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2907
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Medtronic's novel hypertension device fails in trials.
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Medtronic Inc’s experimental device to treat high blood pressure failed to meet its main goal in a clinical trial, sending the company’s shares down nearly 5 percent.
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true
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Health News
|
The device, known as renal denervation system, is aimed at high blood pressure-patients who are resistant to traditional drug therapies and works by deadening nerves in kidneys. Analysts called the trial results disappointing, even though they did not have very high sales expectations from the device. “The impact of this news on Medtronic should be modest as we only model worldwide revenues (from the device) of ... 1.2 percent of total company sales in 2018,” Wells Fargo Securities analyst Larry Biegelsen wrote in a note. However, despite meeting its main safety goal in the trial, Medtronic said it would halt ongoing trials of the device in the United States, Japan and India. The device was launched in Europe in April 2010, but its adoption was slow as austere governments were reluctant to pay for the unconventional technology. Several other medical device makers, including St Jude Medical Inc and Covidien, are also making devices aimed at treating high blood pressure. These devices work by creating tiny scars along nerves in the kidneys - organs that play a pivotal role in regulating blood pressure by sending signals to the brain that can cause blood vessels to constrict. This scarring process is carried out by threading a catheter through the renal arteries from the groin. It deadens the nerves and decreases blood pressure. Medtronic shares were down 2.5 percent at $59.29 in late morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange. They touched a low of $57.92 earlier in the session.
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9586
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Novartis asthma pill shows promise in small trial
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This brief story is one of two we’re reviewing this week about a clinical trial for fevipiprant, an asthma pill under development by Novartis Pharmaceuticals. The piece refrains from the puffery of a similar story in Medical Daily which we also reviewed. In particular, its headline keeps reader expectations in check by stating the pill shows promise in a “small trial.” The story itself does an admirable job of describing how this pill fits into a climate of innovation in asthma treatment. Still, it should have addressed the potential cost of this pill and garnered quotes from experts who are not involved in the study. The possibility of taking a pill instead of using an inhaler to control symptoms would surely be welcome news to millions of asthma patients. One in 12 Americans — 17.7 million adults and 6.3 million children — has asthma, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the incurable disease costs the U.S. about $56 billion in medical costs, lost school and work days, and early deaths in 2007. A story about a new, easier-to-take drug would be of interest to many people, which is why news reporting should go beyond regurgitation of the news release material. This story, while brief, did appear to do so.
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true
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asthma
|
The story does not address how much fevipiprant might cost and how it might compete with currently available treatments. A 2013 story in the New York Times reported that asthma inhalers ranged from $50 per month for one of the oldest drugs to as much as $350, with prices being buoyed in recent years by patent extensions. The story reported that fevipiprant “reduced a biological marker of asthma nearly five-fold in the 12-week trial involving 61 patients.” It states: “The Novartis pill works in a very precise way to block the action of inflammatory cells called eosinophils.” The story mentions that that no serious adverse events were reported in the trial. It would have been useful to note that 12 weeks is too little time to determine how an asthma drug might affect patients over decades of use. The story acknowledges that this is was a “small” trial and that more research is needed, and it correctly states what was being studied: A biological marker of asthma (and not actual symptoms or respiratory function, which a Medical Daily story we also reviewed got wrong). The story does not engage in disease-mongering. The story doesn’t contain comments from outside experts who could put some perspective on the trial results and explain what this might mean for patients. The story could have let readers know that funding came from Novartis, as well as a European Union grant program, and the Leicester (U.K.) National Institute for Health Research Respiratory Biomedical Research unit. Several researchers involved in the trial reported receiving financial compensation from Novartis and other drug companies. The story does a great job here. It mentions that pills were standard treatment for asthma decades ago, but were replaced with inhalers that deliver drugs directly into the lungs. It also mentions that drugmakers recently launched injectable drugs for severe asthma that also target eosinophils and “are developing improved asthma inhalers, including ‘smart’ devices with sensors that monitor use.” The story could have elaborated on how inhalers might compare to pills in terms of safety and efficacy, and mentioned there are other new drugs (known as leukotrene receptor antagonists) that are also available as pills. We believe the story attempts to give a realistic take, stating more study is needed to show that the drug can reduce severe asthma attacks. It also states Novartis “believes the medicine could be filed for regulatory approval in around 2019.” While this may or may not be accurate, it does let readers know that availability isn’t around the corner. The story says it’s the first asthma pill in decades—-that’s not correct. In recent years, several new drugs known as leukotriene receptor antagonists have come on the market as tablets. (The statement about this being the first pill in decades appears to come from the news release, which we also reviewed.) The story does not appear to rely solely on the news release, which we also reviewed.
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10388
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Oramed Announces Positive Top-Line Results from Phase IIb Oral Insulin Study
|
This is a news release about progress toward a long-elusive goal — a pill form of insulin that eliminates the need for injections. It describes what appears to be a well-designed, randomized clinical trial powered with enough patients to achieve a significant result. Although it cites percent reduction in blood glucose values, it might have been stronger had it also included absolute reductions — from what to what. And it could have been more specific about what possible side effects might have been of concern. The release also lacks context for understanding how the new drug’s effects might compare with those of injectable insulin or other drugs used in this clinical situation. A Reuters story on the drug, which seemed to rely heavily on this news release, was also reviewed by HealthNewsReview.org. The first line treatment for type 2 diabetes is usually weight loss (for those who are overweight) plus metformin. However, many people with diabetes are unable to achieve control of blood glucose with these measures, and a second drug must be added. Injectable night-time insulin is one option, but many people balk at the idea of giving themselves a shot every night. The potential to deliver insulin in pill form would be a welcome alternative — if future trials bear out its usefulness.
|
mixture
|
diabetes,industry/commercial news releases
|
The story does not discuss costs but the drug is not approved for use — and may never be. The news release contains a lot of good information. It describes the study of 180 adults with type 2 diabetes as double-blind, 28-day, and randomized. It notes that those who took the experimental treatment had a statistically significant decrease in their night-time blood sugar of more than 6%. Had it also divulged the mean values of the absolute numbers, that information might have helped the reader determine whether the drop was clinically significant. It would also be helpful to know the percent reduction in blood glucose that is achieved with standard injectable insulin for comparison. The news release also states as a benefit that people with type 2 diabetes might be more likely to be compliant about taking an insulin in pill form rather than by injection, but it does not offer evidence to support that suggestion. “The study additionally demonstrated a good safety profile with no drug-related serious adverse events,” we are told. The news release does not say what a “good safety profile” means, nor does it say whether any not-so serious adverse events may have occurred. It would be especially important to report hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), which is a common complication of injectable insulin therapy. The news release describes the design of the study well. But it would have been stronger had it included absolute numbers in describing the reduction of blood sugar levels. And it would have helped to know whether the 6.47% drop in blood sugar was enough to move patients into the range of normal blood sugars. Is a 6.4% reduction in glucose large enough to achieve reduction in long-term complications of diabetes? Although this study is not designed to examine long-term outcomes of therapy, it could have provided more context that showed how the percentage of glucose reduction correlates with reduction in complications. The news release does not say how common type 2 diabetes is and therefore cannot be accused of disease mongering. But the figures are astounding, with a quadrupling of cases since 1980, according to the World Health Organization. The news release states that Oramed Pharmaceuticals conducted the study. The release does not say whether an insulin pill would be better than other ways of lowering blood sugar, such as exercise, diet or sulfonylurea drugs which stimulate the pancreas to release more insulin. The news release makes it clear that the drug remains experimental. The news release notes that this drug would be the first oral form of insulin for type 2 diabetes. The release doesn’t include unjustifiable language.
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17920
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Obamacare will question your sex life.
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"McCaughey says in ""Obamacare will question your sex life"" that you can thank the president’s health law for questions about your sexual activity, even if your doctor finds them unnecessary. She suggests it’s part of Obamacare’s move toward electronic health records. But incentives for electronic health records were part of the Recovery Act, not Obamacare. And they don’t require participating doctors to ask questions about your sex life. McCaughey frames her concern for patient privacy with an evidence-free attack on Obamacare that veers toward the ridiculous."
|
false
|
National, Health Care, Privacy Issues, Betsy McCaughey,
|
"""Obamacare will question your sex life,"" says a New York Post headline this week. The opinion piece underneath, written by former lieutenant governor of New York Betsy McCaughey, author of Beating Obamacare, begins: ""‘Are you sexually active? If so, with one partner, multiple partners or same-sex partners?’ ""Be ready to answer those questions and more the next time you go to the doctor, whether it’s the dermatologist or the cardiologist and no matter if the questions are unrelated to why you’re seeking medical help. And you can thank the Obama health law."" McCaughey then claims that the law offers incentive payments, and eventually penalties, to pressure doctors and hospitals to convert to electronic health records. She quotes a cardiologist saying sex questions are ""insensitive, stupid and very intrusive"" and a nephrologist declaring that new requirements turn your medical record ""into an interrogation, and the data will not be confidential."" Readers sent us the op-ed and asked us to fact-check it. So does Obamacare require your dermatologist to ask you about your sex life? ‘Sex questions’ We talked with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, two members of a federal committee on health information technology, and the president of a national physicians group. We reached out to McCaughey and the two doctors she quoted, but we didn’t hear back. (The last time we rated a claim from McCaughey, it was her 2009 comment that the health care law would require mandatory counseling for Medicare patients ""that will tell them how to end their life sooner"" — a falsehood.) Here’s what we learned. The federal government did create incentives and eventually penalties to encourage doctors and hospitals to make ""meaningful use"" of electronic health records. The government says the switch from paper will offer easier access to health records and data, provide reminders and alerts for doctors and patients, and reduce medical errors. The change wasn’t part of Obamacare, though. And it doesn’t require any ""sex questions"" — except for whether you’re male or female. You might hear the words, ""Are you sexually active?"" from your doctor, but it wouldn’t have anything to do with the health care law. In other words, McCaughey’s claim was utterly at odds with the evidence. ""Arrgghhh — now I have heard it all!"" said Molly Cooke, president of the American College of Physicians. Cooke, an internist, told PolitiFact that when she was in medical school in the 1970s, she was taught to ask: • Are you sexually active (with other people)? • If yes, are your partners men, women or both? • If no, is that out of choice, because you don’t currently have an appealing partner, because you have no privacy, or some other reason? • Are you happy with your sex life, however it is? ""My classmates and I were taught to ask all patients all four questions,"" she said. ""I am not saying that we always did it, but these questions are as old as the hills."" The rationale is that patients’ answers may reveal important information about their health, safety and well-being, she said. Her medical practice happens to focus on patients with HIV and other complex chronic illnesses. But let’s say some doctors, such as the cardiologist quoted by McCaughey, find such questions ""insensitive, stupid and very intrusive."" McCaughey wrote that the president’s ""reforms"" aim to ""turn doctors into government agents, pressuring them financially to ask questions they consider inappropriate and unnecessary."" Yet that cardiologist could earn government incentives for meaningful use of electronic health records whether he asked ""sex questions"" or not. ‘Electronic health records’ We looked at the specifications ourselves. The financial push toward electronic records came not from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, commonly called Obamacare, but from the federal stimulus bill the year before — the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In the first stage of the incentives program, paid through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, doctors must use electronic records to keep up with basics on their patients. They need to check for drug interactions, keep an up-to-date list of diagnoses, transmit prescriptions, keep medication and allergy lists, and record demographics and vital signs. They need to note preferred language, gender, race, ethnicity, date of birth, height, weight, blood pressure, body mass index, smoking status. The demographic information helps doctors catch disparities in care, said Paul Tang, an internist who chairs the workgroup on ""meaningful use"" for the health information technology committee created by the Recovery Act. Just as with paper records, that information is protected by federal health privacy laws, such as HIPAA, and in some cases additional state law. In the second stage, the requirements for doctors get more sophisticated, with provisions for electronic access for patients to their health information, ability to transmit data to immunization registries, and more. Some optional steps include entering electronic notes for at least 30 percent of the patients they see, and recording family health history as structured data. There’s a requirement to protect electronic health information. But there aren’t any requirements to ask questions about sexual history. That’s not to say they won’t be common: past medical history, family history and social history are fairly standard questions, and it would make sense for vendors of electronic health records systems to include them in their software. But if McCaughey’s cardiologist didn’t want to ask, he could still collect government money for using the records. What makes McCaughey’s claim even more bizarre is that it isn’t necessary to exaggerate concerns about electronic health records. There’s plenty of evidence-based debate about whether current privacy protections are enough in the new world of electronic records, and how to give patients a ""meaningful choice."" A New York Civil Liberties Union report she mentions says current regulations don’t give patients enough control over sensitive health information. A recent blog post at the website of the journal Health Affairs discusses how to earn patient trust and get meaningful consent for participation in health information exchange organizations. But the federal push toward electronic health records doesn’t require your doctor to grill you about your sex life. Our ruling McCaughey says in ""Obamacare will question your sex life"" that you can thank the president’s health law for questions about your sexual activity, even if your doctor finds them unnecessary. She suggests it’s part of Obamacare’s move toward electronic health records. But incentives for electronic health records were part of the Recovery Act, not Obamacare. And they don’t require participating doctors to ask questions about your sex life. McCaughey frames her concern for patient privacy with an evidence-free attack on Obamacare that veers toward the ridiculous. We call it ."
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8745
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Blocking enzyme could help in rare blood cancer.
|
An enzyme that fights some kinds of cancers may foster the growth of a rare type of leukemia that affects babies, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday in a finding that may lead to new drugs for the hard-to-treat cancer.
|
true
|
Health News
|
They said drugs that blocked the enzyme glycogen synthase kinase, or GSK3, helped mice with mixed-lineage leukemia, or MLL, live far longer than untreated mice. The finding is a surprise because prior studies have found GSK3 helped suppress unchecked cell growth in other cancers. “GSK3 has never been implicated in promoting cancer,” said Dr. Michael Cleary of Stanford University in California, whose research appears in the journal Nature. Cleary’s team found that blocking GSK3 fights leukemias caused by mutations in the MLL gene, which accounts for 5 percent to 10 percent of child and adult leukemias and more than three-quarters of leukemias diagnosed in infants. Cleary said only a few hundred people in the United States get MLL each year, but when babies get leukemia, they tend to get this form, although it is not clear why. While most leukemias get their start in either lymph nodes or bone marrow, MLL cancer cells can originate from both. “These patients don’t typically respond well to chemotherapy. There is a real need for better treatments,” Cleary said in a telephone interview. His team first got a hint that blocking GSK3 might fight MLL through routine screening tests in the lab. The researchers gave the mice with MLL lithium, a drug used to treat bipolar disease in humans. “It is not the best GSK3 inhibitor, but it is one that could be administered long-term in mice,” Cleary said. Mice treated with the lithium lived significantly longer than the untreated mice. Cleary’s team also used a different GSK3 inhibitor in MLL cells and found it stopped them from growing. “I think where we need to go in the future is to come up with better inhibitors that can be administered long-term,” Cleary said. That may come through research of the drug in other diseases. Cleary said drug companies are developing GSK3 inhibitors as treatments for diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.
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7066
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Murphy reverses Christie, approves $7.5M for women’s health.
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New Jersey’s new Democratic governor signed legislation Wednesday setting aside about $7.5 million for family-planning and women’s health, reversing course on former Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s handling of the issue.
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true
|
Trenton, Planned Parenthood, New Jersey, Health, Cecile Richards, Legislation, North America, Womens health, Bills, Chris Christie
|
It’s the first bill that Gov. Phil Murphy has signed into law since succeeding Christie, who vetoed the spending throughout his two terms. “Today we are saying in a clear voice that New Jersey will once again stand for the right things,” Murphy said. “New Jersey will once again stand up for women’s health.” Murphy signed the legislation alongside legislative and Planned Parenthood leaders, including Cecile Richards, the outgoing president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She said Murphy’s signature represents the start of a “new era.” Christie opposed the legislation, saying that it circumvented the regular budget process. The funding for providers like Planned Parenthood is a fraction of the state’s nearly $35 billion budget. Democrats who control the Legislature said funding is needed for preventive care, including breast and cervical cancer screenings, and praised the bill’s passage. Murphy said six family planning centers closed over the years since the funding dried up. Republicans questioned the expenditure because Planned Parenthood also makes political expenditures through its political action group. The legislation bars funding from being used for abortions. Planned Parenthood offers a range of health services at clinics nationwide, including birth control, cancer screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases. It also is a leading provider of abortions, a role that means it is in regular conflict with conservatives. That was on display Wednesday, with Murphy pointing out that his victory showed that “elections have consequences.” Richards, who has said she’s stepping down but remaining through the midterm elections, said the group will “play offense” on the question of getting funding for family planning. The eight-year wait to restore the funding was a pointed theme. Murphy thanked a host of lawmakers for passing the legislation and focused at one point on sponsor Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, who introduced the bill each year of Christie’s term. “If there’s a motto that we can ascribe to you I think it is this: If at first you don’t succeed try, try, try and try, try, try and try and try again,” he said. Marie Tasy, the executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, said the language in the bill banning use of the funds for abortions was “deceptive.” That’s because the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics provide abortions so increased funding would “subsidize” their abortion business, she said. “If anyone is playing politics, it is Governor Murphy, who, boastfully, as his first act as Governor, signs (legislation) that will use our tax dollars to reward a political, partisan organization that helped elect him,” Tasy said in a statement. Richards said after the event the money would go only toward family planning. “We operate just like every other hospital in America. We get reimbursed for services we provide,” she said. Under the bill, public funds don’t go directly to Planned Parenthood but instead go to the state Department of Health for Family Planning Services, which offers grants, though the organization is expected to benefit from the financing. Republican Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi said she would have voted for the bill but changed her mind and abstained after the state Planned Parenthood declined to “open its books” so lawmakers could see how it spends its money. Murphy said on the day he took office that signing the legislation was a top priority, and Wednesday’s bill signing was held at the ornate art deco War Memorial in Trenton, contrasting with the office-like media room in which Murphy has signed executive orders. He also signed a second measure aimed at providing Medicaid coverage for contraception to low-income residents. The governor also announced that he’s loosening a state restriction by New Jersey’s Medicaid provider on long-acting, reversible contraception, such as intrauterine devices. Christie’s budgets didn’t cut all funds for preventive care for women. In his veto statements, for example, Christie pointed to budgeted spending on preventative health measures like the New Jersey Cancer Education and Early Detection Program, which funds mammograms, pap smears, and prostate exams. ___ Follow Catalini at https://twitter.com/mikecatalini ___ This story has been corrected to show the Right to Life executive director was talking about abortion business, not procedures.
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10151
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Study finds statins reduce pneumonia death rates
|
And here’s why that’s important: There was no discussion of costs or harms, insufficient information about limitations, and no independent perspectives. Best known for lowering cholesterol, statin drugs may also have other effects that could be helpful in the prevention or treatment of a variety of diseases. In addition to pneumonia, researchers have reported preliminary evidence of potential beneficial effects of statins against cancer, osteoporosis, and dementia. But before we go ahead and start pumping statins into the water supply (as some have half-jokingly suggested we should), we need to be sure whether it is the statins themselves or some other factor associated with statin drug use that is responsible for the benefits seen in these studies. There is plenty of reason to be skeptical about the quality of the current evidence.
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false
|
Reuters Health
|
Notwithstanding one researcher’s comment that statins are “cheap” (which might not be the case if we’re talking about drugs that are still on patent), there was no specific mention of the cost of treatment with statin drugs. These include the costs of the drug itself as well as ongoing monitoring. To its credit, the story presents the benefits in appropriate statistical terms when it says, “13 percent (109 out of 847) of statin users died compared with 20 percent (578 out of 2,927) of non-statin users.” This is better than saying statin users had a 35% lower risk of dying from pneumonia, which is how many stories would have put it. Nevertheless, many readers will probably come away from this story with an exaggerated sense of the benefits, as the story never provided the absolute death rate due to pneumonia among all statin users compared with non-statin users. Since pneumonia is not very common, any benefit according to this measure would have been much smaller than the 7% reduction mentioned in the story. Even if this statistic was not available, the story could have provided some data about the likelihood of developing pneumonia, which would have put the findings in perspective. It’s important for people to understand that statins won’t reduce their chances of dying by 7% compared to people who don’t take statins. The story glosses over potential harms when it unquestioningly accepts one of the researcher’s claims that statins are “safe, cheap, and an easy intervention in terms of delivery.” Even if we accept that this is true for patients who take statins to prevent heart disease, it might not be true for patients who start taking the drug once they contract pneumonia. The story should have mentioned this, as well as the other common adverse effects of statin medication, which include muscle pain and gastrointestinal upset. It wasn’t clearly explained that this was an observational study that couldn’t show whether statins were responsible for the reduced death rate. The published paper about the study makes this abundantly clear when it states: “As with all observational studies, we cannot be certain that the effects we observed are causally related to the use of statins.” Although the story does, at the end, note that randomized clinical trials are needed to prove any benefit from statins against pneumonia, it really should have explored some of the limitations of the study being covered in more detail than was provided. Importantly, the story could have noted that individuals who are prescribed statins may be more attentive to their health (they may “ask their doctors” about the drug, resulting in a prescription) and be in better overall health than those who aren’t prescribed statins. Even the press release from which this story cribbed much of its content found the space to mention a brief caveat along these lines. These limitations are especially important to convey since the headline suggested that statins “reduce pneumonia deaths.” It would have been better had the headline read: “People who use statins die less frequently from pneumonia that people who don’t use statins.” This way they would have avoided the cause-effect inference. There was no overt disease-mongering in this story. The only perspective provided comes from the study’s lead researcher, via a press release. The story doesn’t really give us much context on pneumonia or why statins might be beneficial. It says that lower cholesterol levels might help the immune system fight infections, but most researchers ascribe the potential benefits of statins to other effects, such as reduced inflammation. There’s no word on any other approaches that might be helpful for reducing pneumonia deaths, such as increasing flu vaccination rates. And it would have required only a few more words to address this. Statin drugs are commercially available in brand name and generic formulations as indicated. We do think it’s a bit odd – and unnecessary – to mention the manufacturer and the brand name. Early in our journalism training, we were discouraged from doing so unless absolutely necessary in the story – which is not the case herein. The story notes that a possible protective effect of statins against infections has been reported previously. It could have also noted that studies haven’t always supported such a relationship. Once again, the story seemed bent on framing only positive outcomes. Nonetheless, we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt since – with this criterion in mind – it at least established that this isn’t the first research on this topic. The story seems to have taken several quotes and passages almost directly from this news release put out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine without stating this was the case. Example: Story: “Patients with a record of pneumonia were followed for six months to see if they died, and the researchers found that 13 percent (109 out of 847) of statin users died compared with 20 percent (578 out of 2,927) of non-statin users.” Press release: “Patients with a record of pneumonia were followed for six months to see if they died and the scientists found that 13% (109 out of 847) of statin users died compared with 20% (578 out of 2927) of non-statin users”.
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1438
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Groundskeeper in Bayer in U.S. weed-killer case accepts reduced award.
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The school groundskeeper who won a jury trial against Bayer AG’s (BAYGn.DE) Monsanto unit over allegations that the company’s glyphosate-containing weed-killers caused his cancer, accepted a court-mandated reduced punitive damages award on Wednesday.
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true
|
Health News
|
The decision by Dewayne Johnson, who sued Monsanto in 2016, brings the total award to $78 million, down from the jury’s verdict on Aug. 10 of $289 million - $39 million in compensatory and $250 million in punitive damages. Johnson’s law firm said in a statement that he accepted the reduction “to hopefully achieve a final resolution within his lifetime.” Judge Suzanne Bolanos of San Francisco’s Superior Court of California, who oversaw the trial, earlier this month affirmed the liability portion of the verdict, but ordered punitive damages to be slashed to concur with California and federal law. Bayer denies allegations that glyphosate can cause cancer and said it will appeal the decision as the verdict was not supported by the evidence presented at trial. The verdict, which marked the first such decision against Monsanto, wiped 10 percent off the value of the company and shares have since dropped nearly 30 percent from their pre-verdict value. The company, which faces more than 8,700 U.S. lawsuits over glyphosate, says decades of scientific studies and real-world use have shown glyphosate to be safe for human use. Regulators around the world, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have found glyphosate was not a likely carcinogen to humans and approved the chemical, but the cancer unit of the World Health Organization in 2015 classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” The jury found the company’s glyphosate-containing RoundUp and Ranger Pro products responsible for causing Johnson’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and said the company had failed to warn him and other consumers of the risks. Johnson could decide whether to accept the reduction or face a new trial on the punitive damages portion. His lawyers on Wednesday said they would challenge the amount of damages during Bayer’s appeal.
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9032
|
Vegetarian and Mediterranean diet may be equally effective in preventing heart disease
|
The subject of the news release is a newly published, randomized, controlled study comparing the effects of a Mediterranean diet and a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet (which excludes meat and fish but allows eggs and dairy) on total body weight, BMI, fat mass, and cholesterol levels. The release clearly outlines the differences in the two diets and makes it clear this is the first head-to-head comparison of these two diets within groups of meat consumers. But the news release falls short in not including many of the study’s limitations, as well as making it clear to readers that the study outcomes are based on surrogate markers that cannot draw direct conclusions about “preventing heart disease” or stroke as implied. According to the CDC, heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., with more than 600,000 deaths per year. Dietary patterns are known to affect our risk for heart disease, and represent an opportunity for each of us to modify that risk. What concerns most of us is having the duration or quality of our life affected by a heart attack, stroke, or other cardiovascular disease. So studies which actually look at hard outcomes like that — rather than surrogate markers such as cholesterol levels measured over just a few months — are more relevant to more people. Furthermore, studies which look at the effect of diet on major diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and stroke aren’t just widespread, but often lead to wide-ranging and wide-reaching news coverage. Such studies usually have significant limitations, debatable outcomes, and are prone to unjustified or hyperbolic language. This places a premium on journalists covering such studies to look for independent viewpoints, and a premium on readers for staying skeptical.
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mixture
|
American Heart Association,heart disease,Mediterranean diet,vegetarian diet
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At first glance it might seem appropriate that costs are not mentioned. However, the comparative costs of these two diets could vary considerably depending on what part of the world you live in (ie. in some locations, a Mediterranean diet is either not feasible or prohibitively expensive). Also, the subjects in this study received both nutritional counseling and diet plans which, may not only have influenced the outcomes of this study, but also would carry a price tag in the real world. Both the lacto-ovo vegetarian diet (Vd) and the Mediterranean diet (Md) were effective in reducing body weight, body fat, and body mass index with no significant differences between them. The release presents these benefits in absolute numbers. However, the Md led to greater reductions in triglyceride levels, while the Vd led to greater reductions in low-density lipoproteins (so called “bad” cholesterol). These were well covered in the news release. But the latter benefits are changes in surrogate markers measured over just 3 months in people at a low risk for cardiovascular disease. Whether these results translate into meaningful, sustained, and clinically relevant outcomes that actually affect people’s risk for developing heart or vascular disease can not be answered by this small randomized, controlled study. Both diets used in the study are generally safe for most people. Food intolerances aside, the only potential harm we could see in the diets used in the study is that the calorie quota (about 2100 calories per day) may not be appropriate for all people. Although the news release does mention one study limitation (“the fact that participants were at ‘relatively low’ risk of cardiovascular disease”) it did not mention two other important limitations; mainly, a relatively small study size (in a ‘low-risk country for cardiovascular disease’ as the authors mention) and a short study duration of just 3 months. It’s also not mentioned that the subjects received nutritional counseling and menu plans which — as with the limitations mentioned above — limits how relevant these findings may be to people trying to incorporate either of these diets into their lives. Finally, this study shows very short-term outcomes with surrogate markers (such as weight, BMI, body fat). It did not look at hard outcomes of cardiovascular disease — like heart attacks, strokes, or death — as the headlines suggest. No disease mongering but the news release walks a very fine line of equating surrogate markers with actual cardiovascular disease. The release noted “this research received no specific grant from any funding agency, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.” No conflicts of interest are identified in the published study. This study was designed to strictly compare just two types of diets. So not bringing up other dietary options seems appropriate. The release didn’t specifically address availability. We do acknowledge that while different fruits and vegetables are limited in different parts of the world, it is feasible to adopt a Mediterranean style or vegetarian style diet almost anywhere by substituting some vegetables and protein sources for others. The news release clearly establishes the novelty of this study (which is also mentioned in the published study): Previous separate studies have shown that the Mediterranean diet reduces certain risk factors for cardiovascular disease, as does a vegetarian diet; however, this was the first study to compare effects of the two distinct eating patterns. The headline of this news release is not justified because the study did not investigate the impact of these diets on preventing heart disease. Also, stating that these two diets are “likely equally effective in reducing the risk of heart disease and stroke” is not supported by the study, which looked at surrogate markers, not disease incidence or prevalence.
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2501
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Tide of humanity, as well as rising seas, lap at Kiribati's future.
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The ocean laps against a protective seawall outside the maternity ward at Kiribati’s Nawerewere Hospital, marshalling itself for another assault with the next king tide.
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true
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Environment
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Inside, a basic clinic is crowded with young mothers and newborn babies, the latest additions to a population boom that has risen as relentlessly as the sea in a deeply Christian outpost where family planning is still viewed with skepticism. It is a boom that threatens to overwhelm the tiny atoll of South Tarawa as quickly as the rising seas. Some 50,000 people, about half of Kiribati’s total population, are already crammed onto a sand and coral strip measuring 16 sq km (6 sq miles). “Climate change is a definite long-term threat to Kiribati, there’s no doubt whatsoever about that,” says Simon Donner, a climate scientist at the University of British Columbia who has been visiting South Tarawa since 2005. “But that doesn’t mean it’s the biggest problem right now ... Any first-time visitor to Tarawa is not struck by the impacts of sea level rise, they’re struck by how crowded it is.” Low-lying South Pacific island nations such as Kiribati (pronounced Kee-ree-bahs) and Tuvalu, about halfway between northeast Australia and Hawaii, have long been the cause célèbre for climate change and rising sea levels. Straddling the equator and spread over 3.5 million sq km (2 million sq miles) of otherwise empty ocean, Kiribati’s 32 atolls and one raised coral island have an average height above sea level of just two meters (6-1/2 feet). Studies show surrounding sea levels rising at about 2.9 mm a year, well above the global average of 1 - 2 mm a year. Kiribati President Anote Tong has grimly predicted his country will likely become uninhabitable in 30-60 years because of inundation and contamination of its fresh water supplies. While climate change poses a serious longer-term threat, many people, including Tong, recognize that breakneck population growth is a more immediate problem. South Tarawa’ population density of more than 3,000 per sq km is comparable to Los Angeles or parts of London - without the high rises. The government fears South Tarawa’s population could double to more than 100,000 by 2030 unless the birth rate and internal migration slows. Rudimentary huts of little more than timber sleeping platforms and palm thatch roofs line a single dusty road running the length of the atoll. Dotted among them are pig pens, chicken coops, overcrowded grave sites and the blasted relics from one of the bloodiest battles of World War Two. Bwabwa Oten, Kiribati’s director of hospital services, says current annual population growth in Kiribati is close to 6 percent, with overcrowding a major contributor to disease and an infant mortality rate among the highest in the region. The church plays an integral role in the South Pacific and efforts to limit birth rates have run into resistance. Large families are also traditional in the region, which has one of the world’s highest rates of teen pregnancy. Describing the population surge as “a menace”, Tong has called on churches to help curb growth by allowing their members to use birth control. “Religion is incredibly powerful in the Pacific and there is quite an overt suspicion that, when we are talking about family planning, it in fact means family stopping,” said Bronwyn Hale of New Zealand-based Family Planning International, which is working to promote sexual and reproductive health in Kiribati. Progress is being made, with clinic visitor numbers up and a growing acceptance of the threat of over-population. “Right now, population is the major issue, the number one issue we should face,” said Peter Itibita, a member of the Mormon Church in South Tarawa. Many health problems also stem from a lack of clean water as rising salinity and pollution affect underground water, with diarrhea outbreaks caused by contamination from human and animal waste and other pollutants. Nawerewere Hospital also has problems, with new mothers spilling from overcrowded wards onto verandas and into corridors. “Sometimes with the new babies, we don’t have the water to wash them,” says Rina Tabi, a maternity ward nurse. Plans are underway for solar-powered energy and desalination plants but the cost of building and maintaining them is a challenge for cash-strapped Kiribati, which relies on aid and royalties from foreign fishing fleets. The complexities of sea level change are becoming more apparent and there is little doubt that nations like Kiribati will be among the most affected. But it is equally clear that vulnerable states like Kiribati are responsible for less than 0.1 percent of global emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. According to the United Nations, population growth in the Pacific has consistently exceeded all other regions except Africa for the past 30 years and is likely to remain higher than the global average for the next 40-50 years, even though barely 10 million people are dotted across the world’s biggest ocean. There is also a history of concern about Pacific over-crowding, with dire predictions of population growth outstripping food production dating back to the 1960s. Barry Coates, executive director of Oxfam New Zealand, said populations of fragile atolls had long-developed resilience in dealing with resource shortages, cyclones and other periodic climatic events. “But what is happening now is that the pressures of population growth and climate change are overwhelming the traditional coping mechanisms,” Coates said. The Kiribati government has also been looking at radical options for feeding and housing its people, including negotiating to buy land on nearby Fiji. Larger Pacific neighbors New Zealand and Australia are likely to play a big role if large-scale migration is needed, and Western governments are under pressure to create a new refugee category for those fleeing the effects of climate change. A test case from Kiribati was rejected in New Zealand in 2012 and changes to international law will likely be needed.
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26257
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The U.S. had 44 CDC staffers “in China to observe what was going on. (President Trump) brought home the vast majority of them, I think left only four in place.”
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The correct figures from the CDC show that overall staffing fell but remained higher than what Biden said. The numbers also show the elimination of all U.S. staff to counter the threat posed by the new coronavirus.
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mixture
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National, Coronavirus, Joe Biden,
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"Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, argues that President Donald Trump failed to protect the country from the coronavirus when he had the chance. In an interview on MSNBC, Biden said Trump ""absolutely missed any opportunity to get ahead of this."" Biden underscored the loss of American staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention office in Beijing. ""We had over 44, if I’m not mistaken, people from the CDC in China, in China to observe what was going on,"" Biden said May 14. ""The president brought home the vast majority of them, I think left only four in place."" This is an intriguing claim. Biden is off on the exact numbers. But his point about stripped-down oversight is supported. According to the CDC, the program in China specifically charged with spotting new infectious diseases went from having four American staff in 2017 to none by 2019. It’s impossible to say with 100% certainty that if those Americans had been there, they would have been able to alert Washington earlier to an emerging threat. But not having them there eliminated that possibility. Biden indicated he was a bit unsure of the exact numbers, and what he offered was an inconsistent blend of American and Chinese staff figures. He said there were 44 people ""from the CDC in China."" The actual number was 47 in March 2019 and that included eight Americans and 39 Chinese. When he said the number fell to four, the actual number by December 2019 was three Americans, and 11 Chinese. Biden spokesman Michael Gwin said the reduction mattered regardless. ""Donald Trump dramatically reduced America's CDC footprint in China, removing vital positions that would have provided the U.S. with a critical early warning as the virus spread,"" Gwin said. Biden leveled this charge before in a slightly different way. In March, he said the U.S. had one person in-country and Trump ""pulled him out."" At the time, the details were murky. An American epidemiologist had left, but some Americans remained. The CDC has now shared more specific information with PolitiFact that breaks down the staffing for each of the offices and programs in its China bureau. The new details show that the single greatest staff decline was in the HIV/AIDS program, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. It went from one American and 10 Chinese employees to none. But the Global Health Protection program saw the largest reduction in U.S. staff. That program went from four Americans and 10 Chinese staff down to no Americans and five Chinese. The CDC website touts that program as training ""new disease detectives, who are critical to countries’ abilities to quickly find and stop disease outbreaks."" The program emerged out of the Ebola crisis and sent American specialists around the world to work with infectious disease experts and build capacity in over 50 countries. That mission directly applied to the outbreak of what became known as COVID-19. And at the time of the outbreak, the United States had no American staffer in the CDC office in Beijing. There is no way to say for sure that if more Americans had been in the CDC office, Washington would have had critical information sooner than it did. Former CDC chief Tom Frieden, now CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, an epidemic response training organization, told PolitiFact it might have. On the other hand, the timeline for the emergence of the new coronavirus was very compressed. It wasn’t until Dec. 30 that a doctor in Wuhan first flagged that he was seeing patients with a new respiratory disease. The doctor later documented how local officials quickly accused him of spreading rumors. By Jan. 10, he was infected and had to go to the hospital, where he later died. By Jan. 14, the World Health Organization was discussing the possibility of human-to-human transmission. On Jan. 20, the Chinese government declared that the outbreak was an emergency. Biden said Trump ""brought home"" the CDC specialists. They did leave on Trump’s watch, but it’s worth noting the budget factors that directly hit the Global Health Protection program. The effort emerged from the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Congress gave the CDC about $600 million to boost capacity worldwide to spot and contain new infectious diseases. That money ran out in 2019. The head of the CDC’s Center for Global Health told staff in January 2018 that the program would be reduced to 10 countries. China was not on the list. That more targeted approach was part of the White House’s 2019 global health strategy. The White House’s FY 2020 plan did not replenish the Ebola money that ran out in 2019. The total global health security budget, which included a range of activities beyond the sort of work in China, went from $504 million in 2019 to a White House request for $482 million in 2020. We reached out to the White House and got no comment. A group representing about 200 global health organizations appealed to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar in January 2018 for money to keep the program going. ""The ongoing danger that biological threats pose to American health, economic, and national security interests demands dedicated and steady funding for global health security,"" the group wrote. Biden said that Trump ""brought home"" the vast majority of CDC staff in China, taking manpower from 44 down to four. He garbled the numbers. The actual staffing went from eight Americans and 39 Chinese (47), to three Americans and 11 Chinese (14). But within that, the American staff working specifically on new threats like COVID-19 went from four to zero. It is unclear whether the presence of those Americans would have provided an early warning. But the former head of the CDC said it was possible, and many global health groups lobbied for the overall program to continue. The White House decided not to ask for funds to maintain that program in China. Biden was off on his numbers, but the specific staffing details we later found add weight to the thrust of his argument."
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34115
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Eggs and popcorn kernels can be cooked by placing them between activated cell phones.
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Can an egg or popcorn kernels be cooked using activated cell phones?
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false
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Food
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The introduction of many a new technology has been accompanied by claims that its use results in unforeseen, deleterious health effects — claims that have at times ranged from the completely loopy to the not entirely unfounded. This phenomenon has been particularly prevalent in recent years, as new, “invisible” technologies (e.g., microwave ovens that cook food without flames or heating elements, cell phones and computer networks that transmit and receive data without connecting wires) have replaced older and more familiar forms. Example: We need: One egg and 2 mobiles 65 minutes to call from one phone to the other Set up something like in the graphic We’ll initiate the call between the mobiles to last for 65 min’s approximately; Nothing will happen on the first 15 minutes… After 25 minutes the egg starts warming up, after 45 min’s; The egg is already hot; and after 65 min’s the egg is cooked Conclusion: If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable to modify the proteins in the egg. Imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles. Back in 2008, Cardo Systems (a vendor of Bluetooth communication devices) crafted a stealth advertising video that appeared to show some curious experimenters successfully getting popcorn to pop simply by placing four cell phones in a ring around the kernels and activating them. As Cardo Systems’ CEO later revealed, however, the video had been created through the use of editing tricks: popped popcorn was dropped onto the table from above the camera frame, and the kernels on the table were removed via digital editing: In 2000, the web site Wymsey Village Web published a spoof article (“Weekend Eating: Mobile Cooking”) about using two mobile phones to cook an egg. The implications of this information were ominously obvious: If cell phones could cook an egg inside its shell, imagine what they might be doing to your brain while you’re holding them against your head! Charlie Ivermee, the founder of the site (which is presented as the online home of a fictional English village), explained that he penned the piece to poke fun at precisely those kinds of technological fears: There was a lot of concern about people’s brains getting fried and being from a radio/electronics background I found it all rather silly. So I thought I’d add to the silliness. Although the names of the article’s putative authors (“Suzzanna Decantworthy” and “Sean McCleanaugh”) should have been enough by itself to give away (even to those unfamiliar with the nature of the Wymsey Village web site) that the item was spoof, Ivermee noted that more than a few readers took his humor piece on the level: I really underestimated how many people would take it seriously. No other page on the [Wymsey Village] site has grabbed people’s attention and ire button as much as this one. My only regret is that I did not get a dime for every hit on that page. In April 2006, the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda sent the same hoax winging on another trip around the Internet by publishing an article, complete with pictures, in which journalists Vladimir Lagovski and Andrei Moiseynko claimed to have produced a hard-boiled egg in a little over an hour by placing the egg between two activated cell phones. (Click here for an approximate English translation of that article.) Photographs from the Pravda piece, along with some brief explanatory text (as replicated in the “Example” block above), were widely forwarded via e-mail, including the dire conclusion that “If the microwave radiation emitted by the mobiles is capable of modifying the proteins in the egg, imagine what it can do with the proteins in our brains when we talk through the mobiles.” For those who remain skeptical that even though these articles may have been spoofs, their underlying principle isn’t necessarily false, we note that every instance we could find of someone’s attempting to replicate this experiment resulted in dismal failure. For example, in March 2006 food writer Paul Adams penned a New York Times column about his efforts to cook an egg with two cell phones: I stood an egg in an egg cup between two short stacks of books. With my new Treo 650 I called my old Samsung cellphone, answering it when it rang. I laid the two phones on the books so their antennas pointed at the egg. Supposedly, this would give me a cooked egg. But after 90 minutes, with the Treo’s fresh battery running low, the egg was still cold. Maybe, I thought, this method uses some sort of telephonic radiation to coagulate protein without heat? I whacked it on the table and watched raw egg ooze out. I poached it later by conventional means. Clearly, people are eager to have their technophobias confirmed, but a cellphone’s power output is half a watt at most, less than a thousandth of what a typical microwave oven emits. The Three Wise Men web site purportedly chronicled a similar experiment — this one using three cell phones, two video monitors, and two laptop computers — that ended with similar results: We felt sorry for a whole 10 minutes while we imagined [the egg] getting pounded with invisible radio waves. When we took the egg out, we were shocked to feel it was still cold. But, hey, the article didn’t say it would be hot, just that it would be cooked. So, we felt sorry for the egg one last time while Adam cracked its shell. We were shocked to find that the egg was completely uncooked. In October 2005 the television program Brainiac, a UK-based science show, aired an episode in which they tried cooking an egg by placing it under a pile of 100 cell phones. All they ended up with was an unwarmed, uncooked egg: So prevalent was this hoax that the Mobile Manufacturers Forum, an international association of radio communications equipment manufacturers, put up a brief article on their web site explaining why the “cook an egg with two cell phones” rumor wasn’t technically feasible: The claim that RF energy from two mobile phones can cook an egg in 60 minutes cannot be true as it is impossible for the egg’s temperature to rise to a level that will cook the egg. We can demonstrate this as follows: even if you assume that each mobile phone is emitting RF energy at its maximum average power of 0.25 W (based on a peak power of 2 W per phone) for 60 minutes; and even if the total power (2 X 0.25 W = 0.5 W) of both phones was completely absorbed by the egg (assuming it weighs 50 g), then the result would be a maximum temperature rise after 60 minutes of only 13°C. Even if the egg was at room temperature before starting the experiment, the result would still be far below the temperature actually needed to cook an egg (which is approx. 65-70°C). In reality, an egg placed between two phones would have a much lower temperature rise because the egg is not thermally insulated and it would only absorb a small portion of the energy emitted.
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19142
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"Promote Oregon Leadership PAC (Oregon House Republicans) Says, ""Carl proposed a 'windfall' tax on real estate development when he was a Metro Councilor."
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A combination of AstraZeneca’s lung cancer drug Imfinzi and an experimental treatment failed to extend the lives of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and high levels of gene mutations, the drugmaker said on Wednesday.
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false
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Oregon, Voting Record, Taxes, Promote Oregon Leadership PAC (Oregon House Republicans),
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The late-stage clinical trial was testing Imfinzi, chemically known as durvalumab, along with another treatment tremelimumab and compared the combination to platinum-based chemotherapy to treat patients whose cancer had spread beyond the lungs. London-listed AstraZeneca said that though the trial involved a wide range of patients, the primary group being tested had high levels of mutations in their DNA. The trial looked at stage IV patients - those with the most advanced form of cancer. “This (the result) is clearly disappointing, albeit we do not think hopes were especially high for the durvalumab plus tremelimumab combination given the relatively poor data shown by the combination to date,” said Liberum analyst Graham Doyle. Imfinzi and tremelimumab belong to the immunotherapy class of treatments that boost the body’s own defenses to fight cancer, and tumors with high levels of mutations may be more visible to the immune system. Mutations in tumors are measured using a system called tumor mutational burden (TMB) and the primary group had TMB of 20 or more. Imfinzi, which was the first immunotherapy to be approved in the stage III lung cancer setting, targets the PD-L1 protein on tumor cells, while tremelimumab targets the CTLA-4 protein. The combination treatment did not meet the main goal of improving overall survival in the primary group of the so-called NEPTUNE study, AstraZeneca said. The combination is also being tested in other clinical trials such as those for bladder and blood cancers. In November, the duo had failed another late-stage study. AstraZeneca has been seen as having a head start in the race for cancer treatments and sales of those medicines, including Imfinzi, have been key to its turnaround. “Estimates for Imfinzi remain achievable given the approvals to date and the near-term potential for further line extensions,” said Doyle, who has a “hold” rating on AstraZeneca shares with a price target of 64 pounds. NSCLC is a major area of focus for drugmakers in developing immunotherapies and rival treatments include U.S.-based Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo and Merck & Co’s Keytruda. NSCLC accounts for up to 85% of lung cancers, by far the leading cause of cancer death among men and women, according to the American Cancer Society.
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27767
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Images reproduce contradictory statements from U.S. senators Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid about the President's prerogative in appointing Supreme Court justices.
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A minor quibble could be made about Reid’s speaking of judicial “nominees” and not Supreme Court “appointees,” but that difference seemingly had little bearing on the overall thrust of his statement.
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true
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Uncategorized, supreme court
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One of the constitutional powers of the President of the United States is to nominate and appoint judges of the Supreme Court, with the qualification that such appointments be undertaken with the “advice and consent of the Senate.” This procedure — like many others crafted by Founding Fathers who did not anticipate the rise of political parties in America — has long since become enmeshed in partisan posturing. Whichever party holds the White House typically seeks to elevate a Supreme Court nominee who is ideologically aligned with their party, employing varying strategies to push their chosen nominee through the approval process depending upon whether they, the opposition, or neither party controls the Senate. One uncommon (but not unprecedented) circumstance presaging a Supreme Court battle occurred when Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia unexpectedly passed away on 13 February 2016, leaving President Barack Obama to nominate a replacement. (Although Supreme Court justices are appointed for life, over the last several decades most court vacancies have been created through the retirement or resignation of sitting justices rather than death, thereby providing Presidents with ample time to consider and nominate their replacements.) Since at the time of Antonin Scalia’s death, President Obama had less than a year remaining in his final office while the Republicans held a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate, the GOP served notice that they could simply delay confirmation of whomever President Obama nominated replace to Scalia until after the upcoming presidential election in the hopes that they might regain the White House and then put forth their own nominee instead. This chain of events, naturally, prompted criticisms about one side’s “playing games” with the Supreme Court confirmation process and the other side’s engaging in hypocrisy for objecting to something they themselves had advocated on previous occasions. This rhetorical battle was reflected in various images circulated by social media that portrayed members of both parties as opportunistic flip-floppers who justified whichever approach suited their side at the time. One such image featured quotes from Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader (and a Republican), advocating (in 2016) that Scalia’s seat remain open until after the next presidential election, while stating (in 2001) that the President “is entitled to tilt the judiciary in the direction that he feels appropriate”: 2016: The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president. 2001: My view now is that the President won the election, no matter what the margin, and is entitled to tilt the judiciary in the direction that he feels appropriate. Verifying the accuracy and meaning of the first quote is fairly straightforward: On 13 February 2016 (the day Scalia died), McConnell’s words were widely reported Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate should not confirm a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia until after the 2016 election — an historic rebuke of President Obama’s authority and an extraordinary challenge to the practice of considering each nominee on his or her individual merits. The swiftness of McConnell’s statement — coming about an hour after Scalia’s death in Texas had been confirmed — stunned White House officials who had expected the Kentucky Republican to block their nominee with every tool at his disposal, but didn’t imagine the combative GOP leader would issue an instant, categorical rejection of anyone Obama chose to nominate. “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” McConnell said, at a time when other elected officials, from Sen. Bernie Sanders to future Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer, were releasing statements offering condolences to the justice’s family, which includes 26 grandchildren. The second quote stemmed from hearings held in 2001 by a Congressional Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts regarding the judicial nomination and confirmation process (for all federal judicial appointments, not just Supreme Court justices), hearings that “focused on the vital question of what role ideology should play in the selection and confirmation of judges.” Senator McConnell, as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, averred (in part) that the role of the Senate should largely be to examine “the competence and the integrity and the fitness of a judge to be on the bench” rather than a nominee’s political ideology, that the Senate should “defer to the President on the question of ideology,” that the President is “entitled for the most part to tilt the judiciary in the direction that he feels appropriate,” and that he (i.e., McConnell) had accordingly approved every one of judicial nominees put forth by President Bill Clinton (a Democrat): I first began to deal with the Senate’s advise and consent role as a staffer here in 1969 and 1970 to a member of this Committee during the Haynesworth and Carswell nominations, and subsequently wrote the only law journal article I wrote as a young man on that subject after those contentious nominations were concluded. I believed then and believe now that the appropriate role of the Senate is largely as Senator Kyl suggested, which is to judge the competence and the integrity and the fitness of a judge to be on the bench. I dutifully returned, gagging occasionally, every single one of the blue slips I received during the Clinton years positively. My view then and my view now is that the President won the election, no matter what the margin, and is entitled for the most part to tilt the judiciary in the direction that he feels appropriate. What I fear is going on with the hearing today is trying to establish a new litmus test for the Senate that has not existed in the past. I don’t understand why we are seeking to do that. As Senator Sessions pointed out, and I think Senator Kyl alluded to this as well, 377 of President Clinton’s nominees were approved. During 75 percent of his term, there was a Republican Senate here. During President Reagan’s years, during which he had during 75 percent of his tenure in office a sympathetic Senate, only a few more were confirmed, 382. That is why the safest place to be and the sound place to be and the place where the Senate has been most of the history of our country is largely deferring to the President on the question of ideology and judging the competence and the integrity of the nominee. I doubt if the Founding Fathers were aware that there would be a Judiciary Committee. It probably never occurred to them. When they said “advise and consent,” I think they were talking about the full Senate. Certainly, the Founding Fathers did not envision that there would be a bunch of co-presidents here. They did, after all, give the power to nominate to the President. McConnell concurred with a previous statement offered by Jon Kyl, a Republican senator from Arizona, who said (in part): I find it interesting that the argument that a candidate’s ideology should be a sufficient rationale for rejection is characterized as a bipartisan approach. I would think that bipartisanship would mean quite the opposite. Cooperation with the President on a bipartisan basis I don’t think begins with a threat that we are going to reject your nominees, no matter how competent they might be, if we don’t like their political ideology, as we interpret it to be. I think we should make no mistake that what is being suggested here is a significant departure from the way that nominees have traditionally been treated. Have there been exceptions? Quite assuredly so, but they prove the rule because they are exceptions to that general deference that has always been given to the President’s nominees. From a bipartisan point of view, it concerns me because I do believe it puts us on a very dangerous path of confrontation and contention here within the Congress, as well as in our relationship with the President, and also, as Senator Sessions has said, creates a very bad precedent. I also found it interesting that the Chairman alluded to President Bush’s campaign theme and frankly the reaction to that by his opponent, who made it clear that if President Bush were elected, he would be putting strict constructionists like Justice Thomas and Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court. That, of course, I think was a correct characterization of the tradition that a President does do that. A President has that right when he is elected, and he has been elected, by the way, even though it was a close election. President Bush is the President, and I think the Democrats who campaigned against him on the basis that he would try to appoint people that were consistent with his judicial philosophy were correct in saying that he would do that, that that would be the end result, because the Senate has always confirmed nominees more or less of the President elected, regardless of how close the election was. President Clinton, after all, never had a majority of the citizens of this country vote for him, but we gave significant deference to his nominees. My point is that for us as political figures — and this is our milieu, politics — to try to translate our political views onto a Court’s job and maintain balance by our confirmations, I think, is sheer folly. Instead, we should all revert to what has traditionally been our role, judging the competence of the candidate; the qualifications, including judicial temperament, the background; and also some look at judicial philosophy. Another image featured similar “flip-flopping” statements from Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, a Democrat who previously served as Senate Majority Leader: The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give presidential appointees a vote. [19 May 2005] We have that nasty little Constitution, which says they are obligated to hold hearings and they are obligated to vote. [1 March 2016] As with the McConnell image, the quotes attributed to Reid were contradictory and presumably based on whatever course of action might be politically expedient for his party rather than on a consistent (non-partisan) political position. The provenance of these statements was also not difficult to ascertain: On 1 March 2016, Reid was quoted as follows in an article about Republican opposition to holding nomination hearings for Scalia’s replacement prior to the end of President Obama’s term: Before he traveled along Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, [Senator] McConnell told House Republicans at their weekly meeting that he’s standing by his promise not to hold hearing or votes on an Obama nominee. Scalia was the leading conservative voice on the bench, and an Obama replacement could give liberals a five-vote majority. The president “made it very clear” in the meeting that he would consider any nominees recommended by McConnell and Grassley, according to Reid. But the GOP leaders did not offer up a list of names. Asked what leverage Democrats have to force a vote, Reid suggested they would continue to shame Republicans over their stance. “We have that nasty little Constitution, which says they are obligated to hold hearings and they are obligated to vote,” he said. “They swore to uphold the Constitution. They’re not doing that. They are walking away from that.” (Technically, the Constitution simply states that the President “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint … Judges of the supreme Court”; that document is silent on whether the Senate is obligated to hold hearings and vote on such nominations.) Evidence of Sen. Reid’s 2005 statements was equally easy to come by: During a 19 May 2005 Senate session convened in consideration of the appointment of Priscilla Owen as a judge for the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (which had, among other similar nominations, been blocked by filibustering Democrats): The Senate continued consideration of the nomination of Priscilla Owen as a judge for the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. She was the first of seven nominations which had been filibustered by the Democrats, the minority party. The Republicans, who held a 55-vote majority, had proposed changing the confirmation process through a ruling from the President of the Senate, upheld by a majority of Senate, that votes on judicial nominees not be subject to a filibuster. This would be a change in the Senate rules which would allow confirmation by a simple majority vote without having to invoke cloture on debate. This was popularly referred to as the “nuclear option” because of its potential impact on the normal procedure of business in the Senate. Debate was evenly divided by time blocks allocated to each party. During those proceedings, Senator Reid maintained the wording of the Constitution did not require that “every nominee receive a vote”: The duties of the Senate are set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give Presidential nominees a vote. It says appointments shall be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. That is very different than saying every nominee receives a vote.
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24435
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President Obama campaigned on a promise to put reproductive health care at the center of his reform plan.
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"Planned Parenthood says Obama promised to ""put reproductive health care at the center"" of health reform"
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true
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Abortion, National, Health Care, Planned Parenthood,
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"With abortion now a key issue in the debate over health care reform, abortion rights supporters are highlighting President Barack Obama's promise about the issue during the presidential campaign. In an alert to members on Nov. 9, 2009, Planned Parenthood Action Fund said, ""President Obama campaigned on a promise to put reproductive health care at the center of his reform plan."" We'll address that claim here. We'll also be adding it to our Obameter database of campaign promises. The group's claim is virtually identical to one made in September by House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who said in a statement that, ""during his quest for the presidency, now-President Obama declared that everyone deserves access to reproductive health care that includes abortion, and vowed that this 'right' would be at the heart of his health care reform plan if elected president."" We researched Boehner's claim and concluded he was right about Obama's promise. To explore Obama's promise on abortion coverage in his health care plan, you need to go back to a July 17, 2007, speech he gave to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. In that speech, he discussed his commitment to how ""reproductive care"" -- a term a campaign aide said included abortion coverage -- would fit into his health care reform plan. Obama said, ""In my mind, reproductive care is essential care. It is basic care, so it is at the center and at the heart of the plan that I propose. Essentially what we're doing is, we’re going to set up a public plan that all persons and all women can access if they don’t have health insurance. It will be a plan that will provide all essential services, including reproductive services, as well as mental health services and disease management services, because part of our interest is to make sure that we’re putting more money into preventive care."" The words Obama used in that speech mirror those in the Planned Parenthood Action Fund's recent alert even more closely than they did Boehner's formulation. So it's certainly correct, as the group says, that Obama ""campaigned on a promise to put reproductive health care at the center of his reform plan."" It's worth nothing that since he spoke to that group -- an important constituency for someone seeking the Democratic nomination -- he has chosen his words carefully. Of all the words Obama has spoken and written about health care reform since 2007 -- a voluminous amount, to be sure -- the terms ""abortion"" and ""reproductive health"" haven't popped up very often. Indeed, on several of the rare occasions in which Obama or his staff have broached the subject, it's been to assure Americans that his health care proposal would not promote abortions. For instance, in his prime-time address to Congress on Sept. 9, 2009, Obama's only mention of abortion -- which came immediately after he was interrupted by the heckling Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C. -- was that ""one more misunderstanding I want to clear up: Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place."" That's a reflection of the sensitivity surrounding the issue. Obama's promise to the abortion rights group during the primary campaign could now be a liability before a broader audience that includes many people opposed to abortion rights. Still, Planned Parenthood is correct that Obama campaigned on a promise that he would put reproductive health care at the center of his reform plan."" After all, he was speaking to . . . Planned Parenthood. So we find the group's claim to be ."
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9842
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Non-Fried Fish Might Help Ward Off Alzheimer’s: Study
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Readers heads must be spinning worse than Linda Blair’s in “The Exorcist” when they read – in one story – that this “must be viewed as an association, rather than a cause-and-effect” – yet they get cause-and-effect language such as: Over and over again, many news stories confuse readers about observational studies. It leads to a loss of confidence in science and a loss of credibility in journalism. That’s why this matters.
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false
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Alzheimer's,health food claims,HealthDay
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The cost of fish in the diet wasn’t discussed but we trust most people have a general idea of those costs. A classic case of promoting a surrogate marker – what shows up on an MRI scan – as an outcome of benefit. The story uses the phrase “cognitive benefit” barely mentioned any benefit to actual cognition – emphasizing only a change on an image of the brain. Only one line inadequately referred to: “The team further observed that people who ate baked or broiled fish weekly displayed better so-called ‘working memory’, enabling them to more effectively execute routine tasks.” Huh? How? To what degree? But that’s the only explanation of true potential benefit readers received. Journalists need to explain things better than this. Not as good as the competing WebMD story, which stated: “The Environmental Protection Agency recommends that pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children avoid eating shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish and limiting albacore tuna to 6 ounces per week because of concern about levels of mercury in these fish.” The story never explicitly stated the limitations of an observational study. For help, see our primer on this topic. It backed into it late in the story, stating, “For now, the connection must be viewed as an association, rather than a cause and effect.” But the story confused readers throughout, using causal language inappropriately. Examples: Subjects filled out a questionnaire – but the story never explained the limitations of this approach. That’s not to dismiss the approach – but the limitations are real and worth mentioning. The story did include boilerplate language about the limitations of interpreting results of talks presented at scientific meetings, but by then, the confusion had been wrought upon readers. No disease mongering of Alzheimer’s disease. At least the story had one independent source, a NY neurologist who said, “One has to wonder if there are other factors… that they didn’t measure.” But his comments were buried deep in the story, as was the line “For now, the connection must be viewed as an association, rather than a cause-and-effect.” That should have been in the second paragraph at the latest. The competing WebMD story much more explicitly stated “other risk factors for memory loss.” The availability of fish is not in question. A WebMD story, by comparison, said “Several studies have linked a diet rich in certain fish to a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease….the new study is the first to establish a direct relationship between fish consumption, brain structure and Alzheimer’s risk.” This story had none of that context. We have no evidence that the story relied on a news release.
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3335
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Attorneys: Charges expected in Florida nursing home deaths.
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Defense attorneys said Sunday that arrests are expected shortly in the case of a Florida nursing home where 12 patients died after its air conditioning power went out amid sweltering heat following Hurricane Irma in 2017.
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true
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Health, Florida, General News, Hurricane Irma, Storms, Hurricanes, U.S. News, Fort Lauderdale
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Lawrence Hashish told The Associated Press his client is one of three nurses, in addition to an administrator, expecting to be charged in connection with the deaths after Hurricane Irma, which blew through Florida on Sept. 10 of that year. The storm knocked out a transformer linking the main air-conditioning unit to the power grid at the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills, sending temperatures soaring . Hashish said the attorneys don’t yet know what specific charges would be, but he expected those would likely entail some form of manslaughter offense. Twelve deaths at the center had been ruled homicides . Police have been investigating the deaths for nearly two years but no charges have been filed thus far. A voice message and email left by the AP for Hollywood Police were not immediately returned Sunday. Hashish said his client and the others are merely scapegoats. “The real crime is that the state is looking to blame selfless caregivers and the evidence will show that no crime was committed,” he said in a telephone interview, His co-counsel, Ilham Soffan, told the AP that their client was turning herself in Monday. The attorneys said they didn’t have any further details about expected charges and planned to negotiate a bond agreement before an expected hearing Monday morning. Patients began dying at the rehabilitation center days after the devastating hurricane struck Florida amid widespread power outages. Investigators said the center did not evacuate patients as temperatures inside began rising, even though a fully functional hospital was across the street. The home’s license was suspended days after the storm and it was later shuttered. Paramedic Craig Wohlitka and other paramedics from Hollywood Fire-Rescue testified last year that he was haunted by the deaths of patients there. Fire Lt. Amy Parrinello said one of the female patients had a temperature of 107.5 degrees (42 Celsius), the highest she had ever seen in his 12-year career. Later that morning, she said, another patient topped that with a temperature so high it couldn’t be measured. Wohlitka further testified that the crew decided to start checking other patients who hadn’t been reported as ill. He said they saw a woman in a room who appeared sick, though a nursing home employee said they had just checked her and she was fine. In the aftermath of Irma, the deaths made national headlines and sparked a political backlash. Months afterward, lawmakers passed a bill requiring backup power sources in Florida nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The legislation requires such facilities to have a generator capable of keeping nursing homes and assisted living facilities at 81 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) or lower for at least four days. Hashish declined to identify his client by name, but said she was works as a full-time nurse at another facility and was just picking up a shift that day in September 2017. “They called her. They said, ‘can you come and help? We’re short-handed,’ and look what she walked into,” he said.
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41039
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Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes.
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There is no evidence yet on how long the virus can survive on the skin. But it is important to regularly wash your hands.
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unproven
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online
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If you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold. These are the symptoms for the common cold, but they don’t rule out Covid-19. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose. Some Covid-19 patients do get pneumonia, and one of the symptoms is a dry cough. A runny nose doesn’t rule out Covid-19. The new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of 26/27 degrees. It hates the Sun. There’s no evidence for this. There’s evidence that similar viruses transmit less well in the heat, but many countries with reported Covid-19 cases are experiencing temperatures higher than this. If someone with the new coronavirus sneezes, it travels about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne. Environmental factors impact how far droplets from a sneeze can travel, but it is likely to be several metres. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours - so if you come into contact with any metal surface - wash your hands as soon as you can with a bacterial soap. It’s not yet known exactly how long the virus survives on surfaces. It can survive for 6-12 hours on fabric and will be killed by normal laundry detergent . There’s no evidence the virus can survive in clothing and be transmitted this way. Drinking warm water is effective for all viruses. Try not to drink liquids with ice. There’s no evidence that the temperature of liquids consumed can protect you from viruses. Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes. There is no evidence yet on how long the virus can survive on the skin. But it is important to regularly wash your hands. You should gargle as a prevention with salt in warm water. There’s no evidence this will prevent or cure the virus. Covid-19 starts with a sore throat lasting 3-4 days. It then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and the lungs, causing pneumonia, which takes about 5 or 6 days. With pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty breathing. The nasal congestion makes you feel like you’re drowning. This is a roughly accurate description of the most common symptoms, although not everyone with Covid-19 gets pneumonia. The symptoms may not come in this order or at these times. There have been no reports of sufferers experiencing nasal congestion that makes them feel they are drowning. Claim 1 of 11
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37531
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A member of the Okeechobee County Commission in Florida promoted a claim that using a blow dryer could cure people of COVID-19.
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Did a Florida County Official Promote a Bogus Right-Wing COVID-19 ‘Cure’?
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true
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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A member of a small county commission in Florida became an online laughingstock after video spread of him endorsing a widely-debunked cure for COVID-19 (a.k.a. the “coronavirus”) by a right-wing “news” outlet to his colleagues.During the March 20 2020 meeting, Okeechobee County commissioner Bryant Culpepper reassured his colleagues that his information was legitimate because he saw it on One America News Network (OAN or OANN), which he described as “the new Fox News.”“There’s a lot of baloney out there on social media. You’ve gotta be really careful. But I only brought it up because it came from a pretty reliable source,” Culpepper said.According to a story he saw on the channel, he said, an OAN guest claimed that it was possible to beat COVID-19 by training a hair dryer on one’s face at a temperature of 136 degrees Fahrenheit. (This is not true. )“In this interview with one of the foremost doctors who has studied the coronavirus, [he] said that the nasal passages and the nasal membranes are the coolest part of the body,” Culpepper said. “That’s why the virus tends to go there until it then becomes healthy enough to go into the lungs.” (This is also not true. )But using the hair dryer, he said, would cause the virus to fall apart. “You hold a blow dryer in front of your face and you inhale with your nose, and it kills all the viruses in your nose,” Culpepper claimed, falsely.He also indirectly promoted the “cure” on his own Facebook page, linking to local coverage of the meeting without mentioning that it covered his remarks:The claims that he said OAN and the “foremost doctor” were promoting have been roundly and completely debunked. And in reality, OAN is far from “pretty reliable.” In fact, as the media analysis site Media Bias/Fact Check reported in reviewing the California-based channel, it’s exactly the opposite:We rate One America News Far right biased based on story selection that consistently favors the Right and Mixed for factual reporting due to promotion of conspiracies, lack of sourcing and a few failed fact checks. OAN is one failed fact check away from moving to the Questionable Source list.The review cited an AdWeek story saying that staff members felt that the channel’s billionaire founder, Robert Herring Sr., had become a “de facto news director” who pushed OAN into becoming supportive of United States President Donald Trump’s run for office in 2016:According to internal emails, Herring has directed his channel to push Trump’s candidacy, scuttle stories about police shootings, encourage antiabortion stories, minimize coverage of Russian aggression, and steer away from the new president’s troubles, according to more than a dozen current and former producers, writers and anchors, as well as internal emails from Herring and his top news executives.Besides getting local coverage, Culpepper’s attempt to paint the “blow dryer” cure as legitimate was shared on social media:Okeechobee County Commissioner Bryant Culpepper at emergency meeting says you can kill coronavirus by holding a blow dryer up to your nose after he saw it on “reliable source” OANN, warns “there’s a lot of baloney out there on social media” #BecauseFlorida pic.twitter.com/n9dGDBQ4WW— Billy Corben (@BillyCorben) March 22, 2020According to the Friendly Atheist blog, which covers religious affairs, Culpepper reacted angrily at first to the criticism:No one is holding a gun to your head to do anything you do not want to do but for some they don’t have alot [sic] of options. All this wonderful Science you believe in yet Thousands die everyday from Cancer, Lukemia, ALS so why haven’t they been cured with all the Scientist working on for years Go ahead laugh all you want and feel like fools when I am proven Right.However, he apologized on his Facebook page on March 22 2020. “I am Heartfully Sorry for comments I made on Social Media,” he wrote:I was only trying to give comfort to those in Okeechobee who have no insurance to treat there [sic] families. I should have ignored the comments that I perceived as hateful and the embarrassment I caused to my Fellow Commissioners and our Administrator And [sic] her staff. I will not offer anymore suggestions unless they are tried and proven.Given the huge amount of disinformation circulating both on and off social media and the credulity with which certain officials are repeating it, it is probably best to receive health guidance from medical experts, not public figures without expertise who regularly quote ideas from far-right television networks without credibility.
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36111
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"A child was being sexually abused, but her attempts to tell an adult were thwarted due to her inability to say ""vagina"" and her use of the word ""cookie"" instead."
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Was a Toddler Subjected to Months of Abuse Because of a ‘Cookie’ Analogy?
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unproven
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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In September 2019, a Facebook user shared an image and a harrowing story about the purported sexual abuse of a toddler that went unreported for months because the young girl supposedly was not taught anatomically correct words:Alongside a photograph of a childlike drawing (captioned “Penis & Vagina Aren’t Bad Words”), a poster named Zoé Dos Santos provided an anecdote involving a supposedly real little girl. The child reportedly endured “months” of sexual abuse at the hands of a relative, a scenario that it was heavily implied could have been prevented, had the girl only chosen an anatomically correct word:Trigger warning ⚠️One day, a little girl told her teacher “my uncle licked my cookie” the teacher thought nothing of it and said “next time ask for another cookie”. Months go by, and the mother of the child was talking to the teacher about a rash on the child’s “cookie” and that’s when the teacher realized what the child was trying to say.Here’s the problem. If you do not teach your children the proper names for their parts, people can miss important signs of sexual abuse.Penis and vagina are not bad words. Basic anatomy isn’t wrong and there’s no such thing as anatomy being “age appropriate”.Dos Santos maintained that the problem evidenced by the anecdote was essentially that toddlers and young children not taught the words “penis” and “vagina” were at an increased risk of sexual abuse. Undoubtedly, interest in the claim itself was driven in part (probably large part) by the upsetting example the post contained.The latter aspect was one that prompted curiosity — had a little girl genuinely attempted to report sexual abuse or molestation by telling a teacher that “my uncle licked my cookie,” only to be told to “ask for another cookie” next time? And had the misunderstanding only come to light months later, when a parent discussed the child’s diaper rash with the teacher? As an object lesson, the story really only “works” if the two discussions occurred across months, not days.On its face, the story does not seem as though it was necessarily intended to be taken literally. The teacher heard, but did not disregard, the child’s seemingly meaningless assertion, then instantly recalled what seemed to be a highly forgettable exchange between herself and one of several students, but not until months later when the topic abruptly resurfaced — conveniently in a relevant context. It seemed just as likely had the teacher truly misunderstood the student’s complaint to be about a literal cookie, that it would have been one of hundreds of similarly benign statements made by a large group of toddlers every week.To those familiar with urban legends as they spread on social media, the story very closely resembles classic examples of modern folklore. Described by the great folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand as “all those bizarre, whimsical, 99 percent apocryphal, yet believable stories that are ‘too good to be true,'” such tellings are often the vehicle of choice for tellers to drive home a perceived risk, danger, or other warning deemed too important to leave to a general advisory.As a means of storytelling throughout recorded history, urban legends and moralistic folktales serve a specific purpose, illustrating a supposed risk in hopes the listener will take the moral of the story more seriously. Brunvand explains:They are too odd, too coincidental, and too neatly plotted to be accepted as literal truth in every place where they are told and localized. Such stories deal with familiar everyday matters like travel, shopping, pets, babysitting, crime, accidents, sex, business, government, and so forth. Although the stories are phrased as if factual and are often attached to a particular locality, urban legends are actually migratory, and, like all folklore, they exist in variant versions. Typically, urban legends are attributed to a friend-of-a-friend, and often their narrative structure sets up some kind of puzzling situation that is resolved by a sudden plot twist, at which point the story ends abruptly. I emphasize story throughout this informal definition; I am not including plotless rumors, gossip, bits of misinformation, etc. Although these materials share some of the same features as urban legends, they are not technically the same genre, even though a few such borderline cases do merit mention in some of my entries.Note that the structure of the anecdote attached to the warning about anatomical terms and small children. It dealt with at least three of the example topics (babysitting, crime, and sex), and like the form detailed, the tale ended abruptly after the “puzzling situation” and plot twist appeared. Once the teacher connected the girl’s seemingly throwaway remark about a “licked cookie,” no other information about what happened next is provided. The listener isn’t even afforded confirmation that the two conversations revealed the harrowing truth; that is only implied in this story.As Wikipedia notes, “the teller of an urban legend may claim it happened to a friend (or to a friend of a friend), which serves to personalize, authenticate and enhance the power of the narrative and distances the teller,” continuing:Many urban legends depict horrific crimes, contaminated foods, or other situations that would potentially affect many people. Anyone believing such stories might feel compelled to warn loved ones. On occasion, news organizations, school officials and even police departments have issued warnings concerning the latest threat.Sexual molestation is among the most taboo and disturbing crimes against the very young, and when presented as a real example, those warned were indeed compelled to pass on the advisory. Hundreds of thousands of people in just a few weeks shared the story on, urging anyone with small children to protect their child by teaching them the correct words for their genitalia.Another indicator the story may have been a known urban legend was its dispersal on the internet before the Facebook post went viral. In April 2018, a self-described “professional working with small children” claimed to have heard the story at a conference, passing it on as literal truth:I attended a training on child sexual abuse, and in this training, they shared the story of a young girl 3-4 years old who told her teacher that her belly hurt because her uncle kept giving her cookies. That statement didn’t seem out of the ordinary to the teacher. Much later they discovered “cookies” is what the uncle called his penis. I can’t imagine how that teacher felt, but I’m sure the teacher would have done something or said something if the girl had said my stomach hurts because my uncle keeps giving me penis. The accuracy can make all the difference.Lyba Spring, a sex educator in Toronto, referenced the anecdote in a 2015 news story:Spring recounts a heartbreaking story told at a workshop by a woman who had been sexually abused as a child. Back then, the only word she knew for vulva was “cookie.” “When she tried to tell a teacher about how someone wanted her cookie, the teacher told her she had to share. It’s obvious that the consequence of that was that the abuse continued. She didn’t have the tools she needed to disclose.”At the end of the piece, Spring observed that many parents feared their child losing their innocence, which unwittingly places them at much higher potential risk:“I have encountered parents over the years who had a strong objection to naming parts. Some of them thought that it was ‘too young,'” Spring says. “They’re afraid that there’s somehow a direct link between naming the body parts and having sex. And they think that they can somehow maintain a child’s innocence by keeping them ignorant. There’s a difference between innocence and ignorance. Ignorance is dangerous.”As in the Facebook iteration, the teacher in Spring’s parable verbally confirmed the initial understanding to the child victim — in that version, telling the little girl to “share” her cookie. And as the Facebook claim peaked in virality, Dos Santos spoke to a UK news site on October 9 2019, acknowledging that the anecdote was an “example” of how signs of abuse might appear:[Dos Santos] explained to the M.E.N’s Manchester Family why she decided to write the post and said she’d used the ‘cookie’ reference as just one example of how these things can materialise.“I work with the court systems attempting to get perpetrators charged and convicted. I shared it because in my culture, we have pet names for the body parts and after becoming a social worker and being in this line of work I’ve seen how the “pet names” can affect a criminal investigation, and affect investigation regarding any type of abuse.”Closer to the end of the piece was input from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) appeared. The advocacy group did not seem to think language was a massive barrier in uncovering child sex abuse:When it comes to advice in the UK, the NSPCC stops short of telling parents which words to use, but emphasises the need for children to know that what’s inside their pants is private and for them to have the confidence to speak up when something is wrong. […]“The most important thing is to have that conversation, and we would encourage parents to gauge their own child’s readiness and maturity when discussing these issues at home, in words they and their children are comfortable using.”American advocacy group RAINN maintains a page titled “Warning Signs for Young Children.” Indicating that recognizing “the warning signs of child sexual abuse is often the first step to protecting a child that is in danger,” the group describes four “behavioral signs” and four “emotional signs” exhibited by young victims. None of those indicators involved using direct language (anatomical or not) to describe the abuse:None of those eight signs ruled out direct statements made by the child, but neither did it seem likely victims of covert abuse would only or largely be helped by learning specific names for specific body parts. Doing so would not necessarily not help, but as many commenters pointed out, toddler speech development could lag or be slow to develop.Another advocacy group warns of “new words” as a sign of sexual abuse, a symptom that might actually manifest as the child using words like “penis” and “vagina.” An Australian parenting site maintained a page similar to RAINN’s, but theirs advised against pressuring small children to use big or new words:Stay alert if you think you are seeing signs such as the ones listed above. Watch what the child does, as well as what they say. Take written notes if you have any concerns.You may like to have a calm conversation with the child, letting them know you have noticed that they don’t seem to be acting as they do normally (for example, they may seem sad or unwell). The child may tell you something about what they are experiencing. Listen, but don’t judge them and don’t pressure the child or say words you want them to say. It’s important that the words are theirs. Let them know that you are there to listen to them at any time.It’s worthwhile to note that parental or caregiver recognition regarding the covert sexual abuse of children is a nuanced topic, with a number of signs and symptoms exhibited by child victims. Abuse is uncovered in a variety of ways, and child victims often exhibit seemingly unrelated symptoms such as aggression, regression, or bedwetting. And as WebMD explains, outward signs and symptoms of sexual abuse can often be confounding — including increased secrecy or aversion to things like undressing.A final element of the story is that children often do mention abuse to primary caregivers when the abuser is known to them but not a parent or guardian. In the scenario described, it seemed likely at some point the child might have complained to her mother and father, who would have immediately understood the terminology used. The tale only works when the wording is not understood by an involved adult.As presented, the tale speaks to a major and common fear — that someone close to us poses potential harm to our children. It also identifies one thing (words) that can serve as a bulwark against potential abuse. By spreading the warning, we hope that should such danger enter our lives, our knowledge will inoculate us and we will know exactly what steps to take in order to protect against such risk.Like many viral Facebook posts, the “cookie” daycare story is both well-meaning and optimized for widespread sharing. We found instances of the same parable being relayed since at least 2015, spreading among social workers and at conferences. But the directive to teach all children anatomical terms didn’t seem to be as groundbreaking or vital as the post suggested. In terms of safety and awareness, there were a great many things parents and caregivers could know and do in order to protect children from abuse and better discern signs of abuse when spotted. In all the literature we reviewed, inability to accurately name body parts was not cited as a primary factor in failing to spot and deal with child sexual abuse.
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29907
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El Paso was one of the U.S. most dangerous cities before a border fence was built there.
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On the 2016 campaign trail, Donald Trump promised supporters that if elected, he would build a border wall that Mexico would pay for. As time went by and it became clear Mexico would not finance the construction of such a wall, Trump waffled on how it would be funded, resulting in the longest partial shutdown of the federal government in U.S. history when he and Congressional Democrats reached an impasse over the issue.
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false
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Politics, border wall, donald trump
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On 5 February 2019, President Donald Trump delivered the annual State of the Union address and made an appeal in his ongoing effort to deliver on a campaign promise to build a border wall. In his speech, President Trump stated that the city of El Paso, Texas, “used to have extremely high rates of violent crime — one of the highest in the country, and [was] considered one of our nation’s most dangerous cities. Now, with a powerful barrier in place, El Paso is one of our safest cities.” Following that remark, El Paso Mayor Dee Margo took to Twitter to dispute its accuracy: El Paso was NEVER one of the MOST dangerous cities in the US. We‘ve had a fence for 10 years and it has impacted illegal immigration and curbed criminal activity. It is NOT the sole deterrent. Law enforcement in our community continues to keep us safe #SOTU — Mayor Dee Margo (@mayor_margo) February 6, 2019 We looked at crime data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) to weigh which public official’s statements were accurate. The FBI’s UCR project compiles and analyzes data from “more than 18,000 city, university and college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies voluntarily participating in the program.” Crime data do not support the president’s claim either that El Paso was one of the country’s “most dangerous cities” or that the barrier built between El Paso and Juarez, Mexico, had the effect of dramatically reducing crime on the U.S. side of the border. Instead, UCR data show that violent crime in El Paso generally followed a national trend. It spiked to its highest level in 30 years in the early 1990s and has steadily declined since. The following graph compares crime data from the El Paso Police Department with nationwide figures from 1985 to 2015. Source: Uniform Crime Report. In that 30-year time frame, El Paso was never one of the “most dangerous cities” in the United States. When compared to cities with similarly-sized populations, El Paso’s violent crime rate consistently fell well below locales such as Boston, Baltimore, Detroit, and Memphis, according to UCR data (which can be found online). In 2018, US News & World Report ranked El Paso number 11 in “best places to retire,” citing in part the community’s relative safety and thriving economy. This ranking was not new, as El Paso had regularly been ranked one of the country’s safest cities for its population size going as far back as 2005 — three years before the border fence there was built. Construction on the barrier between El Paso and Juarez began in 2008 under President George W. Bush and was completed in 2009 as part of a larger border security plan known as “Operation Hold the Line” which was launched in 1993. UCR data drawn from the El Paso Police Department shows that violent crime, already trending downward, continued to drop fairly consistently in the five years leading up to fence construction, from a high of 6,109 incidents in 1993 to an all-time low in 2006 of 2,422: Source: Uniform Crime Report. During the fence construction and in the years immediately afterward (2008 to 2012), violent crime incidents rose very slightly. Source: Uniform Crime Report. In a 5 February 2019 interview with El Paso television station KDBC, Border Patrol Sector Chief Aaron Hull credited the sharp decline in violent crime that started in the early 1990s to the increased presence of border agents: El Paso’s violent crime was at its peak in 1992. What did make a difference was a flood of Border Patrol agents, who began Operation Hold the Line in 1993. Hundreds of agents were stationed every few feet along the border. Violent crime in El Paso drastically reduced in the years following. “We’ve played a big part of that,” said Border Patrol Sector Chief Aaron Hull. We can’t determine whether crime in El Paso fell as a result of increased Border Patrol presence, the dynamic that caused crime to drop nationwide, or some combination of both. But what can be determined from crime data is that over the previous three decades, border wall construction hadn’t shown a positive impact on reducing violent crime in that community, and El Paso was far and away not one of the most dangerous cities in America. The 2019 State of the Union wasn’t the first instance during which the Trump administration made this false claim, and it wasn’t the first time that claim had been debunked. In their own fact check, the El Paso Times reported that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had also promoted the claim, along with White House press secretary Sarah Sanders: In January 2018, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted “Ask El Paso, Texas (now one of America’s safest cities) across the border from Juarez, Mexico (one of the world’s most dangerous) if a wall works.” She linked to an opinion piece published in the New York Post that was titled “This town is proof that Trump’s wall can work.” The piece, written by a conservative political commentator based in Washington, D.C., argued that El Paso’s border fence is the reason for the city’s low crime rate and decreased illegal border crossings. At the time, local leaders rejected the article’s findings and argued that it did not mention the police-community relations and cooperation between law enforcement agencies that contributed to the city’s safety before border fencing was put in place.
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28474
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The U.S. has several million more registered voters than eligible, voting-age adults.
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"What's true: Estimates of voter rolls in the counties of some states, including California, tally more registered voters than eligible adults. What's false: Such estimates do not encompass the entire U.S., are based on questionable methodologies, and may include voters who are listed on state rolls as ""inactive."""
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mixture
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Politics, judicial watch, Public Interest Legal Foundation, voter fraud
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In mid-April 2018, a months-old claim that the U.S. had 3.5 million more registered voters than “live adults” reappeared on social media. That claim appears to have originated with a National Review article of 11 August 2017 that built on information compiled by Judicial Watch’s Election Integrity Project: Some 3.5 million more people are registered to vote in the U.S. than are alive among America’s adult citizens. Such staggering inaccuracy is an engraved invitation to voter fraud. The Election Integrity Project of Judicial Watch — a Washington-based legal-watchdog group — analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011–2015 American Community Survey and last month’s statistics from the federal Election Assistance Commission. The latter included figures provided by 38 states. According to Judicial Watch, eleven states gave the EAC insufficient or questionable information. Pennsylvania’s legitimate numbers place it just below the over-registration threshold. My tabulation of Judicial Watch’s state-by-state results yielded 462 counties where the registration rate exceeded 100 percent. There were 3,551,760 more people registered to vote than adult U.S. citizens who inhabit these counties. These 462 counties (18.5 percent of the 2,500 studied) exhibit this ghost-voter problem. These range from 101 percent registration in Delaware’s New Castle County to New Mexico’s Harding County, where there are 62 percent more registered voters than living, breathing adult citizens — or a 162 percent registration rate. Even if these numbers are assumed to be accurate, presenting them as definitively demonstrating that “some 3.5 million more people are registered to vote in the U.S. than are alive among America’s adult citizens” is a questionable and problematic claim, given that the information was compiled from only 462 counties in 38 states, yet the entire U.S. comprises over 3,000 counties in fifty states. Many of those other counties might well have substantially fewer registered voters on their rolls than adult residents who are eligible to vote. Another major issue with such a claim is the potential inclusion of “inactive” voters among the tallies of registered voters, a matter that was publicized in a 1 August 2017 letter Judicial Watch sent to California Secretary of State Alex Padilla threatening to sue unless the state and eleven of its counties produced voter records to them. According to Judicial Watch, their own analysis of U.S. Census data and voter registration records indicated those eleven counties included numbers of registered voters exceeding the numbers of adults eligible to vote in those counties. In December 2017, Judicial Watch made good on their threat, initiating litigation that is currently in progress in U.S. District Court, Central District of California. The lawsuit accuses California and multiple jurisdictions of violating the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) by failing to maintain updated voter registration rolls. Stories based on Judicial Watch’s letter initially made Internet waves in late summer 2017 via right-leaning blogs and Kremlin propaganda networks. In April 2018, another version of the claim went viral in the form of an editorial published months ago by the financial publication Investors Business Daily: California, for instance, has 11 counties with more registered voters than actual voters. Perhaps not surprisingly — it is deep-Blue State California, after all — 10 of those counties voted heavily for Hillary Clinton. Los Angeles County, whose more than 10 million people make it the nation’s most populous county, had 12% more registered voters than live ones, some 707,475 votes. That’s a huge number of possible votes in an election. But, Murdock notes, “California’s San Diego County earns the enchilada grande. Its 138% registration translates into 810,966 ghost voters.” Many articles used that information to imply widespread voter fraud was taking place, an unfounded claim regularly invoked by President Donald Trump. However, as multiple news organizations have already pointed out, the accusation of voter registration irregularities in California rests on the manner in which Judicial Watch counted California voters, combining active and inactive voters on a county-by-county basis: Judicial Watch’s claim rests on its inclusion of “inactive voters” – people who have been removed from active rolls after a mail ballot, voter guide or other official document was returned as undeliverable – usually as a result of moving. They aren’t reflected in turnout tallies or signature-gathering requirements, don’t receive election materials, and are ignored by campaigns. Inactive voters nevertheless underline Judicial Watch’s math suggesting that Los Angeles County has a registration rate of 112 percent, for example, or Stanislaus County has a registration rate of 102 percent. The letter cites a “failure to maintain accurate, up-to-date voter registration lists.” Bob Popper, director of Judicial Watch’s election integrity project, said California has failed to report its inactive voter data to the federal government as required by the National Voter Registration Act. Counties should be doing more to cull their inactive voter lists, he said. “What we identified is a red flag, a sign of smoke,” he said, saying people could be voting multiple times or in more than one state. In fact, California did report the data. Its inactive voter tally of 5,065,746 at the time of last fall’s election is part of the most recent election administration and voting survey published by the federal Election Assistance Commission. The consideration of inactive voters is a key issue here. Judicial Watch maintains that registrations listed on state rolls as “inactive” are “vulnerable to abuse” by “voters who plan to fraudulently double-vote in two different jurisdictions on the same election day,” or by third parties “because a voter who has moved to a different state is unlikely to monitor the use of or communications concerning an old registration.” However, California’s National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) regulations state that although inactive voters remain on the rolls as registered voters who are eligible to vote, they do not receive “mailed election materials” (including mail-in ballots) and must “confirm residency at the polling place” in person in order to vote — standards that would severely limit or eliminate double-voting or the ability of third parties to fraudulently use inactive registrations to cast ballots: “Inactive voters” are defined as registered voters who have been sent a Section 8 notice and have failed to respond. In California, this includes voters for whom the post office has returned a [Voter Notification Card] because the voter has moved. What is important to keep in mind is that “inactive” voters under the California Elections Code and the NVRA are registered voters, eligible to vote in an election, provided the voter confirms residency at the polling place. Under California law, however, voters in the Inactive Voter File are not mailed election materials, and are not taken into consideration in determining the number of signatures required for qualification of candidates or ballot measures, precinct size, or other election administration processes. The California Secretary of State’s office confirmed to us directly that “the only way for inactive voters to obtain a ballot is for them to request a ballot in person at either a county elections office or at a polling location.” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told us efforts such as the one undertaken by Judicial Watch and a similar one undertaken by another non-profit, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), are not meant to strengthen election systems but rather to bully election officials into purging voter rolls, in contrast to both the spirit and letter of federal election laws. Often, she said, such figures produced by the likes of Judicial Watch and PILF fail to account for things such as active military members or students attending university away from their home jurisdictions that may affect figures and numbers in different ways: It’s not just Judicial Watch. PILF used these inaccurate figures to target 248 local jurisdictions levying the claim they have more registered voters on the roles [sic] than eligible people. Then we have the president who with great frequency repeats similar numbers. What we’re seeing is a campaign to create public hysteria about voter fraud. We know these figures are wrong and these efforts are aimed a voter suppression. Clarke added that U.S. census data is not a reliable measure of eligible voting population, and that inactive voters can only be removed from rolls under specific circumstances, as noted in a memo sent from her organization to the 248 jurisdictions targeted by PILF: Using an unreliable and inaccurate assessment of voter registration rates, PILF wrongly asserts that the jurisdictions it has targeted have more voters on the rolls than eligible residents. It then falsely claims these high registration rates alone provide strong evidence that a jurisdiction is not fulfilling its obligation to maintain accurate voter rolls. United States Census data, which PILF apparently relies on to estimate the eligible voting population, is neither designed to measure eligible voters nor does in fact do so. Population for Census purposes is not the same as eligible population for voting purposes. For example, students, service members and others are eligible to vote in jurisdictions where they currently live, even if the Census may count them as part of the population in other areas. The figures PILF relies on to estimate registration rates fare no better. These reflect only the high-water mark rates at “book closing,” the period immediately before an election when there are typically large numbers of new registrants, and when election officials are restricted from removing people from the rolls. Even if a jurisdiction had more registered voters on its rolls than eligible population, there are many reasons why this might be proper and, indeed, evidence of compliance with the law. For example, when a registrant is thought to have changed residence, the law explicitly prohibits the removal of the voter’s name from the rolls unless either the voter has confirmed the change in writing or a sufficient waiting period has elapsed. A state complying with this requirement, then, will necessarily have ineligible voters on the rolls for a limited period of time. Likewise, in the three months prior to any federal election, states must halt most of their voter-removal efforts. At the same time, as the election approaches, new voters are registering in high numbers. This, too, will result in high registration rates when they are evaluated close to a federal election. […] PILF’s allegations of poor list maintenance in hundreds of jurisdictions around the country is baseless. Jurisdictions are not required under the NVRA or any other federal statute to take the actions PILF urges. Indeed, hasty and ill-considered list-maintenance programs are more likely to give rise to violations of the NVRA, and could put voters at risk of improper removal and, ultimately, disenfranchisement. When all of California (rather than eleven select counties) is taken into account, the figures offered in a 2 January 2018 report issued by the Secretary of State’s office list more than 25 million adults eligible to vote residing in California, but fewer than 19 million registered voters. The state would have to encompass more than 6 million “ghost voters” on its rolls for the number of registered voters to exceed the number of eligible adults. Moreover, in the 2016 presidential election, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won the state of California by more than 3.4 million votes over her closest competitor, Republican Donald Trump. Virtually every single one of the claimed 3.5 million “ghost voters” in the entire U.S. would have had to come to California and cast fraudulent votes in order to be responsible for that outcome. The trope that upwards of 3 million people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election is so persistent that it resulted in a now-defunct voter fraud commission, which was quietly disbanded in January 2018 without presenting any evidence of widespread voter fraud.
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37521
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Amazon is soliciting public donations to fund sick leave during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Is Amazon Seeking Public Donations to Fund Sick Leave During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On March 24 2020, journalist Judd Legum published a tweet claiming that as the COVID-19 pandemic began ramping up in the United States, Amazon.com (owned by Jeff Bezos) requested public donations in order to pay for employees’ sick leave:1. Amazon, owned by the richest man in the world, is soliciting PUBLIC DONATIONS to pay sick leave for contract drivers who contract COVID-19This is not a jokehttps://t.co/YAYeLo5Jak— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) March 24, 2020Alongside a screenshot and a link to a longer claim, Legum began a thread:1. Amazon, owned by the richest man in the world, is soliciting PUBLIC DONATIONS to pay sick leave for contract drivers who contract COVID-19This is not a joke2. Amazon has one of the worst policies for workers who contract COVID-19. Requires a positive test or a formal quarantine order to get paid.But contractors have it even worse. They have to apply for a “grant” from the Amazon Relief Fund.3. Amazon gave $25 million to the Amazon Relief Fund and then solicited donations for more.Apparently someone realized this looked bad so later they added language saying the “aren’t expecting” anyone to donate.4. There is a lot of talk about PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY during this crisis. That’s important.But equally important is CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY.That’s the mission of my newsletter, Popular Information.… 5. A broader point: If you are delivering packages for Amazon and contract COVID-19 you should not be forced to APPLY FOR A GRANT to get paid while you recover.It’s ghoulish.6. As a result of the pandemic, Amazon’s business is booming. It is likely to permanently benefit from this crisis. The absolute least it can do is take care of the workers that make its service possible.7. UPDATE: Amazon has responded and they say that it is COMPLETELY NORMAL for a company with $281 billion of revenue last year to require workers who contract a potentially-deadly virus to APPLY FOR A GRANT to get paid while they are quarantined.8. Amazon also claims it has “not asked for donations” despite the fact that it created a public website for this grant fund that solicited donations. The initial version had a way to donate via text!Amazon thinks this is normalThis is not normalLegum’s tweets linked to his website, Popular.info, a newsletter-based news service described by Wired as a “a one-man political newsletter ‘for people who are feeling overwhelmed'” in a 2018 profile on the effort. His commentary stretched across those eight initial tweets:In his seventh tweet, Legum added that Amazon had confirmed the policy he described and added a screenshot with a statement attributed to an Amazon.com spokesperson:That quote contained an assertion that Amazon was effectively not actively soliciting donations to the Amazon Relief Fund — but that the innate, third-party structured platform “required” that it be “open to public contributions”:We are not and have not asked for donations and the Amazon Relief Fund has been funded by Amazon with an initial donation of $25 million. The structure to operate a fund like this, which hundreds of companies do through the same third-party, requires the program to be open to public contributions but we are not soliciting those contributions in any way.The linked Popular.info page was a March 24 2020 article by Legum headlined, “Amazon soliciting public donations to pay workers’ sick leave.” It reported in part:Amazon’s large contract workforce, which delivers packages and performs other critical tasks, is in even worse shape. Amazon is not providing any sick leave at all for these workers, even if they test positive for COVID-19. Instead, these workers must apply to the “Amazon Relief Fund” and apply for a grant to cover their sick leave. The fund is “focused on supporting our U.S.-based Delivery Associates employed by Delivery Service Providers, our Amazon Flex Delivery Partners, and Associates working for Integrity Staffing, Adecco Staffing, and RES Staffing, and drivers and support team members of line haul partners under financial distress due to a COVID-19 diagnosis or quarantine.”Amazon donated $25 million to the fund and is soliciting individual donations to add to the pot. It initially included an option to donate by text.Popular.info had previously reported that the retail giant requested diagnostic criteria (a positive test or being “placed into quarantine”) which made it difficult to employees of the company to use paid sick time during the pandemic. Legum said that Amazon offered “unlimited unpaid leave” for its hourly employees, adding that Amazon’s fleet of contractors were required to apply for a “grant” from the “Amazon Relief Fund” in the event they contracted COVID-19 while on the job or off:Amazon announced that it would offer “unlimited unpaid time off for all hourly employees through the end of March [2020].” This is of little use for most hourly employees, who in most cases can’t afford to take unpaid leave.The company also says, “all Amazon employees diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine will receive up to two-weeks of pay.” This is similar to Kroger’s [since changed] policy. But testing is still extremely limited, and most employees will not be able to evaluated and be “placed into quarantine.”For contractors, like [an interviewed] driver in Illinois, things are bleaker. Amazon will not guarantee paid leave even for contractors that are diagnosed with COVID-19. Instead, “our independent delivery service partners and their drivers, Amazon Flex participants, and seasonal employees under financial distress” can “apply for grants approximately equal to up to two-weeks of pay if diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine by the government or Amazon.” The company has made an initial contribution of $25 million for this grant program. That’s how much revenue Amazon brought in every 47 minutes in 2019. Contractors are supposed to apply for grants through a website that does not appear to be online yet.A link in the March 17 2020 article went to blog.aboutamazon.com, an official Amazon.com corporate site, and an entry titled, “Amazon’s COVID-19 blog: How we are supporting our employees, customers, and communities.” (A version of the page archived on March 15 2020 is available here.) A March 11 2020 sub-entry on that post read:March 11: Establishing the $25 million Amazon Relief FundThe Amazon Relief Fund is focused on supporting our independent delivery service partners and their drivers, Amazon Flex participants, and seasonal employees under financial distress during this challenging time. We will be offering all of these groups the ability to apply for grants approximately equal to up to two weeks of pay if diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine. Going forward, this fund will support our employees and contractors around the world who face financial hardships. Applicants may apply and receive a personal grant from the fund ranging from $400 to $5,000 per person. Read more.“Read more” linked to a March 11 2020 entry titled “COVID-19 update: More ways Amazon is supporting employees and contractors,” which as of March 25 2020 included the referenced policies (emphasis ours):Effective immediately, all Amazon employees diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine will receive up to two-weeks of pay. This additional pay while away from work is to ensure employees have the time they need to return to good health without the worry of lost pay. This is in addition to unlimited unpaid time off for all hourly employees through the end of March, which we shared with employees last week.Amazon Relief Fund We are establishing the Amazon Relief Fund with a $25 million initial contribution focused on supporting our independent delivery service partners and their drivers, Amazon Flex participants, and seasonal employees under financial distress during this challenging time. We will be offering all of these groups the ability to apply for grants approximately equal to up to two-weeks of pay if diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine by the government or Amazon.Additionally, this fund will support our employees and contractors around the world who face financial hardships from other qualifying events, such as a natural disaster, federally declared emergency, or unforeseen personal hardship. Applicants can apply and receive a personal grant from the fund ranging from $400 to $5,000 USD per person.We will be publishing a website in the coming days where employees and contractors can apply for grants from the fund.Neither the reporting nor Amazon’s various statement pages made it easy to locate the page. As Amazon stated, the “Amazon Relief Fund” was hosted on a third-party website. When we accessed the page on March 25 2020, it read:The Amazon Relief Fund was created to help individuals who are facing financial hardship immediately after a natural disaster or an unforeseen personal hardship. The Amazon Relief Fund relies primarily on individual donations from individuals and support from Amazon Relief Fund to fund this program. Every contribution helps and when combined with the donations of others, can provide the help a fellow individual needs when they are facing the unexpected.Clarifying their dueling claims based on available information was not straightforward, in part because links weren’t archived and the initiatives described in various stories (such as the Amazon Relief Fund) were difficult to find and hosted on a third-party site.As Amazon said, the Amazon Relief Fund was administrated through an outside party — the Emergency Assistance Foundation (EAF), an organization enabling “corporations make emergency hardship grants for their employees when they face unexpected and unavoidable financial hardships or disasters.”However, Legum quoted Amazon’s spokesperson as explicitly stating that the “structure to operate a fund like this, which hundreds of companies do through the same third-party, requires the program to be open to public contributions but we are not soliciting those contributions in any way.” A screenshot of the Amazon Relief Fund taken on March 25 2020 shows that the fund was indeed soliciting donations via credit card, debit card, or PayPal, with options for people inside and outside the United States:We were unable to determine if any barrier existed for Amazon directly funding sick leave for its range of workers. It did not seem likely using the EAF platform was anything other than optional, and “What We Do” text at the bottom of the page emphasized that the program was primarily for coworkers to donate to one another:The Emergency Assistance Foundation, Inc. is a 501c(3) charity created to design and operate multiple employer-sponsored disaster relief and employee hardship funds. These funds allow domestic and international employers and employees to help their coworkers in times of crises.EAF’s FAQ explained that part of EAF’s purpose was to outsource vetting and verifying claims made by employees of any company for financial relief due to hardship:How does an Employee Relief Fund Work? There are a number of distinct processes or steps to establishing and operating an effective Employer-Sponsored Employee Hardship and Disaster Relief Fund Program. Here are the basics:a. An employer creates and names a custom fund within the Emergency Assistance Foundation, Inc. Establishing a fund is offered at no cost to the employer and is as simple as signing a simple Field-of-Interest agreement.b. Donations are made by employee contributions (through payroll deduction, credit or debit card, check), by the employer (usually through a donation-matching program or direct contribution), by the employer’s foundation, and sometimes through fundraising events.c. Employees complete applications for assistance, which EAF staff review.d. Each application undergoes a preliminary review to ensure a qualifying emergency or hardship exists and that all required documentation has been received. The applicant will be contacted if additional information is needed.e. Trained EAF personnel conduct final application reviews to determine if they meet the criteria established specifically for the company’s Employee Relief Fund. After the review, the grant requests are either accepted or denied based on the objective criteria. For approvals, the amount of the grant is determined.f. Grants are paid directly to vendors and service providers on behalf of the employee applicant or directly to the employee applicant in accordance with the employer’s guidelines.Per EAF, the burden was placed on employees to provide documentation that “a qualifying emergency” actually existed:A Qualified Disaster is defined as:• Results from terrorist or military actions • Results from an accident involving a common carrier • A presidentially-declared disaster • An event that the secretary of the treasury determines is catastrophic • An Employee Emergency Hardship is defined as:Any other permissible hardship other than a Qualified Disaster, which can range from house fire, serious injury or illness, death or a number of other events[. ]A sixth question addressed how employees feel about being asked to donate to their employers’ various funds. EAF’s response seemed geared more to charity and altruism than the distribution of benefits, such as — for example — paid sick leave during a pandemic:When a company gives employees a chance to donate to a worthy cause it increases their connection to the organization. This may seem counterintuitive, but research shows it’s true. It’s called prosocial motivation, which is the desire to protect and promote the well-being of others, and is distinct from altruism and independent of self-interested motivations. Interestingly, this is also true with Employee Relief Funds where the donor is more connected than the receiver.The Amazon Relief Fund was also accessible at amazonrelieffund.org. As of March 25 2020, text on that page explicitly solicited donations from anyone visiting the page:This fund has an initial donation of $25 million from Amazon. The company will continue to make additional contributions to the fund as it’s needed. While we aren’t expecting anyone to do so, you can make a voluntary donation to the fund if you desire to do so.To make a US Donation using your Credit Card, Debit Card or PayPal click here.All donations to the fund at the Emergency Assistance Foundation, Inc. are tax deductible in the U.S. The EIN# for the Emergency Assistance Foundation is 45-1813056.As Legum stated in his tweets, Amazon had indeed changed the language on that page. A version archived on March 19 2020 made no reference to Amazon not “expecting” anyone to donate:Make a Donation You can make a voluntary ongoing gift or one-time gift through our secure site using your credit/debit card or directly donate through your payroll.To make a US Donation using your Credit Card, Debit Card or PayPal click here.To make a donation via Text-to-Give, simply text the unique keyword “ARelief” to 71777.All donations to the fund at the Emergency Assistance Foundation, Inc. are tax deductible in the U.S. The EIN# for the Emergency Assistance Foundation is 45-1813056.In addition to the solicitation for visitors to donate money to the Amazon Relief Fund, it appeared a since-deleted line asked for “text-to-give” donations. Users were instructed to text keyword “ARelief” to 71777 to make a donation via text message, which we tested and found it appeared to still be doing as of March 25 2020:We contacted EAF to ask if it requires the program to be open to public contributions as a platform requirement, which was what the Amazon spokesperson was quoted as claiming, and asked:Can you tell us whether it is necessary for companies using EAF to solicit public donations for its respective relief funds? Is there a requirement companies include non-employee donations along with employee donations?We received a response in direct conflict with Amazon’s statement. EAF said that employers and employees were the primary funders of their programs:There is no requirement , most likely the donors will be the company, the company foundation or employees. Sometimes vendors donateBased on Amazon’s own statements, full-time employees were required to have tested positive for COVID-19 or under formal quarantine to access paid time off during the coronavirus pandemic; Amazon established the Amazon Relief Fund to cover sick leave for other classes of employee, such as contract workers and Amazon Flex participants who fell ill due to COVID-19; and Amazon’s contract workers who contracted COVID-19 were required to apply for a grant from a third-party-administered fund, the Amazon Relief Fund. In response to questions about the relief fund as well as their solicitation of public donations to fund it, an Amazon employee stated that the company was both required to solicit public donations and that it was not soliciting those contributions in any way.Archived, earlier versions of the Amazon Relief Fund page not only solicited donations from the public, but also invited donations via texts of “ARelief” sent to 71777. We texted “ARelief” to 71777 the afternoon of March 25 2020, and it appeared donations were still being accepted. (It was unclear how Amazon’s text-to-donate function was set up, but it nevertheless existed and functioned on March 25 2020. )Finally, we asked EAF if it “requires the program to be open to public contributions” in order to operate; a representative indicated that was false, and that the Amazon Relief Fund was neither required to accept public donations, nor was the program innately structured to include such a requirement.
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8165
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Coronavirus spreads fear, isolation, death to elderly worldwide.
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Grace Dowell, a 63-year-old grandmother, has stopped grocery shopping and canceled all her doctor’s appointments. No one is allowed into her rural Maryland home. Every piece of mail is disinfected.
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true
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Health News
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Dowell decided last week that strict isolation was the only way to protect herself, her husband and her mother from COVID-19, the virus that has killed more than 10,000 people across the globe and is proving especially deadly for the elderly. Dowell, a retired labor union worker, has rheumatoid arthritis and a compromised immune system. Her husband Donald, 74, suffers from emphysema. Her mother, Margaret Hildebrandt, 93, also has a lung disease and needs oxygen. Dowell took over her mother’s care from a visiting nurse because she worried an outsider could contaminate the home. “If my mom gets this, she’d be gone in a day,” said Dowell, who wears a baby-monitor and answers her mother’s calls for help through the night. “My mom beat cancer nine times. I don’t want her to die from this.” The elderly are especially vulnerable in the global pandemic and health officials and governments are increasingly calling for extreme measures to safeguard them. Across the globe, many cities have all but shut down as officials issue dire warnings for younger people - who can carry the virus without knowing it - to avoid their parents and grandparents. But this growing isolation of the elderly has spawned its own crisis, as families try to balance the need to care for loved ones with directives to stay away, shifting the burden to overstretched governments and medical facilities. Studies suggest the severity of coronavirus rises with age. In Italy, which now has the world’s highest death count, the average age of those dying is 80, according to a study by the Italian national institute of health. In China, where the pandemic started, people 70 and older accounted for just 12 percent of all infections but more than half of all deaths, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. In the United States, people 65 and older have thus far accounted for 31 percent of cases, 53 percent of intensive care hospitalizations and 80 percent of deaths, according to U.S. government data. Beyond the grim statistics, the pandemic has spawned countless small dramas of isolation and anxiety across the globe. In a village in Lebanon, a grandmother walled herself off in her home, unable to properly grieve her dead husband. In Spain, nursery home workers produced a Facebook video so residents could reassure their loved ones. And in Colombia - where the government on Tuesday ordered citizens 70 and over to stay inside until May 31 - seniors stocked up on supplies for two months of isolation. “They need to take these measures because many people are taking the situation lightly,” said shopper Carlos Manrique, 74, as he loaded up on potatoes, eggs and rice at a supermarket in Bogota. “I’m taking care of myself, as God orders.” Just as often, older people greeted the epidemic with defiance. “I am not worried about the coronavirus at all,” said Yutaka Kobayashi, 85, who refuses to wear a mask while working in his Tokyo shoe store. “People of my generation were made to wash their hands by their mothers and grandmothers.” In Italy, where more than 3,400 people have died since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21, local officials fret about the psychological state of elderly people confined to their homes for weeks in a government lockdown. The town of San Casciano in Val di Pesa launched an initiative called “Ciao Nonna, come stai?” or “Hello Gran, how are you?” urging all young people to call elderly relatives – or even older people they don’t know. One nursing home, Nuestra Casa La Grande in Navares de Enmedio, Spain, recorded a video of 24 elderly residents and posted it on Facebook, encouraging each other to blow kisses to the camera for their loved ones. Jonathan Barrios, a 24-year-old student living with his parents in La Parla, Madrid, said he doesn’t dare see his grandparents, who live on the same street. His 80-year-old grandfather has lung cancer. His grandmother, 70, has symptoms of the virus - a fever, cough and difficulty breathing - but can’t get tested because of a shortage of kits. “I feel strange and frustrated,” Barrios said. “All I can do for my grandparents is to call them.” The forced isolation perhaps cuts deepest for those in mourning. Joey Ayoub, a Lebanese researcher, said his grandfather died this week of problems unrelated to the coronavirus. He worries for his grandmother, who suddenly lives alone. Only six or seven people attended her husband’s funeral, which Ayoub said would otherwise have attracted “dozens and dozens.” They all sat at a distance from one another during a rushed service. “She can’t mourn properly,” he said. “She cannot do it with friends.” Some families have been hit hard when senior care centers closed, forcing them to take off work to watch over relatives. In the central Japan city of Nagoya, the mayor asked 126 such facilities to shut down for two weeks after a cluster of coronavirus cases was found at one of them. Japan has already weathered serious outbreaks of the virus and has huge numbers of people at risk - more than 28 percent of the nation’s population is 65 or over. But now, some people are venturing out again. “If I get it, I get it,” said Kazuko Mori, 74, a part-time cleaner in suburban Ichikawa, which had clusters of cases originating at a sports gym and an elderly daycare service. “If you get too nervous about it all, that isn’t good, either.” Many elderly people said they can’t follow government directives to stay home. In Kibera, a settlement of densely packed neighborhoods where few homes have running water in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, volunteers knocked on doors to tell people – especially the elderly – about the coronavirus. In one courtyard filled with children, Fatima Juma listened intently as Zulela Abdul explained the risks to her and handed over a small bottle of hand sanitizer. Juma, who says she’s about 82, had heard of the disease on television but didn’t know its symptoms. She was fine with washing her hands but rejected the idea of social distancing. She takes care of her grandchildren, the youngest one two years old, while their parents worked. She also needed to see her friends, she said. “This government directive is not good for me. I need to go to the market,” she said firmly, bangles flashing in the sunlight. “If there is a death outside, I need to go and console that person.” In Communist-run Cuba, which has Latin America’s oldest population, many people are forced to work long after retirement age to supplement meager pensions. Even in normal times, they endure long lines at stores and pharmacies. “I am very worried because I have asthma, and if I get it, I will die,” said Maria Torres Hernandez, 75, waiting alongside dozens of others outside a pharmacy in central Havana that had just received its ration of supplies. “I have to look after myself.” Angel Pupo Osorio, 80, works as a parking attendant in Havana to supplement his $12-a-month pension, and can’t afford to quit. So far, the disease hasn’t hit his neighborhood. “I’m going to continue working as long as I can, out of necessity,” said Pupo, wearing his uniform, a scarlet jacket and cap. Lucy Mayimela, a 68-year-old grandmother, first heard about the coronavirus on Monday when she made a trip to buy spinach for her fruit and vegetable stand in Kliptown, on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The farmer selling it to her wore a mask and insisted everyone repeatedly wash their hands before touching anything. Mayimela laughed bitterly at a suggestion she heard on the radio that she should isolate herself at home. “Isolate myself how?” she scoffed. She lives in a small shack with six relatives, in a community with a single wash basin and toilet for dozens of people. The produce stand she has run for 36 years provides her family’s only income. “I’ll end up dying of hunger” if people stay indoors, she said. “If God wants me to die, then it’s my time.”
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11279
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Heart attack relief? The truth about omega-3 fatty acids
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This TV piece did a reasonable job explaining the new wave of omega-3 fatty acid fortified foods. It is a shame that the sections on benefits and harms were not more descriptive. To its credit, the story turned to world renowned experts for this story (Dr. Walter Willett from Harvard School of Public Health and Dr. Alice Lichtenstein from Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science Policy).The two scientists cited could have easily provided additional details to guide the consumer in this regard. While it was amusing to ponder whether orange juice supplemented with omega-3 fatty acid from fish would taste fishy, the story failed to deliver content that might help the viewer understand the magnitude of the benefits one might realistically gain from increasing dietary omega-3 fatty acid or the level of harm that has been associated with this nutrient. In addition, the story did not include information about costs. It would have been better to provide people with more context to help them understand what they might gain from omega-3 fatty acids and to know that there are real risks associated with consumption of these – whether from fish or from fortified foods – so that consumers could make educated choices at the grocery store.
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mixture
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"The story did not mention the mention whether the costs for omega-3 fortified foods were typically higher than, equal to, or less than traditional products. It also would have been helpful to have provided an estimate of the costs for a ""therapeutic dose."" Though there was passing mention of health benefits associated with consumption omega-3 fatty acids from marine sources, there were no estimates of the magnitude of benefit that might be obtained. There was also no indication about the nature of the studies demonstrating these potential benefits. The story did mention preliminary results demonstrating an association between increased risk of prostate cancer and macular degeneration with increased consumption of alpha-linolenic acid from plants which the body can convert to omega-3 fatty acids. There were no estimates for the magnitude of the increased risk, nor any details about the studies from which the association was derived. The story ends with a recommendation to get omega-3 fatty acids from fish, but no discussion of the known potential harms from those sources. But since most of the story was on fortified foods, we'll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. The piece included bullet points indicating that omega-3 fatty acids reduce heart attacks and relieve arthritis pain. At the end of the story, there was mention of preliminary research suggesting that plant-derived omega-3 fatty acids may increase the risk of prostate cancer and macular degeneration. But for these benefits or harms, the story failed to explain the magnitude of the effect. There was very little in this story about the quality of the evidence. No overt disease mongering. The story turned to world renowned experts for this story (Dr. Walter Willett from Harvard School of Public Health and Dr. Alice Lichtenstein from Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science Policy). It also gave an industry spokesman some airtime. Although the story did make clear that one might obtain omega-3 fatty acids from fish or plant sources, there was no clear indication as to whether the health benefits that might be gained could be obtained through other treatment options. It's clear from the story that omega-3 fortified foods are readily available. As the story states, there is, indeed a new wave of omega-3 fatty acid fortified foods. Does not appear to rely solely or largely on a press release."
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8914
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Bayer Roundup cancer trial postponed to continue settlement talks.
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Bayer AG said on Friday it has reached an agreement with plaintiffs’ lawyers to postpone a Missouri jury trial over allegations its popular weed killer Roundup causes cancer to provide room for negotiations to settle the litigation.
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true
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Health News
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“While Bayer is constructively engaged in the mediation process, there is no comprehensive agreement at this time. There also is no certainty or timetable for a comprehensive resolution,” the company said in a statement in reference to the settlement talks. The fourth jury trial in the Roundup litigation was scheduled to begin in St. Louis on Friday morning, but never got underway as lawyers for the company and the cancer patients sat down to discuss a hold of the trial. The lawsuit would have marked the first multi-plaintiff trial over whether glyphosate, Roundup’s active ingredient, is carcinogenic, and the first trial outside of California. St. Louis is the hometown of Roundup-maker Monsanto, a unit Bayer acquired in a $63 billion deal in 2018. Three consecutive juries previously found the company liable for causing cancer with damages of tens of millions of dollars awarded to each plaintiff. Bayer is appealing those verdicts. Court-appointed mediator Ken Feinberg, who leads the settlement discussions, has put the number of Roundup cancer claimants at more than 75,000 while Bayer said the claims it has been served with in court were below 50,000. Bayer on Friday said it will continue the mediation process under Feinberg in good faith.
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23863
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"Since 2000, ""the Texas clean air program achieved a 22 percent reduction in ozone and a 46 percent decrease in NOx emissions."
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Perry: State has cut ozone 22%, nitrogen oxide emissions 46%
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mixture
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Environment, Texas, Rick Perry,
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"It's Gov. Rick Perry vs. Washington again, this time in a battle over Texas' compliance with the federal Clean Air Act. A day after the state filed suit to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from taking over parts of the state program that issues permits for companies to foul the air, Perry touted afresh Texas' progress in reducing pollution levels. Since 2000, Perry said in a press release issued Tuesday, ""the Texas clean air program (has) achieved a 22 percent reduction in ozone and a 46 percent decrease in NOx (nitrogen oxide) emissions."" The same statistic was cited by Perry in a May 28 letter to President Barack Obama and mentioned in news accounts such as a New York Times article published online June 9. Sounds good, but what do the figures mean? And does the state deserve credit for improvements? First, let's look at the basic science. A goal of the federal Clean Air Act is to reduce the levels of what EPA calls ""commonly found air pollutants."" Among those is ground-level ozone, which forms when nitrogen oxide emissions mix with volatile organic compounds in the presence of sunlight and heat. Common sources of nitrogen oxides: cars and trucks, power plants and industrial boilers. EPA sets limits on the concentration of ozonethe primary component of smog, in the air. Areas that fail to meet the standard are designated in ""nonattainment."" Under the Clean Air Act, the state is required to submit plans to EPA that outline how it will clean up areas and meet the federal standard. Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for the governor's office, said Perry's May letter to Obama focuses on ozone levels and nitrogen oxide emissions because ""ozone is the only thing that we are in nonattainment for the state. And NOx is a precursor to ozone, so it makes sense to highlight that."" Experts agreed with that reasoning. David Allen, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Texas, said: ""Controlling NOx emissions is, in general, the most effective strategy for reducing ozone in Texas. So, the governor was right to focus on NOx."" The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality provided us with data showing a 46 percent reduction in emissions of nitrogen oxide from industrial sources such as chemical plants, refineries and electric utility plants between 2000 and 2006. Considering the drop through 2008, the decrease was even bigger: 53 percent. However, industrial sources account for only about a fourth of NOx emissions in Texas. Most come from road vehicles, ships and airplanes, as well as smaller sources such as gas stations and dry cleaners. Susana Hildebrand, TCEQ's chief engineer, told us Perry referenced industrial sources of pollution because that's mainly what the state regulates; the federal government regulates mobile sources. Considering all sources of nitrogen oxide emissions, the total fell 26 percent between 2002 and 2008. (The reduction since 2000 was not available.) As for ozone itself, establishing that statewide measure is complicated. There are about 70 regulatory ozone monitors in Texas, primarily in urban areas, almost all located on or east of the Interstate 35 corridor. The statewide measure is the three-year average of ozone levels from sites with some of the highest readings. TCEQ said it believes the sites were all in Houston or Dallas. The data show a 22 percent reduction in ozone between 2000 and 2008. In short, said UT's Allen, Perry's ozone figure is in line with what the agency and university researchers have found. ""All of these measurements paint a consistent picture. Ozone concentrations are going down across the state,"" he said. Still, some parts of Texas have struggled to meet federal ozone standards. Three regions are currently designated in nonattainment under a limit set by EPA in 1997: Dallas-Forth Worth (nine counties), Houston (eight counties), and Beaumont-Port Arthur (four counties). According to TCEQ, the Beaumont area is being reclassified as in compliance and the Houston area met the standard for the first time in 2009. But a tightening of EPA standards, expected in August, will likely put several more areas, including the five-county Austin region, out of compliance. Next, to what degree were the reductions in ozone and NOx achieved by the state's ""clean-air program""? Allen said that it's difficult to say ""quantitatively"" whether federal or state regulations were primarily responsible. Indeed, we found disagreement among experts on that front. Hildebrand, of TCEQ, said state efforts deserve full credit for the industrial NOx emission reductions, pointing to initiatives designed to bring regions into compliance with federal ozone standards. An example: the Mass Emissions Cap and Trade program, in place in Houston since 2001, which limits NOx emissions from large sources. But Neil Carman, clean air program director of the environmental group Sierra Club of Texas, said the federal government deserves the vast majority of the credit for reducing industrial NOx pollution because state actions have been driven by the Clean Air Act. And vehicle emissions, which are regulated by the feds and are a greater source of NOx pollution than industrial sources, have gone down as well -- 40 percent by TCEQ's measure between 2002 and 2008. Hildebrand acknowledged that has helped improve Texas' ozone picture. Al Armendariz of Dallas, administrator of EPA's multi-state Region 6, which includes Texas, credited all levels of government with hastening the ozone improvements, especially in Dallas and Houston. As examples, he pointed to enforcement actions taken against industry by the federal government that led to facilities' agreeing to major cuts in emissions, as well as state initiatives. The state touts incentive-driven programs such as its Emission Reduction Plan, which has spent more than $760 million since 2000 to help companies retrofit or replace more than 12,000 diesel vehicles with cleaner-burning ones. Despite the ozone improvements, a report released April 28 by the American Lung Association ranked the Houston area as the seventh-worst in the nation for ozone pollution and Dallas-Fort Worth 13th. (The worst six places for ozone were in California.) Of the 30 Texas counties graded by the lung association on their ozone pollution, 21 -- including Travis -- received F's. So how does Perry's statement hold up? The governor accurately cites recent improvements in the state's ozone levels. As for the NOx emissions contributing to ozone levels, his statistic refers to only one source -- industrial -- which he did not note. Nearly three-quarters comes from other sources. Whether the state gets the credit for those improvements is another issue. Even if TCEQ is responsible for the drop in industrial NOx emissions, federal efforts -- namely vehicle emission regulations -- also have helped lower ozone levels. Significantly, the state's ozone-related programs exist to help Texas comply with federal expectations."
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8005
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Philippines coronavirus testing to be stepped up soon: WHO.
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Coronavirus testing is expected to increase substantially in coming days in the Philippines, where the high number of deaths relative to confirmed cases reflects lower testing so far, a World Health Organisation official said on Tuesday.
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true
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Health News
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The coronavirus death toll in the Philippines rose to 78 on Monday - the second highest in Southeast Asia outside Indonesia - with 1,546 reported infections. “With respect to the high proportion of deaths in the Philippines, that’s essentially because of the way Philippines has chosen to test,” WHO technical advisor Matthew Griffith told a news conference, referring to the focus on testing only the most severe cases until now. “We expect the testing to increase substantially in the coming days.”
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26397
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“Small trials” to test convalescent plasma therapy for coronavirus patients “seem to have had some degree of success.”
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At least two Chinese studies have found initial success with convalescent plasma therapy, a technique in which antibodies from recovered coronavirus patients are given to seriously ill patients in order to boost their immune response. The authors of these studies emphasize that more research is needed to confirm these results more broadly.
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true
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Health Care, Public Health, New York, Coronavirus, Jamie Nadler,
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"As physicians grapple with the best ways to treat patients infected with the coronavirus, one treatment that has gained increasing attention is convalescent plasma therapy. This therapy involves transfusing blood plasma from recovered coronavirus patients into a sick patient. The plasma contains a specific antibody that helps the immune system fight the virus. The idea is to help give seriously ill patients an immune-system boost so they can better fight off the virus. COVID-19 convalescent plasma therapy is considered as an investigational product by the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Jamie N. Nadler, the medical director of quality and patient safety for Buffalo General Medical Center and Gates Vascular Institute in upstate New York, recently told the Buffalo News that there’s some evidence that it could be an effective way to treat COVID-19. ""There have been small trials and small attempts around the world that seem to have had some degree of success,"" Nadler said. ""So it's worth trying as long as it's done correctly."" Nadler is right: We found two studies of convalescent plasma therapy that have shown at least initial promise with COVID-19 patients, although experts caution that more investigation is needed. (Nadler did not respond to an inquiry for this article.) Convalescent plasma therapy has a long history. It was developed by Paul Ehrlich and Emil von Behring for treatment of diphtheria, a finding that was recognized in 1901 with the first Nobel Prize for medicine, epidemiologist Dr. Ian Lipkin, a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, told CNBC. More recently, it was used against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, an infection with similarities to COVID-19 that emerged in Asia in the early 2000s. In one study in Hong Kong during a SARS outbreak, a hospital treated 80 patients with convalescent plasma. Among the treated patients, the study showed a higher discharge rate prior to day 14 of the illness: 58.3% became well enough to be discharged, compared with 15.6% of those who did not receive the treatment. However, patients suffering from Ebola — a different kind of virus in the filovirus family — did not experience positive results from convalescent plasma treatment. A Chinese study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, described a study treating five critically ill COVID-19 patients with convalescent plasma. All five patients, ranging from 36 to 65 years old, began the study while on ventilators. Following the transfusion, the authors reported, four of the five patients’ body temperatures normalized within three days. Other key metrics, including viral loads, improved within 12 days. The hospital discharged three of the five patients. The remaining two were in stable condition 37 days after the transfusion. The authors concluded that this represented an ""improvement,"" but cautioned that the limited sample size and study design precluded ""a definitive statement about the potential effectiveness of this treatment."" Another Chinese study found similar results. It has not yet been peer reviewed but has been published online. In the study, 10 patients with severe cases received a dose of convalescent plasma. Within three days, the viral load became undetectable in seven patients, with no adverse effects. In addition, fever, cough, shortness of breath and chest pain disappeared or significantly improved in all 10 patients within one to three days of the transfusion. The authors concluded that the therapy was ""well tolerated and could potentially improve the clinical outcomes"" in severe COVID-19 cases. However, they added, questions on the optimal dose and timing need further investigation. ""Just as COVID-19 has taken us back to classic methods for outbreak containment like isolation, through a novel use we are rediscovering the lifesaving potential of a classic strategy like plasma therapy,"" Lipkin said. Experts say that convalescent plasma therapy is promising, but much more work is needed. ""There have not been any breakthroughs recently,"" said Jessica Donington, a professor of surgery at the University of Chicago and chief of the thoracic surgery section. But, she added, ""it all has been going on very quickly,"" with larger clinical trials in the works. Nadler said that ""there have been small trials and small attempts around the world"" to test convalescent plasma therapy for coronavirus patients, and they ""seem to have had some degree of success."" We found two Chinese studies that have found initial success, though more research is needed to confirm these results more broadly."
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24035
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Bill White Says Gov. Rick Perry has never held a private-sector job.
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Democrat Bill White says Gov. Rick Perry has never had private-sector job
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false
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Candidate Biography, Texas, Bill White,
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"Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill White said last week that his November opponent, Gov. Rick Perry, has never held a private-sector job, the Wichita Falls Times Record News reported. Never is a long time. Is White right? First, we checked on whether the newspaper correctly quoted White. Why? The comment isn't in quotation marks in its article, raising the possibility the reporter made an inference. However, Lynn Walker, the Wichita Falls newspaperman who spoke with White on Tuesday, told us he jotted down “Perry never held a private-sector job” because that is what White told him “word for word.” When we called White's campaign about his comment, White spokeswoman Katy Bacon said White realized afterward he should have instead said something like Perry had “barely” or “hardly” any private-sector experience. She said a clarification was sent to the newspaper. Indeed, Perry has been a full-time state official for nearly 20 years. Before succeeding George W. Bush as governor in late 2000, he was lieutenant governor in 1999-2000 after serving two four-year terms as state agriculture commissioner. So how much private-sector experience does the governor have? Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle reminded us that Perry's background lies in his family's farming and ranching business in Haskell County, where he grew up. Born in March 1950, Perry attended Texas A&M University. After graduating in 1972, he was a pilot in the U.S. Air Force until he was discharged in 1977, with the rank of captain, according to his biographical entry in the Texas State Directory. In his autobiographical 2008 book, ""On My Honor,"" Perry describes his return: ""Dad still thought I was there to do chores. I reminded him that I had just finished commanding a multi-million-dollar piece of government equipment and a number of grown men. He reminded me that the chores still needed tending to."" In a profile published by the Austin American-Statesman, Perry is quoted saying that in 1978 he was within weeks of starting training as a Southwest Airlines pilot when a heavy rain prompted him to knuckle down. “I just made the decision that this is where I need to be,” Perry said. Perry subsequently ran for the Texas House -- a position intended to be part time, paying less than $10,000 a year -- and won the first of his three two-year terms in 1984. Two former Haskell residents who’ve long known Perry said he worked in various ways in the 13 years between returning from the Air Force and being elected in 1990 to his first statewide office as agriculture commissioner. Semi-retired pharmacist Doyle High, who lives in Austin, said Perry farmed and ranched with his father and also worked as a pilot for someone who lived in Abilene. Consultant Don Comedy of Marble Falls, who said he lived near Perry at that time, also recalled Perry farming and ranching. Comedy said Perry and his father leased a ranch covering some 8,000 to 12,000 acres, making provision for hundreds of cows. “That first winter,"" after Perry left the Air Force, Comedy said, ""we had several, eight to 10 days in row, the temperature never got above freezing. Rick was leaving the house in the morning before daylight, breaking ice on ponds so those cows could drink water... hauling hay, doctoring sick cows, riding horseback, coming in at night after dark... He was joking that at least in the Air Force, they had heaters in the airplane.” Comedy said Perry also went into business with a partner buying and selling airplanes; the partner has since died. Comedy said Perry also rented out space in buildings that he owned in Haskell. Andrew Gannaway, president of Haskell National Bank, said Perry served on the bank’s board of directors from 1983 through 1988, subsequently serving as an advisory director from 1989 to 1996. “He was involved in a family farming and ranching operation,” Gannaway said. “They were looking for local businessmen and folks who were a good representation of the community to serve on the board.” Perry's pre-government employment may not have been in typical 9-to-5 occupations, but it certainly qualifies as a ""private-sector job."" Bacon, White's spokeswoman, said he was making the point that he has considerably more private-sector experience — as a lawyer and businessman — than Perry does. That's not entirely what White said in Wichita Falls."
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1419
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Latest battle to wipe out polio begins with vast vaccine switch.
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In a huge immunization effort in 150 countries, health teams will on Sunday launch what they hope will be the final push against polio.
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true
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Health News
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Stopping transmission of the contagious viral disease that has infected millions is possible within a year, experts say. And full, official, global eradication could be declared by the end of this decade. First, however, the vaccine that has successfully fought polio for more than 30 years needs to be switched for one that targets the last few areas of risk. It won’t be easy, or cheap, but the World Health Organization’s director of polio eradication, Michel Zaffran, says failure now - when there have only been 12 cases worldwide this year, in Pakistan and Afghanistan - means the virus could spread across borders again. Success would make polio only the second human disease to be eradicated since smallpox was banished in 1980. “Taking our foot off the pedal now could mean polio will within a few years spread straight back into large parts of the world and create 100,000 or 200,000 cases,” Zaffran told Reuters. “The job has not been done and will not be done until we have fully eradicated the virus.” For the endgame in polio to succeed, a coordinated and complex vaccine switch is crucial. Until now, many countries have been using a shot that protects against the three types of wild polio virus - type 1, type 2 and type 3 - but type 2 polio transmission has been stopped since 1999, meaning immunizing against it now makes no sense. In rare cases it also poses a risk that the weakened type 2 virus in the vaccine can seep into circulation and cause “vaccine-derived” polio infections. So from April 17 to May 1, some 150 countries will engage in a synchronized switch to a bivalent, or two-strain, vaccine that contains no type 2 virus but targets types 1 and 3. It’s a massive undertaking and a major step towards eradication, says Zaffran. “We’re entering into uncharted territory. This has never been done before. But there’s no going back now.” That’s partly because polio vaccine manufacturers - among them France’s Sanofi Pasteur - have moved production to the bivalent shot and would find it tricky, costly, and time-consuming to reverse that move. Anil Dutta, a vaccine expert at British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, which also makes polio shots, is looking beyond eradication to 2019 or 2020, when all “live” oral polio vaccines need to be discontinued. Then the world will switch again, to “inactivated” polio vaccine, or IPV, to further reduce any risk of causing disease through immunization. Scaling up IPV production to meet the needs of the entire world takes years, he warns, and work must start now to avoid potential supply concerns. But prediction has never been easy in the fight to wipe out polio, and health authorities have missed targets along the way. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, launched in 1988, originally aimed to end all transmission of the disease by 2000. And while there has been a 99 percent reduction in cases worldwide since the GPEI launch, fighting the last 1 percent of polio has been far tougher than expected. In 2013, the GPEI said the global fight against polio would require $5.5 billion in funding, and more will be needed beyond that to keep a lid on the disease. The virus, which invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours, spreads rapidly among children, especially in unsanitary conditions in war-torn regions, refugee camps and areas where healthcare is limited. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, the last two countries where polio currently remains endemic, conflict and propaganda have hampered progress, and in the past posed risks to others. The campaign to eliminate polio in Pakistan is fraught with risk, with Islamist militants attacking health teams they accuse of being Western spies. A polio worker was shot and wounded in February and in January a suicide bomber killed 15 people outside a polio eradication center in the city of Quetta. In 2011, a polio virus from Pakistan re-infected China, which had been polio free for more than a decade. In 2013, the disease re-emerged in Syria after a 14-year absence, prompting the need for a vast and expensive regional emergency vaccination campaign. And last year, cases of type 2 vaccine-derived polio posed new threats in Ukraine and Mali. David Salisbury, an immunization specialist and associate fellow at Britain’s Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security, says the last 1 percent is a “very long tail” on a stubborn epidemic. “The original date for interruption of transmission was 2000. The next target was 2014 and it’s currently 2016,” Salisbury told Reuters, adding that even with case numbers as low as they are now, “2016 may be optimistic”. Liam Donaldson, head of the Independent Monitoring Board of the GPEI, agrees that celebrating the expected extinction of polio virus “would not just be premature, it would be folly”. “Polio is still out there,” he told a meeting in London. “(It) has fought back with a vengeance at every stage of the game. And it’s still fighting.”
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7810
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As novice runners hit the open road, experts say take it slow.
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As the days lengthen and the weather warms and novice runners cast an eye outdoors, fitness experts suggest they take a slow start to find their outdoor rhythm and pace to avoid injuries.
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true
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Health News
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Jen Van Allen, a certified running coach and co-author of “The Runner’s World Big Book of Running for Beginners” said the first time outdoors everyone else seems like a real runner. And new runners often fear getting hurt, or that they will find running unpleasant or boring. “Certainly when someone pushes body and mind farther there is going to be some discomfort,” said Van Allen, who has completed 48 marathons. “But a lot of people make the mistake of running as fast as they can and they get hurt.” She suggests that even if the goal is to run, newbies should walk and use the first four to six weeks to establish the habit. “If you’re just starting out, focus on rhythm, on finding the most convenient times and the safest routes, and deciding if you’d rather work out alone or with others,” Van Allen said. She added that the correct form for most people means eyes on the horizon, arms moving alongside, not crossing, the torso, shoulders and brows relaxed. “Starting at the top of your head, periodically check in with your body to release areas of tension,” she advised. David Siik, a Los Angeles-based running coach for Equinox, the national chain of upscale fitness centers, said when running for fitness the first goal is consistency. “It’s actually one of the hardest goals, and more immediately important than mileage and calories,” he said. “People fall out of the habit, often afraid that it’s too difficult or too hard on their body.” If running is physically very demanding, Siik said, the benefits can be extraordinary. “A great indicator of how fit running can actually make you is that you can lose it so quickly,” he said. “People who take long periods of time off from running see their aerobic strength go away very quickly.” Running takes time, so he suggests taking it slow, keeping a log, and seeing how it goes. “You’ll learn something new about yourself every time you run,” he added. Siik said much improper form is a lack of strength that sometimes, but not always, auto-corrects with practice. “Run with the runner’s tilt, making sure your weight is barely over your hips, never back on your hips, except during a decline,” he said. “That slight tilt forward engages your back muscles.” Jacque Ratliff , an exercise physiologist at the American Council on Exercise, said cardiovascular activity (such as running) increases the strength and efficiency of the heart muscle, which is important in warding off heart disease, lowering blood pressure and improving HDL (good) cholesterol. But she said any fitness regime should include strength, flexibility and mind-body components as well. “If somebody is just running all the time, that’s when injuries can occur,” Ratliff cautioned. Whether the goal is marathon glory or losing love handles, Van Allen urges new runners to start at their current level of fitness, not where they were in high school. “Get good shoes, start slow, find your pace,” she said. “It’s great to have dreams but in order to get there you have to start where you are.”
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26826
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“(A recent study) said ‘Medicare for All’ will lower health care costs in this country by $450 billion a year and save the lives of 68,000 people who would otherwise have died.”
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Many of the study's assumptions are flawed, and experts uniformly told us it overestimates the potential savings. It cherry-picks data in calculating mortality effects.
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false
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Corrections and Updates, Health Check, Bernie Sanders,
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"UPDATE: This story was updated to include more information about recent studies the Sanders' campaign referenced regarding the costs of single-payer. This update does not change the rating. Defending his signature health plan — a single-payer system known ""Medicare for All"" that would move all Americans to government-funded coverage — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders argued that the massive health care expansion would actually save the system hundreds of billions of dollars. Sanders’ figures come from a study published Feb. 15 in The Lancet, a British medical journal. ""It said ‘Medicare for All’ will lower health care costs in this country by $450 billion a year and save the lives of 68,000 people who would otherwise have died,"" Sanders said at the Feb. 25 Democratic presidential debate. The price tag of Medicare for All has been fiercely debated, and some previous analyses have suggested that the proposal would increase health spending, not decrease it. But Sanders is relying on the Lancet paper — which has a cost estimate that is the lowest, in the neighborhood of $17 trillion over 10 years — to argue that the suite of financing mechanisms he has proposed would more than cover the cost of his health bill. (Funding would include taxes on high earners, a new payroll tax, and 4% income premiums for the majority of families.) Most other estimates place the cost between $30 trillion and $40 trillion over a decade, which would make paying for it far more difficult. So we decided to take a closer look. We reached out to one of the study’s authors, but never heard back. A spokesperson for the Sanders campaign said the paper is ""similar to 22 other recent studies that have also shown that moving to a single-payer healthcare system will cost less than our current dysfunctional healthcare system."" (We asked for those 22 other studies but, as of publication, hadn’t received them from the campaign. However, an independent researcher provided us with this related analysis.) But other independent experts were skeptical of the Lancet study's estimate — arguing it exaggerates potential savings, cherry-picks evidence and downplays some of the potential tradeoffs. ""I don’t think this study, albeit in a prestigious, peer-reviewed journal, should be given any deference in the Medicare for All debate,"" said Robert Berenson, a fellow at the Urban Institute who studies hospital pricing. Largely, the Lancet paper is more generous in its assumptions than other Medicare for All analysis, noted Jodi Liu, an economist at the RAND Corp., who studies single-payer plans. To the researchers’ credit, she said, they acknowledge that their findings are based on uncertain assumptions. For instance, the researchers calculate $78.2 billion in savings from providing primary care to uninsured people — $70.4 billion from avoided hospitalizations and $7.8 from avoided emergency room visits. But previous evidence suggests that logic is suspect at best. When states expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, providing new insurance to people who had previously lacked coverage, avoidable hospitalizations and emergency room visits didn’t disappear because people could suddenly use preventive care, noted Ellen Meara, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. That evidence doesn’t appear anywhere in the Lancet paper. ""The notion that we’re going to get rid of all these avoidable visits — that’s not been borne out,"" she said. The researchers also assume that a Medicare for All system would pay hospitals at a maximum of Medicare rates. That’s tricky. In 2017, the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission estimated that, on average, a hospital has a -9.9% margin on a patient who is insured through Medicare. (Private pay helps make up that difference.) Some hospitals certainly would be able to swallow this cost. But others would struggle to stay afloat, said Adrianna McIntyre, a health policy researcher at Harvard University Given the political influence hospitals in particular carry in Congress — where most members are sensitive to their concerns — passing a plan offering such a low payment rate would be politically challenging. Sanders’ bill doesn’t actually specify the rates at which hospitals would be paid. Beyond the lower payments, the researchers also suggest hospitals would spend less money on overhead, only having to navigate a single insurance plan. That change accounts for $219 billion in their estimated savings. But again, that ignores some of the reality of how hospitals work. While a single-payer system would undoubtedly cost less to administer — requiring a smaller back-end staff, for instance — it would not eliminate the need for expensive items like electronic health records, which coordinate care between hospitals. ""The assumptions are unrealistic,"" said Gerard Anderson, a health economist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. ""You are never going to save that much money from the various providers."" Medicare for All would enroll all Americans in coverage far more generous than what most experience now — eliminating virtually all cost-sharing associated with using health care. That’s a major change, researchers told us. Previous evidence suggests that such a shift would encourage consumers to use health care more than they currently do. The Lancet paper acknowledges that — but only partially. It allows that people who are uninsured or ""underinsured"" — that is, who have particularly high levels of cost-sharing now — would use more medical care under Sanders’ system than they currently do. It factors that into the price tag. But its estimate does not account for people who already have decent or adequate insurance and who would still be moving to a richer benefit, and therefore more likely to use their insurance. ""It drastically underestimates the utilization increases we would expect to see under Medicare for All,"" McIntyre said. ""People have different views on whether the increased utilization is good or bad,"" she added — it makes the program more expensive, but also means more people are getting treatment. Context is helpful, too. Other estimates — namely, a projection by the Urban Institute — of Medicare for All have suggested it would increase federal health spending by about $34 trillion over 10 years. But elimination of other health spending would make the overall change smaller. To implement the Sanders proposal, national health spending — public and private dollars, both — would increase by $7 trillion over a decade, Urban said. And Medicare for All would be bringing new services: more insurance for more people, and more generous coverage for those already covered. Urban’s estimate of $7 trillion more in spending over 10 years is far removed from the study’s estimate of $450 billion less annually. And, experts said, relying on the latter figure isn’t a good idea. ""I think they need more work to prove"" the savings, Meara said. ""They’re not being complete, and by not being complete, they’re not being honest."" It’s also worth noting that the study’s lead author was also an informal unpaid adviser to the Sanders staff in drafting its 2019 version of the Medicare for All bill, according to the paper’s disclosures section. Experts agree that expanding access to health insurance would probably reduce early mortality. But the 68,000 figure is another example of cherry-picking, Meara said. The figure is based on a 2009 paper. It doesn’t acknowledge a body of research that came after, including multiple studies that examined how expanding Medicaid affected mortality — and maybe offered less dramatic numbers. ""When they so clearly are cherry-picking, when they clearly have all the information on studies in front of them, it’s concerning,"" Meara said. ""It’s a situation where you’re going to overpromise and underdeliver."" Sanders said a recent study suggested Medicare for All would save $450 billion annually and saves 68,000 lives. That study does exist. And it cites some evidence. But many of its assumptions are flawed, and experts uniformly told us it overestimates the potential savings. It cherry-picks data in calculating mortality effects. This statement has some truth, but ignores context that would create a dramatically different impression."
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‘Second disaster’ warned in Mozambique as cholera a concern.
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Cyclone-ravaged Mozambique faces a “second disaster” from cholera and other diseases, the World Health Organization warned on Tuesday, while relief operations pressed into rural areas where an unknown number of people remain without aid more than 10 days after the storm.
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true
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World Health Organization, Health, Cholera, Storms, Zimbabwe, Antonio Guterres, Africa, International News, Weather, Mozambique, United Nations, Malawi
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Some 1.8 million people in Mozambique need urgent help after Cyclone Idai, the United Nations said in an emergency appeal for $282 million for the next three months. The death toll in Mozambique from the cyclone has risen to 468, according to Mozambican authorities cited by the Portuguese news agency Lusa. There are also 259 dead in Zimbabwe and at least 56 dead in Malawi. Cyclone Idai was “one of the worst weather-related catastrophes in the history of Africa,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters in New York. He raised the specter of hunger, saying the storm inundated Mozambique’s breadbasket on the eve of harvest. The death toll remained at least 761 in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, and authorities have warned it is “very preliminary.” More bodies will be found as floodwaters drain away. Emergency responders raced to contain deadly diseases such as cholera, which authorities have said will break out as more than a quarter-million displaced people shelter in camps with little or no clear water and sanitation. Many wells were contaminated by the floods. People are living in tent camps, schools, churches, roads and other impromptu places on higher ground. Many have little but their clothes, squatting over cooking fires and picking their way around stretches of increasingly dirty water or simply walking through it, resigned. The World Health Organization said it is expecting a “spike” in malaria cases in Mozambique. The disease-carrying mosquitoes breed in standing water. WHO also said 900,000 oral cholera vaccines were expected to arrive later this week. Cholera is caused by eating contaminated food or drinking water and can kill within hours. Cases of diarrhea have been reported. “We must not let these people suffer a second disaster through a serious disease outbreak or inability to access essential health services. They have suffered enough,” Dr. Djamila Cabral, the WHO Representative in Mozambique, told reporters in Geneva. She said people in camps were living in “horrific conditions” and that about 55 health centers had been severely damaged. Residents of the camps expressed growing concern. “Surely when people are in a crowded place they are all vulnerable, they face difficulties such as urination and defecation,” Jose Pedro told The Associated Press in Beira. “So the spreading of diseases such as cholera is easy.” There were similar concerns in southern Malawi. In the Bangula camp in Nsanje district, about 5,000 people have just a few toilets. The toilets “are very shallow and some are already full because the area is still waterlogged,” said Joseph Moyo with the Oxfam aid group. Humanitarian assistance continued to arrive, including much-needed air support. The World Food Program received $280,000 from the European Union to support the deployment of a U.N. Humanitarian Air Service helicopter that will deliver assistance to the two worst-hit districts in Zimbabwe, Chimanimani and Chipinge. The United States said it had donated nearly $3.4 million in emergency food assistance to the World Food Program, whose director was touring Beira on Tuesday. A field hospital was being set up in Beira and another is arriving later this week, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said. A sanitation system to serve some 22,000 people has arrived and a water purification unit to serve some 25,000 people is expected to arrive on Wednesday, the organization said. “Honestly I am distressed there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of providing the assistance proportional” to the number of people, former Mozambican first lady Graca Machel said in Beira. Bit by bit, the scale of the destruction became clearer. The cyclone reportedly destroyed all houses in the village of Metuchira, home to nearly 38,000 people, the U.N. humanitarian agency said. Amid the relief efforts, grieving people in Mozambique struggled to bury the dead. “Efforts are underway to improve management of dead bodies, as mortuary facilities were either destroyed and/or lack enough facilities and capacity,” the U.N. humanitarian agency said. ___ Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Cara Anna in Johannesburg contributed. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa
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“Now, as it stands, our health care system has adequate ventilators, ICU beds, medical professionals.”
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Experts said all evidence points to the U.S. being short on hospital beds, ICUs and ventilators, assuming COVID-19 continues to spread. The U.S. could take any number of actions to increase the number of hospital beds, supplies and medical staff available. Social distancing and other measures to slow the virus’s spread are meant to shrink the peak number of cases so hospitals don’t get stretched past their capacity.
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false
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Health Care, Public Health, Pundits, PunditFact, Coronavirus, Sean Hannity,
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"Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity celebrated the White House’s response to the novel coronavirus in a recent TV monologue, saying the U.S. health care system is ready for the virus. ""We need to prepare for the worst-case scenario,"" Hannity said on his TV show March 16. ""The president and his task force confirmed they are. Now, as it stands, our health care system has adequate ventilators, ICU beds, medical professionals and ultimately, like I said, we must prepare for the worst, pray for the best."" That contradicts the warnings of public health experts, who have been sounding alarm about the shortage of ventilators, intensive care unit beds and medical professionals and encouraging Americans to practice social distancing as a way of preventing hospitals from being overrun. Hannity is wrong to say the U.S. has everything it will need, experts said. U.S. hospitals might be able to deal with the number of patients today — although experts we spoke to disagreed on whether that was the case — but the situation will likely look different as it evolves. ""We don’t have nearly enough hospital and ICU beds if there is a surge of cases,"" said Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. ""There is no basis for his assertion."" ""Even a mild surge of COVID patients will stress our ICUs as they have never been stressed before,"" added Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. The available data suggests that U.S. hospitals are not as well-equipped as Hannity claimed. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States has 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people. That ratio puts the U.S. behind other countries — such as China and Italy — that have struggled to keep up with the spread of COVID-19. That doesn’t bode well for the U.S. response to the coronavirus. As of March 16, Italy has seen more than 24,700 confirmed infections and over 1,800 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. Hospitals can’t handle the influx of patients, forcing doctors into difficult decisions. In a March 12 op-ed in the New York Times, health policy experts wrote that if 5% of the country catches COVID-19, there will be enough serious cases to overwhelm the health care system. ""If we follow the curve that Italy has followed, in two to three weeks we will no longer have adequate supplies of any of those necessary resources,"" Matthew Wynia, director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado, told us. A March 17 analysis from the Harvard Global Health Institute, ProPublica and the New York Times shows how many beds would be filled in parts of the United States if, over the next six, 12 or 18 months, the coronavirus infects 20%, 40% or 60% of the country. The projections show that many U.S. cities won’t have enough hospital beds to meet the number of sick patients in need, assuming the virus continues to spread and nothing is done to increase the hospitals’ capacity. Some states will be worse off than others. In the worst-case scenario — where 60% of the population gets sick within six months — the U.S. would need seven times the number of available hospital beds it currently has, the analysis found. Even in a moderate scenario where 40% is infected over 12 months, many cities such as Washington, D.C., would still need to significantly expand hospital capacity. Jha, who worked on that project, told us its findings show Hannity’s claim to be wrong. The health care system is projected to be overwhelmed by coronavirus patients unless drastic measures are taken. Social distancing and isolation will slow its spread. Here is why that will save lives. pic.twitter.com/R1djQQdpYc Another analysis from USA Today found that ""there could be almost six seriously ill patients for every existing hospital bed"" — and possibly as many as 17 patients per bed. That examination said the 6-to-1 ratio was a ""conservative"" estimate based on the assumption that all the hospital beds in the U.S. are currently empty. They’re not. ""Our ICUs are currently stretched thin by flu, and we have shortages of nurses and doctors in many parts of the country,"" Toner told us. A February report Toner worked on at Johns Hopkins said the U.S. has approximately 46,500 ICU beds in total. If the coronavirus spreads at a moderate pace, then 1 million Americans could be hospitalized and 200,000 Americans would ultimately need an ICU, the report said. A more severe scenario could put up to 9.6 million Americans in the hospital and 2.9 million in need of ICUs. A separate Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security report identified about 160,000 ventilators in the country, though not all are full-featured. That includes tens of thousands of ventilators in hospitals nationwide and thousands more in an emergency federal stockpile. But in 2018, the group estimated that a moderate pandemic similar to the 1957 or 1968 influenza viruses would put about 65,000 people in need of ventilation, and a severe pandemic like the 1918 flu would require ventilators for some 742,500 people. Not all COVID-19 patients will need treatment at the same time, of course. Aaron Carroll, professor at the Indiana School of Medicine, wrote in the New York Times that a key metric is ""the difference between the total number of people who might get sick and the number who might get sick at the same time."" But states and doctors are worried about shortages. Social distancing, shutdowns and other preventative measures to slow the spread are meant to shrink the peak number of cases so hospitals don’t get stretched past their capacity. Together, we can “flatten the curve” by practicing social distancing, staying home when sick, and washing hands often. This will reduce the strain on our hospitals and emergency rooms, and literally save the lives of our most vulnerable residents. #COVIDー19 #NovelCoronavirus pic.twitter.com/6Yzvg3DONv ""That is why hospitals are cancelling all elective surgeries, planning to expand capacity as much as possible, and even getting ready to make very difficult, battlefield-style triage decisions if it comes to that,"" Wynia said. ""There is an enormous storm coming, and our best meteorologists can’t be sure exactly how big it will be, when it makes landfall, or where it might hit hardest."" President Donald Trump has said the federal government has ordered more equipment and instructed governors to purchase supplies directly if they can get them faster on their own. ""We’ve ordered massive numbers of ventilators,"" Trump said during a March 17 briefing. ""By any normal standards, we have a lot of respirators, ventilators."" Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing with the coronavirus task force at the White House in Washington on March 17, 2020. (AP/Vucci) Trump said the Army Corps of Engineers is ""ready, willing and able"" to retrofit its facilities and build new field hospitals to care for more patients, saying they could do so ""very rapidly."" In the same briefing, Vice President Mike Pence called on construction companies to donate their masks to local hospitals, and Dr. Deborah Birx, a member of the coronavirus task force, said Americans should cancel elective surgeries to ""free up hospital beds and space."" New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said March 18 that Trump has pledged to dispatch a Navy hospital ship to New York Harbor to accommodate patients there. Hannity said, ""Now, as it stands, our health care system has adequate ventilators, ICU beds, medical professionals."" That might be true if the U.S. stopped the coronavirus from spreading any further. But given the country’s likely trajectory, experts said all evidence points to the U.S. being short on beds, ICUs, ventilators and medical professionals. The U.S. will need to take steps to slow the spread and expand hospital capacity if it wants to keep its health care system from being overrun by the likely uptick in cases."
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Oscars producers say the show is in ‘good shape’ for Sunday.
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Academy Awards producers Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss have been hearing the same question a lot recently: Are you OK?
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true
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Academy Awards, Los Angeles, Entertainment, Movies, Glenn Weiss, Donna Gigliotti, AP Top News, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, North America
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It’s an understandable query. Producing the Oscars is guaranteed to be a stressful job, but the road to the 91st Academy Awards, which will take place on Sunday, has been unusually bumpy, and public. “We’re good! We’re good!” Gigliotti said while laughing Thursday afternoon. “Did we look like cadavers yesterday?” Both have been working out of the Dolby Theatre, where hundreds of people are making sure everything is ready by Sunday night when the show airs live in more than 225 countries and territories. But beyond the physical preparation, in the months leading up to the renowned show they and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have been under immense scrutiny from the public and even peers for basically everything : The choice of a host, the choice to go host-less, the plan for which songs would be included in the broadcast and which awards categories would be aired live. Even the announcement that Queen and Adam Lambert would open the show was met with snark and sarcasm from some: They were worried about the excess time it would take for the cinematography winner to get to the stage and now there’s going to be a potentially six-plus-minute Queen performance of a song that isn’t even nominated? Oh, and they’re also on the hook to save the show from declining ratings (last year’s hit a record low of 26.5 million people, down 20 percent from the previous year) and keep the ABC broadcast to a trim three hours. No pressure, right? But Gigliotti and Weiss, who is also directing the show, aren’t sweating. “I think that the show is in very good shape,” Gigliotti said. “We feel good about the way it is flowing, looking (and) our presenters.” The film academy has announced a massive roster of celebrity talent that will be joining the show: Barbra Streisand, Michael B. Jordan, Tina Fey, Charlize Theron and Michael Keaton are just a few of the confirmed presenters. They’re also bringing out well-known figures from outside the film world, like Serena Williams, Congressman John Lewis and chef Jose Andres to help present some of the best picture nominees. One thing that’s given them confidence is how successful many of the eight best picture nominees have been this year. Conventional wisdom is that the more popular the nominated films are, the more viewers will tune in (one of the highest-rated years was when “Titanic” won). ″(The nominations) kind of go to the heart of what we were trying to do with this show, which was put a spotlight on films with worldwide success that have had a cultural impact,” Gigliotti said, noting “Black Panther,” ″Bohemian Rhapsody,” ″BlacKkKlansman” and “Green Book.” Getting Queen to perform on the show was also something they said they discussed very early on. “We thought it was an exciting way to open the show with a lot of energy,” Gigliotti said. Also, “Bohemian Rhapsody” was a massive hit worldwide, earning over $100 million in Japan alone. It just made sense for a show hoping to attract a global audience. They aren’t looking to set a host-free Oscars precedent, and say that big picture, not much has changed for their overall vision for the show. “As with any other show, moments change along the way,” Weiss said. “But the big overlying arc of where we’re going is pure to when we first met months ago.” Winners are still going to have a 90-second clock running from the time their name is called to the time the orchestra is signaled to start playing them off, but Gigliotti says that they’ll make judgment calls if something extraordinary is happening on stage that lasts a bit longer. Weiss said there’s a misnomer that they want to cut people off. “Nobody wants to do it,” he said. “Our job, make no mistake about it, is to honor them, not antagonize them. We hope that everybody works toward that same end.” And also to try to let an east coast audience go to bed by 11 p.m. knowing what the best picture winner is. They’ve been aware of the chatter on social media, but say they’re not ruffled by it. “Everybody’s got an opinion,” Gigliotti said. “It’s interesting. You sort of listen to people. But my doorman, I tell you, he’s got an opinion. And he thinks it’s a good thing that we’re going without a host.” As for what a successful show will look like, Weiss confidently said, “Watch Sunday night.” After the show is finished, Gigliotti has offered to help plan Weiss’ honeymoon (the two live three blocks away from one another in New York). Weiss famously proposed to his girlfriend at the Emmys last year while accepting an award — which, incidentally, clocked in at nearly three minutes and was also easily the most memorable moment of the show — but hasn’t had time to focus on much but the Oscars. “You’re not the only woman in my life who thinks that,” Weiss joked. ___ Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr ___ For full coverage of the Oscars, visit: https://apnews.com/AcademyAwards
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Madmen are injecting HIV-infected blood into unsuspecting moviegoers and random young people dancing in bars or at raves.
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Decades-old rumor holds that madmen are jabbing unsuspecting moviegoers with HIV-infected needles.
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false
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Horrors, HIV, Murdering Madmen
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In June 2018, the Feedy TV web site published an article headlined “HIV Infected Needles Found in Public: Take Only 2 Minutes of Your Time to Save Your Life.” The text of the article recounted supposedly recent incidents of unsuspecting persons being jabbed with HIV-infected needles left in movie theater seats in various cities: Recently, a girl who went to the movies, sat down in one of the theater seats, and felt a stabbing pain. She quickly stood up and found the needle of a medical syringe sticking out of the seat. There was also a note that said, “You have been infected with HIV”. The Centers for Disease Control reports that similar events have taken place in several other cities recently. All of the needles tested HAVE been positive for HIV. The CDC also reports that needles have been found in the coin return areas of pay phones and soda machines. This article was nothing more than a modern recounting of an urban legend about “AIDS terrorists” randomly pricking victims with HIV-infected needles in theaters and other public places, a legend that first hit the Internet two decades ago: [Collected on the Internet, 1998] Warning – MUST READ Be careful the next time you go to a cinema. These people could be anywhere!! An experience of a friend of my brother’s wife left me speechless. Please do send this out to everyone you know. This incident occurred in Bombay’s Metro cinema (Among the best in town). They were a group of 6-7 College girls & they went to the theater to see a movie. During the show one of the girls felt a slight pinprick but did not pay much attention to it. After sometime that place began to itch. So she scratched herself and then saw a bit of blood on her hands. She assumed that she had caused it. At the end of the show, her friend noticed a sticker on her dress and read the caption. It read “Welcome to the world of AIDS”. She tried to pass it off as a practical joke but when she went for a blood test a couple of weeks later (just to be sure), she found herself HIV Positive. When she complained to the cops, they mentioned that her story was one of the many such cases they had received. It seems the operator uses a syringe to transfer a bit of his/her infected blood to the person sitting ahead of him/her. A horrible experience for the victim as also the family & friends. The WORST bit is that the person who does it gains NOTHING where as the victim loses EVERYTHING. So, be careful . . . [Collected on the Internet, 1998] PLEASE CHECK YOUR CHAIRS WHEN GOING TO THE MOVIE THEATRES!!!! An incident occured when a friend’s co-worker went to sit in a chair and something was poking her. She then got up and found that it was a needle with a little note at the end. It said, “Welcome to the real world, you’re “HIV POSITIVE”. Doctors tested the needle and it was HIV POSITIVE. We don’t know which theatre this happened at, but it happened in Hawaii. “BE CAUTIOUS WHEN GOING TO THE MOVIES!” IF YOU MUST GO TO THE MOVIES, PLEASE, PLEASE CHECK!!!!! One of the safest way is NOT sticking your hands between the seats, but moving the seat part way up and down a few times and REALLY LOOK!!!!!!! Most of us just plop down into the seats. [Collected on the Internet, 2001] PLEASE READ THIS CAREFULLY! IT MIGHT SAFE YOUR LIFE! This is happening in Montreal. A couple of weeks ago, in a movie theater, a person sat on something sharp in one of the seats. When she stood up to see what it was, a needle was found poking through the seat with an attached note saying, “You have been infected with HIV.” The Centers for Disease Control reports similar events have taken place in several other cities recently. All of the needles tested HAVE been positive for HIV. The CDC also reports that needles have been found in the coin return areas of pay phones and soda machines. Everyone is asked to use extreme caution when confronted with these types of situations. All public chairs should be thoroughly but safely inspected prior to any use. A thorough visual inspection is considered a bare minimum. Furthermore, they ask that everyone notify their family members and friends of the potential dangers, as well. Thank you. The previous information was sent from the Regina City Police Department to all of the local governments in the Saskatchewan area and was interdepartmentally dispersed. We were asked to pass this to as many people as possible. This is very important! Just think you could save somebody’s life, just by passing this on. Please take a Couple of seconds of your time and pass this on. Thank you for your precious time and consideration! [Collected on the Internet, 2002] HIV Warning A few weeks ago in a movie theater in Melbourne a person sat on something that was poking out of one of the seats. When she got up to see what it was she found a needle sticking out of the seat with a note attached saying… “You have just been infected by HIV”. The Disease Control Centre in Melbourne reports many similar incidents have occurred in many other Australian cities recently. All tested needles ARE HIV Positive. The Centre also reports that needles have been found in the cash dispensers in ATMs. We ask everyone to use extreme caution when faced with this kind of situation. All public chairs/seats should be inspected with vigilance and caution before use. 17 people have been tested positive in the Western suburbs alone in the last 2 months!!! A careful visual inspection should be enough. In addition they ask that each of you pass this message along to all members of your family and your friends of the potential danger. We all have to be careful at public places! This is very important. Just think about saving a life of someone even you don’t know by forwarding this message. Please, take a few seconds of your time to pass it along. In all the time since this rumor’s initial appearance time we’ve turned up no confirmed AIDS-laden needle attacks on moviegoers have been reported in Bombay, Hawaii, Dallas, Paris, or anywhere else in the world. We know of only two related incidents, neither of which proved to involve any deliberate intent to infect an innocent victim with HIV: A Louisiana man sat on a needle in a theater in Baton Rouge in December, 1996, and sued the facility over the incident, but there was no note welcoming him to the world of AIDS or any indication of his contracting any infection. An October 2005 report from Athens, Georgia, involved a woman who said she sat upon a needle that had been duct-taped to a movie theater seat, but since then she also has evidenced no symptoms of HIV infection. (In the latter case, although the syringe contained a substance that appeared to be dried blood, it was too small a sample for police to be able to determine what it was or whether it carried a disease.) One of the many versions of this warning claims to be one circulated by the Dallas Police Department. Not only didn’t that institution originate the warning, but since its appearance officers there have been kept busy fielding inquiries about this hoax: “It’s all false,” said Sgt. Jim Chandler, a Dallas police spokesman. “This has not happened, and we would ask people to stop forwarding this message to their friends because it’s creating situations where police departments and emergency personnel are having to respond to inquiries to a situation that has not happened.” What we have here is an urban legend trading on our fears of catching AIDS. Cautionary tales about hapless bystanders contracting an infectious disease became all the rage in the 1990s. Another such scare has to do with addicts leaving HIV-contaminated needles in the coin returns of pay phones. See our “Slots of Fun” page for more about this related legend. This particular pin prick story is a version of the better known “AIDS Mary” legend. (In “AIDS Mary,” the “Welcome to the world of AIDS” communication is typically imparted either through a gift emblazoned with that message being left for the victim or found scrawled in lipstick on the bathroom mirror.) AIDS Mary has been scaring the bejeebers out of us at least since the early 1980s. The pin prick legend, however, isn’t all that new either, with the HIV version of it having its roots in an 1989 incident in New York City. The legend in its current incarnation (teenage girls in darkened theaters jabbed with needles) dates back to a much older non-HIV story, one rampant in the New Orleans area in the 1930s. Toothsome young girls were told to beware of Needle Men. Young ladies were strictly instructed to sit at the end of the aisle in moviehouses, not in the middle, lest they attract the attention of white slavers working in pairs who would sit down beside the girl, one on each side, inject her with morphine, and carry her out of the theatre and into a life of shame. The New Orleans Needle Men rumor circulated in another form besides the “white slavers after young girls” — others feared these syringe-armed fiends were in fact medical students harvesting cadavers for dissection. Women jabbed by them would quickly succumb to the poison contained in those needles, with their lifeless bodies soon afterwards delivered to a local teaching hospital. Such deadly attacks were said to take place in theaters, but also on the street. Though “Needle Man” scares rippled through New Orleans at various times in the 1920s and 1930s, each time sending women into hysterics, there was never any credible reason to believe such men existed. Women weren’t disappearing at a furious rate, nor were gals who’d fallen into lives of prostitution afterwards asserting they’d been overcome via injection and abducted. A slightly different yet inexplicably more frightening version of the pin prick legend began circulating in the early spring of 1998. According to it, young people partying in clubs or at raves run the risk of being jabbed with an HIV-loaded needle and then afterwards finding a “Welcome to reality — you now have AIDS” message stuffed into a pocket or affixed to them by way of a sticker. This warning has so far circulated in Philadelphia, New York City, San Diego, Oakland, Seattle, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Mexico, Australia, Ecuador, and Germany, each time passed along as something that had already happened to others locally: Do you any of you guys like to go clubbing? Well you might want to think twice after this message. Just in case you don’t already know, there is a certain group of people with stickers that say “Welcome to our world.” Once this sticker is stuck on you, you contract the AIDS virus because it is filled with tiny needles carrying the infected blood. This has been happening at many dance clubs (even DV8 and Beatbox) and raves. Being cautious is not enough because the person just chooses anyone, and I mean anyone, as his/her victim. So you could just be dancing the night away and not even realize the sticker had been stuck on you. It sounds too demented to be true, but it’s the truth. In fact my sister’s friend knows someone who just recently contracted the virus in this manner. The world isn’t safe anymore. Please pass this on to everyone and anyone you know. Wherever this rumor goes, it has a significant impact on the local bar scene. In August 1998 one popular Toronto nightclub estimated its business to be down by 50%. In March 1998 a popular dance club in San Diego was similarly affected when the story swept through there. People hear this story and stay away in droves. Police in each of these cities have investigated the rumors and found nothing. The clubs named in the rumors similarly report they know nothing of any attacks. Okay, so this isn’t happening in movie houses, at popular dance clubs or at raves. Where did this HIV-loaded needle story come from? Keep in mind that although there have at various times been random attacks with needles, none have resulted in infection being passed to victims. That part is myth. Now for the truth of it: For a few weeks in the fall of 1989, a group of Black teenagers (mostly girls) scared the pants off the denizens of New York City by running about jabbing pins into the necks of 41 random white females. Media coverage escalated the general public’s fears as it was repeatedly stated the pins were tainted with AIDS. Within a week the kids responsible were found and arrested, and it was at that time police discovered there was no basis to the reports of the AIDS virus being part of these attacks. The hooligans responsible admitted it was just a fun game to them, run up to a white woman, stick her with a pin, see her reaction, then run off. Possibly inspired by the 1989 panic in New York City, for three weeks in 1990 a Black man terrorized white and hispanic women in that city by hitting them in the legs and buttocks with dart-like missiles fired from a homemade blowgun. More than 50 women were hit in this fashion before the man responsible was caught. When asked why the attacks, the assailant made a rambling statement to the effect that short skirts were immoral and “people from the islands shoot women who wear provocative clothing with darts to punish them … they also throw them sometimes into volcanoes.” (Good thing this nut didn’t live in Las Vegas, else the volcano at the Mirage would have been standing room only.) Kids have since gotten the idea this is a cool game to play. In 1995 a 13-year-old boy brought a hypodermic syringe to Mount Pleasant Area Secondary School (Pennsylvania) and proceeded to jab 28 classmates with it. The boy was charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment and possession of a weapon on school property and was turned over to juvenile authorities pending a hearing. In 1997 two teenage lads at Exeter-West Greenwich (Rhode Island) jabbed 32 other students with a medical lancet. Meant to be a “playful prank” (stabbing someone with anything isn’t considered playful in my book), the state Health Department took the matter very seriously, ordering blood tests and vaccinations against Hepatitis B for all the victims. The boys responsible were suspended and criminal charges were brought against them. Earlier in 1997, 18 Lecanto Middle School (Florida) pupils were attacked by five schoolmates wielding lancets. The perpetrators were suspended for ten days and medical tests were run on their victims. Again, it was only a meanspirited prank — no viruses were communicated in the attacks. Robberies have been carried out by syringe-wielding robbers who claim to be armed with the AIDS virus and willing to stick anyone who gets in their way with the infected needle. It has to be stressed that though various robbers and muggers have claimed to have been so armed, thus far this has never proved out to be anything more than an empty threat. All syringes so employed have tested out as perfectly clean. Even so, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that claiming to be armed with an AIDS-tainted needle would generate a lot of cooperation from the people you’re trying to rob. Expect to see this “weapon” become even more common as time marches on. It’s not all sweetness and light, however. On 20 May 1999, WBFF/WNUV of Baltimore, Maryland, reported on a midday attack upon an unnamed Towson, Maryland, woman. She had been checking her oil at a gas station when she was approached by a man who asked her for money. The victim described what happened next: I said I didn’t have any money. I said I only had a dollar. He said that would do. He put one arm around me and kissed my cheek, he put another arm around me and stabbed me with a needle, and said welcome to reality you have HIV. The victim’s description led police to a panhandler known to frequent the area. He was found with a syringe on him. (Click here to read WBFF’s report about this incident.) In January 2000, the attacker earned a three-year prison sentence for his crime. The victim is not HIV-positive. There has been at least one verified HIV-positive syringe attack of the non-random variety. It happened in Australia in 1990, with the victim being a prison guard at Sydney’s Long Bay Jail. Gary Pearce opened a security gate for an inmate known to be HIV-positive and in doing so turned his back for a second. He felt a jab in his buttock. He turned to knock a blood-filled syringe away just as the inmate, Graham Farlow, shouted “AIDS” and ran off. Pearce rushed to a nearby office where the wound was sterilised. To no avail however. Despite the 1-in-200 chance that a stick injury from an HIV-infected needle would produce a positive result, he tested HIV positive two months after the attack. Pearce died on 30 August 1997 of an AIDS-related illness. Farlow had died in 1991. This attack plus a spate of supposedly HIV-loaded needle robberies (the robberies at needlepoint were real, but the HIV part was never proved), prompted the Australian government to introduce legislation covering such offenses. Since the victim didn’t die within a year and a day of the pricking, the attacker couldn’t be charged with murder under the old laws. That changed in 1990. Now robbers using syringes filled with HIV-infected blood as weapons face up to 25 years in jail in New South Wales state. British police would like to have something a lot closer to what the Australian legal system provides for. In 1994 they unsuccessfully called for a crackdown on HIV-loaded needle threats, claiming the harm done to victims necessitated both harsher penalties than currently legally available and voicing the need to be able to charge someone in possession of a syringe with carrying an offensive weapon. At present, the psychological damage caused by the threat to inject someone with an HIV-infected syringe is classed in Britain as actual bodily harm, and an attacker can be charged with grievous bodily harm if an injury is sustained. Is that really enough, or are the British police right that this doesn’t go far enough? The AIDS pinprick legend’s popularity stems from our fear of contracting AIDS. Even if we take pains to avoid engaging in high risk activities or strive to do so in as safe a fashion as possible, we’re all too aware we’re still vulnerable, and this legend speaks to that awareness. Though in the early days of this disease, the average citizen felt perfectly safe from its ravages, AIDS is now no longer perceived as something only other people will catch. It’s now seen as a danger to all of us. This sense of being at risk, coupled with ongoing fears of the madmen who walk among us, has given birth to this bit of scarelore. Credibility is further supplied by news stories about kids jokingly stabbing classmates with needles and robbers threatening victims with “loaded” syringes. Mix a bit of truth into an existing bit of scarelore, and it becomes powerful medicine indeed. The typical college girl victim is a metaphor for us. By casting the one pinpricked as one of tender years, the undeserving nature of the victim is underscored. She’s seen as both young and untouched by the world, therefore completely undeserving of this terrible fate. (As, by implication, are we.) Her gender also comes into play as “college girl” is a shortform in the world of urban legends for sexual and social innocence. Her fatal infection is made to appear doubly tragic in that it doesn’t seem to us, the audience, she would otherwise have come in contact with this illness. Indeed, no more “innocent” a mythical victim could be created. She’s a lot like us, in other words. The terrifying aspect of this bit of scarelore is we see ourselves in her place.
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38253
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Claims that Senator Mitch McConnell had polio as a child and free government healthcare saved his life began making the rounds as McConnell led Senate Republicans’ efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare in June 2017.
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Mitch McConnell Had Polio, Government Healthcare Saved His Life
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false
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Government, Health / Medical
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Mitch McConnell had polio as a boy, but his treatments were paid for by charitable donations — not a free government healthcare program, as has been reported. That rumor started with a post appearing on June 22, 2017, at the website Occupy Democrats under the headline, “Mitch McConnell Beat Polio As A Child Thanks To Government Healthcare,” that had been shared nearly 100,000 times within a week. The story reports that Polio received treatment where President Franklin Roosevelt waged his own battle with polio and later established a treatment center: Young Mitch came down with a terrible case of polio as a child in Alabama. “My mother was, of course, like many mothers of young polio victims, perplexed about what to do, anxious about whether I would be disabled for the rest of my life” he admitted in a 2005 interview. But luckily for him, his mother took him 50 miles to the Warm Springs, where President Roosevelt won his own battle with polio and established a polio treatment center that was paid for by the public. President Roosevelt asked the people of America to send in dimes to the White House as part of his “March of the Dimes” foundation. Over two and a half million dimes were mailed in, and they paid for Mitch’s physical therapy and treatment. The posts claim that Mitch McConnell’s polio treatments were “paid for by the public” is true, considering that March of Dimes is a nonprofit that depends on contributions from the public. However, the claim made in the headline that McConnell beat polio “thanks to government healthcare” is false — which is why we’re classifying this rumor as “mostly fiction.” Claims that Mitch McConnell survived polio thanks to free government healthcare were repeated in June 2017 as McConnell oversaw Senate Republicans’ plan to advance a healthcare bill that would end coverage for an estimated 22 million Americans and make deep cuts to Medicaid, a government-run program, the Congressional Budget Office reports. Factual accounts of Mitch McConnell’s childhood experience with polio are based off of a speech he made on the Senate floor in 2005 in which he recounted his experience with polio as a two-year-old boy: I was struck with polio when I was two years old. My dad was overseas and fighting in World War II. Polio was similar to having the flu. You felt sick all over, and when it went away, the difference between having polio and having the flu were the residual effects. In my case, when my flulike symptoms went away, I had a quadriceps in my left leg that was dramatically affected. My mother was of course like many mothers of young polio victims perplexed about what to do, anxious about whether I would be disabled for the rest of my life. But we were fortunate. Where we were living while my father was overseas was with her sister, in East Central Alabama, only about 40 or 50 miles from Warm Springs. Everyone knows that President Roosevelt established Warm Spring where he went to engage in his own physical therapy as a center to treat other polio victims. My mother was able to put me in the car, take me over to Warm Springs, and learn from those wonderful physical therapists who were there what to do. The treatment center that Mitch McConnell referred to was founded as the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation and was later renamed the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation. In addition to undergoing polio treatments there, Roosevelt maintained a residence between 1933 and 1945, having died during a visit to Warm Springs. In 1939, the FDR Library reports that former president started using his birthday to raise funds for the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, which had established the treatment center in 1927: In 1938, FDR created the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to support the rehabilitation center at Warm Springs and also to aid the victims of polio throughout the country. To increase awareness of the Foundation’s campaign, radio personality and philanthropist Eddie Cantor took to the air waves and urged Americans to send their loose change to President Roosevelt in “a march of dimes to reach all the way to the White House.” Soon, millions of dimes flooded the White House. In 1945, the annual March of Dimes campaign raised $18.9 million for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. The March of Dimes (as the National Foundation became known) financially supported the research and development of a polio vaccine by Jonas Salk in 1955, eradicating the disease throughout most of the world by the 1960s. So, although FDR was closely tied to the Warm Springs treatment facility, he didn’t undertake a government program that provided free healthcare there. And, although Mitch McConnell received free publicly-supported polio treatment there, it wasn’t free government healthcare. Mitch McConnell has drawn criticism for refusing to meet with the March of Dimes and other patient advocacy groups as he leads Senate efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare — although the organization saved his ability to walk, and might have even saved his life. Comments
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23927
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"Sen. Barbara Boxer ""passed only three bills in 18 years"" into law."
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'Hot Air' movie not accurate on Boxer's laws
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false
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National, Legal Issues, Message Machine 2010, Carly Fiorina,
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"It's one of the weirdest political ads we've seen this year: ""Hot Air: The Movie."" It shows an animated Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., at a committee hearing in Congress. Her head starts expanding and expanding until it floats off into air, pulling Boxer from her chair and bursting through the Capitol dome. Then Boxer turns into a large blimp with loudspeakers on top and TV screens around the bottom, floating over the California landscape, broadcasting inanities. (No, we're not making this up. See the ad for yourself.) A creepily cheerful narrator says: ""Soon her elitist self-image grew so that it overwhelmed the capital and drifted west ... westward, to tell us all how to live our lives ..."" At seven and half minutes, the video runs too long to be a TV ad and is clearly aimed at an online audience. At about the halfway mark (after the senator-blimp has floated over what appears to be the L.A. skyline), the ad introduces Republican Carly Fiorina as a better alternative and a ""successful leader."" We decided to check one of the ad's more concrete criticisms of Boxer: That she's ""passed only three bills in 18 years"" into law. ""One named a local courthouse. One named part of a river -- in Virginia. And the third brought California some money to retrofit bridges. Three bills,"" the narrator said. Following our standard practice, we contacted the Fiorina campaign for back-up. They told us they were counting only bills passed into law where Boxer was listed as the primary sponsor. But they also told us since the ad was made, they ran across two other bills, so the actual number they found was five. They contrasted this unfavorably with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who they said was the primary sponsor on 14 bills that became law. Of Boxer's legislation, the ad mentions a 1994 law that funded bridge retrofits; a 2007 law to name a U.S. courthouse in Fresno, Calif., the ""Robert E. Coyle United States Courthouse; and a 2008 law to designate a portion of the Rappahannock River in Virginia as the ""John W. Warner Rapids."" The other two laws are a 2004 measure to provide for ""the development of a national plan for the control and management of Sudden Oak Death, a tree disease caused by the fungus-like pathogen Phytophthora ramorum,"" and a 2009 law to re-name a San Diego post office as the ""Cesar E. Chavez Post Office."" (We verified that both passed.) But Fiorina's narrow accounting is misleading because it ignores the collaborative way that bills become law. Any single bill that lists a single senator as author is often the collective work of many senators. In some cases, entire bills become amendments to other bills that pass. We found that Boxer co-sponsored at least 72 bills since 1995. A good number of these were for less significant resolutions or post office namings. But some were more prominent pieces of legislation, such as the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which removed barriers so women can sue for gender-based pay discrimination, and the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, which aimed to reduce counterfeiting and piracy of intellectual property. ""It's the nature of the process that everybody participates,"" said Senate historian Donald A. Ritchie. ""No one writes a bill all on their own with no other input."" In the case of particular bills, it's often possible to piece together which senators contributed to a piece of legislation through research and reporting. But there's no standardized way to count meaningful contributions on a broad scale. ""There is no good, strong, objective, consistent way to measure productivity as a legislator,"" said Norman Ornstein, a Congressional expert and a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The statement in the Fiorina ad is ""meaningless,"" he said. ""It doesn't matter whether it's narrowly, factually accurate. It has nothing to do with Boxer's record as a legislator,"" he said. Ornstein also pointed out that Boxer is chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, so she's steered important legislation on energy and offshore drilling. Committee chairs don't always author the original legislation themselves, but they play a critical role by greenlighting bills they support and stopping bills they oppose. Boxer has used that power to advance her legislative agenda, Ornstein said. The Boxer campaign said she has contributed to several pieces of legislation that she didn't directly sponsor. She co-authored a successful amendment that permitted companies to claim a one-time tax reduction on profits made overseas if money is invested into the domestic American economy. They said she also contributed to laws that protected California wilderness areas, funded after-school programs, and set rules for 401(k) plans limiting how much employers could force employees to hold in company stock. We looked into a few different accounts of Boxer's legislative accomplishments. CQ's Politics in America 2008 edition noted that she had ""pushed through"" the tax change on overseas profits. It also said that she had ""led efforts in 2001 to help communities deal with abandoned industrial sites."" However, the 2010 edition said that ""Getting major legislation passed has not been the trademark of Boxer's career,"" and noted the bridge retrofits bill. But it also said that she is very active in promoting environmental issues and has been a longtime proponent of ""cap and trade"" legislation to address carbon emissions and climate change. Such legislation is still pending in Congress and has yet to become law. In ruling on the statement in the ""Hot Air"" ad, we find a lot lacking. The Fiorina ad said that Boxer ""passed only three bills in 18 years"" into law. But now even the Fiorina campaign admits that number is wrong -- there are five. And more importantly, experts on Congress say the Fiorina campaign's methodology is a misleading way of assessing a senator's legislative accomplishments. The Fiorina campaign could still make a case that Boxer is not an effective legislator, but the campaign has failed to do it here. Using the count of bills authored is simplistic and doesn't reflect the reality of the legislative process."
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35096
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"Self-described psychic Sylvia Browne ""predicted"" a 2020 outbreak of the new coronavirus."
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"What's true: Self-described psychic Sylvia Browne wrote in her 2008 book ""End of Days"" that a respiratory illness would spread across the globe. What's undetermined: It's unclear whether Browne's ""prediction"" was more of a lucky guess, considering the book was written after the SARS outbreak. Furthermore, it's unknown —possibly unlikely — whether other aspects of Browne's book passage will bear out."
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mixture
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Paranormal, coronavirus, COVID-19, psychics
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In early March 2020, amid fears about an international outbreak of illness caused by the new coronavirus, dubbed COVID-19, social media users shared an image of a page in the book “End of Days,” which was published in 2008 and authored by self-described psychic and medium Sylvia Browne. “Did Sylvia Browne predict the coronavirus in her book End of Days?” one reader asked. Browne died in 2013. She gained notoriety for her claims that she could predict the future and communicate with spirits. But she was also the subject of criticism for offering the grieving parents of missing children false information. Browne did vaguely write in her 2008 book that a respiratory illness would spread across the globe in 2020. Here are her own words from the Google Books version of “End of Days”: In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely.
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24356
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"During his tenure as mayor, he ""saw Houston’s crime rates drop to the lowest levels in more than 25 years."
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White says crime hit 25-year low during his tenure
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true
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Crime, Texas, Bill White,
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"As his campaign revs up, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White is pointing voters to his record as mayor of Houston from 2004 through 2009. On his campaign Web site and in a thank-you letter published Jan. 2 in the Houston Chronicle, he brags about the city’s crime rates. Though White in his public statements has stopped short of claiming he reduced crime in the nation's fourth-largest city, his Web site biography notes that during his tenure as mayor, he ""saw Houston’s crime rates drop to the lowest levels in more than 25 years."" White's critics have accused him of being soft on crime, and the issue is likely to emerge in the governor's race. We decided to investigate whether White's statement about the decrease in Houston crime was . Statistics provided by his campaign confirm that the crime rate overall hit a 25-year low during his administration. That measure includes three nonviolent property crimes (such as burglary) as well as four major violent crimes (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault). The White campaign's numbers, which were generated by the Houston Police Department for the years 1980 through 2008, show that the city’s 2008 total crime rate -- 6,080 offenses per 100,000 residents -- was the lowest of any of those years. In fact, 2006, 2007 and 2008 had the three lowest total crime rates in the 29 years of data offered by the campaign. To double-check the numbers, we compared White’s statistics with those of the Texas Department of Public Safety, which collects data from local law enforcement agencies for the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program. The DPS numbers for Houston did not perfectly match the police department’s because the agencies use different population estimates in their calculations. However, the discrepancies were small and did not undermine White’s assertion: In the DPS data starting with 1980, 2008 was also the year with the lowest total crime rate: 6,053.7 offenses per 100,000 residents. Looking only at violent crime in Houston, the picture changes somewhat. There was at least one year -- 1998 being the most recent -- when the violent crime rate was lower than any year during White's tenure. And both the White campaign and Clete Snell, chairman of the Criminal Justice Department at the University of Houston Downtown, note that Houston experienced an uptick in violent crime in 2005, White’s second year in office, that they attribute to the influx of Hurricane Katrina evacuees. These days, few public officials can legitimately take credit for reducing crime locally. That's because crime rates have been trending down all across the country for years, in some cases to record lows. According to FBI data, the nation's total crime rate in 2008 was down 29 percent from 1983, 25 years earlier. Experts don't agree on the reasons for the persistent trend, but have suggested such factors as rising incarceration rates, the aging of the population and improved police practices. It is important to note that crime trends do not follow straight lines — they can fluctuate year-to-year. Still, according to the DPS data, total crime in Houston has dropped 31 percent since 1983. And the decline was under way before White took office. Nevertheless, when the Houston FBI office gave White the FBI Director’s 2007 Community Leadership Award, his efforts to combat crime were among the reasons cited. ""Mayor White is being recognized for his outstanding contributions toward improving the quality of life in the City of Houston through his commitment to law enforcement and the prevention of crime,"" a statement from the FBI said. Summing up: Although experts debate the reasons for the downward trend in crime nationwide, White is right that the total crime rate in Houston hit a 25-year low during his time as mayor. We give him a ."
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5078
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Indiana educators disappointed about mental health funding.
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The failure of Indiana lawmakers to approve proposals during this year’s legislative session that would have made mental health services eligible for school safety funding is a huge disappointment, education officials said.
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true
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Education, Mental health, Health, School safety, Terre Haute, Indiana
|
Early in the session, Democratic state Rep. Tonya Pfaff, a high school math teacher from Terre Haute, introduced an amendment to a school safety bill that would have allowed school corporations to use safety or security subsidies to provide students with school-based mental health services. A bipartisan group of lawmakers said substantial language involving mental health services was later removed because of criticisms from conservative organizations and parent groups, the Tribune-Star reported. “I’m disappointed that we didn’t put any real money into dealing with mental health issues this session,” Pfaff said. “We continue to talk about school safety, but we can’t talk about it without talking about mental health and social-emotional wellness.” Jennifer McCormick, the Republican state superintendent of public instruction, said financial backing for mental health services didn’t receive the attention it warranted. “We were disappointed to see how the legislation ended up,” McCormick said. “However, I have faith in our local schools that they are going to do what is right for kids” and provide access to needed services. The apprehension of conservative groups related to the mental health legislation “had to do with parental consent,” said state Rep. Bruce Borders, a Republican from Jasonville. He said parents deserve to know what is being asked of their kids. “That’s where most of the battles came in, over parental consent on some of these evaluations,” Borders said. Terry Spradlin, executive director of the Indiana School Boards Association, said most of the school safety legislation prioritizes revamping building security and addressing threats, instead of prevention. “They really didn’t do an adequate job on the prevention side, addressing the social-emotional learning and mental health needs of students,” Spradlin said. “We’ve got more work to do in that area. ISBA will continue to be an advocate and bring forth some new ideas in future sessions to address those critical needs.” ___ Information from: Tribune-Star, http://www.tribstar.com
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11118
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Laser Treatment May Work for Cataracts
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"It’s not a ""treatment"" until it helps a living human being. Until then, it’s an experiment. In a story that afforded the topic only 268 words, rather than using 23 of them to say that ""the goal is a relatively simple procedure that would last half an hour at most and use largely automated equipment in mobile clinics"" – perhaps a cautious independent perspective would have helped remind people that this research wasn’t done on people – only on donor lenses. Science briefs have their merit, but not when they offer too few details to show what an extremely early stage of research this is in."
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false
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"Not applicable. Costs not discussed, which is understandable at this early stage of research. We’ve already told you what the story didn’t: that this was an experiment on 9 human organ donor lenses. But the story also didn’t say if the approach had the intended effect on all 9, half of them, or how many. The story also didn’t capture what the researchers reported: So the leap to knowing how this might work in the bodies of living people is large, despite a headline that stated, ""Laser Treatment May Work For Cataracts."" You can’t say much about potential harms when all that’s been reported is an experiment on 9 human organ donor lenses. But the story didn’t even capture what the authors wrote: The story never explained that the experiment was done on just 9 human organ donor lenses. No overt disease mongering of cataracts. No independent source was quoted. No meaningful comparison was (or perhaps could be) given between this experiment in 9 lenses and lens replacement surgery or any other experimental approach to cataracts. The final line ""much more research and development work remains"" may help readers understand that this is not a readily available approach. Not applicable. There aren’t any claims made about novelty, but neither is there any context about any other experimental approaches to cataracts. We can’t be sure."
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6295
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Looking for answers to rural Wisconsin OB-GYN shortage.
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Dr. Alexa Lowry, an obstetrician-gynecologist who grew up in Barron County, returned to her native western Wisconsin for three weeks this fall.
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true
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Health, Wisconsin, Eau Claire
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The move isn’t permanent — although Lowry would like to practice medicine in a smaller community one day. The rural Cumberland native spent three weeks in October at a St. Croix County hospital as a resident. She’s part of the nation’s only rural OB-GYN residency, a UW Health program that recently added Western Wisconsin Health in Baldwin to its roster of rural hospital training sites. The program brings young OB-GYNs — doctors who provide women’s reproductive health and care for pregnant women before and after birth — to rural Wisconsin communities for short-term rotations. The long-term goal? Getting young OB-GYNs to come back permanently, the Leader-Telegram reported. “Since 1996, there were about 20% of Wisconsin counties without obstetric care units in their hospitals,” said Dr. Ryan Spencer, director of the UW Health OB-GYN residency programs. “That’s increased to 40% of counties without an OB care unit, most recently in 2016.” One of the biggest issues rural women face during pregnancy is “just sheer distance,” said Dr. David Hirsch, OB-GYN and chief of staff at Marshfield Medical Center-Eau Claire. “Even in a relatively large rural community like Ladysmith (in Rusk County), people might live an hour from there,” Hirsch said. Another problem for mothers: Getting to a hospital that regularly delivers babies. Just over half of rural Wisconsin hospitals — 56% — provide obstetric delivery, but a few hospitals have been discontinuing those services over the last decade, according to a July report from the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health. Eleven rural Wisconsin hospitals closed their OB units in the last 10 years, according to the report. In larger cities, mothers have several options for obstetric delivery. Mayo Clinic Health System, Marshfield Clinic Health System and HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital deliver babies in Eau Claire; obstetric delivery is also available in Chippewa Falls, Menomonie, Barron and Rice Lake. Mayo Clinic Health System-Northland in Barron is expanding its birth center, a nearly $1 million project adding four new rooms for labor, delivery and postpartum and building upgrades that are expected to be complete in early 2020. But for women who live far from those cities, delivery is a tricky service, because babies come on their own time, Lowry said. “In some cases . you may still only need to drive 15 to 30 minutes down the road to get to a place,” Lowry said. ”(That’s) not nearly as concerning as people who potentially are driving more than an hour to get to an OB-GYN . I think that’s one of the biggest things that’s a problem at this point.” The good news? Ninety-nine percent of Wisconsin women of childbearing age live within 30 minutes of a hospital with obstetric delivery, according to the report. In smaller communities, hospitals train emergency departments to deliver babies in a pinch. ″(Emergency room delivery) is not optimal, but faced with the resource challenge we’re talking about, it helps provide a safety net,” Hirsch said. Looking ahead Of Wisconsin’s 72 counties, 27 have no OB-GYN, according to UW Health. But some health officials say a lack of OB-GYNs is only part of a larger problem — that running obstetric units in small communities simply isn’t feasible. Spencer began seeing the problem in the early 2000s. But rather than simply cutting services, some rural hospitals are closing altogether. “We started seeing an increase in rural hospital closures across the country,” Spencer said. “We do see a significant worsening of the problem over time, especially related to women’s health and obstetric care.” Some hospitals can’t afford to keep an obstetrics unit, Hirsch said. Delivery is safest at a facility with an intensive care unit, operating room, anesthesiologist, emergency department and experienced nurses, he said. “It’s difficult, the resources you need to have available to run labor and delivery,” Hirsch said. Keeping multiple OB-GYNs on hand is an expensive business. To support a whole community around the clock with an on-call schedule, at least three providers are needed, said Alison Page, CEO of Western Wisconsin Health in Baldwin. For a small hospital an hour away from a large city, three OB-GYNs means “well over $1 million in expenses,” Page said. “It’s not going to support that.” Western Wisconsin Health has two OB-GYNs. The hospital delivers about 250 babies each year, up from about 40 babies per year four years ago, Page said. Midwives and family practice doctors help fill in the gaps. But even in a fully-staffed obstetrics unit, providers can’t keep their competency if there aren’t many babies born in a rural community. “Providers have to have a certain number of births, cesarean sections, things like that so they can demonstrate they’re competent,” Page said. And fewer young women are moving to smaller communities, said Jeff Euclide, chief administrative officer of Marshfield Medical Center-Ladysmith. “I don’t think it’s a secret that rural areas aren’t as attractive to the childbearing population as the city,” Euclid said. Finding a fix Lowry grew up in a “tight-knit community where everybody knows everybody” in rural Cumberland, where doctors knew and cared for their neighbors. “That was the experience I had growing up, and (was what) I pictured I’d do with my future career in medicine,” Lowry said. Plenty of medical students are interested in the OB-GYN field, Spencer said — but new OB-GYNs aren’t getting experience working in rural communities. That’s where Wisconsin’s rural residency program comes in. In the program, newly-graduated OB-GYNs practice at rural sites throughout Wisconsin in rotations. Health organizations in Portage, Waupun, Monroe and most recently Baldwin, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the Minnesota border, are the training sites. “We’re beyond pleased, thrilled to be selected as a partner,” Page said. “They had heard we have two OB-GYNs here.” The program started in 2016, and will yield its first graduate in 2021. Lowry plans to graduate in 2022. One of Western Wisconsin Health’s OB-GYNs will likely retire in five years, Page said. For more rural hospitals, she said, this is an obvious answer. “How do I attract an OB-GYN who could be working at United Hospital or in Eau Claire? You start with people that came from rural places, love rural places, and they want to practice here,” Page said. ___ Information from: Leader-Telegram, http://www.leadertelegram.com/
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8988
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California man's research leads him to Beaumont's Proton Therapy Center in Michigan
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Irradiation of nasopharyngeal carcinoma by photon (X-ray) therapy (left) and proton therapy (right)/Wikipedia This release focuses on one patient’s experiences with proton beam therapy to treat a form of cancer called sacral chordoma. The release is effectively an account of the patient’s diagnosis and his experiences receiving the therapy — but provides little information about potential side effects, cost, or even how well the treatment worked. We’ve published dozens of blog posts and systematic reviews on proton beam therapy; many of which focus on media messages from a single hospital that has invested in the very expensive technology. Using an individual patient to shed light on a form of cancer treatment is not uncommon; focusing on the individual gives readers someone to relate to. However, it is important for news releases or news stories to go beyond individual anecdotes and provide readers with information they can use to make informed decisions about their own treatment options. How expensive is this form of treatment? What are the potential side effects? How effective is it? This release provides no information that readers could apply to their own circumstances. The question in this instance is: why did the care provider deem this to be worthy of a news release? It’s important to keep in mind that the release highlights proton therapy without offering any comparison with any other therapies.
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false
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Beaumont Hospital,proton beam therapy,Royal Oak
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Cost is not mentioned. A visit to the website of the organization that issued the release offered little additional information about cost, noting only that “many insurance plans will cover” proton beam therapy. And many will not. Finding cost information online was surprisingly difficult. According to a 2017 story on MedPage Today, the cost of proton beam therapy can range from $30,000 to $120,000. Those are significant numbers, and the failure to address cost in the release is a significant oversight. Since these multi-million dollar machines (which can cost in excess of $200 million) are available in a very limited number of locations, many patients, including the one profiled in the release, have to travel for proton therapy treatment so prospective patients would need to add travel expenses to overall treatments costs. Not only does the release neglect to offer quantified benefits for context on the effectiveness of proton therapy in treating sacral chordoma in general, it doesn’t even articulate how effective the treatment was in treating the sole patient discussed throughout the release. Nor are we told how the patient’s response to the treatment was measured. The release tells readers that proton beam treatment poses fewer risks than other forms of radiation therapy, but doesn’t explain what those risks are — or what risks proton treatment does pose. As the Mayo Clinic notes on its site, “Proton therapy can cause side effects as the cancer cells die or when the energy from the proton beam damages healthy tissue.” Common side effects range from headaches and fatigue to soreness and digestive problems. Side effects from proton beam are likely the same as photon beam radiation but the selling point of proton is that it is more precise and thus the overlapping side effects should be fewer. But there have been few, if any, trials to compare proton and photon therapies which would supply the needed evidence to support the claim. The release refers to “a published research paper,” but offers few additional details. When was the study done? How many patients were involved? What were the quantified benefits? Risks? We were able to find the relevant paper (which was a retrospective analysis of 40 patients), but many readers may not have the wherewithal to track it down (or have access to the journal where it was published). A news release needs to provide at least some basic information for readers. No disease mongering here. The release provides useful background on the prevalence of sacral chordoma. It’s clear the release is from a proton beam therapy provider discussing one patient’s experience with undergoing the therapy. The release is clearly marked as coming from the treatment provider, so the conflict of interest is pretty straightforward. And the lack of new findings being prevented means that there is no funding source to discuss. As such, this earns a satisfactory ranking. The release discusses, in brief terms, the risks and challenges associated with surgical treatment options and with other forms of radiation therapy but it makes no effort to compare treatment outcomes. The release could have been much more clear that treatment options are surgery vs. “traditional radiation” vs. proton beam radiation. The release makes clear that there are 28 proton therapy centers in the U.S. and that the center at issue here is the only one located in Michigan. The release doesn’t make any claims about research, or purport to present new findings. As we noted at the very top, it is not clear why this news release was issued. What, if anything, was new or interesting about this particular case? Proton therapy often gets marketed as newer “precision” therapy that has fewer side effects than traditional radiation. But with few if any clinical trials comparing outcomes, these claims generally don’t hold water. The release doesn’t employ sensational language. It makes no particular claims about the effectiveness of the relevant treatment option but notes only that it poses fewer risks than other radiation treatment options.
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18446
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Renee Unterman Says state Senate leaders have accepted $142,400 in campaign contributions from dentists and pharmacists during the past two years.
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: Half True. Atlanta Journal Constitution staff writer Karishma Mehrotra contributed to this article.
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mixture
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Georgia, State Budget, Renee Unterman,
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"A state senator caused a stir when she gave a speech accusing some of her colleagues of being beholden to some influential industries because of their support for a bill. Sen. Renee Unterman, a Republican from Gwinnett County, opposed House Bill 132, which would allow dentists, dental hygienists and pharmacists to regulate their own professions under the auspices of the Department of Community Health and remove those regulatory duties from Secretary of State Brian Kemp. Kemp’s office annually handles more than 430,000 license renewals for professionals across Georgia, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported. Unterman said this change would create another layer of government, which she said is counter to Republican Party principles. On the next to last day of this year’s session, Unterman offered a reason why some lawmakers supported the bill. She posted a graphic in front of her fellow senators detailing how much money some of them have received from dentists, pharmacists and some of their political action committees. The total: $142,400. PolitiFact Georgia wondered whether Unterman’s figure was correct, along with the context she included. ""These figures up here are not everybody in this room,"" she said. ""This is only leadership, and this is only for a one two-year term."" Unterman added, hoping to shame some senators into voting against the bill: ""Let your money do the dialing in the state Senate because the pharmacists and dentists had the money."" Atlanta Journal-Constitution Political Insider columnist Jim Galloway wrote that gasps could be heard from the lobbyists watching the proceedings. Some senators may have been searching for something more comfortable at that moment, like a root canal. The Senate passed the bill by 45-8 margin. Unterman voted against it. Gov. Nathan Deal signed the legislation last week. Unterman forwarded us 57 pages of records detailing the contributions. It took PolitiFact Georgia some time to dig through Unterman’s information and to conduct our own research. As she said, contributions totaled more than $142,000. But we noticed a few problems with the information she forwarded. Most of the contributions were made more than two years ago. Unterman’s staff was focusing on contributions made since 2008, they said, although some of the contributions they included dated to the 2006 election cycle. In her floor speech, the senator used the words ""a two-year term."" ""I made a mistake,"" Unterman said. ""I was thinking it was the last term."" We noticed some of the names of the senators in Unterman’s list were not in Senate leadership, and that some of the senators currently in leadership were not included. Senate leadership includes Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, the Senate’s presiding officer; David Shafer, the Senate’s president pro tem; three senators picked by Gov. Nathan Deal as his floor leaders; and three senators from the Democratic and Republican parties. Unterman said she included the names of some senators who are currently not in leadership because they served on the Senate’s Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee. The bill was vetted by that committee before it came to the entire Senate, Unterman explained. Fourteen senators, including Unterman, serve on that committee. Four members of that committee are part of the official Senate leadership. During the past two calendar years, Senate leadership received about $40,000 in contributions from dentists, pharmacists and their PACs, state records show. If you go back to 2008, the total is $85,875. About one-half of those donations were made to Cagle. By law, Cagle cannot vote on any bills. Unterman said she’s received lots of money from dentists and pharmacists. Over the past two years, we found $12,200 in contributions. We found $27,500 in contributions if you go back to 2008. PolitiFact Georgia also calculated all contributions we found were made since 2008 to the current Senate leadership and to all members of the Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee except Unterman. The total was $140,375. If you add Unterman, the total is $167,875. ""My whole point was to look at the amount of money put into the Gold Dome,"" Unterman said. ""It was a lot of money."" Indeed, it is. To sum up, Unterman said state Senate leaders collected $142,400 in campaign contributions from dentists and pharmacists during the past two years. Unterman told us she misspoke when she said the past two years. Her research was intended to go back to 2008. Her research included eight members of a Senate committee that is not part of the current leadership. If you include those senators, Unterman’s claim nearly hits the mark. If you exclude those senators, the claim is off by nearly 40 percent. Unterman’s dollar figure is accurate, but there’s some important context missing here. Our rating: . Atlanta Journal Constitution staff writer Karishma Mehrotra contributed to this article."
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10590
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Colonoscopy Prep in a Pill May Be Easier to Swallow
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No info on costs, on harms, or on the scope of benefits – and nothing on the real important measure of whether the approach improved the detection of colon cancer. An improved method of colon prep for colonoscopy would be appreciated by many. But we’re not given sufficient information in this story to judge the true possible merits of the approach the story promotes by simply rewriting a news release.
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false
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"No discussion of cost. All the story says is that ""Those who took the combination of the pill and liquid were better able to tolerate the preparation than were those who drank a gallon of a mixture of polyethylene glycol and electrolytes."" Does that mean EVERYONE? We weren’t told. As stated above, we’d also like to know how doctors judged the effectiveness of the colon prep of the pill & liquid approach vs. liquid alone. And did it lead to better detection of colon problems? No discussion of potential harms of lubiprostone (Amitiza). For its other approved uses, the company lists side effects of nausea, diarrhea, headache and abdominal pain. The story lacks details on the evidence that REALLY matters – how good a job did the combination of pill & liquid do in cleansing and prepping the colon for examination? And did it help detect colon cancer any better? We were’t told. Not applicable. There was no meaningful discussion of colon cancer, so there was no opportunity for disease-mongering. Only the lead investigator of a study funded by the drug company was quoted. There was no disclosure of any financial tie between the researcher and the company. Independent gastroenterologists’ perspectives would have helped make the story more credible. Only an incomplete and shallow comparison with liquid colon preps. Are doctors using this pill for colon prep yet? Was this the first such trial? There was one phrase that mentioned it’s already approved for chronic constipation so we know it’s on the market but are doctors using it off-label for this use? The stage of this research just isn’t clear from the story. no claims of novelty were made but neither was any context given about other research to improve colon prep. All information and quotes appear to come directly from a news release."
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4091
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11 hospitalizations linked to vaping in Wisconsin.
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Wisconsin health officials said Friday they’ve linked vaping to 11 recent cases where teenagers and young adults developed severe lung disease that required hospitalizations.
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true
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Wisconsin, Health, General News, Lung disease, Milwaukee
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Another seven cases that may also be linked to vaping are being investigated but have not yet been confirmed, health officials said. “We strongly urge people to avoid vaping products and e-cigarettes. Anyone — especially young people who have recently vaped — experiencing unexplained breathing problems should see a doctor,” said Department of Health Services Secretary-designee Andrea Palm. The health department said all the patients they interviewed reported vaping in the weeks and months prior to being hospitalized after experiencing shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, coughing, and weight loss. Officials said the severity of the cases varied and some patients needed assistance breathing. Some of the patients improved with treatment but officials say they’re investigating whether the lung disease will cause long-term damage. The counties with confirmed cases include Racine, Door, Walworth, Dodge, Waukesha, and Winnebago. Investigators are trying to determine what type of vaping products were used in all the cases. The health department said it is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, local health providers, and other states to make them aware of the hospitalizations in case they see patients experiencing similar symptoms. Using e-cigarettes, often called vaping, has now overtaken smoking traditional cigarettes in popularity among students, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last year, one in five U.S. high school students reported vaping the previous month, according to a CDC survey .
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30363
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"The United States Navy announced that it was christening a ship the ""USS Tig Ol Bitties"" after an online vote."
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For those who may not get the joke, this fictitious ship’s name is an example of a spoonerism, a bit of word play that swaps the first letters of two words, which was named after William Archibald Spooner, a long-serving don at Oxford University in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
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false
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Humor, duffel blog
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It is canon by now that asking the Internet to name something rarely goes as planned. In 2016, online pranksters famously attempted to name a new vessel for Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council “Boaty McBoatface.” So is it really so implausible that the United States Navy might name a ship the “USS Tig Ol Bitties”? The well-known military satire web site Duffel Blog published an article on 17 May 2018, in which they jokingly claimed that the United States Navy was naming its new Zumwalt-class destroyer the “USS Tig Ol Bitties” after the name was chosen in an online contest. The satire site also included a fake tweet purporting to show President Donald Trump expressing his support: Heads are shaking while others cheer after a failed publicity stunt led to the Navy’s next Zumwalt-class destroyer being named the USS Tig Ol Bitties, sources confirmed today. This is not a genuine tweet from President Trump and the US Navy is not planning on naming a new vessel the USS Tig Ol Bitties. The Duffel Blog has a long history of publishing actually humorous (and factually void) articles about military-related topics. The web site carries a disclaimer stating that all of its content is fictitious: Duffel Blog is a parody of a news organization, and all content it publishes is satirical in nature. No content should be regarded as truthful, and no reference of an individual, company, or military unit seeks to inflict malice or emotional harm. All characters, groups, and military units appearing in these works are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual military units and companies is purely coincidental.
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15786
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In an average grocery store, roughly 75 percent of processed foods contain genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.
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"Donna Nesselbush said, ""In an average grocery store, roughly 75 percent of processed foods contain genetically modified organisms, or GMOs."" Nesselbush quoted a percentage intended to apply to all foods and not restricted to processed foods. Although the figure is widely cited by both sides in the debate, it’s not clear that this is anything more than an estimate. And finally, in the cases of many processed foods created using the sugars, oils and other products of genetically modified organisms, the organisms themselves aren’t present in the food at all. Because the statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, email us at [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) (Correction: Rhode Island state Rep. Donna Nesselbush represents House District 15, which includes portions of Pawtucket and North Providence. The original version of this item incorrectly reported the community she represents.)"
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mixture
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Rhode Island, Agriculture, Animals, Consumer Safety, Economy, Environment, Government Regulation, Public Health, Science, Technology, Donna Nesselbush,
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"There’s a longstanding campaign to require special labels for foods made from genetically modified organisms -- plants or animals created by precisely manipulating their DNA, in ways that don’t occur in nature. In Rhode Island, Sen. Donna Nesselbush, D-Pawtucket, has submitted legislation requiring such GMO labeling. ""Are [genetically modified foods] good for us or bad for us? The problem is that we really don’t know,"" she asserted in a commentary supporting her legislation. ""In an average grocery store, roughly 75 percent of processed foods contain genetically modified organisms, or GMOs."" She made a similar comment in a news release, saying that most processed foods contain GMOs. There’s little solid evidence that foods made from genetically modified organisms pose a greater risk to consumers than their non-modified counterparts, a fact noted by major scientific organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Medical Association and the World Health Organization. They have been on the shelves for nearly two decades. U.S. products have been approved for market by as many as three different federal agencies. Independent safety testing has been done in Europe. We were interested in whether these products have become as commonplace as Nesselbush says. But first, we note a distinction that will be important in evaluating part of Nesselbush’s claim. She references foods that contain genetically modified organisms, which sounds scary to many people. But in reality, GMO foods typically don’t contain organisms; they’re derived from organisms that have been genetically modified. For example, if you eat a genetically modified ear of corn, you’re eating the once-living cells of a genetically modified organism. But if you eat a brownie baked with corn syrup extracted from genetically modified corn, you’re only eating the syrup, not the organism. When we asked Nesselbush for a source, she didn’t have an immediate answer, saying that the information came from her staff. She promised to check further. In the meantime, we did our own research. It appears that the number, although widely reported, is mostly an educated guess. We contacted the Center for Food Safety, an advocacy group critical of biotechnology, which told PolitiFact National in 2007 that 60 to 70 percent of processed foods contain at least some residual genetically modified organisms. When we asked where their numbers came from, spokeswoman Abigail Seiler said they came from the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a trade group opposed to labeling for products manufactured through genetic modification. The latest grocery association statement says, ""70-80 percent of the foods we eat in the United States, both at home and away from home, contain ingredients that have been genetically modified."" When we heard back from Nesselbush, she cited the same statement as her evidence. We noted that the percentage is on target but her characterization wasn’t. The grocery association says it’s 70 to 80 percent of ALL foods we consume. She said it applies to processed foods in a grocery store. The federal Food and Drug Administration defines processed foods as ""raw agricultural commodities"" that have been ""subject to canning, cooking, freezing, dehydration or milling."" Processed foods also include any foods that are not raw agricultural commodities under the FDA’s legal definition. It turns out that there’s little consistency in how the estimate is used. For example, Whole Foods in 2010, citing the grocery association, said ""GMOs are now present in 75 to 80 percent of conventional processed food in the U.S."" (We’re not sure if there are ""unconventional"" processed foods.) And where does the grocery association get its figure? Spokesman Brian Kennedy said it was an estimate based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We found updated numbers showing that in 2013, genetic engineering had been done on 90 percent of all cotton planted in the United States, 93 percent of all soybeans and 90 percent of all corn. Cottonseed and soybean oils are used in mayonnaise, salad dressings, cereals, breads and snack foods. Corn syrup is a widely used sweetener and corn starch is used in soups and sauces. ""Also, more than half of the sugar sold in the U.S. comes from sugar beets,"" Kennedy said. ""Sugar beets crops are 90 percent [genetically modified]."" We asked the association to detail how it settled on the 70 to 80 percentage. Kennedy repeated that it was an estimate. ""And it's important to keep in mind that these particular crops, though widely used, are not used in all processed food products. Plus you’re also overlooking all of the organic and non-GM processed food products on the market today,"" he said. John Ruff, past president of the Institute of Food Technologists, told us in an email that estimates of around 75 percent are widely quoted and are based on data from the late 1990s. ""I’m not aware of any definitive studies, perhaps because the presence of GMO derived ingredients often cannot be detected in the finished product,"" he said. ""This is because the GMO itself is not present in the product."" Nesselbush is incorrect when she says that such foods contain genetically modified organisms. Often they only contain substances created by genetically modified organisms, such as sugars, which may be identical to the sugars created by non-modified plants. Our ruling Donna Nesselbush said, ""In an average grocery store, roughly 75 percent of processed foods contain genetically modified organisms, or GMOs."" Nesselbush quoted a percentage intended to apply to all foods and not restricted to processed foods. Although the figure is widely cited by both sides in the debate, it’s not clear that this is anything more than an estimate. And finally, in the cases of many processed foods created using the sugars, oils and other products of genetically modified organisms, the organisms themselves aren’t present in the food at all. Because the statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, email us at [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) (Correction: Rhode Island state Rep. Donna Nesselbush represents House District 15, which includes portions of Pawtucket and North Providence. The original version of this item incorrectly reported the community she represents.)"
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13684
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"National Rifle Association Says Hillary Clinton ""doesn’t believe in your right to keep a gun at home for self-defense."
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"The NRA said Clinton ""doesn’t believe in your right to keep a gun at home for self-defense."" Clinton has never said that, nor could she do anything about it on her own even if she wanted to. She would need to rely on a new Supreme Court justice, who would first have to be approved by the currently Republican-led Senate. Clinton did say she disagreed with the Heller ruling, as the NRA points out. But she was talking about specifics and cited the same worries raised by the Bush administration, about looser restrictions on automatic weapons or carrying in public."
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false
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Bush Administration, Negative Campaigning, Supreme Court, North Carolina, Guns, National Rifle Association,
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"In a new multi-million-dollar ad buy, the NRA attacks Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s stance on guns. Clinton, the ad says, doesn’t want gun owners to be able to protect themselves. The National Rifle Association said it’s spending $3 million on the ad in North Carolina plus other ""key battleground states"" of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada. ""She’s one of the wealthiest women in politics,"" the ad begins. ""Combined income: $30 million. Tours the world on private jets. Protected by armed guards for 30 years. But she doesn’t believe in your right to keep a gun at home for self-defense."" Not even counting its TV exposure, the ad had been watched more than 100,000 times online within a day of being uploaded. We’re interested in the crux of the ad, which claims Clinton ""doesn’t believe in your right to keep a gun at home for self-defense."" Her Republican rival, Donald Trump, has made similar claims before. He got a for saying Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment in May and again in July. PolitiFact has also given a ruling to a viral image that spread online during the primary, saying Clinton said she wants to shut down the NRA and ban handguns. Now the NRA has also entered the fray, launching its ad campaign the day after Trump said that ""Second Amendment people"" might be able to somehow stop Clinton. Clinton’s communications manager for North Carolina, Andrew Bates, said the ad contains ""lies"" about Clinton because she supports gun control measures the NRA doesn’t like. Clinton’s past statements Clinton has had a fairly consistent view on gun rights: She says she respects the Second Amendment but thinks more regulations are OK to try to curb gun violence. Her website has details of her specific proposals, and she has also made a number of public statements. In August 2015, after a news crew in Virginia was murdered on-camera, Clinton said, ""We've got to do something. It's a very difficult political issue. But we are smart enough, compassionate enough to balance legitimate Second Amendment rights concerns with preventive measures and control measures."" When Clinton was running for president in 2008, she said virtually the same thing in a debate and argued for reinstating a ban on assault weapons that expired under George W. Bush. Her husband, Bill Clinton, signed the ban into law with support from former presidents Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. ""You know, I believe in the Second Amendment,"" Clinton said in the debate. ""People have a right to bear arms. But I also believe that we can common-sensically approach this."" Clinton has also made gun rights supporters nervous at times. She once suggested a voluntary gun buyback program, although she compared it to one in Australia – not realizing the Australian program was a mandatory confiscation, not a buyback. And in an interview with ABC News anchor (and former Bill Clinton advisor) George Stephanopoulos, she declined to say for certain that she agrees the right to bear arms applies to individuals, which the Supreme Court decided in the landmark 2008 Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller. ""If it is a constitutional right, then it, like every other constitutional right, is subject to reasonable regulation,"" she said. Criticisms Jennifer Baker, the public affairs director for the NRA’s lobbying arm, said the ad is accurate because of Clinton’s stance on the Heller case. If Clinton becomes president, Baker said, she will be tasked with picking a judge to replace the late Antonin Scalia, who sided with the 5-4 majority on Heller. Baker said the NRA doesn't want the court to take another shot at the Second Amendment and reverse its decision on gun rights. ""If she were elected one of the first things she would be able to do is appoint a Scalia replacement who could overturn Heller,"" Baker said. That’s possible. Of course, there’s no guarantee the currently Republican-led Senate would agree to nominate someone with real or perceived anti-gun views. Nor is there a guarantee another similar case will come up anytime soon. Heller was the first time the Supreme Court had interpreted the Second Amendment since 1939, according to the Library of Congress. So what other proof does the NRA have? The backbone of its argument is a secretly taken audio recording from a private meeting last year in which Clinton criticized the Heller decision. The court ruled that the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own weapons for self-defense, even though no such language appears in the Second Amendment. However, the case was not only about that single issue — more on that in a second — and in the audio Clinton never mentions anything about self-defense or individual rights. Instead, she is criticizing another aspect of the ruling, regarding the government’s ability to regulate guns. ""The idea that you could have an open carry permit with an AK-47 over your shoulder walking up and down the aisles of a supermarket is just despicable,"" Clinton is heard saying. ""So I’m going to speak out. … The Supreme Court is wrong on the Second Amendment, and I am going to make my case on that every chance I get."" Similarities to George W. Bush Clinton’s invocation of a machine gun and public carry might have sounded oddly familiar to George W. Bush. Those were two issues his administration was also concerned about during the Heller case. Conservatives and liberals alike might not like to hear this, but it’s true: Clinton’s stance is similar to Bush’s. They would likely disagree on specifics. Yet both have argued that the right to bear arms needs to be upheld, but that it’s not an absolute right and can be regulated, just like the right to free speech. Bush’s solicitor general, Paul Clement, wrote a brief on behalf of the government. He said the decision by the appeals court was too broad and asked the Supreme Court not to uphold it (the court ultimately did, leading to Clinton’s criticisms years later). The Bush administration wasn’t arguing that people have no individual right to own guns for self-defense. Instead, it was worried a favorable ruling could weaken the government’s ability in to restrict public access to machine guns or the carrying of weapons in public. Clement argued the decision ""could cast doubt on the constitutionality of existing federal legislation prohibiting the possession of certain firearms, including machineguns,"" and that the Second Amendment ""is not infringed by laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons."" We doubt many people will accuse Clement — who represented the NRA at the Supreme Court a couple years after leaving the White House — or Bush of being anti-gun. And their concerns over machine guns and unrestricted carry were the same that Clinton was recorded talking about, which the NRA cited for its ad. Our ruling The NRA said Clinton ""doesn’t believe in your right to keep a gun at home for self-defense."" Clinton has never said that, nor could she do anything about it on her own even if she wanted to. She would need to rely on a new Supreme Court justice, who would first have to be approved by the currently Republican-led Senate. Clinton did say she disagreed with the Heller ruling, as the NRA points out. But she was talking about specifics and cited the same worries raised by the Bush administration, about looser restrictions on automatic weapons or carrying in public.
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39614
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An article from the pen of disaster rescuer Doug Copp. He lists some of his observations from being on the scene after earthquakes and introduces what he calls “The Triangle of Life,” which he says can save lives during an earthquake. He rejects the advice of traditional disaster experts and gives suggestions about what to do and where to be during an earthquake.
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"The ""Triangle of Life"" can save your life during an earthquake "
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false
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Terrorism, Warnings
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Doug Copp claims, as the eRumor states, to lead the “world’s most experienced rescue team” and that he’s crawled into 875 buildings in 60 countries to find trapped victims of disasters. He argues that his experience has led him to conclude that the common suggestions of getting under a desk or standing in a doorway during an earthquake actually lead to more deaths. Instead he lists several other suggestions such as simply rolling off a bed onto the floor if you are in bed or taking refuge next to a large sofa or chair when the earth starts moving. Copp’s tips are based on some of his own observations but on scientific research and there are disaster experts who disagree with him. The American Red Cross has written a response to Copp’s statements. Ricky Lopes, manager of the American Red Cross’s Community Disaster Education, said Copp’s recommendations are “Inaccurate for application in the United States and inconsistent with information developed through earthquake research.” In a statement, Lopes said the American Red Cross’s recommendation is called “drop, cover, and hold on,” which includes getting under a heavy object such as a desk. He said it is based on building codes in the United States and “has saved lives.” CLICK HERE for more from the American Red Cross. Dr. Marla Petal is director of the Bogazici University, Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute’s Disaster Preparedness Education Program in Turkey. Her doctoral research was on the causes of death in the 1999 Kocaeli earthquake in Turkey, which killed more than 20,000 people. She called the advice in the Doug Copp eRumor “plainly dangerous” and “worse than an urban legend.” She said that there are indeed “triangles of life” in collapsed buildings where searchers look first for survivors—but that it is impossible to predict where those spaces will be. She said, for example, that hiding next to a refrigerator or some other heavy object could be deadly because there is no way to anticipate which direction the object may move during a quake. You could get crushed. The same is true with automobiles. She said that a strong earthquake will move and sometimes topple cars so simply getting out of the car and lying next to it does not create a dependable safety zone. Copp also found himself a center of controversy especially after a series of articles in 2004 by the Albuquerque Journal in New Mexico. Copp has claimed to have played a key role in rescue activities at Ground Zero in New York after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. He was granted more than $600,000 in compensation for what he said are injuries from the event, mostly toxicity. The articles in the Albuquerque journal questioned both whether he played any important role at Ground Zero and whether he was eligible for any compensation for injury. In a four-part series about Copp, the Journal quoted several people who saw Copp at Ground Zero as saying that he showed up with a video camera and did no serious rescue work. The U.S. Justice Department fraud unit was investigating. Comments
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1909
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Modern Etiquette: No gluten? No fat? Deal gracefully with that.
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“If you would like to dine gluten-free, please ask to see our gluten-free menu.”
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true
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Health News
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Co-owner Waylynn Lucas tops donuts with bacon at Fonuts bakery, which offers unfried, gluten-free and vegan donuts, in Los Angeles, California September 19, 2011. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson Restaurants are printing notes like this in droves, and hosts are now googling phrases like “lacto-ovo” before dinner parties. Dietary restrictions seem to grow more numerous every year, whether it’s a rise of gluten intolerance or a new low-carb low-fat no-sugar raw food diet. Good manners says to eat what you’re served, and it also says to respect the beliefs of others, and especially when you’re a host, to graciously accommodate them. Contradictory? Not if a little tact and understanding are applied. For straight-up dislikes when among friends, it’s fine to refuse a dish you don’t care for with a polite “No, thank you.” At a dinner party where the host has gone to a great deal of trouble, it’s good manners to take at least a little of every dish being offered. Teach the concept of the “no thank you helping” to children, even for family meals-it makes it easier for them when the spotlight is on them as a guest. Allergies are another matter, and can’t be avoided; your health and safety is a priority. A conscientious host will ask first-time guests if they have any particular allergies or dietary restriction. If the host doesn’t ask, it’s especially important for the guest to inform him of allergies, medical conditions, or religious prohibitions. If the gathering is small, the dinner is in your honor, or you’re going to be an overnight houseguest, however, or if you’re severely allergic to certain foods (or pets), it’s a good idea to let your host know up front when you first respond to the invitation and give him or her a chance to adjust the menu if necessary. “I’d love to come, but I should tell you that I’m completely allergic to shellfish”; “I’d love to come to the barbeque, but I should tell you that I’m a vegetarian. Could I bring a tabouleh salad if that’s okay with you?” Always give the host the option to accommodate you or not. In some cases it may not be possible, so don’t take offense if it doesn’t work out. For a small dinner party, offer to bring a dish to share. Say: “Thanks so much for the invitation. I should let you know that I’m a vegetarian. I’d love to bring a quiche if that’s okay with you.” This way, your host won’t waste time preparing the wrong food for you or have to trouble himself figuring out what type of dish would best suit your preferences. If you’re allergic to a particular food or on a restricted diet and your host urges you to help yourself to food you know you shouldn’t or can’t eat, gently decline, “Shellfish is off-limits for me, but I’m enjoying everything else.” It’s not necessary to inform the host of a cocktail party, large dinner party, buffet, or reception that you’re a vegetarian, mildly allergic to milk, or diabetic, because there’s bound to be a variety of foods to choose from. At the party, it’s fine to ask about the ingredients in a particular dish. When your dietary restrictions are based on religious tenets, it may not be practical to accept some invitations. If the invitation is for a small gathering, you can explain to your hostess that you’d love to accept, but that you’ll have to bring a dish that you’ve prepared according to your dietary rules-provided that’s acceptable to her. As a large part of entertaining is about being social, many hosts will encourage you to attend and bring your special dish. If you don’t drink alcohol, ask for water or a non-alcoholic beverage (which are fine to toast with should there be toasts). You don’t have to give a reason for abstaining unless you wish to. Never feel you have to drink alcohol, even if pressed. The rudeness in that case is theirs, not yours. The goal as a host is not to call special attention to guests who don’t drink alcohol. Also, be attentive to the seating arrangements. A friend in recovery shouldn’t spend the evening next to a wine aficionado extolling the virtues of every wine served.
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9858
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AIDS Vaccine Is of Modest Help, Fuller Research Says
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This follow-up piece draws attention to secondary data analyses of the much talked about AIDS vaccination trial conducted in Thailand. According to the results released in September, the vaccine showed a statistically significant reduction in risk of HIV infection. However, two additional analyses published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine did not find statistical significance. This story underscores the need for healthy skepticism about early announcements of unpublished research. The writer did a nice job explaining different types of analysis and statistical significance, which many physicians and lay people have difficulty grasping.
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true
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Since the vaccine is not available, a discussion of costs is not warranted. The piece does a nice job of presenting the results of the initial report in terms of absolute and relative risk reduction; however, absolute data is not provided for the secondary analyses. To its credit, the story clearly and effectively explained statistical significance as it relates to this research. As stated in previous coverage, the story reiterates that the benefits of the vaccine are modest and additional research is needed. Given that this is a follow-up report focused on newly released data, a discussion of the potential harms of the vaccine is not necessary. This story does an excellent job defining the different types of analyses used to evaluate the outcome data. The story also points out the results of the secondary analyses have been published in a peer-reviewed journal, suggesting the calculations have been checked for accuracy. This story does not engage in disease-mongering. This story does not provide commentary from any independent sources. In this case, a single comment from a biostatistical consultant would have provided helpful perspective. Given the nature of this follow-up story, a discussion on the existing alternatives to HIV prevention may not be warranted. This story makes it known that the vaccine is still in the testing phase and is not yet available. The story makes it clear that researchers have been working on an AIDS vaccine for decades. The story does not appear to be based on a press release.
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24919
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"McCain ""has opposed stem cell research."
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Obama ad distorts McCain's stem cell position
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false
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National, Health Care, Barack Obama,
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"Competing radio ads from the McCain and Obama campaigns in the last week may have left voters confused about where Sen. John McCain stands on stem cell research. First, you had a McCain campaign ad highlighting McCain’s support for stem cell research. Then you had an Obama campaign ad that portrayed McCain as an opponent of stem cell research. Which one is wrong? For the most part, that dubious honor goes to the Obama ad. Here’s what the Obama ad says: ""Stem cell research could unlock cures for diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s too. But John McCain has stood in the way...he’s opposed stem cell research...picked a running mate who’s against it...and he’s running on a platform even more extreme than George Bush’s on this vital research. ""John McCain doesn’t understand that medical research benefiting millions shouldn’t be held hostage by the political views of a few."" At one time, McCain did oppose embryonic stem cell research. In February, 2000, McCain joined 19 other senators in asking the National Institutes of Health to withdraw its new proposals to fund federal embryonic-cell research. But then McCain changed his mind. McCain explained why in an interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press on July 15, 2001. ""I’ve looked at the issue more carefully,"" McCain said. ""I have talked with numerous scientific experts. I believe that under stringent safeguards and under the most rigorous kinds of procedures, that this can help in finding the cure for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other serious diseases. I had supported, in the past, fetal tissue research, and this is an earlier stage, as you know, of the process. So, I think it’s an issue that I was educated on."" In June 2004, McCain was among 58 U.S. senators — most of them Democrats — who signed a letter urging President Bush to change his position and allow federal funding for scientific research on embryonic stem cells. McCain has backed up that position with votes in the U.S. Senate, putting him in the distinct minority among his Republican colleagues. On July 18, 2006, and again on April 11, 2007, McCain voted in favor of a bill that would allow the use of federal funds in research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from surplus embryos at in-vitro fertilization clinics. In both cases, McCain ran counter to the majority of Republicans, although both bills passed with overwhelming support from Democrats. Republican U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who also voted for the bills, noted that it was a position unpopular in Republican circles. ""The fact is John McCain has been a champion for stem cell research, which holds the promise of curing devastating diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease,"" Specter said in a statement released on Sept. 23, 2008. ""John McCain bucked the majority of our party in standing strong with me in urging the Bush administration to lift restrictions on stem cell research, and last year voted to overturn the Bush policy."" So how does the Obama campaign back up its claim that McCain has stood in the way of — and opposed — stem cell research? First, the Obama campaign accuses McCain of pandering to social conservatives at a private meeting in Ohio in June. The campaign cites a Los Angeles Times article which states that McCain ""told the small assembly that he was open to learning more about their opposition to embryonic stem cell research despite his past disagreements with them on the issue."" But the article also notes that ""several participants said McCain did not offer any indication he would change his mind, but they said they were impressed that he appeared open to"" points made by one of the country’s leading opponents of using embryonic stem cells. The Obama campaign also notes that the recently adopted GOP platform calls for ""a major expansion"" of adult stem cell research but also ""a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes."" Again, however, this is a position at odds with McCain’s. The Obama campaign also notes that McCain selected a vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who opposes embryonic stem cell research. That’s accurate. In a 2006 Alaska gubernatorial debate , Palin said stem cell research ran counter to her prolife position. ""Stem cell research that would ultimately end in destruction of life,"" she said, ""I couldn’t support."" In an interview that aired Sept. 12, ABC’s Charles Gibson asked Palin about embryonic stem cell research, given McCain’s support. ""You know, when you’re running for office, your life is an open book and you do owe it to Americans to talk about your personal opinion, which may end up being different than what the policy in an administration would be,"" Palin said. ""My personal opinion is we should not create human life, create an embryo and then destroy it for research, if there are other options out there. And thankfully, again, not only are there other options, but we’re getting closer and closer to finding a tremendous amount more of options, like, as I mentioned, the adult stem cell research."" Palin’s clear opposition to embryonic research is actually our biggest problem with McCain’s ad on stem cell research, which begins by calling McCain and Palin ""the original mavericks."" The ad states: ""John McCain will lead his congressional allies to improve America’s health. Stem cell research to unlock the mystery of cancer, diabetes, heart disease. Stem cell research to help free families from the fear and devastation of illness. Stem cell research to help doctors repair spinal cord damage, knee injuries, serious burns. Stem cell research to help stroke victims. And, John McCain and his congressional allies will invest millions more in new NIH medical research to prevent disease. Medical breakthroughs to help you get better, faster. Change is coming. McCain-Palin and congressional allies. The leadership and experience to really change Washington and improve your health."" By including Palin in the ad, it suggests she is in step with his position. And as we have noted, she is not. But it should be noted that when asked about the issue directly, Palin made clear that while her ""personal opinion"" would be in disagreement with a policy supporting embryonic stem cell research, she would respect a McCain-led administration's right to set such a policy. Ultimately, the McCain ad is substantially more accurate than the one from the Obama camp. We get that it may make some stem cell proponents nervous when McCain tells hard-line opponents to embryonic stem cell research that he is open to listening to their arguments; or that he chose a running mate who opposes embryonic stem cell research; or that the GOP platform calls for a ban on experimentation on human embryos for research purposes. But McCain has not backed away from his position. Asked in a Republican debate in California on May 3, 2007, what he thought about federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, McCain was unequivocal. ""I believe that we need to fund this,"" McCain said. ""This is a tough issue for those of us in the prolife community. I would remind you that these stem cells are either going to be discarded or perpetually frozen. ""We need to do what we can to relieve human suffering. It’s a tough issue. I support federal funding."" And McCain has backed up his words with his vote twice in recent years, even when it meant challenging President Bush and a majority of his fellow Senate Republicans. That’s not standing in the way of, or opposing, stem cell research."
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15623
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A sitting sheriff cannot be charged except by a warrant issued by a Superior Court judge.
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Vectura Group said on Friday a British court had ruled in its favor on the packaging of a generic version of an inhaler made by bigger rival GlaxoSmithKline.
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mixture
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Georgia, Legal Issues, Crime, Danny Porter,
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Vectura said the court dismissed all GSK claims related to the packaging of AirFluSal Forspiro, which it developed in partnership with Sandoz, owned by Swiss drugmaker Novartis , as a branded version of GSK’s asthma inhaler, Seretide Accuhaler. GSK, with which Vectura has partnerships, said it was “disappointed” with the court decision and will “consider its next steps”. Sandoz launched AirFluSal Forspiro in late 2015, following which GSK filed a legal claim that Sandoz had used shades of purple similar to Seretide’s packaging to pass off AirFluSal Forspiro as being related to GSK’s product. “Our issue was simply with the color of the device itself and its similarity to GSK’s Advair/Seretide,” a GSK spokesman said, adding that the company was not opposed to a new entrant in the market. Forspiro is a dry powder inhaler developed by Vectura and licensed to Sandoz for use with the AirFluSal product. Seretide is a combination of two active ingredients that make it easier to breathe and is sold by GSK in the UK in two forms here one of which is the Seretide Accuhaler, which delivers the drug as a dry powder. Vectura shares rose as much as 2.4% after the announcement. In May, a jury found that one of Vectura’s U.S. patents was infringed by the sale of three of GSK’s Ellipta products in the United States and Vectura was awarded $89.7 million in damages.
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24029
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Everyone in this country has access to health care.
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Gov. Rick Perry says everyone has access to health care coverage, even without insurance
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false
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Health Care, Texas, Rick Perry,
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"Gov. Rick Perry, presiding over the state with the nation's biggest share of uninsured residents, recently suggested that Americans have access to health care regardless of their insurance status. Perry, who has objected to the federal mandate passed into law requiring most Americans to obtain health coverage by 2014, told the Texas Tribune and Newsweek magazine April 15: ""There is a misnomer out there, I think, there's a misconception, that somehow or another... uninsured means that you have no health care. That's not correct. ""Everyone in this country has access to health care."" Everyone? Even people without health insurance? When we asked for back-up for Perry's statement, his campaign didn't offer any data or additional analysis. Next, we looked at hospital emergency rooms, often the portal through which uninsured people seek treatment. Some background: In 1986, Congress responded to concerns that emergency rooms were refusing to treat indigent and uninsured people — a practice known as patient dumping — by approving the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. The act requires all hospitals with emergency rooms that participate in the Medicare program to medically screen, treat and stabilize any patient (including illegal immigrants) who shows up with an emergency medical condition. The law doesn't require hospitals to offer preventive or follow-up care. However, not every condition that merits treatment is an emergency, and not every town has an emergency room. In Texas, 64 of the state's 254 counties don't have a hospital because it isn't economically viable, ""particularly in the Panhandle and West Texas,"" said Amanda Engler, spokeswoman for the Texas Hospital Association. Still, Engler said ""everyone should be able to access some level of care through the community."" A national health care expert, Henry Aaron at the left-leaning Brookings Institution, echoed Engler, saying that ""everyone has access to some health care. The issue is what care and how much of it... If you live in a place where few physicians practice and you don't have a car, you may not get much."" Remote hospitals that receive extra Medicare funding, designed to improve health care access in rural areas, offer lower quality of care on average than their metro counterparts, according to a 2009 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. The department also found that rural health care focuses on providing primary and emergency care locally, and referring patients to regional, often distant health care centers for specialized care. Next, we wondered if a person's insurance status affects their access to care. The Institute of Medicine, which researches the relationship between health insurance and access to health care, has found that health insurance makes it easier to get preventive services. In 2002, the institute reviewed 130 studies examining whether people without health insurance still get care they need. The upshot? Working-age Americans without insurance were more likely to receive too little medical care too late, be sicker and die sooner; they also were more likely to receive worse care than the insured when they're in the hospital, and less likely to receive recommended health screening services, like mammograms, Pap tests or checking your cholesterol. Other institute findings: the uninsured lack regular access to medications to manage conditions like hypertension or HIV infection; don't receive care recommended for chronic diseases, like timely eye exams to prevent blindness in people with diabetes; and receive fewer diagnostic and treatment services after a traumatic injury or heart attack. The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured reached similar conclusions. In 2009, the commission, part of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which analyzes health care policy, analyzed a national health care survey tracking 17,800 people in 9,400 families, finding that more than 50 percent of uninsured adults have no regular source of health care and are more than twice as likely to delay or forgo care than the insured. Ed Haislmaier, a health care expert at the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, said: ""If you have insurance coverage, as a general rule, you're more likely to access health care because presumably some portion of the insurance coverage pays for the cost."" According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, some 83 percent of Americans currently have insurance coverage either through their employer, the private market or government programs such as Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. Kaiser found the majority of the estimated 46 million uninsured are less likely than the insured to to pay for basic health care, and overall, they're less likely to receive preventive care. But Haislmaier said even insurance doesn't guarantee health care access — particularly to primary care physicians. For example, the Medicaid reimbursement rate for primary care physicians varies by state, so the less a state pays doctors for the costs of treating people covered under Medicaid, the less likely that doctor is to accept that person as a patient. ""You can be living in the middle of New York City, but if you're on Medicaid, good luck getting a doctor to see you,"" Haislmaier said, citing Kaiser's Medicaid-to-Medicare Fee Index, a benchmark for how much each state is reimbursing its doctors to treat Medicaid patients by comparing it to the Medicare reimbursement rate. In 2008, New York reimbursed primary care doctors 36 percent of how much they would pay that doctor to treat a Medicare patient. The national average is 66 percent; Texas reimburses primary care docs 68 percent. What's more, Kaiser says, various safety nets like community clinics and public hospitals don't offer the broad range of health care, including mental health services that insurance provides. Case in point: In 2003, Texas legislators retooled the public mental health system — 39 state-funded community mental health centers that serve indigent, low-income and uninsured people — to focus on patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression. People with other mental illnesses, like anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, rarely qualified for help unless they went into crisis, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS). According to the agency, thousands more sometimes wait more than a year to get medication, therapy, substance abuse care and other services from community centers. Among them are 6,800 adults and children with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression — two-thirds of whom are currently receiving no services. Where does all that leave Perry's statement that everyone has access to health care? Somewhere on the continuum between hypothothesis and reality. While many avenues exist for making health care available, the reality is that many people cannot use them, and millions don't get the care they need. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to ."
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34157
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"In 2019, Will Smith was ""rushed to hospital"" and ""diagnosed with a life-threatening disease."
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The Stars News YouTube video consisted of a voice-over script taken from an uncredited source, with a “clickbait” headline that falsely claimed Smith had been “rushed to hospital” and “diagnosed with a life-threatening disease.”
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false
|
Junk News
|
In November 2019, we received multiple inquiries from readers about a widely shared YouTube video whose headline claimed that the actor and rapper Will Smith had been “diagnosed with a life-threatening disease” and had been “rushed to hospital.” On Nov. 13, the Stars News YouTube channel posted a video with the title “Prayers Up! Will Smith Diagnosed With Life Threatening Disease And Rushed To Hospital.” The video consisted of a slideshow of still images of Smith, accompanied by a voice-over narrator reading a Nov. 12 article by AmoMama, a news and entertainment website targeted to a female audience. The source of the narrator’s script was not acknowledged in the video, and the AmoMama article never claimed that Smith had been diagnosed with a “life-threatening disease” or “rushed to hospital.” In fact, the article pilfered by Stars News in its video clearly explained that Smith had vlogged about his first colonoscopy, a routine procedure, as a way to spread awareness. He was therefore not “rushed to hospital.” In reality, Smith underwent a routine colonoscopy in Miami, Florida, in August 2019, and recorded snippets of his experience, which he posted to his Instagram profile in November, along with a full, 17-minute version, which he posted to YouTube: Towards the end of that video, Smith’s physician Dr. Ala Stanford informs him that the doctor who performed the colonoscopy had discovered and removed a polyp (small tissue growth) from his colon, adding that it was a pre-cancerous tubular adenoma (the most common form of polyp found in the colon). There had been no complications in the removal of the polyp, Stanford told Smith, adding that such growths can sometimes develop into cancerous growths, and that Smith’s willingness to undergo the routine colonoscopy had allowed the doctors to discover the polyp early on, and had potentially prevented cancer from developing. The only negative consequence from the discovery and removal of the growth, she added, was that Smith would now have to undergo another screening in two or three years, rather than the typical interval of 10 years. Smith was not diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, nor any disease, and he was not “rushed to hospital.” Rather, on the advice of his doctor, he underwent pre-scheduled colon screening which is routine and recommended, especially for people aged in their 50s. That screening revealed a tissue growth that has the potential to become cancerous (but had not yet done so), and that growth was successfully removed without complications.
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4847
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Senior citizen wave coming to Garfield County.
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Rosemarie Romeo was rushed to Glenwood Medical Center in December 2015, after accidentally misusing her anxiety medication.
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true
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Seniors, Aging, Glenwood Springs, Colorado, Health, Local governments, Medicare
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She says she scheduled a follow-up visit and a geriatric psychiatrist gave her a list with names for local mental-health care providers. “Many of the counselors weren’t even in practice anymore or their numbers didn’t work,” Romeo said. “Not one person mentioned Mind Springs,” a major mental health organization that comprises 12 locations across the Western Slope. Romeo, a 77-year-old Medicare and Medicaid recipient, says she continued to struggle with finding a mental health counselor as well as other affordable services in the area. The former author and Glenwood Springs resident is now working with local government agencies to create a brochure for other seniors who are aging in Western Colorado. She says the booklet will include information on “who to call (and) when.” “When you’re on Medicare and you’re low income, there are services available, right down to toenail clinics, because the elderly can’t reach their feet,” she said. “If my doctor had known to tell me about these programs and these services, I would have been better off,” she said. GOLDEN YEARS Romeo is one of the growing number of senior citizens in Garfield County, a segment of the population that’s expected to grow exponentially in the coming decade or so as the baby boomer generation ages into its late 60s, 70s and 80s. On the one hand, western Colorado’s active lifestyle and healthy environment attracts and retains those entering their senior years, offering numerous outlets to get outdoors, exercise and socialize. Various senior fitness organizations in Garfield County range from Glenwood Springs’ highly-active couples and singles of the “100 Club,” to the more laid back hiking ladies of the “Wednesday Wanderers.” Eighteen years ago, Rochester, New York transplants Ray and Shirley Limoges arrived in Glenwood Springs for a family visit and a little skiing. “My brother said there’s something called the ’100 Club’ here,” Ray Limoges said of the summer hiking and winter skiing group that caters to couples whose ages add up to 100 or more, as well as older singles who’ve maybe lost their spouse or are no longer married. “So on Monday, I went to the chamber and asked the lady if she knew anything about it,” Limoges said. “She said, ‘I know they ski up on Sunlight on Wednesdays.’ So, Shirley and I went up on that very Wednesday. And we still do that — after almost 25 years.” Study after study shows active seniors live longer, and the counties of western Colorado have among the highest life expectancy rates in the United States. But an aging population also brings many challenges for rural mountain communities when it comes to catering to health-care needs, creating and providing access to senior services, coming up with affordable housing options for seniors, and keeping up with the demand for in-home caregivers and nursing care when the time comes. Then there’s the cost-of-living reality in Garfield County and neighboring mountain areas that can make it hard to make ends meet on a fixed income, requiring many seniors to work into their 70s or move to places where it’s more affordable to stay retired. BOOMING POPULATION Colorado’s senior population is expected to grow at an unprecedented rate by 2030, according to state officials. Aging experts and government officials nationwide are experiencing a similar trend with scores of baby boomers turning 65 on a daily basis. Several organizations in Colorado and locally are working to prepare for this seismic shift, which officials say will ultimately affect the state’s economy, health-care system, transportation systems, and the housing market. Organizations including the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) say municipalities must brainstorm ways to promote “livable communities.” These neighborhoods are safe and secure, offer affordable housing, transportation, health care, and other services for seniors, regardless of age, income, physical ability and race. The Strategic Action Planning Group on Aging (SAPGA), based in Denver, advises that each of Colorado’s counties develop a strategic action plan to help with this widespread demographic shift. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper hired a senior adviser on aging in January, to focus solely on planning for an aging population. In a 2016 report, SAPGA’s board members recommended communities rethink policies and regulations that would affect sidewalks, parks, shopping areas, and transportation systems. The need for informal caregivers will become more prevalent and districts may consider building additional independent living communities, nursing homes and assisted living facilities, officials say. “Now we live 20 to 40 years longer after we retire,” said Karen Brown, chair of SAPGA. “It requires more planning on where you’re going to live, how you’re going to save, and how will you manage if you become disabled.” According to the National Institute on Retirement Security, 45 percent of households have no retirement savings at all. Half of those households are headed by a person aged 45 to 65, and the site says by that time, a person may have too few years to catch up. “As people age, their medical needs change,” said Dr. Jules Rosen, chief medical officer of Mind Springs Health, which is based in part in Glenwood Springs and has facilities throughout a multi-county region. Cognitive changes are expected, but it’s hard to know what kind of decline is natural for an elderly person and how much is due to other factors like living at high altitude, medical conditions, and possible head traumas, he said. “I think the thing that we see most is we start seeing patients with more chronic conditions or we call it comorbidity, so multiple chronic conditions,” said Sandy Hurley, chief nursing officer at Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs. CHALLENGES AHEAD Hurley and other staff are preparing for Garfield County’s senior population, those age 65 and older, to increase from about 6,500 currently to around 14,000 people by 2030, according to the state demographer’s office. Hurley says she’s noticed many older adults have trouble with chronic health issues, transportation, understanding medications, and scheduling appointments when they use the hospital’s services. Hospital staff recently expanded by incorporating social workers and care coordinators, who help with the aforementioned tasks, she said. Zona Hays, 84, of Glenwood Springs, says she walks to many of her destinations. It keeps her active, but it can be inconvenient at times, she said. “It’s important to me, because it’s the only way I can get around,” she said. “If I’m riding the city bus I can’t go anywhere in the evening because the bus stops running at 7:30 and I can’t get home after,” she added. Judy Martin, manager of senior programs in Garfield County, said night transportation and income levels remain a major concern for the elderly using her services. She oversees various programs, including a fall prevention course, exercise classes, lunch programs, and more. “We could use more resources but the reality is where do those resources come from,” she asked. “Most people are asking for more hours of service.” Most of Garfield County’s senior services are free or low cost, but 53 percent of the seniors who used services last fiscal year received an annual income of less than $14,000 a year, Martin said. “Often, by the fifth of the month they don’t have any money left,” Martin added. The Area Agency on Aging conducted an elder research survey on July 31 of this year, Martin said. She and other county officials are waiting on the results. The findings will be discussed at the next Garfield County Council on Aging meeting, and Martin says she will use the data to gauge what services are needed most and which can be cut. Garfield County does not currently have a strategic action plan to address elder population growth, but Martin says the aforementioned survey will help her and others plan. “Some regions are doing better than others,” said Elizabeth Garner, Colorado state demographer. “A person aging anywhere in the state probably looks at the same things, it’s just that the scale and scope may be different,” depending on the county, she said. The Area Agency on Aging for Northwest Colorado conducted a community assessment survey for older adults this year and the data suggests most of Garfield County’s seniors are content and plan to remain in their communities. Transportation, cost of living, health care, and affordable housing remain an issue, according to the data. “I feel optimistic that we will, that we are making gradual changes,” Brown, the SAPGA chair, said. “If we give it a little more thought, it will be better for ourselves, for our children, for society as a whole,” she added. The senior population also helps power the state’s economic engine. Coloradans aged 50 plus accounted for 45 percent of the state’s GDP in 2013, and supported 48 percent of the state’s jobs, according to the group. Seniors in Colorado have lower rates of obesity and are more physically active, according to SAPGA, and the state’s demographer says in many mountain communities, the aging population is wealthier. SAPGA’s board members maintain Colorado should capitalize on these trends and improve opportunities for seniors in the state. ___ Information from: Post Independent, http://www.postindependent.com/
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15286
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$700 billion was robbed (from Medicare) to pay for Obamacare.
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"Huckabee said, ""$700 billion was robbed (from Medicare) to fund Obamacare."" It’s an old claim and an old figure. The law does reduce Medicare spending, but not in the way Huckabee suggests. The Affordable Care Act aims to cut future Medicare costs by reducing payments to private insurers and hospitals, not beneficiaries, though this could indirectly squeeze beneficiaries. The claim is partially accurate but leaves out important context."
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mixture
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National, Federal Budget, Health Care, Medicare, Mike Huckabee,
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"Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee accused ""illegals, prostitutes, pimps, (and) drug dealers"" of freeloading off the Social Security system during the Aug. 6 GOP primary debate. Huckabee's provocative comment concluded a wonkish back-and-forth between him and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie about entitlement reform. Christie defended his plan to raise the retirement age and change benefits for Social Security and Medicare, but Huckabee stressed that Uncle Sam was to blame. ""If Congress wants to mess with the retirement program, why don't we let them start by changing their retirement program, and not have one, instead of talking about getting rid of Social Security and Medicare that was robbed $700 billion to pay for Obamacare?"" Huckabee said. This claim -- that the Affordable Care Act is funded by plundering the health care program of seniors -- is an old Republican talking point, dating back to the 2010 midterm elections. We’ve checked out many versions of this claim, which contains some truth but is misleading. Obamacare doesn’t literally ""rob"" Medicare. But the Affordable Care Act does include provisions that reduce future increases in Medicare spending. In other words, the law slows down the rising costs of Medicare. It’s also important to note that the savings come at the expense of insurers and hospitals, not beneficiaries. (The $700 billion figure is also old, from a 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office. It’s now updated to about $800 billion.) Under President George W. Bush, private insurers began to run a subset of Medicare plans with the idea that more competition produced lower costs. However, those plans grew to cost more than traditional Medicare, so the Affordable Care Act pared down the payments to private insurers. Hospitals would also find their checks docked when they failed to to meet benchmarks for patient care. On the flip side, the Affordable Care Act also funds illness prevention benefits, expands preventive care benefits, and provides $48 billion for prescription coverage. It’s possible that some beneficiaries could experience additional costs, reductions in service, or fewer hospitals that accept Medicare. ""While ‘robbed’ is a bit loaded, the idea that Medicare beneficiaries are getting less generous benefits in order that the ACA can offer health benefits to younger people isn’t outrageous,"" said Andrew Biggs, resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. But that’s a potential impact and a less direct effect of Obamacare than the claim suggests. The prior critiques of the claim ""remain relevant,"" the head of Medicare and Medicaid under George H.W. Bush told PolitiFact in 2014. Our ruling Huckabee said, ""$700 billion was robbed (from Medicare) to fund Obamacare."" It’s an old claim and an old figure. The law does reduce Medicare spending, but not in the way Huckabee suggests. The Affordable Care Act aims to cut future Medicare costs by reducing payments to private insurers and hospitals, not beneficiaries, though this could indirectly squeeze beneficiaries. The claim is partially accurate but leaves out important context."
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15593
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"In the last 24 months, 10 rural Texas hospitals have been forced to shut their doors because state leaders"" chose not to expand Medicaid."
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"Children’s Defense Fund-Texas said: ""In the last 24 months, 10 rural Texas hospitals have been forced to shut their doors because state leaders have chosen not to invest in our state’s health care systems by rejecting billions in available Medicaid funds to cover more of our state’s uninsured."" Ten rural hospitals closed, we found, though different hospitals later opened on two sites. Also, as Bresette acknowledged, the non-expansion of Medicaid wasn’t the only reason for the rural closings. Our sense is they occurred due to various squeezes extending, in a few cases, to an owner’s fraudulent acts."
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false
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Corrections and Updates, Health Care, Public Health, State Budget, Texas, Children's Defense Fund-Texas,
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"Hold up on providing Texas tax cuts, an advocacy group says, because the billions of dollars in play would be better spent on children. Patrick Bresette, executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund-Texas, maintained in an April 28, 2015, statement sent to reporters that more than $4 billion in tax reductions under consideration by the Republican-led Texas Senate and House would serve the state’s wealthiest. ""We are further distressed,"" Bresette said, ""that the House is considering such deep reductions to its revenue stream while our state is standing on the brink of a health care crisis. ""In the last 24 months,"" Bresette said, ""ten rural Texas hospitals have been forced to shut their doors because state leaders have chosen not to invest in our state’s health care systems by rejecting billions in available Medicaid funds to cover more of our state’s uninsured."" Ten country hospitals shuttered due to leaders spurning Medicaid? We confirmed some closings while learning about multiple factors for the closings including GOP resistance to expanding the Medicaid program to many Texas adults as intended by the 2010 Obamacare law. Let’s tally the closings, then cover possible reasons. Children's Defense Fund backup Anat Kelman Shaw of the Children’s Defense Fund-Texas emailed us web links to news stories declaring 10 rural hospitals had closed of late. We also reached the Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals, which provided its April 2015 list of rural hospitals shut down since 1995. The list showed 10 that closed from February 2013 through December 2014 though we confirmed that within that group, the Central Texas Hospital in Cameron was later succeeded by the Little River Healthcare (its website says it’s Cameron Hospital) and the shuttered Cozby-Germany Hospital in Grand Saline was later converted to the Texas General Hospital Van Zandt Regional Medical Center, which opened April 18, 2015, Suleman Hashmi, president of Texas General Hospital LP, told us by phone. The other TORCH-listed hospitals and their closing dates: Renaissance Hospital in Terrell (February 2013) Shelby Regional Medical Center in Center (July 2013) Lake Whitney Medical Center in Whitney (April 2014) Good Shepherd Medical Center in Linden (April 2014) Cleveland Regional in Cleveland (August 2014) East Texas Medical Center in Gilmer (December 2014) East Texas Medical Center in Mount Vernon (December 2014) East Texas Medical Center in Clarksville (December 2014). Another aspect: While checking these hospital names, we noticed the ones in Terrell, Center, Grand Saline and Whitney had been owned by a legally embattled physician, Tariq Mahmood, who was found guilty in Dallas County in July 2014 of defrauding Medicare by submitting more than $1.1 million in bogus billing claims—making us wonder to what extent his involvement drove those closings. Separately, we asked the Texas Department of State Health Services about the closings. By email, spokesman Chris Van Deusen guided us to an agency chart showing that as of April 2015, more than 660 hospitals were licensed by the state. The list didn’t lead us to identify any additional hospital openings in rural Texas over the 24 months in question. So, did the state’s non-expansion of Medicaid cause the closings? Texas Republican opposition to expanding Medicaid To be sure, Texas Republicans have staunchly opposed Medicaid expansion. The Obamacare law required states to widen access to Medicaid. But after the U.S. Supreme Court found the mandate unconstitutional, the government left it up to each state to widen access with Uncle Sam covering related costs for three years. In July 2012, Texas Gov. Rick Perry rejected the deal, calling the offer a brazen intrusion into state sovereignty. In 2013, in turn, the Republican-led Legislature ""shot down federal efforts to cover uninsured, low-income Texans by expanding access to Medicaid,"" according to a May 2013 Austin American-Statesman news story. Through the first four months of the 2015 legislative session, Shaw pointed out, Democratic attempts to win a reversal didn't get traction. Non-expansion has left many Texas adults uninsured. In March 2015, we found a claim by the Texas Democratic Party that more than 1 million Texans lacked affordable health care due to the decision not to expand. That is, around 1 million adults were making too little money to qualify for private insurance subsidies offered under the Obamacare law and they also remained ineligible for Medicaid because Texas did not expand access. Closed hospitals cite various factors Shaw, asked to elaborate on the state not expanding Medicaid causing rural hospitals to close, pointed out a March 2015 Lubbock Avalanche-Journal news story quoting TORCH’s Don McBeath, the former judge of Lubbock County, saying: ""Rural hospitals have always operated on a very narrow financial margin and have been hit with a series of payment cuts from Medicaid and Medicare in the past four years."" An April 4, 2015, Graham Leader news story quoted Larry Kovar, chairman of the board of the Graham Regional Medical Center, which had laid off 15 workers, saying the hospital had lost significant revenue because Texas opted out of Medicaid expansion. ""A lot more people would have been eligible for Medicaid (had Texas accepted the expansion), and the government was paying 100 percent of that Medicaid, certainly for the next several years,"" Kovar said. ""And that would have brought in more money to the hospital, obviously."" Kovar also said: ""Unfortunately, to the extent that we didn’t accept that Medicaid, the hospital is funding those patients now through indigent care and such programs in lieu of the expanded Medicaid. We still treat those people, but they’re not eligible for Medicaid, so it hurts the hospital to some extent."" Earlier, a March 6, 2015, news item in the Quorum Report, a Capitol newsletter, quoted Jack Endres, the administrator of East Texas Medical Center-Jacksonville, saying financial troubles led to its closing the hospitals in Clarksville, Mount Vernon and Gilmer. Endres said cuts in state and federal payments needed to be reversed or more hospitals would close. By phone, Endres told us he doesn’t know if the state’s resistance to expanding Medicaid was the driving factor in the closings. ""It was certainly a factor,"" Endres said. ""We’re basically getting death by a thousand cuts, one thing after another."" In that vein, a March 20, 2015, Texas Tribune news story declared multiple factors behind such rural shutdowns, stating hospitals were suffering due to unfulfilled promises ""of federal health reform, payment cuts by both government programs and private insurers, falling patient volumes and a declining rural population... Add to that Texas’ distinction as the state with the highest percentage of people without health insurance and you get a financially hostile landscape for rural hospital operators."" The story, written in partnership with Kaiser Health News, affiliated with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, quoted John Henderson, chief executive of the Childress Regional Medical Center, taking note of the state’s historically huge uninsured population and saying: ""And we took Medicare cuts hoping that we could cover more people."" Henderson, the story said, was referring to an agreement negotiated by the American Hospital Association when Democrats in Congress were drafting the Obamacare law. ""The idea was that hospitals would take cuts to their Medicare payments, but in return they would have to spend less on ‘charity care’ because most patients would have health insurance,"" the story said. ""But because Texas' Republican leadership has vehemently opposed expanding Medicaid to low-income adults, hospitals say they are paying the price for cost savings they didn't receive."" Moreover, the Tribune reported, federal health reform mandated penalties for hospitals, rural and urban, that had too many patients readmitted for follow-up care. Another program, the story said, cracks the whip on hospitals where too many patients get sick during their stay. On top of that, federal sequestration, the fairly new budget-cutting practice, ""has meant a 2 percent across-the-board cut to Medicare payments,"" the story said, with rural hospitals taking a further hit from the Obamacare law’s reductions in ""disproportionate share hospital"" payments to hospitals with large numbers of indigent and uninsured patients. Meanwhile in Texas, the story said, the 2011 Texas Legislature imposed a 10 percent cut in payments for all Medicaid outpatient care as part of balancing the state budget; that reduction remains. Upshot: It looks like various federal and state actions contributed to reduced revenues. Other views We asked TORCH’s McBeath and a national representative of rural hospitals to discuss Bresette’s statement. By phone, McBeath and Alan Morgan, chief executive of the Washington, D.C.-based National Rural Health Association, each said multiple factors including Texas not expanding Medicaid access have played into hospital closings. Morgan said factors include the Obamacare law reducing payments to hospitals for uncompensated care (services to individuals lacking health coverage)--the wrinkle intended to take advantage of more Americans getting covered by Medicaid. Also, Morgan said, Congress approved reductions in Medicare payments--focusing on outcomes rather than procedures--which reduced income streams. Nationally since 2010, Morgan said, about 50 rural hospitals have closed compared to none the prior decade. ""Of the 50 rural hospitals that have closed, I’ve heard 50 different stories. Poor leadership, lack of community support, board relations"" plus, he said, a lack of financial support at the state, local or federal levels. McBeath said he sees no single reason rural hospitals have closed in Texas. ""In simple terms, those hospitals closed because their revenue did not match up to their expenses,"" he said. Outside factors, he said, included the reduced federal payments for uncompensated care. Also, he said, there was the 2011 Legislature’s 10-percent cut in Medicaid outpatient payments to hospitals and a change cutting 20 percent from payments for patients treated in an emergency room whose needs weren’t emergencies. It’s worth noting, McBeath said, rural hospitals serve a large share of uninsured Texans. Per the closings, McBeath said, ""it’s not correct to blame one thing. But the lack of Medicaid expansion continues to be"" a factor. We followed up with Bresette, who said by email that if he had a chance to make his statement afresh, he’d say the decision not to expand Medicaid access was among actions forcing hospitals to shut their doors. Our ruling Children’s Defense Fund-Texas said: ""In the last 24 months, 10 rural Texas hospitals have been forced to shut their doors because state leaders have chosen not to invest in our state’s health care systems by rejecting billions in available Medicaid funds to cover more of our state’s uninsured."" Ten rural hospitals closed, we found, though different hospitals later opened on two sites. Also, as Bresette acknowledged, the non-expansion of Medicaid wasn’t the only reason for the rural closings. Our sense is they occurred due to various squeezes extending, in a few cases, to an owner’s fraudulent acts. – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. UPDATE, 2:01 p.m., May 15, 2015: We revised the wording of our ruling to clarify that Bresette acknowledged the non-expansion of Medicaid wasn't the only reason for the hospital closings and to make it clear we found a range of factors."
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34732
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Testing has revealed that eight popular tea brands contain illegal amounts of deadly pesticides.
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“It’s now almost 2019,” Fraser wrote in a 1 December 2018 update to her post, “and seeing as how these studies were conducted over four years ago, it is hard to say whether they have changed up the pesticides they are using, or whether they have stopped using them at all.” We concur.
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mixture
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Food, chemophobia, Food Contamination
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A 26 October 2016 post written by Carly Fraser on her website “Live Love Fruit,” which has been shared over a million times on Facebook, alleges that various popular brands of tea contain dangerous levels of pesticides. However, the article inaccurately describes three different testing results that are currently five years out of date. At the article’s conclusion, Fraser suggested that other brands that were allegedly healthier. The reality is that this post is a textbook example of affiliate marketing, and Fraser’s blog receives money from Amazon if people purchase the teas she linked to. “I am an affiliate of Amazon and link to tea companies I currently drink, trust and recommend,” Fraser told us via email. With this context in mind, and with the understanding that the referenced test results are five years out-of-date, we will dissect each of the claims made by Fraser and explain how she has muddied the science behind food residue testing. In the United States, governmental bodies regularly test domestic and imported agricultural food commodities to determine how much pesticide residue they might contain. This form of regulation is different than the rules that govern the application of pesticides; it instead governs the small amounts of pesticide residue allowed to remain in, or on, food products. These limits, termed maximum residue tolerances or limits (MRLs) are different depending upon both the chemical used and the commodity type because the level of exposure to pesticide residue a consumer might experience through diet differs depending upon the food type. In some cases, residue limits are set for dried tea, which is the type of testing highlighted in Fraser’s story. Setting such limits is a scientifically demanding process, and not all pesticides that show up in tests have established limits for dried tea products. In such cases, the presence of a pesticide-related chemical in the food commodity means the product is considered “adulterated,” but that does not mean the product is necessarily subject to regulatory action, as explained to us via email by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) residue expert Chris Sack: If a product contains a pesticide residue for which EPA has not set a tolerance, at any level, it is adulterated. We actually classify the residue that way in our data. The regulatory action is a separate thing. Think of it like the speed limit. If I am traveling at 1 mph over the limit, I am in violation of the limit. However, the authorities do not normally take action for that small of an infraction. There needs to be room for error and for unforeseen circumstances. The radar could be off, my speedometer could be off, a burst of wind might push me over the limit by that much. These are a few considerations. The same applies to pesticides. I should note that 0.01 ppm is the default MRL in several countries, including the EU, Japan, Australia, etc. In the US we flag the adulterating residue, but we don’t normally take action until the residue is 0.01 ppm, or higher. In essence, this means there are two ways to run afoul of food residue laws as they regard the trace presence of pesticide in food commodities. In cases where there are enough data and research to determine an MRL value for a specific pesticide, a food product can contain levels above a “legally acceptable limit.” In cases where no MRL is set for a certain chemical on a certain commodity, the mere presence (above 0.01 ppm) of that chemical is a violation of the law. The potential health risks from this latter for the infraction are not necessarily as serious a health risk as being above a medically determined upper limit. In many cases, these pesticide chemicals have MRLs set for non-tea food items that are far higher than 0.01 ppm, but because of a lack of data for dried tea (even though tea typically has higher tolerances than types of food thanks to the chemical loss that occurs when brewing tea), the extremely low bar of 0.01 ppm counts as an infraction. Lumping these two types of infractions together provides a misleading portrait of the testing results used for this blog post. In point of fact, no chemical with a set MRL for dried tea presented results that came close to being in excess their MRL in any of the three sets of scientific testing highlighted by “Live Love Fruit.” Fisher’s first set of claims stemmed from testing performed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 2014. This test was a followup to testing the news outlet had performed in 2009 and 2011, which had demonstrated the presence of residue of certain pesticides at levels considered illegal in Canada: CBC News recently conducted an investigation on the pesticide levels in some of the most major tea-producing companies. Using an accredited lab, the investigators utilized testing methods employed by the National Food Inspection Agency to test pesticide residues on dry tea leaves. The investigators found that over half of all teas tested had pesticide residues that were above the legally acceptable limit. Multiple chemicals were found in 8 out of 10 teas, with one brand of tea containing over 22 different types of pesticides (Uncle Lee’s Legends of China tea brand). A large majority of these pesticides are currently being banned in several countries due to the health risks they pose to works [sic] that handle them, and the negative effects they have on the environment (as well as the health of those that consume the products). Two explicit claims made here: First that “over half of all teas tested had pesticide residues that were above the legally acceptable limit,” and second that “a large majority of these pesticides are currently being banned in several countries.” The first claim was false, as not a single chemical identified by the CBC, in cases for which an MRL had been set, was “above the legally acceptable limit.” Below is a table of the largest value identified by the CBC for each chemical they found, compared to those chemicals’ MRLs in both the United States and Canada. These are the only chemicals that could possibly be “above an acceptable limit,” since they actually have such limits set. None of them came anywhere close to exceeding those established limits: Two chemicals identified by the CBC, ethofenprox and dimethoate, were found in concentrations below the 0.01 ppm level required for the U.S government to consider any regulatory action. The remaining chemicals identified by the CBC would technically be in violation of U.S. law — not because their concentrations exceeded a scientifically validated health limit, but in most cases because no such limit had been established specifically for tea and therefore the presence of any amount was considered a violation. Fraser’s second claim, that half the referenced chemicals were banned in multiple countries, was also false. Though around half of the chemicals identified by the CBC had no MRLs set for them, this does not necessarily mean their use was banned, just that its presence was not approved for dried tea. Of all the chemicals identified by the CBC, only one of the chemicals, endosulfan, appeared on the Rotterdam Convention list of pesticides “that have been banned or severely restricted for health or environmental reasons by” several countries. However, that chemical was legally allowed in Canadian tea at the time of the CBC’s tests, and the levels identified by the CBC were four orders of magnitude lower than the current U.S. maximum allowable limits, and therefore its presence in tea was not in violation of any U.S. law. Fraser’s next source of information was a 2014 Greenpeace report about pesticide residue in tea sourced from India: Greenpeace also released a study exposing many popular tea brands that contain high levels of pesticide residues — some which even tested positive for DDT, an incredibly toxic pesticide that was banned years ago. This report (like the others) has limited relevance to 2018, as the testing occurred in 2014 and only involved samples from India, and while India is the largest exporter of tea in the world, other regulatory bodies test imported tea for compliance with their own laws. The Greenpeace report found that: Nearly 94% (46 out of 49) of the tea samples contained residues of at least one of 34 pesticide active ingredients, at concentrations above the analytical limit of quantification (LOQii). Once again, scale matters. All this statement means is that the laboratory was able to confidently detect the presence of pesticide-related residues, not that 94% of the samples contained chemicals in concentrations that were violations of established residue limits. The most commonly found pesticides identified by Greenpeace were found in concentrations substantially lower than the legal limits set for them in the United States: Thiamethoxam Cypermethrin Acetamiprid Thiacloprid The arguably more concerning aspect of this report was the presence of DDT in some samples, as its use has been banned for decades and comes with well-documented health risks. If DDT had been found in the United States market, where the FDA regularly tests for its presence in imported consumable products, that import would face regulatory action. Monitoring the global tea market for pesticides is without question a vitally important task, and the threat of pesticides in the global food market requires constant attention. Such test results, however, should be put in legal and scientific contexts as opposed to being weaponized for profit, as was the case with the Live Love Fruit post. The final report Fraser used, from 2013, is in need of context as well. Glaucus Research Group is a short-selling operation, which means they attempt to profit by predicting when a stock will decline in value. The Glaucus report focused explicitly on Hain-Celestial teas, as they were attempting, publicly and successfully, to short that stock back in 2013: The Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (“Hain” or the “company”) is a $3 billion roll-up of disparate food brands that we believe is masquerading as a healthy/organic food company. In this report we present compelling evidence (based on independent lab tests and other due diligence) suggesting that products representing 85% of the Company’s 2012 internal growth are beset by quality control issues and/or deceptive marketing practices. We believe that once the Company’s exaggerated claims are exposed, Hain will revert to its historical internal growth rate of 3% and eventually trade in-line with mature packaged goods companies at a 15.5x forward p/e multiple. As Hain currently trades at 24x forward earnings, this implies downside of 35%. Of this report, Fraser said: Yet another round of tests conducted by Glaucus Research found that 91% of Celestial Seasonings tea tested had pesticide residues exceeding the U.S. limits. For example, Sleepytime Kids Goodnight Grape Herbal contained 0.26 ppm of propachlor, which is a known carcinogen under California’s Propsition [sic] 65. The suggestion that 91% of Celestial Seasonings tea were in “excess” of allowable limits came from tabulating the presence of all pesticide-related chemicals found, including those without set limits. Blurring these two groups together made it seem as though a larger number of pesticides existed in concentrations that had been medically evaluated to be harmful to humans, as opposed to counting only those chemicals whose presence alone constituted a violation. Propochlor is considered a human carcinogen under California’s Proposition 65, but every cup of coffee sold is considered a carcinogen under California law as well since the law is blind to the how much of a given chemical is present. While allowable tolerances for propochlor exist in other products, no such limits have been established for tea, and therefore its presence in a children’s tea product (if true) should be troubling. The company faced widespread online backlash and a temporary reduction in share value as a result of the report. For what it’s worth, Hain-Celestial described Glaucus’s results as “false and misleading” and claimed they undertook to have the brands highlighted by the Glaucus report retested, finding that no pesticides were detected: Celestial Seasoning sent the same teas highlighted in the report to the National Food Lab for testing. The National Food Lab detected no pesticides in the teas, Celestial Seasonings officials said, adding that the Boulder firm has stringent testing procedures for all raw ingredients that come into the facility. Ingredients that don’t meet acceptable limits under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Union Pharmacopeial Convention, among others, are rejected, Celestial Seasonings officials said. After we reached out to Fraser, she updated her post with more detail about some of the chemicals she highlighted. These updates, however, did not really take into account scale. For example, she highlighted endosulfan as an example of a dangerous level of a pesticide residue: For example, endosulfan, one of the most toxic pesticides on the market today, was found in Uncle Lee’s Legends of China Green Tea and Tetley Pure Green Tea. Endosulfan is a chlorinated insecticide that is chemically similar to the infamous DDT (which was banned over 48 years ago). This statement is true, but the CBC results she highlighted showed levels of endosulfan in tea at concentrations of 0.04 ppm. In the United States, endosulfan’s presence would not be a violation until it reached a concentration of 24 ppm, orders of magnitude higher than the level found in Uncle Lee’s Legends of China Green Tea. In short, the claims of dangerous pesticides “above the legal limit” rely on incorrect or misleading descriptions of out-of-date testing that was performed in most cases by advocacy groups. These misleading and outdated descriptions were presented, at least in part, for the purpose of making a profit off people clicking online links for organic tea products and muddied the online discourse surrounding pesticide and food science. While the reports accurately highlighted the presence of some pesticide-related chemicals that do not have MRL limits set for dried tea contained in tea products, those reports in nearly all cases did not provide evidence of “dangerous” or “deadly” levels of those chemicals, just their trace presence.
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9630
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Experimental procedure aimed at repairing spinal cord shows promise
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This story portrays a quadriplegic man who believes a stem cell transplant helped him to recover partial function after a spinal cord injury. The story effectively conveys the devastation of spinal cord injuries and correctly identifies stem cell therapy as an experimental and unproven treatment. However, its thrust that the therapy “shows promise” is misleading; its efficacy has yet to be supported by rigorous trials. The story doesn’t give data on costs, harms, and availability that might have injected balance into the piece. We’ve reviewed other stories that unfairly wow readers up front only to save caveats for the end, including a recent BuzzFeed piece on an experimental device that restored some function to a paralysis patient. But in this case, the story also perpetuates a trend of media coverage that hypes unproven stem cell therapies for various conditions, unfairly raising patient expectations based on isolated and preliminary findings. About 282,000 people in the U.S. are estimated to be living with spinal cord injuries, mainly from vehicle collisions and falls, according to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center. Spinal cord injuries can be incomplete, meaning that patients retain some motor or sensory function below the injury, or complete, in which there is a total lack of sensory and motor function below the level of injury. In either case, they almost always result in lifelong disability. Effective emergency care for people with spinal cord injuries and aggressive treatment and rehabilitation can minimize damage to the nervous system and restore some function. However, there is no treatment to repair spinal cord injuries. Stem cells are an active area of research for spinal cord repair, but their potential and associated risks are not clear. According to the Canadian Stem Cell Foundation, stem cells are being studied as a source of new cells and products that could prevent further damage, restore nerve function, generate new nerve cells and guide the regrowth of severed nerve fibers. It says current trials are very small, mostly testing the safety of putting adult stem cells into patients. The question of whether stem cells can safely improve function is years away from being answered. Meanwhile, there’s growing concern about media reports that exaggerate the potential of stem cell therapies that are in early phases of research. This month the International Society for Stem Cell Research issued guidelines to encourage accurate and balanced communication of stem cell science, including setbacks as well as progress.
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false
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spinal cord injuries,stem cell research,stem cell therapies,stem cell therapy,stem cells
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The story does not address the cost of this procedure. The story relies on comments from the patient, James Mason, and his doctor, Arthur Jenkins, M.D., a neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Mason is shown in video footage moving his arms and legs in physical therapy. Three months after surgery, he reports that his wrists have become stronger. Six months post-surgery, he says his improvement has “doubled,” sensation has returned to his feet and legs, and there’s slight movement in his hips. The physician, Jenkins, says: “My two cents is it worked that this actually changed his neurological recovery and function, that his actual functional improvement is from the stem cells that were injected.” No data is presented to back up these statements. The narrator, CBS chief medical correspondent Jonathan LaPook, M.D., says the company sponsoring a trial of this therapy, which isn’t named, reported that four out of six patients it was following experienced improvement in motor strength and function. However, there are no measurements provided for any of these observed improvements. If these patients are being followed as part of a trial, readers ought to know what outcomes the researchers are looking for (even if the trial isn’t complete as yet) and how they would objectively measure their improvement. No harms are mentioned. Any surgical procedure presents a risk. Since clinical trials of stem cell procedures for spinal cord injury are just beginning, they carry a risk of unforeseen adverse effects. The story presents a single anecdote as evidence of the benefits of stem cell transplants for spinal cord injury. It mentions that the case is part of a clinical trial with six patients, but does not give details such as the objective, sponsor, or limitations of the trial. The story does not exaggerate the frequency or severity of this condition. The story does tell viewers that the physician who performed the procedure “is not affiliated with the company” sponsoring the trial. However, it should have included an independent expert and named the trial sponsor. There is no discussion of alternative therapies or avenues of research for spinal cord injuries. The story states that the treatment is experimental, and correspondent LaPook acknowledges at the end, “More research will be needed to try to establish whether (stem cells) actually repair damage to the spinal cord.” But that strikes us as too little, too late. The story does not explain that it takes years to gain FDA approval for a new treatment, and many therapies particularly in the stem cell field never reach the finish line due to cost, safety, and efficacy hurdles. The story does not misrepresent the novelty of the procedure. However, we would have liked to read a bit more about how stem cells are being used (experimentally) for other related medical applications. The story does not appear to rely on a news release.
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9685
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Cell therapy in protective bubble offers hope for diabetes fix
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This article does a really nice job of explaining the science behind two studies and appropriately depicting the pace of scientific process. With other news coverage talking about the research getting us “close to a cure” for diabetes, this story took a measured approach that should be posted on the walls of newsrooms everywhere. Yes, you can make a lab study exciting and engaging for readers without overstating the findings. A little more quantification of benefits and risks would have elevated this to five stars. Type I Diabetes is a relatively common illness that takes significant time and expense to manage and is associated with major complications. For years it has seemed we are on the verge of a major breakthrough, but, even with better treatments, this condition remains a major public health problem. All the more reason to be circumspect when describing new research into this area. This story says, “Just because the system produced strong results in mice does not mean people will respond the same way.” Hear us applauding.
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true
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stem cell therapy,stem cells,type 1 diabetes
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Part of the caution in this story is not linking the research too closely to a potential on-the-shelf treatment. The story says in several ways that a drug therapy would be a good distance away. So we don’t think it appropriate to talk about costs at this point. The story does not break down the actual number of positive findings in either study, and we wish it had. It may be that the way in which the benefits were measured was hard to explain. But we still think the story should try to give readers some specifics. We want to know more than just that the beta cells performed “every bit as good as the body’s own cells.” The story makes a nod in the direction of harms when it notes that there was a minimal immune system response to the transplanted cells. An immune response is currently one of the harms that limits the usefulness of this procedure. But the story should have gone further to describe how the transplantation procedure is performed. This is an invasive approach that is not without risks and adverse effects. The story does a really nice job of quickly summarizing the state of the evidence and then going into more detail. It’s almost a blueprint for how these stories should be written. In just three sentences, it captures nearly all the relevant information about the evidence. It says, “In one of two related studies published Monday, Anderson and his colleagues described in the journal Nature Biotechnology how they had tested 774 variations of alginate in rodents and monkeys and identified a handful that elicited a greatly reduced foreign body response. For the other paper, published in Nature Medicine, the group embedded tiny capsules made from that durable alginate with beta cells derived from human embryonic stem cells. They then transplanted them into mice with a disease akin to type 1 diabetes.” Note: published in a respected journal, tested in animals (the story could have specified how many and acknowledged that these were animal studies higher up in the story), focused on a disease that’s not exactly diabetes but close. This should signal to readers that a cure for diabetes is still a long ways away. There is no disease mongering in the story. In fact, it does a nice job of explaining the disease and the specific problem this research is trying to address. It says, for example, “In people with type 1 diabetes, formerly known as juvenile-onset diabetes, the immune system dismantles the pancreatic cells that normally produce insulin. So researchers have long sought a way to put back healthy insulin-producing cells, known as beta cells, into patients.” Most of the sources are connected to the study, either from the research institutions involved or the funders. But we give the story points for taking the next step and talking to people in the pharmaceutical research world who would be among those actually taking a discovery like this and making it therapeutic. The story quotes someone from Semma and someone from VitaCyte, both of whom provide a good dose of realistic context. While ideally we would’ve heard from someone with no stake at all in this line of research, we think there are enough voices with enough distance from the studies to earn the story a Satisfactory rating. And to the article’s credit, the sources’ affiliations are all clearly stated. The story does contrast this research with other research into treating diabetes. The story might have provided a bit of context about other work on developing an artificial pancreas for Type 1 Diabetes patients (there’s a lot on this). The story at the top makes it clear that the treatment is not available, saying, “Scientists on Monday showed they had overcome some of the major hurdles standing in the way of a long-sought therapeutic fix for patients with type 1 diabetes, outlining an approach that the body’s immune system could tolerate and providing a possible pathway toward clinical trials in the next few years.” Not the qualifier of “possible” in that sentence. News stories often don’t address the novelty of a treatment or research finding. But this story actually uses the word “novel,” which sort of puts a spotlight on the category for us. The story quotes one of the study’s funders calling the protective cell bubbles studied in the research “novel materials.” We think the story actually does establish their novelty with enough context and caveats. The story does not rely on a news release.
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11089
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Lung scans may lead to overdiagnosis: study
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We identified three shortcomings – all easily addressed. Costs weren’t mentioned – a big factor in a story about overdiagnosis and overtreatment. No independent expert was quoted. Had there been an independent voice, perhaps some of our comments about evaluating the limitations of the evidence would have been addressed. Putting hard numbers to concerns about overdiagnosis and overtreatment is a vital health policy issue – and important for journalists to track, as Reuters did with this story.
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true
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Reuters Health,Screening
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No mention of cost – a signficant issue in the context of alleged overdiagnosis. The story succinctly summarized: The story explained: “the blood-thinning drugs used to treat blood clots increase the risk of bleeding in the brain or gastrointestinal tract, for example. According to the new results, such complications rose from three to five per 100,000 people hospitalized with PE per year after doctors began using chest CT scans.” It also reported: “CT scans expose patients to radiation, for example, which can increase the likelihood of developing cancer. And the dyes used to enhance the scan also cause kidney damage in a significant portion of people.” Our medical editor who reviewed this felt strongly that an unsatisfactory grade was warranted for the following reasons. There are important limitations to consider. The diagnosis of pulmonary embolism prior to CT was always fairly uncertain because pulmonary angiography (the true gold standard) was rarely done due to complications of the test. Therefore, the baseline trends for incidence of pulmonary emboli are probably not very reliable. There are also lots of other tests and approaches used for PE diagnosis that could have influenced things in either direction, as well as trends/improvements in treatment of PE. Relying on discharge diagnoses from inpatient samples should always be used with caution. A validation procedure with a subsample of cases could have added more strength in the reliability and validity of the diagnoses. Perhaps if an independent expert’s perspective had been included, some of this may have been addressed. No disease-mongering of pulmonary emboli. No independent source was quoted. It would have been interesting to solicit opinions from radiologists, for example, that might have placed some of this in a different light. The dilemma was framed appropriately at the end: The story states that chest CT scans are “being used in millions of patients every year in the US.” The relative novelty of the new analysis was clear from the story. It stated: “The new findings add to other evidence showing that medical testing is on the rise across the U.S., although in many cases the impact on overall health remains unclear.” It’s clear that the story did not rely solely on a news release.
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39283
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CDC officials issued a formal apology after it was discovered that the 2014 flu vaccine proved ineffective against a common strain of the flu virus.
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CDC Apologizes for Ineffective Flu Vaccines
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false
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Health / Medical
|
The CDC warned that 2014 could bring a “potentially severe” flu season, but it never apologized for developing an ineffective flu vaccine. The eRumor misconstrued a statement about the upcoming flu season that was released by the CDC on December 4, 2014: “Early data suggests that the current 2014-2015 flu season could be severe. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urges immediate vaccination for anyone still unvaccinated this season and recommends prompt treatment with antiviral drugs for people at high risk of complications who develop flu. “So far this year, seasonal influenza A H3N2 viruses have been most common. There often are more severe flu illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths during seasons when these viruses predominate. For example, H3N2 viruses were predominant during the 2012-2013, 2007-2008, and 2003-2004 seasons, the three seasons with the highest mortality levels in the past decade. All were characterized as ‘moderately severe.’” Each year, flu vaccines are designed to protect against four different flu viruses, and H3N2 is among them. Early on in the 2014 flu season, the CDC said it had discovered that roughly half of the H3N2 strains it analyzed were “drift variants”: “This means the vaccine’s ability to protect against those viruses may be reduced, although vaccinated people may have a milder illness if they do become infected. During the 2007-2008 flu season, the predominant H3N2 virus was a drift variant, yet the vaccine had an overall efficacy of 37 percent and 42 percent against H3N2 viruses.” In an average year, vaccines successfully ward off the flu about 60 percent of the time. However, the benefits of vaccination have an even larger impact on local communities, the website Science Based Medicine reports: “It is important to remember that with infectious diseases you are vaccinating not only individuals, but populations. When you get a vaccine you may also be protecting others from disease, and the effects of herd immunity are evident when you look at the effects of vaccination on the health of populations.” And the eRumor’s claim that the CDC “apologized” for the vaccine doesn’t check out in light of the CDC’s role in developing the vaccine. More than 140 influenza centers in 111 countries monitor influenza trends at all times. Those centers forward their findings to the five World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centers for Reference and Research on Influenza, which includes the CDC, according to the agency: “The influenza viruses in the seasonal flu vaccine are selected each year based on surveillance-based forecasts about what viruses are most likely to cause illness in the coming season. WHO recommends specific vaccine viruses for inclusion in influenza vaccines, but then each individual country makes their own decision for which strains should be included in influenza vaccines licensed in their country. In the United States, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determines which vaccine viruses will be used in U.S.-licensed vaccines.” After the CDC issued its statement about H3N2, the eRumor began with a YouTube video posted by NextNewsNetwork: “For the first time we can remember, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are going on the record, saying the flu vaccine won’t work this year. The warning comes just before the busiest part of flu season, in January and February. Unfortunately, there won’t be any refund for any of the patients or insurance companies who spent money on flu shots earlier this fall.” However, the CDC didn’t issue an apology or “admit” that the 2014 flu vaccine wouldn’t work. The agency issued a warning about the severity of flu viruses in seasons when H3N2 is the most common strain, and it acknowledged that drift variants of H3N2 could reduce the vaccine’s effectiveness in the flu season ahead. The CDC suggests that everyone who is older than six months receive a flu vaccine every season. Comments
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1977
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Oregon votes to outlaw sale of suicide kits.
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Sales of suicide kits, like the do-it-yourself asphyxiation hood used by a man to kill himself late last year, could soon be outlawed in the state of Oregon.
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true
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Health News
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A 'suicide kit' is seen during a Reuters Interview in London May 7, 2009. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth The state’s House of Representative passed the bill on Monday to ban the products. It must now be considered in the state Senate, which passed similar legislation in May. Sponsors say the bill would in no way impinge on a landmark 1997 state law legalizing physician-assisted suicides for terminally ill individuals in Oregon. Washington is the only other state with such a statute on the books. The newly passed Oregon bill was sparked by notoriety surrounding an elderly California woman who sells self-asphyxiation kits through a mail-order business, and the December suicide of one of her customers from Eugene, Oregon, 29-year-old Nicholas Klonoski. Sharlotte Hydorn, 91, a retired science teacher and great-grandmother who lives near San Diego, says her product is intended to help people with incurable, fatal illnesses end their lives with dignity in their own homes. The kits, which sell for $60 including shipping, consist of a plastic hood that closes around the neck and tubing that connects the hood to a tank of helium or other inert gas the patients supply themselves. Critics, including Klonoski’s brother, have faulted Hydorn for not screening potential buyers of her kits, which they say she peddles indiscriminately to customers who may be emotionally fragile, rather than terminally ill. Klonoski’s family said he suffered from depression but was otherwise healthy when he used one of Hydorn’s kits to take his own life around Christmas time. “We don’t want somebody coming into Oregon making a profit off this kind of thing,” Representative Jeff Barker, a Democrat and sponsor of the bill, told Reuters. Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, a Democrat and former emergency room physician, has taken no position on the bill, a spokeswoman said. The bill would make it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a person to sell “any substance or object that is capable of causing death to another person for the purpose of assisting the other person to commit suicide.” Supporters stressed the measure would leave intact Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act, which allows physicians to prescribe life-ending medication to terminally ill patients, though the patients must be physically capable of administering the drug to themselves. State records show that 525 Oregonians have ended their lives under the statute since 1997. Hydorn has said sales of her product, which she calls “exit kits,” jumped sharply as a result of media attention stemming from Klonoski’s death and reaction to it in Oregon. She said much of her recent business has come from Oregon. Armed federal agents raided her home last month and seized cartons of documents, computers and sewing machines under a search warrant Hydorn said accused her of conspiracy, mail fraud, tax evasion and the “sale of (an) adulterated or misbranded medical device.”
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11339
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New study firmly ties hormone use to breast cancer
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"The story does a good job presenting 2002 data from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) on the increased risk of developing breast cancer with prolonged use of HRT (also termed estrogen plus progestin treatment). However, the story does not accurately report the results of the recent JAMA paper: Even women who took estrogen and progestin pills for as little as a couple of years had a greater chance of getting [all types of] cancer."" There is nothing in this study to contradict the earlier WHI report showing that breast cancer risks start to diverge after about 4 years , not ""a couple of years"". This article reports on all cancers, not just breast. Nowhere in the JAMA article are all cancers plotted over time to support the assertion of a couple of years. Followed by the assertion that ""…these new findings are likely to end any doubt that the risks outweigh the benefits,"" this creates the inaccurate impression that there are new data showing breast cancer risks start earlier on in the course of treatment. A second inaccuracy concerns the statements about the size of the observed risk of breast cancer: ""At the peak, the breast cancer risk for pill takers was twice that of the others."" Not accurate: the hazard ratio was 1.26, indicating a 26% higher breast cancer risk, not 100% higher (which would be twice the risk). Finally, a main point of the article–that cancer risk [presumably all cancer, not just breast] returns to normal roughly 2 years after quitting — is not supported by the study results. JAMA article states ""The HR for overall risk of all malignancies increased from 1.03…to 1.24…in the postintervention period."" And, ""…a downward inflection in the temporal trend in cumulative HRs for breast cancer was observed over time (not shown) but the observed change…is not statistically significant."" Despite the misplaced emphasis in the story compared with the source article, public health and cancer specialists put the results of the study in context and reassure women that their risk profile might be different if they are younger or older (women in the study were in their 60’s, typically after menopause is complete). The story lists HRT as one option for treating very bothersome menopausal symptoms; however, HRT should be used judiciously and only for a short time. There are also other options for managing hot flashes and bothersome menopausal symptoms, which the story does not mention. But for some women, low-dose HRT may still be the most appropriate treatment. Women who are considering this choice need accurate information to weigh the risks and benefits of HRT, and the story appropriately provides absolute and relative risks of taking HRT for the short and long-term (5 1/2 years). The story gives number of cases of breast cancer per 1000 women for those who took hormone therapy v. non-users. Lastly, the story does not address the cost of estrogen plus progestin treatment, nor the costs added or saved due to complications of or benefits from that therapy. However, the story advocates for selective use of low-dose HRT."
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true
|
"The story does not address the cost of estrogen plus progestin treatment, nor the costs added or saved due to complications of or benefits from that therapy. However, the story advocates for selective use of low-dose HRT, and only for use in the short-term if menopausal symptoms are bothersome and negatively affect quality of life. The story provides absolute and relative risks of taking HRT for the short and longer term. The story gives number of cases of breast cancer per 1000 women for those who took hormone therapy v. non-users. The story does an excellent job explaining the return to normal lifetime risk of breast cancer if a woman stops taking HRT. The story does not report the results of the JAMA study accurately. There is misplaced emphasis in the story compared with the study. Statements which appear erroneous: ""Even women who took estrogen and progestin pills for as little as a couple of years had a greater chance of getting [all types of] cancer."" There is nothing in this study to contradict the earlier WHI report showing that breast cancer risks start to diverge after about 4 years , not ""a couple of years"". This article reports on all cancers, not just breast. Nowhere in the JAMA article are all cancers plotted over time to support the assertion of a couple of years. Followed by the assertion that ""…these new findings are likely to end any doubt that the risks outweigh the benefits,"" this creates the inaccurate impression that there are new data showing breast cancer risks start earlier on in the course of treatment. A second inaccuracy concerns the statements about the size of the observed risk of breast cancer: ""At the peak, the breast cancer risk for pill takers was twice that of the others."" Not accurate: the hazard ratio was 1.26, indicating a 26% higher breast cancer risk, not 100% higher (which would be twice the risk). Finally, a main point of the article–that cancer risk [presumably all cancer, not just breast] returns to normal roughly 2 years after quitting — is not supported by the study results. JAMA article states ""The HR for overall risk of all malignancies increased from 1.03…to 1.24…in the postintervention period."" And, ""…a downward inflection in the temporal trend in cumulative HRs for breast cancer was observed over time (not shown) but the observed change…is not statistically significant."" The story does an excellent job presenting the latest information from the Women’s Health Initiative on the risk of breast cancer with prolonged use of HRT. The story explains the study design and also interprets the results for the lay reader. Physician interviews put the results of the study in context and reassure women that their risk profile might be different if they are younger or older (women in the study were in their 60’s, typically after menopause is complete), and that their risk should return to normal a few years after stopping a short-term course of HRT. The story does not present menopause as a disease. Based on information on the risks and benefits of HRT for women in their 50’s, the story reiterates the message from the preliminary WHI report, which is that women should make an informed decision with their physician on this treatment option to help manage severe menopausal symptoms. The story reinforces the idea that menopausal symptoms do not require treatment. The story cites several excellent sources, including public health and cancer specialists, who put the results of previous Women’s Health Initiative and this latest information in context. Wyeth Pharmaceuticals is cited on the benefit of HRT in the short-term, and their potential conflict as the maker of Prempro is noted. The story lists HRT as one option for treating very bothersome menopausal symptoms. But other non-medication options are also available, as are non-hormonal drugs used ""off-label"" to ease menopausal symptoms. These are not mentioned. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is currently available for women who wish to alleviate particularly bothersome menopausal symptoms, such as hot flashes and vaginal dryness. However, as the story notes, HRT should be used judiciously and only for a short time. The story presents information from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) on the increased risk of breast cancer with HRT. The subsequent decline in HRT use after WHI data was made public in 2002 has been linked to a decline in breast cancer cases. HRT is not a new option for treating bothersome symptoms of menopause. It was originally thought that taking estrogen plus progestin treatment could help reduce a woman’s risk of developing age-related heart disease and bone loss. Data from 2002 WHI showed that HRT increased the risk of health disease and breast cancer, and many women discontinued use of this treatment. WHI data discussed in this story reinforce the message that for many women, the risks of HRT outweigh the benefits. There are also other options for managing hot flashes and bothersome menopausal symptoms, which the story does not mention. But for some women, low-dose HRT may still be the most appropriate short-term solution. The story cites several sources and contains independent reporting."
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6798
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City sues firefighter foam makers over water contamination.
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A Massachusetts city is suing the makers of firefighting foam blamed for water contamination.
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true
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Marinette, Wisconsin, Lawsuits, Minnesota, Environment, Fires, Massachusetts, U.S. News
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Westfield’s Democratic Mayor Brian Sullivan announced the federal lawsuit against the 3M Co., Chemguard Inc. and Tyco Fire Protection Products on Thursday. The manufacturers produce foam used for years at the Barnes Air National Guard Base and the Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport for firefighter training. The city argues the manufacturers knew or should’ve known the foam chemicals are “persistent when released into the environment and harmful.” The lawsuit doesn’t specify how much in damages Westfield seeks, but city solicitor Sue Phillips tells the Westfield News it’s “looking to be made whole.” St. Paul, Minnesota-based 3M, Marinette, Wisconsin-based Chemguard and Lansdale, Pennsylvania-based Tyco Fire Protection Products haven’t commented. Westfield is installing filters to treat the contamination. Two public wells have been closed since 2015.
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36575
|
The most brilliant scientists working for the United States government refuse to vaccinate their children.
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Do ‘The Most Brilliant Scientists’ Not Vaccinate Their Own Children?
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false
|
Disinformation, Fact Checks
|
On January 7, 2019, the Facebook page for NaturalNews.com shared a video, the premise for which was contained in its title: “The most brilliant scientists working for the U.S. government do NOT vaccinate their own kids.”The same video was shared to Vimeo in October 2018:The most brilliant scientists working for the U.S. government do NOT vaccinate their own kids from NaturalNews on Vimeo.Although no citations for its claims were included, the description section featured lengthy pleas for donations. It bore a series of captions making myriad definitive claims, which read in sum:In New Mexico, where many scientifically-literate families live, vaccines are being avoided like the plagueTop government scientists avoid vaccines because the know of the severe side effects vaccines actually causeCertain scientists are paid to document lies about the “safety and efficacy” of vaccinesThe mainstream media spreads vaccine propaganda, suppressing the science while urging everyone to get vaccinated, no questions askedThe public must learn that vaccines are much more dangerous than the infectious diseases they are supposed to preventLearn more about the vaccine scam at NaturalNews.comThe clip was interspersed with images of scientists pointing to giant notepads, syringe close-ups, families, and children crying next to road work signs reading “vaccine checkpoint”:`Neither the Facebook post nor the Vimeo video included a link to what appears to be the source material, an article published by NaturalNews.com in September 2018:Welcome to Los Alamos, New Mexico, where our country’s most scientifically literate families are avoiding vaccines like the plague. Meanwhile, the infected “vaxxers” are all throwing poisoned fits, wondering why all the “sheeple” aren’t following the rest of the “herd” like they’ve been summoned to do by the script-fed mass media and the morally corrupted CDC. Could this phenomenon be gaining momentum because hundreds of parents in that New Mexico community are employed at Los Alamos Labs and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where extensive research is done on vaccines? […]The Superintendent of Los Alamos schools takes notice of the HIGH RATE of parents keeping vaccine needles out of their children’s armsSeveral top scientists in Santa Fe are keeping their kids from getting vaccinated and these statistics are among the highest in America. Obviously, the science of vaccines is not settled. In fact, the so-called “safety and efficacy” of vaccines is under intense scrutiny, especially as of late, given that the vaccine industry has paid out over $3 billion in damages to injured families, and because vaccines have been proven to spread disease more often than they prevent it. Ever heard of the massive polio outbreaks in India? We can all thank Bill Gates for that.That in turn included a link to a blog called ReportingTheTruth.com, which mentioned the purported scientific resistance to vaccines in Los Alamos in a June 2018 post. This site appeared to be NaturalNews.com’s sole reference for its claims.However, NaturalNews.com appeared to have misread the blog. What ReportingTheTruth.com actually said was that 2.3 percent of students in Los Alamos were “forgoing traditional vaccine regimens” (not that their parents were declining to vaccinate them altogether), and that “many of the parents in the community work for US Los Alamos Labs … or one of the other scientific organizations” in the community:How shocking is it that New Mexico, the school district with the highest percentage of students whose families are opting out of vaccines, is actually one of the state’s most scientifically literate communities?Well, if you know how harmful vaccines really are, you might not really be all that surprised. But for many, the 2.3 percent of students forgoing traditional vaccine regimens in Los Alamos is causing quite the upset.After all, many of the parents in the community work for US Los Alamos Labs, or one of the other scientific organizations that call the area home. For example, the Los Alamos National Laboratory has even conducted extensive research and development on a vaccine for HIV.The Superintendent of the Los Alamos school systems has said that he finds the high rate of parents exempting their children from vaccination “curious,” given that it is a “pretty scientific and literate community.”While the mainstream media continues to come up with all kinds of wild reasons for why “anti-vaxxers” don’t vaccinate their children, a community of scientists continues to abstain from the practice, much to the chagrin of pro-vaccine activists. Los Alamos is not alone; Santa Fe’s percentage of children not getting jabbed was just a few points behind, at 2.1 percent.Nowhere in the blog post was it demonstrated that the extremely small number of children (2.3 percent) vaccinated on a delayed schedule or not at all had parents working in government labs, and it remains equally plausible that the children of parents who worked in scientific centers were in fact vaccinated. The post also did not link to any source claims relating to Los Alamos specifically, just anti-vaccine pages.However, we located an article about Los Alamos’ superintendent and his comments on vaccine rates — from April 2015; that original article (titled “Los Alamos schools top NM in vaccine exemptions”) said something entirely different.Elements of the reporting matched claims made and misrepresented in the two 2018 posts. Immediately, one major difference stood out — the article said some students had exemptions from having to receive vaccinations, not that their scientifically-minded parents had refused vaccines:The tally is in, and the major New Mexico school district with the largest percentage of students opting out of vaccinations against contagious diseases is not in one of the state’s known hotbeds for crystal gazing, cradle therapy or psychic readings.Nope, the highest percentage of vaccine exemptions is in New Mexico’s, and one of the world’s, science centers: Los Alamos.According to a recent report by the state Department of Health, 2.3 percent of students in the Los Alamos Public Schools have exemptions from having to get vaccinations.Figures cited for exemption rates in the source material paled further when placed into the context of broader vaccination rates in the United States. According to data released by the Centers for Disease Control in October 2018 (the same month as the video), Los Alamos’ vaccination rates did not deviate much from the national numbers:Of children born in 2015, 1.3 percent had not received any of the recommended vaccinations, according to a CDC analysis of a national 2017 immunization survey. That compared with 0.9 percent in 2011 and with 0.3 percent of 19- to 35-month-olds who had not received any immunizations when surveyed in 2001.A video shared by NaturalNews.com’s Facebook page on January 8, 2019 claimed that top government scientists overwhelmingly refused to vaccinate their children. It took some digging, but we located the obscured source for that claim — an April 2015 Albuquerque Journal article about vaccination rates in Los Alamos being a few tenths of a percentage point different than neighboring towns.Although that article mentioned the high number of employers in the field of scientific research in the community, it in no way made the claims NaturalNews.com claimed that it did about any correlation. Finally, CDC figures published the same month the video came out placed national vaccination rates at a not-hugely-different 1.3 percent.
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4061
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Officials: Tick-borne anaplasmosis on the rise in Maine.
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The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention says a tick-borne disease is rising in the state this year and it is a disease that is more dangerous than Lyme disease.
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true
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Lyme disease, Health, Ticks, Maine
|
Health officials say cases of the flu-like anaplasmosis are on the rise this year, up to 433 cases this year. The Portland Press Herald reports it is a large increase from five years ago when it was only 52 cases a year. About 25 to 30 percent of all anaplasmosis cases result in hospitalizations, compared to about 5 percent of Lyme cases. The deer tick, which also commonly carries Lyme disease, is also a carrier for anaplasmosis. Lyme disease averages around 1,000 cases a year and is well known in Maine.
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9408
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Shining a Deadly New Light on Airborne Flu Virus
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Australian Michael Hillman fled from harrowing bushfires that hit the beachside town of Malua Bay on New Year’s Eve, only to be faced with a scene of devastation when he returned on Friday.
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false
|
influenza
|
The inferno that razed his home destroyed 65 of 70 Hofner guitars, some long out of production and others precious for their sentimental value, in a collection Hillman had amassed over 20 years. “My friend next door, whom I am recording an album with, his house is OK, so some of our music might be saved,” Hillman, a retiree, told Reuters. “I’ve got a couple of my guitars here.” Bushfires this season have killed at least 18 people in Australia, scorched more than 5 million hectares (13 million acres) of land and destroyed more than 1,300 homes. Originally from Melbourne, Hillman and his partner Chrissie moved to Malua Bay, near Batemans Bay in the state of New South Wales, to retire three years ago after they fell in love with the neighborhood on their honeymoon 30 years ago. Now staying in temporary accommodation, Hillman consoles his family by playing one of the five guitars he managed to save, strumming a song he wrote for Chrissie called “Reach Out”.
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3300
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Colorado meatpacker recalls ground beef after E. coli death.
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A Colorado meatpacker is recalling more than 132,000 pounds (60,000 kilograms) of ground beef after a suspected E. coli outbreak killed one person and sickened 17, officials said.
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true
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Fort Morgan, Health, North America, Business, Colorado, Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday the beef was produced and packaged at Cargill Meat Solutions in Fort Morgan on June 21 and shipped to retailers nationwide. The products include 3-, 10- and 20-pound (1.3-, 4.5- and 9-kilogram) packages of ground beef under the Our Certified, Excel, Sterling Silver, Certified and Fire River Farms brands with July 11 use or freeze by dates. Regulators warned that people should also check for the products in their freezers. They advise throwing the products away or returning them to the location of purchase. In a statement on Thursday, Cargill said all of the affected products have been removed from supermarkets. Food safety teams are reviewing the Fort Morgan facility and others “to ensure we continue to deliver safe food,” the statement said. “We were distressed to learn a fatality may be related to an E.coli contamination of one of our products,” it said. “Our hearts go out to the families and individuals affected by this issue.” The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service did not release information about the people who died or became ill, including locations. A spokeswoman referred questions to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A representative for the CDC did not immediately return messages seeking more information. The Cargill plant had a smaller recall of Excel ground beef in August, but no illnesses had been reported at that time. Most people infected with E. coli develop diarrhea and vomiting. More severe infections can lead to kidney failure.
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6302
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Scholarships target doctors in Arizona underserved areas.
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University of Arizona’s medical school announced Friday that it will give free tuition to some students who commit to working as primary care doctors in underserved areas, an effort to improve access to health care in areas where it’s most lacking.
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true
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Scholarships, Phoenix, Health, General News, Medical schools, Arizona
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Up to 94 students will get scholarships on campuses in Phoenix and Tucson, the UA Colleges of Medicine said. For each year of tuition waived, they’ll have to commit to working in an underserved area after their residency for one year. The scholarships are funded with $3 million from an $8 million state funding plan approved earlier this year. The rest of that money will allow growth from 80 to 100 medical students at UA’s Phoenix campus. State and federal governments have looked to a wide variety of grants, scholarships, loan forgiveness and other initiatives to seek out doctors willing to work in underserved areas and support them financially. An aging population and projected physician retirements have fueled concerns that the U.S. will face a growing shortage of providers — a problem felt hardest in lower-income areas. Physician groups say high debt burdens discourage new doctors from working in primary care in rural or urban underserved areas, which tend to come with lower salaries than jobs in specialties or wealthy areas. Debt concerns discourage some would-be doctors from even applying to medical school, Dr. Michael Dake, senior vice president of UA Health Sciences, said in a news release. The scholarships will be available only to UA students who qualify as Arizona residents. Eligible post-residency specializations include family medicine, general internal medicine, geriatrics, pediatrics, psychiatry, and obstetrics and gynecology. Eligible underserved areas are designated by the federal government based on having too few doctors, high infant mortality rates, high poverty or a large elderly population. UA medical school tuition for Arizona residents is about $33,000 per year. Medical school is four years. Arizona’s physician training capacity has grown in recent years with the opening of the UA’s Phoenix campus and schools run by the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, A.T. Still University in Mesa and Midwestern University in Glendale. Nebraska-based Creighton University is building a health sciences campus that will include a medical school in midtown Phoenix.
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8943
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MRI scans shows promise in predicting dementia
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This news release announced findings of a study that looked at differences in brain MRI scans between older people who went on to develop Alzheimer’s disease symptoms and those who did not get the disease. The release said the findings, presented at the Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago, suggest MRI scans may one day help predict whether people will develop dementia. The news release mentioned alternative ways to predict Alzheimer’s, but it didn’t say anything about potential harms or costs of using MRIs, and it didn’t explain that the method has not been tested in a clinical trial. A test to predict Alzheimer’s disease might be useful, but anytime such a new test is discussed, one should be reminded of the limited treatment options for anyone who finds they are at higher risk. Costs and potential harms need to be weighed against potential benefits. One of the potential benefits pointed out by the authors is that people who are told they are at risk would have time to make financial and living arrangements in advance of health problems. That’s something every aging person would ideally have on their to-do list, not just those at risk.
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mixture
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dementia,MRI,Washington University School of Medicine
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There was no discussion of cost. A brain MRI can be expected to run anywhere from $826 to $4,780, including both physician and imaging fees, according to the web site Healthcare Bluebook. The information in the news release suggests MRIs would have to be repeated every two years or so in order to detect brain changes before the onset of symptoms. The news release said MRIs “predicted with 89 percent accuracy who would go on to develop dementia within three years” when looking at the whole brain, and accuracy rose to 95% when researchers focused on “specific parts of the brain most likely to show damage.” Those percentages might sound impressive. However, the news release didn’t say how many people might benefit from a scan to detect Alzheimer’s early, and how many might be subjected to testing that doesn’t help them but could cause harm (see “Explain Harms,” below). For example, the lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer’s has been estimated at around 10-20%. According to our back-of-the-napkin calculations, if 100 older people were regularly screened using MRIs, as many as 19 might benefit from an early warning. The other 81 or so would not benefit or might be harmed. The news release did not delve into potential harms, including anxiety and false results. If a test is accurate 95% of the time, five out of 100 people will get either a false positive, which can lead to more tests and anxiety, or a false negative, which can be wrongly reassuring. To its credit, the news release rightly explained in the lead that this is a “small study.” It also gave details about how the study was conducted — first by identifying disproportionate white matter damage that had occurred in 10 people in their 70s with significant cognitive decline compared with those who did not decline, and then measuring “white matter integrity” of a separate sample of 61 people. Finally, it quoted a researcher explaining that what’s needed is to “get more control subjects and develop computerized tools that can more reliably compare individual patients’ scans to a baseline normal standard.” However, the news release didn’t explain that this was not a randomized trial that could measure how well MRI brain scans actually do work at predicting Alzheimer’s. There was no disease-mongering. The release said Alzheimer’s affects 5.5 million Americans, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The funder — the Boerger Research Fund for Alzheimer’s Disease and Neurocognitive Disorders from the Foundation of the American Society of Neuroradiology — is noted on the sidebar of the release hosting site, EurekAlert! We encourage news release writers to include funders in the body of the news release text as well. We didn’t observe any conflicts of interest among the researchers. Mentioned were the Mini-Mental State Examination questionnaire, testing for the high-risk form of the gene ApoE, and PET scans to look for plaques of Alzheimer’s proteins in the brain. MRI scans are described as “widely available.” The release said the study showed that by using MRIs doctors “might soon be able to tell people whether they are likely to have Alzheimer’s develop in the next few years.” The novelty suggested here is that the changes detected were in the white matter, rather than the gray cerebral cortex, where we traditionally think plaques, tangles and nerve cell loss of Alzheimer’s are occurring. However, the concept of using MRIs and diffusion tensor imaging to predict Alzheimer’s isn’t new, and the news release didn’t explain how these findings add to the body of evidence about Alzheimer’s detection. The release quoted a researcher saying “doctors might soon be able to tell people whether they are likely to have Alzheimer’s develop in the next few years.” Given that this study involves looking at scans of only a few dozen patients, that seems like a reach.
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15328
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With the exception of baby formula, the federal government does not require any food to carry an expiration date, and state laws vary widely.
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"Oliver said, ""With the exception of baby formula, the federal government does not require any food to carry an expiration date, and state laws vary widely."" While Oliver’s underlying argument for more regulation can be debated, he’s right to say that the federal government doesn’t require expiration dates on food, and state laws filling in that gap are inconsistent."
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true
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Corrections and Updates, Food Safety, PunditFact, John Oliver,
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"Ever wonder about the accuracy of your milk carton’s expiration date? Or exactly how late is too late to eat that apple? So did comedian John Oliver. He used the July 19 episode of his HBO show Last Week Tonight to discuss the issue of food waste, zooming in on little-known regulatory gaps that he argued cause mass confusion over the meaning and purpose of date labels on food. ""With the exception of baby formula,"" Oliver said, ""the federal government does not require any food to carry an expiration date, and state laws vary widely."" And of the 50 states, he went on, nine don’t require any labels at all. The confusing issue has been well documented over several decades, though we doubt it’s ever been the target of an 18-minute monologue in a late-night comedy show. We wanted to see if Oliver had it right. Chaotic laws, confusing labels Oliver was right in saying, with the exception of infant formula, the federal government does not require any food to carry an expiration date. Experts say it would be almost impossible to set up an effective umbrella regulation for labeling foods with expiration dates. The diversity of climates and crops in the United States means it’s hard to judge the pace at which different foods deteriorate in different places. A piece of fruit left out in the hot, humid fields of Georgia might spoil faster than the same piece of fruit left out in the cool, dry mountains of Colorado. In the absence of an overarching federal statute, a jumble of laws at the state level dictate which foods require date labels. The comedian’s research team got the bulk of its data from a 2013 report compiled by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental think tank, and the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic. The study found that most states have laws that require date labels on some foods. Oliver cites the report’s finding that nine states don’t require any date labels, including New York, Idaho and Alabama. Of those nine, seven states don’t have regulations that govern the labels that manufacturers voluntarily place on products. These inconsistencies can make it hard to do business across state lines, said Emily Broad Leib, the study’s lead author and director of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic. Laws in Montana and Pennsylvania require milk to be sold 12 and 17 days after pasteurization, respectively, but don’t allow the milk to be donated if it goes unsold in that time. ""Without federal guidance,"" Leib said, ""some state laws require that (unspoiled) food be thrown away."" The Montana law prompted some out-of-state dairy farmers to argue that the law unfairly protects in-state producers. Label it what you want The regulatory gap also leads to confusion about what food labels actually mean. As a news clip in Oliver’s segment illustrates, one might see the same product labeled ""sell by"" or ""use by,"" or it may have no label at all. Most retailers and manufacturers use a labeling system referred to as ""open dating."" Though it might sound like a relationship status, ""open dating"" simply means that a calendar date is displayed on a product instead of a code that only makes sense to the producer. Perhaps surprisingly, the dates on these labels aren’t regulated. This means it’s entirely up to the manufacturer to decide what date to print on the labels in all 50 states. (The strictest federal regulation of this kind applies to poultry, but it allows the use of a packing date instead of a sell-by date.) The purpose of manufacturers’ date labels isn’t to ensure safety, but quality, according to the USDA. Oliver suggests that because manufacturers are free to determine their own best-by dates, they may have a financial incentive to falsify them. But one expert said he wasn’t convinced manufacturers try to help out their bottom lines by making it seem like food perishes faster than reality. Quality standards almost always consider safety, said Keith Schneider, a food microbiologist at the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Keeping a customer happy means also keeping them safe. ""These dates are usually based on lab tests and historical precedents,"" he said. Most of all, he said, manufacturers want to build brand loyalty by consistently guaranteeing fresh, safe food, so they are often overly conservative with sell-by and use-by dates. Leib said it would be difficult to prove a producer manipulates its dates to boost profits, ""but it would be perfectly easy to falsify that information."" Still, manufacturers have an interest in ensuring quality, and many times smaller companies don’t have the money to test their products and apply accurate sell-by dates. ""Sometimes,"" she said, ""dates are just made up."" Our rating Oliver said, ""With the exception of baby formula, the federal government does not require any food to carry an expiration date, and state laws vary widely."" While Oliver’s underlying argument for more regulation can be debated, he’s right to say that the federal government doesn’t require expiration dates on food, and state laws filling in that gap are inconsistent. A previous version of this story misstated the name of the Natural Resources Defense Council."
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1062
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Alabama Senate bans nearly all abortions, including rape cases.
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Alabama’s state Senate passed a bill on Tuesday to outlaw nearly all abortions, creating exceptions only to protect the mother’s health, as part of a multistate effort to have the U.S. Supreme Court reconsider a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
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true
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Health News
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The country’s strictest abortion bill was previously approved by the Alabama House of Representatives and will now go to Republican Governor Kay Ivey, who has withheld comment on whether she would sign but is generally a strong opponent of abortion. The law, which passed 25-6, would take effect six months after being signed by the governor, but is certain to face legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups which have vowed to sue. Legislation to restrict abortion rights has been introduced this year in 16 states, four of whose governors have signed bills banning abortion if an embryonic heartbeat can be detected. The Alabama bill goes further, banning abortions at any time. Those performing abortions would be committing a felony, punishable by 10 to 99 years in prison, although a woman who receives an abortion would not be held criminally liable. The Republican-controlled Alabama Senate also defeated a Democratic amendment that would have allowed legal abortions for women and girls impregnated by rape and incest. Anti-abortion advocates know any laws they pass are certain to be challenged, and courts this year have blocked a restrictive Kentucky law and another in Iowa passed last year. But supporters of the Alabama ban said the right to life of the unborn child transcends other rights, an idea they would like tested. Republican Senator Clyde Chambliss, arguing in favor of the Alabama bill, said the whole point was “so that we can go directly to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe versus Wade.” The high court, now with a majority of conservative justices after Republican President Donald Trump appointed two, could possibly overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark decision establishing a woman’s right to an abortion. Just this year, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have outlawed abortion after a doctor can detect an embryonic heartbeat. Opponents call the “heartbeat” legislation a virtual ban because embryonic cardiac activity can be detected as early as six weeks, before a woman may be aware she is pregnant. Democratic state Senator Linda Coleman-Madison called the Republicans hypocritical for advocating small government that ought to stay out of private matters but “now you want in my womb; I want you out.” All 27 Republican senators are men. The group Physicians for Reproductive Health said the near total ban on abortions would have a disastrous effect on healthcare. “Physicians will be unwilling to help patients in need, even when continuing pregnancy is detrimental to a patient’s health, or potentially fatal, out of fear of being scrutinized by the criminal justice system,” Dr. Yashica Robinson, a board member and ob/gyn, said in a statement. The National Organization for Women (NOW) denounced the ban as unconstitutional. “This is a transparent effort to drum up political support for anti-abortion candidates in upcoming elections and serves as a direct threat to women’s health, autonomy and pursuit of happiness,” NOW said in a statement. Actress and activist Alyssa Milano has called for a sex strike under the social media hashtag #SexStrike in response to the campaigns against abortion rights, urging women to refuse sex with men “until we get bodily autonomy back.”
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28410
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"Americans Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan were killed in Tajikistan while cycling through ""Isis territory"" in order to vindicate their belief in human kindness."
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What's true: Isis militants claimed responsibility for the murders of Austin, Geoghegan, and two other tourists. Austin and Geoghegan had posted several times online about the generosity and kindness they encountered on their round-the-world cycling trip. What's false: There is no evidence Austin and Geoghegan were aware of any terrorist threat in Tajikistan, or that they travelled through that region particularly in order to vindicate their belief in human kindness. There is ample evidence that their trip was motivated by no more than a desire for adventure and life experience.
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mixture
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Politics, infowars, ISIS, islamic state
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In the summer of 2018, Isis militants in Tajikistan claimed responsibility for the murder of four tourists, including an American couple, after deliberately hitting them with a car as they cycled along a rural road. The militants also stabbed and shot some of their victims. The American couple, Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, had left their jobs in the Washington, D.C. area in order to embark on an extended around-the-world cycling trip which took them to Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Over the weekend of 28-29 July, they were killed along with two other cyclists from Switzerland and the Netherlands. According to the New York Times, Tajik officials announced that security forces had in turn killed four people suspected of having perpetrated that attack. On 15 August, the Pluralist web site published an article that accurately described the details of couple’s trip and their deaths, but the headline they employed, which they later changed — “Millennial Couple Bikes Through ISIS Territory to Prove ‘Humans Are Kind’ and Gets Killed” — and other phrasing may have created the impression that the couple’s deaths were infused with irony and served as a kind of allegorical warning about cosmopolitan, liberal naivety: A progressive young American couple was killed in an Islamic State-claimed terrorist attack last month while on a bike trip around the world … Throughout the trip, the couple embraced the kindness of strangers and sought to demonstrate that people are inherently good. “You read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place,” Austin wrote. “People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil.” “I don’t buy it,” he continued. “Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own … By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind.” Some conservatives have framed the tragedy as a cautionary tale about not just the perils of travel but also naivete in general. In their telling, an overly generous understanding of human nature is behind much of today’s progressive movement, including calls to radically scale back immigration enforcement and policing and support for socialism. We found no evidence that either Austin or Geoghegan set out on their cycling trip for the purpose of vindicating an existing belief about the overall goodness or kindness of humanity. Based on posts on the couple’s blog, the predominant motivation behind their trip appears to have been no more than a sense of adventure and a desire to experience life in other parts of the world. In one post, for example, they wrote: In the summer of 2016, we flew to Iceland with our bicycles and enjoyed a delightful month riding around the country. We cycled over a thousand kilometers and camped for twenty-six nights straight and, by the end of our time there, agreed that we wanted more of it: more peaceful pedaling through gorgeous landscapes, more sleeping in open fields under clear skies, more quiet sunsets and more friendly people and more adventure and, importantly, more time together too, living life on simpler, more meaningful terms. So we decided to quit our jobs and bike around the world. A few qualifiers. For one, we’re not breaking any world records: not the longest ’round-the-world bike ride, nor the quickest — not necessarily even a proper circumnavigation. We have neither a firm route nor a timetable, a sponsorship nor a place we need to be, and so we’re comfortable just pedaling where the winds and the world and our own hearts take us. After leaving his job at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the summer of 2017, Austin wrote: I’ve grown tired of meetings, of teleconferences, of timesheets and password changes and Monday morning elevator commiseration. I’ve grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years of my life in swaths of grey and beige. I’ve missed too many sunsets while my back was turned. Too many thunderstorms went unwatched, too many gentle breezes unnoticed. There’s magic out there, in this great big beautiful world, and I’ve long since scooped up the last of the scraps to be found in my cubicle. I know there’s another way to live. I’ve dabbled in it. But now it’s time to commit. To go all-in. I’m thankful for this privilege. The privilege to commit. The privilege to walk away from a well-paying life of comfort. To charge headlong into indulgence, rough but ultimately temporary. None of the many blog entries and Instagram posts that the couple published before and during their journey suggested that they set out with the intention of “proving” that humans are good or kind. Furthermore, Austin posted several times from Tajikistan, but none of what he wrote while there indicated that the couple were concerned about or cognizant of any risk of a terrorist attack. This significantly undermines the notion that the couple traveled through “ISIS territory to prove ‘humans are kind'” (i.e. that they were aware of a risk of attack by ISIS and traveled through that particular area specifically to vindicate their views about human kindness). At the time Austin and Geoghegan visited Tajikistan, the U.S. State Department listed the country as a relatively low-risk destination for American travelers, giving it a Level 1 “travel advisory” (the lowest available) which comes with advice to “exercise normal precautions.” On the risk posed by terrorism, the State Department web site advised: While terrorist organizations are known to have a presence in the region, terrorist attacks have been infrequent in recent years and focused on local government targets, such as law enforcement and security services. (Since the fatal attack on Austin and Geoghegan, the State Department has upgraded their Tajikistan travel advisory to Level 2, warning would-be travellers to “exercise increased caution.”) ‘By and large, humans are kind’ While there is no evidence that the couple set out to prove anything on their trip, it is true is that Austin and Geoghegan appear to have been struck, many times, by the generosity and thoughtfulness of some of the strangers they encountered. In fact, Austin called it a “revelation,” a description that further undermines the idea that this was a fervently-held belief before the trip, which the couple set out to vindicate. Austin and Geoghegan appear to have had both negative and positive experiences along their journey, posting about cold weather, illness, bike trouble, and the occasional collision with unfriendly motorists, but also enthusing about the breathtaking views they encountered, and writing frequently about the kindness of the people around them. After being fed and shown very generous hospitality by one family in Morocco, Austin wrote: You watch the news and you read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place. People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil. People are axe murderers and monsters and worse. I don’t buy it. Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own — it’s easier to dismiss an opinion as abhorrent than strive to understand it. Badness exists, sure, but even that’s quite rare. By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind. No greater revelation has come from our journey than this. Conclusion Based on their own written reflections posted during their trip, Austin and Geoghegan were not acting as liberal, idealist missionaries, despite the impression that the Pluralist headline might have created. Like many tourists who traveled beyond their own cultural comfort zones, they appeared to have been simply struck by the generosity and thoughtfulness they encountered, just as they took note of moments of hostility or unhelpfulness.
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29237
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"A second Broward County sheriff’s deputy died suspiciously after ""exposing"" the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida."
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"What's true: Two sheriff’s deputies in Broward County, Florida, where the Parkland school shooting took place in February 2018, passed away in April 2018. What's false: Neither man ""exposed"" anything about the Parkland school shooting, and local officials have not pegged either man's death as ""suspicious."""
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false
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Junk News, florida, law enforcement, parkland school shooting
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On 25 April 2018, the Sheriff’s Office in Broward County, Florida, announced the death of sheriff’s deputy Marshall Lawrence Peterson, a 28-year veteran of that office: It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Deputy Marshall Peterson, a 28-year veteran of the Broward Sheriff’s Office, Department of Detention. Deputy Peterson, 53, died at his residence. Thank you for your service, Deputy. pic.twitter.com/ytEwtINkWp — Broward Sheriff (@browardsheriff) April 25, 2018 Conspiracy sites promptly attempted to link Peterson’s death with that of Jason Fitzsimons, who passed away on 1 April 2018. Sites such as Your News Wire attempted to connect the two deaths by claiming that both men had “exposed” the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the Broward County community of Parkland: Marshall Peterson, a Broward County Deputy Sheriff who dared to question the official narrative surrounding the Parkland shooting, has been found dead under suspicious circumstances. He was 53. A 28-year veteran of the Broward Sheriff’s office, Deputy Peterson is the second Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy to be found dead in sudden and unexpected circumstances in the month following the Parkland massacre. Deputy Jason Fitzsimon, 42, was found dead on his sofa on April 1. The two deaths did have several factors in commons: both men worked for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, both passed away relatively young (Fitzsimons was 42, Peterson was 53), and in neither case was a cause of death announced. And neither of the deceased was said to have been suffering from health problems, to have been killed in an accident, or to have been the victim of a homicide. However, the lack of stated causes of death, combined with the use of common euphemistic language (Fitzsimons’ obituary notes that he “died unexpectedly,” while Peterson was said to have “died at his residence”) suggests suicide as a likely cause of death in each case, rather than a mysterious plot to do in all those who have dared to question the “official” narrative of the Parkland shooting. Moreover, neither man “exposed” anything about that shooting — Fitzsimons simply posted social media criticisms of a number of persons associated with that event (primarily teen activist David Hogg), and Peterson had no connection to the Parkland shooting at all that we could find. (The Broward County Sheriff told us that Fitzsimons’ death was not considered “suspicious” and had no connection to his social media postings about the high school shooting.) The Your News Wire article offered no explanation or information regarding what Peterson might have “exposed” about the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, or how might have done so. The article simply rehashed elements of Fitzsimons’ death and social media postings without saying much of anything about Peterson at all, beyond noting that he had passed away with no cause of death stated. In short, two men died in the same month, with no substantive connection (remarkable or otherwise) between them other than that they were both among the more than 2,800 deputies employed by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.
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2772
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Israel's Oramed a step closer in race for first insulin pill.
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Israel’s Oramed, which is racing Novo Nordisk of Denmark to develop the world’s first insulin pill, moved a step closer to its goal on Thursday by announcing successful results from a small mid-stage test.
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true
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Health News
|
The oral drug delivery specialist said its insulin capsule had met all primary and secondary endpoints in a Phase IIa clinical trial and it now plans to launch a larger mid-stage study in the third quarter. Shares in the Nasdaq-listed company opened 10 percent higher at $28.50 on the news. The stock has surged from around $4 since the end of 2012 on rising hopes for its insulin pill. The concept of oral insulin as a way to relieve diabetics of several daily injections has been around since the 1930s, but making it a reality is extremely difficult because insulin is destroyed by enzymes in the digestive system. Oramed believes that it has now found a solution to allow enough insulin to survive the onslaught of digestive juices to still do some good. At least 90 percent of the more than 382 million diabetes sufferers worldwide are in the type 2 category, according to the International Diabetes Foundation, which expects the number of diabetes patients to near 600 million by 2035. Consensus analyst forecasts suggest that the overall diabetes drug market, worth $37 billion a year at present, will reach more than $57 billion by 2018, according to Thomson Reuters Pharma. Oral insulin could make it easier for sufferers to start early treatment, slow progression of the disease and delay the need for injections, Oramed said. Unlike injections, the ingested form passes first into the liver, which regulates the secretion of insulin into the bloodstream. The new year-long Phase IIb study in the United States will study 150 type 2 diabetes patients and mainly test for the drug’s effectiveness, Chief Executive Nadav Kidron told Reuters after the company issued results of the Phase IIa trial. During the Phase IIa trial, conducted under a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) drug protocol, 30 patients with type 2 diabetes entered an in-patient setting for one week. “The FDA wanted us to show one thing - that it was safe so they will let us do a IIb trial,” Kidron said. While Oramed was not checking for efficacy, Kidron said the IIa trial revealed that it was effective, though the sample size was too small for FDA purposes. Oramed will also need to conduct a final large-scale Phase III trial before the drug is licensed for sale, so the capsule is still years away from hitting the market. The company is, however, ahead of Novo Nordisk, which has yet to start Phase II testing. Oramed is hoping to partner with large pharmaceutical firms for development and sales of the drug. But Kidron said that only preliminary discussions have taken place so far. The company also plans to initiate a Phase IIa FDA study for type 1 diabetes in the near term. The global expense for diabetes is about $500 billion and an oral version could bring a large drop in costs. Oramed noted that the pill would not eliminate the eventual need for injections but could delay the shift to needles by many years.
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8830
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Drug combination reduces colon cancer risk.
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Combining a low dose of a targeted cancer-fighter with an anti-inflammatory drug reduces the risk of recurring colorectal polyps, an early sign of colon cancer, by as much as 95 percent, researchers said on Monday.
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true
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Health News
|
A study conducted by the University of California, Irvine, also found that the drug combination was much less toxic than chemotherapy. “I think we are on track to develop a medical means to prevent colon cancer,” in people at high risk of developing the disease, said Dr. Frank Meyskens, director of the university’s cancer center. He said earlier efforts to develop a preventive treatment were thwarted by the fact that available therapies caused too much toxicity. Meyskens lead a study in which 375 patients with at least one previous colorectal polyp, also known as adenomas, were treated with either a combination of one-time cancer drug DFMO (difluoromethylornithine) and sulindac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), or placebo. The results, presented at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in San Diego, were so encouraging that the study was stopped early. After three years, the overall risk of recurrent adenoma was 12.3 percent in treated patients, compared with 41.1 percent for patients in the placebo group, or a 70 percent risk reduction. For patients with more than one previous polyp, 0.7 percent of treated patients had a recurrence, compared with 13.2 percent of placebo patients — a 95 percent reduction. The researchers said an analysis of side effects and toxicity found no difference between the treatment and placebo groups. There also was no difference in side effects requiring overnight hospitalization, gastrointestinal side effects or cardiovascular side effects between the two groups. DFMO is the basis of the drug eflornithine, which was initially developed as a cancer medication, but is now used to treat African sleeping sickness. A cream formulation of eflornithine is marketed as a hair removal agent under the brand name Vaniqa. Sulindac is sold by Merck & Co Ltd under the brand name Clinoril as a treatment for arthritis and other inflammatory conditions. Meyskens said larger trials will be needed to assess the risk of cardiovascular and other adverse side effects, as well as to determine whether the incidence of actual colorectal cancer can be reduced in either patients with low stage prior colorectal cancers or in very high risk individuals. Chronic use of other NSAIDs, such as Merck’s Vioxx, has been linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. Sulindac is associated with liver toxicity. A separate large study presented at the conference showed that Pfizer Inc’s Cox-2 inhibitor Celebrex, or celecoxib, significantly reduced the risk of colon polyps during a trial that was cut short after too many patients developed cardiovascular problems. “For patients without major cardiovascular risk factors, celecoxib at low doses protects against high-risk lesions that can lead to colon cancer,” said Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, associate professor of surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the lead researcher on the Celebrex study. Meyskens said the combination therapy was likely to eventually be used in people at high risk of colon cancer, including those discovered to have advanced adenomas, as well as patients diagnosed with low-stage colon cancer who have had their disease cured. “About 30 to 35 percent of those patients will develop another colon cancer,” he said. According to the American Cancer Society, colon cancer will kill 52,000 people this year in the United States alone.
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36710
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Former Arizona senator John McCain confessed to being a war criminal and to committing treason during the Vietnam War, but he was later pardoned by U.S. President Richard Nixon to spare him from death by firing squad.
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President Richard Nixon Pardoned John McCain of War Crimes?
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks, Military, Politics
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False claims that Senator John McCain confessed to being a war criminal began circulating in 2008. They’re based on McCain’s admission that his Vietnamese captors forced him to confess to being a war criminal while he was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War.A more modern twist of the rumor emerged in July 2017 on social media. In that version, John McCain was supposedly convicted of treason and was sentenced to die by firing squad before President Nixon pardoned McCain.Like the earlier version, this one is a work of fiction.First, we’ll take a look at the original claim that John McCain confessed to being a war criminal. It first emerged during the 2008 presidential election in which McCain was the candidate on the GOP ticket. But it actually dates back to 1973 when McCain testified before a congressional panel about his time in captivity. After being denied medical care, beaten and placed in isolation, McCain said he reached his breaking point and wrote a coerced confession for war crimes, according to an official transcript:They wanted a statement saying that I as sorry for the crimes that I had committed against North Vietnamese people and that I was grateful for the treatment that I had received from them. This was the paradox — so many guys were so mistreated to get them to say they were grateful. But this is the Communist way.I held out for four days. Finally, I reached the lowest point of my 5 1/2 years in North Vietnam. I was at the point of suicide, because I saw that I as reaching the end of my rope.I said, O.K. I’ll write for them.They took me up into one of the interrogation rooms, and for the next 12 hours we wrote and rewrote. The North Vietnamese interrogator, who was pretty stupid, wrote the final confession, and I signed it. It was in their language, and spoke about black crimes and other generalities. It was unacceptable to them. But I felt just terrible about it. I kept saying to myself “Oh, God, I really didn’t have a choice.” I had learned what we all learned over there.” Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.Later, when the idea that John McCain was a war criminal resurfaced during the 2008 campaign, comments that McCain made during a 1997 interview with Mike Wallace of “60 Minutes” about the forced confession where used by left-wing websites to argue that McCain had admitted to being a war criminal and to making “serious mistakes” during the Vietnam War:WALLACE: (voice over) People who know McCain well say he can hold a grudge. He also has a legendary temper. But if McCain can be hard on his friends and even harder on his enemies, he can also be very hard on himself. Sen. McCAIN: I m–made serious, serious mistakes and did things wrong when I was in prison, OK?WALLACE: What did you do wrong in prison? Sen. McCAIN: I wrote a confession. I was guilty of war crimes against the Vietnamese people. I intentionally bombed women and children. WALLACE: And you did it because you were being tortured… Sen. McCAIN: I… WALLACE: …and you’d reached the end of the line. Sen. McCAIN: Yes. But I should have gone further. I should have–I–I never believed that I would–that I would break, and I did.After clips of that 1997 exchange emerged, however, McCain released a statement saying that he was referring to the coerced confession when he called himself a war criminal. The idea that McCain confessed to being a war criminal was based on oddly-phrased quotes that were taken out of context.Then, in July 2017, the rumor that John McCain had confessed to being a war criminal took on a new disinformational twist, which was resurrected yet again in March 2019, months after his death from brain cancer the previous August, after U.S. President Donald Trump launched rhetorical attacks at him online and at a rally. In this version of the now-weaponized rumor, McCain was convicted of treason and sentenced to death by firing squad, but luckily for him he received a pardon from U.S. President Richard Nixon.There’s been no indication or proof that that John McCain committed treason and provided information that allowed the North Vietnamese to increase the number of planes they shot down by 64 percent. It’s important to remember that McCain was in captivity for five and a half years, and information about flight patterns likely changed considerably during that time.Also, while the penalty for treason can be death, it’s unlikely that McCain, who was lauded as a war hero upon his return, could have been sentenced to death without widespread public attention. And McCain doesn’t appear on Nixon’s list of notable presidential pardons.Given all that, claims that John McCain was convicted of treason and that U.S. President Richard Nixon pardoned him are demonstrably not true.
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433
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Chinese officials investigate cause of pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan.
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Chinese health authorities said they are investigating 27 cases of viral pneumonia in the central city of Wuhan, after rumors on social media suggested the outbreak could be linked to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).
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true
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Health News
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Of the people infected, seven were in critical condition and 18 were in stable condition, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said on Tuesday on its Weibo social media account. The condition of two other patients had improved to the point where they would be discharged soon, it said. “The cause of the disease is not clear,” the official People’s Daily newspaper said on Weibo, citing unnamed hospital officials. “We cannot confirm it is what’s being spread online, that it is SARS virus. Other severe pneumonia is more likely.” All of the patients had been isolated and their close contacts are under medical observation, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said. An investigation and cleanup were under way at a seafood market in the city, which is suspected to be connected with the cases, it said. Initial laboratory tests showed that the cases were viral pneumonia. No obvious human-to-human transmission had been found and no medical staff had been infected, the commission said. A team of experts from the National Health Commission is in Wuhan to carry out tests, state broadcaster CCTV said. An official at Wuhan Central Hospital, where local media said some of the cases are being treated, declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. In 2003, Chinese officials covered up a SARS outbreak for weeks before a growing death toll and rumors forced the government to reveal the epidemic, apologize and vow full candor in future outbreaks. The disease, which emerged in southern China in late 2002, spread rapidly from south China to other cities and countries in 2003. More than 8,000 people were infected and 775 died.
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16234
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Before World War II, very few people actually had health insurance.
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Carr said before World War II, very few people had health insurance. While Carr doesn’t take into account the advances in medical care over the past 75 years, he’s right. Only about 10 percent of the U.S. population had private health insurance then, generally from an employer-based system.
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true
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Health Care, Public Health, Virginia, James Carr,
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"Libertarian James Carr doesn’t agree that health care requires health insurance. Carr, who is facing Republican Dave Brat and Democrat Jack Trammell in the race for Virginia’s 7th District congressional seat, provided some historic perspective to highlight that point in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch. ""Before World War II -- with wage freezes, when health care became attached to a job -- very few people actually had health insurance,"" said Carr, a community hospital administrator. What caught our attention here is Carr’s statement that ""very few"" people had health insurance prior to World War II. Currently, most Americans have some form of health insurance, so we wondered whether Carr was correct. So how does Carr justify his statement? His campaign manager, Jill Anderson, pointed us to a half-dozen documents about health care coverage in the U.S. One of them, a 1965 publication by the Social Security Administration, said that in 1930, there were probably 1.5 million to 2 million Americans who had some kind of private health insurance or pre-arranged payment plan for medical care. With a population of 123.2 million people then, that means that less than 2 percent of the population had private coverage. Private coverage was generally the only option. The federal government’s public insurance plans -- Medicare and Medicaid -- were created in the 1960s. Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau show that 12.3 million Americans (9.3 percent) had private health coverage for their hospital stays in 1940, a jump of 10 million from a decade earlier. In 1950, 76.6 million Americans, or 50.7 percent, had health insurance. What led to that jump? Topping the list would be the amazing advances in medicine in the past 75 years. The war itself played a major role in the growth of health insurance, according to a March 2002 history of health insurance benefits from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a think tank that examines employment-based benefits. Wages had been frozen by the National War Labor Board amid a shortage of workers as many potential employees went off to fight in the war. Employers sought to get around the wage controls in order to attract scarce workers. Providing them health insurance was one way to do that, EBRI said. ""During this time, employers petitioned, and were granted to have benefits, particularly health benefits, not be considered part of wages,"" Stephen Blakely, the director of communications and managing editor at EBRI, told us. ""Congress agreed to exempt health insurance benefits from taxation."" Blakely said Carr’s historic look at the prevalence of health insurance is correct. The growth in insurance was also spurred by a growth in surgeries and hospital stays. ""(A)s late as the 1920s, hospitals were viewed as dangerous places where people went to die,"" Robert Helms, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a February 2008 paper. That perception changed gradually, Helms said, as hospitals improved management, boosted physician professional standards and developed drugs to control infections. Penicillin, an antibiotic, was used increasingly in the 1940s to control infections. This made surgeries and hospital stays safer, which led to increased demand for both surgeries and insurance to cover those procedures, Helms noted. Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health care policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said Carr’s statement is generally accurate, but isn’t relevant to today. Back in 1940, medical care was relatively basic, he said. A victim of a heart attack, for example, would have been ordered to rest in bed, Oberlander said. With today’s advanced medical care the treatment would require surgeries and care that’s very expensive to pay for without insurance, he said. ""There is not a feasible medical care system without health insurance in 2014,"" Oberlander said. Roughly 85 percent of the 310 million people in the U.S. had some form of health care insurance in 2012 either through their job, public programs like Medicare and Medicaid, or individual private plans, according to figures compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That leaves 15 percent of the population -- about 48 million Americans -- who lacked health care coverage. Our ruling Carr said before World War II, very few people had health insurance. While Carr doesn’t take into account the advances in medical care over the past 75 years, he’s right. Only about 10 percent of the U.S. population had private health insurance then, generally from an employer-based system."
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11066
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Test Aids Prostate Cancer Treatment
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This story describes the upcoming commercialization by Genomic Health and Epic Sciences of a diagnostic blood test which could help determine whether men with advanced prostate cancer should receive new-generation drugs or chemotherapy. The test detects whether the genetic variant AR-V7 is present in tumor cells circulating in the blood stream, and a study in JAMA Oncology found that drugs which target androgen receptors are not as effective as chemotherapy for tumors with the AR-V7 variant. The article does a good job of explaining how this new approach could not only lead to better outcomes for patients by enabling clinicians to tailor treatments to individuals, but could also save money being spent on an expensive class of drugs that would not work for some patients. The story is careful not to overstate how useful the test would be in practice, since there have not yet been randomized clinical trials to quantify the impact on patient survival. However, readers are left somewhat in the dark about how strong the evidence is in favor of the test, and the companies’ claims that there is enough evidence for the test to move into the clinic based on a fairly small retrospective study should have been interrogated. Moreover, readers are not made aware that the lead author has significant ties to the makers of the prostate cancer drugs in question, and the majority of the co-authors are employees of Epic Sciences. A nod to conflicts of interest and the inclusion of independent experts would have provided crucial balance to a story dominated by commercial concerns. Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer. While new drugs have significantly extended survival times for men in the late stages of the disease, for some men traditional chemotherapy is a better option, so a diagnostic test that would enable doctors to choose which therapy is best could have a significant impact on patient survival. The need for independent sources matters here because there has been a lot of hype around the potential for non-invasive “liquid biopsy” blood tests to tailor treatments to individual patients, and lots of companies are pushing to develop tests. It’s important for readers to know when to trust in the promise of new tests, and when not to believe the hype.
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true
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Wall Street Journal
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Excellent job here. The costs of treatment are a core aspect of the story. The opening paragraph describes how the blood test in question could help determine whether patients should receive “costly new-generation drugs or rely on much cheaper traditional chemotherapy,” and the specific costs of different therapies are detailed early in the article. Much less information is given about the cost of the blood test itself, though the writer does make it clear that the price is not yet determined. It would have been useful to note the costs of any comparable tests already in clinical use, and to let the reader know how insurance companies deal with new diagnostic tests. The story says “in a study published last month, patients who tested positive for the anomaly—a variant of the androgen receptor called AR-V7—lived substantially longer if they were treated with chemotherapy than those given the two new drugs.” However, the story doesn’t provide specifics on what that means in number terms. The story does not explain harms. However, diagnostic tests are only as good as their sensitivity and reliability, so it would have been good for readers to get an impression of whether the test catches every case of AR-V7, and the likelihood of false positives or false negatives. Even if that information is not yet available, it is important for readers to be made aware of the issue that a false result could lead to the wrong therapy being given. The story lets us known that this was a relatively small study of 161 patients, and it is described as “retrospective.” We’re also told that the blood test needs validation in large randomized controlled trials. While it may be challenging for readers not well-versed in study design to discern what the limitations of a retrospective study is, and what further information a randomized trial would deliver, these details are sufficient enough to rate Satisfactory. We also appreciated these words of caution: “In the study, a positive test for AR-V7 didn’t assure patients would respond to the chemotherapy, nor did a negative test promise a response to the Xtandi or Zytiga.” Advanced stage prostate cancer is a common, life-threatening disease. The article gives an estimate, albeit from the companies behind the test, that 50,000 U.S. men with advanced prostate cancer would be candidates for the test. No independent expert source is quoted throughout the story. This is problematic not least because representatives of both Epic Sciences and Genomic Health are quoted on the clinical utility of the test, and their claims need to be validated or refuted by experts with no skin in the game. It would also be important to get an independent take on the study itself, the strength of the evidence and whether there were any limitations that should be highlighted. Additionally, next to no information is given about conflicts of interest. While the lead author’s affiliation is given as Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the majority of co-authors of the study are employees of Epic Sciences. This surely warrants a mention so readers are not given the false impression that the company had no role in the study. Moreover, the lead author Howard Scher has received research funding, personal fees and non-financial support from all the companies behind the prostate cancer drugs in question. Despite the fact that the blood test would theoretically identify patients who would be better off not receiving the drugs, Scher has highly relevant conflicts of interest, thus increasing the need for independent expert sources. The article does not explicitly describe whether there are other methods of detecting AR-V7, though it is implicit that AR-V7 has not been used clinically as a biomarker before, and two other companies developing a similar test are mentioned. The story is based around whether using AR-V7 as a biomarker could lead to better outcomes than current clinical standards, so the comparison to the “status-quo” alternative is thoroughly explored. It is made clear that the blood test is not currently available, and the article gives a prospective date for when the test will be launched. Since AR-V7 is not currently used as a biomarker for treatment of advanced prostate cancer, it is clear enough to the reader that this is a new approach. An important point that is only mentioned in passing is that the test is a “liquid biopsy.” Liquid biopsies have often been hyped as a revolutionary new approach to diagnosing cancer without invasive procedures. However, due to questions over sensitivity and reliability, they have been controversial and are yet to become commonplace in clinical practice, so readers might have benefited from a little more context on this point. The writer has clearly interviewed his sources and included substantially more information than available from news releases by either Epic Sciences or Genomic Health.
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8035
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China's Xi offers Trump help in coronavirus fight as Wuhan reopens to traffic.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday that he would have China’s support in fighting the coronavirus, as Wuhan, the Chinese city where the outbreak emerged, reopened to incoming traffic.
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true
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Health News
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The United States now has the most coronavirus cases of any country, with nearly 85,000 infections. Hospitals in cities including New York and New Orleans are struggling to cope with the wave of patients. Trump said China had sent virus data to U.S. scientists and was sending more after he and Xi spoke by telephone. “We talked about the experience that they had in China and all the things that have taken place. And we learned a lot,” Trump told reporters. “They have had a very tough experience. And they are doing well ... President Xi is doing very well. We learned a lot and we have great communication together.” Xi’s offer of assistance follows a war of words between Beijing and Washington over various issues, including the pandemic. Trump and other U.S. officials have accused Beijing of a lack of transparency over the outbreak, and Trump has referred to coronavirus as the “Chinese virus” because it originated there late last year. According to an account of the conversation published by the Chinese foreign ministry, Xi reiterated to Trump that China had been open and transparent. “We are working closely together,” Trump said on Twitter. “Much respect!” Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated in a seafood market and which had been on lockdown for more than two months, was open to incoming traffic late on Friday, although cars were not allowed to leave. Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, removed border restrictions on Wednesday for all but Wuhan, which will allow people to leave the city starting on April 8. At a checkpoint entering the city on Friday night, three lanes were open to traffic but there were few cars, with a lone figure in military fatigues standing at each lane checking the mobile phone health codes of arriving passengers. Along the highway entering the city of 11 million, blue and white signs pointed traffic to the now-closed Huoshenshan Hospital, which was built in eight days and opened in early February and came to symbolise China’s aggressive management of the outbreak after a fumbled early effort. Other evidence of the outbreak that devastated the city included posters dated Feb. 16 seeking volunteers to help battle the epidemic. “Exits out of the city are still shut. We respectfully ask for your understanding,” one road sign along the highway said. Numerous people have been trapped inside and outside of Wuhan and Hubei and many of the cars entering the city had Wuhan number plates, indicating they were returning residents. The World Health Organization has said the United States is expected to become the pandemic’s new epicentre. Like U.S. hospitals now, China’s medical system struggled to contain the coronavirus two months ago, but draconian city lockdowns and severe travel restrictions have seen the crisis ease. Mainland China on Friday reported its first local coronavirus case in three days and 54 new imported cases, as Beijing ordered airlines to sharply cut international flights, for fear travellers could reignite the outbreak. The 55 new cases detected on Thursday were down from 67 a day earlier, the National Health Commission said, taking the tally of infections to 81,340. China’s death toll stood at 3,292 as of Thursday, up by five from a day earlier. Hubei, with a population of about 60 million, reported no new cases on Thursday. China’s commercial capital of Shanghai reported the most new imported cases with 17, followed by 12 in the southern province of Guangdong and four each in the capital Beijing and the nearby city of Tianjin. Shanghai now has 125 patients who arrived from overseas, including 46 from Britain and 27 from the United States. In effect from Sunday, China has ordered its airlines to fly only one route to any country, on just one flight each week. Foreign airlines must comply with similar curbs on flights to China, although many had already halted services. About 90% of current international flights into China will be suspended, cutting arrivals to 5,000 passengers a day, from 25,000, the civil aviation regulator said late on Thursday.
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8562
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New Zealand orders quarantine for returning citizens in coronavirus battle.
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New Zealand will begin moving citizens to compulsory quarantine from Friday as they return from overseas, stepping up its efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus halfway through a four-week nationwide lockdown.
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true
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Health News
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The shutdown began in late March in the Pacific nation of about 5 million, and a state of national emergency was declared to stifle local transmissions of the respiratory disease. “No one goes home, everyone goes into a managed facility,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, adding that 14 days spent in a government-approved facility would be a prerequisite for all foreign travellers. “Even one person slipping through the cracks and bringing the virus in can see an explosion in cases, as we have observed with some of our bigger clusters,” she told a media briefing in Wellington on Thursday. Ardern added that her cabinet would decide whether to extend the nationwide curbs on April 20, two days before the lockdown is set to end. The lockdown has reduced domestic transmissions, authorities said, with a steady fall this week in the daily rise in infections. The tally of infections rose by 29 to stand at 1,239 on Thursday, for the lowest daily rise since March 21, a sign the epidemic could be on the retreat since the lockdown began 15 days ago. Overnight, 35 people were declared to have recovered. New Zealand, like neighbouring Australia, has fewer infections than many countries and the pace of infections in both nations has slowed dramatically in the past week. Despite some signs of a plateau in infections, the government said it had no plans to relax the curbs over the Easter weekend and warned of hefty fines for non-essential travel then. Police will step up activity around holiday spots during the Easter holidays, authorities said, with some roadblocks planned. Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: open tmsnrt.rs/3aIRuz7 in an external browser.
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14024
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More than 32,000 Americans lose their lives to gun violence each year.
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"The Safety For All Initiative proposes stronger gun and ammunition restrictions in California. On its website, it says ""More than 32,000 Americans lose their lives to gun violence each year."" That sad statistic checks out, based on an examination of data from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. While the statement is accurate, it needs a key clarification that more than 60 percent of those gun deaths result from suicides. Much of the Safety For All Initiative is designed to make it more difficult for individuals to obtain ammunition for assault-style weapons, not typically associated with suicides."
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true
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Elections, Government Regulation, California, Guns, Safety For All Initiative,
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"Calls to strengthen California’s gun laws intensified this week after the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in history at an Orlando nightclub. State lawmakers described the tragedy as a call to action to strengthen California’s firearm regulations, considered among the toughest in America. In November, voters in the state will likely be asked to make those laws even tougher, by approving the Safety For All Initiative. That measure is led by Democratic Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and is pending signature verification. On the initiative’s website, it claims: ""More than 32,000 Americans lose their lives to gun violence each year."" The statement is followed by the message: ""Gun Violence Is Not Inevitable. The Power To Save Lives Is In Our Hands: Together We Can Keep Our Communities Safe."" We wondered about the eye-popping 32,000 figure and whether any context was missing. A screenshot of SafetyForAll.com's homepage shows the claim about 32,000 Americans losing their lives to gun violence each year. Our research Much of the Safety For All Initiative is designed to make it more difficult for individuals to obtain ammunition for assault-style weapons, such as those used in recent mass shootings in San Bernardino and Orlando. Here’s what the measure would do, if approved by voters: Require instant background checks for ammunition purchases; strengthen checks for gun purchases and ban the possession of large, detachable military-style magazines; and require the immediate surrender of firearms for people convicted of serious and violent crimes. A spokeswoman for the initiative pointed us to figures from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. They show nearly 33,000 gun deaths, on average, from 2010 through 2014 in the United States. Of those, more than 62 percent resulted from suicides by guns -- something not mentioned on the Safety For All website. There’s no mention of suicide by guns or suicide prevention efforts in the text of the measure, either. About 34 percent of the gun deaths are from homicides. The remaining four percent resulted from accidents, legal intervention or cases where intent was undetermined. We asked the initiative campaign about the large share of gun deaths from suicide. Dan Newman, a campaign strategist for the lieutenant governor, replied that ""treating ammo sales like guns and screening for dangerous mental illness, taking guns away from people legally prohibited from owning weapons, reporting lost and stolen guns and ammo – these will all reduce gun violence of all kinds, from suicide to mass murder."" In October 2015, PolitiFact Texas checked a similar claim by Hillary Clinton, that ""We lose an average of 90 Americans every day because of guns."" That adds up to the CDC total of more than 32,000. They rated it . PolitiFact Texas pointed out that at least once, Clinton has clarified her figure by mentioning suicides; according to a post on her campaign website, she said: ""We lose between 88 and 92 Americans a day from gun violence — homicides, suicides and accidents — and we have to act."" Our ruling The Safety For All Initiative proposes stronger gun and ammunition restrictions in California. On its website, it says ""More than 32,000 Americans lose their lives to gun violence each year."" That sad statistic checks out, based on an examination of data from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. While the statement is accurate, it needs a key clarification that more than 60 percent of those gun deaths result from suicides. Much of the Safety For All Initiative is designed to make it more difficult for individuals to obtain ammunition for assault-style weapons, not typically associated with suicides. – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. PolitiFact California is fact-checking claims made by and about the November ballot measure campaigns. Contact us with suggestions for a fact-check at [email protected] or on Twitter @CAPolitiFact
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10513
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Stem-cell therapy feels Food and Drug Administration’s pinch
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The story provides some key points from both sides of the debate and some caveats. But about one third of the story reads like an advertisement for the procedure. Rather than discussing data/evidence, the story centers on the positive aspects of the unregulated and unsubstantiated approach. New health care interventions may offer great promise and hope to patients with debilitating diseases such as severe arthritis. But news stories on such new ideas simply must help readers evaluate evidence – and this story didn’t do that.
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mixture
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"We’re told the procedure costs upwards of $8,000 and is not covered by most insurance policies. The benefits of the treatment are provided in vague terms and supported solely with anecdotes rather than data. There are many key questions an informed patient should ask about this procedure, but the story provides no evidence to answer them. A standard of evidence sets the bar. Without it, all we have are subjective claims and no context to understand the anecdotes. In one of those anecdotes, a patient ""is certain that adult stem-cell therapy could someday end joint-replacement surgery."" He’s certain that it could? What exactly does that mean, besides advertising the procedure? And why did the story include a patient’s forecast about the procedure’s boundless future, presumably based on overwhelming benefits, without mentioning the lack of evidence? One safety study is discussed, which found no tumors or other serious complications from the treatment. However, the story misinterprets one point about this study: it implies that all 227 subjects received MRIs, when only 45 subjects (Group 1) did. This study’s results are presented in an inappropriate, forward-looking way. The paragraph on the study begins, ""Soon, regenerative stem-cell therapies like Centeno’s may not be so cutting edge,"" as if the results were a smoking gun demonstrating the procedure’s long-term safety. The results are followed by Centeno’s interpretation, a favorable comparison of his procedure’s risk profile to those of other orthopedic procedures. But there’s no evidence, no comparative studies, provided to support those claims.These quotes, from the procedure’s champion, a man who has a business stake in licensing this procedure to other doctors and centers around the world, should not have been included in the article without direct counterpoint. The story notes the potential for stem cell therapies to transmit disease, and the New England Journal of Medicine article’s support for the FDA’s requirement that researchers demonstrate safety in this regard. It fails to discuss whether that burden of proof has been met with Centeno’s procedure. We give the story credit for discussing the need for safety data, in the context of gene therapy’s challenges, where an adverse event stymied the hype. However, we are not sure the conclusion goes far enough in saying that ""more research, like Colorado State University’s stem-cell work on dogs and horses, is needed to ensure safety."" What about more research in humans? We don’t think the story satisfies this criterion. Apart from the question of regulatory structure, the author allows Centeno to get away with a number of claims, including the dramatic N=2 ""evidence"" from interviewees who experience miracles, with almost no supporting evidence. Of note, and perhaps to the FDA’s case, the procedure hasn’t been studied intensively, and thus we don’t really know how well it works in the long run or how safe it is. Substituting a few patient anecdotes for evidence is insufficient. What DO the data show? The article doesn’t engage in disease-mongering. We would have liked to have heard from a truly independent source. The balance of sources leads to a largely unchallenged view of Centeno’s procedure, and the foregone conclusion that this type of stem cell therapy will steamroll through safety studies and the FDA approval process. A source apparently unaffiliated with Centeno is quoted, and Dennis Roop adds some important caveats that the FDA’s requirement of safety evidence is critical, in light of physicians making home-grown cultures, with allusions to the deaths that occurred during early trials of gene therapy. Roop’s quote does not directly refer to Centeno and his push for unfettered permission to sell and franchise his procedure — and that is the perspective that’s missing, with more discussion of the lack of efficacy and safety data. (Perhaps the evidence question is embedded in Centeno’s head-butting with the FDA, or perhaps it’s a debate over the more complex regulatory machinery.) And Roop’s ultimate claim for the to-be-demonstrated safety and approval of stem cell therapies is presumptuous. While unaffiliated with Centano, Roop is the director of a stem cell institute. There are no evidence-based comparisons to existing alternatives, only claims and anecdotes. Furthermore, it’s somewhat unfair to characterize ankle fusion as a ""debilitating surgery."" Of course, it’s not an ideal surgery, and patients have limitations afterwards, but its point is to improve life for people who suffer from a debilitating condition, and responses vary. The story points out that the procedure is not licensed by the FDA. Meanwhile, another company is conducting FDA-approved trials of a related technique. The story correctly points out that others are working to develop treatments utilizing the patient’s own stem cells along a traditional regulatory path. The story does not appear to rely on a news release."
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9006
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New breath and urine tests detect early breast cancer more accurately
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This news release summarizes a pilot study conducted by Israeli researchers on non-traditional methods for screening for breast cancer. One method employed an electronic nose sensor that measured chemicals in human breath and another analyzed urine samples. The screening methods were 95% and 85% accurate, respectively, according to the release. Key details were missing from the brief summary, including how many patients were screened and whether it was a randomized controlled study. The study was a pilot, designed to develop an accurate statistical model to use when testing urine and exhaled breath samples, according to the journal article, but the release does not tell us that. Cancer screening is a topic of much debate among experts. Some screening methods have a large number of false positive results that may lead to unnecessary or risky biopsies or treatments. This release raises the expectation that cheaper and yet accurate methods could be available soon for breast cancer. But this method would require much larger experiments with many more patients before it could become widely available, if ever.
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false
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Ben-Gurion University of the Negev,breast cancer screening,breath test
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The news release never gives readers an estimate for the cost of a combination breath and urine screening test for breast cancer. The release does state that the technologies used for both urine and breath are “inexpensive” but doesn’t give us a concrete number to justify that claim. The only benefits statement is that “researchers detected breast cancer with more than 95 percent average accuracy using an inexpensive commercial electronic nose (e-nose) that identifies unique breath patterns in women with breast cancer. In addition, their revamped statistical analyses of urine samples submitted both by healthy patients and those diagnosed with breast cancer yielded 85 percent average accuracy.” Readers need the total number of patients screened and other details on how results of the study were measured. It’s important to keep in mind that the study was about developing a better algorithm to funnel out the noise from these tests and focus on the signal that would indicate whether someone did or did not have cancer. Any benefit described should be related to the development of a better algorithm, versus developing a better physical test. Screening methods typically include false positive results, which will require further testing that might include biopsy. The release did not mention this potential harm or any others from the proposed method of testing breath and urine. This is not a 100% accurate test and there is no discussion on what happens when the test is wrong or why the test may not be accurate all of the time. The release provides so little information on methods that readers can’t judge the quality of evidence. We aren’t given the total number of patients studied or how the experimental group was compared to a control group. In the full journal article we’re informed that the study was a pilot, meaning it was a preliminary study to assess feasibility, harms and study design prior to launching a full-scale research study. There was no disease mongering. The release provides some statistics on breast cancer prevalence, but then makes a tentative connection between early screening and breast cancer mortality which seems unwarranted given the preliminary status of the research. The release does not give us information on funding or conflicts of interest. The full journal article states there are no conflicts. The release discusses existing screening methods and offers some comparisons on safety and sensitivity, especially for dense breast tissue. The release stated: Mammography screenings, which are proven to significantly reduce breast cancer mortality, are not always able to detect small tumors in dense breast tissue. In fact, typical mammography sensitivity, which is 75 to 85 percent accurate, decreases to 30 to 50 percent in dense tissue. Current diagnostic imaging detection for smaller tumors has significant drawbacks: dual-energy digital mammography, while effective, increases radiation exposure, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is expensive. Biopsies and serum biomarker identification processes are invasive, equipment-intensive and require significant expertise. It’s unfortunate that the release chose not to similarly include any drawbacks for the proposed electronic nose and breath screening methods. The release quotes the lead author claiming: “We’ve now shown that inexpensive, commercial electronic noses are sufficient for classifying cancer patients at early stages.” This implies that such “noses” are already commercially available for breast cancer detection but we’re not told where they are available and how frequently they’re used. The news release does not make clear that urine and breath tests have existed and been used for breast cancer, but the novel part of this study is the statistical analysis and modeling. The release doesn’t employ sensational, unjustifiable language.
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38766
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Hundreds of people died after eating Patti LaBelle brand “Patti’s Sweet Potato Pie.”
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Patti LaBelle Sweet Potato Pie Kills Hundreds
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false
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Food / Drink
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A fake news website is behind the false report that hundreds died after eating Patti Labelle brand sweet potato pie. The fake news website Report Quickly published a story on November 14, 2015, that said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had found that Patti Labelle pie that was tainted with “tetrodotoxin,” a venomous substance found in puff fish: According to the CDC, the pies were produced in the same factory that thousands of puffer fish are devenomized and prepared. The CDC and FDA are currently running an investigation on the factory to find out how the pies were tainted. In the meantime, the company has issued a recall on the pies and Walmart will be accepting returns. Within days, the fake report of Patti’s Sweet Potato Pie poising hundreds of people had been shared nearly 200,000 times on social media sites. Taken out of context, many people were tricked into believing that report was true, but it’s not. The disclaimer that appears at the bottom of Report Quickly stories states that it publishes a “combination of real shocking news and satire news.” This story falls into the ladder category. The first giveaway that the Patti LaBelle story is a hoax is that the FDA is responsible for food safety and product recalls — not the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the fake news story reported. Comments
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26063
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As of June 23, the COVID-19 death rate is “way down.”
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Deaths from the coronavirus have fallen consistently since their peak in late April, and have continued to fall in June even as the number of cases has risen. Experts say deaths lag behind the number of cases. So the trend may reverse.
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true
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Public Health, Coronavirus, Donald Trump,
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"With an increasing number of coronavirus cases across the country, President Donald Trump pointed to a metric that reflects more favorably on his administration’s pandemic response. On June 23, Trump tweeted, ""Cases up only because of our big number testing. Mortality rate way down!!!"" Cases up only because of our big number testing. Mortality rate way down!!! https://t.co/bKFmgOLEGZ His argument that tests are the only reason for rising cases is not accurate. But on the trend for mortality, Trump has a point. Epidemiologists told PolitiFact that due to wide variations in testing patterns, the data doesn’t offer a clear look at how likely someone is to die from the virus if they are infected with it. Gaps in testing leave too many undiagnosed cases to reliably determine a person’s likelihood of dying from the coronavirus, much less whether the likelihood of dying has risen or fallen over time. Instead, researchers say, the most solid metric for assessing Trump’s statement is the number of new coronavirus deaths reported per day. The number of daily deaths from coronavirus has been falling consistently since peaking in late April. In fact, even as infections have risen since early June, deaths have not. (The orange line in the following chart shows the seven-day rolling average of coronavirus deaths, which smooths out data variations.) At the peak in late April, more than 2,000 were dying from coronavirus on a typical day. In late June, it’s less than 600. That’s still a large number of deaths every day. All told, roughly 115,000 have died from COVID-19 to date. The White House told PolitiFact that the per-capita number of deaths in the United States is also lower than it is in several advanced industrialized countries in Europe that were hard hit by the virus. According to Johns Hopkins University, the number of coronavirus deaths per 100,000 population is about 37 for the United States, compared with 65 in the United Kingdom, 61 in Spain, and 57 in Italy. But other European countries have lower death rates for COVID-19 than the United States does, including the Netherlands, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark. So why are deaths falling? There may be several reasons, and for now, they’re somewhat speculative. One possibility is that the initial wave of infections disproportionately reached more patients with weaker immune systems, including those in nursing homes, or more vulnerable Americans who hadn’t yet taken up effective social distancing. By contrast, more recent waves of infections may be reaching younger and healthier people who are better able to survive an infection. Another possibility is that we’re ""getting better at treatment and keeping people alive,"" said Tara Smith, an epidemiologist at Kent State University’s College of Public Health. Still, epidemiologists caution that deaths are a lagging indicator. The disease often takes two to three weeks to run its course, meaning that one day’s crop of new infections tends to drive the deaths that occur two to three weeks later. ""We might not expect an increase in the death rate until approximately 21 days from when we started to see an increase in cases,"" said Brooke Nichols, an infectious disease modeler at the Boston University School of Public Health. So far, the age breakdown for deaths has been fairly consistent — people older than 65 accounted for 81% of coronavirus deaths at the mortality peak in mid-April, and that age group still accounted for 82% of in mid-July, a time when the total number of deaths had fallen significantly, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since we’re about two weeks into the national rise in infections, scientists will be watching to see if deaths start increasing a week from now. Trump said that mortality from coronavirus is ""way down."" This is one of the few coronavirus measurements that Trump can point to with optimism. The number of deaths has remained substantial, at a bit below 600 per day by mid-to-late June, but that’s more than two-thirds lower than the peak of about 2,000 daily deaths in late April. The number of coronavirus deaths per day has continued to fall in June even as the number of cases has risen. Trump’s statement is accurate for now, though it’s too soon to know whether the recent rise in new cases will produce an uptick in deaths by early July."
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33689
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Young women are inserting vodka-soaked tampons as a furtive way of getting drunk.
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Sightings: Vodka-soaked tampons were referenced in an episode of the television crime drama CSI (“Two and a Half Deaths,” original air date 8 May 2008). Also, in the TV series The Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce (“Rule No. 67: Don’t Kill the Princess,” original air date 13 January 2015), Lilly’s14th birthday party is enlivened by the sudden cascade of her friends into the pool after vodka-soaked tampons have caused severe sensations of burning and stinging in the nether regions of the young partygoers.
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false
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Risqué Business
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Although whispers about young women trying to furtively get their alcohol buzzes on by inserting vodka-soaked tampons into themselves have existed for more than fifteen years (our oldest printed reference dates to 1999, but the rumor is likely a fair bit older than that), cases documenting instances of women actually engaging in such a practice are rare to non-existent and well short of proving it to be the widespread phenomenon rumor makes it out to be. Nonetheless, as with so many other stories about supposedly worrisome teen crazes, news outlets periodically run stories proclaiming insertion of “vodka tampons” to be a real and common activity, stories based on little or nothing more than mere repetition of rumor (e.g., “We’ve heard teens are doing this”). Arguing strongly against such rumors is the nature of tampons themselves. While these cylindrical compacted wads of cotton and/or rayon do soak up liquid readily (which is their purpose, after all), they also become nigh on impossible to insert into any bodily orifice when they are in such a saturated state. Also, as blog editor Danielle Crittenden discovered when she experimented with the procedure, putting vodka into direct contact with vaginal membranes hurts like the dickens, with the pain not retreating after a few moments of discomfort but rather continuing unabated for as long as the liquor is present (and indeed well after). Crittenden’s research also showed even a “super-plus” tampon could absorb only 1.5 ounces of vodka, with a half ounce of that having to be wrung from it prior to insertion. The amount of alcohol therefore available to provide a buzz to thrill-seeking teens would be akin to that found in one typical mixed drink, a tipple hardly worth going to the trouble of inserting a vodka-soaked tampon into one’s nether regions even if the procedure were pain-free and could be showed to work. As to why anyone would want to ingest alcohol in this fashion, three reasons are given for the purported practice: To do away with the problem of the smell of booze on one’s breath, to bypass the stomach and thus more quickly benefit from the full effect of the hooch, and to eliminate the sort of gastric distress that leaves a heavy imbiber clutching the porcelain god at 4 a.m. The most commonly-given reason, the avoidance of bowery breath, has the least going for it. If one were to ingest vodka vaginally (or anally, as the rumor is also expressed that way), the practice wouldn’t result in booze-free breath because alcohol is partially expelled from the body via the lungs. Once liquor is in the blood, at least some of it gets breathed out, which is how breathalyzers measure blood alcohol content. Also, the rumor’s lynchpin, that as long as a teen gal has sweet breath her parents won’t know their little darling has been tippling, isn’t all that practical. It’s not easy to conceal being three sheets to the wind; drunken behavior often gives the game away long before the stink of booze does. Any teen who thinks avoiding parental detection is nothing but a matter of masking or eliminating the scent is probably in for a rude surprise. Even if putting liquor into direct contact with the mucus membranes of the vagina or rectum worked to speed alcohol into the bloodstream, the practice might come at a cost. Such membranes are sensitive, and the potential burning discomfort of flooding those areas with John Barleycorn’s finest could prove memorable and not nearly adequately compensate for having advanced one’s inebriation by a matter of minutes. Some claim taking in vodka through the insertion of liquor-soaked tampons might (and we’re not going to test this theory, so we’ll leave it at “might”) work to keep one’s dinner in place during a fierce night of partying, citing the notion it avoids the presence of large amounts of alcohol into the stomach, a presence that works to irritate the lining of that organ and thus prompt regurgitation of its contents. (However, vomiting is one of the body’s defense mechanisms against poisoning, so suppressing or avoiding that function is not generally a good idea. In 2005, for example, a woman was charged with negligent homicide for administering a sherry enema that caused the death of her husband from alcohol poisoning.) Another putative reason given for imbibing in this manner is bypassing the stomach avoids the calories associated with alcohol consumption. The rumor has become particularly attached to the Scottish rock band Mogwai. According to lore, while trapped in a European tour environment where hooch was hard to come by, the band members soaked tampons in vodka and inserted them into their rectal cavities in order to facilitate the swift and efficient entry of the small available stock of alcohol into their bloodstreams. The group maintains they never did this, and the belief they did arose from an innocent conversation with a journalist in which mere discussion of the practice was subsequently misremembered by that reporter as the group’s having claimed to have participated in the activity themselves.
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34829
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Handles of shopping carts are laden with germs.
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One study ranked grocery cart handles and child seats third on a list of nastiest public items to touch.
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true
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Medical, Disease
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The invention of the shopping cart during the Dirty Thirties altered how consumers shopped for groceries by removing the weight of accumulated goods from the equation. Thanks to the new wheeled assistance, those looking to reprovision could shop longer and for greater quantities than in the days when prospective purchases were all toted by hand. But the newfangled gadgets also created yet another common field upon which harmful bacteria and viruses could be easily passed from one person to another, because the handles of shopping carts are grasped by a great many people day in and day out. And, of that horde of shoppers, some will undoubtedly be carrying some nasty bugs on their unwashed hands. Yet, just as we rarely think about giving our purses, briefcases, and backpacks a good scrub-down, so do shopping carts fly under our germ awareness radar. The very folks that fuss with disposable toilet seat covers often won’t think twice about manhandling a grocery cart around a store for half an hour, even though the surface they’re hanging onto so fiercely for that interval has likely been coughed on, sneezed on, and grasped by shoppers who’d just finished handling packages of raw chicken and meat, or who just weren’t the sort to wash their hands all that often. As for the fold-out child’s seat found in most carts, even though it is routinely graced by the diapered bottoms of infants, it remains the cart’s transport region of choice for fruits and vegetables, items that are often eaten uncooked or unwashed. According to a four-year study conducted by the University of Arizona’s Environmental Research Lab and sponsored by Clorox, grocery carts are veritable petri dishes teeming with human saliva, mucus, urine, fecal matter, as well as the blood and juices from raw meat. Swabs taken from the handles and child seats of 36 grocery carts in San Francisco, Chicago, Tucson, and Tampa showed these common surfaces to rank third on the list of nastiest public items to touch, with only playground equipment and the armrests on public transportation producing more disgusting results. In terms of playing host to germs and bacteria, the carts are far worse than public bathrooms, which at least are cleaned more often. Bacteria and viruses such as E.coli, staphylococcus, salmonella, and influenza can live on grocery carts, a sorry fact most shoppers are blissfully unaware of. There are efforts afoot to render these surfaces less germ-laden. In March 2007, a bill (A4109) was introduced into the New Jersey State Assembly calling for supermarkets to provide shoppers with sanitary wipes to clean off their carts. In February 2007, Arkansas passed its “Health-Conscious Shopper Act” (HB1040), which encourages businesses in that state to voluntarily provide consumers with sanitation wipes to use on the carts. Nice-Pak Products of Rockland County, New York, the company that enhanced your fried chicken eating experience with Wet-Naps, has devised a wipe specifically for use in sanitizing shopping cart handles and child seats. Its SaniCart is designed to remove salmonella, staphylococcus, and other germs from such surfaces. As of late 2005, more than 6,400 supermarkets were using them. Meanwhile, another system on the market focuses on cleaning the entire cart rather than just parts of it. PureCart is a sort of drive-through washer that sanitizes the whole contraption. It works by coating the carts with a safe mist of a peroxide-based disinfectant, the same solution used to clean dialysis machines and poultry processors. Critics of the various efforts to clean up the carts point out that a great many things routinely used by the public also harbor germs and viruses, therefore targeting the handles and child seats of shopping carts will not render the common world free of contagion. While it is true that which causes illness also lurks upon the latches of bathroom stall doors, elevator buttons, and stairwell handrails (to name just a few bacterial hot spots), those shared surfaces are generally handled relatively fleetingly compared to the interval the average person hangs onto the handle of a shopping cart or the length of time a leaky-diapered baby or a food item is left resting on the cart’s fold-out seat. Those looking for a less technological approach to staving off the nasties ferried about by their shopping buggies should attempt to fall into the habit of always washing their hands as soon as they return home from any retail foray and eschewing touching their faces or blowing their noses in the interim. In April 2007, the truth about the nasty state of shopping carts was bent to a hellish purpose when an e-mailed rumor about Hispanics polluting the wheeled conveyances with staph infections spread through Guntersville, Alabama. In that anonymous note, Dr. John Packard Jr., a local pediatrician, was falsely described as having advised a patient that her baby, along with twelve other children, had picked up the potentially deadly contagion from an infected cart at a local grocery store. The doctor was moreover reported to have said Hispanics had put it there, themselves being immune to that form of bacteria. Hispanics have no special immunity to staphylococcus. All the statements attributed to Dr. Packard were not his; they were the invention of the letter’s anonymous writer. As for the wave of illness that had supposedly felled thirteen children who had come into contact with the sickness-laden carts, Packard assured the community no such infection existed and that the alleged incidents never happened. Additional Information: Shared surfaces most favored by germs:
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8610
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After-coronavirus, SE Asia strongly favours crackdown on wildlife trade, says WWF.
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The coronavirus pandemic has generated overwhelming support for the closure of markets selling illegal wildlife across Southeast Asia, an epicenter of the multi-billion-dollar trade, the World Wildlife Fund said in a public opinion poll on Monday.
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true
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Environment
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About 93 per cent of about 5,000 people surveyed by WWF in March across three Southeast Asian nations as well as Hong Kong and Japan said unregulated markets selling wildlife should be shuttered to ward off future pandemics. Scientists believe the virus that has upturned the lives of billions across the globe originated in a wildlife market, likely in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where bats, pangolins, and other animals known to transmit coronaviruses are crammed together in fetid conditions. “This is no longer a wildlife problem. It is a global security and human health and economic problem,” Christy Williams, WWF’s Asia Pacific Director, said in a news conference, giving results of the survey. Support for a crackdown on markets was strongest in Myanmar, where wildlife has for years been traded openly in the autonomous regions bordering China, while a third of respondents in Vietnam said the crisis had prompted them to stop consuming wildlife products. “COVID is a wake-up call,” Grace Hwa, Illegal Wildlife Trade Programme Manager at WWF Myanmar, said in a statement. “The rampant unchecked trade in wildlife is a risk not only to health and the economy, but to the entire stability of the region.” In the wake of the outbreak, which began in Wuhan and has since spanned the globe, China introduced a ban on all farming and consumption of live wildlife, but it does not cover the trade in animals as pets, and for traditional medicine. Vietnam’s prime minister has ordered the agriculture ministry to draft a similar directive, banning wildlife trade and consumption. Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia and Pacific representative for the U.N office on drugs and crime, said some of the trade had been driven underground. “I’m really concerned about the special regions,” he told Reuters by phone, referring to autonomous zones on the Myanmar-China border controlled by ethnic armed groups which have long been a hub for wildlife trafficking. Two residents of Mong La, a border town known as a hotbed of smuggling, told Reuters by phone the markets remained open but wildlife shops were shut. “It is because the car routes are closed so the trade route cannot be done,” said Ye Min Tun, a 29-year-old construction worker.
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2305
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France reopens euthanasia debate with right-to-die ruling.
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France’s top administrative court ruled on Tuesday that doctors should be allowed to take a tetraplegic man off life support after nearly six years in a coma, siding with his wife in a case that has revived a debate about euthanasia.
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true
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Health News
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The Council of State ruled that doctors had the right to end the medical support that has kept Vincent Lambert, brain-damaged and in vegetative state, artificially alive since a motorbike accident on the way to work plunged him into a coma in September 2008. The verdict follows a heart-rending battle between Lambert’s wife Rachel, seeking to let the former psychiatric nurse die, and his parents, who took legal action last year to halt plans by his doctors to do that. Apart from places such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, few countries in the world explicitly permit euthanasia or assisted suicide - sometimes known as mercy killings. But France, where President Francois Hollande promised prior to his 2012 election to introduce new right-to-die legislation, has left grey areas regarding more passive forms of euthanasia in a 2005 law on patient rights and care for the terminally ill. The so-called Leonetti law does not legalize euthanasia but also states, according to government information services, that patient treatment should not involve “excessive obstination”. Lambert’s parents, devoutly religious Catholics, said even before the Council of State’s Tuesday ruling that they had asked the European Court of Human Rights to issue an emergency ruling on the case should the French judges go against their will to keep their son, now in his late 30s, as he is. The international rights court, based in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, said in a statement it would respond “as soon as possible”. While Hollande has yet to deliver on his promise of legislation by the end of the year on the rights of the incurably ill, the legal battles over Lambert’s fate and other cases has thrust the euthanasia debate firmly back onto the radar screen. As many as 25,000 people die a year in France after removal of medical support, according to Remi Keller, a member of the Council of State. In a separate case, a hospital doctor in southwest France is on trial on charges that he used lethal injections to hasten the deaths of seven old-aged people in 2010-2011. His lawyers say they intend to turn that trial into a debate about the wider issue of the boundaries of euthanasia.
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38858
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An over-the-counter supplement called Synagen IQ boosts brain function, improves memory and promotes overall wellness.
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Synagen IQ Boosts Brain Function and Overall Health
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unproven
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Health / Medical
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Claims about the medical benefits of Synagen IQ are unproven. Synagen IQ is classified as a supplement, so the FDA doesn’t regulate it. That means the manufacturer of Synagen IQ doesn’t have to back up its claims that the supplement increases brain power, focus, memory and energy with clinical trials or studies. There’s no way to independently confirm or debunk those claims, either. Synagen IQ is marketed as an “all natural” supplement, but the manufacturer won’t reveal what its active ingredients are. Given all that, it’s impossible to prove whether or not Synagen IQ actually boosts brain function. But so-called miracle drugs that are supposed to reverse memory loss and boost brain function are nothing new. Back in 2010, another over-the-counter supplement called Procera AVH hit the market with an identical claim to “boost brain power.” The medical director of the Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute at the University of South Florida said Procera AVH and similar products “give people false hope.” The Tampa Bay Times reports: Many doctors say the supplements lack scientific evidence to prove they work, and as nutritional supplements, they are not regulated by the federal government as are medications. The ads tout clinical trials, but these are at best small, short-term tests published in journals that are not well-known or respected — hardly comparable with accepted medical standards. Some brain supplements do contain ingredients that have been studied extensively and are used widely for memory disorders. The moss extract huperzine A, found in Procera AVH, has similar properties to the Alzheimer’s drug Aricept, and is the most common treatment for Alzheimer’s in China, Smith said. But with vague labeling and little regulation, there’s no way to know how much of these ingredients are in any supplement, or how high their quality is. So, there’s no scientific or medical research to back up claims that supplements like Synagen IQ actually work. It’s best to talk to your doctor before taking any of these over-the-counter pills, and to not believe claims that aren’t backed up with research. Comments
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20780
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Many types of fish and shellfish from waters across the state are labeled unsafe to eat.
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Jim Florio says fish from New Jersey waters labeled unsafe to eat
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true
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Environment, New Jersey, Food Safety, James Florio,
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"There’s plenty of fish in the waters of New Jersey, along with lots of other things: mercury, polychlorobiphenyls and dioxin, among them. And according to a former governor, there could be some danger in eating fish from Garden State waters. ""Many types of fish and shellfish from waters across the state are labeled unsafe to eat,"" Jim Florio wrote in a Dec. 14 guest column in The Star-Ledger about how new reductions in mercury pollution will protect New Jerseyans from contaminated seafood. It turns out Florio wasn’t exactly telling a fish tale, PolitiFact New Jersey found. ""I think that’s a fair and accurate statement actually,"" said Kerry Pflugh, manager of Constituent Services for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. ""But that doesn’t mean that everything we catch is unsafe to eat. … Advisories are not based on water quality, it’s based on what’s in the fish itself. Fish advisories are set by tissue analysis, not water quality."" Jonathan Scott, communications director for Clean Water Action in Washington, DC said, ""We would agree with his assessment."" Florio could not be reached for comment. How are fish consumption advisories formulated? Fish collected from New Jersey waterways are sent to The Academy of Sciences of Drexel University in Philadelphia. Tissue samples are taken to test for contaminants – mostly mercury, PCBs, DDT and other pesticides, said Richard Horwitz, senior biologist at the academy. A committee decides an acceptable risk for eating a particular fish based on potential health issues for people considered ""high risk"": children, pregnant women and women of child-bearing age, Horwitz said. They are advised to eat smaller portions of fish and less often. The 2010 Fish Consumption Advisories for all New Jersey waterways is available at the DEP’s Office Of Science website. The 30-page document explains what parts of fish are safe to eat; proper preparation; consumption frequency; and more. ""Fish is a very healthy source of protein, vitamins and minerals,"" said Dr. Gary Buchanan, manager for the DEP’s Office of Science. ""Just be careful about the fish you eat when catching them in local waters."" The state also considers federal recommendations made by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. ""The EPA provides guidance to assist states, Indian tribes and local governments in developing methods of monitoring, gathering and assessing information about their fish populations,"" EPA press officer John Martin said in an email. ""Since this information is only guidance, use by states is not mandatory. The States have primary responsibility for monitoring, assessing and making advisory decisions. Thus the basis for each State fish advisory varies."" While a variety of contaminants are found in fish, mercury is the most prevalent, experts told us. The mercury found in New Jersey waters comes from air pollution emitted from power plants, coal plants and incinerators from Pennsylvania and the Midwest, according to Buchanan, Horwitz and Scott. ""If those sources from out of state are reduced, that will help speed up the reduction of mercury in our waters and our fish and help allow additional fish consumption,"" Buchanan said. ""It is a nationwide problem. It’s not just a New Jersey problem. Every state in the country has a fish advisory for some parameter and some species."" Even with the chemicals found in fish, New Jerseyans shouldn’t fear eating fish caught from the state’s waters, said Tom Fote, legislative chairman for the Jersey Coast Anglers Association in Toms River, as long as fish consumption guidelines are followed. ""Seafood coming out of New Jersey waters is no different than the seafood coming from out of any other state,"" Fote said. Our ruling Florio said in a recent opinion column in The Star-Ledger that most fish from New Jersey waterways ""is labeled unsafe to eat."" Experts told PolitiFact New Jersey that they agree with the former governor’s assessment but also note that fish from New Jersey waters can be eaten safely by following consumption advisories. Also, fish bought in supermarkets or other stores in New Jersey are labeled, but recreationally caught fish are not. To comment on this story, go to NJ.com."
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35154
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In February 2020 the Vatican said that Pope Francis and two aides had tested positive for COVID-19, a disease caused by a new coronavirus.
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At an Ash Wednesday service in the Vatican on Feb. 26, Francis was seen coughing and blowing his nose, causing some observers to speculate that the 83-year-old may have been among hundreds affected by a widespread coronavirus outbreak in Italy:
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false
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Junk News, COVID-19
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In early 2020, amid a global health crisis caused by the spread of a new coronavirus, readers asked us to fact-check rumors that Pope Francis had been caught up in an outbreak in Italy. In late February, the Malaysian website Making Comments Meaningful (MCM) published an article with the headline “Vatican Confirms Pope Francis and Two Aides Test Positive for Coronavirus.” That post reported that: The Vatican has confirmed in a statement that Pope Francis and two of his aides have tested positive for the novel Coronavirus. The three new cases add up to the over 400 cases confirmed in Italy under a week. Pope Francis missed a planned Mass with clergy in Rome yesterday after showing Coronavirus-like symptoms. The Vatican had earlier said the pontiff, 83, had a slight indisposition and could proceed with the rest of his planned work today. The pope and his aides have been quarantined and receiving medical attention near Santa Marta, the Vatican hotel where he lives. The pope was seen coughing and blowing his nose during the Asha [sic] Wednesday Mass. The MCM article was shared widely on social media and formed the basis of a video by YouTube user Chadd Sinclair, who repeated the article’s claims. Those claims were false. As of late February, when MCM published its report, and March 3, when this fact check was published, the Vatican had not “confirmed” that Francis or any of his aides had tested positive for the coronavirus. Moreover, according to one unconfirmed news report in Italy, the pope had actually tested negative for the disease.
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1639
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Zimbabwean charged over killing of Cecil the lion.
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A Zimbabwean court on Wednesday charged a professional hunter with failing to prevent an American from unlawfully killing ‘Cecil’, the southern African country’s best-known lion, in a case that has triggered widespread revulsion at trophy hunting.
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true
|
Environment
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The American, Walter James Palmer, a Minnesota dentist who paid $50,000 to kill the lion, has left Zimbabwe. He says he did kill the animal but believed the hunt was legal and that the necessary permits had been issued. Local hunter Theo Bronkhorst appeared in a courthouse in Hwange, 800 km (500 miles) west of Harare, and was charged with “failing to supervise, control and take reasonable steps to prevent an unlawful hunt”. He pleaded not guilty to the charge and was set free after posting $1,000 bail and depositing his passport with the court. He will return to court on Aug. 5 for trial. Game park owner Honest Ndlovu, who is also accused of assisting Palmer, was not charged on Wednesday and parks officials said he would first testify for the state and be charged later. While Bronkhorst appeared in court in Zimbabwe, Palmer, who is accused of killing Cecil with a bow and arrow, was being pilloried on the Internet, with many people wishing him dead. “This is disgusting. I hope you get thrown in a cage with hungry lions,” Julie Lu wrote on the Facebook page of his dental practice. Palmer said on Tuesday he had hired professional guides who secured hunting permits and deeply regretted taking the lion. He added that he had not been contacted by authorities in Zimbabwe or the United States and would assist in any inquiries. The Zimbabwe police and government have not commented. If found guilty, Bronkhorst could be fined $20,000 and possibly jailed for up to 10 years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service expressed its concern about the killing. “We are currently gathering facts about the issue and will assist Zimbabwe officials in whatever manner requested,” said Vanessa Kauffman, a spokeswoman for the government agency. “It is up to all of us - not just the people of Africa - to ensure that healthy, wild populations of animals continue to roam the savanna for generations to come.” Cecil was fitted with a GPS collar for a research project by scientists from Oxford University and was one of the oldest and most famous lions in Zimbabwe. The British university’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit said it had been tracking Cecil since 2008 and was “deeply saddened” by his death. “Insofar as this happened illegally we consider it deeply reprehensible,” it said in a statement. It was working closely with Zimbabwe’s National Parks authorities to support their “meticulous work” in prosecuting the case. The unit also said Cecil’s death would be likely to trigger a power struggle in the pride, resulting in the death of other male lions as well as Cecil’s offspring. “When a male lion is killed, because of the way their society works, a likely consequence is the overthrow and death of other adult male members of his weakened coalition, and the subsequent infanticide of his cubs,” it said. Palmer’s hunting has attracted scrutiny in the past. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to lying to a U.S. wildlife agent about a black bear he killed in Wisconsin two years before. He was accused of killing it 40 miles outside a permitted zone, hauling the carcass back into the approved area and certifying falsely that it was killed there. He was sentenced to one year probation and fined $2,938. In the Hwange case, Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force chairman Johnny Rodrigues said Cecil was lured out of the park with bait before being shot. The incident has triggered fierce debate over the commercial ‘trophy’ hunting of African big game. Like many countries, Zimbabwe issues annual permits that allow foreign hunters to kill wildlife such as elephant, buffalo and lion legally, arguing that the funds raised allow the government to fund conservation efforts. “Sustainable trophy hunting is part of well-managed wildlife conservation. It creates incentives for people to look after wildlife,” said Adri Kitshoff, chief executive of the Professional Hunters’ Association of South Africa. “It’s easy to fall into the trap of emotions and not focus on facts.” However, Edward Bourke, chairman of the Australia-based Saving The Lion Foundation, said Cecil’s death showed the dangers of legal hunting. “There is enough global pressure to push for change. There is an opportunity to offer alternatives, including international aid for establishing safe haven environments like national parks or eco-tourism zones,” he said. One of the few countries to avoid Cecil hysteria was Zimbabwe, where most people are more preoccupied with putting food on the table and finding work in an economy suffering 80 percent unemployment. To the state-run Herald newspaper, the most remarkable aspect of the case was the lion’s name, which it linked to British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, after whom the former Rhodesia named. “How someone thought it such a good idea to christen a lion after the infamous plunderer and murderer who roamed dangerously across Africa can only be a matter of conjecture,” it said in an editorial.
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