed opioid painkillers. Reducing the number of deaths caused by opioid abuse has emerged as a national health priority, although policy-makers have not been able to address how to go about it — much less fund an opioid abuse reduction program. An inexpensive and reliable test that could accurately predict one’s risk of becoming addicted to opioids could be a welcome development. However, this tool and others like it have been criticized for both reliability and questionable marketing practices.
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false
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opioid abuse,Proove Biosciences
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The news release provides no information about how much the Proove Opioid Risk (POR) system costs. Presumably, this system would be used by health care providers to determine whether it was safe to prescribe opioids to specific patients. However, such providers would have no way of knowing, based on this news release, how much of an investment this would require. The news release states that the algorithm correctly identified patients with a history of opioid misuse nearly 97 percent of the time, rarely mis-classifying the healthy controls as being at high or even moderate risk of opioid misuse. One question that remains unanswered in the release is whether the POR test would successfully distinguish people with opioid use disorder from individuals who have used opioids without becoming addicted. Potential harms from the test are not explained. The primary medical risks from the use of such a test would stem from inaccurate identification of an individual’s risk of addiction. This could lead to individuals identified as being at low risk potentially being less careful about their use of opioids, leading to addiction; conversely, inaccuracy could identify an individual as being at higher risk when, in fact, they were at low risk and would benefit from being prescribed opioids. The release provides a basic outline of the study but leaves unanswered questions. Our main concern here is whether the comparison groups included in the study represented the most relevant groups. In this case, the POR algorithm was used to distinguish between people with opioid use disorder at an addiction treatment facility and “healthy patients with no history of opioid use.” In fact, the control group was limited to individuals who did not smoke, had no personal or family history of mental illness, no pain, and no previous substance abuse history. It would seem that a far more appropriate comparison would have used a control group populated by individuals who had previously used opioids but had not misused or developed an addiction to these drugs. There’s also a problem with comparing non-smokers to smokers, people in a addiction treatment program to those not receiving treatment and the lack of blinding. Another concern is that while 95 percent of the opioid addiction patients were white, only 62 percent of the healthy controls were; this could make a significant difference in the value of the use of the POR algorithm for non-white patients. Research shows that ethnicity is strongly associated with genetic risks, including the risk for opioid addiction. Finally, the classifications of the subjects is suspect: they were designated as having the diagnosis of opioid use disorder using a non-standard definition of the disorder and by a single researcher without replication or validation, likely by one of the authors, but this is not spelled out in the release or the research study. Opioid use disorder is a very serious public health issue, and there is evidence that many of those who become addicted to opioids first use them as legitimate prescribed medicines. Thus, the news release is not guilty of disease mongering. No information is provided about who provided the funding for the study. The news release quotes three of the study’s authors, including Dr. Ashley Brenton, who is identified as the “Associate Director of R&D for Proove.” The two other authors quoted do not appear to work for Proove. The journal article on which the new release is based also omitted information about the funding source for the study. The news release mentions no alternatives to the use of this algorithm. Most doctors already ask patients about their substance use and abuse history and other important lifestyle and environmental factors before prescribing opioids to them. In addition, in March 2016, the CDC issued a “Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain,” intended to help doctors decide which of their patients truly need opioids and when to use alternative treatments to manage patients’ pain. Another company, Canterbury Healthcare, is marketing a similar genetic test for opioid addiction susceptibility. The news release quotes one of the study authors as saying he has used the “technology” for six years, suggesting that it should be available. However, the news release does not provide information about any use of the POR algorithm by health professionals not affiliated with Proove or this specific study. The release neglects to mention whether the FDA has cleared the device for marketing. Rather than claiming novelty the release states that the study validates previous research. The release quotes a company official: “This validation study builds on the peer-reviewed evidence supporting Proove Opioid Risk® and its components as an optimal model to predict opioid abuse risk.” The study itself does appear to provide some missing data on the predictive value of the proprietary genetic test algorithm, but the test itself is not new. The news release avoids using unjustifiable or sensational language. It provides a little background on the factors that contribute to substance abuse.
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9672
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Occasional fasting could help you live longer
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This CNN story looks at studies investigating the potential life-extending benefits of periodically fasting, and of consuming a special diet that makes the body think it’s fasting. It glosses over important details like who was studied and how, and instead claims that the diet has the potential to “help you live longer.” That’s an unhelpful, clickbait-y approach to the science that we wish more news outlets would avoid. Extensive passages devoted to medical jargon only serve to confuse the reader, as well. Who doesn’t want to live longer? Lose excess weight? Reduce their risk of heart disease? The claims made in this piece are appealing to many of us–and therefore likely to garner a lot of clicks–but they’re also poorly supported by the actual research. That’s dangerous: Readers of this story could very easily make false conclusions about the benefits of fasting, and assume it’s risk-free.
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mixture
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Antiaging,Fasting Mimicking Diet,Intermittent fasting,mice studies
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Fasting to improve your health sounds like a great way to spend less money on food, and it’s tempting to assume this diet would be cheap to follow. But that doesn’t seem to be the case: The story indicates study participants were fed a custom-designed meal program that would have to be replicated in the general population to achieve the same benefits. This will presumably cost money–but we’re not given any idea of how much that might cost. This story is painfully lacking in quantified benefits. How many people were in the study? And what kind of people were they? (Overweight or healthy weight? Male or female?) Were they compared against a control group? How much actual weight did participants lose? What specific aging risk factors were researchers measuring and how much did those improve? Similar information is missing for the mice portion of the study. We were also dismayed at the extent of medical jargon included in the piece, since uselessly granular details about cellular pathways, cell regeneration and “hormone-like growth factors” don’t provide important details about if this research is actually meaningful and worth reading about. What it does instead is fluff up the piece by making it sound smarter than it actually us. This story should have explained to readers at least a few known potential harms of fasting–which are very real, especially for people with certain health conditions, including common ones like diabetes. All we get is a quote that hints it might be dangerous to fast for more than five days: “Five days is safe: going on for longer is difficult to do outside of a clinic,” says Longo. But fasting for 5 days would clearly be harmful for many people. The human portion of this study was a pilot trial looking at specific changes in a handful of biomarkers associated with aging, but the story fails to make that clear. What it does instead is jump to the dramatic conclusion (and click-baiting headline) that fasting “could help you live longer.” Aging isn’t a disease–it’s a universal fact of life that happens to all of us. While none of us can avoid aging, we can make changes to age in a more healthful way. This story did seem to stick to that premise, and avoided statements that made aging sound like a disease. Whoo boy. We’re giving this a satisfactory rating since the story does let us know there is a potential conflict of interest–one of the researchers plans to sell nutrition products promoting this type of dieting. However, we wish this fact would have raised more red flags for CNN, and led to a more critical analysis of the piece. A second source quoted in the story — nutritionist Miguel Toribio-Mateas — espouses some unorthodox views on his website, including that one can “grow younger from inside by providing the necessary building blocks that enable cellular processes to keep us looking and feeling our best as we age.” While we question the source’s expertise, we think the story meets the standard for a Satisfactory rating. But readers should be wary of the guidance being provided, which doesn’t seem to be based on particularly strong evidence. This story makes no mention of other ways to achieve similar benefits. How does this dieting approach compare, for example, to regular exercise as a means to age healthier? The story makes it clear that fasting participants were given a specific type of meal that isn’t available to the general public. The story makes a reference to something called the “5-2” fasting diet but is short on details. If one reads closely enough, it seems that the new diet plan is supposed to achieve the effects of fasting diets without actually fasting. We’ll give the benefit of the doubt on this one, especially since the story acknowledges a history of similar research, for example when it says, “The idea of caloric control improving your health, and therefore your lifespan, is nothing new, but researchers are now hoping to accurately determine the type of diet that could make you live longer.” The story includes quotes from a source not involved in the study, so it appears the story went beyond relying solely on a news release.
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10373
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Study: Statins increase life expectancy
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"The headline of this story (which was the same in other media that picked up the AP story) paints a somewhat unrealistic expectation. The story did not explain that the study was a retrospective analysis of data on patients who were prescribed statins for specific indications, not a prospective study comparing the effects on longevity of statins on two matched groups of individuals. There are inherent weaknesses in such ""observational"" studies which the story didn't explain. While the results from this single research study that showed that for those elderly at higher cardiovascular risk, the use of statins was associated with longer survival – surprise about these results was expressed by the study's first author. This should help temper premature extrapolation of these findings to individual patients for those who read beyond the headline. The story reported that ""those at greater risk of death received the greatest benefit of being on the drugs"" and that ""statin users actually lived an average two years longer despite the patients having more health risk factors and being older than non-statin users."" But the reader is given no basis for comparison. How much greater was the initial risk compared to other groups? Neither the baseline risk nor the benefit were adequately quantified. The story didn't discuss any potential harms from statin use, nor did it discuss the cost of statin drugs. The story admits that the quote from the principal investigator came from a news release, not from a direct interview. Since no other source is quoted, and since key points from the study as it appeared in the journal article were missed, it appears that this story relied solely or largely on a news release."
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false
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"There was no mention of costs. The story reported that ""those at greater risk of death received the greatest benefit of being on the drugs"" and that ""statin users actually lived an average two years longer despite the patients having more health risk factors and being older than non-statin users."" But the reader is given no basis for comparison. How much greater was the initial risk compared to other groups? Neither the baseline risk nor the benefit were adequately quantified. There was no mention of any harms or side effects that are associated with the use of statin medications. It is not clear from this story that the study on which is it based followed data not patients. This was an observational study, not an experimental trial. As such, the people prescribed statins may be different than those not prescribed statins. This point was not discussed in the article. Although the study purported to examine data on ~ 1.5 million patients, in the second to last paragraph, it clarifies that to indicate that data on only 325,930 patients was included in the study. In addition, the group for which statins were not prescribed included individuals who died at younger ages than the statin group which may have influenced the results calculator. And the group not taking statins likely included individuals with serious health problems other than cardiovascular disease. The story did not explain that the study was a retrospective analysis of data on patients who were prescribed statins for specific indications, not a prospective study comparing the effects on longevity of statins on two matched groups of individuals. There are inherent weaknesses in such ""observational"" studies which the story didn't explain. No obvious elements of disease-mongering. This story only contained a comment from one of the authors of the study. (And that quote came from a news release, not directly from the researcher!) It did not include comments from any independent sources of information. The story stated that ""Doctors typically prescribe statins to elderly patients with a history of coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes, and smoking."" which is not accurate. Doctors typically prescribe statins for high cholesterol levels. And there was no discussion of other treatment options. It's clear from the story that statins are wide available. This story accurately represented that the use of statins is common. The new observation reported was that statin use in elderly patients who smoke and who had a history of coronary artery disease, diabetes, hypertension appeared to help them live longer. The story discloses that the quote from the principal investigator came from a news release, not from a direct interview. Since no other source is quoted, and since key points from the study as it appeared in the journal article were missed, it appears that this story relied solely or largely on a news release."
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6593
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Retired marathoner addresses addiction and recovery in SD.
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A retired world class long-distance runner shared his message of addiction and recovery in South Dakota.
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true
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South Dakota, Alberto Salazar, Minnesota, Health, Marathons, Boston Marathon, Rapid City
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Dick Beardsley, Minnesota native known for being runner-up in the 1982 Boston Marathon, spoke with students at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology about mental health and determination. Many can recall the challenges Beardsley took on in trying to beat world record holder, Alberto Salazar, in the momentous race. But it was the subsequent trials he faced after the race that took him to task. “As I was finishing that race, I told myself, ‘I’ll never face anything so difficult as this again.’ But I was so wrong,” Beardsley told the audience. Beardsley endured three subsequent freak accidents post-retirement, according to the Rapid City Journal. Two of the injuries include a truck striking him while on a run in Fargo, North Dakota, and his left leg being mangled by a tractor in his native Minnesota. Beardsley became addicted to pain killers by the early 1990s, at times taking as many as 90 pills a day. It provided him with a front row view of the current opioid epidemic plaguing America. “I was the same as someone in an alleyway shooting up on heroin,” said an energetic Beardsley. “I was a narcotics addict.” He even became addicted to methadone while receiving treatment in a Fargo hospital. It took a late-night bus ride to Minneapolis, spending a distressing week without sleep in a hospital bed and attending therapy sessions, before Beardsley reaching sobriety. “A doctor told me, ‘This will be the hardest thing you ever do. It will be hell.’ And he was right,” Beardsley said to the nearly 100 people on hand. Now sober for 22 years, Beardsley impressed upon his audience to never forget their own hard work. ___ Information from: Rapid City Journal, http://www.rapidcityjournal.com
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11113
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Endometriosis? Robot surgery may not be the answer
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What could have been a John Henry style man-triumphs-over-technology story with outsized language and overheated quotes turns out to be a fairly straightforward, clear-eyed piece of reporting – but with some missing elements. Robots are supposed to make everything better.They are smarter than us, faster than us and less prone to error, the thinking goes. Here is one piece of evidence that robots, in their current stage of development, are not actually able to perform at least one important surgical task better than humans.
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mixture
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"The reporter notes that the robots cost $1.5 million apiece, a cost that has to be asorbed at some point by the insurer or the patients. The story also includes some great context from Dr. Tommaso Falcone at Cleveland Clinic saying spending a lot of money on robots might not be money well spent. But we’re not given any per-patient per-treatment cost estimates and we’re not told that the robots may drive up cost with longer operating room time and added costs for facility, anesthesia and surgeon – huge cost drivers. There are two possible benefits here. 1. People spend less time in surgery to achieve roughly the same outcome and potentially a better outcome, which, by all accounts, is better. 2. Hospitals and medical groups spend less money on robots and are allowed to devote those health resources elsewhere. Both are not so much quantified as addressed. In order to truly establish the second point, one would need to perform a longer term and larger study to find out whether humans outperform robots on a wider range of surgeries. These $1.5 million machines are not just specific to endometriosis. They are used for hundreds of procedures, and so to decide whether they are worth the money would require more research. Still, the story is measured in its claims. The story says that there were no complications in either group and goes on to say that the robotic surgeries took longer, making it more likely that surgeons would make mistakes (although they did not, apparently, make any mistakes.) It says in passing that ""the incision is smaller (and) the manipulations are more controlled"" when a surgeon works without a robot, a counter-intuitive piece of information that merited at least an additional sentence of explanation, even in a story this short. The study seems fairly simple and perhaps a bit too small to draw any big conclusions. The story has a measured tone, though, and provides all of the necessary information for readers to judge for themselves whether a robotic surgery is a good buy. Note: originally we ruled this unsatisfactory but we missed the fact that the online story linked to the journal article. The story could provide a source for the 5 million figure used to calculate how many women suffer from the condition, but, as far as we can tell, it doesn’t make the condition sound worse than it is. As noted above, the comments from Falcone were essential. It might have been worth noting that both the hospitals mentioned in the story actually promote robotic surgery for endometriosis quite heavily. Here’s one example:http://www2.northside.com/RoboticSurgery/Robotic-Surgery-At-Northside/Gynecologic-Surgeries/Robotic-Endometriosis.aspx This was the entire point of the study and the point of the story. At least a mention of non-surgical treatments of endometriosis would have been nice, especially since the majority of cases can be treated nonsurgically. This was one of the missing elements. At a minimum, the story should have said how many companies even make these things, how long they have been in production and how many hospitals/surgical centers have them. As far as we know, the major manufacturer is da Vinci, and we’re sure they would be glad to provide some numbers. If you just do a search on the da Vinci site of how many surgeons in western Washington use these machines for gynecological procedures, you come up with a list of 1,500 names. imagine what that would be like in an area like Los Angeles or New York? The novelty here is that the humans beat the robots. It would have been nice to see at least a sentence about whether other studies had shown similar results with other types of surgeries. Was this the first man-vs.-machine study of this kind? Because of the second source who was quoted, it does not appear that this story relied on a news release."
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24372
|
President Obama has broken his pledge to the American people to be transparent throughout (health care reform negotiations).
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Gov. Charlie Crist says Obama breaks transparency promise on health reform bill
|
true
|
Health Care, Florida, Charlie Crist,
|
"Don't mess with Charlie Crist when it comes to open government. It was Crist, as Florida governor, who created something called the Office for Open Government. And we've heard stories of the governor himself ordering agency heads to hand over public records requested by nosy reporters. Now Crist is taking up the cause of the nation's people in a debate over transparency when it comes to the health care reform bill. ""It seems that a bill that was crafted in a closed-door, backroom meeting in the White House will end the same way,"" Crist, who is running for U.S. Senate, said in a statement released Jan. 5, 2010. ""President Obama has broken his pledge to the American people to be transparent throughout this process, and (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid and (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi have only aided in the secrecy with sweetheart deals and dead of the night votes."" Crist is claiming that Obama broke a promise when it comes to transparency and health care reform. Lucky for us, we have this thing at PolitiFact called the Obameter , where we are tracking Obama's more than 500 campaign promises. If you'll now turn to Promise No. 517 . To achieve health care reform, Obama said in August 2008, ""I'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We'll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies -- they'll get a seat at the table, they just won't be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process."" If it only happened ... While the Senate and House floor debates have been televised on C-SPAN, negotiations have almost always been away from television cameras. ABC's Jake Tapper put the discrepancy in front of White House press secretary Robert Gibbs this week, to see if the final negotiations between the House, the Senate and the president would be televised. ""There have been a countless number of public hearings,"" Gibbs said. ""The Senate did a lot of their voting at 1 and 2 in the morning on C-SPAN ... I think what the president promised and pledged was so that you could see who was fighting for their constituents and who was fighting for drug and insurance companies."" But, Tapper pressed, the president was talking about negotiations, not votes -- which would hardly be a campaign promise since they would have been televised regardless. ""Well, but the bill gets put together on the floor of the Senate,"" Gibbs said. ""That's where the bill got augmented. And I think if you watched that debate ... you'd have seen quite a bit of public hearing and public airing."" Despite the action on the House and Senate floors, most of the serious negotiations on the health care bill have been done in the same fashion as other major initiatives in the past -- behind closed doors. From negotiations with the drug companies and health care interests to final assembly of the delicate compromise on abortion, the bulk of the big deliberations and discussions have occurred out of the public eye. The debate over the resulting bill may have been on C-SPAN as Gibbs claims, but the real sausagemaking took place in a private kitchen. 517 a Promise Broken. On top of that, C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb wrote to House and Senate leaders last week inviting negotiations on the channel. ""President Obama, Senate and House leaders, many of your rank-and-file members, and the nation’s editorial pages have all talked about the value of transparent discussions on reforming the nation’s health care system,"" Lamb wrote. ""Now that the process moves to the critical stage of reconciliation between the Chambers, we respectfully request that you allow the public full access, through television, to legislation that will affect the lives of every single American."" Obama promised an end to closed-door negotiations and complete openness for the health care talks. But he has failed to deliver. When Crist says ""President Obama has broken his pledge to the American people to be transparent throughout this process,"" he's right."
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10312
|
New drug shows promise in fighting breast cancer
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This was a Phase 1 study – not even designed to prove efficacy. Yet the headline talks about “promise” and the body text describes results in two out of 97 patients – only with breast cancer. It feels like a local story promoting local research without appropriate context. Would the newspaper have reported this if it occurred in another city in another state? No chance. So why does local research get promoted when it’s such an early stage that it would never be publicized if it came from anywhere else? One important part of the story was actually the interview with a breast cancer survivor who said “A lot of these things will shrink a tumor. But what we look at as advocates is overall survival.” And this research is a long way off from being able to show that.
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false
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Cancer,The Arizona Republic
|
Not applicable. Too early to discuss costs. Inadequate. We are told that 2 of 97 had significant tumor shrinkage but we’re not told how much and we’re not told anything about what happened to the other 95 women. The story did state “Patients in the study experienced diarrhea, nausea, rash, fatigue decreased appetite, vomiting, itchiness and taste alteration.” But we weren’t told how many of the 97 experienced these. So the true scope of what was seen is not reported. There was no critical analysis of the quality of the evidence. The story offered a scant – but inadequate description of the first two phases of drug trials. But it didn’t describe the degree of tumor shrinkage (only saying “significant”), and didn’t describe what happened to the other 95 of the 97 women in the trial. No disease-mongering of advanced breast cancer. There was an important voice added from a breast cancer survivor. But there was no independent expert perspective added. There was no comparison made between work on this drug and any other research in this active field of research. The experimental nature of the drug was clear in the story. The drug was described as “new” but we weren’t told how or why it’s new or how it acts differently than other drugs. No context of other research in this field. It does not appear that the story relied solely on a news release.
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11024
|
New Multiple Sclerosis Therapy Promising in Early Trial
|
What is a person with multiple sclerosis to make of this story? Is it the “promising new therapy” trumpeted in the headline? Or is it the no-better-no-worse-not-a-breakthrough-nothing-novel-about-it of the Mayo physician’s perspective. How do journalists get at the answer? By evaluating the evidence and providing data – something not done sufficiently in this story. People with MS understandably hang on every word of promising new approaches. We feel for them as they try to analyze what this new study really means. News stories need to do a better job of evaluating evidence or they might be better off leaving such topics alone entirely.
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false
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HealthDay
|
It may have been understandable that costs wouldn’t be discussed at this early stage of research. However, when the Mayo expert weighed in at the end about a comparable drug, this provided the perfect and easy opportunity for the story to include ballpark costs of drugs in this category. And a ballpark cost of the comparable drug is somewhere around $20,000. Same criticisms as in the “evidence” criterion: What does an 89 percent drop in lesion count mean? What is the relationship between lesion count and symptoms or eventual outcome? How does a patient relate lesion count to something meaningful in his/her life? Relapse rates may have been a more helpful indicator, but we’re only told they were “much lower.” How much lower? What does that mean to patients? And if the Mayo expert says that a competing drug has been in early trials for years – why not provide the evidence from those trials? The headline says “promising” but the independent expert says “I see no major advantage of this drug versus that older drug. It’s not better or worse. It’s the same” and that it’s not a breakthrough. What does “appears to be safe” and “no serious adverse effects directly attributable to the drug” mean? Here’s what the study abstract stated: “We noted serious adverse events in two of 54 (4%; 95% CI 3·0—4·4) patients in the placebo group, one of 55 (2%; 1·3—2·3) in the 600 mg ocrelizumab group, three of 55 (5%; 4·6—6·3) in the 2000 mg group, and two of 54 (4%; 3·0—4·4) in the interferon beta-1a group.” Why didn’t the story report this? What side effects were seen? Tell readers/patients and let them decide if they are serious or not. And how did researchers know that whatever was seen was not directly attributable to the drug? And what’s the safety record been of the drug the Mayo expert described that has a longer track record? Insufficient information on harms. What does an 89 percent drop in lesion count mean? Relapse rates may have been a more helpful indicator, but we’re only told they were “much lower.” How much lower? What does that mean to patients? And if the Mayo expert says that a competing drug has been in early trials for years – why not provide the evidence from those trials? All in all, the story didn’t provide a meaningful context for readers. No disease mongering of MS. The Mayo expert’s input was the one saving grace of the story. The story also disclosed that two drug companies funded the study. We only had the Mayo expert’s broad comments comparing ocrelizumab and rituximab – but no comparative data on benefits and harms were provided. It’s clear from the story that the approach “is only in the early stages of exploration.” This is perhaps the most glaring weakness in the story. The headline says calls it a “new therapy.” (It’s not a therapy until it’s proven to be one.) The body of the story uses “new” or “novel” three times. But then the Mayo expert says “there’s nothing novel about this at all.” So which is it? The addition of the Mayo expert’s perspective shows that the story did not rely solely on a news release.
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32623
|
"The media is covering up that ""multiple shooters"" were involved in the mass killing at an Orlando nightclub."
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Furthermore, “the media” are not a homogenous group controlled by a single central agency, but rather a group of thousands of individuals with their own personal reasons for being journalists, many of whom operate independently of any newsrooms, and for whom a cover-up of this magnitude would be the scoop of their lives. And their information wouldn’t come from an “employee’s sister” (just another version of the “friend of a friend” trope), but from multiple firsthand sources.
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false
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Crime, cody agnew, conspiracy theories, crime
|
On 11 June 2016, Facebook user “Cody Agnew” posted a fear-mongering message on Facebook, which claimed that two people involved in the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub mass shooting in Orlando had escaped and were armed and dangerous, and that the news media were not reporting on that development because they did not want to frighten anyone: Earlier I had posted about my employee’s sister who was at the club when the whole situation went down. I just got some updates. She took 12 bullets, 11 were removed and one is in her liver and can’t be taken out. She is coherent, fairly stable, and VERY lucky to sill be alive. But that’s not the point of this post. There are bits of information that the media aren’t telling us. Mind you, this is coming directly from a survivor of the attack: there are two others that were in the club slaughtering people last night that were not caught. They are still out there and they are armed and dangerous. The media is not reporting this because they don’t want to scare everyone, but I think it’s important that people know. Friends, please stay safe. I would probably avoid theme parks, clubs, shopping malls, or anywhere with a high concentration of people for a little while. I’m not trying to spread fear, rather awareness, and make sure that all of my friends stay alive. Hopefully Facebook doesn’t remove this post. It’s unclear what motivated Agnew to post this fictional version of events. The original “Cody Agnew” Facebook account was deleted soon afterwards, but screenshots of it were captured by the Daily Haze and cast doubt on Agnew’s story: The mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, which left at least fifty people dead and scores more injured, was carried out by a single shooter identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen. The Orlando Police Department confirmed that Mateen was killed during the incident, and that he was the lone gunman: Alert: Rumors of multiple shooters are unfounded. The one shooter, Omar Mateen, is dead #OrlandoUnited — Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) June 13, 2016 Mateen was reportedly armed with a Sig Sauer MCX, a popular rifle prized for its lightness, easy customization, and smooth shots. It is incredibly unlikely that someone could have been shot twelve times at close range by such a powerful rifle and not only survive, but be coherent enough later the same day to be able to recount exactly how many people were shooting at victims during a chaotic situation in a dark and crowded nightclub. Some witnesses of the shooting (as with nearly every mass shooting) told reporters that they saw, heard, or thought a second shooter was present, but a 2010 Scientific American article details how and why eyewitness accounts, particularly in highly stressful situations, are not always reliable: A number of factors can reduce the accuracy of eyewitness identifications. Here are some of them: Extreme witness stress at the crime scene or during the identification process. Presence of weapons at the crime (because they can intensify stress and distract witnesses). Brief viewing times at the lineup or during other identification procedures. While conspiracy theorists love to invoke the bogeyman of media cover-ups to bolster their claims, there is absolutely no reason for news outlets to hide the supposed fact that dangerous gunmen, fresh from dozens of kills, might be roaming free in a major city. (But they would have thousands of excellent reasons for covering that situation exhaustively if it were real.)
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18130
|
"A ""hidden"" provision in the health care law taxes sporting goods as medical devices."
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Errant email on health care law comes to Georgia
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false
|
Georgia, Health Care, Chain email,
|
"There’s been a lot of confusion and controversy surrounding the federal health care law, otherwise known as Obamacare. And now there’s an email being circulated that is adding to the turmoil. Gwinnett County resident Don Smith shared the email with us and asked if it was accurate. The email contained a photo of a receipt from Cabela’s, a Nebraska-based retail store that sells sporting goods, guns and camping gear. Cabela’s is not in Georgia. Underlined in yellow on the receipt is the amount charged for a ""medical excise tax."" ""The 2.3 (percent) Medical Excise Tax that began on January 1st is supposed to be ‘hidden’ from the consumer, but it’s been brought to the public’s attention by hunting and fishing store Cabela’s who have refused to hide it and are showing it as a separate line item tax on their receipts,"" the email says. The email says it went on the Internal Revenue Service’s website and did some research. ""And what do I find under ‘MEDICAL DEVICES’ under ‘MANUFACTURERS TAXES?,’ "" The following discussion of manufacturers taxes applies to the tax on: Sport fishing equipment; Fishing rods and fishing poles; Electric outboard motors; Fishing tackle boxes; Bows, quivers, broadheads and points; Arrow shafts; Coal; Taxable tires; Gas guzzler automobiles; and Vaccines."" Our colleagues at PolitiFact Ohio recently examined a similar email and determined anyone who gets it in their inbox should put it in their trash bin. First, though, it is true that there is a medical device excise tax. The tax is designed to offset the added costs of expanding health coverage to the uninsured, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It became law at the beginning of this year. A 2.3 percent tax is imposed on some devices. The federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act has broad definitions of the types of devices that can be taxed. They’re typically devices used by physicians or medical offices. The items that cannot be taxed include eyeglasses, contact lenses and hearing aids. PolitiFact Ohio found that none of the items listed in the chain email are included as medical devices. So why would Cabela’s tax its customers? It was an error, the business told PolitiFact Ohio. A Cabela's spokesman blamed a companywide ""glitch"" in its sales register system. The problem added a 2.3 percent ""medical excise tax"" to all purchases at its stores on Jan. 1. The error was caught the same day, the spokesman said, and the charges would be refunded. Is the tax ""hidden""? Obviously not, if it was included on the Cabela’s bill. The Medical Device Manufacturers Association, a Washington, D.C.-based group, has vigorously lobbied against the tax and supported congressional bills to repeal it, saying it will take money the industry uses for research and development. In a March press release, the association said manufacturers had paid $388 million in taxes to the federal government since the tax started in January. To sum up, the email claims a medical excise tax ""is supposed to be hidden from the consumer."" That’s incorrect. The email also implies that items that can be taxed include fishing rods and some cars. Again, incorrect. Lastly, the email says Cabela’s sporting goods store ""refused to hide"" the tax. Wrong. The company said it made a mistake when it taxed customers and would refund them. Delete the email if it comes your way. !"
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35451
|
Teens and tweens transmit SARS-CoV-2 quicker and more efficiently than adults.
|
What's true: A study including more than 65,000 individuals in South Korea found that juveniles between the ages of 10 and 19 are just as likely as adults — if not more — to transmit SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19. What's undetermined: The study used contact tracing to determine how likely an infected individual is to spread the virus to people who live within their home compared to those they come into contact with outside of the home. It is important to highlight several limitations present in the study that may have influenced or skewed the findings that are described in the article below. Furthermore, the study was pre-released in July 2020 in advance of its October 2020 publish date, and may see further edits before final publication.
|
true
|
Medical, COVID-19
|
Adolescents appear to spread SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19, as quickly and effectively as some adults, according to a study of more than 65,000 individuals in South Korea conducted during the onset of the 2020 pandemic. In the context of this study, news reports making such claims are mostly accurate. However, there are some important caveats to note when interpreting the broader implications of the findings. After the first case of COVID-19 in South Korea was discovered on Jan. 20, 2020, the nation adopted a “rigorous contact-tracing program” to track its spread throughout the population. Between the first reported case and March 27, researchers with the U.S. and Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracked more than 5,700 individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 by analyzing GPS, credit card transactions, and closed-circuit television. More than 59,000 people had come into contact with the original “index patients,” allowing researchers to determine how likely an infected individual was to transmit the virus to those living in their home and beyond. While researchers did not set out to characterize transmission rates specific to age groups, the claim is a byproduct of the work. Children between 10 and 19 years of age were shown to have a higher transmission rate within their households than younger children and were thus able to spread the virus as efficiently as, and in some cases at higher rates than, adults. More specifically, this age group had a transmission rate of over 18% within their own household, which is much higher than adults between the ages of 20 and 59 (ranging 7 and 14.7%). On the other hand, adolescents were much less likely to spread the disease to others outside of their home, and though children under 10 were found to transmit less than adults, they are still believed to contribute to community transmission. It is unclear why teens and tweens appear to be transmitting the disease more than adults, though the researchers speculate that it may be due to how children were socializing during the study period. “We also found the highest COVID-19 rate for household contacts of school-aged children, and the lowest for household contacts of children [up to nine years] in the middle of school closure. Despite [the] closure of their schools, these children might have interacted with each other, although we do not have data to support that hypothesis,” wrote the authors.
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26330
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Technology coming to Virginia allows COVID-19 personal protection equipment to be “decontaminated and reused 20 times without degrading performance.”
|
"Northam said with decontamination systems being set up in Virginia, ""PPE can be decontaminated and reused 20 times without degrading."" The systems are excellent news for Virginia which, like practically all states, has struggled to acquire N95 masks for medical workers. But the governor’s words are still rosy. The FDA, in its letter of emergency approval, said the decontamination system ""may be effective"" safely recycling masks up to 20 times, but warned the process should only be used when there are ""insufficient (new) supplies."" Some early research suggests the structure of the masks may be compromised through the repeated process, making them less-secure fits on faces. So Northam’s statement is partially accurate, but leaves out important details."
|
mixture
|
Coronavirus, Virginia, Ralph Northam,
|
"Gov. Ralph Northam announced that Virginia has received decontamination systems that will help provide front-line health workers with protective equipment against COVID-19. Each of the systems can massively sanitize for reuse much-sought-after N95 face masks. The systems were developed by the Battelle Memorial Institute, a nonprofit technology company in Ohio, and received emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been sending the equipment, free of charge, to various locations. Northam announced during a May 1 news conference that Virginia has gotten three of the systems, to be located in Chesterfield County, Newport News and Blacksburg. ""These systems have multiple units that are each the size of a storage container and can clean up to 80,000 masks per day using a hydrogen peroxide vapor,"" Northam said. ""(Personal protective equipment) can be decontaminated and reused 20 times without degrading."" Traditionally, N95 masks have been designated for only single use. So we fact-checked Northam’s statement that the system allows the masks to be ""decontaminated and reused 20 times without degrading."" The Battelle process Hospitals send the masks to N95 sanitization centers Battelle has helped set up, including in coronavirus hot spots such as New York, Boston, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Workers wearing protective gear load the respirators into a sealed container. Masks are cleaned with vapor-phase hydrogen peroxide, aerated and then sent back to the originating hospitals. The decontamination process takes about 12 hours. Battelle says the masks can withstand the decontamination process up to 20 times. But, as PolitiFact National recently noted, that’s not a best practice. The FDA, in its letter designating emergency approval, specified that Battelle’s decontamination system ""may be effective"" safely recycling masks 20 times, but it advised that recycling should only be done ""when there are insufficient supplies."" The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommends reuse ""only be practiced as a crisis capacity strategy."" There are several reasons. For one thing, research is limited on how effective this type of decontamination is. Also, masks vary in how they stand up to the procedure. And it’s not as simple as doing a load of laundry. ""Decontamination is a complicated process,"" said Hana El-Samad, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California-San Francisco, who researches N95 sanitization. ""Assessing how well it works and which N95 makes and models remain unaffected is an area of active research."" N95Decon, a research collaborative with which El-Samad works, has examined Battelle’s hydrogen peroxide approach and found the chemicals appear to eliminate COVID-19 spores without damaging the mask’s filtration. Mask integrity Performance is only part of the equation. Another is mask structure: N95s work only when properly fitted to the face. When workers reuse the masks, they can lose their shape, which undermines the quality of fit and renders them less protective. For some masks, per an N95Decon report on hydrogen peroxide, fit quality declined substantially after just five uses. For others, it took 15 wears to see a meaningful difference. In addition, decontamination itself can in some cases worsen the respirator’s fit. ""If [an N95] doesn’t fit well, then air will leak around the sides and it doesn’t matter how good a filter it is,"" said Patrick Kenney, medical director of the Yale-New Haven Health’s corporate supply chain. Plus, using this technology requires hospitals to have other protocols in place. Used masks must be safely collected ― since they could be COVID-contaminated and pose a biohazard — and a plan must be in place to move them to and from the sanitization facility. ""These are all complicated processes that need to be done right,"" El-Samad said. She offered a key takeaway: Technology like Battelle’s can help. But nothing substitutes for new N95s. We should note the PolitiFact National fact-checked an April 23 statement by President Trump. He said, ""We’re also using a sterilization process ― some great equipment that will sterilize masks up to 20 times per mask. So that’s like ordering 20 times more masks."" PolitiFact rated the statement Half-True, saying, ""Government authorities and health care researchers are clear that this is a crisis measure and it is in no way as effective as ‘ordering 20 times more masks.’"" Our ruling Northam said with decontamination systems being set up in Virginia, ""PPE can be decontaminated and reused 20 times without degrading."" The systems are excellent news for Virginia which, like practically all states, has struggled to acquire N95 masks for medical workers. But the governor’s words are still rosy. The FDA, in its letter of emergency approval, said the decontamination system ""may be effective"" safely recycling masks up to 20 times, but warned the process should only be used when there are ""insufficient (new) supplies."" Some early research suggests the structure of the masks may be compromised through the repeated process, making them less-secure fits on faces. So Northam’s statement is partially accurate, but leaves out important details."
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1878
|
Could your Valentine's kiss give you lead poisoning?.
|
If you’re going to be on either end of a kiss this Valentine’s Day, you might want to consider smooching bare-lipped. Most lipstick contains lead.
|
true
|
Health News
|
Baltimore Ravens cheerleader Olivia applies lipstick prior to the Ravens NFL football game in Baltimore, Maryland October 2, 2011. REUTERS/Larry Downing Lead has been banned in paint since 1978 because of its toxicity at low levels, but it still shows up in small amounts in some of the best-selling lipstick brands. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which did an analysis of a study of lead in lipstick conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, wants consumers to know that most of the 400 different lipsticks tested were positive for the substance (link.reuters.com/caz56s). “Recognizing that there is no safe level of lead exposure, we need to be protecting women and children from all levels of exposure,” said Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the campaign — a non-profit coalition of environmental- and cancer-prevention groups. Malkan’s group wants the FDA to set a limit for how much lead lipstick can contain and to study whether there are any dangers to having the substance applied to human lips, particularly the lips of children and pregnant women. “We know that ingestion of lipstick happens. It gets into our bodies,” she said, noting that lead accumulates in people. The group said that five of the nine lipstick brands with the most lead are sold by L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics maker. L’Oreal’s “Color Sensational” Pink Petal had the most lead of any lipstick tested at 7.19 parts per million. By comparison, children’s products sold in the U.S. are forbidden to have more than 100 parts per million of lead. “The FDA’s independent study, which will be published in the May/June 2012 issue of the Journal of Cosmetic Science, confirms that lipsticks pose no safety concerns for the millions of women who use them daily,” L’Oreal said in a statement sent to Reuters. “The lead levels detected by the FDA in the study are also within the limits recommended by global public health authorities for cosmetics, including lipstick.” The FDA, for its part, agreed there is no cause for alarm. “The FDA did not find high levels of lead in lipstick,” FDA spokeswoman Tamara Ward said. “We developed and tested a method for measuring lead in lipstick and did not find levels that would raise health concerns.” Still, Malkan said the government should take some more steps to ensure the safety of those who use lipstick. An advisory committee to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has taken a position that there is no safe level of lead for children. So, why asked Malkan should it be OK for their to be lead in lipstick? And, in particular, for certain brands to have more than others? “There are no safety standards,” Malkan said. So, if you’re still lead conscious, consider how you’ll handle your lips and those you’ll be sharing them with this Valentine’s Day. (Editing by Beth Pinsker Gladstone and Steve Orlofsky)
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24297
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On a bipartisan task force on ways to improve fiscal policy.
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McConnell reverses position on Conrad-Gregg budget commission
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false
|
National, Federal Budget, Mitch McConnell,
|
"Earlier this year, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was gung-ho behind an amendment intended to improve federal fiscal health. The proposal -- a ""Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action"" -- was co-sponsored by the top Democrat and the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Judd Gregg, R-N.H. It would establish an 18-member bipartisan commission to study the current and future fiscal condition of the federal government and make recommendations about how revenues and expenses can be brought into line. Those recommendations would be fast-tracked to the House and Senate floors under a special procedure. In a May 12, 2009, Senate floor session to discuss the Medicare Trustees' Report, McConnell said, ""We must address the issue of entitlement spending now before it is too late. As I have said many times before, the best way to address the crisis is the Conrad-Gregg proposal, which would provide an expedited pathway for fixing these profound long-term challenges. This plan would force us to get debt and spending under control. It deserves support from both sides of the aisle. The administration has expressed a desire to take up entitlement reform, and given the debt that its budget would run up, the need for reform has never been greater. So I urge the administration, once again, to support the Conrad-Gregg proposal. This proposal is our best hope for addressing the out-of-control spending and debt levels that are threatening our nation’s fiscal future."" That's a pretty clear endorsement of a bill, even though McConnell was not a co-sponsor. We tracked down one other occasion when McConnell spoke favorably about the bill. According to an Associated Press account at the time, McConnell also advocated the Conrad-Gregg approach in comments at a Feb. 23, 2009, White House summit on fiscal responsibility. But then, on Jan. 26, 2010, when the Conrad-Gregg bill, originally introduced as S. 2853, came for a vote in the Senate, it fell seven votes shy of the Senate's 60-vote threshold for passage, garnering 53 yeas and 46 nays, with one senator not voting. The measure would have passed with 60 votes if only seven additional Republicans who had co-sponsored S. 2853 had voted for it. Instead, those seven -- Robert Bennett of Utah, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Mike Crapo of Idaho, John Ensign of Nevada, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and John McCain of Arizona -- withdrew their co-sponsorship in the days before the vote and then voted against it on the floor. But the Senate Republican leader from Kentucky has probably taken the most flak on the issue for voting ""no."" In a scathing Washington Post op-ed column on Feb. 1, 2010, Fred Hiatt, referring to McConnell's ""no"" vote on the commission, wrote that ""no single vote by any single senator could possibly illustrate everything that is wrong with Washington today. No single vote could embody the full cynicism and cowardice of our political elite at its worst, or explain by itself why problems do not get solved. But here's one that comes close."" Hiatt continued that ""it's impossible to avoid the conclusion that the only thing that changed since May is the political usefulness of the proposal to McConnell's partisan goals. He was happy to claim fiscal responsibility while beating up Obama for fiscal recklessness. But when Obama endorsed the idea, as he did on the Saturday before the vote -- and when the commission actually, against all odds, had the wisp of a chance of winning the needed 60 Senate votes -- McConnell bailed."" Meanwhile, on the same day Hiatt's column was published, the president himself urged McConnell by name to change his mind about the commission, during remarks on his administration's proposed 2011 budget. ""I hope that, despite the fact that it got voted down in the Senate, that both the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, and the Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, go ahead and fully embrace what has been a bipartisan idea to get our arms around this budget."" So did McConnell flip-flop on his position? At the time of the vote, many Republicans were coming under pressure from antitax activists to oppose such a commission. These activists argued that it would have opened the door to tax increases. (Bennett, Hutchison and McCain are under special pressure because they face difficult primaries this fall from challengers on their right.) For their part, many Democrats voted against establishing a commission amid pressure by liberal interest groups that worried that the commission could recommend deep cuts to spending programs. When we asked McConnell's staffers whether they had any explanation for the senator's switch, a spokesman referred us to what McConnell had said in a Jan. 31, 2010, interview with John King, the host of CNN's Sunday-morning show, State of the Union. In that interview, King said to McConnell, ""If this was such a good idea that they would co-sponsor it -- this is what comes up, Sen. McConnell, in my travels all the time. People say, why do they always just play politics in Washington? Is this just politics, as the president says, or if it was the same proposal six months ago when they co-sponsored it, what was wrong with it last week when a Democratic president wanted it?"" McConnell responded by throwing the blame back on the president, who he said was, at best, uninterested in the idea until Senate Democrats -- under pressure to pass a politically unpopular increase to the federal debt limit -- urged him to back the bill as cover. ""Well, what was wrong with it last year?"" McConnell said to King. ""I mean, I discussed this very issue with the president right after he came to office, and with his chief of staff. Never could get a commitment out of him. In the meantime, we've seen a year now in which we've been on a spending binge. They passed a budget that doubled the national debt in five years and tripled it in 10. There's a lot of skepticism now about whether -- and the president endorses this commission a couple of days before the vote [on the debt-limit bill]. Where was he a year ago when we were talking to him about it?"" (We recently fact-checked the point McConnell made about the debt tripling in 10 years and found some caveats.) McConnell also told King that he still favors the commission model, and in fact voted for an alternative amendment that would have established a commission to propose spending cuts. But unlike the Conrad-Gregg commission, the one that McConnell -- as well as the seven former co-sponsors of the Conrad-Gregg commission -- backed would not entertain the possibility of tax increases, something that Conrad and Gregg maintained had to remain on the table. When King asserted that a commission that didn't address tax increases would suit Republicans' political purposes, McConnell responded, ""Look, nobody thinks raising taxes in the middle of a recession is a good idea. Have you ever heard anybody say that? I don't think so. We're in the middle of a recession. We've got 10 percent unemployment. ... Look, I don't think anybody in the country thinks we have a problem because we tax too little. I think the problem is we spend too much. So I like the commission idea, just as I said a few months ago. I think a better way to do it is to target spending, a spending reduction commission."" Independent sources agree that McConnell has a point that Obama was also inconsistent about the merits of Conrad-Gregg commission. Gregg, according to the New York Times, said the president ""may be a little too late to the party"" given the intensity of opposition ""from people who don't want any scent of tax increases."" Still, Obama had never come out as forcefully against the proposal as McConnell had in favor of it prior to switching sides. As we indicated earlier, McConnell was not a co-sponsor of S. 2853. However, he is not only on record praising the measure just eight months earlier but is also on record saying that he had praised it on numerous occasions."
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23419
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We've got to find 2 billion gallons (of water per day) between now and 2025.
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Adam Putnam sounds alarm on looming water crisis
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true
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Environment, Infrastructure, Florida, Adam Putnam,
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"Republican Agriculture Commissioner candidate Adam Putnam is sounding the alarm about a critical water shortage he says Florida will soon be facing. ""The most important issue facing Florida long term is water -- whether you want to plant an orange grove, build a subdivision, save the Everglades ... it all boils down to water,"" Putnam, a congressman from Bartow in Polk County, said on Sept. 9, 2010, during an editorial board interview with the St. Petersburg Times. ""We've got to find 2 billion -- find, create, make, obtain through conservation -- 2 billion gallons (of water) between now and 2025. Per day."" Putnam told the editorial board members assembled that the state needs to invest in alternative water supplies like reclaimed water, and create incentives for developers to invest in alternative supplies as well. The state must also advocate for more conservation and efficiency measures, Putnam said, and continue to invest in desalination facilities -- which turn salt water into drinking water. He wrote a policy position paper on the state's water supply issues, which you can read here. In this fact check we're drilling down on Putnam's basic assumption, that Florida needs to somehow develop an additional 2 billion gallons of water per day in the next 15 years. We turned to the state Department of Environmental Protection, the agency tasked to increase the state's available water supplies, for an answer. Florida used an estimated 6.9 billion gallons of fresh water per day in 2005, the DEP said, citing the most recent U.S. Geological Survey report. By 2025, it is projected that the state will use 8.7 billion gallons a day. That's an increase of 1.8 billion gallon per day, or 27 percent. Close to what Putnam said. We should note that the projected is based on the assumption that the state's population will grow to almost 25 million by 2025. Currently, the state's population is estimated to be around 18.77 million. The projection also assumes that the government will be responsible for providing water for everyone in the state. Both those assumptions could, of course, change between now and 2025. ""As Florida continues to grow, pressure is put on the water resources of the state and the need to ensure these resources are available for future generations becomes increasingly important,"" the state wrote in its 2010 Annual Report on Regional Water Supply Planning. ""Floridians have always enjoyed a quality of life that is inextricably linked to the health of our water resources. Tourists come here to enjoy pristine beaches, swim in our freshwater springs, and experience unique fishing opportunities. Florida's water resources also support large agricultural industries. If Florida did not maintain its high quality natural systems, the effects would be felt throughout the entire economy."" To be sure, the DEP and the state's five water management districts have been preparing for the uptick. The water management districts are required by law to develop and update regional water supply plans every five years. And they have already identified, developed or are developing projects to help close the gap. In 2005, the Legislature created the Water Protection and Sustainability Trust Fund and designated $100 million to be used to promote the development of alternative water supplies. The state set aside another $117 million over three years in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The Legislature stopped funding the program in 2009, the DEP said. The investment, however, helped water management districts provide funding assistance for 327 water saving projects, which will help create approximately 761 million gallons a day of ""new water"" available for consumptive use. That's close to 40 percent of the water expected to be needed by 2025. Most of the projects focus on adding reclaimed water capacity or demineralizing brackish groundwater. The work already being done by the state and water management districts is an important caveat when considering Putnam's comments because he makes it sound like the state has to find 2 billion gallons of water a day by 2025. In reality, the state already has projects on the book that get the state a portion of the way there. Yet, Florida has a ways to go. Putnam is right, based on the latest estimates Florida will use about 2 billion more gallons of water a day in 2025 than the state did in 2005. But the state and the five state water management districts have started planning for it, and already have identified water construction projects that will help meet some of the increasing demand."
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15792
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"Birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger was ""an active participant in the Ku Klux Klan."
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"Former New Hampshire Speaker of the House William O’Brien wrote that Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood and ""an active participant in the Klu Klux Klan."" Birth-control advocate Sanger did give a speech to a women’s branch of the KKK and she was a believer in eugenics. However, her writings and other contemporary evidence make clear that she was not ideologically in tune with the Klan -- much less an ""active participant."" O’Brien’s claim goes far beyond the evidence."
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false
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Abortion, New Hampshire, William O'Brien,
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"Debates about Planned Parenthood often find their way back to Margaret Sanger, the outspoken birth control advocate who founded a forerunner to the group. Opponents of Planned Parenthood, and of abortion more generally, have seized on Sanger’s sometimes controversial beliefs as a way to discredit the organization that she helped found. Such was the case on Feb. 8, 2015, when former New Hampshire speaker of the House William O’Brien posted a lengthy online comment about a previous fact check. O’Brien writes, in his first paragraph: ""In language that would only occur to one of the liberal elite, here is what Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood and an active participant in the Klu Klux Klan and the eugenics movement, had to say about the immigrants, blacks and poor people for whom that organization’s services were targeted,"" going on to quote Sanger as saying they were ""human beings who never should have been born."" That’s a lot to unpack. There is little question that Sanger supported the eugenics movement (more on that later), but one statement really stuck out. Sanger was ""an active participant in the Ku Klux Klan."" PolitiFact NH decided to check it out. It turns out, Sanger did speak to a group connected to the KKK and wrote about it openly. In Margaret Sanger: An Autobiography, published in 1938, Sanger details her work advocating birth control across the United States and emphasizes her willingness to talk to virtually anyone. ""Always to me any aroused group was a good group,"" Sanger writes, ""and therefore I accepted an invitation to talk to the women's branch of the Ku Klux Klan at Silver Lake, New Jersey, one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing."" Sanger’s account suggests she didn't hold the group in the highest esteem. After arriving at the meeting, a complicated process that involved driving to a secret location, it was time for her to speak. ""Never before had I looked into a sea of faces like these. I was sure that if I uttered one word, such as abortion, outside the usual vocabulary of these women they would go off into hysteria. And so my address that night had to be in the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand,"" Sanger writes. It’s important to note that the Women of the Ku Klux Klan was not the KKK itself. It was a parallel, official organization, with branches in all 48 states. It supported the goals of the men’s group, and was based in Little Rock, Ark. And that’s a far cry from being an ""active participant"" in the Ku Klux Klan, as O’Brien claims. As for Sanger, she indeed supported the eugenics movement. While the notion that the human race could be perfected by better breeding led to a horrific outcome in the Holocaust, it had been widely accepted in progressive, reformist political circles. Supporters included Winston Churchill, H. G. Wells, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, George Bernard Shaw and economist John Maynard Keynes. And while he disagreed with and worked to debunk eugenicists who insisted on black people’s inferiority, African-American activist W. E. B. Du Bois subscribed to a number of the movement’s principles. In other words, supporting eugenics did not automatically equal racism. Jean H. Baker, who wrote the biography Margaret Sanger: A Life of Passion and is the Bennett-Harwood professor of history at Goucher College in Maryland, says attempts to paint Sanger as a bigot are simply . ""As for Sanger as a supporter of KKK, it is just untrue,"" Baker wrote in an email. ""She was far ahead of her times in terms of opposing racial segregation. She worked closely with black leaders to open birth control clinics in Harlem and elsewhere. She believed all women should have the information about birth control that rich women had, hence her lecture to the KKK women."" Ruth Engs, a professor emeritus of applied health science at Indiana University who has studied the eugenics movement, also said O’Brien’s claim was incorrect. ""Margaret Sanger, as far as I know, was never a member of the Klan. She would speak to any group who was interested in how to control their reproduction. This includes immigrant groups, black groups, church groups, in addition to professionals, physicians,"" she wrote in an email. Author Edwin Black, whose 2003 book War Against the Weak paints a scathing portrait of the American eugenics movement, criticizes Sanger harshly in its pages for her eugenic beliefs. Ultimately, though, he writes, ""Sanger was no racist. Nor was she anti-Semitic."" Contacted for comment, O’Brien referred to two articles online, one a piece from the American Spectator and the other an entry on a blog that has no other content. The Spectator article mostly refers to the passages from the autobiography, although it leaves out the paragraph in which Sanger compares her audience to children. It also treats the women’s branch of the Ku Klux Klan and the actual Klan as one and the same. The blog includes similar content, along with information about the effect of abortions on the African American community. We should note, however, that no Planned Parenthood chapter offered abortions until 1970, four years after Sanger’s death. O’Brien and the sources he cited all highlight a comment made by Sanger in a Dec. 10, 1939, letter. In it, she writes, ""We don’t want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs."" A 2011 PolitFact Georgia article examined this statement and found it was actually innocuous. ""Sanger’s correspondence shows this sentence advocates for black doctors and ministers to play leadership roles in the Negro Project to avoid misunderstandings. Lynchings and Jim Crow laws gave blacks good reason to be wary of attempts to limit the number of children they bore. In Harlem, she hired a black doctor and social worker to quell those fears,"" the article states. We should also note that in 1966, while she was still alive, Planned Parenthood bestowed the Margaret Sanger award on Martin Luther King Jr. He accepted, and while he was unable to attend the event, his wife Coretta showed up in his place to read his speech. In it, King wrote: ""There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger's early efforts. She, like we, saw the horrifying conditions of ghetto life. Like we, she knew that all of society is poisoned by cancerous slums. Like we, she was a direct actionist – a nonviolent resister."" Given the fact that Sanger’s autobiography had been published nearly 30 years before King’s speech, her earlier address was no secret. It should be clear the civil rights leader did not think of Sanger as a racist. In addition to the links O’Brien shared, he also threw a little vitriol our way. ""These facts won’t stop your defamatory attacks in your article or in the future,"" he said through his Facebook account in response to an inquiry for this article . ""Your article is certainly already written and will be yet another attack piece intended to satiate the prejudices of the narrower band of the electorate who care what the Concord Monitor has to say."" Our ruling Former New Hampshire Speaker of the House William O’Brien wrote that Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood and ""an active participant in the Klu Klux Klan."" Birth-control advocate Sanger did give a speech to a women’s branch of the KKK and she was a believer in eugenics. However, her writings and other contemporary evidence make clear that she was not ideologically in tune with the Klan -- much less an ""active participant."" O’Brien’s claim goes far beyond the evidence."
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1874
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Chocolate may be good for your heart: study.
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Eating chocolate is not only a treat for the tongue — it may also have some tangible benefits for heart health, such as lowering blood pressure slightly, according to a study involving more than a thousand people.
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true
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Health News
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"Liquid chocolate is prepared in the workshop of the ""Felicitas"" chocolate shop in Hornow, south of Berlin, December 2, 2009. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch The study, which combined the results of 42 smaller studies and was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, also found that participants had small improvements in blood vessel function and a dip in their insulin levels. A number of past studies have found that chocolate lovers seem to have lower rates of certain heart risks, such as high blood pressure. “My take-away message would be that if people like dark chocolate, then eating a little in place of other ‘treat’ foods is fine, and may be beneficial,” said study leader Lee Hooper, at Norwich Medical School in the UK. “However, the evidence is not yet good enough to suggest that we should all be doing this.” She cautioned that the studies involved were neither large enough nor long enough to show whether eating chocolate has any effect on a person’s risk of having a heart attack or stroke. In contrast to past studies, which were largely observational and couldn’t prove cause-and-effect — that chocolate itself caused the changes — the current study focused on clinical trials, where researchers assigned people to eat chocolate or not and then watched for changes in blood pressure, cholesterol and other heart risk factors. Hooper and her team pooled data from 42 small clinical trials involving about 1,300 people and found that chocolate eaters had a few points knocked off their blood pressure readings, along with lower insulin levels and other benefits. Though it’s not clear why chocolate has this affect, it’s believed to be due to compounds known as flavonoids, which are also present in foods such as nuts, soy, tea and wine. But researchers acknowledged shortcomings in their study, including differences in the people involved in the trials — some healthy, some with chronic health problems — and different ways of testing chocolate’s effects. Some studies used cocoa drinks, some solid chocolate and some cocoa supplements. They also varied in how long people were “treated,” though most trials lasted less than six weeks. The biggest question may be whether any benefits would be worth the downside of chocolate. Based on the studies they used, Hooper’s team writes, it could take several hundred calories’ worth of chocolate to see effects on insulin and blood vessel function — and that could mean trouble for your waistline. “From a practical perspective it is premature to advise individuals to consume chocolate or cocoa to decrease their risk of cardiovascular disease,” said Alice Lichtenstein, director of the cardiovascular nutrition lab at Tufts University in Boston, who was not part of the study. For now, she added, if you enjoy a little chocolate in your life, you can probably keep doing so. Just don’t add it in the hopes of helping your heart."
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6492
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Drug epidemic: 1 small-town mayor takes on pill distributors.
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In this once prosperous West Virginia coal town of 1,900 people, residents say it’s not just the decades-long demise of mining that hurt the community — it’s the scourge of drug use that came with it.
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true
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Epidemics, Health, West Virginia, AP Weekend Reads, U.S. News
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Here, almost everyone knows someone who became addicted. And the Appalachian town is fighting back by suing some of the biggest U.S. drug distributors, hoping to make them pay for the damage done by addiction. Lawyers say growing pushback by communities, many in West Virginia, could ultimately rival the scope of litigation against tobacco companies over smoking. As coal workers lost jobs and faced few employment options, opioid addiction rose. In 2015, federal figures show, West Virginia had the nation’s highest rate of overdose deaths from opioids, a class of narcotics that includes heroin but also pain relievers such as oxycodone legally available by prescription. In 2015 and 2016, the state had 1,500 drug overdoses — at least 32 of them in McDowell County, whose seat is Welch. “We just feel now is maybe the time to attack these drug companies to make them responsible for what they’re sending out,” said Welch Mayor Reba Honacker, who had retired from her career as a florist before her election. In February, she sued five of the nation’s largest prescription drug distributors on behalf of her city, arguing their opioids saturated the community at a heavy price in added emergency, rehabilitation, police, court and jail services. “Opioids, once a niche drug, are now the most prescribed class of drugs — more than blood pressure, cholesterol or anxiety drugs,” the lawsuit says, noting drug companies’ billions in annual revenue. Honacker’s attorney Harry Bell said a Charleston Gazette-Mail investigation (http://bit.ly/2hfEa9l) last year shows that opioid shipments to West Virginia clearly have exceeded need — more than 400 pills for each of the 1.8 million people in the state over a six-year period. “I suspect there are numerous communities which have drug problems in this country with opioids,” Bell said. “But how many of those communities are ... victims of a true massive dumping of prescription opioids in numbers that have no relation to reality?” Since that report, 11 West Virginia municipalities — including the city of Huntington and Kanawha County, where the capital, Charleston, is located — have filed or announced lawsuits. McDowell County Sheriff Martin West said the attorney general’s office advised criminal charges weren’t possible. The county sued in federal court instead. In a similar case, Everett, Washington, sued Purdue Pharma in January, saying the maker of OxyContin knew some of the pain medication was being funneled by the black market into the city but did nothing to stop that. Purdue argued for dismissal, saying there was no basis in law for a municipality to sue a drug manufacturer. Fulton County, Georgia, filed a similar suit against three distributors in state court in 2015, but dropped it after being briefed on measures to prevent illicit diversion, said Ellen Barry, a spokeswoman for drug distributor Cardinal Health. Bell said he was unaware of other states with similar suits. Welch’s lawsuit in state court seeks unspecified damages from drug distributors McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, Miami-Luken, and H.D. Smith, and from a prescribing physician. All five companies have denied wrongdoing but paid money to settle similar lawsuits by the state attorney general or the Drug Enforcement Administration. So far, the state attorney general has won $47 million in state settlements from 12 opioid distributors. In January, San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. agreed to pay $150 million to settle federal allegations it failed to detect and report suspiciously large pharmacy orders of addictive painkillers, including shipments to West Virginia. In 2006, a pharmacy in nearby Kermit received 3.2 million hydrocodone pills, according to court records. The town had 400 people. The pharmacy owner was sentenced to six months in prison for illegally dispensing painkillers. The owner of a now-closed pain clinic and two doctors there went to prison in 2010 for illegal prescriptions. Kermit recently sued the five distributors. McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Miami-Luken didn’t reply to Associated Press queries. H.D. Smith spokeswoman Sarah Kinkade said the company has the “stringent protection” of the health care supply chain. Cardinal responded: “We believe that these copycat lawsuits do not advance any of the hard work needed to solve the opioid abuse crisis — an epidemic driven by addiction, demand and the diversion of medications for illegitimate use.” McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal all have asked a federal judge to dismiss McDowell County’s suit, arguing it lacks legal standing to bring such claims and that they ship drugs only to federally and state-licensed pharmacies. “Many patients in the United States have a legitimate medical need for opioids, and, for that reason, federal health officials over the past two decades recommended increased treatment of acute and chronic pain and year after year substantially increased the quota for hydrocodone and oxycodone that could be manufactured, distributed, and prescribed,” Cardinal’s attorney wrote. The Drug Enforcement Administration assigns quotas to manufacturers. Ethan Nadelmann, of the nonprofit watchdog Drug Policy Alliance, said that unlike tobacco sold directly to consumers, doctors and pharmacists are supposed to safeguard drug distribution. “Presumably the distributors are sending drugs there because they’re ordered by pharmacies,” said Nadelmann. “Maybe it’s just the distributors are seen as deep pockets.” At a recent town hall meeting in Welch, a few dozen of the 250 people present raised hands when asked if they’d lost a loved one to drugs. “A friend of mine just lost his daughter to that,” said Rob Ofsa, a retired teacher. “The drug companies have ruined us.” If the suit is successful, Honacker would like to use the money to establish a local rehabilitation center to help addicts. “Our people, if they want help, and we have many that do want help, they tend to travel miles and miles,” she said. ___ This story has been corrected to show that the Charleston Gazette-Mail investigation documented opioid shipments over a six-year period, not five years.
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9405
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Alzheimer's disease reversed in mice, offering hope for humans, new research shows
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This story excitedly describes the “remarkable” finding that by deleting an enzyme called BACE1 in a mouse model, researchers were able to stop the amyloid plaques found in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s from developing. The enthusiasm is tempered later in the story, when it is noted that previous advances in treating Alzheimer’s in mice have not translated into success in treating Alzheimer’s in people. The story tells readers there are BACE1 inhibitors in clinical trials in humans, and quotes the study’s lead researcher as saying these drugs could provide hope for Alzheimer’s patients, “if” they can be used long term and don’t have side effects. But that’s a very big “if.” Missing from the story is this background: a number of BACE1 inhibitors have been studied in human clinical trials and were not found to be effective. In fact, just before this story was published, Merck announced it was halting a BACE1 trial after an interim analysis showed it was unlikely that a positive benefit/risk ratio could be established. The story also glosses over potential harms. The public jumps at any hint of a cure for Alzheimer’s, which is the most common cause of dementia. According to this 2017 report from the Alzheimer’s Association, an estimated 5.5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, and 5.3 million of them are age 65 and older. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S. Before people die from the disease, they can live for many years fully dependent on others for their care. Coverage about Alzheimer’s shouldn’t tease people with unjustified language that pumps up hope for a cure. For more on the importance of context and cautionary language when covering stories like this, read “How to report on preliminary Alzheimer’s research results.”
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false
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alzheimer's disease
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While this experimental approach is too preliminary to have a price tag, it seems reasonable to expect some mention of cost given that human trials are in progress. That cost is likely to be high given the large sums companies are investing in development. According to one study, Alzheimer’s prevention trials alone “will necessarily involve the enrollment of thousands of subjects, last for years, and incur enormous costs.” The story says researchers saw “reduced neuron loss and better brain function” in the mice, but there’s no data on the how dramatic these effects were. It leaves a false impression that all subjects experienced significant benefits. In fact behavioral changes were small, with about a 10-percent change in fear conditioning for the only statistically significant result. The story does not explain that mice without BACE1 have a number of other signs of brain deterioration, show signs of hyperactivity and are prone to long-term depression. The story notes that BACE1 inhibitors are being tested in humans but skips over the fact that at least two clinical trials in humans using BACE1 inhibitors were stopped due to liver toxicity, and that other studies were stopped early due to unspecified, unacceptable side effects. On the plus side, the story describes how the research was performed and notes that “researchers urge caution with the results as many Alzheimer’s discoveries seem to hold true in mice, then fail in people.” It also quotes a researcher who said that it’s unlikely BACE1 inhibitors would totally halt enzyme production in humans even though the gene that produces the enzyme was deleted in mice. Those are important points that contradict the overall excitement embedded in the rest of the story, but they don’t arrive until the fifth paragraph. Near the top of the story we are told: “The deletion of just a single enzyme saw the near total reversal of the deposition of amyloid plaques found in brains of those with Alzheimer’s, improving cognitive functions in the mouse subjects.” The story did not explain that depleting a marker of Alzheimer’s—the amyloid plaques — is not the same as reversing the disease. The story also leaves out the small size of behavioral benefits observed in the study, which could have been used to explain how a single molecular “fix” may not lead to a benefit. Supporting that concern is Merck’s recent statement that it was halting its BACE 1 trial because of a lack of benefit. That statement wasn’t mentioned in the story. The story does not do any disease-mongering, but it would have been stronger if it provided data about how many people have Alzheimer’s. It is accompanied by a video that gives some information about Alzheimer’s, such as it’s the most common cause of dementia. The story has only one source: Riqiang Yan, PhD, who was one of the study’s authors. There are no conflicts identified in the story, and none identified in the study. The story does not explicitly state there is no cure for Alzheimer’s, and it doesn’t discuss current drug treatments for Alzheimer’s symptoms or other approaches being studied as treatments for Alzheimer’s. The story explains that the study was done in mice and notes that there are BACE1 inhibitors being tested in humans. It also mentions that researchers “are currently in phase II and, in some cases, phase III clinical trials for the various compounds,” although with no description of what that means in terms of the timeline for drug development. We would have liked more information on how long it will take for results of these studies to become available, and a caution that an actual treatment is years off at best. The story makes the approach sound more novel than it really is. What the study showed—for the first time—was that amyloid deposits could be reversed in mice that were bred to slowly stop producing the BACE1 enzyme. Research on BACE1 inhibitors has been going on for years. The story doesn’t offer much more than what appeared in a news release, although it uses independent quotes obtained from Dr. Yan. The story echos some of the news release’s hyperbolic language, including the word “hope.” We’re left to wonder the source of the story’s opening word, “remarkable.” The word “remarkably” was used in both the news release and the study to describe certain findings.
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1970
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Mental problems of soldiers' kids tied to wars.
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The longer U.S. soldiers were deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan, the more likely their children would be diagnosed with mental health problems, according to a study published Monday.
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true
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Health News
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U.S. Marines of Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines are silhouetted against the sunset during a joint patrol with Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers along Helmand river near the Camp Gorgak in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, July 3, 2011. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov The study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, analyzed medical records of 307,520 children of active-duty Army personnel, aged 5 to 17 years old. It found almost 17 percent of them exhibited mental health problems. “Children of parents who spent more time deployed between 2003 and 2006 fared worse than children whose parents were deployed for a shorter duration,” the study’s researchers wrote. The lead researcher was Alyssa Mansfield, who was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the time the study was conducted. The U.S. Army reported some 562,000 members in active duty and more than 570,000 children of such members in 2010. Just under two-thirds of all active-duty servicemen and women were married and 15 percent were raising children as single parents. The children whose parents deployed at least once, for an average of 11 months, as part of the U.S. Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan were especially likely to suffer from adjustment, behavioral, depressive or stress disorders than those whose parents never went to war, the study found. Boys were more likely to have mental health problems than girls, according to the report, which reviewed records for patients cared for at military medical facilities and at civilian facilities using military medical insurance. “We used to think about deployment as a single experience: I go, I’m away, it’s difficult and then I come back. Well, it’s a way of life in the military that deployments continue to occur and families have to manage the consequences,” said Dr. Stephen Cozza, psychiatry professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Cozza has studied the issue and wrote an editorial accompanying the report. “These are consequences that aren’t necessarily short-term,” he said. The challenges don’t necessarily end with the final return home, he said, as soldiers may bring back their own mental health issues which affect relationships with their children.
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21863
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Since June 2009, about 48 percent of all the jobs created in America were in Texas.
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Rick Perry says Texas accounted for 48 percent of U.S. jobs created after recession's end
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mixture
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Economy, Jobs, Texas, Rick Perry,
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"In an unannounced June 14 appearance on the Fox News Channel, Texas Gov. Rick Perry strolled through another celebration of the state’s economy. His 35-second cameo shows host Glenn Beck and Perry, who is not introduced, walking from a chalkboard past the camera as Beck asks: ""How many jobs did you create, percentage, during the recession?"" Perry replies: ""Since June 2009, about 48 percent of all the jobs created in America were in Texas. Come add to it."" ""Thank you; would love to,"" says Beck, whose show is leaving Fox. After Perry walked off camera, Beck imitated Star Wars’ Obi-Wan Kenobi, waving his hand across his face and saying: ""I have no idea who that man was. That’s not the candidate you were looking for."" We recognize that job-gain boasts can overreach. An example: Perry’s January 2009 claim that about 70 percent of the jobs created in the U.S. from November 2007-08 were in Texas. We rated it that because it was based on statistics from the 14 states in which job gains outnumbered job losses, and disregarded any jobs created in the other 36 states where losses outnumbered gains. Per the governor’s recent claim, his office and the Texas Workforce Commission each attributed the 48 percent figure to research touted by the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve. The Fed compared the number of jobs in Texas and the nation in April 2011 to the number of jobs in June 2009, the month marked by the National Bureau of Economic Research as the end of the recession that started in December 2007. Workforce commission spokesman Mark Lavergne forwarded a June 14 email from Jerrod Vaughan, an assistant to Richard Fisher, president and ceo of the Dallas Fed, elaborating on Fisher’s recently telling the Wall Street Journal that Texas accounted for 37 percent of post-recession net job gains nationally, by one calculation, or 45 percent by another. The Journal article says the Texas economy has averaged 3.3 percent annual growth over the last two decades, compared with 2.6 percent for the nation over all. Vaughan’s email says that when the Dallas Fed compared its internally adjusted Texas employment totals to national survey employment figures, the Texas share of the whole was 47.8 percent--hence, we see, the figure Perry gave Beck. Pia Orrenius, a senior economist at the Dallas Fed, told us the calculation came from subtracting the number of Texas jobs in June 2009 (10,287,000) from the jobs as of April 2011 (10,524,000) and determining the 237,000 increase accounted for nearly 48 percent of the 496,000 jobs gained nationally over that period. She said the national job figures were drawn from the federal government’s national payroll surveys. Then again, Orrenius suggested the Texas economy has been roaring since 1990. ""Long before Rick Perry"" became governor, she said, ""we were talking about the great Texas economy. There are so many exciting things about the Texas economy that precede any political flavor of the month."" She listed as favorable factors the state’s range of natural resources, its energy and high-tech sectors, its booming Gulf ports and its surging trade with Mexico and China. Experts we contacted agreed Texas has enjoyed phenomenal job growth, though they stressed there are various ways to arrive at the state’s share of the nation’s rebound. Cheryl Abbot, a Dallas-based economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, initially advised by email that by the bureau’s count, Texas had 265,300 more jobs in April 2011 than in June 2009. Using the Dallas Fed’s equation, this suggests Texas accounted for about 54 percent of the nation’s net job growth over the period. Why the difference: The Dallas Fed checks the bureau’s monthly employment estimates against employers’ unemployment compensation tax filings once a quarter; the bureau only does so annually. Abbot said, though, she prefers to judge ""recoveries thus far"" by comparing specific state or U.S. current employment levels with their peak employment prior to the recession. Texas, she said, has nearly recovered all the jobs lost in the recession. Its nearly 10.6 million jobs as of April ran 0.9 percent below its August 2008 peak employment level of more than 10.6 million jobs. In contrast, Abbot said, the U.S. employment of 131 million in May 2011 fell 5 percent below the peak U.S. employment of nearly 138 million in January 2008. Chris Edwards, director of tax policy for the Libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, called the Fed’s comparison fair, but said he’s skeptical every time a leader touts economic gains when it’s unclear how they stoked the gains. ""Reporters should ask the governor specifically what policies he put in place to create the much-better employment growth,"" Edward said, adding that he sees as a negative move changes in business taxation Perry signed into law in 2006 to help cover cuts in school property taxes. Likewise, Bob Lerman, a fellow in labor and social policy at The Urban Institute in Washington saw no flaw in the Fed’s calculation. But at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, researcher Kathryn Edwards called Perry’s statement misleading because the Fed’s research reflects only the 31 states with net job gains over the post-recession period. Jobs were created in the other states, Edwards pointed out, though more jobs were lost. It would be accurate, she said, to say Texas accounted for 27 percent of jobs gained in states with net job gains. For the same reason, Lee McPheters, an economist at Arizona State University, said the Fed’s statistical comparison is misleading. McPheters wondered too why the cited comparison starts in June 2009 when the actual national low point in terms of employment was February 2010, because employment keeps falling after a recession ends. Applying the Fed’s methodology to the the later time frame, Texas accounted for only 18 percent of the jobs created from February 2010 into April 2011, he said. Finally, we consulted Bernard Weinstein, an economist at Southern Methodist University familiar with the state’s economic ups and downs. ""One can quibble over the numbers as well as the methodologies and time frames used to calculate Texas' job gains,"" Weinstein said by email. The big picture, he said, is that Texas has fared better than other big states since the recession and indeed over the past 20 years, for reasons including, he said, ""enlightened"" leadership, demographics and the resurgent energy sector. Our take:The strength of the Texas economy, compared to many other states, isn’t in dispute. However, there are many ways to slice and dice employment statistics. The calculations behind the 48-percent boast may cover a less meaningful time frame while not weighing any jobs created in states with net job losses. Mark Perry’s statement ."
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29133
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Kellogg's Corn Flakes were originally created in an effort to discourage American consumers from masturbating.
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"What's true: The creation of corn flakes was part of J.H. Kellogg's broader advocacy for a plain, bland diet. Without referring to corn flakes in particular, Kellogg elsewhere recommended a plain, bland diet as one of several methods to discourage masturbation. What's false: According to the available evidence, corn flakes were primarily created as an easy-to-digest, pre-prepared and healthy breakfast food, in particular for patients at the Kellogg sanitarium in Michigan. The product was never advertised as an ""anti-masturbatory morning meal."""
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false
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Food
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In August 2019, we received several inquiries from readers about a popular piece of purported history: the origins of the humble corn flake. The new wave of interest in the invention of the popular American cereal appears to have been prompted by Facebook and Twitter posts that encouraged readers to “Ask Google ‘Why were Cornflakes invented? '”: For many readers, entering that question into search engines yielded a popular explanation for the origins of the cereal, excerpted from a 2018 article on the Australian news website news.com.au which stated that “[Kellogg] invented Cornflakes in 1878 in the hope that plain food would stop people masturbating. Mr Kellogg, the man who created Cornflakes, produced the cereal in the late 19th century and marketed it as a ‘healthy, ready-to-eat anti-masturbatory morning meal …'”: Google “why were cornflakes invented” #cornflakes pic.twitter.com/1x0k36MCna — 🎀 𝓒𝓻𝓲𝓼𝓽𝓪𝓵 🎀 (@mcristal21) August 16, 2019 The claim that John Harvey Kellogg created corn flakes for their supposed masturbation-suppressing qualities, and more specifically that he promoted the product as such, has been online for several years. Several sources have presented the phrase “healthy, ready-to-eat anti-masturbatory morning meal” in quotation marks, giving readers the impression that those words originated with an actual advertisement for the cereal. In reality, the phrase was never used by Kellogg, nor was it ever used to promote or advertise corn flakes. It originated instead with a 2012 article by Mental Floss, which reported that “Kellogg developed a few different flaked grain breakfast cereals — including corn flakes — as healthy, ready-to-eat anti-masturbatory morning meals.” When the product was first advertised in the early 1900s, it was by then being made and marketed by the Kellogg’s Cereal Company, which was run by Kellogg’s younger brother Will after a rift formed between the two men, partly over the addition of sugar to the recipe (John Harvey was against it; Will was for it). Those early advertisements made no mention of masturbation or sexual activities of any kind. They promoted corn flakes as “nutritious and healthful,” emphasizing in particular how easy they were to digest — one of their original uses at the sanitarium the brothers ran in Battle Creek, Michigan. However, the Kellogg company also highlighted the flakes’ “delicious flavor and dainty crispness” and encouraged consumers to indulge themselves, claiming the cereal would appeal to their “sweet tooth” and describing corn flakes as “good for you no matter how much you eat.” The supposed anaphrodisiac purpose of corn flakes also did not appear in John Harvey Kellogg’s patent application in 1895. There, he instead emphasized the flakes’ purported health benefits, describing them as being “well adapted for sick and convalescent persons”: My invention relates to an improved alimentary product and to the process of making it; and the object of the improvement is to provide a food product which is in a proper condition to be readily digested without any preliminary cooking or heating operation, and which is highly nutritive and of an agreeable taste, thus affording a food product particularly well adapted for sick and convalescent persons. According to Howard Markel, a professor of the history of medicine at the University of Michigan and author of a book on the Kellogg family, the initial impetus for the invention of corn flakes came from the need to create a breakfast food that countered indigestion, a common health complaint in later-19th-century America, while also conforming to the strict vegetarian diet of the Seventh Day Adventist church, of which the Kelloggs were active members: It was during medical school when a time-crunched John, who prepared his own meals on top of studying round the clock, first began to think about creating a nutritious, ready-to-eat cereal … One of the most common medical complaints of the day was dyspepsia, the 19th-century catchall term for a medley of flatulence, constipation, diarrhea, heartburn, and “upset stomach.” Breakfast was especially problematic. For much of the 19th century, many early morning repasts included filling, starchy potatoes, fried in the congealed fat from last night’s dinner. For protein, cooks fried up cured and heavily salted meats, such as ham or bacon. Some people ate a meatless breakfast, with mugs of cocoa, tea, or coffee, whole milk or heavy cream, and boiled rice, often flavored with syrup, milk, and sugar. Some ate brown bread, milk-toast, and graham crackers to fill their bellies. Conscientious (and frequently exhausted) mothers awoke at the crack of dawn to stand over a hot, wood-burning stove for hours on end, cooking and stirring gruels or mush made of barley, cracked wheat, or oats. It was no wonder Dr. Kellogg saw a need for a palatable, grain-based “health food” that was “easy on the digestion” and also easy to prepare. He hypothesized that the digestive process would be helped along if grains were pre-cooked — essentially, pre-digested — before they entered the patient’s mouth. Dr. Kellogg baked his dough at extremely high heat to break down starch contained in the grain into the simple sugar dextrose. John Kellogg called this baking process dextrinization. He and Will labored for years in a basement kitchen before coming up with dextrinized flaked cereals — first, wheat flakes, and then the tastier corn flakes. They were easily-digested foods meant for invalids with bad stomachs. [Emphasis is added]. So the best available evidence shows that Kellogg’s Corn Flakes were created, patented, and marketed as a healthy, easy-to-digest cereal that would supposedly be appealing and of benefit to everyone, but in particular people with especially sensitive stomachs. The purpose of dampening masturbatory or sexual urges appears to have played no direct role in the origins of corn flakes. However, an indirect link exists between the now-iconic American cereal and John Harvey Kellogg’s own eccentric (and at times downright frightening) views about sexual health. Kellogg was a medical doctor and health reformer, as well as a devout Seventh Day Adventist. Those strands of his personal and professional background came together in his views on sexual health, and in particular on masturbation — views that would now be regarded as pseudoscientific, not based on concrete evidence, and in some cases physically and psychologically harmful. Kellogg encouraged strict abstention from almost all forms of sexual activity or contact, even among married, heterosexual couples. He outlined these views in an 1887 book entitled Plain Facts for Old and Young: Embracing the Natural History and Hygiene of Organic Life, which was reprinted and updated several times and enjoyed significant popularity in the United States around the turn of the 20th century. Kellogg devoted an entire section of the book to masturbation, which he referred to as “self-pollution” and the “solitary vice,” and described as “the most dangerous of all sexual abuses.” That section of the book can be read in full here. Kellogg identified multiple purported causes and harms related to the habit of masturbation, many of which would appear laughably unscientific to a modern reader. Among the causes he listed were “exciting and irritating food,” and stimulants such as tea, coffee, wine, beer, and tobacco. He also listed several purported “cures” and “treatments” for the practice, one of which related to diet. Kellogg believed a strong, direct link existed between the food and drink one consumed and the thoughts and urges one had. He outlined in the book what he described as “the most simple, pure and unstimulating diet” as a means to prevent or bring to an end a tendency towards masturbation: “A man that lives on pork, fine-flour bread, rich pies and cakes, and condiments, drinks tea and coffee, and uses tobacco, might as well try to fly as to be chaste in thought.” Kellogg laid out five recommendations for the “simple, pure and unstimulating diet,” urging readers to: John Harvey Kellogg did not create corn flakes either specifically or exclusively with the intention of dampening libidos across America or for the sole purpose of decreasing the prevalence of masturbation. The evidence available disproves that claim. In particular, we know that Kellogg and his brother were interested in creating an easy-to-digest, healthy, pre-prepared breakfast; and we know corn flakes certainly weren’t advertised as an “anti-masturbatory morning meal,” contrary to the false claims of multiple online articles. However, Kellogg did have a broader, over-arching interest in simple, plain, bland foods — for the general health benefits he saw in them, but also specifically because he believed they could prevent or suppress sexual thoughts and urges, and he explicitly prescribed a “simple, pure and unstimulating diet” (of which corn flakes could quite plausibly form a part), as one of several methods aimed at preventing and ultimately eliminating the practice of masturbation.
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10232
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Fighting spinal pain with a titanium ‘bullet’
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This story reports on a new implantable device, the X-Stop prosthesis, that was recently FDA approved for people with spinal stenosis. The story does mention surgery and steroid injections as the alternatives, but fails to mention other conservative treatments, including physical therapy, weight loss, or oral anti-inflammatory medication. The representation of the prevalence and seriousness of spinal stenosis is also questionable. Although approximately 500,000 Americans over age 50 may be experiencing symptoms, it is not clear that they have the formal diagnosis of spinal stenosis. Although there is mention of a trial, there is no description of the study design or duration of follow-up, an important consideration in chronic relapsing conditions like back pain. In fact, this was a single study with a relatively small sample size in which one or more authors received sponsorship from the device manufacturer. More importantly, however, was the use of a questionable control group. The control group in this study was comprised of a mixture of non-operative treatments, including bed rest, lumbar supports, and injections (of variable amounts). Also, no direct comparison was made between the device and laminectomy (the appropriate control group). All of these factors limit the reader’s ability to evaluate the evidence behind the device. Furthermore, no quantitative estimates of benefit are provided and the story downplays the harms of the device. The story should have mentioned that in the study, 17% of the patients in the device group experienced some adverse event and 10% required some sort of re-operation. Although the story mentions the cost of the device, we have no other costs to compare it to. Finally, only a single source is quoted and we can’t be sure of his potential conflicts of interest. The reader should expect the journalist to assess the quality and strength of the evidence supporting a new device. Highlighting a single success story and a single surgeon’s enthusiasm may obscure the truth about the nature of the evidence. It may be that this ‘bullet’ is indeed an important innovation, but the reader is not provided with enough balanced information to come to that conclusion.
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false
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Although the story mentions the cost of the device, it does not mention comparison costs of other approaches. So we are not given the context needed to evaluate this element of the story. No quantitative estimates of benefit are provided. The author downplays the harms of the device. In the study, 17% of the patients in the device group experienced some adverse event; 6% required some sort of re-operation. Although there is mention of a trial, there is no description of the study design or duration of follow-up, which is critical for chronic relapsing conditions like back pain. This was a single study with a relatively small sample size. More importantly, however, was the use of a questionable control group. The control group was comprised of a mixture of non-operative treatments, including bed rest, lumbar supports, and injections (of variable amounts). Also, no direct comparison was made between the device and laminectomy (the appropriate comparison group). All of these factors limit the reader’s ability to evaluate the efficacy of the device. The representation of the prevalence and seriousness of spinal stenosis is questionable. Although 500,000 Americans over age 50 may be experiencing symptoms, it is not clear that they all have the formal diagnosis of spinal stenosis. Only a single source is quoted and we can’t be sure of any potential conflicts of interest. The story mentions surgery and steroid injections as the alternatives, but does not mention more conservative therapy like weight loss, physical therapy or oral anti-inflammatory drugs. This makes it an incomplete and imbalanced discussion. It is clear that the FDA recently approved the device. The author clearly states that this is a new technology. We don’t know whether the author relied on a press release or not.
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3986
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West Nile virus confirmed in miniature horse in Pine City.
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Minnesota veterinary officials are urging horse owners to get their animals vaccinated against West Nile virus.
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true
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Horses, Animals, Health, Minnesota, Animal health, West Nile virus
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The Minnesota Board of Animal Health says the mosquito-borne disease was confirmed last week in a 3-year-old miniature horse in Pine City. Officials say it’s the first equine case of West Nile in Minnesota this year. The stallion had no record of being vaccinated against the disease. A mare and a foal also living on the property are currently healthy. Equine program manager Courtney Wheeler says the case is a reminder for owners to have their horses vaccinated against the disease. The last confirmed case of West Nile in a Minnesota horse was November 2017. Infected horses can be anorexic and show neurologic signs or behavior changes. Reducing exposure to mosquitoes also can reduce disease risk.
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6696
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Buzz Aldrin sues children, alleging misuse of his finances.
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Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin is suing two of his children and a former business manager, accusing them of misusing his credit cards, transferring money from an account and slandering him by saying he has dementia.
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true
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State courts, Buzz Aldrin, Florida, Lawsuits, Orlando, North America, Business, Science, Courts, U.S. News
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Aldrin’s lawsuit filed earlier this month in a Florida state court came a week after his children, Andrew and Janice, filed a petition claiming their father was suffering from memory loss, delusions, paranoia and confusion. They asked for the court to name them his legal guardians, saying Aldrin was associating with new friends who were trying to alienate Aldrin from his family and that he had been spending his assets at “an alarming rate.” Court-appointed mental health experts planned to evaluate Aldrin in Florida this week. In April, the 88-year-old Aldrin underwent his own evaluation conducted by a geriatric psychiatrist at UCLA, who said Aldrin scored “superior to normal” for his age on tests. “I also believe that he is perfectly capable of providing for his physical health needs, food, clothing and shelter, and is substantially able to manage his finances and resist fraud and undue influence,” said Dr. James Spar in a letter to Aldrin’s attorney. In Aldrin’s lawsuit, the former astronaut asked a judge to remove Andrew Aldrin from control of his financial affairs, social media accounts and several nonprofit and business enterprises. Andrew Aldrin had been a trustee of his father’s trust. Buzz Aldrin said in the complaint that despite revoking the power of attorney he had given his son, Andrew Aldrin continued making financial decisions for him. “Specifically, defendant Andrew Aldrin, as trustee, does not inform plaintiff of pending or future business transactions, removes large sums of monies from plaintiffs accounts, and continues to represent plaintiff in business and social capacities despite plaintiff’s repeated requests for such representations to be terminated,” the lawsuit said. Aldrin accused his daughter, Janice, in the lawsuit of not acting in his financial interests and conspiracy, and he accused his former manager, Christina Korp, of fraud, exploitation of the elderly and unjust enrichment. Also named in the lawsuit are several businesses and foundations run by the family. Aldrin’s oldest son, James, isn’t involved in the legal fight. In a statement, Andrew and Janice Aldrin said they’re saddened by the “unjustifiable” lawsuit. “If nothing else, our family is resilient and our ability to work together to solve problems and accomplish great things is strong,” the Aldrin children said. “We love and respect our father very much and remain hopeful that we can rise above this situation and recover the strong relationship that built this foundation in the first place.” They said they would have no further comment. In a guardianship evaluation, the mental health experts typically ask questions like, “Who is the president? What day of the week is it? If I gave you this amount of money, how much change would you have,” said Vicki Levy Eskin, an Orlando-area attorney with no connection to the Aldrin case. “His alleging that his children have done all these naughty things is a good defense,” said Eskin, whose work focuses on guardianship, estate planning and elderly law issues. “That’s the job of his attorney to prove this.” Aldrin was a member of the Apollo 11 crew which landed the first two humans on the moon. Aldrin joined Neil Armstrong on the lunar surface in July 1969. Earlier this month, Aldrin was at the White House for President Donald Trump’s announcement directing the Pentagon to create the “Space Force” as a new military branch. ___ Follow Mike Schneider at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP
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5795
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Judge says LA County wrongly booted thousands off Medi-Cal.
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A judge ruled that Los Angeles County wrongly canceled Medi-Cal coverage for thousands of residents, often leaving them without access to health care and needed medicines.
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true
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Access to health care, Los Angeles, Health, Medicaid, Courts
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Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant said in his ruling that the county violated state law by terminating coverage for beneficiaries even though they turned in their renewal paperwork on time, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. The judge ordered the county to fix the problem. Nearly 4 million people in LA County rely on Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid. The program is funded by state and federal government and provides coverage to low-income residents and people who are disabled. From December 2016 to December 2017, about 22,000 people in LA County wrongly lost Medi-Cal benefits, according to evidence cited in the judge’s decision. The problems appear to have resulted from a backlog of applications and a faulty computer system, according to court documents. “We hope that now the county will no longer be yanking Medi-Cal from over 2,000 patients a month, and that patients in our county who desperately need this life-sustaining Medi-Cal coverage will be able to keep it,” said David Kane, an attorney with the nonprofit Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in December 2016 by several Medi-Cal beneficiaries represented by the nonprofit and other firms. Carol Northern, one of the plaintiffs, said she was skeptical yet hopeful that the county would change its practices. Northern, who has a blood disease that requires several medicines, was kicked off Medi-Cal in 2016 even though she completed her renewal packet on time, she said. “I would go in there to file my paperwork, I never knew what was going to happen,” said Northern, who lives in Palmdale. “I think it’s going to affect a lot of people, I’m flying high right now, but I still have the ‘what ifs.’” The judge found that the county had failed to uphold state law. A final judgment that includes a plan for how the county will fix the problem will be rendered in the next few months. Once the judgment is finalized, county lawyers can appeal the decision. “This matter is still before the court, so it would be inappropriate for the county to comment before the judge can rule on a final round of submissions in the case,” a county spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. “However, it’s important to note that we are strongly committed to serving the public and making improvements in our processes wherever we can.” ___ Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com/
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3081
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Big spending bill wins Senate OK, has victories all around.
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The Senate passed a $1.4 trillion government spending package Thursday in a last bipartisan burst of legislating before bolting for the holidays from a Capitol riven by impeachment.
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true
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Global trade, AP Top News, Government spending, Mexico, Health, General News, Legislation, Immigration, Politics, Health care reform, Business, Bills, Tobacco industry regulation, Donald Trump
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Lawmakers cleared the two-bill package in a set of votes, sending it to President Donald Trump in time to forestall a possible government shutdown this weekend. The White House said Trump would sign it before Friday’s midnight deadline. The first measure, covering domestic programs, passed by a 71-23 vote. A Pentagon and homeland security measure passed hours later in an 81-11 vote that was the last Senate tally for the year. The legislation delivers Trump a victory on his U.S.-Mexico border fence and gives Democrats long-sought domestic spending increases and a repeal of Obama-era taxes on high-cost health insurance plans. It blends spending increases for both sides — reelection fodder for lawmakers — with tax and benefit add-ons that will mean a roughly $400 billion boost to the deficit over 10 years. The split-their-differences legislation was carrying a large number of unrelated provisions into law, drawing protests from fiscal conservatives. It would put in place an earlier spending deal that reversed unpopular and unworkable automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs — at a $1.6 trillion or so cost over the coming decade. “These spending bills are a fiscal dumpster fire,” said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah. “This is embarrassing.” Key provisions include an expensive repeal of Obama-era taxes on high-cost health plans, help for retired coal miner, and an increase from 18 to 21 in the nationwide legal age to buy tobacco products. The tobacco measure was pushed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. The almost 2,400-page package reflects the reality of divided government and the enduring strength of the Capitol’s appropriations process, which allows lawmakers to go to bat for their states and congressional districts. McConnell emerged as a victor, winning the politically popular $6 billion pension rescue for about 100,000 retired coal miners, along with more parochial items such as help for his state’s legal hemp industry and $410 million to build a new veterans hospital in Louisville. GOP Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the Senate Appropriations Committee chairman, secured many items for his state, includinga $378 million harbor dredging program. It’s expected to deliver the lions share to a Shelby-backed initiative to deepen Mobile Harbor to accommodate larger cargo ships. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was also a driving force, winning permanent repeal of a tax on high-cost “Cadillac” health insurance benefits that is unpopular with Democratic labor allies. After months of negotiation, leading lawmakers cut a deal on Monday that gives Trump a steady stream of money for the border wall. “I would have preferred no funding for the wall,” said Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. “But the Republicans were clear. ... They stood with the president on the wall, as they seem to do time after time.” The bill also offered business-friendly provisions on export financing, flood insurance and immigrant workers. A tax on medical devices and health insurance plans would be repealed permanently. The core of the spending bill is formed by the 12 annual agency appropriations bills passed by Congress each year. It fills in the details of a bipartisan framework from July that delivered about $100 billion in agency spending increases over the coming two years instead of automatic spending cuts. The bill exceeds Trump’s budget requests in virtually every domestic category, except for Trump’s request for $8 billion-plus for the U.S.-Mexico wall. It was cut back to $1.4 billion, equal to last year’s appropriation. The measure preserves Trump’s ability to use his budget powers to tap other accounts for several times that amount. That’s a blow for liberal opponents of the wall but an acceptable trade-off for Democrats who wanted to gain $27 billion in increases for domestic programs. But the Democratic concession angered some Hispanic lawmakers. They lashed out at the head of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., rather than Pelosi. “I told (Lowey) we don’t appreciate that we’re going to get thrown under the bus so she can pass this omnibus and she did exactly that,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. The trade-off for the wall money was Trump’s signature on the broader package, which increases spending across the almost one-third of the budget that’s passed by Congress each year. Popular bipartisan programs such as health research, veterans medical care, NASA, sewer and water projects, and law enforcement grants to states and local governments would get increases. The $738 billion Pentagon budget is a record, with increases for procurement of expensive weapons systems like the F-35 fighter. The increase in the tobacco purchasing age to 21 also applies to e-cigarettes and vaping devices. Aides familiar with the talks said Pelosi agreed to the tobacco legislation as she also won help for unionized carpenters with lower drug costs under their health plans. Anti-smoking activists were irate at the tobacco provision, saying it doesn’t go far enough because it failed to ban flavored vaping products popular with teenagers. It also threatens to kill momentum for more stringent anti-vaping legislation backed by House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who was one of only seven Democrats to oppose the domestic spending half of the two-bill package. Approached in the Capitol on Thursday, a deflated-sounding Pallone declined to comment on his opposition to the bill. For the first time in two decades, the bill would provide money for federal research on gun safety. That’s a major legislative victory for Democrats, gun control supporters and researchers who have pushed to study gun violence in the same way scientists look at opioid overdoses and other public health crises. A law adopted in the 1990s has effectively blocked such research and prohibits federal agencies from engaging in advocacy on gun-related issues. The bill provides $25 million for gun violence research, divided evenly between the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Business groups praised a seven-year extension of the charter of the Export-Import Bank, which helps finance transactions benefiting U.S. exporters, as well as a renewal of the government’s terrorism risk insurance program. The financially troubled government flood insurance program would be extended through September, as would several visa programs for both skilled and seasonal workers. Most provisions enjoyed bipartisan support, including increases for medical research, combating the opioid epidemic, Head Start and child care grants to states. Democrats also secured $425 million for states to upgrade their election systems, and they boosted the U.S. Census budget $1.4 billion above Trump’s request. They won smaller increases for the Environmental Protection Agency, renewable energy programs and affordable housing.
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28974
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A photograph shows a group of daisies that mutated due to radiation from the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
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What's true: A photograph shows a group of mutated daisies in Japan. What's false: The flowers in the photograph are proven to have mutated due to radiation from the power plant.
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mixture
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Fauxtography, Natural Phenomena
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Although many viewers assumed that the mutations displayed in the photograph (taken in Nasushiobara City) were caused by nuclear radiation from the Fukushima power plant, which experienced a catastrophic meltdown following a tsunami in March 2011, that may not be the case. On 27 May 2015, Twitter user @San_kaido uploaded a photograph purportedly showing mutated Shasta daisies growing near the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan: Translation: “The right one grew up, split into 2 stems to have 2 flowers connected each other, having 4 stems of flower tied beltlike. The left one has 4 stems that grew up to be tied to each other and it had z ring-shaped flower. The atmospheric dose is 0.5 μSv/h at 1m above the ground.” @San_kaido claimed in the tweet that the radiation level near the daisies was measured at “0.5 μSv/h at 1m above the ground.” This is only slightly above normal and is classified as safe for “medium to long term habitation.” Furthermore, daisies showcasing similar mutations have been found at locations far away from nuclear radiation. This photograph, for example, was taken in 2010 in the Dutch nature area de Groesplaat, in North Brabant: And this photograph was taken in a cow pasture in Island Park, Idaho, in 2010: In fact, the appearance seen in the photograph depicting mutated daisies near the Fukushima plant may simply be the result of fasciation, not nuclear radiation: More often than not, a flower which is affected by fasciation can be identified by a variety of common problems or mutations, if you will. Flower stems can appear much flatter and wider than the average plant and some may even have more flower heads than expected. Whilst it’s an extremely rare condition for plants to have, it has been recorded in over 100 different types of plant across the world and it probably affects many more which haven’t been found yet. Due to the rarity and the strange cases that can result from fasciation, some people have been known to grow prize winning flowers with this disorder thanks primarily to deformations that actually enhance the look of the plant. There is no one single cause for fasciation as some people are led to believe. Instead, there are a variety of factors that can cause a plant to become fasciated and these have been listed below: Hormonal imbalance — Having a hormonal imbalance can have an impact on certain cells in the plant where growth mainly occurs. Because of the imbalance these cells do not grow or develop properly like they would in a regular plant. Infections — Plants can be fouled by viral or bacterial infections which go on to take over the plant and cause mutilations [sic]. Certain bacterium has been linked with plants which have fasciation, but by no means is it exclusive to every plant that has the problem. Genetics — Just like in humans, genetics play a huge role in the structure of the body and a plant is no different. Whilst there are no specific causes for genetics to be altered or predisposed to certain plants, it is simply considered to be a random mutation in the genetics of a plant. Environment — The environment that the plant grows in can also play a huge role in the things that come into contact with it. Insects and animals attacking the plant and causing damage can both lead to fasciation; same as fungi or mites. Harsh chemicals used to get rid of pests may also cause problems, as well as exposure to harsh weather conditions in winter like frost. Many of these can be a factor in causing fasciation. While radiation from the Fukushima disaster in 2011 certainly has had an impact on the plant life in the surrounding area, the above-displayed photograph doesn’t necessarily show the mutation of daisies due to nuclear radiation. It is much more likely that this image simply displays an example of fasciation.
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9187
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Scientifically-designed fasting diet lowers risks for major diseases
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This is a news release marked by extravagant claims but a surprising lack of numerical data to back up those claims. It did not score well on our 10 systematic review criteria. It’s about a small study of 100 people that looked at what happened if they consumed a low-calorie (between 750 to 1,100 calories per day) pre-packaged diet kit for 5 days intermittently over 6 months. The news release suggests that this regimen might lower the patients’ risks of “cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other age-related diseases.” While the release says at the top that the trial “demonstrated a host of benefits” and later “that the diet is feasible, effective and safe for humans,” it says in the next line that larger studies are needed to confirm its effects. So which is it? Did it demonstrate effectiveness? Or is that an effect that needs to be confirmed? The words matter, and can be misleading. The news release alternated between caution and lack of discretion in describing the actual known outcomes of the diet. A study author is quoted saying the study did not prove a lowering of risk, but the news release ignores that warning and claims a risk-lowering was “demonstrated” by this early study. One positive note: The release is to be commended for being transparent about potential conflicts of interest. Being precise in news releases matters because precision or the lack of it affects what the public learns about health and diet strategies. This news release suggests a proprietary pre-packaged diet lowered risk of a wide range of serious diseases, but the study carefully states it proved only “safety” in a very small group of people. This is just the sort of exaggeration that reduces public trust in reports about health and diet, by over-promising and mistaking the measurement of certain endpoints, such as blood pressure or blood biomarkers, with a larger concept such as reducing risk of disease in the long-term. HealthNewsReview.org has seen this pattern repeated so often we have added a page in our toolkit about referencing surrogate endpoints instead of actual health outcomes. For example, an intervention may affect a person’s blood pressure, but that doesn’t mean it decreases their risk of heart disease. It takes much larger and longer studies than the one described in the news release to reach the proof of effectiveness that matters most.
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false
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Academic medical center news release,Food
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While the release discloses that meals during the low-calorie diet periods were provided by a nutrition company, there is no discussion of the cost of following this special diet. We thoroughly scoured L-Nutra’s pages describing the ProLon meal kits containing “proprietary plant-based soups, bars, drinks, snacks, herbal teas, vitamins, and supplements” but no costs were to be found despite the site claiming the meal kits are available. The site invites potential customers to create an account and request more information. This release reports only surrogate or intermediate endpoints of disease risk, not a change in disease risk itself. For example, changes were reported in blood pressure, waist circumference, and body weight in participants after three fasting diet periods, which the release equates with a reduction in disease risk. However, measuring surrogate endpoints or disease biomarkers without looking at actual disease incidence is not a measure of individual health outcomes. To do this, researchers would need to measure endpoints like the number of cardiovascular events that occurred during or after the study or the number of people diagnosed with diabetes — which requires much longer than a few months of follow-up. Some of the claims made in the release were inappropriate. For example, “In effect, the diet reduced the study participants’ risks for cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other age-related diseases, according to the findings published Feb. 15 in Science Translational Medicine.” There is no mention of any potential side effects. Certain people may not be ideal candidates for an extreme low-calorie diet, even intermittently. The release does not comment on this. The release clearly exaggerates the evidence and we describe this in detail under the Unjustifiable Language criterion section below. The study on its own has credible and well-described evidence for its limited claim of a change in blood pressure, C-reactive protein and other markers that may signal a lowering of risk for heart disease. But the release fails because it claims these prove a reduction in risk of disease. Study author Longo is quoted saying: “Larger FDA studies are necessary to confirm its [the diet] effects on disease prevention and treatment.” In this instance he acknowledges that the small study does not prove a permanent lowering of risk. Yet the release repeats several times that the diet does lower risk. There is no disease mongering, but there is also no context provided on how fasting fits into current diet and nutrition recommendations, or which segment of the population might benefit from such a diet. We applaud the release for including detailed information on the financial conflicts of the lead author and the University of California at Davis. Here is how the release disclosed the financial conflicts: “Longo is the founder of L-Nutra, whose food products were used in the study. His interest in L-Nutra has been disclosed and managed per USC’s conflicts of interest policies to assure objectivity and a lack of bias in the conduct and reporting of his research. USC also has an ownership interest in L-Nutra, and the potential to receive royalty payments from L-Nutra. USC’s financial interest in the company has been disclosed and managed under USC’s institutional conflict of interest policies.” The release does not include any discussion on how people can manage long-term health risks through many other kinds of diets, exercise or medications to lower blood pressure. Even one line on such alternatives would have satisfied this criterion. The release does not explain whether materials used in the clinical study are widely available. The product website, however, is actively promoting the kits. The release states that this is the “first randomized clinical trial with enough participants to demonstrate that the diet is feasible, effective and safe for humans.” The diet being tested is named by the researchers as a “fast-mimicking diet” or FMD. While this may be the first test of a “fast-mimicking diet” reliant on the ProLon diet kit, the concept of very low-calorie diets is not new and there are hundreds of clinical trials that have delved into reducing risk for cardiovascular disease via diet. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) discusses very low-calorie diets on its web page. The release doesn’t engage in sensational language but its headline is problematic. It promises that a diet lowers risks for major diseases. A researcher later contradicts that claim by saying this early study only shows safety. “But this is the first randomized clinical trial with enough participants to demonstrate that the diet is feasible, effective and safe for humans. Larger FDA studies are necessary to confirm its effects on disease prevention and treatment,” he added.” Calling for “larger FDA studies” may also be misconstrued by some readers. The FDA does not conduct clinical trials. Rather, it has internal and advisory experts that assess the validity of trials as part of its approval process.
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10760
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Pediatricians urge autism screening
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"Although this was a well written, interesting piece about a professional organization’s effort at promoting early screening for autism, any story about screening ought to include information about the courses of action that might be taken based on the results of the testing. With any testing, it is important for people to understand the impact of test results that incorrectly identify individuals as either having or not having the condition in question. The story did not make clear what the strength of the evidence is for these new screening recommendations. And there was no discussion about whether the additional of a developmental assessment would increase the cost of traditional checkups. This could be a big issue, since ""recommended treatment should include at least 25 hours a week of intensive behavior-based therapy."" How much will that cost?"
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mixture
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"There was no discussion about whether the additional of a developmental assessment would increase the cost of traditional checkups. This could be a big issue, since ""recommended treatment should include at least 25 hours a week of intensive behavior-based therapy."" How much will that cost? Although stressing that early intervention reduced the severity of autism, the story did not provide any quantification of this benefit beyond the hope that it might help children lead more normal lives. One of the doctors quoted in the story mentioned that he now has parents that are concerned about autism whereas 10 years ago they did not know what it was. However the story did not follow this thread in terms of possible harms of treatment from labeling children as autistic who are later found not to be affected. Failure to provide evidence of benefit to be obtained from early screening was the biggest omission with this piece. This story only reports the recommendation w/o any presentation on the evidence to support the recommendation, e.g. accuracy of screening exams, trials of screening, evidence for resulting treatments. The story did provide the prevalence of autism and in describing the disorder, explained that it covered a range from mild to more severe. It would have been better if, in addition to providing an estimate for the prevalence of autistm,it provided a reference for interpreting how this compares in terms of frequency of occurence with some other psychological disorders. Two clinicians were quoted in this story in addition to the two clincians who are co-authors of the American Academy of Pediatrics reports on autism screening. The alternatives are – don’t screen, screen at a different frequency or in different age groups. Although not very explicit about this, the story was satisfactory. This is a story about a recommendation that pediatricians screen children for autism at 18 and 24 months of age as part of their regular visit. While mentioning that some pediatricians go beyond this standard and may schedule specific time to check for developmental problems, the story provided the balance that an additional exam component may be difficult to fit into the regular wellness checkup schedule. The story was clear that it was discussing increasing the use of autism screening in the toddler population. Does not appear to rely exclusively on a press release, as several independent sources were interviewed."
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37931
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Image depicts Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at a campaign event with no masks.
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Images purportedly depicting presidential candidate Joe Biden and vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris at a rally where neither they nor the crowd used masks was framed as hypocritical, occurring after months of public dispute over the use of masks and other COVID-19 pandemic-related changes to daily life. However, the photographs were taken on March 9 2020, weeks before Americans were advised to wear masks in public situations.
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false
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Fact Checks, Politics
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On August 15 2020, four days after Joe Biden announced that former California attorney general Kamala Harris would be his running mate in the upcoming presidential election, the following images began circulating — purportedly showing Biden and Harris celebrating their newly-announced ticket at a rally with no masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.The ClaimOne such post included three images of a crowded Biden rally at which Harris was present. No one — not the politicians present, nor the tightly-packed supporters — wore a mask.In an August 15 2020 post, the account claimed that the images showed “Biden making the announcement of his Running Mate”:Look at these Photos of Biden making the announcement of his Running Mate. All these Democrats gathering, No Masks, No Social Distancing. It’s obvious Democrats don’t practice what they’re feeding the rest of the American People.The implication was clear — Democrats vocally criticized U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, for his refusal to wear masks, but maintained no such requirement at rallies after Harris’ presence on Biden’s ticket was announced.BackgroundHarris was acknowledged as Biden’s selection for Vice President on August 11 2020, concluding speculation about Biden’s running mate:Joe Biden has selected Kamala Harris to be his running mate, elevating a charismatic blue-state senator, former prosecutor and onetime 2020 primary rival who has built a reputation as an unyielding antagonist of the Trump administration.Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, was the wire-to-wire frontrunner for Biden’s No. 2 job. Her experience as a battle-tested presidential candidate, her efforts leading major law enforcement offices and her political track record of three election wins in California helped her overcome a crowded list of contenders.“I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate,” Biden wrote in a tweet [on August 11 2020].As most voters were aware, Harris and Biden’s partnership took place months after Harris concluded her own bid for the Democratic nomination in 2020. In December 2019, Harris officially dropped out of the race.Harris’ campaign concluded before COVID-19 hit, and before another event that shaped the trajectory of the Democratic primary. In early March 2020, a number of Biden’s challengers exited the race essentially en masse and just before Super Tuesday — in part due to the “black swan” pandemic:Just ahead of the single most important day of the Democratic primary [on March 3 2020], former Vice President Joe Biden picked up the endorsements of two former rivals.Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., who ended his own White House bid [a few days earlier], appeared with Biden at a barbecue restaurant in Dallas [on March 2 2020].“I am delighted to endorse and support Joe Biden for president,” Buttigieg said. Biden, 77, said Buttigieg, 38, reminded him of his late son, Beau.Earlier [on March 2 2020], Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar announced she is suspending her presidential campaign and would endorse Biden.It would be easy for voters to remember the concurrent campaign conclusions of candidates like Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg and presume that Harris dropped out at the same time, but she actually had already left the race months before their exits.When Masks Became Commonplace During the PandemicOn first glance, it also might seem like an image of a smiling Harris alongside former rival Biden would intuitively be captured after Biden selected Harris as his running mate.Based on that inference, it was reasonable to wonder why Harris and Biden would not only appear at a rally without protective masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, but also find it odd that not one member of the crowd brought or wore a mask. That was because the actual images were taken way, way earlier in the pandemic — before people started wearing masks.On March 31 2020, we did a fact-check pertaining to changing guidance regarding the use of face masks during the coronavirus pandemic. At the time, public health experts were just starting to revise guidance. Originally, the CDC and WHO sought to limit the use of masks outside of medical settings, to prevent a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE). But over the course of March 2020, those guidelines changed, and fabric masks quickly became the norm:Should You Make a No-Sew Coronavirus Mask During the COVID-19 Pandemic?Mask use was not seamlessly integrated into the every life of the American public overnight. In fact, there was significant outcry — largely thanks to weaponized disinformation causing panics about purported problems with using them. On April 6 2020, we examined circulating posts about mask sanitization. At the time, people were just starting to adopt the use of masks to prevent the spread of the virus:Did the President of Meharry Medical Advise Sterilizing Cloth Face Masks in the Microwave Between Uses?As late as May 29 2020, news outlets were covering shifts among members of the public and the ideal protocol for wearing masks.The Rally and the PhotographsAgain, it was reasonable to assume that the images in the set of Harris and Biden were taken after the August 11 2020 announcement the two would share a ticket in the November 2020 election — after all, Biden and Harris clasped and raised their hands together, in what appeared to be a celebratory pose.But that was not the case. The photographs of Biden and Harris, were published on March 10 2020 and captured on March 9 2020 by an Associated Press photographer. A caption for one of the images explained:Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., from left, Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and Sen. Cory Booker D-N.J. greet the crowd during a campaign rally at Renaissance High School in Detroit on [March 9 2020]. (Paul Sancya/AP)As such, the photographs depicted a rally in Detroit on March 9 2020, and were taken before the public began wearing masks — by several weeks.TL;DRImages purportedly depicting presidential candidate Joe Biden and vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris at a rally where neither they nor the crowd used masks was framed as hypocritical, occurring after months of public dispute over the use of masks and other COVID-19 pandemic-related changes to daily life. However, the photographs were taken on March 9 2020, weeks before Americans were advised to wear masks in public situations.Comments
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3393
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Asbestos, looting plague Colorado Springs apartments.
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Colorado health officials say they’re looking into asbestos contamination at an apartment development and warn the property owner could face fines for violations.
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true
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Colorado Springs, Colorado, Health, General News, Denver, Public health
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Over 100 residents of the apartment buildings in southeast Colorado Springs have been told to leave in recent weeks, according to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment officials. Making matters worse, residents who left said looters broke in and took belongings they left behind. A Colorado Springs Gazette reporter witnessed a person break a window Friday at the buildings owned by Denver-based Slipstream Properties. Attempts by the newspaper to reach company officials for comment Friday were unsuccessful. Exposure to even minute amounts of asbestos can cause lung cancer and other deadly respiratory conditions. Slipstream Properties bought the buildings in 2018, raising hope that conditions in the apartments would improve after years of disrepair and code violations. The asbestos problem arose during recent renovations. Renovation work can disturb asbestos, which decades ago was used in a variety of building materials including insulation. “We’re trying to understand how widespread this is, how many apartment complexes there are,” said Curtis Burns, field operations unit supervisor for the state health department’s asbestos unit. The building owners could face fines of $25,000 per day of noncompliance with asbestos-handling regulations, Burns said.
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17301
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American Hustle shows the FBI making real-life bribes to Washington politicians. I know, because as your U.S. senator, I turned them down.
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"Pressler said that ""American Hustle shows the FBI making real-life bribes to Washington politicians. I know, because as your U.S. senator, I turned them down."" Pressler’s retelling fits with the description of the facts published in the media at the time -- actions that drew praise from a federal judge who wrote that Pressler ""showed a clear awareness of the line between proper and improper conduct"" and ""refused to cross into impropriety."""
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true
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National, Candidate Biography, Legal Issues, Larry Pressler,
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"American Hustle -- a movie based on the story of Abscam, the late-1970s FBI sting that ensnared more than a half-dozen politicians for accepting bribes -- got shut out at the Oscars despite snagging 10 nominations. But the movie is living on as an issue in a 2014 U.S. Senate race. Larry Pressler, a former U.S. senator from South Dakota now running as an Independent for another term in the chamber, is airing a campaign ad touting his role in the Abscam scandal. The twist is that Pressler is touting his honesty in the face of illegal offerings. ""American Hustle shows the FBI making real-life bribes to Washington politicians,"" Pressler says to the camera in the ad. ""I know, because as your U.S. senator, I turned them down."" Pressler left office in 1997; since then, he's worked as an attorney and taught at universities. In his current race, he's widely considered an underdog to the Republican frontrunner, former Gov. Mike Rounds. Given all the attention American Hustle has been attracting since its release, we couldn’t resist taking a second look at the decades-old scandal. First, let’s recap what happened in Abscam. The case involved representatives of ""Arab sheiks"" -- actually, undercover FBI agents -- offering politicians payoffs that were intended to secure them casino licenses in New Jersey. The operation resulted in the convictions of Sen. Harrison Williams, D-N.J., six members of the U.S. House, and a number of local officials. The movie tells the somewhat fictionalized story of how the operation was undertaken on behalf of the FBI by a con man whose name in real life was Mel Weinberg. (Here’s an article about the real-life events that inspired the movie.) So how does Pressler fit in? It turns out that his role was largely happenstance. Pressler, then a first-term Republican who had weighed a run for president in 1980, was ""presented to the agents as a sudden substitute for the legislator they expected, who had decided against attending such a meeting,"" according to John Good, the FBI supervisor who oversaw the Abscam operation, in a July 23, 1982, New York Times article. Here’s how Pressler recalled what happened, in a first-person article published last year in the Huffington Post. In the fall of 1979, shortly after I concluded my dark-horse candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, a prominent Washington, D.C. socialite, who was serving as one of my volunteer fundraisers, informed me that some wealthy people were eager to meet me and talk about contributing to my campaign deficit. As a relatively unknown first-term senator from South Dakota, I had few deep-pocketed supporters, and so I jumped at the chance to follow up on my fundraiser's promising lead. However, since it was illegal for a member of Congress to discuss fundraising on federal property, I agreed to meet the prospective donors in a home they were renting a short distance from the Capitol. On the appointed day, we arrived at a two-story redbrick colonial home on fashionable W Street. Inside, the house was furnished with exquisite antiques, elegant chandeliers and, as I would later learn, a battery of hidden television cameras and microphones. … One of the FBI imposters I met that day was a swarthy man who appeared to be from the Middle East. He told me that he represented a prominent sheik who was seeking entry to the United States for himself and a number of his associates and who needed special bills passed by Congress to allow them to avoid the usual immigration procedures. He then offered to make an under-the-table payment if I would play ball. ""Wait a minute!"" I said. ""What you are suggesting may be illegal. I would never do anything in exchange for a campaign contribution."" And with that, I stormed out of the house. Ultimately, Pressler was never charged in Abscam, since he was one of the few officials approached who rejected a bribe outright. His actions won him plaudits from Federal District Court Judge George C. Pratt in upholding the convictions of seven Abscam defendants: Neither Pressler nor another target ""apparently knew he had been brought before the sheik's representatives to be offered money in return for a promise of favorable legislative action,"" Pratt wrote. ""However, neither one was overwhelmed by the circumstances, and each declined the offer. Pressler, particularly, acted as citizens have a right to expect their elected representatives to act. He showed a clear awareness of the line between proper and improper conduct, and despite his confessed need for campaign money, and despite the additional attractiveness to him of the payment offered, he nevertheless refused to cross into impropriety."" CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, at the time the epitome of credibility in the media, singled out Pressler’s actions for praise. And U.S. Senate historian Donald Ritchie told PolitiFact that he considered the ad’s claim to be correct. Syndicated cartoonist Jim Berry even drew a cartoon of Pressler being greeted by the Greek philosopher Diogenes, who was known for carrying a lantern in the hopes of finding an honest man somewhere in the world. The caption was, ""Senator Pressler? I am Diogenes. I've been looking for you."" Our ruling Pressler said that ""American Hustle shows the FBI making real-life bribes to Washington politicians. I know, because as your U.S. senator, I turned them down."" Pressler’s retelling fits with the description of the facts published in the media at the time -- actions that drew praise from a federal judge who wrote that Pressler ""showed a clear awareness of the line between proper and improper conduct"" and ""refused to cross into impropriety."""
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8080
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Italy coronavirus deaths pass 7,500 amid fears of spread to south.
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More than 680 people have died from coronavirus in Italy in the last 24 hours, the Civil Protection Agency said on Wednesday, as concerns grew that the disease was spreading more towards the south of the country.
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true
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Health News
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The death toll increased by 683 on Wednesday. That was lower than a spike of 743 on Tuesday but more than the totals of the previous two days and the third highest daily tally since the outbreak emerged in northern regions on Feb. 21. Italy has seen more fatalities than any other country, with latest figures showing that 7,503 people have died from the infection in barely a month. The northern region of Lombardy, by far the hardest-hit, showed a steep decline in the number of deaths and new infections on Wednesday, raising hopes that the epidemic may be slowing at its original epicentre. However, optimism was tempered by warnings from the south, where contagion and deaths are far less widespread but are rising steadily, and could overwhelm a health service which is much less well equipped than in the rich north. “At this point there is the real prospect that Lombardy’s tragedy is about to become the south’s tragedy,” Vincenzo De Luca, president of the Campania region around Naples, wrote in an open letter to Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. “We are on the eve of a major expansion of infections which may not be sustainable,” he said, complaining that the central government had failed to provide Campania with promised ventilators and other life-saving equipment. So far there have been 74 deaths in Campania, the worst affected southern region. The central region of Lazio, around the capital Rome, has registered 95 fatalities. The total number of confirmed cases in Italy rose to 74,386 from a previous 69,176, the Civil Protection Agency said. The rise of 7.5% was the lowest since the outbreak began, but only severely ill people are being tested and the head of the agency, Angelo Borrelli, said this week that the true number of infections was probably 10 times those officially recorded. Borrelli was not present at the customary news conference to illustrate the latest figures because he came down with a fever on Wednesday and was himself being tested for coronavirus. With Italy in lockdown for the last two weeks and its economy on its knees, Conte on Wednesday promised a second stimulus package in April worth at least as much as the 25 billion euro ($27.17 billion) one he adopted in March. With his approval ratings at record highs, the prime minister appealed to the opposition to get behind the government’s efforts and halt its attacks on his handling of the crisis until it is over. “There will be a time for everything, but now is the time for action and responsibility,” he told the Chamber of Deputies. One source of potential conflict for Conte was defused on Wednesday when the government reached an agreement with trade unions who had threatened strikes because they wanted more companies shuttered to protect workers’ health. Conte agreed to extend the production sectors that will be temporarily closed because they are not deemed essential to the country’s supply chain.
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6621
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Pipeline protesters at governor’s office arrested, released.
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Authorities have released 21 people protesting a planned liquefied natural gas pipeline who were arrested Thursday night during a sit-in at the governor’s office in the Oregon State Capitol.
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true
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Kate Brown, General News, Oregon, Environment, Arrests, Coos Bay
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The demonstrators opposed to the pipeline and a marine export terminal in Oregon demanded that Gov. Kate Brown publicly oppose the project, which she refused to do. Southern Oregon Rising Tide, which organized the protest, said the 21 arrested by Oregon State Police spent the night in jail and were out by 5 a.m. Friday. In a statement the Oregon State Police said the 21 were arrested on trespassing charges after being asked to leave. The proposed marine terminal, in Coos Bay, would allow export of American liquid natural gas to Asia, and would have a 230-mile (370-kilometer) feeder pipeline from an interstate gas hub in southern Oregon’s Klamath County. A federal agency has issued a final environmental impact statement on the controversial proposal to build the pipeline and it concluded that there would be no significant impact on the state’s waters, wildlife and minimal risk of a pipeline accident. The lengthy report was issued earlier this month by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. On Thursday protesters flooded into the Oregon State Capitol and staged a sit-in at the governor’s office before police arrested 21 of them for trespassing. The protesters, who demanded Brown take a public stand against the pipeline, were jailed overnight and released early Friday. Brown, a Democrat, refused to oppose the project that the protesters say will encourage further use of fossil fuels that leads to global warming, and risk spoiling the land and ocean with spills. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s final impact statement said it believes the Canadian company behind the Jordan Cove Project, Pembina Pipeline Corporation, will manage risks. Pembina Pipeline Corporation says the project will bring investments, property tax revenue and jobs. The proposed marine terminal, in Coos Bay, Oregon, would allow export of American liquid natural gas to Asia, and would have a 230-mile (370-kilometer) feeder pipeline from an interstate gas hub in southern Oregon’s Klamath County. The federal agency said that before construction, Jordan Cove should file spill containment system drawings showing containment for all hazardous fluids including all liquids handled above their flashpoint. Over 600 species of terrestrial and aquatic wildlife live in the project area. Constructing and operating the project would temporarily and permanently affect these species, including amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish, and mammals, the impact statement said. “Displacement, and impacts on other behaviors as well as the loss of habitat would increase the rates of stress, injury, and mortality experienced by wildlife,” the report said. But mitigation projects proposed by the Jordan Cove and required by the Forest Service means the project would not significantly impact wildlife and aquatic resources, the agency said. Jared Margolis, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the group is concerned about what it called a lack of adequate analysis on several aspects of the project. “Jordan Cove would be a disaster for local streams and rivers that people and wildlife rely on, but regulators appear willing to ignore these impacts to bring dirty fracked gas to market,” Margolis said. In a statement, the company said the final environmental impact statement “represents a significant step forward for this investment in Oregon.” The impact statement represents the final step in the federal environmental review process before an order is issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approving the project, expected in February 2020, Jordan Cove said. People opposed to the project have vowed to keep up protests, and recalled the demonstrations against a pipeline in North Dakota. The project is still undergoing permitting processes by the state. But in August, the Trump Administration in proposed streamlining approval of gas pipelines and other energy projects by limiting states’ certification authorities under the Clean Water Act. ___ Follow Andrew Selsky on Twitter at https://twitter.com/andrewselsky
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Congress probes approval of Trump backer’s housing project.
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A congressional committee is investigating whether the U.S. Interior Department helped an Arizona developer and supporter of President Donald Trump get a crucial permit after a wildlife official said the housing project would threaten habitat for imperiled species.
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true
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Wildlife, Arizona, David Bernhardt, General News, Politics, Science, U.S. News, Donald Trump
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U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources, is leading an investigation into the proposed 28,000-home development in a small town in southern Arizona. “It’s not clear to me why top Interior officials would weigh in on a local land development unless someone was being done a huge favor,” Grijalva said in a statement Wednesday. The committee sent a letter last week to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt saying recent reports raised questions about whether the permit decision by the Fish and Wildlife Service “was inappropriately reversed.” It set a July 29 deadline for the Interior Department to turn over “all documents and communications” on the hotly contested El Dorado Holdings project developed by Mike Ingram, a co-owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team and a prominent Republican donor. The Interior Department defends the permit as a science-based decision. Described as a 19-square-mile (49-square-kilometer) housing and golf course development that would draw traffic to the city of Benson, the project had been in a holding pattern for more than a decade. It gained traction in 2015 when El Dorado Holdings took over the project and rebranded it Villages at Vigneto. A coalition of conservation groups challenged the permit in a federal lawsuit in January. Environmentalists argue the project’s need for groundwater will threaten the San Pedro River and surrounding wildlife, including birds like the southwestern willow flycatcher and yellow-billed cuckoo as well as the northern Mexican garter snake. They are demanding federal officials conduct a more in-depth environmental review. Steve Spangle, a retired Fish and Wildlife Service field supervisor, told the Arizona Daily Star in April that he had similar concerns in 2016 but was pressured a year later to facilitate the permit anyway. He has since told several media outlets that he “got rolled” by politics. “I used that phrase to distinguish it from making a policy call based on fact, as opposed to making a policy call based on politics,” Spangle told the newspaper. He says an attorney with the Interior Department’s solicitor’s office warned him that a “high-level politico” thought he should change his assessment in favor of the development. Emails and calendars show that Bernhardt, as deputy Interior secretary, had an unofficial meeting at a lodge in Billings, Montana, with Ingram, the developer, in August 2017, CNN reported Tuesday. They discussed Villages at Vigneto, the congressional committee said. Lanny Davis, attorney for El Dorado Holdings, said Ingram did not lobby for the project. Then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, whom Ingram has known for several years, found out both men would coincidentally be at the same hunting lodge and suggested they meet. “I believe Mr. Ingram presented a legal memo to Mr. Bernhardt,” Davis told The Associated Press. “It’s exactly the opposite of the innuendo that this was about lobbying and political influence.” Two months after the meeting, Ingram donated $10,000 to a fundraising arm of the Trump campaign. That donation was later refunded, as was two $2,700 donations. Davis said Ingram got a refund so he could donate instead to a political action committee that allows contributors to give more money than campaigns do. “This is very common for (political) fundraisers. I’ve done that many times myself,” Davis said. In the wake of Spangle’s allegations, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sent a letter to the Fish and Wildlife Service asking if its opinion on the permit had changed. Jeff Humphrey, an agency official in Arizona, said Spangle’s comments “do not change our previous determinations.” The Interior Department, which is the parent agency of the Fish and Wildlife Service, reiterated that stance in a statement Tuesday. “U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has re-examined the issue at hand and using the best available science as required under the Endangered Species Act issued the same exact conclusion,” Interior spokeswoman Molly Block said. El Dorado Holdings has already shared communications with the House committee, including an email from Ingram to Zinke about the meeting in Montana, Davis said. It was nothing more than a legal memo and summary, the attorney said. “He didn’t say, ‘Hey, you and I have been buddies,’” Davis said. Rep. Grijalva, however, was skeptical. “I have real doubts whether Mr. Ingram sold this project to the Interior Department on merits,” he said. ___ Associated Press writer Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed to this report.
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New AIDS vaccine blueprint calls for more focus.
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AIDS vaccine researchers should move to smaller, more focused trials and dump any vaccines that do not show strong promise, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative said on Tuesday.
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true
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Science News
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A boy suffering from HIV/AIDS smiles as he waits to receive a vaccine 'Pneumovax' during a vaccination program on the outskirts of the northeastern Indian city of Siliguri, August 5, 2008. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri The group, known as IAVI, released a blueprint for how to proceed at an international meeting of AIDS experts and activists in Mexico City. Dr. Seth Berkley, president and chief executive officer of IAVI, said the failure last year of a high-profile Merck and Co experimental shot should not mean the end of the quest — even though some experts have been calling for an end to expensive AIDS vaccine trials. “Developing an AIDS vaccine may take more time and innovation than we might have once imagined, but we are confident that science will prevail. The necessary direction for the field is clear,” Berkley said. More than 25 years since the AIDS epidemic started, there is no vaccine against the fatal and incurable virus, although more than 20 drugs are on the market to help control its symptoms. The human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS is especially tricky to vaccinate against because it easily evades immune defenses and mutates constantly. Berkley said it is not unexpected for a vaccine to take decades to develop and he thinks HIV can be beaten. “We have got to create this new mechanism to be able to turn the AIDS vaccine into a normal product development initiative so that every time there a failure, it doesn’t raise the question of whether this is the end of the line,” Berkley said in a telephone interview. For instance, the IAVI blueprint notes it took 25 years to create a vaccine against the human papilloma virus or HPV, which causes cervical cancer, and there are still no vaccines against tuberculosis or malaria. “Strong scientific evidence in both humans and animal models suggests that developing an AIDS vaccine is possible,” said IAVI’s Dr. Wayne Koff. If money is steered away from testing vaccines just to see if they work, an expensive proposition, it might free up resources to solve the trickier scientific roadblocks, Berkley said. IAVI’S plan calls for solving the scientific challenges to make an AIDS vaccine, such as finding a way to activate the two arms of the human immune system against the virus. The vaccine must generate neutralizing antibodies — immune system proteins that flag and attack invaders such as viruses, as well as so-called cell-mediated immunity — the T-cells that directly attack invaders. “Before vaccines go into efficacy trials they need to go through a set of screenings to look at evidence they are significantly better,” Berkley said. It might be possible to improve a vaccine’s power by using things like another type of virus to carry the vaccine into the body, Berkley said. “We are pushing a whole new generation of vectors. We have got candidates coming down the pipeline on that,” he said. The approach mirrors one being taken by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the U.S. government’s National Institutes of Health, to funnel spending more to lab work and animal tests rather than expensive large-scale vaccine trials on humans. The nonprofit IAVI is helping to test five vaccines along with the National Institutes of Health, academic research institutions and companies such as Targeted Genetics, Therion Biologics, Crucell NV and GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals.
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Vaginal steam bath finds a place among Southern California spa options
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We liked that this story points out early on that there is zero evidence to support the health benefits of herbal steam baths for the vagina, which are known in traditional Korean medicine as chai-yok. But we became confused when the story explained that the treatment is almost totally unheard of in the U.S., even among gynecologists and fertility experts. If there’s no evidence that chai-yok works and almost nobody knows about it or has tried it, what exactly makes this treatment worthy of an 850-word article in a leading national newspaper? There are limited journalistic resources to cover the seemingly limitless number of treatments that are out there. So we’d prefer to see journalists pursuing stories that aid the decision-making of a significant number of health care consumers. A story about herbal steam baths for the vagina seems unlikely to meet this objective.
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true
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Los Angeles Times
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The story notes the price “per squat” at various spas and the cost of a do-it-yourself Internet kit. We think the story’s discussion of possible benefits is far too extensive considering the total lack of evidence to support them. We understand the need to identify some of the claims made by boosters of the therapy, but the story devotes some three paragraphs to seemingly every possible ailment the baths (or the herbs used in them) are purported to treat. It also throws in an anecdote from a woman suggesting the baths helped her to conceive at the age of 45. The caveats about chai-yok stand a good chance of getting lost in this avalanche of discussion about benefits. Aside from burns — the potential for which would seem to be obvious — we’re not sure if there are any harms associated with herbal steam baths for the vagina. The procedure seems less invasive than a douche, which is associated with potential health risks. We’ll call this not applicable. The story states that there are no studies that document the effectiveness of chai-yok for any of the conditions it is claimed to treat. It notes that while there is some biological rationale for why heat in the perineal area might be beneficial, it is impossible to say whether these steam baths do any good. The concept behind chai-yok seems vaguely reminiscent of douching, a treatment that has long been promoted as necessary for vaginal health despite a lack of supporting evidence and indications of possible harm. But while the idea may tap into some of the same psychology that makes the normal vagina seem not quite clean or healthy enough, we don’t see any evidence of overt disease-mongering in this particular story. The story quotes two doctors with expertise in gynecology and fertility. It also solicits comments from a practitioner of traditional oriental medicine. We don’t think the story had to mention alternative treatments for all the myriad problems that chai yok can supposedly help with. But since the story suggests in several places that chai yok increases fertility, we think a brief mention of other approaches that are supported by medical evidence would have been appropriate in this case. The story didn’t provide this information. The story identifies several spas in Los Angeles and New York where vaginal steam baths are offered. It notes that the treatments “are not easy to find” across the country. The story acknowledges the roots of chai-yok in Korean medicine.The approach is described as extremely avant garde in the U.S. — a characterization which is probably accurate. Given the variety of sources quoted, we can be sure the story wasn’t based on a press release.
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Are we alone? Nobel Prize goes to 3 who tackled cosmic query.
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They are two of the most fundamental questions not just of science, but of humanity: How did we get here? And are we alone?
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true
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AP Top News, International News, Europe, General News, Cosmology, Nobel Prizes, Science, Planets, Physics
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A Canadian-American cosmologist and two Swiss scientists split this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for not quite answering those universal questions, but getting closer to the cosmic truths. Canadian-born James Peebles, 84, an emeritus professor at Princeton University, won for his theoretical discoveries in cosmology, about what happened soon after the Big Bang that eventually led to the formation of galaxies and the universe as we know it. Swiss star-gazers Michel Mayor, 77, and Didier Queloz, 53, both of the University of Geneva, were honored for finding an exoplanet — a planet outside our solar system — that orbits a sun-like star. A day of deep astrophysics and talk of extraterrestrial life also included pop humor, with the Nobel Prize committee quoting from the theme song of the American TV sitcom, “The Big Bang Theory,” whose protagonists, Sheldon and Amy, won a physics Nobel in the series finale, and a giggling Peebles referring to singer Bob Dylan. “This year’s Nobel laureates in physics have painted a picture of the universe far stranger and more wonderful than we ever could have imagined,” said Ulf Danielsson of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in announcing the laureates. “Our view of our place in the universe will never be the same again.” Peebles’ work is a deeply theoretical look back in time and space at how the universe came to its current form, mostly filled with dark matter and dark energy we can’t even see. It’s probably the first Nobel for purely theoretical cosmology, instead of something observed, noted CalTech physicist Sean Carroll. Peebles, hailed as one of the most influential cosmologists of his time, who realized the importance of the cosmic radiation background born of the Big Bang, will collect one half of the 9-million kronor ($918,000) cash award. “Much of it will go to charity,” Peebles told colleagues at a Princeton news conference. Then after a pause, he changed that to “Some of it will go to charity. Some of it will go to our children.” Mayor, who is an astrophysicist, and Queloz, an astronomer who is also at the University of Cambridge in Britain, will share the other half. Their finding of the first planet outside our solar system circling a star like our own made astronomers look harder for life elsewhere in the universe. “Maybe we can discover some form of life. We don’t know what kind of form,” Mayor said Tuesday as he arrived in Madrid for a scientific speaking engagement. He said scientists “are absolutely certain that a lot of these planets have good conditions for life.” Mayor and Queloz started a revolution in astronomy when they discovered 51 Pegasi B, a gaseous ball comparable with Jupiter, in 1995 — a time when, as Mayor recalled, “no one knew whether exoplanets existed or not.” That was “the first step in our search for, ‘Are we alone?’” said astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University. More than 4,000 exoplanets have since been found in the Milky Way, and scientists think one out of every four or five stars have planets. “We have 200 billion stars out there in our galaxy alone, so I like our chances,” Kaltenegger said. Queloz was meeting Tuesday with other academics interested in finding new planets when the press office at Cambridge University interrupted to tell him the big news: He had won the Nobel. He thought it was joke at first. “I could barely breathe,” Queloz told The Associated Press. “It’s enormous. It’s beyond usual emotions. My hand was shaking for a long time. I’m trying to digest it.” Geoff Marcy, who headed one of the teams that rivaled Mayor and Queloz, praised their work. In the 1990s “we were all trying to carry a search for planets without ever thinking we would succeed,” Marcy said. “None of us imagined even finding one, never mind the thousands we found.” Marcy, who left the University of California Berkeley after accusations of sexual harassment, said he didn’t know if he would have shared in the prize if it weren’t for the scandal. Swedish academy member Mats Larsson said this year’s was “one of the easiest physics prizes for a long time to explain.” That can’t quite be said for Peebles’ theoretical work. “Jim Peebles absolutely was one of the leaders in trying to understand how did we get here, the nature of cosmology, the nature of the universe at large,” said astronomer Dimitar Sasselov, director of Harvard University’s Origins of Life Initiative. Peebles’ work, which began in the mid-1960s, set the stage for a “transformation” of cosmology over the last half-century, using theoretical tools and calculations that helped interpret traces from the infancy of the universe, the Nobel committee said. A clearly delighted Peebles giggled repeatedly during a phone interview with AP, recalling how he answered a 5:30 a.m. phone call from Stockholm thinking that “it’s either something very wonderful or it’s something horrible.” The astrophysicist, who said his life had suddenly turned topsy-turvy, will make sure he picks up his prize. “I’ve always loved Bob Dylan,” he said, referring to the singer-songwriter who won the literature prize in 2016 but refused to participate in the Nobel ceremony. “I can’t forgive him for not showing up to the scene of (his) Nobel prize.” And in a case of life imitating art, Tuesday’s Nobel Prize announcement included the opening lyrics of “The Big Bang Theory” theme song: “Our whole universe was in a hot, dense state, then nearly 14 billion years ago, expansion started.” The sitcom was a “fantastic achievement” that brought the “world of science to laptops and living rooms around the world,” said Goran Hansson, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. So referencing its theme song seemed fitting, he said. The cash prize comes with a gold medal and a diploma that are received at an elegant ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the death of prize founder Alfred Nobel in 1896, together with the winners of five other Nobel prizes. The sixth one, the peace prize, is handed out in Oslo, Norway, on the same day. On Monday, Americans William G. Kaelin Jr. and Gregg L. Semenza and Britain’s Peter J. Ratcliffe won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, for discovering details of how the body’s cells sense and react to low oxygen levels, providing a foothold for developing new treatments for anemia, cancer and other diseases. Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite, decided the physics, chemistry, medicine and literature prizes should be awarded in Stockholm, and the peace prize in Oslo. The Nobel Prize for Chemistry will be announced Wednesday, two Literature Prizes will be awarded on Thursday, and the Peace Prize comes Friday. This year will see two Literature Prizes handed out because the one last year was suspended after a scandal rocked the Swedish Academy. ___ Keyton reported from Stockholm. Associated Press writers Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Danica Kirka in London, and Christopher Chester and Malcolm Ritter in New York contributed to this report. ___ Read more stories on the 2019 Nobel Prizes by The Associated Press at https://www.apnews.com/NobelPrizes
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10285
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For many women, breast reduction means less pain and more activity
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"This story on breast reduction surgery is triggered by news reports about Simona Halep, a Romanian tennis player whose breasts are so large they reportedly affect her performance on court. While this has launched predictably vulgar chatter around the Internet, it does create something of a ""teachable moment"" on the topic of macromastia, as the condition of excessive breast size is known. Alas, the Daily News isn’t quite up for the challenge. On the positive side, the reporter did talk to four breast surgery specialists and provides a basic explanation of the condition. The reader essentially learns that macromastia can be serious–that it causes pain, limits activity and can be treated with surgery. On the negative side: The story conveys the impression that the surgery is effective without providing any credible information to verify this. It does not mention the risks of the surgery. It does not report on costs. It fails to distinguish between breast reduction for cosmetic and medical reasons. The story’s rosy view of the surgery is likely to have been shaped by the enthusiasm of the four plastic surgeons used as sources, one of whom has ""his"" own technique, called the ""lollipop lift."" All have economic self-interest in seeing breast reduction surgery portrayed as medically important and highly effective. The story has conveyed this viewpoint without resistance. [Curiously, all of the sources are men.] A reader is likely to exit this story with plenty of questions: How successful is the surgery, and how long-lasting are the symptoms? At what point does breast size become a treatable condition? At what point do the benefits of surgery outweigh the risks? Is this problem best treated early to prevent chronic pain from settling in? Alas, the story doesn’t explore any of these questions. And it can’t go without a final mention: Comparing the symptoms of excessively large breasts to those of metastatic cancer is just shameful."
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mixture
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The story fails to mention the cost of breast reduction, which ranges from $6,000 to $10,000. The story includes the fact that insurance sometimes pays. But readers would be curious to know what might qualify/disqualify women for coverage. The story describes the benefits of breast reduction surgery but does not use any data to quantify the frequency or magnitude of the benefit. The story fails to mention the risks of breast reduction surgery, which are considerable: infection, bleeding, blood clots, nerve and muscle damage, plus the risks associated with anesthesia. Further, the story fails to mention a risk of great importance to younger women: inability to breastfeed. The story does not cite any evidence of rates of pain reduction and increased mobility. The story quotes a doctor who compares the pain of macromastia to the pain suffered by someone with metastatic cancer of the spine. This is a shamefully sensational exaggeration. It is completely unnecessary to make the point that macromastia is a serious and debilitating condition. The story includes comments from four plastic surgeons linked to credible institutions. Having said that, all of the sources are biased in favor of the procedure for reasons of economic self-interest. It’s also worth noting that all four are men. The story quotes a specialist saying that women with macromastia who do not have surgery can wear special reinforced bras, sports bras or even two bras, and can treat pain with analgesics and rashes with ointments. The story states that 140,000 women per year get breast reduction surgery. This clearly implies wide availability. The story makes plain that the surgery is commonly done and makes no claim for its novelty. There does not appear to be a press release linked to this story.
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2134
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"Fat dissolving"" spa treatment no such thing: FDA."
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So-called fat dissolving treatments offered by spas do not eliminate fat and the companies should stop saying so, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday.
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true
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Health News
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The procedures, called by names such as lipodissolve, mesotherapy, lipozap, lipotherapy, or injection lipolysis all involve unproven injections of drugs, the FDA said in a statement. “We are concerned that these companies are misleading consumers,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. “It is important for anyone who is considering this voluntary procedure to understand that the products used to perform lipodissolve procedures are not approved by the FDA for fat removal.” The agency issued warning letters to Monarch Medspa in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania; Spa 35 in Boise, Idaho; Medical Cosmetic Enhancements in Chevy Chase, Maryland; Innovative Directions in Health of Edina, Minnesota; PURE Med Spa in Boca Raton, Florida, and All About You Med Spa in Madison, Indiana. The FDA also warned a Brazilian company that markets so-called lipodissolve products on two Web sites: zipmed.net and mesoone.com. “The FDA will notify regulatory authorities in Brazil of this action,” the FDA said in a statement. “The agency has issued an import alert against the zipmed.net and mesoone.com entities to prevent the importation and distribution of unapproved lipodissolve drug products into the United States.” The treatments usually consist of injections of two drugs called phosphatidylcholine and deoxycholate, the FDA said. “In some cases, other ingredients, including drugs or components of other products like vitamins, minerals and herbal extracts, are added to the mixture,” the agency added. None has been shown to work in credible clinical trials, it said.
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28440
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A large circle marked on a protester's poster is an accurate reflection of the size of the hole created by an AR-15 round.
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What's true: The hole shown in the poster could plausibly represent the diameter of the highly destructive temporary cavity left in a person's body by a high-velocity AR-15 round. What's false: The hole shown in the poster is too big to represent an AR-15 entrance wound; even an exit wound is unlikely to be as large as the shape shown on the poster.
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mixture
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Science, ar-15, gun control, gun rights
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Gun violence and gun control have been the subject of renewed debate since the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In particular, those in favor of enhanced regulation of gun ownership have focused on the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, which has been used in a number of high-profile mass shootings in recent years, including the massacre in Parkland. In June 2018, a dispute arose online over the physical impact and damage that can be caused by a bullet fired from an AR-15. ]Facebook user M.A. Rothman posted two photographs side by side: One featured a poster which claimed to show “the size of a hole used by an AR-15,” and the other showed what Rothman said was the true (smaller) dimensions of marks left by an AR-15 rifle after target practice: The one on the right is my son after target practice with an AR-15. The one on the left is a lying moron who doesn’t know the first thing about guns or our rights as citizens. It’s not clear what are the precise origins of the photograph on the left, or where it was taken. The poster has become the subject of ridicule and anger among some gun rights advocates online, prompting parodies and responses such as this one, which was shared more than 50,000 times on Facebook. In brief, both sides in this dispute are right in some ways and wrong in others, and each photograph offers an incomplete examination of the kind of damage and impact that can be caused by gun shots. At the heart of the issue is the question of what is meant by the “hole made by an AR-15.” There are basically three possibilities: the entrance wound, the exit wound, and the cavity caused by a bullet as travels through a person’s body. There are no graphic images in this article, but we do at times get into descriptions of the damage caused by gun shots that some readers might find upsetting. The entrance wound The “black hole” shown in the poster is vastly too large to represent an AR-15 entrance wound. Jay Wachtel, a retired police sergeant and special agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and a former criminal justice lecturer at California State University, summed it up in an e-mail: “The entrance wound for any firearm projectile is essentially the bullet diameter.” Typically, AR-15 rifles are loaded with .223 Remington cartridges, which are housed in bullets with a diameter of 5.7 millimetres. So a round fired correctly from a functioning AR-15 should create an entrance wound (or target practice marking) just under a quarter-inch in diameter. This can be seen in many AR-15 target practice videos and photographs available online, and is accurately reflected in the photograph posted by Rothman on Facebook. The internal cavity A bullet causes its most significant damage inside a person’s body, destroying the blood vessels, tissue and bone in its immediate path (“permanent cavitation“), but also creating a kind of shockwave outwards into the tissue that surrounds this path. This is known as “temporary cavitation,” and when a bullet travels at higher velocity, the damage caused by this type of cavitation becomes exponentially greater, because the surrounding tissue struggles to absorb the kinetic energy given off by a bullet traveling at a higher velocity. The design of bullets also has a bearing on temporary cavitation (for example, hollow point rounds), but high velocity is a major reason why rifles such as the AR-15 can wreak such catastrophic damage to internal organs, and cause fatal bleeding. This mechanism is explained by the ammunition manufacturer Hornady: In essence, a bullet going through soft tissue has the same effect as dropping a stone into a pail of water – if the stone (bullet) enters the water slowly, the water (tissue) displacement is so gradual that is has little effect on the surrounding molecules. If the stone (bullet) enters the water (tissue) with a lot of momentum, however, the surrounding molecules have to act a lot more quickly and violently, resulting in a splash (temporary cavity). Temporary cavitation is important because it can be a tremendous wounding mechanism. Heather Sher, a Fort Lauderdale-based radiologist who examined CT scans from some of the victims of the February 2018 Parkland school shooting, wrote about the effects of AR-15 rounds for the Atlantic: Routine handgun injuries leave entry and exit wounds and linear tracks through the victim’s body that are roughly the size of the bullet. If the bullet does not directly hit something crucial like the heart or the aorta, and the victim does not bleed to death before being transported to our care at the trauma center, chances are that we can save him. The bullets fired by an AR-15 are different: They travel at a higher velocity and are far more lethal than routine bullets fired from a handgun. The damage they cause is a function of the energy they impart as they pass through the body. A typical AR-15 bullet leaves the barrel traveling almost three times faster than—and imparting more than three times the energy of—a typical 9mm bullet from a handgun. …The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. The “hole” illustrated in the poster could plausibly represent the diameter of the temporary cavitation left behind by an AR-15 rifle round traveling through the human body. That is to say, the tract of potentially catastrophic damage done to blood vessels and tissue could be as tall and wide as the “hole” shown in the poster. The exit wound The black hole illustrated on the poster is unlikely to be representative of the size of an AR-15 exit wound — but it is possible. While entrance wounds typically have the same dimensions as the bullet that causes them, the size and shape of exit wounds can vary more. Dr. Sydney Vail is a trauma surgeon with the Maricopa Integrated Health System in Phoenix, Arizona, and is an expert in treating gunshot trauma. He explained to us some of the factors that determine the dimensions of exit wounds: If the .223 round from an AR-15 strikes the human body and only hits skin and muscle over a short distance, there is a chance the exit will look the same as the entrance or slightly larger. If the bullet yaws [turns left or right] there is a larger surface area to exit the skin and a slightly larger hole. …The reason large holes or large exit wounds occur is usually the bullet hits bone, which then causes more damage and a greater surface area trying to exit the body. If the bullet is in the body a longer period of time — meaning [it travels] through more mass — then the body is absorbing a more maximal amount of kinetic energy, and the damage will definitely be more severe internally… To make big ugly holes as exit wounds means more mass has to exit the body than just the bullet. Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist from San Francisco, California, explained to us the circumstances in which an AR-15 might leave behind an unusually large exit wound. By email, she told us: An AR-15 round fired from contact range against the tightly stretched skin over the skull is more likely to cause a larger entrance wound because of gas entering in along with the bullet. The wound would be star shaped from splitting of the skin by the gas, not round as in the poster. An exceptionally large exit wound could also occur if fragmented bone and tissue exited along with the bullet. An AR-15 round fired through a person’s head, for example, could take fragmented skull and damaged brain matter with it, and this might be expected to be expelled through a larger exit wound. In her assessment, an exit wound the size of the “black hole” shown in the poster could potentially be caused by an AR-15 round, but it is not likely, and certainly not typical. Melinek told us that in her experience, AR-15 rounds can completely fragment in the body and may not exit at all. Michael Knox is a Florida-based forensic consultant who conducts ballistics testing and crime scene reconstructions, and is regularly called upon to give expert testimony in criminal trials. His assessment of the “black hole” on the poster was blunt. By e-mail, he told us: “The exit hole from an AR-15 round would not be that big.” Conclusion The photographs shown in the viral Facebook post are a useful conversation-starter, but comparing them doesn’t serve readers well as an explanation of the physical impact of gun shots in general, or high-velocity AR-15 rounds in particular. Based on the assessments shared with us by the experts we consulted — a forensic pathologist, a trauma surgeon, a former federal agent and criminal justice lecturer, and a forensic consultant and ballistics expert — we can say that the entrance wound from an AR-15 round could not be anywhere near that large; however, the tract of catastrophic damage torn through a person’s internal blood vessels, tissue, and bone by a high-velocity AR-15 round could plausibly have around the same diameter as the “black hole” in the poster. Finally, it is unlikely that an AR-15 exit wound would have the same dimensions as the “black hole” shown in the poster, but it is possible. The bullet would have to travel through the body in such a way that it fragmented bone and tissue to the extent that all that matter was forced out of the body along with the bullet itself, creating an exceptionally large exit wound.
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12425
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The Earth is 6,000 years old, that’s a fact.
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"Kremer says: ""The Earth is 6,000 years old, that’s a fact."" Kremer states a biblical belief, but goes too far in describing it as a fact. It’s a matter of settled science that the Earth is much older, with the current consensus being that it is about 4.5 billion years of age."
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false
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Environment, Education, Religion, Science, Wisconsin, Jesse Kremer,
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"During a May 11, 2017 hearing on his bill to create tougher penalties for college students who disrupt public speakers, Wisconsin state Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, had this exchange with state Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison: Berceau: So, my question is, if a geology student says, ""I’m sorry, but the Earth is only 6,000 years old"" -- rejecting science that says that the Earth is considerably older than that -- is it not OK for a professor to tell that student that they’re wrong? Kremer: So, this bill stays out of the classroom. Yes, the Earth is 6,000 years old, that’s a fact. But, we can discuss that outside of this room. (He chuckles.) Berceau: You said that it is a fact, you do believe it’s a fact? Kremer: Yeah, I do. While the idea that the Earth is 6,000 years old is an article of faith for some, in this context Kremer presented it as a knowable fact. Let’s take a look. Kremer and his bills Kremer, who represents a rural area northwest of Milwaukee, is known for proposing legislation that is, in his words, ""red meat for conservatives"". For example, to ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy; place gender restrictions on school bathrooms and locker rooms; and allow concealed carry permit-holders to carry guns on public school grounds and college campuses. Kremer introduced the speech bill six days before the hearing, which was held by a state Assembly committee. It would require the state’s Board of Regents to adopt a policy for Wisconsin’s public colleges that includes ""a range of disciplinary sanctions for anyone under an institution's jurisdiction who engages in violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, obscene, unreasonably loud, or other disorderly conduct that interferes with the free expression of others."" A student violator could face a one-semester suspension or expulsion for a second offense. The bill, which is expected to be taken up by the Assembly in June 2017, comes as free speech issues have grown more contentious on college campuses across the country, fostering concerns among Republicans that conservative speakers aren’t treated equally. The Capital Times reported on Kremer’s 6,000 statement from the hearing on June 7, 2017, triggering national news stories. Coincidentally, the same day, scientists reported on the discovery of fossils in Morocco that date back roughly 300,000 years, indicating that mankind evolved earlier than had been known. The scientific consensus is that the Earth itself is much older than that. The Earth’s age The topic never seems to get old. 2014: Facebook posts about two Republican U.S. senators and former presidential candidates claimed in part that Marco Rubio of Florida believes the Earth is 9,000 years old and that Rand Paul of Kentucky believes it is 10,000 years old. Neither had made such statements, and PolitiFact National’s rating on the posts was . 2015: A talk that then-GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson gave four years earlier made news. He had said in 2011: ""I am not a hard-and-fast person who says the Earth is only 6,000 years old,"" but, ""I do believe in the six-day creation."" 2017: The Washington Post’s Dear Science column answered the question: How do we know how old the Earth is? The answer: ""Scientists now know the Earth is actually 4.54 billion years old, an age built on many lines of evidence from the geologic record."" Smithsonian.com and the scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (based on very old rocks, of course) also say around 4.5 billion. But Kremer is far from alone in his belief. The 6,000 figure Many attribute the 6,000 figure to James Ussher (1581–1656), an Irish archbishop who concluded that Adam was created in 4004 B.C. He made his calculation, in part, by counting the number of generations in the Bible. An Institute for Creation Research article says, however, that the work in which Ussher made the estimate contains 12,000 footnotes from secular sources, as well as 2,000 references from the Bible, indicating, the article says, that most of his evidence was non-biblical. And the magazine Wired once observed: Ussher was far from the first person to wildly miscalculate the universe’s age ….Among others to try their hand were Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, both of whom arrived at estimates younger than Ussher’s. All labored without a number of modern tools — not only for measuring radioactive decay or rates of the universal expansion, but an intellectual framework for conceiving of time on scales beyond the biblical. That wouldn’t exist for another century, when a Scottish farmer and geological enthusiast named James Hutton, looking at riverbank stone formations, saw a record of sedimentary deposition that couldn’t be contained in 6,000 years. Or many times that. That was a radical idea, and it took another century to be widely accepted, even in the scientific community. Kremer told us his statement is based on his ""deeply held religious beliefs, and thus First Amendment freedom of religion and expression, can be found here based on sound biblical and historical evidence."" He pointed us to an AnswersInGenesis.org article that also cites Ussher and concludes in part: Cultures around the world give an age of the Earth that confirms what the Bible teaches. Radiometric dates, on the other hand, have been shown to be wildly in error. The age of the Earth ultimately comes down to a matter of trust — it’s a worldview issue. But geology and environmental science professor Nelson Ham at St. Norbert University, a Catholic college in De Pere, Wis., told us: ""Kremer's statement is certainly not a scientific fact,"" noting the many estimates of around 4.5 billion years. ""Determining that age has come from measurements that are testable and repeatable, following the scientific method."" Our rating Kremer says: ""The Earth is 6,000 years old, that’s a fact."" Kremer states a biblical belief, but goes too far in describing it as a fact. It’s a matter of settled science that the Earth is much older, with the current consensus being that it is about 4.5 billion years of age."
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7486
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EU: Malaria drugs used for virus could cause side effects.
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The European Union’s medicines regulator on Thursday warned countries that malaria drugs being used experimentally to treat the new coronavirus have potentially serious side effects, including seizures and heart problems.
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true
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Understanding the Outbreak, Malaria, Health, General News, International News, Virus Outbreak, Europe, Donald Trump
|
The European Medicines Agency said in a statement that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine — two medicines embraced by U.S. President Donald Trump and others as a potential COVID-19 treatment — are known to cause heart rhythm problems, especially if combined with other drugs. There is currently no licensed treatment for COVID-19 and dozens of trials are under way globally. Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have long been used to treat malaria and anti-inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. In addition to the heart problems, the two drugs can also cause side effects including liver and kidney damage, seizures, and result in low blood sugar. “Clinical data are still very limited and inconclusive, and the beneficial effects of these medicines in COVID-19 have not been demonstrated,” the EMA said. It noted that several clinical trials testing the drugs’ effectiveness against the coronavirus are using higher than recommended doses, which it said could increase the risk of side effects including abnormal electric activity that could disrupt the heart rhythm. Earlier this month, part of a study in Brazil was suspended after doctors found one quarter of patients taking chloroquine developed irregular heart rhythms after taking a higher dose. In the U.S., doctors reported disappointing results this week for a study investigating the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19. Among 368 patients who took the drug with or without the antibiotic azithromycin, there were more deaths among those who took the drug versus those who received standard care. The EMA reminded doctors and patients to report any suspected side effects from hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to national authorities. “These must not be used without a prescription and without supervision from a doctor,” the agency said. ___ Follow AP coverage of the pandemic at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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10902
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Mediterranean diet plus olive oil associated with reduced breast cancer risk
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This news release reports on the findings of a large European study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, asking whether older women participants following a Mediterranean Diet, supplemented with either extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) or nuts, experienced a different rate of breast cancer than women receiving straightforward dietary advice. The outcome showed that those supplemented with EVOO experienced fewer cases of breast cancer than did the control group or the group supplemented with nuts. Overall, the release does an excellent job of summarizing the results of the study and putting the evidence in context. The study’s numerous limitations are addressed, and the release also quotes from an accompanying editorial that provides a valuable independent perspective. The release would have benefited from inclusion of absolute risk numbers and some acknowledgment that the diet studied here could be costly to follow. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. If the risk of this disease can be lowered by simply altering one’s diet, it would represent a safe, non-pharmacological approach to improving the public’s health.
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true
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Breast cancer,Cancer,Journal news release
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The release makes no mention of the cost of the supplemented diets compared to what might be expected for a normal daily diet. Some brands of extra-virgin olive oil can cost considerably more, comparatively, than other available cooking oils. And you’d have to buy lot of olive oil to match this diet — participants received a whopping 1 L per week per family. Other foods in the Mediterranean diet (e.g. fish and nuts) are also relatively expensive. So the release fails at this category, although it is a minor failure in this case considering the relative strength of the rest of the release. The release points out that the participants following the Mediterranean Diet supplemented by EVOO experienced a 68 percent lower relative risk of breast cancer than did the control group. While that’s one way to report the findings, we always ask that stories also include a measure of the absolute risk, which provides important additional information to help readers gauge the size of the benefit. These absolute risk figures were reported in the study abstract and could have easily been included in the release as well. The researchers found breast cancer rates of 1.1 per thousand people per year in the Med Diet plus EVOO group, 1.8 per thousand people per year in the Med Diet plus nuts group, and 2.9 per thousand people per year in the control group. Consuming both nuts and olive oil have been shown in numerous studies to be a positive asset to the regular diet. And yet these foods are very calorie-dense, and so one wonders if consuming so much of them could increase the risk for weight gain, which is in turn associated with breast cancer risk. But the release’s lack of discussion on that point shouldn’t be enough for a Not Satisfactory rating — we’ll rule it Not Applicable. This release described a large, multi-center, randomized trial where those analyzing the data were blinded to information that might influence their findings. It gave ample information about the study design, it’s relationship to the larger cardiovascular study from which it is derived, and the size, scope, age and body mass of the participants. The release also does a good job following the research paper’s example of delineating the weaknesses of the study. It even quotes the cautionary language included in an accompanying editorial. This release offers no evidence of disease-mongering. The release only offers the following statement as an endnote: “Authors made conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures.” The paper itself points to numerous connections between the researchers and sponsors which would have an obvious vested interest in the study’s outcome. These include grants as well as free supplies of the foods supplemented in the study. While this doesn’t call the findings into question, disclosing this information in a release of this type provides transparency that readers appreciate and should expect. The release offers no real alternatives to the diets studied but it is reasonable to assume that readers can compare these examples with their own diets and make decisions accordingly. And while there are other approaches to cancer prevention that arguably could have been discussed (screening mammography, for example), we don’t really think a release about a diet study should be expected to address those approaches. It’s clear from the release that the foods in the Mediterranean diet are widely available. However, it might be harder to find certain component foods like fish, fresh fruits and vegetables, and extra virgin olive oil in some places in the U.S. (i.e. “food deserts”). The release could have acknowledged this. The release establishes that the effects of diet on breast cancer risk have been studied previously with this line: “Diet has been extensively studied as a modifiable risk factor in the development of breast cancer but epidemiologic evidence on the effect of specific dietary factors is inconsistent.” There is no unjustifiable language in this release.
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11199
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A cocktail to remember? Nutrient elixir shows promise against Alzheimer’s
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"This story unfortuantely reads like a marketing effort on the part of the manufacturer rather than objective reporting on the results of what the authors describe as an early proof of concept trial. The story suggests that the product in question (Souvenaid), ""…might be effective in stemming-and perhaps reversing the cognitive tolls of Alzheimer’s. "" While this may be true, the published article demonstrated much more limited results, ony demonstrating an improvement in one of six rating scales used.The story presents an inflated view of the study results without any significant provisos. Readers can see a striking difference between the LA Times story and one on ABCNews.com that had many more paragraphs of concerns, caveats and context. There are no effective treatments for Alzheimer’s DIsease. While there are numerous drugs available, their value in the memory loss and dementia associated with Alzheimer’s is limited. A new treatment, especially one based on a nutritional approach would be a welcomed option. However – the headline and the tone of this story raises hopes and expectations unrealistically."
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false
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"There was no mention of costs. While not yet on the market, if there are plans to begin selling it in the spring, then it is likely that the company has some estimate for what it plans to sell it for. Information on this should have been included in this piece. Subjects receiving Souvenaid only showed an improvement over the control group in one of the numerous scales used. This fact is important since the results may not be related to the Souvenaid but rather simply to chance. The results were not quantified in the story. The story did not raise the possibility that there might be potential harms associated with this product. Considering that the trial lasted only 12 weeks and Alzheimer’s disease is a chronic condition which individuals may deal with for 10 years or more, it would have been valuable to remind readers about the very different time frame for the study as compared with disease treatment. It would only require a line to say this and would have been a reasonable admonition to include in the story. The story clearly uses hyperbole in reporting on the study results. In reality only one of the scales used demonstrated a statistical difference between Souvenaid and placebo, the study was in patients with mild Alzheimer’s symptoms and was only for 12 weeks. Suggesting the product is effective or can even reverse symptoms is a giant leap. While the story does not engage in disease mongering related to Alzheimer’s, it does note that the product may become, ""a voguish cocktail for aging smarties"" suggesting widespread need to improve memory in the US aging population. It also ends with the line that the product ""may be the next big thing among the middle-aged smart set."" For these two reasons, we judge this unsatisfactory. There is information from a company spokesperson and from one of the study authors. There was no discussion of conflicts of interest such as corporate affiliations, patents held by authors, or sources of funding for the study reported on. No independent experts appear to have been consulted to comment for this piece. ABCNews.com, though, as one example had no difficulty including the following in its story: ""I see little evidence to support the use of this beverage to improve memory in [Alzheimer’s disease patients],"" said Dr. Paul Aisen, a noted Alzheimer’s disease expert and professor at the University of California, San Diego. ""It was a small study of treatment-naïve [Alzheimer’s] patients lasting only 12 weeks."" By 24 weeks, the memory differences seen after 12 weeks had disappeared. The study was published in the most recent issue of the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia. Experts also pointed out that some of the memory tests failed to show any improvement in people using the cocktail. ""This is a study which I would look at as negative,"" said Dr. Constantine Lyketsos, director of the Neuropsychiatry Service at Johns Hopkins Medical Institution. ""The major outcome measures showed no effect at any time point."" Dr. Richard Besser, senior medical editor for ABC News, noted some troubling aspects of the study that related to its potential marketing, including conflicts of interest by the authors. ""They hold the patent on the nutritional cocktail and some serve on the advisory board for Dannon. The study was funded by Dannon,"" he said. Other experts, too, were critical of the study. ""While everyone would clearly like to have some safe and easy to take method to stave off Alzheimer’s disease, there are several features of this study that should raise concerns,"" said Dr. Clifford Saper, chairman of the Department of Neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. ""They would include the involvement of the commercial sponsors at every level of this study, including writing the first draft of the paper; and the relatively low level of improvement on a single test out of a large battery of examinations."" The story mentions the drug Aricept approved for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. It mentioned that Aricept is not approved for mild cognitive impairment, suggesting that nonetheless people chose to use it for cognitive enhancement considering it to be ‘worth the risks’, without listing the risks. The product reported on was said to have shown no side effects so far by the man who has patented the combination of nutrients being marketed. While this might lead a reader to conclude that the new beverage is safer than the pharmaceutical, it would have been useful to highlight that neither has been demonstrated to be beneficial. The story mentioned that the product reported on, Souvenaid, was expected to be sold in test markets in the US in the spring. The story noted that since the product is a dietary supplement, it does not need approval by the Food and Drug Administration before it can be marketed. Souvenaid has apparently been granted a patent, so on that basis it is likely to be a novel combination of products. The concept of a memory enhancing or sustaining diet has been suggested in numerous articles in the medical literature. From that perspective, there is really nothing unique about the approach however. Nonethless, we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. We can’t be sure of the extent to which the story may have been influenced by a news release. We do know that the only sources quoted had personal vested interests in promoting the results."
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34592
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A woman was nearly kidnapped by human traffickers using a ring placed on her windshield as bait.
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All in all, we’d guess the “free gift ring” phenomenon is just a garden variety scam, a form of “pigeon drop” or maybe just an attempt to lure suckers into paying premium prices for cheap jewelry.
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unproven
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Crime, appleton, crime warnings, free ring gift
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On 19 July 2016 Facebook user Savannah Nguyen published the above-reproduced missive to Facebook, claiming that her mother was nearly abducted by human traffickers using a free “gift ring” from Kay Jewelers as bait in the parking lot of a mall in Appleton, Wisconsin. Nguyen’s tale was nearly identical to a constellation of breathless Facebook posts about human trafficking scouts in retail environments (or sometimes other public spaces). In the month prior two similar stories of human traffickers circulated in Louisiana and Rochester, Minnesota about public parks, but rumors circulating in perpetuity about human traffickers tended to involve big box stores. During the summer of 2015, myriad “human trafficking warning” posts went viral on Facebook despite the fact such stories rarely (if ever) reflected reality: In May 2015, a woman made similar claims about an incident in an Oklahoma Hobby Lobby store; in June 2015, Twitter was awash in fear over sex slavery rings targeting college kids during summer job interviews; and later that same month a long-circulating theme park abduction urban legend popped up again. The prevalence of those rumors seemed to breed a harrowing (and fabricated) account of purported teenaged abductors (armed with heroin-filled syringes) at a Denton, Texas, Dillards department store, a story from a woman who maintained she narrowly avoided a human trafficking ring using gift bags as bait in the parking lot of a Hickory, North Carolina, Walmart store, and subsequent claims Target stores in Tampa, Longview (Texas), and Houston were sex trafficking scouting hotbeds. All the tales proved to be vastly overstated (as was a woman’s claim about a similar encounter at a Michigan Kroger store), and typically appended with a lengthy treatise about how such narrow misses are commonplace and could happen to you. We contacted the Grand Chute Police Department near Appleton, Wisconsin, to ask about the rumor, and their phone lines were so busy that we were initially unable to get in touch with an officer. However, someone from that department eventually returned our call and stated that their investigation revealed no connection to human trafficking, adding it was unclear “who put the ring” on Nguyen’s mother’s windshield. A post published to Facebook on 20 July 2016 by the Grand Chute Police Department informed residents that police were aware of the claim and investigating it: The department also told Green Bay station WLUK they “there’s no evidence to suggest it is related to sex trafficking.” Putting aside the fear invoked by the claim, the narrative itself isn’t deeply convincing. Law enforcement sources have told us over and over again in response to these types of warnings that human traffickers are far more likely to recruit victims by attempting to establish relationships (and even a degree of trust) with them; snatching random victims from store parking lots is not their modus operandi. Moreover, the use of “bait” such as rings left on automobile windshields makes little sense in this context. The stated goal of approaching and grabbing targets they are outside their vehicles (and thus unable to drive away) could be accomplished much more efficiently by simply intercepting shoppers as they walk through store parking lots. As with similar viral alerts, such warnings posit the unlikely scenario that abductors are going to expend all their efforts placing (valuable) objects on randomly-chosen windshields, then conspicuously wait around for an undetermined amount of time for putative victims to return to those vehicles. Older tales such as those about robbers trapping victims with perfume samples persist in large part due to the entrenched belief that criminals can and do operate in this fashion; therefore, people interpret any encounters that remotely match the story line as affirmative of near-misses with abductors: Indeed, we routinely receive e-mails from women who have had encounters with folks vending perfume in parking lots and who have concluded (based on nothing but spurious rumor) that they were about to be robbed. They write to report we’re all wrong about this sort of robbery not taking place because hadn’t they themselves almost had it happen to them? That no “knockout potions” were offered to them and no robberies (completed or attempted) took place does little to dissuade them from their certainty that they came within a hair’s breadth of harm at the hands of some innocent freelance perfume sellers. Similar unsubstantiated rumors about $100 bills tucked under windshields evidence a lack of familiarity with the mechanics of criminal activity, presenting a scenario that poses more risk and smaller chances of success for opportunistic criminals: Our law enforcement contacts have also noted that although the process described above could be used by carjackers, they were unfamiliar with any cases of cars being taken in this manner, and the scheme outlined ran contrary to their experience of how carjackers operate. Specifically, they said that carjackings are generally crimes of opportunity, committed by persons in need of quick cash or youngsters either out for a thrill or participating in some rite of passage (such as a gang initiation). Carjackers tend to hang around places where motorists have to stop or exit their vehicles (e.g., intersections, gas stations, car washes, ATMs, freeway on- and off-ramps) and then force the drivers out of their automobiles (or simply take off with the temporarily unoccupied cars). Running around parking lots sticking flyers on windshields and then hanging around to wait for drivers to return to their vehicles involves planning and exposure atypical of most carjackers; they’re more likely to approach occupied vehicles (particularly luxury cars with high resale value) and force the drivers out (by threatening them with weapons and/or physically pulling them out of their seats). As is often the case, the “free gift ring” claim was wholly inconsistent with patterns typically associated with the behaviors of human traffickers (detailed in the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime FAQ about human trafficking). The story is another variation on an urban legend that has circulated for at least two decades, a period during which we’ve never located any substantiated instances of bait-related abductions.
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4649
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Bills fall to Pats, and lose QB Josh Allen to head injury.
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Bills coach Sean McDermott suddenly has bigger worries than Josh Allen’s carelessness with the football.
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true
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New England Patriots, Health, NFL, Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills, Sean McDermott, Jonathan Jones, Football
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He’s not sure when the second-year starter will be healthy enough to be cleared to play. Allen was placed in the NFL’s concussion protocol after taking a helmet-to-helmet hit by Patriots defensive back Jonathan Jones in the opening minute of the fourth quarter of a 16-10 loss to New England on Sunday. Putting aside the three interceptions Allen threw, McDermott’s biggest question was why Jones wasn’t ejected. “There’s no room in football for that,” McDermott said. “I thought he should have been thrown out. But other than that, I’m not going to get into that. That’s for the league to get into.” The hit occurred when Allen scrambled out of the pocket and burst through a hole up the middle while facing third-and-8 at the New England 45. He gained 7 yards before Jones closed in on him, lowered his helmet and struck the quarterback in the crown of his helmet. Jones was flagged for a personal foul for unnecessary roughness. Allen lay on the field for several minutes before hopping up on his own. He was briefly evaluated on the sideline before being escorted up the tunnel. Allen was spotted in the locker room chatting with teammates following the game. NFL officiating chief Al Riveron told a pool reporter the decision to not eject Jones came because the hit did not rise to the level of the league standard for disqualification. “There was a foul called and obviously the penalty stood, but we did not feel this contact rose to that level,” Riveron said, who also noted Jones was turning his head just before hitting Allen. Bills safety Micah Hyde questioned the official’s judgment saying he or any of his teammates would have been ejected for a similar hit on New England’s Tom Brady. “That’s our quarterback. We ride or die with him,” Hyde said. “To see that happen, Josh didn’t slide, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you’re a running back, you can’t head to the head.” Jones defended the hit saying it was never his intent to hurt Allen. “No malice or intent. Just a part of football,” Jones said. “We’re just running around playing football. I hope he’s OK. I’m going to check on him.” Allen finished going 13 of 28 for 153 yards, and scored on a 1-yard touchdown dive. Allen’s uncertain status leaves Buffalo with veteran backup Matt Barkley the only quarterback on the active roster in preparing to play at Tennessee next weekend. Buffalo then enters its bye week. The loss prevented Buffalo (3-1) from getting off to its first 4-0 start since 2008. Though the Bills defense held Brady in check, their offense was busy coughing up the ball at critical moments for the third time in four games. Allen threw three interceptions, two of which translated into a touchdown and a field goal. Punter Corey Bojorquez also had a punt blocked by J.C. Jackson, which led to Matthew Slater returning it 11 yards for a touchdown to put the Patriots up 13-0 in the first quarter. McDermott was unhappy with Allen’s continuing string of committing turnovers. He’s now thrown six interceptions and lost two fumbles in four starts this season. “He’s a young quarterback and sometimes they have to learn those lessons. Those are hard lessons and we have to continue to coach it up,” McDermott said. The game was decided on Buffalo’s fourth turnover with 1:27 left. Facing third-and-9 on the New England 39, Barkley was pressured by linebacker Kyle Van Noy, who got his hand on the quarterback’s chest. That forced Barkley to throw the ball up into the air, and have it easily picked off by Jamie Collins. The loss spoiled a stout effort by a Bills defense which limited the Patriots to just 11 first downs and 224 yards. Brady finished 18 of 39 for 150 yards and an interception. He was picked off by Hyde in the end zone on third-and-goal from the 2 in the second quarter. Brady’s 45.9 passer rating was the sixth lowest of his career and lowest since finishing with a 34 rating in a 27-20 loss to Indianapolis on Nov. 5, 2006. Barkley lamented how the Bills let the Patriots off the hook. “Especially with the way our defense played and where we had the ball at the end of the game, it’s tough,” Barkley said. “This is a tough one.” ___ More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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10820
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Rapid Rise in PSA Levels a Poor Predictor of Prostate Cancer: Study
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This story did a few things better than its AP competition: a bit better evaluation of the evidence much more explicity addressing the option of not being screened at all. But AP did a better job quantifying harms. Neither story discussed the costs of PSA tests or provided estimates of the costs for following up an increase in PSA with a biopsy. These are significant cost issues, which warranted at least a line in the stories. PSA velocity was initially recommended to help men with abnormal PSA values (> 4) make decisions about whether to undergo biopsy because most of these men don’t have cancer. Because most elevated PSA values are false positives, PSA velocity could help men avoid unnecessary biopsies. However, recommendations began emerging to use PSA velocity to guide biopsy decisions for men with normal PSA values. No evidence ever supported these recommendations and now a well-designed analysis clearly indicates that using PSA velocity in men with normal PSA values will lead to even more unnecessary biopsies. It was also important that this story dropped back and discussed the option of not being screened at all – thanks to the contribution Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society made to the story.
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true
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Cancer,HealthDay
|
The story did not discuss the costs of PSA tests or provide estimates of the costs for following up an increase in PSA with a biopsy. These are significant cost issues, which warranted at least a line in the story. The story didn’t quantify the potential reduction in biopsies. The competing AP story was much better on this point, reporting that using rising PSA levels, 1 in 7 men would have a prostate biopsy as compared with 1 in 20 men based solely on high PSA level. This suggests that change in PSA level results in 13/20 unnecessary prostate biopsies. The story could have provided more detail on some of the possible complications resulting from prostate biopsies. It did mention anxiety from tracking PSA levels over time.
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16411
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Health insurance costs for Floridians are up 30 percent or more.
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The Republicans’ ad shows several unidentified people saying that health insurance costs for Floridians are up 30 percent or more. Many reports that cite big double-digit premium increases are based on individual or small-group plans and omit large group plans, the type of coverage many people have through work. Kaiser concluded that in large-group plans, the largest segment in the market, premiums will rise 3 percent. The Republicans’ ad takes anecdotal experiences about cost increases that would be rare but potentially true and creates the impression that the federal health care law is just one big heap of problems for patients without any benefits. Then it tells voters that despite that morass, Crist supports it. People may see increases to their health care costs under the law, but the typical experience is nowhere near what the ad suggests. Indeed, other Floridians will see their costs go down.
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false
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Health Care, Florida, Republican Party of Florida,
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"Got a beef with Obamacare? The Republicans want to remind voters that Democrat Charlie Crist thinks the president’s health care law is ""great."" A TV ad by the Republican Party of Florida features anecdotes from people making claims about how the health care law has hurt them in the pocketbook or made it harder to find doctors: ""I think Obamacare harms doctors and patients."" ""It increased my health policy, personal health policy, 30 percent."" ""I’m disabled and I can’t find doctors that will help me."" ""My family’s medical costs have doubled."" ""Many doctors are losing their patients, and patients are losing their doctors. I was one of them."" ""Obamacare hurts my ability to create jobs."" The ad soon pivots to Crist saying of Obamacare ""I think it’s been great,"" comments he made in a TV interview with CNN’s Candy Crowley in March 2014. Crist has campaigned in favor of the federal health care law while his opponent Republican Gov. Rick Scott has been a major critic. The ad doesn’t identify the various men and women complaining about Obamacare making it impossible to verify each individual’s experiences. State GOP spokesperson Susan Hepworth’s only reply to our questions about the people and their insurance woes: ""They are not actors."" But we can research the ad’s overall message that the Affordable Care Act has inflated Floridians’ health care costs anywhere from 30 percent to twice as expensive. Data about rising premiums There have been various studies about average premium increases since the health care law was implemented, but the results vary widely depending on the methodology and available information. The studies we saw that cited larger increases were generally based on the individual or small-group market and not the category of large-group employer plans. Some predictions that came from Florida officials were based on a hypothetical plan that wasn’t even for sale in the state. The Republicans cited a few surveys showing higher prices. For example, a national survey by the investment firm Morgan Stanley showed Florida was seeing a 36.8 percent increase for individual plans and 20.7 percent increase for small group plans based on the response of six insurance brokers. But large-group plans were not included in the study, even though those typically represent the most commonly held form of insurance. (PolitiFact New Hampshire noted this in their state as well.) Individual plans, and to a lesser extent small-group plans, have long been expected to produce larger premium increases than large-group plans. That’s because existing individual- and small-group policies likely didn’t include many of the law’s new minimum requirements, such as preventive care with no cost-sharing. When the policies had to change, premiums were likely to rise. Larry Levitt at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a leading health policy research center, has said there are several reasons not to compare costs before and after Obamacare. Part of the challenge again is how policies have new coverage requirements, such as maternity care and mental health coverage. The plans people are buying in 2014 are not the same as what they may have bought last year. In 2013, Kaiser explained that overall average unsubsidized premiums for nongroup coverage would be higher because ""many people will be getting better insurance."" Kaiser didn’t have a breakdown by state, but reported national data in September 2014 that showed average annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage rose 3 percent. A 2014 Kaiser survey found that nearly half (46 percent) of those who previously bought non-group insurance and switched to a subsidized, ACA-compliant plan said their current premium is lower than it was under their previous plan, while four in 10 (39 percent) say it is higher. The rate at which those premiums changed is a question mark because of how each study measured whatever they measured, but the anonymous examples cited in the commercial sound extreme to some experts. ""While it would not be impossible for a consumer to experience a ‘30 percent increase’ in his ‘health care policy,’ that situation would unquestionably be an extreme outlier,"" said Greg Mellowe, director of health research and analysis at the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, a consumer health advocacy group. ""The doubling of ‘medical costs’ would be even more extreme. Representing those consumers as typical Floridians would therefore be grossly misleading."" So what are typical premium numbers? PricewaterhouseCoopers released data in August 2014 on individual market rate filings based on state insurance department rate filings and public statements. PWC found a 7.4 percent increase for Florida, a hair above the national 7 percent increase. The report cited a broad range of rate increases in some states and noted that they would likely shrink after regulators reviewed them. Florida’s Office of Insurance Regulation and the White House released different information regarding premium costs in August. The Miami Herald wrote that Florida officials said rates would rise an average of 13.2 percent for new plans in the individual market next year, while the White House said most Floridians who buy an Obamacare plan will pay less in monthly premiums. How can that be? Because they’re each doing different math in order to prove their points. The Florida insurance office, an agency working for a Republican governor and GOP-led Legislature that is against the Affordable Care Act, calculated the average on individual health plans on both the private market and the health exchange, leading to that 13.2 percent rise, the Herald pointed out. The White House was only counting the second-lowest priced silver plan on the exchange in each Florida county. That method predicted an average 4 percent drop in monthly premiums. ""The bottom line is that there is absolutely no way to assess the ad without knowing where the person came from (pre-ACA insurance) and something about their health needs,"" Caroline Pearson, a vice president at health care consulting firm Avalere, told PolitiFact Florida. ""Generally, most people in exchanges were previously uninsured or in the individual market. Most of those people will have much better coverage post ACA, but there are absolutely examples of healthy people whose costs will go up."" Gail Wilensky, who headed Medicare and Medicaid for President George H.W. Bush, said there still are some groups who may have seen substantial increases in their premiums. ""These are individuals or couples who had purchased individual insurance tailored to their needs and who were forced to buy more comprehensive and therefore expensive plans,"" she said. Wilensky added that last fall there were many complaints from single people and older couples who had to buy policies with those new requirements. They didn’t need things like maternity care and full dental plans for children, but their premiums went up anyway. However, most people who have bought insurance were those who were eligible to get substantial subsidies, she said. In response to the Republicans’ ad, the Crist campaign sent reporters a copy of a recent Tampa Bay Times editorial that cited numbers that show health care reform is working in Florida -- including that nearly 1 million have elected to get a plan through the federal marketplace. Our ruling The Republicans’ ad shows several unidentified people saying that health insurance costs for Floridians are up 30 percent or more. Many reports that cite big double-digit premium increases are based on individual or small-group plans and omit large group plans, the type of coverage many people have through work. Kaiser concluded that in large-group plans, the largest segment in the market, premiums will rise 3 percent. The Republicans’ ad takes anecdotal experiences about cost increases that would be rare but potentially true and creates the impression that the federal health care law is just one big heap of problems for patients without any benefits. Then it tells voters that despite that morass, Crist supports it. People may see increases to their health care costs under the law, but the typical experience is nowhere near what the ad suggests. Indeed, other Floridians will see their costs go down."
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9937
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Trial for New Lupus Treatment Is Called Promising
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This story reported on Benlysta, a drug currently under investigation for the treatment of lupus. The piece was clear that Benlysta is in phase 3 testing and that application for its use to treat lupus has not yet been filed with the FDA. Benlysta is a medication that will, if approved, be used in addition to other lupus treatments. The story reported that the drug improved symptoms, but never explained which symptoms. It would have been helpful to include more about which lupus patients could be expected to benefit from this drug as well as the potential risks and side effects that may be incurred from its use. Comments from clinicians with relevant expertise but without commercial ties would greatly improved the credibility of this report and increased its value to readers.
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true
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The article comments that Benlysta will be far more expensive than current treatments but doesn’t give an order of magnitude. Nonetheless, we’ll give it the benefit of the doubt. The story provided quantitative information about meaningful improvement of symptoms, comparing two doses of the drug with placebo. However – the story gave no insight about what symptoms it was measuring and whether the difference between the two doses significantly differed from one another. It should have provided more detail about the nature of the improvements observed. The story did not include any insight about potential harms or side effects that have been seen to date with the use of this drug. The story was clear that the information about this drug comes from a phase 3 clinical trial and that the results have not yet been published or examined by outside experts. It would have been better for readers if the story had included some insight about the type of symptoms that were monitored and measured as well as the particular subset of patients that were included in the study. No overt disease mongering. The story included quotes from a company spokesperson, a clinician who is a consultant for the company, and a clinician with expertise in lupus who does not appear to have overt ties with the company. The story would have been more informative to readers had several clinicians with expertise in treating people with lupus been interviewed as part of this story. The comments of those involved with drug development or promotion have limited credibility. The story discusses that the medication reported on is used in addition to the typical treatments used for treating lupus. It did not, however, provide any insight about which segment of the lupus patient population might benefit. As such, it did not provide readers with sufficient information about when additional treatment with Benlysta might be considered. The story was clear that the drug Benlysta is currently being studied in clinical trials and is not available for use. The pipeline for effective lupus drugs has indeed been dry for quite a while. The article indicates that this is a novel product of genomic technology. Does not appear to rely exclusively on a press release.
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2963
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Nineteen students sick in China from poisoned yoghurt.
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Nineteen primary school children in China have been hospitalized after drinking yoghurt said to be laced with rat poison and herbicide, the Xinhua state news said.
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true
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Health News
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A 34-year-old woman from Loudi city in the central province of Hunan confessed to poisoning the yoghurt drink before delivering to the students, Xinhua said on Saturday. It said the woman was suspected to be suffering from a mental disorder. Three children were in serious condition but their lives were not in danger, Xinhua said. Investigations were going on. There have been several attacks on schools in China in recent years while at the same time, food safety has become a contentious issue with a rising number of food-poisoning cases due in part to lax safety standards at small factories.
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5553
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Supreme Court: Ginsburg treated for tumor on pancreas.
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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has completed radiation therapy for a cancerous tumor on her pancreas and there is no evidence of the disease remaining, according to the Supreme Court.
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true
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AP Top News, Supreme courts, Cancer, Health, Tumors, Politics, U.S. Supreme Court, Radiation therapy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Courts, Bill Clinton, General News
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It is the fourth time that the 86-year-old justice has announced that she has been treated for cancer over the last two decades and follows lung cancer surgery in December that kept her away from the court for weeks. December’s surgery was her first illness-related absence from the court since being appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993 and prompted even closer attention to her health. As the court’s oldest member, Ginsburg has been asked questions for years about her health and retirement plans. She has also in recent years attracted particularly enthusiastic fans as the leader of the liberal wing of the court, which includes four members appointed by Democratic presidents and five by Republicans. Both liberals and conservatives watch her health closely because it’s understood the court would shift right for decades if President Donald Trump were to get the ability to nominate someone to replace her. Asked late Friday about Ginsburg, Trump said: “I’m hoping she’s going to be fine. She’s been through a lot. She’s strong. She’s very tough. But we wish her well. Very well.” The court kept Ginsburg’s latest cancer secret for three weeks, until she finished radiation treatment. Yet there is no obligation for justices to disclose details about their health, and Ginsburg has generally made more information available than some of her colleagues. Retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, for example, had a stent inserted to open a blocked artery in 2005 but the public only learned about it 10 months later when he returned to the hospital to have it replaced. The Supreme Court said in a statement Friday that a routine blood test led to the detection of Ginsburg’s tumor. A biopsy performed July 31 confirmed a “localized malignant tumor,” and Ginsburg started outpatient radiation therapy Aug. 5. Ginsburg underwent three weeks of radiation therapy and as part of her treatment had a bile duct stent placed, the court said. Ginsburg “tolerated treatment well” and does not need any additional treatment but will continue to have periodic blood tests and scans, the statement said. The tumor was “treated definitively and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body,” the court said. The statement did not say if the new tumor is a recurrence of the pancreatic cancer Ginsburg was diagnosed with in 2009, or a new cancer that arose. She was also treated for colorectal cancer in 1999. “It’s certainly not unheard of for the cancer to come back,” but it’s a more dire situation if it’s that rather than a new tumor that was found early enough for effective treatment, said Dr. Michael Pishvaian, a pancreatic specialist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center who had no firsthand knowledge of Ginsburg’s care. Pancreatic tumors are usually treated with surgery, but she or her doctors may have chosen not to do that for various reasons, and radiation is a standard treatment if surgery is not done, Pishvaian said. Dr. Alan Venook, a University of California, San Francisco, pancreatic cancer specialist who also has no direct knowledge of Ginsburg’s case, said it’s not possible to know much about her outlook without details from her doctors. If it is a recurrence that took a decade to form, “that tells me it’s not a very aggressive cancer,” he said. If the cancer is truly limited to the pancreas, “it could have been managed perfectly well with radiation,” he said. The court said Ginsburg canceled an annual summer visit to Santa Fe but otherwise maintained an active schedule during treatment. She is scheduled to speak in Buffalo next week and at the Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington at the end of the month. Before Friday’s announcement, Ginsburg’s most recent known health scare was in December, when she had surgery for lung cancer. The cancerous growths were found when Ginsburg underwent medical tests after she fell in her court office and broke three ribs in November. Ginsburg was absent from the court in January as she recovered from surgery and missed six days on which the court heard a total of 11 arguments. But she returned to the bench in February, and participated in the court’s work during her absence. ___ Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione reported from Milwaukee.
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9607
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It’s Comical. It’s Critical. It Might Even Help You Lose Weight.
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This story urges people to make sure they’re eating enough dietary fiber, with a focus on fiber’s role in promoting healthy weight loss. And, overall, it does a fairly good job — though giving a high-profile to unpublished data from a privately-owned fitness app (MyFitnessPal) is a little unusual. To draw causal conclusions about a specific food/dietary component, without providing fulsome data is worrisome. Also, we’re unaware of any studies at this point that speak to the veracity of MyFitnessPal dietary record keeping, and the accuracy of its collection is probably worth validating and exploring–or at least noting its limitations. And, on a broader level, focusing on a single ingredient such as “fiber” feeds nutritionism–the notion that the presence or absence of a particular nutrient makes a food healthful or not. We don’t have nutrition drilled down that specifically. This point would have made the story stronger. Fiber–especially from whole fruits and vegetables–is an important part of a healthy diet, with institutions from the Mayo Clinic to Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health outlining the myriad ways that a fiber-rich diet reduces health risks. And, as this story notes, most people don’t get enough fiber. Recommendations for daily intake of fiber vary, but tend to come in between 25 grams per day to 38 grams per day, depending on age and sex. A 2014 paper from USDA’s Food Surveys Research Group found that Americans consume an average of 16 grams of fiber per day. Given the potential benefit of eating more fiber, this would seem like a conversation worth having. And that appears to be the goal of the story.
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true
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Bloomberg,Diet studies
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The story doesn’t specifically address costs, but it does discuss some of the most common types of fiber-rich food — such as fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains. Given the diversity, and widespread availability, of these foods, we’ll give this a Satisfactory rating. However, it would have been nice to see some acknowledgment that many people — people particularly people with limited financial resources — live in so-called “food deserts,” which have little access to fresh produce, etc. The story discusses a wide range of benefits, ranging from reduced risk of heart disease to weight loss. But the focus of the story was on weight loss, so that’s what we’ll focus on here. The story refers to two studies, only one of which appears to have been published. The first study is an analysis of people who have used the MyFitnessPal app in an attempt to lose weight. In that case, users who came within 5 percent of their weight loss goal consumed an average of 29 percent more fiber than users who did not come close to their weight loss goals. The second study was actually published (in 2015), and compared weight loss across two groups of study participants who had metabolic syndrome. One group followed the American Heart Association’s recommended diet, while the other was told only to eat 30 grams of fiber per day. Both groups ended up eating the same amount of fiber per day (19 grams), and both groups lost weight. At the end of a year, the AHA diet group lost more (an average of 5.6 pounds), but the second group still lost 4.6 pounds. Neither of these studies are in the mold of a conventional intervention/health-benefit paradigm. But then neither is specifically looking at either a precisely-defined intervention (such as a pharmaceutical trial) or a disease — they’re looking loosely defined dietary guidelines and weight loss (and while weight can be a risk factor, it is not an illness). Bearing that in mind, the story does a satisfactory job of quantifying the relevant benefits in each instance. In general, eating more fiber carries few potential harms. The primary risks are, as the Mayo Clinic notes, “adding too much fiber too quickly can promote intestinal gas, abdominal bloating and cramping.” To minimize that risk, the Mayo Clinic urges people to “Increase fiber in your diet gradually over a period of a few weeks. This allows the natural bacteria in your digestive system to adjust to the change. Also, drink plenty of water. Fiber works best when it absorbs water.” This story does not outline these harms specifically, which is too bad. But the story does tell readers that they should “add fiber slowly and with plenty of water.” That’s enough to rate this as Satisfactory (though it’s clearly not ideal). The two studies, mentioned above under benefits, have some problems: It’s not clear where the unpublished MyFitnessPal data come from or how they were analyzed; and the 2015 study was of only 240 volunteers. These limitations were not noted. Also, the story would have been much stronger if it had addressed one key question: Were there any differences between groups (in either study) in regard to their age, sex, or physical activity? Any of those factors could play a key role in differences in weight loss, and the story sheds no light there. A side note: As we mentioned above, this story discusses a wide range of other benefits associated with eating enough fiber, ranging from reduced risk of heart disease to reduced risk of diabetes. We mention this because the story links to relevant research supporting each of those claims. We applaud that. There is no overt disease mongering. But we did want to point out two things. The story states: “fiber may play an important role in that ever-elusive health goal, weight loss.” First, while being obese may be a disease, simply being overweight is not. Second, many people who aspire to lose weight do so for reasons other than health (and aren’t overweight in the first place). Those are important distinctions, and ones that this story doesn’t make. The story quotes from a wide variety of sources, and clearly labels each source’s affiliation. One issue that’s not addressed in the story is the utility of fiber supplements. Are they good? Bad? Beneficial? Useless? The story doesn’t offer any insight here. It would be useful for readers to know whether such supplements may be useful tools for meeting daily fiber intake goals. Foods that contain fiber have been around longer than humans have, so we’ll rate this N/A. Dietary fiber isn’t new, and the story doesn’t claim that it is. We’ll rate this N/A. The story doesn’t appear to be based on a news release. (In fact, given that the story doesn’t seem to draw on any particularly new studies, guidelines or other external drivers, we’re kind of curious as to what spurred this story. We’re suspecting a pitch from MyFitnessPal.)
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16937
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Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen has long record of voting against VA backlog fixes.
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"The DCCC said ""Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen has long record of voting against VA backlog fixes."" The DCCC points to some votes that went against funding certain veterans’ services or addressing the backlog. However, the DCCC ignores that Ros-Lehtinen took other votes in favor of increasing funding for veterans’ services -- just not as much as Democratic proposals would have offered. The bigger issue is that most of these votes came within elaborate games of tit-for-tat, in which each side offers proposals that they expect will fail, just to get lawmakers on the other side to take votes that look superficially bad. The reality of Ros-Lehtinen’s voting record is much more nuanced than the DCCC’s cherry-picked account would suggest. This, combined with the ""A"" ratings she's earned from veterans' advocacy groups, undercut the DCCC's claim that she has a ""long"" voting record of voting against the interests of veterans."
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false
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Veterans, Florida, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee,
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"As President Barack Obama faced attacks over long waits for appointments at Veterans Administration health centers, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee -- the House Democrats’ campaign arm -- engaged in some finger-pointing. The DCCC sent out press releases claiming that Republican House members Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Miami, Sean Duffy of Wisconsin and Erik Paulsen of Minnesota voted against fixing the VA backlog. Here is part of the June 2, 2014, press release about Ros-Lehtinen headlined ""Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen has long record of voting against VA backlog fixes."" ""As House Republicans shamelessly try to score political points over the crisis in veterans care, Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s votes tell the true story of her record: when she had a chance to fix this problem, she voted against the fixes."" The release went on to quote DCCC spokesman Josh Schwerin saying, ""It’s a shame that when Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen had a chance to do something to help shorten the wait time at the VA she voted no. Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen voted against a commonsense solution to this problem and our heroes deserve better."" We put those votes under a microscope to see whether Ros-Lehtinen has a ""long record of voting against VA backlog fixes."" VA backlog We should start by distinguishing between two related, but separate, issues relating to veterans. One concerns longstanding problems with handling benefits claims from veterans, including disability compensation, pensions, and compensation for surviving spouses or children of veterans who die as a result of their service. The other concerns long waits for service at VA hospitals. On the first issue -- benefits -- the backlog refers to requests that go unaddressed by the government for at least 125 days. PolitiFact found that the backlog nearly doubled from roughly 36 percent in the summer 2010 to 65 percent in June 2012. In April 2014, the Obama administration released numbers suggesting the backlog was shrinking, but veterans groups said they had serious doubts about the numbers. The second issue -- the wait for health care -- stemmed from news reports that revealed secret waiting lists at VA hospitals, and that some veterans died while awaiting care. This is what ultimately led to the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki on May 30. The DCCC essentially conflates the two issues in the quest to highlight any vote that portrays Ros-Lehtinen as voting against veterans’ interests. We’ll also offer a general word of warning about how political groups tend to cherry-pick the records of their opponent. It’s possible to dig up a vote made by virtually any member of Congress of either party and claim that the politician is for -- or against -- anything, including veterans benefits. So, just as the Democrats were able to find some votes in which Ros-Lehtinen voted against a service for veterans, spokespersons for Ros-Lehtinen and the National Congressional Campaign Committee were able to point to separate votes in which she voted for veterans’ services. Many of the votes that the DCCC cited were procedural moves or one particular vote out of a series of votes. In most of the instances, the votes broke down overwhelmingly on party lines, with Ros-Lehtinen joining her Republican colleagues. That said, let’s start with the votes that are directly about the backlog: The votes • Veterans Backlog Reduction Act: A bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. William Enyart, D-Ill., ordered the VA to provisionally pay any disability claim if the VA didn’t respond within 125 days. Enyart introduced the bill in April 2013 and it was referred to the House committee on Veterans Affairs. It never received a vote. The DCCC said Ros-Lehtinen voted against considering that bill by pointing to a vote on the ""previous question"" -- a parliamentary move to force a vote. During a debate about a higher education bill, Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. stated ""if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule that will allow the House to vote on the Veterans Backlog Reduction Act."" Enyart then explained his veterans’ bill and urged a ""no"" vote. His fellow Democrats complied and all voted ""no"" while the Republicans voted ""yes,"" which defeated his effort. Something the DCCC omitted is that in October 2013, Ros-Lehtinen had voted to establish a commission or task force to evaluate the backlog of disability claims of the Department of Veterans Affairs. That measure passed, 404-1. • Increasing funds to reduce the backlog in disability claims: The DCCC said Ros-Lehtinen voted no, along with nearly every Republican, on a motion that would have added $9.2 million to hire an additional 94 VA claims processors tasked with reducing the disability claims backlog. The June 2013 motion was a ""motion to recommit"" on an appropriations bill to fund military construction and veterans affairs. A ""motion to recommit"" in the House refers to a last-ditch attempt by the minority party to amend a bill before it passes. Left unsaid: The overall bill, which did pass, provided money to address the backlog, just not as much as Democrats proposed. • Mental health funds: On June 2, 2011, Congress agreed in a voice vote to set aside $20 million for suicide prevention for veterans. On June 14, 2011, Ros-Lehtinen voted against a Democratic motion to recommit that would add $20 million for veterans’ suicide prevention. The GOP argued that such services were already funded, and the motion failed. Ros-Lehtinen, along with nearly every member of Congress, voted for the overall bill, which increased money for the military. The bill included an additional $20 million for suicide prevention outreach, according to Congressional Quarterly. • Medical and prosthetic research: In May 2012, Ros-Lehtinen joined all but three Republicans in voting against a motion to recommit that would have increased funding for veterans’ medical and prosthetic research by $28.3 million. Here too, Ros-Lehtinen joined the overwhelming majority in passing the overall bill. The bill provided a $1.7 million increase for medical, rehabilitative, health services and prosthetic research -- an amount equal to the Obama administration’s request, according to CQ. The DCCC also cited votes Ros-Lehtinen took leading up to the October 2013 federal shutdown. In August, she voted for a House Republican ""continuing resolution"" -- a stopgap funding bill -- that the Associated Press reported would ""likely result"" in the shutdown of the federal government. The bill passed 230-189. The shutdown led to a delay in death benefits for veterans among other delayed services, the Washington Post reported. DCCC also cited a pair of votes Ros-Lehtinen took in September, including one on a motion to commit to H.J. Res. 59, to make continuing appropriations that would have ensured veterans benefits wouldn’t be delayed during a shutdown. All but one Republican voted ""no."" However, left out of the DCCC’s account is that Ros-Lehtinen voted for in favor of H.J. Res. 72, the ""Veterans Benefits Continuing Appropriations Resolution"" -- a mini-funding resolution favored by House Republicans to reopen slices of the government. The measure passed the House with unanimous Republican support and overwhelming Democratic opposition. (Showing how both sides play this game, the RNC plucked out that vote to attack DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.) Democrats also cited multiple other votes including a few that related to housing for veterans but Republicans could point to other votes on bills that did provide housing assistance. Veterans’ groups’ report cards Meanwhile, we found two veterans’ organizations that issue voting ""report cards"" for members of Congress: • American Veterans (Amvets) gave Ros-Lehtinen an A in 2013, based on eight pieces of legislation. (Ros-Lehtinen didn’t participate in a vote for one.) • Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) Action Fund gave Ros-Lehtinen a C in 2010. The report card looked at 14 votes, plus whether lawmakers cosponsored certain bills. The group gave her an A in 2008. (Overall, the group gave Congress lower marks in 2010 than 2008.) Contacted by PoilitiFact, DCCC spokeswoman Emily Bittner said, ""These Republicans’ votes speak for themselves. Taken in their totality, they show an unfortunate pattern of refusing to cross party lines and vote for commonsense fixes to the problems at the VA."" However, we don't think the votes chosen show the ""totality"" of Ros-Lehtinen's record. Our ruling The DCCC said ""Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen has long record of voting against VA backlog fixes."" The DCCC points to some votes that went against funding certain veterans’ services or addressing the backlog. However, the DCCC ignores that Ros-Lehtinen took other votes in favor of increasing funding for veterans’ services -- just not as much as Democratic proposals would have offered. The bigger issue is that most of these votes came within elaborate games of tit-for-tat, in which each side offers proposals that they expect will fail, just to get lawmakers on the other side to take votes that look superficially bad. The reality of Ros-Lehtinen’s voting record is much more nuanced than the DCCC’s cherry-picked account would suggest. This, combined with the ""A"" ratings she's earned from veterans' advocacy groups, undercut the DCCC's claim that she has a ""long"" voting record of voting against the interests of veterans."
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35960
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"A photograph spreading online shows the ""Elephant's Foot"" lava flow at the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster."
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Is This a Photograph of the Chernobyl ‘Elephant’s Foot’?
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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Even before a show based on the Chernobyl disaster renewed interest both on and off social media, one of the most vivid online reminders of the April 1986 nuclear reactor meltdown continued to circulate online.A Facebook post that was shared more than 36,000 times on the platform in December 2019 contains a photograph of shows one of the remnants of the meltdown alongside a short description:The photo above is the closest humanity has ever come to creating Medusa. If you were to look at this, you would die instantly.The image is of a reactor core lava formation in the basement of the Chernobyl nuclear plant. It’s called the Elephant’s Foot and weighs hundreds of tons, but is only a couple meters across.Oh, and regarding the Medusa thing, this picture was taken through a mirror around the corner of the hallway. Because the wheeled camera they sent up to take pictures of it was destroyed by the radiation. The Elephant’s Foot is almost as if it is a living creature.The post is a reprinting of a 2012 Tumblr post about the Elephant’s Foot, one that is accurate about the origin of the photograph and not far off from the truth about the consequences of being in the presence of the toxic mix of uranium, silicon dioxide, and other materials — which is still active. Dozens of workers died during the explosion and subsequent cleanup efforts due to acute radiation syndrome.As the science magazine Nautilus reported in 2013:After just 30 seconds of exposure, dizziness and fatigue will find you a week later. Two minutes of exposure and your cells will soon begin to hemorrhage; four minutes: vomiting, diarrhea, and fever. 300 seconds and you have two days to live.Other images of the Elephant’s Foot have also gained notoriety. They are believed to have been taken 10 years after the fatal meltdown by a man identified as Artur Korneyev:In 2014, Korneyev was interviewed by the New York Times for a story on the construction of a $1.5 billion structure that would cap airborne emissions from escaping the site of the former reactor:Artur Korneyev, 65, a radiation specialist, at his home in Slavutich. After the accident, his job was to locate radioactive fuel on site and determine radiation levels to limit the exposure of other workers.These days Mr. Korneyev works in the project management unit, but because of his health — he has cataracts and other problems related to his heavy radiation exposure during his first three years — he is no longer allowed inside the plant. “Soviet radiation,” he joked, “is the best radiation in the world.”The site of the reactor and the neighboring town of Pripyat were made open for tours by the public in 2011. In 2019 the pop culture site Consequence of Sound reported that the success of the HBO show Chernobyl, a dramatization of the fatal disaster, led to a 35 percent increase in tour bookings compared to 2018. But one of the side-effects of that increased attention was an influx of visits from social media “influencers,” who would post “sexy” photographs of themselves in the area.“If you visit, please remember that a terrible tragedy occurred there,” series creator Craig Mazin posted in response. “Comport yourselves with respect for all who suffered and sacrificed.”
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35325
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Dutch restaurants solved the problem of dining out during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic by installing personal greenhouse booths.
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What's true: A restaurant in Amsterdam is planning to allow people to dine out in personalized pods during the COVID-19 pandemic. A viral photograph shows a testing session for one of these pods. What's false: However, as of this writing, the pods are not yet publicly available as a dining option. This is one restaurant's proposed solution to the challenge of social distancing and it has not been approved by city officials.
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mixture
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Business, COVID-19
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In May 2020, a photograph started to circulate on social media along with the claim that restaurants in the Netherlands had solved the problem of dining out during the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic by installing personal dining booths. Displayed above is a genuine photograph from a restaurant in the Netherlands. However, these photographs were often shared on social media with incomplete or untrue information. For starters, this photograph does not show a restaurant adhering to any new guidelines implemented by the Netherlands government. This photograph was taken at Mediamatic, an art gallery and restaurant in Amsterdam, as they tested out a proposed dining solution for when the restaurant was allowed to reopen. Mediamatic explained on its website that these “quarantine greenhouses” would allow for two people to dine together. The restaurant notes that these dining pods would only be recommended for people who were already living together and that this dining plan was not approved yet by the government. While Mediamatic is, as of this writing, taking reservations for when social distancing guidelines are expected to be relaxed, they note that these reservations may end up being canceled if the plan is not approved. Dutch News reported on Mediamatic’s “quarantine greenhouse” dining plan in May 2020: In Amsterdam, art gallery and restaurant Mediamatic hopes to win approval to organise fine dining in small greenhouses overlooking the water. The package is already sold out up to the end of June – even though no-one knows if the soirees can go ahead.
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1779
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Nobel Prize for medicine goes to discoverers of brain’s 'inner GPS'.
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British-American John O’Keefe and Norwegians May-Britt and Edvard Moser won the 2014 Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering the brain’s navigation system and giving clues as to how strokes and Alzheimer’s disrupt it.
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true
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Science News
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The Nobel Assembly, which awarded the prize of 8 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million) at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute on Monday, said the discovery solved a problem that had occupied philosophers and scientists for centuries: “How does the brain create a map of the space surrounding us and how can we navigate our way through a complex environment?” Ole Kiehn, a Nobel committee member and professor in Karolinska’s neuroscience department, said the three scientists had found “an inner GPS that makes it possible to know where we are and find our way”. O’Keefe, now director at the center in neural circuits and behavior at University College London (UCL), discovered the first element of the positioning system in 1971 when he found that a type of nerve cell in a brain region called the hippocampus was always activated when a rat was in a certain place in a room. Seeing that other nerve cells were activated when the rat was in other positions, O´Keefe concluded that these “place cells” formed a map of the room. Uta Frith, a UCL professor of cognitive development said O’Keefe had shown “it is possible to literally map the mind”. “He has done much more than discovering neuronal mechanisms in the brain: he has discovered cognitive mechanisms that explain how human beings and other animals navigate,” she said. “This beautiful work is heralding a new age of exploration of brain and mind.” In 1996, Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser, who are married and now based in scientific institutes in the Norwegian town of Trondheim, worked with O’Keefe to learn how to record the activity of cells in the hippocampus. Nearly a decade later, the Moser team discovered cells, in the entorhinal cortex region in brains of rats, which function as a navigation system. These so-called “grid cells”, they discovered, are constantly working to create a map of the outside world and are responsible for animals’ knowing where they are, where they have been, and where they are going. Bill Harris, head of physiology, development and neuroscience at Britain’s University of Cambridge, said the scientists’ work “has not only revolutionized our understanding of this amazing puzzle (the brain), but has also opened the door into problems of place memory and how we learn and remember routes of navigation, and what sleep and dreams may be doing for memory and performance.” While the findings help explain how the brain works, they have no immediate implications for new medicines or other therapies, since they do not set out a mechanism of action. But knowledge about the brain’s positioning system can also help understanding of what causes loss of spatial awareness in stroke patients or those with devastating brain diseases like dementia, of which Alzheimer’s is the most common form and which affects 44 million people worldwide. O’Keefe told reporters in London he was very surprised to get the Nobel Prize, particularly after what he described as a “checkered youth” jumping from studying classics at school, then aeronautics at college before getting into philosophy and psychology. “I’m still in a state of shock,” he said. May-Britt Moser danced and drank champagne with her colleagues in Trondheim after she was told of the award. “This is so great, this is crazy. I am just jumping, screaming,” Moser told Reuters. “I am so proud of all the support that we have had. People have believed in us, in what we have been doing and now this is the reward.” Norwegian TV showed her co-workers singing “Happy Nobel to you” to the tune of “Happy Birthday”. Her husband did not immediately learn that he had won the Nobel Prize as he was on a plane bound to Munich. Someone was waiting for him at Munich airport with flowers and gave him the news, he told the Norwegian news agency NTB. The Mosers join a small club of married couples to win a Nobel Prize that includes Pierre Curie and Marie Curie. John Stein, an emeritus professor of physiology at Oxford said that, as with so many Nobel Prize winners, the scientists’ discovery was at first ridiculed and dismissed, only later to get the recognition it warrants “This is great news and well deserved,” Stein said. “I remember how great was the scoffing in the early 1970s when John first described ‘place cells’. ‘Bound to be an artefact’ and ‘he clearly underestimates rats’ sense of smell’ were typical reactions. Now, like so many ideas that were at first highly controversial, people say: ‘Well that’s obvious’!” Medicine is the first of the Nobel Prizes awarded each year. Prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel. (1 US dollar = 7.2230 Swedish crown)
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33622
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An Indian woman gave birth to eleven baby boys all at once.
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That picture was taken from an unrelated news report about a Mexican woman who underwent surgery to remove a 132-lb. tumor from her abdomen.
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false
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Junk News
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Wikipedia’s list of multiple births records only two instances of nonuplets (nine children born at once to the same mother), none of whom survived more than a few days, so the alleged news of a woman’s giving birth to eleven healthy children at once (all of them boys) would be remarkable indeed: STRANGE !!! WOMAN Gives BIRTH To 11 Baby Boys At ONCE An Indian Woman gave birth to eleven 11 kids baby boys few days ago. Resources have been told that few of them were test tubes babies but it really seems strange at once. It was also rumored that 6 were twins. Doctors were really surprised, shocked and glad to have successful delivery. Well it’s a blessing of God who give 11 baby boys to one woman. 21st century record of 2012 year. The items referenced above, which claims an Indian (or Pakistani) woman delivered eleven living children at the same time, is not such news, however. It’s a fabrication that was reported nowhere other than on a Zambian “news and entertainment” web site which used an out-of-context photograph from a hospital in Surat, India, taken while the staff there was celebrating the birth of eleven babies (to eleven different sets of parents) at that facility on the date of 11 November 2011 (i.e., 11/11/11). As described by the Times of India, the couples involved had all conceived via in vitro fertilization with an eye towards giving birth on that particular date: A city-based In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) centre will undertake operations on 11 would-be mothers to schedule the births of their babies on Friday, 11-11-11. About 30 women had conceived through IVF nine months ago at the 21st Century Hospital in the city. Of them, 11 couples wanted the delivery of their babies on the special date. The operations will be performed by Dr Purnima Nadkarni and Dr Pooja Nadkarni and their team of doctors at the hospital from 6 am. All the 11 women who conceived through IVF have waited a long time for this moment. (Additional pictures of those babies can be viewed here.) A later version of this item included a purported photograph of the Indian woman who birthed the eleven baby boys:
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20496
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The fact is 90-percent of Down Syndrome children were aborted in this country.
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Mike DeWine says that 90 percent of Down syndrome pregnancies are aborted
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false
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Abortion, Ohio, Health Care, Mike DeWine,
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"Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine caused quite a ripple in the Republican presidential primary race when he dropped his endorsement of Mitt Romney and threw his support behind Rick Santorum. Santorum’s holds some conservative views, especially when it comes to women’s reproductive rights. He opposes birth control and abortion. Enter DeWine, who served with Santorum in the United States Senate and became a close friend. Now that he is backing him, DeWine found himself trying to calm the flames left behind by Santorum as he stomped through Ohio for the March 6 GOP primary. DeWine appeared Feb. 20 on MSNBC’s ""The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell"" and was asked about Santorum’s assertion that amniocentesis, a prenatal screening test, directly leads to an increase in the number of abortions. Santorum had made the claim earlier that day on the campaign trail in Ohio. Would DeWine advise Santorum to stop talking about amniocentesis, O’Donnell asked. DeWine responded he would not, adding that Santorum was correct. ""The fact is 90-percent of Down syndrome children were aborted in this country,"" DeWine responded. ""Maybe some people don’t think that is a problem. I’m shocked by it. I think it’s a sad commentary. And what he was simply saying is the government should not compel every insurance policy that is written to cover that."" DeWine went on to share a personal story, saying that his wife declined prenatal testing during her eighth pregnancy when the doctor told her that if problems were detected with the fetus that abortion could be an option. ""My wife said, ‘no, I’m not going to do that,’ "" DeWine said. DeWine’s 90-percent figure caught PolitiFact Ohio’s attention. His claim is similar to one made by state Rep. Richard Corcoran during a debate over six abortion bills in the Florida House of Representatives. Politifact Florida checked Corcoran’s statement in April 2011 and rated it True. More recently, PolitiFact national rated a similar comment from Santorum. After finding some additional information about the data, Santorum’s claim got a rating of Half True. We’ve incorporated that data here. Corcoran cited a New York Times article from 2007 that discussed how effective prenatal testing to detect Down syndrome could reduce the number of children born with the genetic condition, and how parents of children with Down syndrome were trying to convince others not to abort fetuses that tested positive for the condition. The story included almost the same line that Corcoran used — that ""about 90 percent of pregnant women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis have chosen to have an abortion."" The story linked to a 1999 study from the Psychology and Genetics Research Group at King’s College in London which discussed abortion rates after a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. It compiled results from 20 other studies measuring abortion rates and concluded that, following a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, 92 percent of women chose to have an abortion. Other studies showed similar percentages. A study from Wayne State University in Michigan examined 145 pregnancies with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome from 1988-97 and found that 19 (13.1 percent) women chose continuation of the pregnancy, while 126 (86.9 percent) chose termination. Another study examined 131 prenatally diagnosed cases of Down syndrome in Hawaii from 1987-96 and found that women in 110 of those cases (84 percent) chose to have their pregnancies terminated. A study in San Francisco published in 2006 found an overall rate of 81 percent. That data was cited to rate Corcoran’s statement. However, in additional research for the Santorum comment and for this article, PolitiFact found information that makes the question less cut-and-dried. A joint statement from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other groups cautioned against generalizing about national patterns from a series of smaller, local studies. ""No current, comprehensive estimate of the number of pregnancy terminations following prenatal diagnosis exists,"" the statement said. ""Several studies reporting older data, studies from single centers and studies from other countries have reflected variation in the number of pregnancies terminated. These studies are frequently cited, but given their limitations, are difficult to generalize to the current population of pregnant women in the United States. Undocumented observations from prenatal genetic counselors in the United States suggest that the rate of termination for prenatally diagnosed Down syndrome may vary across the country. New research is called for to comprehensively explore the uptake of prenatal testing and the outcomes of prenatally diagnosed pregnancies in order to more accurately define how women currently incorporate prenatal testing into their lives."" Mark I. Evans, a physician and president of the Fetal Medicine Foundation of America and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, emphasized that the percentage can vary significantly based on region and other factors. ""In liberal areas such as New York City, probably 80 to 90 percent of patients with severe abnormalties do choose to terminate when legal to do so,"" Evans said. ""In conservative areas, the proportion of terminations is much lower, perhaps as little as 10 percent"" in some cases. The issue is addressed, too, in a paper in the journal Issues in Law & Medicine titled ""Informed Consent or Institutionalized Eugenics? How the Medical Profession Encourages Abortion of Fetuses with Down Syndrome."" The paper cites the example of a professor and practitioner, Elizabeth Gettig, who found that ""almost 100 percent"" of women with a Down syndrome diagnosis chose to abort when she practiced in North Carolina, but the number dropped to about half when she relocated to Pittsburgh. Gettig offered several reasons for the disparity. ""First, the Pittsburgh region has a higher percentage of Catholics,"" the paper said. ""Second, there are more services than most cities in Pittsburgh to assist children who have disabilities."" There is an element of truth in DeWine’s claim. A number of studies have shown an abortion rate from 80 percent to 90 percent. But all of those studies were localized. And we found experts who cautioned against applying that kind of research to the country as a whole, as DeWine did. And DeWine’s comment was broader than Corcoran’s or Santorum’s and broader than what was encompassed in the studies. Corcoran and Santorum specifically referred to cases in which there was a Down syndrome diagnosis. That also was the focus of the research. In the interview, DeWine was asked about Santorum’s comments about pre-natal screenings and abortion. But his claim, that it’s a fact that ""90-percent of Down syndrome children were aborted in this country,"" made no such mention of screenings and a Down Syndrome diagnosis. His statement would also include, for example, Down syndrome children born to mothers who had no prenatal testing. That’s a critical fact that would give a different impression of the accuracy of his claim. On the Truth-O-Meter, DeWine’s statement rates ."
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30374
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Capriccio Bubbly Sangria beverages are contaminated with HIV.
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One of many hoaxes involving the claim that a common food product has somehow become contaminated with HIV.
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false
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Food, contaminated food products
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In May 2018, the Capriccio Bubbly Sangria beverage generated a good deal of publicity online and in news coverage, drawing frequent comparisons to Four Loko as well as speculation about its ingredients and rumored effects on consumers: Four Loko may have some competition when it comes to scary-strong alcoholic drinks. People are freaking out about Capriccio Bubbly Sangria, a bottled sangria that’s apparently getting people so drunk, some are calling it sorcery. Although grape wine, fruit juice, and natural flavors are listed as Capriccio’s main ingredients, people claim it must possess some unnatural secret elixir — like “devil’s piss,” to quote one drinker — because of its destructive effects. “I smashed two of these last night and blacked [the fuck] out,” one person claimed. The collective internet freak-out began on May 12, when Twitter user @StateofThe__ tweeted screenshots of two Facebook users’ reactions to the drink. That tweet went viral, sparking plenty of comments from other people who’d had scary experiences with Capriccio. These two separate people and I had seen a third post. This drink must have some secret shit they don’t include in the ingredients cause this wild asf pic.twitter.com/KvrnSyQ7bt — ICONIC INDY.G✨ (@StateofThe__) May 12, 2018 One of the most prominent rumors about the beverage involved a supposed screen shot from an alleged news report aired by Chicago television station WFLD (Fox 32 Chicago) stating that Capriccio Sangria was “spreading HIV worldwide”: We found no evidence that WFLD, or any other legitimate news organization, aired such a report. This image appears to be a digitally doctored one in which a fake chyron was overlaid onto a screenshot of an ordinary Fox News/WFLD report about the drink’s sudden popularity. The Capriccio Sangria rumor is just the latest entry in a long string of hoaxes positing that various food items have been contaminated with HIV. As we often note, such rumors fail the reality check that HIV would not survive in this type of environment long enough to pose a real danger to unwitting consumers: +Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is the virus that caused Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Recently, there has been report of rumors circulating among the users of mobile electronic devices claiming that various food products were contaminated with HIV. Can HIV/AIDS be transmitted by food? According to the World Health Organization (WHO), HIV cannot be transmitted by water or food. In fact, HIV does not live long outside the human body. Even if the food contained small amounts of HIV-infected blood or semen, exposure to the air, heat from cooking, and stomach acid would destroy the virus. Based on the current scientific evidence, WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are of the opinion that food is not a source of HIV infection.
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6415
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Many smartphone health apps don’t flag danger, says review.
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Don’t count on smartphone health apps in an emergency: A review shows many don’t warn when you’re in danger.
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true
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Technology, Health, Smartphones, Mobile phones
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The study published Monday in the journal Health Affairs found problems even with apps considered to be among the highest-quality offerings on the market. There’s been a proliferation of health apps for mobile phones. According to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, there are more than 165,000 health apps out there. “The state of health apps is even worse than we thought,” said Dr. James Madara, chief executive of the American Medical Association, who was not involved in the study. This wasn’t a survey of step-counting fitness apps. The research team reviewed 137 apps designed for patients with serious ongoing health problems, including asthma, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and depression. The health apps, for example, help those with diabetes track and record every blood sugar reading and insulin injection. One invites users to photograph their moles, and offers analysis on whether they are changing in a way that signals skin cancer. The study suggests that, though some apps are good, there are problems. Perhaps most concerning was what happened when doctor reviewers entered information that should have drawn warnings from the app — like selecting “yes” when the app asked if the user was feeling suicidal, or entering extremely abnormal levels for blood sugar levels. Only 28 of 121 apps responded appropriately to such red-flag information, researchers said. Health apps “should have some common-sense standards” said lead author Dr. Karandeep Singh, a University of Michigan internist. “The vast majority of apps do not have any kind of response.” Another issue is the safeguarding of medical privacy. While patients commonly enter health information into apps, a lot of the information is shared through insecure methods like text message or emailing, the researchers said. The reviewed apps came from Apple iTunes and Google Play app stores — most of them free. Each app was reviewed by a doctor and a tech expert. The researchers named most of the apps but didn’t publish their reviews. Instead, they shared them with the app companies. Singh said they were interested in “identifying gaps that need to be filled” instead of naming winners and losers. Overall, the industry needs to do more work to improve safety and privacy, he said. And patients need to go beyond consumer ratings on websites before depending on apps to make crucial decisions about their health. Health apps face a limited amount of regulation. For example, the Food and Drug Administration does not require premarket review for most apps, though it can require a developer to remove apps under certain circumstances. The AMA’s Madara said the doctors organization has been working with others to form a group to look at health apps and standards. “It’s the Wild West out there,” he said.
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3701
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Samoa’s capital deserted as teams battle measles epidemic.
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Samoa’s main streets were eerily quiet on Thursday as the government stepped up efforts to curb a measles epidemic that has killed 62 people.
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true
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Samoa, Health, Measles, General News, New Zealand, Epidemics, Asia Pacific
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The government told most public and private workers to stay home on Thursday and Friday and shut down roads to nonessential vehicles as teams began going door-to-door to administer vaccines. Families in the Pacific island nation were asked to hang red flags from their houses if they needed to be vaccinated. Most of those who have died from the virus are young, with 54 deaths among children aged 4 or younger. The Samoa Observer newspaper said the normally bustling capital Apia was a ghost town on Thursday, with only birds nesting in the rooftops and stray dogs roaming the streets. Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi told reporters the vaccine drive was unprecedented in the nation’s history. He said one challenge was that a lot of people hadn’t considered that measles could be deadly. “They seem to take a kind of lackadaisical attitude to all the warnings that we had issued through the television and also through the radio,” he said. Another challenge, he said, was that others had been seeking help from traditional healers, who had been successfully treating tropical diseases in Samoa for some 4,000 years. “Some of our people pay a visit to traditional healers thinking that measles is a typical tropical disease, which it is not,” the prime minister said. Samoan authorities believe the virus was first spread by a traveler from New Zealand. The nation declared a national emergency last month and mandated that all 200,000 people get vaccinated. The government has also closed all schools and banned children from public gatherings. According to the government, more than 4,000 people have contracted the disease since the outbreak began and 172 people remain in hospitals, including 19 children in critical condition. Figures from the World Health Organization and UNICEF indicate that fewer than 30% of Samoan infants were immunized last year. That low rate was exacerbated by a medical mishap that killed two babies who were administered a vaccine that had been incorrectly mixed, causing wider delays and distrust in the vaccination program.
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28695
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Scientists have discovered a berry — found in only one region of Australia — that can cure cancer in 48 hours.
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"What's true: Scientists have isolated a chemical from the berry of a Australian plant endemic only to one region of Australia and have demonstrated promising early results regarding the compound’s ability to destroy tumors in mice, cats, dogs, and horses through direct injections; clinical trials are currently underway for its use in animals and humans. What's false: Cancer is an extremely broad class of diseases for which no single drug is likely ever to be a “cure""; in this case, a specific chemical found in the Australian berry, isolated in a lab, have been shown to destroy some types of tumors in a variety of animals and laboratory settings; the berry itself would be of little medical value, and the chemical’s efficacy in treating tumors on humans has yet to be established."
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mixture
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Medical, australia, cancer, cancer berries
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On 2 December 2016, the web site anonnews.co posted a story with the headline “Scientists find Australian berry to cure cancer in 48 hours!” Apart from a handful of sentences, the bulk of the content was a video from a 7News Sydney broadcast from 15 August 2016. That segment accurately reported on the developments surrounding pre-clinical trials of a potential tumor-killing chemical found in the berry of a plant dubbed the blushwood tree (Fontainea picrosperma). News of this chemical — named EBC-46 — first made waves on October 1, 2014, when researchers published the results of a study in the journal PLoS One that showed the complete destruction of tumors, without relapse, in 75% of laboratory mice treated with direct injections of EBC-46 into the cancerous cells. In some cases, this destruction occurred in as little as 48 hours. Dr. Glen Boyle, the lead author of that study, told ABC News (Australia) at the time: The compound works by three ways essentially: it kills the tumour cells directly, it cuts off the blood supply and it also activates the body’s own immune system to clean up the mess that’s left behind. In extremely broad brushstrokes, researchers think it achieves these goals primarily by activating an enzyme called Protein Kinase C, though the exact mechanisms remain unclear. This study was conducted by researchers from the government-funded QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Queensland, Australia, as well as the private pharmaceutical company QBiotics. The latter group discovered the compound, and it holds the patent. According to their website, QBiotics uses a proprietary technique to identify, research, and market promising chemicals found in the plants of Australia’s rainforests: QBiotics is an Australian public unlisted life sciences company. We are in the business of development and commercialisation of pharmaceutical products that have the potential to address major health problems for humans and companion animals (dogs, cats and horses). Our products are new chemical entities which we source from Australia’s pristine tropical rainforests. Since that study, QBiotics has conducted further studies for two parallel applications: as a veterinary medicine for companion animals and as an anticancer drug for humans. According to QBiotics, animal studies have been successful enough to bring EBC-46 to the trial phase as a medicine for tumors in dogs and horses, with future trials in the works for cats: In treatment of over 100 dogs, cats and horses, intralesional injection of EBC-46 has successfully ablated or significantly palliated a range of advanced, inoperable tumours (melanomas, sarcomas, carcinomas, mast cell tumours and sarcoids) while causing no significant long-term side effects. A topical formulation of EBC-46 has also been used to successfully treat ulcerative squamous cell carcinomas on cats and horses. QBiotics has also begun a Phase I trial of EBC-46 in humans, as stated on their website: EBC-46 is currently being evaluated for safety in a Clinical Phase I trial in patients with cutaneous or subcutaneous solid tumours. Such tumours include melanoma, head and neck cancer, SCC and BCC of the skin and Merckel cell carcinoma. In this trial, EBC-46 is delivered locally in a single treatment by direct injection into tumours. The trial is being conducted in Australia by clinicians in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Details of the trial can be found by accessing the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry at www.anzctr.org.au and entering “QBiotics” in the search window. Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council describes a Phase I clinical trial as follows: Phase I clinical trials are done to test a new biomedical intervention for the first time in a small group of people (e.g. 20-80) to evaluate safety (e.g. to determine a safe dosage range and identify side effects). When shared on social media accounts, the narrative attached to much of the EBC-46 coverage has been “Nobody can do better than Mother Nature,” with some additional commentary about how the pharmaceutical industry would be unwilling to invest in a natural cure for cancer. This potential drug, and many, many others, do have origins in the natural world. It would be disingenuous, though, to suggest that the plant itself is a ready-made cure for cancer or that the pharmaceutical industry isn’t interested in developing it. It took eight years of research to isolate and test the effects of the chemical, and the main stakeholder behind the research is a pharmaceutical company that owns the patent to the chemical. While the results have been promising — especially for animals — trials have not been performed demonstrating efficacy on humans. Further, not all cancer is the same, and while EBC-46 could be effective at destroying some types of tumors, the drug will never be a “cure for cancer.” Finally, while getting a compound to the Phase I clinical trial stage for human use is impressive, most chemicals that make it to this point do not ultimately make it to market.
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10825
|
Pain Patches Making Gains in U.S.
|
The story does include some commentary from some independent sources, and it does a good job placing the patches into the larger context of pain-relief traditions in other countries. But it does not carefully analyze the evidence supporting the use of these patches, does not quantify the benefits of their use, does not quantify the harms and does not provide any cost information. We’re baffled as to why this story was published (twice – 6 months apart) and why so many outlets picked it up. (Yahoo, iVillage, MSN, ScienceMagNews, countless TV stations, etc. Just do a web search on the headline to see dozens and dozens of re-posts.) Old news that didn’t get better with time, and still spreads like wildfire! Pain management is one of the most difficult areas of medicine. Patients who are in pain understandably will try any number of measures to seek relief. Good physicians, including the ones quoted in this story, tend to take a cautious approach, attempting to manage pain treatment holistically to avoid turning a pain sufferer into a pain medicine addict. Stories about various pain relief methods need to make it clear why one method might be an advance over another and why some methods might work better for short-term pain sufferers versus chronic pain patients. This story did neither.
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false
|
HealthDay,Pain management
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There is no mention of costs. At CVS.com, a box of five patches costs $7.99. This isn’t high for short-term use, but if you are a chronic pain sufferer (a category not addressed in this story) you might run through a box or two per day. Regardless, costs should have been mentioned. The story alludes to the benefits but never attempts to back them up with data. “The patches also deliver their medicine directly to the site of a person’s pain. This may eliminate some of the side effects that come with taking pills. For instance, some analgesics are likely to cause an upset stomach unless they’re taken with food. … And, because patches release their medication slowly into the body through the skin, people also should get more consistent pain relief than they do with pills.” Note that in the previous sentences, there are no declarative statements about benefits. “This may eliminate,” the story says. “People also should get more,” it says. Is the story hedging because of a lack of evidence or because the evidence was never reviewed? No harms are quantified. Instead, the story relies on quotes that merely mention side effects. Interestingly, the story gives more space to the possibility of a skin reaction from the patches than it does the more serious potential harm. In one sentence it says, “On the other hand, people have to be sure to carefully follow instructions for using the patches, to avoid overdose.” The story should have given some estimate of how often that’s happened. The story makes no attempt to evaluate the quality of the evidence supporting (or not supporting) the use of pain patches. Indeed, it does not even mention whether there have been any studies showing the benefits of these pain patches. We know that there had to be at least a few clinical trials or the pain patches would not have been approved. Some mention of how those trials were conducted would have been nice to see, at a minimum. The story may lead the reader to think minor aches deserve treatment with a medication when, in fact, they might not benefit from any medication. The story does not exaggerate the numbers of people suffering from the condition under discussion, but, perhaps worse, it ignores the question completely. Not only do we have no idea how prevalent the problem is, there is no delineation of what type of “ache” this nostrum treats. It it good for a minor bruise? What about torn ligaments? Stress fractures? Metastases? When it is left to the reader’s imagination to select the disease, there is disease-mongering. This is exactly what vague advertisements for drugs hope to achieve. They plant the seed in the patient’s mind that there might be help for whatever problem they have. The story quotes some independent sources. We just wish the story had made better use of these sources. Why not ask them to help quantify the benefits and harms? Why not have them discuss some of the alternatives to sticking a patch on the affected area? Alternatives are barely mentioned, and no non-pharmaceutical alternatives are mentioned. “Both doctors said that they expect more over-the-counter pain patches to hit the market if the popularity of Salonpas continues to grow. Future over-the-counter options, they predicted, could include reduced-dosage versions of the NSAID-delivering patches now available through prescription. “Success begets success,” Dombrowski said. “If this does very well, other drug companies will say, ‘I want a piece of this action. '”” Readers are left with the message that people are running out to buy these pain patches because they work, and that more companies are going to be making these patches because they are so beneficial. But there is no proof provided in this story of their success or their benefits. There is no evidence conveyed that the patch is better than nothing, let alone existing, accepted treatments. From a business story standpoint, this story fails. From a medical story standpoint, the story is incredibly misleading. The story makes it clear that pain-relief patches have been used in some form for decades while only recently becoming popular in the US. “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the country’s first over-the-counter, pain-relieving transdermal patches in 2008. But the patches, marketed under the brand name Salonpas, are nothing new. They’ve been sold in various countries in Asia since the 1930s, according to their manufacturer, the Japanese firm Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical.” The story started out in a promising way, by showing that pain patches are commonly used in other countries. One of the quoted experts says that the US is simply late in beginning to use them: “If you are an Asian kid, you’ve had these placed on you since time immemorial,” he said. “It’s just now starting to hit more mainstream in the United States. They’re gaining more acceptance.” They are not novel and have been available by prescription. The story, helpfully, explains that “active ingredients include such medications as lidocaine, capsaicin and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs. The active ingredients in Salonpas are methyl salicylate and menthol, common components of pain-relieving gels and creams, such as Bengay.” This is all good context. The story does not rely on a news release.
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7432
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UW staff rally for better protections, Eyman protests order.
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Unionized University of Washington Medicine staff and labor organizers rallied at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Thursday to call for better protections from the coronavirus and to protest planned furloughs and layoffs in the face of $500 million in losses during the pandemic.
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true
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Layoffs, Health, General News, Washington, Seattle, Virus Outbreak, Public health
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Workers from the University of Washington campus and UW Medicine’s medical facilities participating in the demonstration accuse the university of failing to implement “basic public health guidance designed to flatten the curve, including proper notification to staff regarding exposure, the installation of sneeze guards to protect staff and the public, and the distribution of personal protective equipment,” according to the Washington Federation of State Employees. The “unity break” demonstration happened as UW Medicine is in protracted contract negotiations with the University of Washington Housestaff Association, a union that represents resident physicians, who are pushing for better working conditions, pay and benefits, The Seattle Times reported. The bargaining has produced tensions exacerbated by COVID-19 and the strain it has put on health care workers. Also on Thursday, anti-tax initiative promoter Tim Eyman rallied with dozens of supporters at the state Capitol campus in Olympia against the state’s COVID-19-related stay-home order. He stood outside the governor’s mansion with a computer, saying he had officially entered his information into the Secretary of State’s website to run for governor as a Republican against Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee.
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10835
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MS Drug Treatment Shows Promise
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This story reports on a potentially important development in the treatment of symptomatic multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is a devastating condition and although many different treatments are available, they have side effects and must be injected, leading to non-compliance. The six-month results of the first randomized trial of this drug were published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine. However, since then, the drug company has released newer data that has not yet been published or presented at a meeting. This story reports on the new data released by the drug company. The story fails to mention treatment alternatives (of which there are several), does not quote any independent sources, and does not mention harms of the drug (including infection, headache, diarrhea, and nausea) or costs. The story also does not adequately describe the design of the study on which the story is based. In reality, this was a randomized trial in 281 patients. But it’s the first of its kind to study this drug, and further study is necessary before it will be used in clinical settings. Furthermore, the story appears to have relied on a drug company press release as its sole source of information. Not only does the story quote the same statistics, but it presents data that is not available from any other source (i.e. has not yet been published or presented at a meeting). The story was given an “Unsatisfactory” rating on the Quantification of Benefits criteria for two reasons. First, the story presents unpublished data. The September 14, 2006 New England Journal article presents data at six months, which was the end of the controlled trial, whereas this story presents data out to two years. In the study, after six months, those assigned to placebo were placed on the drug, so comparisons to the placebo could no longer be made and the results for the drug would appear to be more favorable. Second, the story provides a main outcome measure, percentage of patients free of relapse at the end of the study, for the drug treatment group only. It does not compare this percentage to the control group. The story should have stated that 65% of patients in the drug group were free of relapse at six months, compared to 23% of patients in the control group.
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false
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The story does not mention the cost of the drug. The story deserves an “Unsatisfactory” rating on this criteria for two reasons. First, the story presents unpublished data. The September 14, 2006 New England Journal article presents data at six months, which was the end of the controlled trial, whereas this story presents data out to two years. In the study, after six months, those assigned to placebo were placed on the drug, so comparisons to the placebo could no longer be made and the results for the drug would appear to be more favorable. Second, the story provides a main outcome measure, percentage of patients free of relapse at the end of the study, for the drug treatment group only. It does not compare this percentage to the control group. The story should have stated that 65% of patients in the drug group were free of relapse at six months, compared to 23% of patients in the control group. The story does not mention harms of the drug, which include upper respiratory tract infection, headache, diarrhea, and nausea. The story does not adequately describe the design of the study on which the story is based. In reality, this was a randomized trial in 281 patients, but is the first of its kind to study this drug, and further study is necessary before it will be used in clinical settings. By accurately describing the prevalence and seriousness of MS, the story avoids disease mongering. The story does not quote any researchers or clinicians who could have provided some perspective. The story does not comment on any alternative treatment options, of which there are several. The story states that the therapy is “experimental” and in “late-stage clinical trials,” suggesting that it is not yet available. The story could have been more explicit. The story clearly states that the drug is new. The story appears to have relied on a drug company press release as its sole source of information. Not only does the story quote the same statistics, but it presents data that is not available from any other source (i.e. has not yet been published or presented at a meeting).
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2535
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Even for sperm, there is a season.
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Autumn is the time of year most associated with bumper crops of new babies, and according to an Israeli study there may be a scientific reason for it: human sperm are generally at their healthiest in winter and early spring.
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true
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Health News
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Based on samples from more than 6,000 men treated for infertility, researchers writing in American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology found sperm in greater numbers, with faster swimming speeds and fewer abnormalities in semen made during the winter, with a steady decline in quality from spring onward. “The winter and spring semen patterns are compatible with increased fecundability and may be a plausible explanation of the peak number of deliveries during the fall,” wrote lead researcher Eliahu Levitas from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva. If there is a seasonal pattern, they said, that knowledge may “be of paramount importance, especially in couples with male-related infertility struggling with unsuccessful and prolonged fertility treatments.” For the new study, Levitas and his colleagues collected and analyzed 6.455 semen samples from men at their fertility clinic between January 2006 and July 2009. Of those, 4,960 were found to have normal sperm production, and 1,495 had abnormal production, such as low sperm counts. The World Health Organization defines anything over 16 million sperm per milliliter of semen as a normal sperm count. Taking into account the approximately 70 days it takes for the body to produce a sperm cell, the researchers found that men with normal sperm production had the healthiest sperm in the winter. For example, those men produced about 70 million sperm per milliliter of semen during the winter. About 5 percent of those sperm had “fast” motility, or swimming speed, which improves a couple’s chance of getting pregnant. That compared to the approximately 68 million sperm per milliliter the men produced in the spring, of which only about 3 percent were “fast.” For men with abnormal sperm production, however, the pattern didn’t hold. Those men showed a slight trend toward better motility during the fall and made the largest percentage of normal shaped sperm - about 7 percent - during the spring. “Based on our results the (normal) semen will perform better in winter, whereas infertility cases related to low sperm counts should be encouraged to choose spring and fall,” the researchers wrote. Previous studies, mostly in animals, have found similar results in line with those species’ breeding seasons, said Edmund Sabanegh, a urologist who was not involved with the new research. “The hard part of this is really sorting out what factor is accounting for this,” said Sabanegh, the chairman of the urology department at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic. In animal studies, seasonal changes in sperm production and fertility have been linked to factors ranging from temperature, to length of daylight exposure and hormone variations. Among people, previous research has found that sperm counts around the world are falling. While no one knows why, theories range from a more sedentary lifestyle to chemicals in the environment that affect sperm health. Sabanegh said he doesn’t think doctors will start telling men with low sperm counts to wait until the winter or spring to try to conceive a child. “We would continue to encourage them to try regardless of the season, and they may benefit from interventions or treatments.” SOURCE: bit.ly/13JGdnB
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33580
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AOL is donating 15¢ for every 12 forwards of a plea from Debbie Shwartz, a single mother of four.
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Therefore, bleed not your heart for this fictitious single mother of four and her ill-advantaged brood, nor forward “her” plea to others. Spare your friends.
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false
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Inboxer Rebellion, Medical Appeals
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This version of the “help a family in need by forwarding an e-mail” plea began its Internet life in early September 2003. Once again, kind-hearted netizens were being told that by spamming their friends they could help relieve the plight of a financially-stricken family at a loss for any other method of affording vital medical care for a dangerously ill or injured child: Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2003] Dear ReaderI am a single mother of four kids: ages five, three and a half, 17 month, and two week old baby girl. God has blessed me with three beautiful, healthy children. Untill recently things were going great for us, even though we struggled financially at times (my part-time job was not enough to support us). Then, the tragedy struck on January 13th. My oldest, Matt, got hit by a car while playing outside. (The driver never got fined – it was a hit and run). After agonizingly long weeks of hospitalization, we did not think he would live but thank godness is he alive right now … but barely. He is still in the hospital in the comatose condition. Doctors say he will be a vegetable for the rest of his live, for as long as he lives and even if he does come out of the coma – his brain is too damaged for him to lead a normal life. My insurance coverage run out and I can’t afford hospital bills. Right now I own a hospital over 500,000 dollars so far. Shortly, after the accident has happened, my 87 year old grandmother, with whom I was really close (she raised me as a child), suffered a stroke and could not live on her own anymore. I took her in. All that happened while I was pregnant with Carissa. Because of all this severe stress that I’ve been through, Carissa was not only a premie but was born with Down’s syndrome as well as chronic colitis. She is also missing fingernails on her right hand. She is in the hospital as well because she needs to be monitored 24/7. Right now I am at the lowest point of my life: I don’t have a job – taking care of three sick family members that are so dear to me is a full time job – I can’t afford to pay for my tiny appartment, my car got taken away because no payment, not to mention the debt with a hospital! I know you are not obligated to do anything: you are free to delete this email without giving it a second thought, but please listen to the cry from mothers heart! We had worked out a deal with AOL where for every 12 forwards I will get 15 cents. Please, don’t harden your heart, send this email to everyone on your list. This is crucial for our survival!! God bless you all! Sincerely, Debbie Shwartz Yet once again it’s a hoax. There is no comatose five-year-old victim of a hit-and-run accident, and no premature baby born with Down syndrome and chronic colitis as a result of the emotional stress her mother endured. It’s just another leg-pull, another chapter in the “Let’s see how many fools we can get to spam each other” game. Although AOL is often named in these sorts of hoaxes as the benefactor standing by ready to ship monies to the desperate family on the basis of how many forwards are generated AOL does not help ill children in this fashion. At least up until 2001 (we’re not sure if this program is still in operation), the internet provider did have a program wherein it recognized through its “Child of Resolution” Awards in the United Kingdom the achievements of children who had “demonstrated tremendous resolve in continuing their education, in spite of chronic or recurring illness, disability, or injury,” but said award amounted to “an AOL Child of Resolution 2001 certificate, a £100 cheque, a year’s sponsored membership of the AOL service in the UK, and an AOL rucksack containing a watch, t-shirt and stationery.” Although these gifts would certainly delight and motivate a child, they hardly amount to underwriting medical bills that run into tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars for individual youngsters. AOL is invoked in these hoaxes simply because it’s big and it’s online. Hoaxes such as these rely upon the recipient’s believing in bits of shopworn Internet fiction, such as the myth of a program for tracking e-mail through a cascade of forwards and the widespread gag involving rewards of free merchandise from any number of household-name companies.
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3811
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On drug costs, modest steps follow Trump’s big promises.
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President Donald Trump makes big promises to reduce prescription drug costs, but his administration is gravitating to relatively modest steps such as letting Medicare patients share in manufacturer rebates.
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true
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Medicare, AP Top News, Health, Politics, North America, Prescription drug costs, Business, Medicaid, Council of Economic Advisers, Prices, Prescription drugs, Donald Trump
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Those ideas would represent tangible change and they have a realistic chance of being enacted. But it’s not like calling for Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Skeptics say the overall approach is underwhelming, and Trump risks being seen as an ally of the powerful pharmaceutical industry, not its disrupter. The White House Council of Economic Advisers has released a 30-page strategy for reducing drug costs, and it calls current policies “neither wise nor just.” The plan, outlined before Trump releases his new budget proposal Monday, focuses mainly on Medicare and Medicaid changes, along with ideas for speeding drug approvals and fostering competition. “Despite promises to drastically lower prices the mix of proposed changes does not appear likely to do so, even though there are some constructive proposals,” said John Rother, CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care, an advocacy group whose members include consumer organizations, medical societies, hospitals and insurers. Polls show the high cost of drugs is a top concern of Americans, regardless of political leanings. In his State of the Union speech, Trump seemed to foreshadow major change, saying “fixing the injustice of high drug prices” is a top priority this year. “And prices will come down substantially,” Trump added. “Watch.” As a candidate, Trump advocated Medicare negotiations and he called for allowing consumers to import lower-priced medicines from abroad. But the White House strategy paper veers away from such dramatic steps. His new health secretary, Alex Azar, was a top executive at pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. Medicare negotiations and drug importation are unacceptable to the drug industry, which has spent tens of millions of dollars since Trump’s inauguration to influence the Washington conversation around drug prices, including a high-profile TV advertising campaign portraying its scientists as medical trailblazers. The White House strategy largely sidesteps the question of whether drugmakers set their prices too high to start with. Rather, it recommends changes to policies that the administration believes unwittingly lead to higher prices, and suggests ways to speed drugs to market and increase competition. It takes aim at foreign governments that dictate what drug companies can charge their own citizens. Trump often has noted that the same medications Americans struggle to pay for can be bought for much less abroad. The White House report examined 35 economically advanced countries, and found that U.S. consumers and taxpayers pay for more than 70 percent of drug company profits that fund innovation. “Other nations are free-riding, or taking unfair advantage,” according to the review. The industry defends its pricing by saying companies have to recoup considerable research and drug development costs within the limited window when brand drugs are protected from generic competition. But examples of profit-seeking abound. An investigation by Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in 2015 found that the makers of the breakthrough hepatitis C drug Sovaldi decided to charge roughly $1,000 per pill even though the company’s own analysis showed a lower price would allow more patients to be treated. Gilead Sciences disagreed with the senators’ conclusion that it put profits before patients. The White House strategy recommends: —working with states to revise Medicaid rules so manufacturers don’t have an incentive to set artificially high prices due to the rebates they provide the program for low-income people. —changing the way Medicare pays for drugs administered in a doctor’s office so Medicare doesn’t reimburse based on a fixed percentage of a drug’s cost. Critics say the current system creates an incentive for doctors to prescribe more expensive medications. The Obama administration proposed a similar change, but had to back off. —changing a requirement that insurers in Medicare’s prescription program cover at least two different medications in each broad class of drugs. In some cases, that can tie the hands of insurers trying to negotiate lower prices. —requiring insurers to share rebates from drug companies with patients. Drugmakers use the rebates to help gain market share. Insurers say they plow the money into reducing premiums. But patient copayments are usually based on the full price of the drug, before rebates. The issue is a major source of friction between drug companies and insurers. —revising the Food and Drug Administration’s drug review and approval process to promote competition. Many of the ideas can be pursued by the administration through rule-making, which means Trump can drive change without a balky Congress. But whether that translates into a big hit with the public is unclear. There’s no estimate from the White House of the potential impact on prices. Financial analyst and former drug company executive Richard Evans said the administration plan would help bring down costs, but not to the same degree as giving Medicare a direct role in setting prices. “Convincing the average voter who is upset about drug prices that this is the path to righteousness is going to be a hard sell,” Evans said.
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17865
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On support for Common Core education standards
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Candidate Barge, Superintendent Barge sometimes differ on Common Core
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mixture
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Georgia, Education, John Barge,
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"State School Superintendent John Barge -- along with Dalton Mayor David Pennington -- has joined the race for governor, challenging GOP incumbent Nathan Deal. Barge is campaigning hard on what he knows best: education, which he sees as economic development. During his two-year tenure as the state’s schools chief, Barge has presided over implementation of the controversial Common Core standards in Georgia’s schools. As superintendent, Barge has supported the national standards despite opposition from some Republican lawmakers and tea party and advocacy groups. So when we saw Barge’s stance on Common Core posted on his campaign website, we were puzzled. In an item he wrote and posted Sept. 12, Barge says he wished Georgia would have realized that its existing educational standards were at the college and career-ready level, ""rather than changing them for the second time in a few short years"" and adopting Common Core. Had Barge moved away from his prior position of supporting the educational standards in hopes of appealing to a certain group of voters? We decided to do some research. In July 2010 the state Board of Education voted to have Georgia adhere to the Common Core standards. The standards are designed to better prepare students for college and careers, and they ensure that students in all states learn the same academic concepts in the same grades. Creating the standards was a national state-led effort championed by Republican Sonny Perdue when he was Georgia’s governor. And they rolled out in Georgia school districts during the 2012-2013 school year. With many people calling for Georgia to pull out of the national standards, Barge said in the website statement that a measured review of Common Core is necessary. ""I definitely want to avoid the type of rushed, hasty and un-vetted decision that got us into this situation in the first place,"" he wrote. Our Atlanta Journal-Constitution colleagues covering the governor’s race also reviewed Barge’s statement and noted that Republican opposition to the standards has put Deal and Barge on the defensive. And a few days after Barge’s column caught the attention of the AJC, state Sen. Fran Millar -- a past chairman of the Senate’s Education Committee -- took to Facebook to air his feelings on the issue. ""This reminds me of (Barge’s) flip flop on the charter school amendment. Ironic how his professional staff are all in favor of Common Core. Trying to get primary votes? So much for principles,"" Millar’s Facebook post said. We examined some of Barge’s comments about Common Core over the past few years. In discussing the shortfalls of the state’s integrated math curriculum last summer, Barge touted the upcoming Common Core implementation. ""As we move to the Common Core Georgia Performance Standards, students will get the high-level skills in algebra and geometry necessary to be successful in college and careers,"" he said. In April 2012, Barge highlighted the standards as one initiative to help improve Georgia’s graduation rate. ""The Common Core will toughen standards for our students and let us compare Georgia student achievements with students across the country,"" Barge wrote in an AJC op-ed. In September 2011, he highlighted the ""consistent framework"" Common Core would provide. We then reviewed Barge’s statements about Common Core before becoming state superintendent. In two posts from his ""On the Campaign Trail with John Barge"" blog, the-then candidate questioned Common Core’s rigor and alleged secrecy in developing the standards and the state’s rush to implement them. ""I submit to you that it is not at all really about this phenomenal new curriculum that is the silver bullet fix for educating our children. It is about the current federal administration wanting to control the education of your children, including what goes into the textbooks,"" Barge wrote in a blog post titled ""Common Core Standards - Why the Rush?"" Barge also criticized Common Core’s connection to Race to the Top grant funds from the federal government, which included stipulations for implementing a merit pay system for teachers. In an interview with PolitiFact Georgia, Barge stood behind his Common Core record and comments. And, as he has previously done, noted that the standards were already approved for the state when he took office. Barge was elected as the state’s education chief in November 2010. Before that he was director of secondary curriculum and instruction for the Bartow County School System. ""When Common Core came out we were all in shock. So no, I wasn’t for Common Core then, not because I didn’t think the standards were good, but I wasn’t for rolling them out on top of standards we had just implemented,"" Barge said. ""Once I was elected and Common Core was already adopted and set for implementation, I didn’t want to pull back and put in place another set of standards on teachers. I’m not recommending any pullback from Common Core standards."" The Georgia School Boards Association said Barge has remained consistent on his support for Common Core. The group noted that Barge inherited Common Core and has supported rigorous standards for Georgia We asked Millar, a Dunwoody Republican, whether Barge had flip-flopped on the issue. ""No, I’d call it a lot of waffling,"" he said. ""(Barge) initially said he was in favor. I think he wants to be to the right of Deal on this issue. These standards are not perfect, but it’s a way to try to improve things."" So did Barge flip-flop on his Common Core position? Barge said himself that he was critical of Common Core before becoming superintendent but was more supportive after taking the job because the standards had already been adopted by the previous administration. He gets some credit for being put in a predetermined situation, but he did change his position on support for Common Core."
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2605
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Philippines defies church to push family planning.
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Philippine President Benigno Aquino is squaring off against his country’s powerful Catholic church in a bid to give people free access to the means to limit the size of their families.
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true
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Health News
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The predominately Catholic country has one of Asia’s fastest-growing populations together with significant levels of chronic poverty. While neighbours have accelerated towards prosperity, the Philippines has lagged. Economists say high population growth is a primary factor for that, but the church disagrees. It says population growth is not a cause of poverty and that people need jobs, not contraception. Aquino, a Catholic like 80 percent of the population, has thrown his support behind a reproductive health bill that will, if passed by the two houses of Congress, guarantee access to free birth control and promote sex education. That’s something that Liza Cabiya-an might have benefited from, if she’d had the opportunity. Cabiya-an, 39, has 14 children. The oldest is 22, the youngest just 11 months. Their home is a hut in a Manila slum. “It’s tough when you have so many children,” said Cabiya-an, a shy smile revealing poor teeth. “I have to count them before I go to sleep to make sure no one’s missing.” At one time Cabiya-an had access to contraception but Manila mayor Jose Atienza, a devout Catholic, swept contraceptives from the shelves of city-run clinics in 2000. After that, Cabiya-an’s efforts to limit the size of her family were patchy, restricted by her meager resources. She went on and off the pill and resorted to an illegal abortion more than once. With income of about 7,600 pesos ($180) a month from doing laundry and her husband’s pay as a labourer, Cabiya-an has only been able to send five of her children to school. The others would appear doomed to join the quarter of the country’s 95 million people stuck below the poverty line. Contraceptives are generally available in the Philippines although they are not used as much as elsewhere. In the Philippines, 45-50 percent of women of reproductive age, or their partners, are using a contraceptive method at any given time. Indonesia’s rate is 56 percent and Thailand’s 80 percent. Population growth mirrors that. The Philippines population is increasing by 1.9 percent a year, while Indonesia’s is 1.2 percent and Thailand’s is 0.9 percent. China’s population is growing at an annual rate of 0.6 percent. “If you increase access to contraceptives for women ... you will have births averted,” said Josefina Natividad, director of the University of the Philippines’ Population Institute. Though available in most places, the cost of contraceptives is prohibitive for many people. But that should change if the reproductive health bill is passed. Aquino’s government has promised what it calls inclusive growth and it sees slowing population growth as key to that. “The president has already, at the risk of alienating the church, declared that the bill is a priority,” Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said. “That message is very clear.” But it’s a message the church doesn’t like. It says artificial contraception is immoral, and the bill will pave the way to legalizing abortion. The bill does not legalize abortion though it seeks to improve care for women suffering from complications after an illegal abortion. The church says people should use natural family planning. It says poverty is a cause, not effect, of a high birth rate. Children are being born into homes without enough food to eat because of the government’s failure to end corruption and provide jobs, the bishops say. “It’s our firm belief that contraceptives will never be the answer,” said Father Melvin Castro, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ Episcopal Commission on Family and Life. “They are poor not because they have no access to contraceptives but because they have no work. Give them work and it will be the most effective birth spacing means for them.” Economists say the church’s persistent opposition has been the most important factor influencing population policy. “The state ... has been immobilized from effectively addressing the issue by the Catholic hierarchy’s hardline position,” a group of 30 economists from the University of the Philippines said in a recent paper. But despite the arguments of the church and political opponents who decry using state funds to finance contraception, a poll last year showed about 70 percent of people support the bill. Its backers want it passed during the term of this congress, which ends in June. Economists say if the Philippines is ever to take advantage of a “demographic dividend”, when a large, young workforce is generating the savings and investment to give the economy a sustained boost, it will have to bring down the fertility rate. The median age in the Philippines is only 22.2 compared with 25 in Malaysia, India’s 25.1 and Indonesia’s 27.8. Unlike aging countries such as Japan, where the elderly put a burden on the working population, in the Philippines it’s the children who command the resources that could otherwise be diverted to savings and investment. There are 58 dependents for every 100 working-age people in the Philippines, according to World Bank data, compared with 40 in Indonesia and 29 in Thailand. “The demographic window will only open if fertility rates are going to go down in such a way that the young-age population will grow at a slower rate than the working-age population,” said Arsenio Balisacan, socio-economic planning secretary. Aquino might seem an unlikely champion of free contraception. His late mother, Corazon Aquino, rose to power at the head of a people power revolution, fostered by the church, that swept away old dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. Marcos had made reining in population growth a priority beginning in the 1960s and enshrined family planning in a 1973 constitution. But Corazon Aquino, mindful of the church’s help in the democracy movement, scrapped that clause when the charter was rewritten in 1987. ($1 = 42.0300 pesos) (The story corrects spelling of names “Arsenio” and “Marcos” in third-to-last and penultimate paragraphs respectively.)
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10601
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Experimental Drug Might Help Fight Alzheimer’s After All
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This story reports on a drug in development for people with Alzheimer’s disease. While providing a lot of detailed information about the molecule under study and how the drug is better tolerated at lower doses, this story failed to provide any insight as to the benefit one might hope to obtain from taking this medication. Indicating that the drug might show promise gets the readers hopes up without any framework for what it is they might expect. The graying of the population means that the concern about Alzheimer’s disease looms large – for the elderly, people who care for elders, and those paying the bills.
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true
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Alzheimer's,HealthDay
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As the drug is still under development, there was no discussion of costs. This is a humanized monoclonal antibody and the story might have mentioned some of the drugs currently on the market to treat other disorders such as bevacizumab (Avastin) or adalimub (Humira). This could have led to some discussion about costs because these are not inexpensive medications. The story merely mentions that this drug had ‘shown promise’ and that the studies reported are ‘encouraging’ because they indicate that people can tolerate the drug for 2- 4 years without safety concerns. Promise of what? What does the drug do? Although the story mentions amyloid accumulation, it failed to explain that though amyloid accumulation is seen in Alzheimer’s disease, it isn’t clear whether it causes symptoms or is secondary to the disease process. The story would have added valuable context by at least mentioning the results of the placebo-controlled study from which the patients in this extension study were drawn. http://newsroom.elan.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=88326&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1166655 That study found that the drug had no effect on symptoms in the study group overall, although specific subgroups seemed to benefit in an after-the-fact analysis that was not part of the original study design. The story indicated that some patients taking the higher does of the drug experienced headache, memory loss, hallucinations, reduced coordination or other symptoms. From the information in the story, it appeared that 8% (21/262) of patients participating in a second study using the lower dose of the medication had some anomalies on MRI scan but no reported symptoms. At the end of this story, it was reported that the results had only been presented at a meeting and therefore considered only as preliminary until they were reviewed. In addition, the story indicated that the study reported on was an open-label trial. But it doesn’t explain what open-label means – hardly a consumer-friendly term. Wanna do a poll on how many readers know what it means? (In an open-label trial, both the clinician and patient know what it is that they are taking; the potential impact of that on results should be obvious.) Nonethless, we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt, largely on the back of one of the expert sources being quoted: “it is too early to tell from the data from this small Phase 2 safety trial.” (Although, again, do we expect that most readers know what a Phase 2 trial really means?). The story did not engage in overt disease-mongering. The story included a quote from Dr. Ian Murray who did not appear to have a role in the studies reported on as well as comments from Dr. Salloway, lead author of the study. But we’re going to rule it unsatisfactory because the story should have noted that Dr. Salloway, according to previous disclosures available online, has received research funding and has consulting relationships with numerous drug companies, including Pfizer, which makes bapineuzumab. The story failed to explain how patients taking bapineuzumab compared with those who did not take the drug. Without this information, it is impossible to evaluate the value this medication may have to patients. The story also should have put the findings seen with bapineuzumab in context with those of the other approved drugs (Aricept, etc) that have limited efficacy or perhaps mentioned the other drugs that are in testing. The subject of the story is the drug bapineuzumab, which was reported as not yet available to consumers. It would have been useful to include a link to Clinicaltrials.gov so that readers who might be interested could learn about the other trials being conducted. http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=Bapineuzumab This story did not overstate the novelty of the drug reported on. But the story also could have mentioned that there are several similar drugs undergoing preliminary testing. This story did not rely solely on a news release.
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7989
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'It's just impossible': tracing contacts takes backseat as virus spreads.
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Faced with more than 70 cases of the novel coronavirus and a deadly outbreak in an assisted living community in his town, Ed Briggs is overwhelmed.
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true
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Health News
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The health director for Ridgefield, Connecticut, says there is no way that he and his staff of two can identify and isolate all the people who have interacted with an infected patient, not at the rate cases are multiplying across the town. “Tracing exposures of exposures of exposures. It’s just impossible,” Briggs said. “The cases are to the point where we can’t possibly trace everybody back now.” Known as contact tracing, this vital but labor-intensive process is becoming increasingly difficult for stretched health departments in towns and cities across the United States, which has more than 160,000 cases, more than any country in the world. A massive testing campaign, coupled with intensive contact tracing, is credited with helping South Korea slow the spread of coronavirus, whereas the United States has been criticized for a slow response. Epidemiologists say such investigations can mean the difference between nipping an outbreak early and effectively losing control, as has happened in hot spots where contact tracing has given way to lockdowns as the primary tool to prevent spread. Some states outside of the major population centers have taken that advice to heart, as the virus continues its march across the United States. Health officials in those areas acknowledge, however, that it is a race against the clock and that they, too, will be unable to carry out such widespread tracing if the case numbers climb beyond a certain point. Wyoming, for one, has five staff in its state’s infectious diseases unit working to identify all contacts with a person who has tested positive, and then asking or ordering them to self-quarantine, and monitoring their health. “Our numbers are small enough,” said Kim Deti, a spokeswoman for Wyoming’s health department, which has reported 109 cases so far and no deaths. “We’ll maintain it as long as we can.” West Virginia is tapping its national guard to assist in a similar effort at expansive contact tracing, and coupling that with a stay-at-home order and other distancing steps. On Sunday, the state reported 145 cases and its first coronavirus death. “It’s incredibly important that at the same time as you are doing that rapid contact investigation and tracing and outbreak management, that we do the preventive measures in partnership with that everywhere,” state health officer Cathy Slemp said at a news conference last week. Alabama, which has confirmed nearly 1,000 cases, is attempting to investigate contacts for all of them, a spokeswoman for its health department said, noting that contact tracing has been an “effective tool in reducing the spread” for tuberculosis and other communicable diseases in the state. New York City, which accounts for a quarter of all cases nationwide, is an example of how the lack of testing in January and February handicapped so-called “disease detectives” from identifying initial infections and containing the spread. The city is now limiting its detectives to contact tracing for outbreaks involving health care workers and clusters in assisted living facilities and nursing homes, its health commissioner, Oxiris Barbot, said during a news conference earlier this month. Louisiana, an emerging hot spot with 5,237 cases and 239 deaths, has similarly narrowed its contact tracing in the New Orleans area, the epicenter of the state’s outbreak, to focus on vulnerable populations and high-risk groups. Theresa Sokol, an assistant state epidemiologist in Louisiana, said that by the time the initial patients in the New Orleans area were identified the virus had already taken hold in the community. As cases mounted, she said, social distancing became a more effective tool than contact tracing. But outside New Orleans there is reason to believe that digging deeply into all cases can yield results, especially when combined with the governor’s statewide stay-at-home order, Sokol said: “I believe that there is still time.” Like other municipalities in the New York area, Ridgefield closed its schools and non-essential businesses. But the virus has continued to spread broadly beyond the cluster at the Benchmark Senior Living at Ridgefield Crossings facility, which has been linked to six of the town’s seven deaths. The town hired an additional employee to process the deluge of coronavirus-related data, but keeping up is a challenge. “It’s overwhelming for a small health department,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said. Looking ahead, experts see aggressive testing and contact tracing as key to handling subsequent waves of the virus. Kenneth Castro, a professor of global health, epidemiology, and infectious diseases at Emory University, said local, state and federal governments should start recruiting an “army” of people to handle contact investigations. “Identify and contain is better than having society shutdown. It’s a balancing act,” said Castro, who oversaw the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tuberculosis effort for two decades through 2013. “We won’t be able to maintain physical distancing forever.” (This story has been refiled to correct spelling of “stretched” in paragraph four.)
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6695
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Gala opens countdown to 50th anniversary of 1st moon landing.
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Former NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin was noticeably absent from a gala kicking off a yearlong celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, even though his nonprofit space education foundation is a sponsor and he typically is the star attraction.
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true
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Buzz Aldrin, AP Top News, Brian Cox, Science, Richard Branson, U.S. News
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Aldrin said he didn’t attend because of objections over the foundation’s current aims and ongoing legal matters associated with the foundation. The former astronaut is locked in a legal battle with family members who say he is suffering from mental decline. The black-tie Apollo Celebration Gala was held Saturday under a Saturn V rocket at the Kennedy Space Center, featured a panel discussion by astronauts, an awards ceremony, and an auction of space memorabilia. Hundreds of people attended the sold-out event, including British physicist Brian Cox, who presented Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson with the ShareSpace Foundation’s Innovation award. Branson, whose company is developing a new generation of commercial spacecraft, said in a recorded video that the Apollo missions influenced his generation. “Space is still hard, really hard. It still really matters,” Branson said. “There would be no Virgin Galactic, no Virgin Orbit and no spaceship company had it not been for Apollo astronauts and the thousands of talented people who made their mission possible.” Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins took part in the historic Apollo 11 mission, landing the first two humans on the moon on July 20, 1969. Armstrong was first to walk on the moon, joined soon after by Aldrin while Collins remained in orbit aboard the command module. Dr. Carolyn Williams of the nonprofit From One Hand To AnOTHER received the foundation’s Education award, and former Johnson Space Center director Gerry Griffin, a flight director for all of the crewed Apollo missions, was honored with the Pioneer award. “It’s very humbling, it kind of came out of the blue,” Griffin said. “It is so neat to know that we’ve passed the torch that will let this next generation take us to this next step.” That next step, Griffin said, is a return of Americans to the Moon and, eventually, Mars — something former Apollo astronauts Walt Cunningham, Harrison Schmitt, Rusty Schweickart and Tom Stafford discussed during a conversation with Cox. “We’re sort of going through a second door here. The door isn’t all the way open — we haven’t gone all the way through it — but it’s cracked open,” Schweickart, who flew as the lunar module pilot on Apollo 9, told The Associated Press. “Space is going to be much less expensive to go to, and that’s going to open up not just opportunities for people to fly, but because of the decreased cost, real opportunities for innovators to generate new ideas and to do things that have never been done before.” Aldrin’s ShareSpace Foundation is one of the sponsors of the annual gala, which raises money for Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics — or STEAM education — and Astronaut Scholarship Foundation scholarships. Renowned Brazilian pop artist Romero Britto donated artwork from his “Buzz Aldrin Space Series” for the auction, which also included a behind-the-scenes tour of Virgin Galactic in California and autographed space memorabilia. Tickets for the event ranged from $750 to $2,500 per person. Aldrin sued two of his adult children and a former business manager last month, accusing them of misusing his credit cards, transferring money from an account and slandering him by saying he has dementia. Weeks before that, Andrew and Jan Aldrin filed a petition claiming their 88-year-old father was suffering from memory loss, delusions, paranoia and confusion. Andrew and Jan Aldrin and business manager Christina Korp are on the foundation’s board and attended the gala. Aldrin’s oldest son, James, isn’t involved in the legal fight. Buzz Aldrin said in a statement that he didn’t attend “due to the present course of events related to my space initiatives, also current legal matters linked to the ShareSpace Foundation.” “I formed ShareSpace Foundation in 1998 for the promotion of individual space voyagers,” Aldrin added. “The Foundation is, in my view, now being used to promote quite different objectives.” Andrew Aldrin acknowledged his father’s absence during the gala. “We’re sorry dad can’t be here, I know some of you are disappointed,” Aldrin said. “Ultimately, what we’re about is creating the first generation of Martians.” ___ Follow Alex Sanz at https://twitter.com/AlexSanz and Mike Schneider at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP
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26981
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CORONAVIRUS: Reports of 10,000 DEAD in Wuhan, China.
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"A claim circulating on Facebook says: ""CORONAVIRUS: Reports of 10,000 DEAD in Wuhan, China."" There is nothing but mostly anonymous hearsay to back it up. Credible news and university reports put the death toll at a tiny fraction of what is claimed — 106 as of the evening of Jan. 27."
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false
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China, Public Health, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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"A claim circulating on Facebook suggests a coronavirus outbreak roughly 100 times more deadly than authorities and the news media are letting on. ""CORONAVIRUS: Reports of 10,000 DEAD in Wuhan, China,"" reads a Jan. 24 story from the Geller Report. The website is run by Pamela Geller, an activist who co-founded Stop Islamization of America, a far-right group. This is just one of many false statements circulating on social media at what appears to be a break-neck pace – far faster than the spread of the health threat itself. This latest 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.) First, the Geller Report article is questionably sourced. It says that a guy named Bill Holter heard from a friend named Robert who heard from an American friend who heard from a Chinese friend who has relatives in Wuhan that ""there may already be ~10,000 dead there from the virus."" But here’s what we know from credible sources about the Wuhan coronavirus: According to a Jan. 26 report from the World Health Organization, more than 2,000 people have contracted the virus, the vast majority of whom live in China. More than 100 people in the United States are being evaluated for possible infection. According to the New York Times, 81 people have died, all of them in China. The figure of 81 deaths was also reported by CBS News and other media. As of 7 p.m. Eastern on Jan. 27, the figure reported by Johns Hopkins University, which is mapping the virus, was 82 However, as we were putting this fact-check together, Agence France-Presse, in a report carried by CBS, said the death toll, according to Chinese authorities, had reached 106. The South China Morning Post also reported the 106 figure and attributed it to Chinese authorities. So, while the death toll appears to be climbing, the Geller Report story is way, way off. A claim circulating on Facebook says: ""CORONAVIRUS: Reports of 10,000 DEAD in Wuhan, China."" There is nothing but mostly anonymous hearsay to back it up. Credible news and university reports put the death toll at a tiny fraction of what is claimed — 106 as of the evening of Jan. 27."
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9556
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This 8-year-old is free of cancer — for now — after a ‘breakthrough’ treatment
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The story focuses on on the use of an experimental immunotherapy technique called CAR T-cell therapy to treat children who have been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and who are no longer responding to conventional cancer treatments. The story does a good job of stressing that, while CAR T-cell therapy may be promising, it is far too early to determine how effective the treatment will be at keeping cancer from recurring. Important harms are made clear. Readers get the full sense of how experimental this treatment is, and how it’s a last-resort option. We do wish the story had provided more specifics on the clinical trial findings, though. The NIH estimates that there will be approximately 6,590 new cases of ALL diagnosed in the U.S. this year. The majority of those diagnosed with ALL (57%) are under the age of 20, with a median age of 15. Sixty-eight percent of those diagnosed survive at least five years. The impact of a cancer diagnosis in a child is difficult, or impossible, to quantify. In addition to the hardships the child has to endure, the diagnosis and treatment exacts an emotional toll on the family and loved ones as well. New information on treatments that can extend the lives, and quality of life, for these patients is clearly important — and affects entire families. It can be difficult to drill down into the numbers for drugs that are still undergoing clinical trials, but it is important for stories on subjects like this one to provide as much information as possible for patients, their families, and their healthcare providers. This story does many things well, but it may have done readers a greater service by focusing less on the experience of individual patients and more on the available research.
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true
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immunotherapy
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The CAR T-cell therapy is currently available only in clinical trials, where costs presumably aren’t an issue (a point the story might have made for readers who aren’t familiar with clinical trials). That leaves the question of how much this therapy may cost if it becomes more widely available. And this is where the story offers some valuable insight: “It is also far from clear that such a personalized approach — possibly costing hundreds of thousands of dollars — is economically viable on a large scale.” In other words, to quote the story again: “big questions surround the therapy.” The story provides a broad overview of multiple trials, rather than spending a lot of time on any specific study. That can be dicey, given variability between trial results. However, the story still manages to offer some real numbers — and grounds the benefits with qualifiers. For example, in referring to multiple trials in both adults and children, the story says that some trials have reported “remission rates of up to 90 percent.” The story then notes that “rates in other trials are considerably lower, and many patients relapse.” Elsewhere, the story quotes one researcher as saying “The treatment is great about getting people into remission but not at keeping everyone in remission.” The story then offers some information on one study by the same researcher, stating “39 of 42 patients went into complete remission. By a year, about half had relapsed.” That combination of real numbers, with a sobering qualifier, is important. What we would have liked to have seen: Along with remission discussion, some extra assessment of what the research shows on overall survival rates, and how long people on the drug can be expected to live. The story addresses potential harms. Early on, the it notes that “complications can be lethal,” and refers to a study in which several patients died due to brain swelling. Much lower down, the story refers to one patient’s “intense immune reaction that followed treatment,” involving a fever of 106 degrees Fahrenheit. Those aren’t all the risks, but it’s some of the major ones. The story makes clear that immunotherapies in general, and CAR T-cell therapies in particular, are garnering a great deal of attention in the medical research community. However, while we understand that the story is trying to get its arms around a large and growing number of clinical trials related to the therapy, it doesn’t offer much information about those trials. Readers learn that trials involve adults and children (which is an excellent point, and we’re glad the story makes it). And readers learn a little bit about the number of participants in one particular trial (as noted above, under Quantify Benefits). But readers don’t know how many relevant trials have been completed or how many are underway — much less any real detail about any given trial. The story is focused more on providing human faces to the fight against the disease. That can make for good storytelling, but it makes the story less valuable for those trying to learn more about the treatment itself, and what the limitations are of research like this where children’s lives are at stake. No disease mongering here. This is a tricky one. There are multiple sources in the article who speak to the research itself, and most of them are clearly identified as being involved with the research in some way. There appears to be at least one expert source who is not affiliated with any of the clinical trials, but that is inferred, rather than explicitly stated. What makes this tricky is that the story discusses multiple trials, without clearly identifying most of them. That makes it difficult to provide a judgment call here. When it’s a toss-up, we try to err on the side of the story, so we’ll give this a Satisfactory. The story makes a point of noting that, at present, CAR T-cell therapy is used only when all other courses of action — chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants, etc. — have failed. It’s clear from the story that this therapy is experimental, and currently available only in trials. The story is basically all about what makes this particular form of therapy novel. This story definitely involved a great deal of reporting, and does not appear to be based on a news release.
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4255
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St. Louis jury rejects lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson.
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A St. Louis jury on Friday rejected a Tennessee woman’s lawsuit that Johnson & Johnson baby powder contributed to her ovarian cancer, a victory for the company after it lost three previous, similar lawsuits in St. Louis.
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true
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Johnson & Johnson, U.S. News, Columbia, Cancer, St. Louis, Lawsuits, Ovarian cancer, Health, Business, Tennessee, U.S. News, Juries
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The jury voted 11-1 to deny damages to Nora Daniels, 55, of Columbia, Tennessee, who said she used Johnson & Johnson’s talcum powder from 1978 to 2013, when she was diagnosed with ovarian and uterine cancer. She also sued Imerys Talc, a talcum powder supplier, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported (http://bit.ly/2lF7Q0Z ). The verdict for Johnson & Johnson came after three previous St. Louis juries awarded a total of $197 million to the plaintiffs who made similar claims. About 2,000 state and federal lawsuits are in courts across the country over concerns about health problems caused by prolonged talcum powder use. Daniels’ lawyer, Jim Onder, said he thinks the difference between Friday’s verdict and the three previous St. Louis cases was that this jury didn’t think the talcum powder contributed to Daniels’ specific type of cancer. Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman Carol Goodrich said in a statement the company sympathizes with ovarian cancer patients. “The jury’s decision is consistent with the science, research, clinical evidence and decades of studies by medical experts around the world that continue to support the safety of cosmetic talc,” the statement said, while citing two cases thrown out in New Jersey in September 2016 when a judge found insufficient scientific evidence for the claims against talcum powder. Imerys spokeswoman Gwen Myers said in a statement the jury followed “the science that establishes the safety of talc.” “Imerys sympathizes with women suffering from ovarian cancer and hopes that the scientific community’s efforts will continue to be directed toward finding the true causes of this terrible disease,” the statement said. Juror Luke Wilson, 34, of St. Louis, said the jury did not think evidence linking talcum powder with ovarian cancer was strong enough to require Johnson & Johnson to put warning labels on its products. The only dissenting juror, George Stair, 76, of St. Louis, said he thought there was enough evidence. “I wish we could have sent a message to Johnson & Johnson to put a warning on the product label,” he said. ___ Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com
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6873
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St. Louis medical organizations plan more proton therapy.
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Despite problems at several proton centers across the country, St. Louis medical organizations are planning to increase their use of the cancer-treating procedure.
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true
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St. Louis, Tumors, Health, Cancer
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Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital plans to open a second proton therapy center in 2020, and Mercy Hospital St. Louis expects to open its own proton center two years later, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported . Proton therapy zap cancerous cells with precise beams of radiation while sparing surrounding tissue. Unlike traditional X-rays, the proton beams stop at the tumor instead of traveling through the body. The new $32 million proton system planned at Barnes-Jewish Hospital will provide “pencil-beam” precision to target tumors, said Dr. Jeffrey Bradley, director of Siteman’s S. Lee Kling Proton Therapy Center. It will be built next to a $20 million machine, which opened in late 2013, that uses magnets to scatter proton beams across a tumor. Siteman has treated about 800 patients with the proton therapy, close to its projections of 200 patients a year. The first proton centers built in the 1990s were known for their football-field size and up to $200 million price tag. To offset the costs, the centers marketed heavily to men with prostate cancer, despite a lack of evidence that patients have better outcomes or fewer side effects compared to cheaper treatment alternatives. In 2013, Washington University was the first to open a smaller, less-expensive proton system with one treatment room. “That’s very different from other centers that went all in, borrowed money, and put in four-room centers,” Bradley said. “The one room at a time idea is a very viable idea.” Bradley and other radiation oncologists say a major hurdle is insurance companies’ reluctance to cover proton therapy. That can cost 50 percent to 75 percent more than traditional radiation, according to industry groups. “Where the insurers like to say that proton therapy is not beneficial is often because they do not perform an adequate review of the evidence,” said Scott Warwick, executive director of the National Association for Proton Therapy. “We have notified the payers that they have often either misinterpreted data, reviewed older evidence or omitted key evidence in development of their coverage policies.” ___ Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com
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29481
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Mylan CEO Heather Bresch donated a large sum of money to the Clinton Foundation.
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What's true: The Mylan pharmaceutical company donated money to the Clinton Foundation, according to the organization's web site. What's false: Mylan CEO Heather Bresch is not personally listed as a donor to the Clinton Foundation.
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false
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Uncategorized, 2016 election, election 2016, epipen
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An image circulating in the wake of the controversy over the increasing costs of Mylan’s EpiPens and the financial affairs of the company’s CEO has left some people confused about the identity and political status of that CEO. The text of the image reads: Hi, I’m Heather Dresch, CEO of the company that makes EpiPens. I raised the price from 5 bucks to over $300. Oh yeah, I’m also a huge Clinton Foundation donor. You’re welcome, America. Mylan’s CEO is Heather Bresch (not Heather Dresch, as it was misrendered), and while it is conceivable she could have furtively donated to the Clinton Foundation under another name, Heather Bresch is not listed as a donor to the Clinton Foundation at any monetary level (much less a “huge” one), nor is anyone else with the surname Bresch. However, Mylan, the company she heads, has donated somewhere between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation — thereby joining the ranks of thousands of other donors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, the Commonwealth of Australia, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Norwegian government, the Netherlands government, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, and the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Bresch and the company she leads have been at the center of controversy over the skyrocketing cost of EpiPens, pre-filled auto-injectors that are used to counteract life-threatening symptoms associated with severe allergic reactions. As the wholesale price of EpiPens has jumped from $56.64 to $317.82 between August 2016 and 2007, Bresch has enjoyed a total compensation spike that at the same time went from $2,453,456 to $18,931,068. As SEC proxy filings note, Bresch went from president in 2007 to chief executive in 2015.
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9943
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Weighing a Pill For Weight Loss
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This article is a balanced presentation about the risks and benefits of a weight lost drug (Xenical) that is currently marketed as the prescription medication Orlistat and is under current consideration by the FDA for over-the-counter distribution. Use of xenical along with diet and exercise can result in modest weight loss that may result in beneficial health outcomes. The common side effects (seen in ~70%) of consumers of this medication include flatulence, increased bowel movements, diarrhea and anal leakage.
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true
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Estimates cost to be $2-3 /day. Provides at least a ball park estimate for people about the amount of weight that might be anticipated to be lost with the use of this medication. The story explains that about 70% of users experience gastrointestinal complications and lists some. While discussion of a particular study is provided, there is no information about the nature of the study (i.e. randomized or not) and no details that would permit the reader to access the reference. Brief mention of medical benefits that can be gained from the amount of weight loss attained with the use of xenical (e.g. lower BP, improved cholesterol levels, reduced risk of diabetes). Provides quotes from drug maker, researchers, and public watchdog organization Article presents information on weight loss results from xenical, diet, and exercise (7% of body weight) compared with diet and exercise (4% of body weight) over a 4 year period. The story did not mention sibutramine, another prescription weight loss drug. Article includes the fact that the switch in status from prescription only to OTC is under FDA consideration. Article is about a medication, xenical, available by prescription that is being considered for sale as an over-the-counter (OTC) drug.
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24053
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Dubai is the only country with huge amounts of imported workers that's actually passed legislation to give these immigrant workers a better deal in the Middle East.
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Clinton says UAE only Middle East country to pass laws to address plight of immigrant workers
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false
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Immigration, National, Human Rights, Israel, This Week - ABC News, Bill Clinton,
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"In an April 18, 2010, interview on ABC's This Week, former President Bill Clinton spoke about how the unresolved Palestinian issue in the Middle East has been feeding the energy of terrorist organizations; and how a peace plan could lead to ""a whole different world."" Moreover, he said, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has deflected attention away from advances in the Arab world. ""Dubai is the only country with huge amounts of imported workers that's actually passed legislation to give these immigrant workers a better deal in the Middle East,"" Clinton said. ""And they've got women in the government. They have a joint public-private decision making process. Nobody knows anything about it. Why? Because of the Palestinian-Israeli thing. ""Human rights groups have long been highly critical of the treatment of immigrant workers in the United Arab Emirates -- where foreigners make up about 85 percent of the population -- and so we decided to check Clinton's claims about Dubai.First of all, as a point of clarification, Clinton erred when he referred to Dubai as a country. It is one of seven emirates and belongs to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is the country.But the real issue here is Clinton's claim that UAE is ""the only country with huge amounts of imported workers that's actually passed legislation to give these immigrant workers a better deal in the Middle East."" Known for its awe-inspiring achitecture, the world's first seven-star luxury hotel and world-class malls and sporting events, Dubai has established itself as an international tourist hot spot. But in 2006, Human Rights Watch issued a scathing 71-page report called ""Building Towers, Cheating Workers"" that detailed the exploitation of immigrant workers and ""the UAE federal government's failure to adequately address these abuses. """"Behind the glitter and luxury, the experiences of these migrant workers present a much less attractive picture -- of wage exploitation, indebtedness to unscrupulous recruiters, and working conditions that are hazardous to the point of being deadly,"" the report stated. ""UAE federal labor law offers a number of protections, but for migrant construction workers these are largely unenforced. ""At least in part due to international pressure stemming from that report, the UAE released new draft labor laws in 2007 to help protect migrant workers. In August of that year, the New York Times reported that regulators in the UAE have ""enforced midday sun breaks, improved health benefits, upgraded living conditions and cracked down on employers brazen enough to stop paying workers at all."" And in April 2009, Gulf News (UAE) reported that the Ministry of Labour planned to introduce ""new rules for labor accommodation standards and a fresh mechanism to ensure payment of salaries, to protect workers' rights and improve their conditions. ""So that's the legislation that Clinton was referring to.But despite those new laws, immigrant workers are still being widely mistreated, several human rights groups contend. ""The passing of these laws in the UAE has not given workers a 'better deal,' "" stated Samer Muscati, Human Rights Watch researcher on the UAE and Iraq, in an e-mail interview with PolitiFact. ""Especially with the current economic downturn, we see that migrant workers are still the most vulnerable in that society. Despite the passage of laws, we see little enforcement. Under UAE law, and international law, passport confiscation by employers is illegal but the practice is still widespread. The same for recruitment fees, the reason for migrant worker indebtedness. ""In January, Human Rights Watch issued another report saying the economic downturn had led to further deterioration of human rights for migrant workers. A news account of the report cited an official at the UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying the report ""has major drawbacks and fails to adequately record the positive steps taken by the UAE with regard to labor and human-trafficking issues, not just in 2009, but also in the last few years."" The UAE was ""not averse to admitting its failures"", the official added, ""but finds it unsettling when genuine efforts and constructive results find little or no recognition in reports such as the one released by the Human Rights Watch. ""However, in addition to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the U.S. Bureau of Democracy and Human Rights continue to highlight the plight of foreign workers in all of the Gulf states, including the UAE, said Christopher M. Davidson, an expert on the region at Durham University in England and author of Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success. In an e-mail interview with PolitiFact, Davidson called Clinton's statement ""heavy spin. ""The day after Clinton made his statement on This Week, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, criticized the treatment of an estimated 12 million foreign workers in the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE). ""Reports concerning this region consistently cite ongoing practices of unlawful confiscation of passports, withholding of wages and exploitation by unscrupulous recruitment agencies and employers,"" Pillay said. ""The situation of migrant domestic workers is of particular concern because their isolation in private homes makes them even more vulnerable to physical, psychological and sexual violence. They may also experience inadequate living and working conditions and violations of the right to health. Some are held in prolonged detention after they escape abusive employers, and may be unable to obtain access to judicial recourse and effective remedies for their plight. ""Said Davidson: ""I would agree that despite some superficial legal protections that have been introduced in the UAE (and other Gulf states), these practices remain rampant. ""Pillay did give a nod to the efforts of the UAE and several of the Persian Gulf countries for attempting to address some these problems with new or amended labor laws, and enhanced inspections. In an e-mail interview with PolitiFact, Jim Krane, author of City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism agreed that ""there have been some actions in Dubai to improve the lot of these 'imported workers' that make up most of the city's population. That said, their working and living conditions are still pretty bad and the legislation doesn't do anything about their appalling rates of pay. ""Nicholas McGeehan, founder and director of Mafiwasta, an organization for migrant workers' rights in the United Arab Emirates, called Clinton's statement ""nonsense, pure and simple. ""The new labor laws drafted by the UAE in 2007 were highly criticized at the time as essentially no different from the existing labor law which dated from 1980, McGeehan said; and no new legislation was ever implemented. ""The UAE does pass quasi-legal ministerial directives from time to time, largely in response to international criticism,"" McGeehan said. ""These are of dubious legal character and have no effect. For example, a law was passed to fine companies who were making workers work through the mid-summer heat in 2005. No firms were ever prosecuted. """"So to summarize,"" McGeehan said, ""no legislation has been passed to protect workers, the situation has actually gotten worse, in contrast to the government's PR-driven rhetoric, and the U.S.'s political and business interests in the region compromise its public statements on the issue. ""Lastly, we draw your attention to the 2009 human rights report on the UAE issued on March 11, 2010, by the U.S. State Department (headed, of course, by Hillary Clinton). The report credits the UAE government making efforts to enhance protections for migrant workers. But overall, the report doesn't paint a pretty picture:• ""Some women from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Philippines migrated willingly to the country to work as domestic servants, but some faced debt bondage to recruiters; conditions of involuntary servitude, such as excessive work hours without pay; verbal, mental, physical, or sexual abuse; and restrictions on movement. Men from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who came to the country to work in the construction industry occasionally were subject to involuntary servitude and debt bondage to pay recruitment costs. It was illegal but customary for employers to take custody of workers' passports. ""• ""Some employment agents continued to bring numerous foreign workers to the country to work under forced or compulsory conditions, and there continued to be reports of worker suicides. Some women were brought to the country under false promises of legitimate employment and forced into prostitution. Low-paid unskilled and semi-skilled workers were also victims of contract switching, which occurred when a worker was offered a certain position but received a visa labor card for a different position."" • ""Foreign workers frequently did not receive their wages, sometimes for extended periods."" The report noted that the Ministry of Labor sought to alleviate the problem of unpaid wages by requiring companies to direct deposit laborers' salaries into a bank. The deadline to comply is this May (though as of August 2009, just 500,000 of the 4 million foreign workers were paid this way).• ""Despite efforts to improve housing facilities, some low-skilled and foreign employees continued to face substandard living conditions, including overcrowded apartments or lodging in unsafe and unhygienic 'labor camps,' which sometimes lacked electricity, potable water, and adequate cooking and bathing facilities. Construction of newer worker accommodations was ongoing. ""Several human rights watchers also took issue with Bill Clinton pointing out that Dubai has women in the government. It's true, Davidson said, that the federal government of the UAE has four female ministers, all appointed, ""but most analysts concur that this was a UAE effort to pacify foreign observers."" Added Muscati: ""Having women in government is not indicative of women's rights. The UAE is not a democracy but a monarchy dominated by men. ""Davidson pointed to Pillay's statement from the Gulf states this week: ""Discriminatory barriers continue to hamper women’s right to shape their own lives and choices, and fully participate in public life and be part of public debates that influence the direction of a nation. ""But again, our focus is the claim Clinton made about immigrant workers, and that the UAE is the only Middle East country that has passed legislation to improve the lot of a large population of imported workers. The UAE government did pass labor laws designed to help protect immigrant workers. But they aren't the only Gulf country to do so. Bahrain, for example, took the lead in changing sponsorship laws. And human rights groups say that despite passing the laws, the UAE has not done enough to enforce them, and that exploitation of immigrant workers is still rampant in the UAE -- perhaps even more so now than before the laws due to the economic downtown. UAE officials say those reports ignore genuine efforts to improve conditions for immigrant workers. But even the U.S. State Department's report suggests the UAE has a long way to go on this issue. In short, that's an awful lot of context left out by Clinton. He implies that the Israeli-Palenstinian conflict has crowded out some good news in the region. But the evidence suggests the news still isn't all that good."
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6883
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Niece: Family won’t take in Elizabeth Smart’s kidnapper.
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Once an accomplished organ player in Salt Lake City, Wanda Barzee became a disturbing figure for members of her own family after she helped in the 2002 kidnapping of then-teenager Elizabeth Smart.
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true
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AP Top News, Prisons, Health, Utah, Crime, Elizabeth Smart, Kidnapping, Salt Lake City, North America, U.S. News
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Days before the 72-year-old woman is released from prison, looming fears about whether she remains a threat and calls to keep her off the streets bring up deep-rooted questions about mental-health treatment in the nation’s prisons, an expert said. And details of the crime still horrify Barzee’s niece, Tina Mace. “It just makes you ill. How could anyone do that?” she said. Her aunt played the organ at her wedding decades ago, before Barzee joined Mitchell as he acted on his so-called revelations from God. Like Smart, Mace is alarmed by the surprise announcement this week by Utah authorities, who said they had miscalculated her aunt’s sentence and would release her from prison on Sept. 19 “From what I know, no family can take her in or would take her in,” Mace said. Federal agents have found a place for Barzee to live when she starts her five-year supervised release, said Eric Anderson, the deputy chief U.S. Probation Officer for Utah. He declined comment on whether she will be in a private home or a facility, but she “will not be homeless,” he said. Barzee has served the 15-year sentence she got in a plea deal the year she testified against street preacher Brian David Mitchell, her then-husband who kidnapped the girl from her bedroom at knifepoint. During her months in captivity, Smart said the older woman sat nearby and encouraged her husband as he raped the teenager. Smart is now a 30-year-old speaker and activist who said Thursday she’s deeply concerned that Barzee remains a threat, citing her refusal to cooperate with mental-health treatment in prison and reports that she may still harbor Mitchell’s beliefs. Smart called for authorities to consider carefully whether inmates have been successfully treated before they are released. But large-scale changes requiring rehabilitation could pose troubling questions, said Rebecca Weiss, an assistant professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “We could be incarcerating someone indefinitely who has served their sentence,” she said. Treating the disproportionate number of people with mental illness in U.S. prisons — many of whom are not violent — is among the system’s biggest challenges. While there is a need to protect the public, inmates also have the right to refuse treatment. “The degree to which our prisons succeed in rehabilitation is questionable,” Weiss said. “We’re putting a lot on a system that is overloaded with fairly unclear goals.” Repeat violent sex offenders can be civilly committed in the federal system, but that requires a series of evaluations and a judge’s decision that they pose an imminent risk, Anderson said. Barzee’s lawyer has maintained she’s not a threat. Attorney Scott Williams did not immediately return a message seeking comment. Prison officials declined to discuss her behavior behind bars or relay an interview request. She was treated at the Utah State Hospital for about five years following her arrest. She testified in 2010 against Mitchell. Barzee described a “hellish” first year of marriage that eased after she “learned to be submissive and obedient,” and his later pronouncement that it was “God’s will” they sell their possessions and travel the country wearing long robes. Eventually, Mitchell kidnapped then-14-year-old Smart, forced her into a polygamous “marriage” and raped her almost daily. She was found nine months later, while walking with Barzee and Mitchell on a street in the Salt Lake City suburb of Sandy. Barzee’s testimony against him seemed like a turning point, but her mental state appears to have changed in her subsequent years in federal and state prisons, Mace said. Mitchell is serving a life sentence. Looking back on the captivity, Smart said Thursday that she believes the older woman who treated her as a “handmaiden” and a “slave” was manipulated by her husband at times. “But she, in her own right, abused me as much as he did.”
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