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"After the Texas cutoff of aid to women’s health care services including Planned Parenthood clinics, ""over 150,000… women lost the only health care they had. Our Medicaid birth rate shot up. It cost taxpayers over $130 million in one year alone in extra Medicaid birth costs."
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"Davis said that after the Texas cutoff of aid to women’s health services including Planned Parenthood clinics, ""over 150,000… women lost the only health care they had. Our Medicaid birth rate shot up. It cost taxpayers over $130 million in one year alone in extra Medicaid birth costs."" There was about that much of a drop-off in women participating in state-backed family planning and cancer screening programs. But Davis didn’t provide nor did we find confirmation all the women lost the only care they had or that Medicaid-funded birth costs actually spiked by the predicted $130 million-plus. In fact, there were fewer Medicaid-covered Texas births in 2014 than in 2011."
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false
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Corrections and Updates, Health Care, Public Health, Women, Texas, Wendy Davis,
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"Wendy Davis recalled recent Texas history while weighing in on the Republican push to defund Planned Parenthood. In a September 2015 interview on MSNBC’s ""The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell,"" the former Texas Democratic gubernatorial nominee and state senator responded to Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida telling a Des Moines TV station he favors transferring all funding from Planned Parenthood to health centers that do not provide abortions. The funding shifts that Republicans seek nationally, Davis charged, will diminish women’s access to breast cancer screenings, contraceptive care and other health services. Looking back, Davis said that after Texas reduced funding for family planning care, ""over 150,000 real women lost the only health care that they had. Our Medicaid birth rate shot up. It cost taxpayers over $130 million in one year alone in extra Medicaid birth costs. So, not only does it harm real women, it costs taxpayers more."" Did she get that all those effects right? Legislative moves To recap, the 2011 Legislature drove down spending in a state family planning program by more than $70 million (from an existing two-year expenditure of $111 million) in 2012-13 and block family planning aid that flowed through a Medicaid-supported program from going to providers associated with abortions. Republican lawmakers also moved to remove Planned Parenthood from the state’s Women’s Healthcare Program, which provides low-income women access to family planning care. About two years later, legislators imposed stricter health and safety standards on clinics that perform abortions, a move expected to reduce the number of clinics from around 40 to 10; the U.S. Supreme Court agreed in November 2015 to review the law. Davis’ comments seemed curious in part because we found True in September 2015 a claim that Texas state government is ""funding women’s health services at historically high levels."" Most recently, the 2015 Legislature signed off on nearly $285 million in spending on several women’s health efforts, including $50 million for family planning services, in 2016-17. Per what Davis said, we looked into whether more than 150,000 women lost the only health care they had and whether the Texas actions drove up the number of births paid for through Medicaid. Davis offers backup Davis told us by phone her ""over 150,000"" figure came from a Texas Department of State Health Services report filed during a 2013 meeting of the State Health Services Council, which consists of nine members who gather feedback on the agency’s proposed rules and make recommendations to the agency and the overarching Health and Human Services Commission. Davis said: ""The report in the hearing showed that in 2013, the amount of women served (by the DSHS Family Planning Program) was 47,322, which was a decrease from 202,968 clients served in 2011,"" indicating ""a 77 percent decrease in the number of women served."" That would be a decrease of 155,646 women served—more than 150,000. That program, the state says, helps clinics provide comprehensive low-cost family planning and reproductive health care services to women and men. According to the state, the services help individuals determine the number and spacing of their children, reduce unintended pregnancies, positively affect future pregnancy and birth outcomes, and improve general health. A 2013 report An online search landed the report Davis mentioned and her cited figures as part of the council’s Nov. 21, 2013, meeting agenda. Yet the report, ""DSHS Family Planning Program Client Count and Average Cost Per Client, FY 2010-2013,"" didn’t specify women served; rather, it presented the ""number of women and men"" combined who received services from the DSHS Family Planning Program in the chosen years. So, how many women may have lost services? Additional inquiry led us to Enrique Marquez, a commission spokesman, who emailed us a chart indicating 181,460 women were served by the DSHS Family Planning Program in the state’s fiscal 2011, which ran through August 2012, while in fiscal 2013--after the actions by the 2011 Legislature--45,335 women were served. That’s a difference of 136,125--though that’s also without taking into account a decrease of 12,096 in women served by the state’s Women’s Health Program, which provides birth control, cancer screenings, annual exams and STD tests for low-income women. Women served by DSHS Family Planning Program and Women’s Health Program, FY 2011 - FY 2013 Program FY 2011 FY 2012 FY 2013 Difference (FY 2013 - FY 2011) DSHS Family Planning Program 181,460 76,898 45,335 136,125 decrease Women’s Health Program/Texas Women’s Health Program 127,536 126,473 115,440 12,096 decrease Total Decrease 148,221 Add those up and you get 148,221, close to the 150,000 figure offered by Davis. Did women lose their only health care? Davis did not show nor could we determine the number of women who lost the only health care they had, as she put it. By email, HHSC spokesman Bryan Black said the agency has no way of estimating the number of women who were solely getting care through a state program. Separately, Sarah Wheat, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Texas, agreed with Davis that many women relied on its clinics for health care as did Janet Realini, who chairs the Texas Women’s Healthcare Coalition, a nonpartisan organization that says it’s dedicated to improving the health and well-being of women, babies and families by assuring access to preventive care for women. Researchers for the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, a project partnering with Ibis Reproductive Health, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, have been studying the effects of the changes legislated in 2011 and 2013. The researchers told us Davis was likely right about the women losing their only health care, but they also said there’s no way to pin that. Medicaid-funded births We previously found True a claim that more than half the state’s births are paid for by Medicaid. For this story, we looked into whether Davis was correct about Medicaid-funded birth costs increasing more than $130 million in a year. Davis told us she drew that figure from a January 2013 report, ""Texas Women’s Healthcare in Crisis,"" by the coalition chaired by Realini. That report noted a state projection of 23,000 additional Medicaid births in 2014-15, according to HHSC’s request for legislative appropriations covering 2014-15. The report, drawing on the same state projection, went on: ""Budget cuts to DSHS Family Planning program will increase Medicaid costs by at least $136 million by 2015."" The HHSC’s appropriations request at the time said those costs were projected to total $33 million in the year through August 2013 and an additional $103 million in fiscal 2014-15. By phone, Davis conceded she was off by saying the $130 million would accrue in a year; it was over two years. Separately, Realini cautioned, when we asked, that the presented projections covered three years, not one. Also, she said, the coalition hadn’t done a follow-up report. Over seven weeks, we asked the commission how much Medicaid births have cost taxpayers for each of the past five years, but didn’t field a response to that. Separately, neither the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare in Washington, D.C., nor outside experts could immediately provide such detail. So, did the rate of Medicaid-funded births surge? We inquired into whether the projections played out. To our inquiry, Marquez emailed a chart stating that in 2011, the year the family planning cuts were approved, there were 215,114 Medicaid-funded births in Texas. The tally dropped to 204,322 the next year. Medicaid-funded births in Texas, FY 2011 - FY 2014 Year Medicaid-paid births 2011 215,114 2012 204,322 2013 207,058 2014 213,253 In 2014, after the cuts had taken effect, there were fewer--not more--Medicaid-funded births than in 2011, though the count had escalated in both 2013 and 2014. Our ruling Davis said that after the Texas cutoff of aid to women’s health services including Planned Parenthood clinics, ""over 150,000… women lost the only health care they had. Our Medicaid birth rate shot up. It cost taxpayers over $130 million in one year alone in extra Medicaid birth costs."" There was about that much of a drop-off in women participating in state-backed family planning and cancer screening programs. But Davis didn’t provide nor did we find confirmation all the women lost the only care they had or that Medicaid-funded birth costs actually spiked by the predicted $130 million-plus. In fact, there were fewer Medicaid-covered Texas births in 2014 than in 2011. The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. CORRECTION, 4:44 p.m., Dec. 2, 2015: We revised this fact check to correct our initial version's description of actions taken by the Legislature in 2011 to reduce family-planning aid that went to clinics connected to providing abortions. As a reader nudged, that version incorrectly said an action took place in 2013 when the move occurred in 2011. That story also was imprecise about the dollar costs of the actions. These changes did not affect our rating of Davis' claim."
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4950
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Walk-in clinics for opioid addiction offer meds first, fast.
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Every time she got out of jail, Jamie Cline started hustling again for heroin, driven by an addiction she didn’t understand.
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true
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Olympia, AP Top News, Opioids, St. Louis, General News, Health, Seattle, U.S. News
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“You want to get clean so bad. You know something’s killing you and you can’t stop,” said the 33-year-old who used heroin for 10 years. This spring was different. While in a jail work-release program, she took a medication called buprenorphine. It quieted a voice in her brain that told her to keep using. When she got out of jail, she headed for an Olympia clinic where a doctor is working to spread a philosophy called “medication first.” The surprising approach scraps requirements for counseling, abstinence or even a commitment to recovery. Instead, it starts with fast access to prescribed medicine that prevents withdrawal sickness. After patients start feeling better, they choose their next steps. In St. Louis, Seattle and San Francisco, people with opioid addictions can start medication on their first day of treatment. Early research suggests the approach can change lives. But it will be a tough sell elsewhere: Nearly two-thirds of U.S. treatment centers don’t offer anti-addiction drugs and there’s resistance to easy access. Within two weeks of walking into the Olympia clinic, Cline had a job at a millwork shop. Now, nine months later, she has received a promotion and a raise, rebuilt relationships, found a room in a sober house and is proud to display a chain of “Clean & Serene” key fobs she earned from Narcotics Anonymous. She takes buprenorphine twice daily. “I’ve got my life back,” she said. The opioid crisis now kills more Americans than car crashes and is estimated to cost more than $500 billion a year. The epidemic is driving new treatment strategies for the 2 million Americans addicted to opioids. Bupe, as it’s known, isn’t new. Approved to treat opioid addiction in 2002, it blocks the effect of other opioids and eases withdrawal. It’s an opioid, but an imperfect fit for the brain’s receptors, so its effect is mild and it doesn’t cause a high. It also lowers the danger of overdose and raises the likelihood a person will stay in treatment. But finding a prescriber without a waiting list is difficult. Guidelines say bupe should be used alongside counseling, which some doctors don’t feel equipped to provide. Success stories have convinced some experts that buprenorphine should be available in homeless camps, syringe exchanges and anywhere people use drugs. “This is an obvious thing to do,” said University of Washington researcher Caleb Banta-Green. STABILIZING INFLUENCE OR FALSE PROMISE? Martyn is a 57-year-old former heroin user who goes by one name. He was living in a Seattle homeless camp known as the Jungle, running errands for drug dealers. “Toward the end, you’re not trying to get high anymore,” he said. “You’re just trying to not be sick.” He got his first bupe prescription at Neighborcare Health, a free downtown clinic. Once stabilized, he found a spot in a sober home with help from a caseworker. “Now I’ve got a little room in a house I share with seven other guys.” On bupe, Martyn said, “I don’t get that high feeling. And that’s OK.” Critics worry medication-first clinics will add to the flood of opioids on the street. The tactic could also lead to a false understanding of addiction, said Atlanta-based counselor Samson Teklemariam, who directs training for NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals. “You’re promising the public a cure,” Teklemariam said. “There’s not a pill that you can take to alleviate symptoms of true addiction.” In Missouri, some treatment programs had shunned buprenorphine, particularly long-term, in favor of abstinence-based counseling and support groups. Some didn’t have doctors or nurses who could prescribe it. Some believed medications were a crutch that prevented true recovery. In 2017, with overdose deaths rising, Missouri tied federal grant money to a medication-first philosophy. Programs would get money only if they started clients on meds rapidly and if they dropped rules about medication time limits and attending counseling. The result? Medication treatment increased and more patients stayed in treatment longer, said Rachel Winograd of University of Missouri-St. Louis who studied the implementation. There’s pushback in Missouri from those who see the idea as at odds with “full and thriving recovery,” Winograd said. “The state is saying, we can do both.” MEASURING EFFECTIVENESS Research is beginning on the idea. In New York, 250 drug users will be enrolled at syringe exchanges. Some will be randomly assigned to get same-day bupe prescriptions and others will get standard care. “If the older treatment philosophies were working, we wouldn’t have the problems we’re having today,” said Dr. Aaron Fox, who is leading the study. In Washington state, health officials are encouraging jails and drug courts to embrace bupe. Many are changing their policies. Not everyone approves. In Skagit County, Prosecuting Attorney Rich Weyrich calls bupe “low-grade heroin.” He bristles at requirements tying drug court money to medication assisted treatment. “There are lots of things happening in the big cities that I don’t agree with,” Weyrich said. Sixty miles away in Seattle, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg has tried to convince other prosecutors of bupe’s value. His sister, Shelley, used heroin for years. In 2015, after starting treatment with bupe, she got clean. “I saw firsthand the difference it made in her life,” Satterberg said. “We became a family.” Years of drug use had worn down Shelley’s health. She died in March 2018 of an infection at age 51. Bupe should be “as easy to get as heroin,” Satterberg said. To those in law enforcement who worry about it trading on the street, he said: “At least they’re not buying fentanyl and supporting the Mexican cartels. At least they’re not going to overdose. And they might find out buprenorphine actually makes them feel better.” A pilot study in Seattle treated 147 patients in one year, most of them homeless. The program reached capacity within three months and kept people in treatment at rates similar to other programs. That drew financial support from a foundation, resulting in four new sites. They are expected to serve 1,250 patients over two years. To treat one patient for one year at the Olympia Bupe Clinic costs $3,000 in public money, said its medical director, Dr. Lucinda Grande. She said the money will prevent steeper hospital costs down the road. A ‘GODSEND’ On a recent evening, Grande spent more than three hours helping people start or maintain treatment with bupe. She met with patients in a cluster of donated furniture, a floral-pattern sofa and chairs. Two new patients wanted to start bupe for the first time. Former patient Jamie Cline proudly told Grande of recent accomplishments at her workplace. “You’re getting used to being successful,” Grande observed, smiling with encouragement. Later, pharmacist Brad Livingstone arrived. At the front desk, he opened a clear plastic bin with 14 pill bottles inside. He called out a name. Jon Combes, 36, of Lacey, Washington, stepped up to get his pills, a “godsend” that has helped him sleep. “They don’t care what your past is,” Combes said of the clinic’s staff. “They just want to get your future going.” Combes had been coming to the clinic for three weeks. He took home a 12-day supply of medication. That evening, 31 people picked up medications. Young men with tattoos and ballcaps. A middle-aged woman with stylish hair and smart clothes. A man in a wheelchair. A woman with a school-age child. Some nights there are as many as 45 picking up meds. Cline scrolled through her phone to find photos of herself when she was in the depths of heroin addiction. The pictures remind her of where she’s been, a time she does not want to forget. “I’m always going to be an addict,” she said. “I’ve got to be very careful where I step.” ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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15721
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Half of all Americans have less than $10,000 in their savings account.
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Bernie Sanders says half of Americans have less than $10,000 in their savings accounts
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true
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Families, Income, Pensions, Poverty, Wealth, Texas, Bernie Sanders,
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"U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, speaking in Austin, bemoaned widening income differences between the country’s very rich and the rest of us. And in his remarks at a South Austin union hall, the Vermont independent mulling a run for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination also warned about American failures to save money. ""Here’s something not talked about, something that can make us all very, very nervous,"" Sanders said. ""Half of all Americans have less than $10,000 in their savings account. ""And you know what that means and you know why people are so stressed out? If you have less than $10,000,"" he said, ""that means an automobile accident, a divorce, a serious illness, a crisis of one kind or another can drive you into bankruptcy and financial disaster."" Is he right that half of us have less than $10K in savings? Sanders’ backup To our inquiry, a Sanders spokesman, Jeff Franks, said by email that Sanders relied on an April 2014 USA Today news story quoting a survey indicating 52 percent of U.S. workers had said they had less than $10,000 in total savings and investments, such as a 401(k) or IRA, that could be used for retirement. It did not include their homes or defined benefit plans, such as traditional pensions that could be used for retirement Specifically, the story said, 36 percent of workers said they had less than $1,000 in such savings and investments with another 16 percent of workers reporting $1,000 to $9,999 in such savings and investments. Those results came from a telephone survey of 1,000 workers and 501 retirees by the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute and Greenwald and Associates. Next, we spotted a chart on the institute’s website drawn from the same 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey. The 52 percent of workers reporting less than $10,000 in savings and investments in 2014 is up from 39 percent in 2009, the chart shows. Of course, ""workers"" isn’t all of us. We called the Washington, D.C.-based institute, which says it was founded in 1978 to deliver unbiased information on employee benefit plans ""so that decisions affecting the system may be made based on verifiable facts."" By phone, researcher Craig Copeland told us that overall, 51 percent of survey respondents, meaning retirees and others, had less than $10,000 in financial savings. Also by phone, Ruth Helman of Greenwald and Associates, which helped do the survey, paused at the senator’s wording. ""Strictly speaking, ‘their savings account’ isn’t correct. It’s total savings wherever it may be, under the mattress or wherever,"" Helman said. Federal Reserve Bank We wondered if there were other ways of looking at savings. Several experts urged us to contact the Federal Reserve Bank, which conducts a survey focused on consumer finances every three years. Its latest survey, drawing on data collected in 2013, resulted in a chart pointed out by Copeland indicating that the median value of financial savings outside of a pension or home reported by the nearly 95 percent of families who had bank accounts or stocks, bonds and other financial assets that year was $21,200, down from $23,000 in the board’s 2010 survey."
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2850
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Doctors say pressure on ERs may rise, give U.S. failing grade.
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People seeking urgent medical could face longer wait times and other challenges as demand increases under Obamacare, U.S. emergency doctors said in a report on Thursday that gives the nation’s emergency infrastructure a near failing grade.
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true
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Health News
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In its latest “report card,” the American College of Emergency Physicians said such reduced access earned the nation a “D+” — that’s down from the overall “C-“ grade from the group’s last report in 2009. Shortages and reduced hospital capacity make it more difficult to access emergency care, the group said. It also warned about the impact on disaster preparedness. While the report does not measure the actual quality of care provided, it does offer a snapshot of national and state policies affecting emergency medicine as seen by providers. Washington, D.C., was ranked the highest in the report, earning a “B-“ grade, while Wyoming ranked last and was the only state to earn an overall failing grade of “F.” The group’s task force looked at scores of measure in five major categories — access to care, quality and patient safety, liability, injury prevention and disaster preparedness — and relied on data from the Centers for Disease Control and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, among others. The report comes just as the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, comes into full effect this year. The 2010 law aims to expand access to health insurance and reduce the nation’s healthcare costs, but it has become a political flashpoint amid a troubled rollout of the federal insurance exchange website. While the physician’s report does not factor in all of the effects of the law — its grades are based on data from early 2013 — emergency rooms could be used even more as more Americans gain insurance coverage under Obamacare, it said. Some health experts have predicted that increasing the number of insured patients should reduce pressure on hospital emergency rooms because access to regular doctor care will improve, something that is hoped would prevent chronic conditions from spiraling out of control or help catch other problems before they worsen. But insurance coverage could also lead those who might have held off going to the emergency room to seek care, said Jon Mark Hirshon, an emergency medicine doctor and researcher at the University of Maryland who oversaw the group’s report card. Newly insured people also may have a hard time finding a regular doctor who accepts their plan, he said. “On top of that, emergency departments are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If I have a primary care provider but it’s 9 o’clock at night on a Friday and they’re closed, then people come to the emergency department,” Hirshon told Reuters. The group is asking for congressional hearings to probe whether the law puts “additional strains” on emergency rooms. Already, beds for patients have fallen from a rate of 358 per 100,000 people four years ago to about 330 beds per 100,000 people now, the report said. Wait times have increased to a median of 4.5 hours compared to four hours in 2009. Despite the dismal U.S. grade given by the group, it noted that policies and infrastructure varied widely by state. States with the best emergency care include Massachusetts, Maine, Nebraska and Colorado, while Kentucky, Montana, New Mexico and Arizona rounded out the bottom, just above Wyoming. States are also still grappling with the uninsured. By law, hospitals must provide emergency care regardless of patients’ ability to pay. Under Obamacare, states can expand access to Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance plan for the poor. Data shows that Medicaid patients use emergency rooms as much as other insured patients, but several recent studies have shown that Medicaid patients utilize them more than the uninsured. One study this month showed Oregon patients given Medicaid through a lottery increased their emergency room use by 40 percent compared to those not offered Medicaid. “We have to be leaner and more efficient, but it just becomes more and more challenging,” Hirshon said.
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9108
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New study shows supplementation of capsicum extract helps increase metabolic rate
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This news release suggests that supplementing the diet with capsaicinoids, the heat producing chemicals in hot peppers, increases metabolism and therefore weight loss. But it relies too heavily on extrapolation to make the claim that capsaicinoids cause weight and fat loss. The release summarizes a small, short-term study of 40 participants that was published in Obesity: Open Access. The release would have been improved had it addressed harms of heavy supplementation and acknowledged the conflicts of interest among researchers involved in the study. Obesity is a health concern around the world. A wide variety of behavioral, drug and other interventions have been introduced but weight loss and weight management remain a difficult challenge for many. A simple supplement that would help people control their weight would be newsworthy — if its usefulness were borne out in larger and longer studies.
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false
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hot peppers,OmniActive Health Technologies,weight loss
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The cost of Capsimax (or products containing the Capsimax proprietary supplement) is not mentioned. The release claims that the supplement would increase a person’s metabolic rate which would be equivalent to burning an additional 116 calories a day. The release further suggests that this could translate into 1 pound of fat loss monthly. But it’s important to note that as weight is lost, the metabolic rate decreases. What starts as 1 pound per month, regardless of the method used to lose weight, the metabolic rate would decrease with time and not remain linear. That should have been noted in the release. More importantly, perhaps, the study lasted just two weeks. Participants received the active ingredient for one week and then crossed over to placebo. That’s a very brief period of time from which to draw conclusions about benefit. The release says that multiple studies have shown the supplement is safe, however, the safety hasn’t been evaluated or demonstrated in this or other research we could find. A search of PubMed found only three studies involving capsicum supplementation. All were short-term and none were designed to look at safety. WebMD says that taking capsicum supplements is generally safe for adults if taken for a brief period of time. However, taking large doses for a long period of time can lead to serious harms including liver or kidney damage. The release relies heavily on extrapolation when it claims taking the capsicum extract will burn the equivalent of “an extra 116 calories per day.” The study didn’t look at a full day’s resting energy expenditure (REE), but rather extrapolated from REE measured at 1, 2 and 3 hours post intervention. There’s no evidence provided that consuming capsicum extract would impact a person’s REE for a full day. There is no disease mongering. The release doesn’t list any funding sources or potential conflicts of interest. The study states that researchers have no conflict of interest but then provides conflicting information suggesting that’s not true. The study also notes that one of the researchers involved with the study is an employee of the supplement manufacturer and another holds a patent for the device used to measure metabolic changes and also received funding from the supplement manufacturer. Those are two clear examples of conflicts of interest that should have been mentioned in the release. The release doesn’t mention any alternatives (such as exercise, medications, diet or other supplements) or offer any comparisons with other methods of speeding up metabolism to effect weight loss. The loss of 1 pound per month is readily achievable through other interventions, including those that are free and don’t involve taking supplements that do not have proven safety and efficacy profiles. The release doesn’t offer any advice to readers about where to acquire Capsimax — just that it’s available in “hundreds” of products. An online search for “Capsimax” turns up numerous products containing the extract but can people shopping for supplements online be assured of purity of ingredients and accuracy of dosing? The release could have done a lot better job by directly people to reputable sources of the supplement. The release doesn’t claim that the compounds in hot peppers are a novel approach to weight control nor does it suggest that capsacian’s ability to increase metabolism is a new concept. The release doesn’t establish what is new about the findings. The release doesn’t rely on sensational or unjustified language.
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33188
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A 2007 Harvard University study proved that areas with higher rates of gun ownership have lower crime rates.
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What's true: Gun rights advocates Gary Mauser and Don Kates jointly authored a 2007 paper in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy arguing that higher rates of gun ownership correlated with lower crime rates. What's false: The paper in question was not peer-reviewed, it didn't constitute a study, and it misrepresented separate research to draw shaky, unsupported conclusions.
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false
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Politics Guns, don kates, gary mauser, harvard gun study
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Following the Umpqua Community College shooting in October 2015, an undated article on the web site BeliefNet titled “Harvard University Study Reveals Astonishing Link Between Firearms, Crime and Gun Control” attracted significant traction on social media. The article (split up across six pages) didn’t lead with the name of the study it referenced, and without ever once linking to the document on which it was based, it maintained: According to a study in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, which cites the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the United Nations International Study on Firearms Regulation, the more guns a nation has, the less criminal activity. In other words, more firearms, less crime, concludes the virtually unpublicized research report by attorney Don B. Kates and Dr. Gary Mauser. But the key is firearms in the hands of private citizens. “The study was overlooked when it first came out in 2007,” writes Michael Snyder, “but it was recently re-discovered and while the findings may not surprise some, the place where the study was undertaken is a bit surprising. The study came from the Harvard Journal of Law, that bastion of extreme, Ivy League liberalism. Titled Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?, the report “found some surprising things.” While identifying details were curiously absent on the five pages that followed, it was clear the “study” in question was an item titled “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?” originally published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (Volume 30, Number 2) [PDF]. Of primary importance is the subsequent, widely misapplied label of the word “study” with reference to the 2007 item in question. The Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy describes itself as “one of the most widely circulated student-edited law reviews and the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.” Papers published in that journal are (while perhaps competitively sourced) in no way equivalent to peer-reviewed research published in a credible science-related journals as “studies.” Use of the term “study” to refer that 2007 article dishonestly suggested that the assertions made by its authors were gathered and vetted under more rigorous study conditions, which didn’t appear to be the case. The paper was credited to authors Don B. Kates and Gary Mauser. A profile for Kates (a gun rights enthusiast [PDF]) describes him as “[one of the] foremost litigators, criminologists and scholars on the Second Amendment and the fundamental right to self-defense and the individual right to keep and bear arms in the country.” Kates was prominently featured in a March 2013 Washington Post article about gun lobby efforts to infiltrate law review publications, and Mauser’s web site biography reads: His interest in firearms and “gun control” grew out of his research in political marketing. He has published two books, Political Marketing, and Manipulating Public Opinion and more than 20 articles. For the past 15 years, Professor Mauser has conducted research on the politics of gun control, the effectiveness of gun control laws, and the use of firearms in self defense. In a document dated June 2009 [PDF], Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center Dr. David Hemenway addressed the 2007 article’s flaws in correlating higher rates of gun ownership with lower crime rates thusly: The article appears in a publication, described as a “student law review for conservative and libertarian legal scholarship.” It does not appear to be a peer-reviewed journal, or one that is searching for truth as opposed to presenting a certain world view. The paper itself is not a scientific article, but a polemic, making the claim that gun availability does not affect homicide or suicide. It does this by ignoring most of the scientific literature, and by making too many incorrect and illogical claims. Incidentally, Hemenway is named as a researcher on a 2007 Social Science and Medicine study titled “State-Level Homicide Victimization Rates in the US in Relation to Survey Measures of Household Firearm Ownership, 2001–2003.” That research (carried out by researchers at the Harvard Injury Control Research Center) found: Analyses that controlled for several measures of resource deprivation, urbanization, aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, and alcohol consumption found that states with higher rates of household firearm ownership had significantly higher homicide victimization rates for children, and for women and men. In these analyses, states within the highest quartile of firearm prevalence had firearm homicide rates 114% higher than states within the lowest quartile of firearm prevalence. Overall homicide rates were 60% higher. The association between firearm prevalence and homicide was driven by gun-related homicide rates; non-gun-related homicide rates were not significantly associated with rates of firearm ownership. Hemenway’s 2009 writing pointed to weak points in the 2007 paper, such as a highly misleading excerpt that misrepresented two then-recent public health and policy studies. Immediately following a citation of Kates’ own prior work (his 1979 book Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out), the authors posited that two large government-backed studies had failed to conclude gun control measures affected crime rates: In this connection, two recent studies are pertinent. In 2004, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences released its evaluation from a review of 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some original empirical research. It failed to identify any gun control that had reduced violent crime, suicide, or gun accidents. The same conclusion was reached in 2003 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s review of then-extant studies.1 The first referenced item, Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review (2004), pointed to a lack of sufficient data with respect to gun policy (not a failure to conclude that gun control reduced crime): In summary, the committee concludes that existing research studies and data include a wealth of descriptive information on homicide, suicide, and firearms, but, because of the limitations of existing data and methods, do not credibly demonstrate a causal relationship between the ownership of firearms and the causes or prevention of criminal violence or suicide. The issue of substitution (of the means of committing homicide or suicide) has been almost entirely ignored in the literature. What sort of data and what sort of studies and improved models would be needed in order to advance understanding of the association between firearms and suicide? Although some knowledge may be gained from further ecological studies, the most important priority appears to the committee to be individual-level studies of the association between gun ownership and violence. Currently, no national surveys on ownership designed to examine the relationship exist. The committee recommends support of further individual-level studies of the link between firearms and both lethal and nonlethal suicidal behavior. Similarly, the actual wording of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)’s cited report more explicitly conflicted with the authors’ assertions that a conclusion had been drawn: The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes. (Note that insufficient evidence to determine effectiveness should not be interpreted as evidence of ineffectiveness.) This report briefly describes how the reviews were conducted, summarizes the Task Force findings, and provides information regarding needs for future research. In short, the purported 2007 Harvard “study” with “astonishing” findings was in fact a polemic paper penned by two well-known gun rights activists. Its findings were neither peer-reviewed nor subject to academic scrutiny of any sort prior to its appearance, and the publication that carried it was a self-identified ideology-based editorial outlet edited by Harvard students. The paper disingenuously misrepresented extant research to draw its conclusions, and researchers at Harvard (among which Kates and Mauser were not included) later objected to the paper’s being framed as a “study” from Harvard (rather than a law review paper). The paper wasn’t “virtually unpublicized research” (as BeliefNet claimed); rather, it was simply not deemed noteworthy at the time it was published due to the fact it was neither a study nor much more than a jointly-written editorial piece representing its authors’ unsupported opinions.
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11449
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A No-Cringe Fix? Filling Cavities Without The Drill
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The headline proclaims that the featured dental sealant means “Filling Cavities Without the Drill.” But the product is not actually approved to fill cavities, as the manufacturer’s web site puts it, the sealant “cannot be used in cases of advanced decay” and it “is not the same as a traditional filling.” The body of the story points out that the product is used on pits that are too small to be filled, in hopes of preventing further development, but readers are likely to be misled by the headline and lead paragraphs. The story also calls the product new, but in its application for FDA approval the manufacturer said the sealant is “substantially equivalent” to other sealants that have been available for more than a decade. Reference: http://www.drilling-no-thanks.com/us/patient_faq.html News stories should avoid confusing minor conditions with more serious ones. In this case, the story touts an alternative to drilling and filling cavities, but the featured product (like fluoride, brushing, flossing and cutting back on sugary soda) is actually intended to reduce the risk of a cavity developing.
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false
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Oddly, while the story says this product is cheaper than drilling and filling a cavity… and it includes a comment from an expert saying this product is more expensive than other approaches to preventing cavities, it does not say how much this product costs. The story headline promises “Filling Cavities Without the Drill.” However, the featured product is not approved for filling cavities. It is a sealant that is intended to prevent the potential development of cavities. As the manufacturer stated in its applications to the FDA:“Product Indications for Use:The Sealant (Infiltrant) is indicated for:* Sealing of Pit and Fissures*Sealing/facing of damaged enamel surfaces* Covering of caries predilection sites during orthodontic treatment* Sealing of secondary teeth* Sealing of deciduous teeth” “Sealing of damaged enamel surfaces and exposed dentin surfaces of teeth to prevent caries and Protective coating for tooth surfaces predisposed to caries or on early non-cavitated lesions (including use in tooth brush abrasion and root surfaces).” (Quotes from FDA 510k summaries listed above.)
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27175
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A woman who rinsed her nasal passages using a neti pot filled with tap water contracted a fatal “brain-eating” amoeba infection.
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While most Balamuthia GAE cases end in death, people have survived this kind of infection. “Several patients” have recovered after treatment with a combination of powerful antimicrobial drugs, according to the 2013 review. This was the second reported case of a Balamuthia infection in Seattle, according to the Times — the first case was reported in 2013, and that patient survived.
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true
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Medical
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On 5 December 2018, the Seattle Times published an article whose terrifying headline ensured its own virality: “Rare brain-eating amoebas killed Seattle woman who rinsed her sinuses with tap water. Doctor warns this could happen again.” Sadly for those who visited this page hoping to find that the reporting was exaggerated or made-up, this really happened. Though her anonymity was maintained, the story of a 69-year-old Seattle woman who used tap water in her Neti pot for over a year and then died from a Balamuthia mandrillaris brain infection was documented in a 20 September 2018 case study published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases: We report the case of a 69-year-old female who presented with a chronic nasal skin rash, new onset focal seizure, and a cerebral ring-enhancing lesion after a year of improper nasal irrigation. Despite aggressive and novel anti-amoebic treatment, she died as a result of a Balamuthia mandrillaris brain infection. One year before developing the brain infection, the authors reported, the woman developed a chronic sinus infection whose symptoms were not relieved by medication. She turned to using a Neti pot to rinse her sinuses, but instead of using sterile or saline water as directed, she used tap water filtered with a Brita system. After a month of this practice, and without any relief of her sinus symptoms, “she developed a quarter-sized, red raised rash on the right side of the bridge of her nose and raw red skin at the nasal opening.” Though several misdiagnoses followed, no doctor correctly recognized the rash as a symptom of an amoebic infection. The report stated that a year after that initial rash developed, the woman developed a seizure that required hospitalization. At that time, the doctors identified a lesion on the right side of the brain which they decided to biopsy. Some 19 days later, after a continued decline in the patient’s health, scientists from Johns Hopkins University suggested the possibility that the cause of her malady was an amoebic infection, and the Centers for Disease Control rushed a novel drug for her treatment. Unfortunately, they were unable to halt the progression of the disease, and the patient’s family made the decision to remove her from life support. An autopsy determined the cause of death to be Granulomatous Amebic Encephalitis (GAE), which the CDC defines as “a serious infection of the brain and spinal cord that typically occurs in persons with a compromised immune system.” In this case, the causative agent was an extremely rare amoeba named Balamuthia mandrillaris, one of three forms of amoeba known to be capable of infecting and consuming the human brain. Amoebas are a broad group of taxonomically mixed unicellular organisms that consume surrounding cellular material through absorption, and that express an ability to take on a variety of shapes. Several different species are associated with disease, most notably Naegleria fowleri, commonly known as the “brain-eating amoeba” that can cause a different kind of brain infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM). Balamuthia mandrillaris was discovered in 1986 in the brain of a mandrill monkey during an autopsy at the San Diego Zoo and is now recognized to be a cause of GAE in both humans, several primates, and other animals, with an estimated 200 cases of human infection ever documented. The amoebae are ubiquitous in soil and groundwater although their presence is not expected in city-treated water, according to Liz Coleman, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Public Health division of Washington State’s Department of Health, quoted in the Seattle Times’ reporting. Merely ingesting the thing will not lead to health problems, but in rare cases (usually instances involving people with weakened immune systems, or those who are young or old), the organisms can infect a host through skin breakage or via the respiratory system. If they infect the central nervous system, they “ingest bits and pieces of host tissue [and produce] enzymes that degrade the tissue.” Nasal irrigation involves rinsing one’s sinus cavity with distilled or sterile water (or water that has been filtered to remove potentially infectious organisms), and one such method of water delivery is a Neti pot. The need for sterility is explicitly stated due to the (extremely small) risk posed by another amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, and it is the reason the FDA requires (in the absence of sterile water) a specific kind of filter capable of removing the amoeba and similarly-sized organisms from water before it is pushed through fragile sinus tissue. While the authors of this case report could not state with absolute certainty that the Neti pot was to blame, it is far and away the most likely explanation given the fact that the patient had been rinsing her sinuses with tap water regularly for an extended period of time: While it is recommended that only sterile water or saline be used … the patient used tap water that was filtered with a Brita Water Purifier … Improper nasal irrigation has been reported as a method of infection for the comparably insidious amoeba, N. fowleri. This precedent led us to suspect the same route of entry for the Balamuthia amoeba in our case. Although this hypothesis is consistent with the patient’s history and ultimate diagnosis, the water supply to the patient’s home was not tested, hence our ability to definitively trace the patient’s infection to improper nasal lavage is limited. Other routes of exposure are possible, according to a 2013 review of amoebic infections: Epidemiology of Balamuthia GAE is not well understood. However, based on several case reports it can be hypothesized that gardening, playing with dirt, or exposure to dust while motorcycling may play significant roles in the acquisition of Balamuthia infection. It has been shown that Balamuthia is found in the soil and dust in air and the route of infection is probably via inhalation of Balamuthia either present in soil or carried by the wind or the amebae entering the body through a cut or puncture. Once it gains entry into the body it is likely to spread hematogenously to the brain. Additionally, there is some indication that water may serve as a vehicle for acquiring the infection. Although the water used in the Neti pot likely caused this infection, Dr. Cynthia Maree, a co-author of the report and a member of the team that treated the woman in question, told the Seattle Times that “the risk of infection to the brain is extremely low,” adding that “people who use neti pots or other nasal-irrigation devices can nearly eliminate [that risk] by following directions printed on the devices, including using only saline or sterilized water.”
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3479
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Best Buy sees growth in health care technology for elderly.
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The nation’s largest consumer electronics chain, known for selling TV sets, cellphones and laptops, is looking to health care as a big source of its future growth.
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true
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Seniors, Health care industry, Health, General News, Consumer electronics, Business
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Best Buy Co. said Wednesday that in five years it hopes to provide 5 million seniors with health monitoring services, which can range from sensors placed throughout a home to a pendant worn around the neck. It currently provides the service to 1 million. It’s part of the chain’s deeper push into the $3.5 trillion U.S. health care market and essential to its goal of reaching $50 billion in annual revenue by 2025. The Minneapolis-based chain is tapping into an aging U.S. population, noting that two out of three seniors live with two or more chronic conditions and many want to stay at home. Best Buy is also looking to dig deeper into health care at a time when it, like other retailers, face uncertainty regarding an escalating trade war with China. Some of its core businesses, like TVs and phones sales, have been sluggish, although it says the consumer electronics business is stable. The strategy comes as Best Buy has succeeded in holding off increasing competition from Amazon and other players by speeding up deliveries and adding more services to deepen its relationship with customers. “This is an environment driven by constant innovation and people who need help with technology,” CEO Corie Barry said at an investor conference Wednesday where executives unveiled a five-year growth plan. Best Buy has been on buying spree of its own to boost the health care business. In May, it acquired Critical Signal Technologies, a provider of personal emergency response systems and telehealth monitoring services for at-home seniors. In August, it acquired the predictive health care technology business of BioSensics, including the hiring of the company’s data science and engineering team. Last year, it bought GreatCall, which provides emergency response devices for the aging. It also hired its own chief medical officer to push those efforts: Daniel Grossman, a physician, will report to Asheesh Saksena, head of Best Buy Health. Insurers have been paying more for remote monitoring technology to help track issues like chronic conditions and keep patients healthy and out of hospitals. That technology can include special wireless scales to monitor patients with congestive heart failure. Saksena told investors that pendants using certain algorithms can track how a senior is walking and predict the risk of falling. He also noted that sensors on refrigerators detect how often it’s being used. That can trigger a call by GreatCall agent to see whether that person has been eating. ___ AP Health Writer Tom Murphy in Indianapolis contributed to this report. ___ Follow Anne D’Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio
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1559
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Moonlight sonata: fish's nocturnal 'singing' secrets revealed.
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In one of the marvels of nature, males of a fish species called the plainfin midshipman that dwells in Pacific coastal waters from Alaska to Baja California court females during breeding season using a nocturnal “love song” with an otherworldly sound.
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true
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Science News
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Scientists have wondered what makes these fish sing only at night. A study published on Thursday provides the answer. Laboratory experiments showed that the fish’s vocalization, a low-frequency hum like a foghorn, is controlled by a light-driven internal clock and the hormone melatonin, known to govern sleep and wake cycles, researchers said. “They are among the vocal champions of the marine environment along with whales and dolphins,” said Cornell University professor of neurobiology and behavior Andrew Bass. “The production and hearing of vocal signals plays a central role in their social interactions and reproductive behavior.” The plainfin midshipman, up to 15 inches (38 cm) long, generally has an olive-brown color. Its name comes from rows of bioluminescent organs on its underside that reminded early observers of the buttons on a midshipman’s uniform. Males migrate during the late spring and summer from deep offshore sites into shallow intertidal waters, where they build nests beneath rocky shelters. Throughout the night, they produce hums by vibrating a gas-filled bladder within their abdomen to attract females to their nests to spawn. One hum can last almost two hours. Neighboring males often hum together in a chorus. Ni Feng, who led the study in Bass’ lab at Cornell and now is a Yale University postdoctoral researcher, said the study, published in the journal Current Biology, involved wild-caught fish kept in rooms where lighting could be controlled. In constant darkness, the fish hummed pretty much on schedule, thanks to their internal clock, or circadian rhythm. In constant brightness, a condition that lowers melatonin production, humming was suppressed. When kept in constant light but given a melatonin-like substitute, they continued to hum, though at random times of the day. Melatonin keeps day-active birds quiet at night and helps humans fall asleep but has the reverse effect in the midshipman fish. People have not always known what to make of the midshipman’s humming. “In the early 1980s, a mysterious sound caused concern for houseboat residents of Sausalito Bay, California, who suspected the source might be the pumps of a nearby sewage plant, an underwater power line, some secret experiment by the Navy or maybe even extraterrestrials,” Bass said. “It turned out their houseboats were merely resonating with the ‘love songs’ of male midshipman fish.”
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26064
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COVID-19 cases are “up only because of our big number testing.”
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If increased testing were the only reason for a surge in new cases, the percentage of positive tests should be dropping or at least remaining about the same. That pattern did occur from early April to early June, a period when the availability of testing expanded significantly. However, that’s no longer the case. Since early June, the amount of testing being conducted has continued to reach new highs, yet the positivity rate has risen by a full percentage point.
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false
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Public Health, Coronavirus, Donald Trump,
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"President Donald Trump’s explanation for rising counts of U.S. coronavirus cases is that we’re testing more people for the virus. 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 We’ll look at his statement on mortality in a separate fact-check. In this article we’ll focus on his mistaken connection between increased testing and increased cases. While the number of coronavirus tests being conducted is rising over time, the positivity rate — which is the percentage of tests that come up positive for the virus — has also been rising since early June. And that undermines Trump’s argument. The following chart shows that the number of tests across the country has risen steadily since late March. The orange line shows how the positivity rate has changed over time. Initially, the rise in tests did show the pattern Trump touted: As more tests were conducted, the percentage of positive results declined. After peaking above 20% positive in early April, the positivity rate fell to about 4% in early June. A likely reason for this pattern is that early in the pandemic, tests were scarce and were reserved for people who showed visible symptoms. As testing kits became more widely accessible for people without obvious symptoms, a wider cross-section of the population was tested, with a resulting decline in tests showing the patient was infected. The problem for Trump’s assertion is that the decline in the positive rate reversed itself in early June. The positivity rate bottomed out around June 10 at about 4.3%. By June 22, it had risen to about 5.3%. That may not sound like a big increase, but if more infections are being tallied simply because more tests are being given, as Trump suggested, the positivity rate should be going down, or at least staying about the same, not rising. ""The up-turn in positive rate is sufficient to debunk"" what Trump said about testing, ""particularly given that the total number tests conducted is at its highest yet, and still we see an increase in the seven-day rolling positive rate,"" said Brooke Nichols, an infectious disease modeler at the Boston University School of Public Health. The rise in the positivity rate appears to be driven by a handful of states. Early coronavirus hot spots, notably New York, have seen a decline in new infections despite widespread testing. But other states are seeing both an increase in infections and an increase in the percentage of positive tests. In Arizona, Florida, South Carolina, and Texas, the positivity rate has increased consistently since late May. The White House told PolitiFact that anecdotally, the increased testing has uncovered a growing number of people who are asymptomatic or who have mild or moderate cases than earlier in the pandemic, when tests were hard to get. However, an increase in the number of infections also means the potential for accelerated spread. Trump said that the coronavirus case count is ""up only because of our big number testing."" Testing has increased nationally, but epidemiologists say that if this were the only reason that new cases were rising, the percentage of positive tests should be dropping or at least remaining about the same. That pattern did occur from early April to early June, a period when the availability of testing expanded significantly. However, that’s no longer the case. Since early June, the amount of testing being conducted has continued to reach new highs, yet the positivity rate has risen by a full percentage point."
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10565
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Unlocking Puzzles Inside The Brain: ADHD
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"Brain imaging for neurological disorders is an exciting, fast-moving and very promising area of research. This segment (and a companion piece aired the day before on autism) reports on clinical application of MRIs and EEGs by a well qualified neurologist. Dr. Fernando Miranda’s clinical work puts him at the forefront of treatment for ADHD and other neurological conditions. But his work is also in some ways ahead of the research, which is inconclusive and still in early stages. He also operates a clinic that sells this service, creating a conflict of interest. The segment’s serious flaw is its failure to put Dr. Miranda’s work in the context of the research, which has been done for over a decade, funded by government agencies and published in top medical journals. The segment dwells on anecdotes suggesting benefit without really exploring the underlying questions: Does the science justify the treatment Miranda giving? What are his results aside from the anecdotal? What have other researchers and clinicians–those who do not operate for-profit clinics offering the service–found when using similar techniques? What are the objections of well-informed dissenters? The use of a single brief quote ""for"" and one ""against"" doesn’t illuminate any of the underlying issues. Having said all that, the report is commendable in two ways: The reporter is careful, especially at the end, not to oversell the diagnostic approach, calling it one additional technique that can help with ADHD or other disorder diagnosis. The network provides a more detailed written version of this report on its web site–a broadcast journalism best practice. The question that dogs this piece is why the producers would choose to ignore all the important research being done in the field. One fears it’s to make the story appear more edgy, more of a breakthough, more of an exclusive. If so, it does not serve viewers well."
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false
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The segment does not report the costs of the diagnostic procedures or recommended treatments. It also does not report whether these costs are usually covered by insurance. The segment does not make an attempt to quantify the benefits of diagnosis or subsequent treatment. It provides only anecdotes illustrating benefit. The segment does not discuss the potential harms of a misdiagnosis using the new technique, or of providing inappropriate treatment based on the diagnosis. It does not mention the harm of potentially wasted money. It also does not mention the vulnerability of children with renal conditions getting contrast MRIs. Although there is considerable ongoing research into brain activity/structure and ADHD (and other neurological disorders), the segment does not refer to it. The only evidence cited is anecdotal. The story does not exaggerate the symptoms or severity of ADHD, language processing or similar neurological disorders. The segment does a good job giving the number of children affected and converting that number to per average classroom. The segment draws on the practitioner, two independent neurologists (one for and one against), and two parent/guardians and their children. No research is drawn on. The segment fails to acknowledge Miranda’s conflict of interest: As operator of a clinic that sells this form of diagnosis and treatment, he is conflcted in a way that the report should have acknowledged. The segment does not sketch the usual treatments for ADHD and learning disorders or provide information about their effectiveness. It also fails to mention alternative approaches for diagnosing ADHD. What are current best practices? What should a parent expect? While the MRIs and EEGs used to diagnose children who may have ADHD are widely available, the segment does not make clear how many providers are trained to use it. A parent would not know where to find a clinician other than Dr. Miranda. The segment makes clear that brain imaging and quantitative EEG are not often used in a clincial setting to diagnose ADHD. There appears to be no press release associated with this broadcast.
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25761
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Susan Collins Says Sara Gideon’s husband’s law firm “took up to $2 million” from the same federal program she “falsely” attacked Susan Collins over.
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Susan Collins, the Republican incumbent in Maine, faces Democrat Sara Gideon in the Nov. 3 election, which could help determine whether Republicans keep control of the Senate. The law firm that employs Gideon’s husband received a Paycheck Protection Program loan of between $1 million and $2 million. Gideon attacked Collins over the PPP; some of her points were accurate. Collins did write an exception in the law for hotels after receiving campaign donations from hotel political action committees.
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mixture
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Campaign Finance, Federal Budget, Coronavirus, Susan Collins,
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"Susan Collins, viewed as among the most vulnerable U.S. senators up for reelection Nov. 3, says her opponent is guilty of hypocrisy in connection with the federal Payment Protection Program response to COVID-19. The Maine Repubican’s challenger is Democrat Sara Gideon. Gideon’s husband’s law firm ""took up to $2 million"" from the Paycheck Protection Program, a Collins ad claims, the same program she ""falsely"" attacked Collins over. ""That’s hypocrisy,"" the narrator says after making the two-part claim in the ad. It’s similar to a Republican-on-Democrat attack we fact-checked in another key Senate race, in Arizona. In this case, the $2 million part is correct, but the ""falsely attacked"" part is not. Collins has been a senator since 1997. Gideon has served in Maine’s state House since 2013 and as its speaker since 2016. Many news accounts say the race is one that could determine whether Republicans keep a majority in the Senate, where they now control 53 seats. With polls showing a tight contest — the Cook Political Report has rated the race a tossup — federal aid programs for businesses have become a focal point of attacks on both sides. Congress created the Paycheck Protection Program to help small businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic avoid layoffs. The program was established by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, signed into law in March by President Donald Trump. The law provides for up to $659 billion in loans for businesses so they can pay their employees and cover certain other expenses, such as rent and utilities. The loans are forgiven if businesses meet specified terms. While the federal government created and administers the program, banks, credit unions and other lending institutions handle the loan applications and disbursement of funds. Collins’ ad launched on Facebook on Aug. 1. According to Facebook, it has been viewed 175,000 to 200,000 times. Wayne Parry, who is identified as a Maine lobsterman in the ad, appears in and narrates the 30-second piece. As has been reported, Parry also served four terms as Republican state representative, backed by campaign donations from a Collins political action committee, and is currently running for his old seat. The ad’s first claim is about a PPP loan of ""up to $2 million"" to the law firm of Gideon’s husband, personal-injury attorney Benjamin Gideon. Berman & Simmons, a Lewiston law firm where Benjamin Gideon is a partner, received a PPP loan of between $1 million and $2 million, according to data from the Small Business Administration. The loan came from a Lewiston bank. The firm did not reply to our request for the exact amount of the loan it received. Gideon campaign spokeswoman Maeve Coyle said Benjamin Gideon is one of 11 partners at the firm and was not involved in seeking the PPP money. She said 43 of the firm’s 61 employees are not attorneys, and that nearly all Maine law firms took PPP loans because the pandemic closed courts. Most large Maine law firms sought PPP aid, the Associated Press reported. Collins’ ad says Gideon’s criticisms have included a false attack on Collins over the program. It cites a June 15 article by the Washington Post Fact Checker that called a Gideon attack ad ""highly misleading."" Still, there are some facts behind Gideon’s attack that are literally accurate, as new reporting from ProPublica shows. The Gideon ad claimed: ""As coronavirus spread, Susan Collins took $12,000 from the corporate hotel industry. Then Collins wrote a special loophole into her bill allowing large, out-of-state hotels to get millions — while only one in 10 Maine small businesses were getting the help they needed."" We found that Collins collected a total of $12,500 in donations in February from hotel industry political actions. Her campaign committee received $2,500 from the International Franchise Association; $2,500 from Hilton Worldwide; and $2,500 from American Lodging and Hotel. And the American Lodging and Hotel PAC gave $5,000 to Collins’ leadership PAC. As for the timing, by mid-February, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed 15 coronavirus cases in the United States. Collins and other senators began drafting the PPP bill in early March, said her campaign spokesman, Kevin Kelley. Collins was a key drafter of the PPP, which targeted aid to businesses with 500 or fewer employees. She did respond to lobbying from the hotel industry. As reported Aug. 6 by ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit newsroom, Collins’ office said it had been contacted during the drafting process by the International Franchise Association and the American Hotel and Lodging Association, among other business interests, and ultimately an exception was written in the legislation for restaurant and hotel chains. Collins took credit for the exception, which allowed those companies to apply with up to 500 employees per location, even if they were much bigger overall. At least 59 large hotel companies were approved for more than 600 forgivable government loans totaling up to $1 billion despite having more than 500 employees overall, according to ProPublica. In an opinion article she authored, Collins called ProPublica ""a left-wing outlet that is financed by Democratic billionaires."" She defended the exception, saying it made a franchise hotel owner eligible ""as intended to help keep the business afloat and its workers employed,"" but that a large corporate chain such as Hilton ""is prohibited from receiving a PPP loan for its corporate headquarters or any hotels that it owns and operates directly."" On Gideon’s claim that at the time, only one in 10 small businesses in Maine got the forgivable PPP loans, the Bangor Daily News reported that statistic as of mid-April, saying 16,000 Maine small businesses had received aid. That was at a point when the first batch of PPP funds had been exhausted. Federal figures show that as of Aug. 8, more than 28,000 PPP loans were made in Maine. So, Gideon’s number was from initial reports that later increased. Overall, we found Gideon’s attack on Collins to be a mixture of exaggeration and accuracy. Collins claimed that Gideon’s husband’s law firm ""took up to $2 million"" from the same federal program she ""falsely"" attacked Susan Collins over. The law firm where Gideon’s husband is a partner did take a loan through the federal Payment Protection Program program that could be as large as $2 million. With fewer than 500 employees, the firm qualifies as a small business under the program’s guidelines. But Gideon’s attack on Collins is largely accurate. As Gideon claimed in an ad, after Collins received campaign contributions from the hotel industry, she wrote an exception in the PPP law that, according to a ProPublica investigation, enabled at least 59 large hotel companies to be approved for more than 600 forgivable government loans totaling up to $1 billion."
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11302
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Cutting chronic pain without pills
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"This broadcast news segment reports on transdermal direct current stimulation (TDCS) as a potential treatment for chronic pain. It makes clear that the trials are continuing and that the possibly encouraging results are preliminary. It also acknowledges that the mechanism by which pain relief occurs remains unknown. The report does two things particularly well: It places this treatment in the context of other clinical approaches to chronic pain; and it provides some interesting, even amusing history. The story falls short in one significant way. It should have included an interview with an independent expert to provide context. The effect of the piece is to imply universal enthusiasm, and that’s unlikely to be the case. As a side note, it’s worth pointing out that some people who left comments on the CBS website about this story had questions about where they can get the treatment. This is a useful reminder that a report about a experimental approach not yet available should be absolutely clear that the approach is not yet on the market. Those viewers who wrote into the CBS site may have been swayed by language used in the story like ""hope…breakthrough…promising"" – three of our seven suggested ""words you shouldn’t use in medical news."" Only a suggestion – but it is sick people who gave us those suggestions and we weigh their suggestions carefully."
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mixture
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"The reporter says ""That’s the hope…whatever the cost."" No cost was discussed. Granted, this is early research on an experimental approach. But it was given network news time. Our rule of thumb is: if it’s not too early to project possible benefits, it’s not too early to project possible costs. If the story can use words like ""breakthrough, promising, hope"" to describe this very early research and project those words onto an unsubstantiated potential market of 1 in 4 Americans suffering from chronic pain or 1 in 10 having it for over a year, then we suggest it’s time to talk costs. The segment makes no attempt to quantify the benefits of the treatment. But the report makes clear that the trials are early and the benefits not proven. This would make a specific citation of benefits unnecessary–even potentially misleading–just as the single positive patient anecdote may be misleading. The segment says there is some tingling and a sunburn-like lingering effect linked to the treatment. While this is accurate, TDCS is relatively new and the real side effect profile is unknown at the moment. There may well be cognitive and motor reflex effects with repeated use. A simple statement that there may well be other unrecognized side effects would have put this into context. The story is based on a continuing multi-center trial and on the results of two previous, small trials of targted applications of TDCS. While this is not high quality evidence, the story makes clear, repeatedly, that this is preliminary evidence only. The story opens with an extraordinary anecdote, exaggerating both the severity of chronic pain and the potential of the treatment to help. Yet it states that up to 1 in 4 Americans suffer from chronic pain, and 1 in 10 have it for over a year. The number of people who suffer the kind of pain as the featured patient is likely much smaller than these figures imply. The segment should have stated this. The true prevalence of chronic pain is unknown. It depends on the definition used and the population surveyed. Both sources interviewed are interested parties. At least one of them is a clinical investigator for the trial, the other his colleague at the same institution. The reporter should have interviewed at least one independent expert on chronic pain for some context. In addition, the only subject interviewed reports a positive outcome. The reporter does an excellent job at the end of the piece describing the wide range of treatments used for serious chronic pain–and that multiple approaches are often required. He also makes clear that TDCS would be one treatment to add to the arsenal, not a breakthrough that would make other options obsolete. The segment states that transdermal direct current stimulation (TDCS) is still in clinical trials. The segment makes clear that while this particular application of electrical stimulation is novel, it has been in development and used for other purposes for many years. The segment does not appear to be influenced by the press release."
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30075
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George Soros is funding the distribution of prepaid MasterCard debit cards to refugees through the U.N.
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The UNCHR has been involved with a program to provide cash to refugees via debit cards to help meet immediate needs, and George Soros has been involved with a program to assist migrants in partnership with MasterCard, but Soros is not funding the distribution of MasterCard debit cards to refugees via the United Nations.
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false
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Politics, george soros
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In November 2018, various conspiracy-pushing web sites glommed onto a dubious post emanating from Europe to gin up hysteria about both refugees and the United Nations. The original story, published on the right-wing Slovenian website Nova24TV, “revealed” that immigrants were spotted in Bosnia and Herzegovina using MasterCard debit cards and included an accusation sourced to an anonymous “local police officer”: Migrants who are caught and sent back, in a few days or weeks again try to illegally enter Croatia. Some of them are really poor, but many of them are well-equipped: they have new footwear, new clothes, sophisticated smartphones, and some also have MasterCards with no names, just numbers. The cards can be used to withdraw money from ATMs, but we do not know who funds them. The story also included a stock photograph of young black men who had no relationship to the events described in the article, alongside the caption “The image is symbolic”: The “report” was soon picked up by equally dubious websites, some of which included the same image without mentioning that it was a stock photo used only for “symbolic” purposes: Now the mystery has been solved regarding how so many poor migrants have been able to fund their illegal journeys to Europe. The UN, EU and Soros, in partnership with MasterCard, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars providing migrants with prepaid debit cards — and European tax payers have not been informed that their taxes are being spent on handouts to illegal immigrants. What those sites did do, however, was expand on the original story by employing a familiar anti-Semitic dog whistle and attempting to tie the claim to liberal billionaire George Soros by falsely citing Nova24TV‘s piece — even though it did not mention him — and saying that the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) was working “in cooperation” with Soros. In reality, these posts conflated an existing United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) program with a separate humanitarian partnership involving Soros and the credit card provider MasterCard. The UNCHR’s program was launched in Moldova in 2011 and expanded in 2016. That program provided aid to 10.5 million people across 94 countries between 2016 and August 2018, with recipients accessing their money via cash machines or “mobile money” electronic payments distributed through specialized cell phones: Vulnerable persons fleeing persecution and seeking asylum in Moldova can now use debit cards under a new UNHCR initiative to expedite the distribution of the agency’s monthly subsistence allowances. Moldova is the first country in Europe where the UN refugee agency has implemented the debit card scheme to streamline the distribution of its monthly financial support via Automated Teller Machines (ATMs). The new card scheme was launched by UNHCR, in cooperation with BCR Chisinau S.A. It enables needy refugees, asylum seekers and beneficiaries of humanitarian protection to receive convenient debit cards which they can use to withdraw the monthly support. “UNHCR is very pleased to launch this initiative in Moldova as it enables people to withdraw funds at nearby bankomats at their convenience rather than having to commute to a central distribution point to collect the allowance,” said Peter Kessler, UNHCR’s representative in Moldova. “Refugees have often suffered indignities and find it difficult to integrate in a new, safe host country,” he added. “Having these cards is another step towards helping them more actively participate in daily life and maintain a greater degree of dignity.” The sums being distributed to beneficiaries of the UNHCR initiative are modest, currently not more than 500-600 Moldovan leu (30-36 euros) per person each month. Experienced aid workers — including staff of the Ministry of Interior’s Refugee Directorate, UNHCR and its implementing partners — meet regularly to review applications for assistance. Recipients of the cards were pleased to get bankomat access and avoid having to pay for city buses to go and collect their monthly support. Asylum-seekers only receive social support for six months under the UN scheme while they await their decisions. However, refugees and beneficiaries of humanitarian protection may be assisted for longer periods if they are sick, are persons with disabilities or are elderly or unemployed. One of the most important benefits is that the debit cards will also give the recipients access to bank accounts, where they may eventually save money and earn interest. The UNCHR initiative was unrelated to either of two similar separate MasterCard-sponsored aid programs. The first, a June 2016 partnership between the credit card company, the Serbian Ministry of Labor, and the humanitarian group the Mercy Corps, sought to provide prepaid debit cards to refugees to help meet basic needs: The global organization Mercy Corps launched the pilot program in partnership with MasterCard and the Serbian Ministry of Labor to distribute prepaid debit cards to eligible refugees traveling through Serbia. Families received cards with a value of about $235 (210 Euros), and individuals approximately $78 (70 Euros). The money could be used to make purchases that help meet immediate needs. It was the first such program in the region to use an international cashless payment mechanism to help the tens of thousands of refugees and migrants seeking haven in Europe. By leveraging our technologies and products such as MasterCard Aid Network and Prepaid, MasterCard collaborates with partners to provide essential services at the most critical times of refugees’ lives. To date, MasterCard Aid and Prepaid cards have been deployed in humanitarian responses across Africa, Asia and Europe – in countries such as Turkey, Kenya, Yemen, Nepal, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Niger, the Philippines, and Greece – and are on-track to support thousands of beneficiaries … we are working with Mercy Corps to provide assistance to thousands of refugees in Europe to cover their basic needs and allow them to live with dignity during one of most difficult times in their lives. A separate partnership between MasterCard and Soros to launch a “standalone entity,” Humanity Ventures, was first announced in January 2017. That program sought to provide private sector solutions to social issues such as joblessness, lack of access to healthcare, inadequate education, and financial exclusion among migrants and their host communities: Operating as a standalone entity, Humanity Ventures would initially combine solutions designed to expand access to healthcare and education, foster local economic development and entrepreneurship, and enhance the delivery of aid. One such solution is the Mastercard Aid Network, an award winning digital voucher platform designed in partnership with humanitarian organizations. With the creation of Humanity Ventures, Soros could invest up to $50 million to make these solutions even more scalable and sustainable. The social enterprise could also serve as an incubator and accelerator for smaller projects committed to mitigating the migration crisis. Designed to combine the need for business returns with social impact, Humanity Ventures would also act as a new model for how civil society, governments, and the private sector improve quality of life and drive economic growth. “Migrants are often forced into lives of despair in their host communities because they cannot gain access to financial, healthcare and government services. Our potential investment in this social enterprise, coupled with Mastercard’s ability to create products that serve vulnerable communities, can show how private capital can play a constructive role in solving social problems,” said George Soros. “Humanity Ventures is intended to be profitable so as to stimulate involvement from other businesspeople. We also hope to establish standards of practice to ensure that investments are not exploitative of the vulnerable communities we intend to serve.”
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4886
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California overhauls sex education guidance for teachers.
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California has overhauled its sex education guidance for public school teachers, encouraging them to talk about gender identity with kindergartners and give advice to LGBT teenagers for navigating relationships and having safe sex.
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true
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Relationships, Parental rights, Safe sex, Health education, Health, Sacramento, Gender identity, California, Sex education, Education
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LGBT advocates praised the new recommendations for giving attention to a community that is often left out of sex education policies. But some parents and conservative groups assailed the more than 700-page document as an assault on parental rights, arguing it exposes children to ideas about sexuality and gender that should be taught at home. The guidance approved Wednesday by the California State Board of Education does not require educators to teach anything. It is designed as a guide for teachers to meet state standards on health education, such as nutrition, physical activity and combating alcohol and drug abuse. But it’s the parts about sex that got the most attention during a public hearing on Wednesday. The framework tells teachers that students in kindergarten can identify as transgender and offers tips for how to talk about that, adding “the goal is not to cause confusion about the gender of the child but to develop an awareness that other expressions exist.” It gives tips for discussing masturbation with middle-schoolers, including telling them it is not physically harmful, and for discussing puberty with transgender teens that creates “an environment that is inclusive and challenges binary concepts about gender.” “As the parent of three kids, we’re on a careful trajectory here not to be introducing things as though they are endorsed in some way,” board president Linda Darling-Hammond said. But Patricia Reyes, a 45-year-old mother of six, doesn’t believe that. She traveled more than 400 miles (about 644 kilometers) from her home in Southern California to attend Wednesday’s hearing, bringing along her 4-year-old daughter, Angeline, who held a sign that read: “Protect my innocence and childhood.” “It’s just scary what they are going to be teaching. It’s pornography,” she said. “If this continues, I’m not sending them to school.” Much of the pushback focused not on the framework, but on the books it recommends students read. An earlier draft of the document suggested high schoolers read the book: “S.E.X. : The All-You-Need-to-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties.” It includes descriptions of anal sex, bondage and other sexual activity. Several parents read from the book and held it up so board members could see the pictures, which many described as “obscene.” The board responded by removing the book, plus a few others, from the guidance. “It’s important to know the board is not trying to ban books. We’re not saying that the books are bad,” board member Feliza I. Ortiz-Licon said. “But the removal will help avoid the misunderstanding that California is mandating the use of these books.” More than 200 people signed up to speak during a public hearing on Wednesday that lasted for several hours. Supporters and opponents mingled together in the lobby of the California Department of Education, where parents handed out snacks to appease their young children while waiting for their number to appear on dry-erase board telling them it was their turn to get one minute of time at the microphone. Speakers included 16-year-old Phoenix Ali Rajah, a transgender boy who said he is rarely taught information for people like him during sex education classes at his Los Angeles area high school. “I’m never taught about how to be in a relationship with gay men,” he said, adding that the “conversation with sex starts from a different place.” Michele McNutt, 49, focused on the framework’s attention to healthy relationships and consent, something she said is never too soon to teach her two daughters in public school, ages 11 and 9. “Withholding medically accurate, scientific information from them actually causes more harm and does not actually protect innocence,” she said while wearing a purple T-shirt that read “protect trans students. “If you don’t give kids accurate information about their own body ... how are they able to make good choices?” The guidance was developed with input from teachers across the state, and several spoke in favor of the recommendations on Wednesday. But not Tatyana Dzyubak, an elementary school teacher in the Sacramento area. “I shouldn’t be teaching that stuff,” she said. “That’s for parents to do.”
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9850
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Gene Therapy Corrected Rare Bleeding Disorder: Study
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This story relayed the findings of a very preliminary study on a new treatment for Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome — a rare genetic disorder that leads to serious immune system deficiencies and problems with blood clotting. While the story did convey some caution about the early stage of this research and the potential for major side effects, it didn’t provide quite enough detail to satisfy many of our criteria. A more thorough investigation would have emphasized just how far this technology has to go before it can be widely adopted. Because of its devastating effects on the immune system, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome puts sufferers at increased risk of death from infections and cancer. Although bone marrow transplants can be an effective and durable treatment, many children have problems finding a good match. In addition, bone marrow transplants come with a host of serious risks and are not a treatment option for everyone. New treatments, such as the experimental gene therapy discussed in this story, are badly needed.
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true
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HealthDay
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We think it’s too early to guess at what any therapy based on this technique would cost, so we won’t flag the story for not mentioning costs. The story says that the therapy resulted in “increased platelet counts” and “improvement of some immune-system cells.” The story should have provided quantitative data and tried to explain what these changes might mean for patients. Another problem is that the story didn’t tell us how long the patients were followed and how long the benefits lasted. The effects of some gene therapies fade with time because the cells injected with DNA by viruses ultimately die and stop producing the therapeutic protein. The story acknowledged early on and prominently that one of the study participants developed leukemia, which may have been related to the new treatment. The story probably should have mentioned that other harms might become apparent as these patients are followed further or as more patients are studied. However, we think the study went far enough to earn a satisfactory. Although the story was not grossly imbalanced and did feature some restraining quotes about the early stage of the research, we don’t think it went far enough in explaining just how preliminary this research, and the report upon which the story is based, are. Here’s where we think the story fell short: Again, while the story’s coverage was not overtly misleading, we think discussion of these issues would have put additional (and appropriate) emphasis on the need for caution when interpreting the results. The story didn’t exaggerate the consequences of Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome. The story included interviews with two independent experts who weren’t involved with the study. The story discusses one of the primary existing treatments for Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome: bone marrow transplants. The story’s muddled overview of this treatment is likely to leave readers confused, however. The story starts off its description by saying that such transplants, if they succeed, “basically cure the disease.” It then goes on to list a number of serious complications that can plague even apparently successful transplants. So the children treated via transplant sound like they probably aren’t “cured” as the story initially states. We’ll call it satisfactory, but we wish the story was a bit clearer on this point. The story never explicitly addresses the availability of this new technique or how close it may be to approval. However, it does note that the research represents just a “first step” and “proof of concept” for the new approach. Although we would like to have seen a more direct comment about the many years of testing that lie ahead for any therapy based on this technique, we think most readers will understand that this is preliminary research and not something they’re likely to have access to anytime soon. The story never mentioned that gene therapy using viral vectors is being studied for the treatment of a variety of other hereditary diseases as well as cancer. Importantly, this research has shown that it is extremely difficult to develop effective therapies based on viral vectors — context that would have been valuable in this story. This story doesn’t appear to be based on a news release.
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8283
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Coronavirus travel: national advice not all of a piece.
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Should travelers avoid parts of the world near coronavirus hotspots? Or go - but then tread carefully? The official advice they receive may depend on whether they live in Amsterdam, Helsinki, Madrid or Lagos.
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true
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Health News
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As the new coronavirus spreads from China, travel guidelines being issued by governments across the world all express notes of growing caution. But they contain subtle differences on where to avoid, how to behave and what to do after a trip. With few exceptions, the prevailing advice of national authorities is to avoid Hubei province - epicenter of an outbreak that has now infected 80,000 people worldwide - and to reduce Chinese travel to the bare minimum. Once inside China, Swiss travelers for example are urged by their government to avoid large gatherings and “cough or sneeze into a tissue, or use the crook of your arm”. France tells its nationals not to eat raw meat or visit animal markets. The Spanish Foreign Ministry also urges against contact with animals in China and suggests making sure that you stay at least one meter away from the next person. For travelers to Italy - the country most badly hit by the virus in Europe - the Dutch government recommends that its citizens avoid areas already locked down by local authorities and only travel to parts of the wider Lombardy region around the closed-off towns if necessary. The Finnish Foreign Ministry advice on Italy is simply to “take special care”. Differences also emerge in the advice to travelers on their return from an affected area. Germany’s main authority for infectious diseases tells those returning with symptoms from outbreak regions in Italy to see a doctor and call prior to their visit. But France asks such people not to visit the doctor but to call emergency services. Britain urges its nationals to “self-isolate” at home if they have been to the areas quarantined by Italy whether or not they have symptoms. The Danish Health Authority currently stipulates no routine quarantine or isolation of people who have traveled to China or other places hit by the outbreak. Countries outside Europe take different stances. Turkey advises against all but essential travel to China but has not yet issued travel advice on Italy. Nigeria has a voluntary two-week self-quarantine in place for all passengers arriving from China or any country with “a major outbreak”. Guidance for returning air passengers says “try to avoid” going out but wear a mask if you do.
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7510
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In virus outbreak, fretting over a name that might go viral.
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West Nile virus, Lyme disease, Ebola virus.
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true
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AP Top News, Health, General News, Flu, Lyme disease, International News, China, New York, Asia Pacific, Virus Outbreak, Ebola virus, U.S. News
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And now: 2019-nCoV? “Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?” said Trevor Hoppe, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, who has studied the history of disease names. The name, which stands for 2019 novel coronavirus, has been assigned to the virus behind the outbreak of flu-like illnesses that started in China late last year. Scientists are still learning about the new virus, so it’s hard to come up with a good name, Hoppe said. The current one is likely temporary, said Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Once people have a chance to catch their breath, it might be changed,” Messonnier said. Many media outlets have been skipping the clunky 2019-nCoV and just calling it the new virus or new coronavirus, which isn’t very specific. Coronavirus is the umbrella term for a large group of viruses, including ones that can cause the common cold. Since the outbreak is centered in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, others have been using Wuhan virus or Wuhan coronavirus or even Wuhan flu — even though flu is an entirely different virus. It’s consistent with a centuries-old tradition of naming new ailments after cities, countries or regions of the world where they first popped up. West Nile was first detected in the West Nile district of Uganda; Lyme disease in Old Lyme, Connecticut, and Ebola in a village near Africa’s Ebola River. But that can sometimes be wrong or misleading. The 1918 pandemic was called Spanish flu, though researchers don’t think Spain is where it actually started. “Now we have a much different sensibility and tolerance about how we refer to things,” said Dr. Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan. In 2015, the World Health Organization issued guidelines that discouraged the use of geographic locations (like Zika virus), animals (swine flu) or groups of people (Legionnaires’ disease). Hoppe noted that AIDS, when it first emerged in the early 1980s, was called “gay-related immune deficiency.” That was dropped as it became clear that heterosexuals were also spreading the virus. AIDS stands for acquired immune deficiency syndrome. With the guidelines, WHO was trying to bring an end to unnecessary stigma that could ostracize people and damage business. Demand for pork plunged in 2009 with so-called swine flu, first identified in a boy who lived on a pig farm in Mexico — even though it wasn’t spread through eating pork. Markel said he liked when diseases were named after the scientists who first described them. (Think Alzheimer, Parkinson and Tourette.) That’s problematic today with many scientists across the world working on a new ailment at the same time. SARS was used for severe acute respiratory syndrome when another coronavirus caused a 2002-2003 outbreak. So maybe this one could be called CARS, Markel said. “I can see why they want to name it something generic but it has to be something people use,” he said. “Otherwise the easier name will take over, and it’s naive to think otherwise.” In the end, the WHO may have little control over what it’s called, he added. “Wuhan virus is very catchy — no pun intended,” Markel said. “It’s a very contagious name.” ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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35734
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Bob and Nancy Strait, an eldery Tulsa, Oklahoma, couple, were beaten and robbed in their home by Tyrone Woodfork.
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Tulsa police located the couple’s stolen car in the 5700 block of East Easton Street. An alert driver on 4th and Yale called police when he saw the Plymouth Neon. He followed it to the neighborhood. That’s when more than a dozen police cars stopped the driver.
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mixture
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Politics
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In July 2020, social media users began circulating a meme about “black kid named Tyrone Woodfork” who “severely beat an elderly couple, a Mr. & Mrs. Strait, who had been married for 65 years”, along with the claim that “no national media carried the story” of the crime: Tulsa, Oklahoma… a black kid named Tyrone Woodfork severely beat an elderly couple, a Mr. & Mrs. Strait, who had been married for 65 years. Tyrone RAPED Mrs. Strait, and she died of injuries received at his hands. Mr. Strait served in the 101st Airborne during WWII. NO national media carried the story. Tyrone was arrested yesterday. I supposed that if Mr. Strait had shot Tyrone, the whole country would know about the story. As it is, only Mrs. Strait died, so it’s not of interest to Brian Williams and the rest of the main stream media media. Think about it. After 65 years of marriage. After serving our country. After 90 years of life, Mr. Strait has lost his wife to a rapist/murderer. NO ONE in the national media gives a flip and neither does Fakebook. The meme was based on a real incident, but it included no information informing readers that the events it described had taken place eight years earlier and were not a recent occurrence. Bob and Nancy Strait (90 and 85 years old, respectively) were a North Tulsa, Oklahoma, couple whom family members described as follows to local television station KOTV: The couple had been married more than 65 years, had six children and 18 grandchildren. They were great, great, great grandparents. Bob Strait was a paratrooper in World War II. He was with the 101st airborne where he was part of the D-day invasion. He was awarded the Bronze Star. Nancy grew up in a log cabin in Kenwood, Oklahoma with no running water. She moved to Tulsa to work during the war. Nancy was a homemaker who made quilts and homemade jellies. Bob was a welder by trade and did woodworking for a hobby. The two did everything together; grocery shopping, doctor’s visits, you name it. “Mama was the kind, if you came in, she would say ‘go to the kitchen and help yourself with the groceries or let me get you something.’ She fed everybody,” daughter Andra said. “[Bob] is the kind of guy, your car breaks down on the highway, he could fix it. He’d stop and fix your car,” said the Straits’ son, Bob. In April 2012, a message was widely circulated online claiming that the Straits had been “beaten to a pulp in [a] home invasion by colored offenders,” and only press outside the U.S. covered the story: 90 Year Old White Couple Beaten To A Pulp In Home Invasion By Colored Offenders…. Hey Bobby Rush.. Going to wear anything for this white couple??? UPDATE: Once again it takes an overseas newspaper to report the truth because the American newspapers are too afraid to post the truth… They might get boycotted against by the Negroes! Couple met and married within a month and stayed together for 65 years… only to be parted after home invader beat wife to death. Nancy Strait, 85, was sexually assaulted and battered to death by burglar. Her husband Bob, 90, suffered a broken jaw and broken ribs in attack. Police have arrested 20-year-old Tyrone Dale David Woodfork On 14 March 2012, Nancy and Bob Strait were indeed robbed and beaten at their home. Nancy Strait was sexually assaulted and died of her injuries the following day; Bob Strait was shot in the face with his own BB gun, suffered a broken jaw and cracked ribs, and died a few monts later, on 4 May 2012. Their assailants reportedly made off with the Straits’ television, $200, a BB gun, and the couple’s Dodge Neon. Tulsa police made an arrest the afternoon following the robbery after being tipped off to the location of the couple’s stolen car:
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9877
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Drink wine, don’t get sunburned
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If you’ve been following this site long enough, you can do this review yourself. We only need to show you the lead paragraph: “Important health tip for the summer: Drink more wine! A better protection against harmful sunburns might be a healthy dose of SPF sauvignon blanc, suggests a new Spanish study.” How do you think it did? If you need help, keep reading. We know this column is supposed to be cute, oddball stuff. But often it’s not. It’s often briefs that make claims about ideas without doing a bit of work to analyze the evidence. This is the kind of daily drumbeat of meaningless health news that turns people numb to the stuff that really matters. Each piece ends with the tease: “Want more weird health news?” Our answer is “No.”
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false
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MSNBC,skin cancer/sun protection
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Costs weren’t mentioned. That’s the least of our issues with this story. We’ll rule it Not Applicable. We’re not told the degree of protection, the success rate of the experiment – nothing about the scope of perceived “benefit” or success. Yet the story boldly proclaims: “Important health tip for the summer: Drink more wine!” Not applicable. Absolutely no evaluation of the evidence. The story spouts the following line from the scientists: But was the work done in the test tube? On human cells? On mouse cells? We’re not given a clue. Not applicable. No independent expert on skin protection was interviewed. There was no comparison with other research about skin protection. The story playfully mentions SPF Sauvignon Blanc. But it doesn’t answer if the effect is seen from all grapes and all grape derivatives. Of course, since the story links to a news release it appears that no one interviewed the researcher or read the study. The story states that “this finding may lead to better sun-shielding drugs and cosmetics” without giving any sense of how much research has been done down this path or how far away such a projection might be from any glimmer of reality. MSNBC’s attempt to tell the broader story about beneficial effects of wine is to link to 3 unrelated stories that have appeared on their site in the past, on wine being found “to fight Alzheimer’s, ward off prostate cancer and even prevent cavities.” But nothing about whether this grape flavonoid work is novel – or about any other research in the field of skin protection that may be further along than this The story links to a news release, which we can safely assume was the sole motivation for the story.
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37460
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Angry emails have gone viral alleging that California Senator Dianne Feinstein, in a appeal for more gun control, made a comment calling all veterans mentally ill.
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"Senator Feinstein Said That ""All Vets Are Mentally Ill"""
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false
|
Military, Politics
|
On March 7, 2013 Senator Feinstein addressed a Senate Judiciary Committee about the need for stricter gun control, noting the rise in cases of post traumatic stress disorder from the war in Iraq and saying, “that a veteran may be mentally ill and should be prevented from purchasing firearms.” This according to a March 8, 2013 article by Real Clear Politics. The Senator said, “The problem with expanding this is that, you know, with the advent of PTSD, which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferrer of a firearm covered by this bill would verify that an individual was a member, or a veteran, and that there was no impairment of that individual with respect to having a weapon like this. ” Some people misunderstood her to mean all veterans, which resulted in a tirade of emails going viral on the World Wide Web. Posted 04/10/13
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10063
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Kids & Vitamin D: New recommendation: Double the dose
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The American College of Pediatrics announced new guildelines doubling the amount of vitamin D recommended for infants, children and adolescents. The new guidelines state that all children should receive 400 IU* per day of vitamin D beginning from the first few days of life to prevent and treat rickets. These guidelines are based on a review of recent scientific studies and evidence showing that 400 IU of vitamin D per day is safe for pediatric poulations. This amount of vitamin D may also play a role in reducing the risk of osteoporosis in adulthood and preventing infections, autoimmune diseases, cancer, and diabetes. The interview segment could have been far more informative and helpful for viewers. This is one case where a news release – from the American College of Pediatrics – is actually more helpful than the news segment – www.aap.org/pressroom/nce/nce08vitamind.htm. The addition of a nutrition expert would have been helfpul, as would a comment on supplementation cost and at least a cursory discussion of the evidence supporting this increase in dose and the health-related benefits to be expected in children. An additional area that merits exploration (and an expert might have covered) is that the supplementation should be specifically with vitamin D, not necessarily a multivitamin, as there is less evidence to support this in all children. For the reader’s reference, rickets continue to be reported in the U.S. in infants and children. Sunlight is the best source of vitamin D but it is difficult to determine the safe amount of sunlight exposure needed to to synthesize vitamin D in the skin. Most children (and adults) do not get enough vitamin D in their diet and supplements are often needed. *400 IU is the amount of vitamin D provided by 1 quart of fortified milk.
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true
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The story does not provide the cost of vitamin D supplements. It would have been helpful to mention the amount of vitamin D provided in vitamin supplements that children might already be taking. Most consumers are aware of the costs of other sources: milk, fortified cereal, and fish, thus, these did not need to be mentioned. Neither the news release issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics nor the scientific paper on which the new guidelines were based provided absolute or relative reduction of the risk of rickets that would result from the new vitamin D recommendation. This is understandable due to ethical considerations that would preclude this type of study from being done. As a result, this information was not available for this story. The story did mention potential benefits of vitamin D in reducing the risk other diseases, such as cancer and diabetes, and, it also could have also mentioned the potential for reducing the risk of developing osteoporosis in adulthood, as noted by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The story correctly states potential harms of excess vitamin D are very rare. In their press release announcing new guidelines that double the recommended amount of vitamin D (www.aap.org/pressroom/nce/nce08vitamind.htm) the American College of Pediatrics indicates that this change is a result of reviewing new clinical trials. The College guidelines did not provide other detailed scientific information which could have informed this story. The story was consistent with this approach and referenced ‘new research’. However, they could have provided other relevant facts related to vitamin D deficiency and rickets to add context. In addition, the doctor interviewed for the story incorrectly defines osteomalacia. For reference, osteomalacia is a softening of the bones due to vitamin D deficiency, not ‘a weakness of the muscles of the bones’. (Muscle weakness can be a symptom of osteomalcia.) The story presents new health information about vitamin D that would be of general interest. It does not commercialize or ‘over-sell’ the topic. It would have been even better to include a comment indicating that the potential benefit of vitamin D in fighting diabetes, heart disease, and cancer is based upon research that has been in adults. The story did indicate the source of the information but left out other important facts. The physician interviewed does not appear to be an expert on childhood nutrition. Instead he is known for helping celebrities lose weight and is the author of diet books including Extreme Fat Smash Diet (St. Martin’s Press). Conflict of interest of the funding source was not mentioned, nor was independent corroboration or medical opinion presented. The story does indicate common food sources and vitamin D supplements are options for obtaining vitamin D. (See Availability of Treatment comments.) The story does correctly indicate that most children (and adults of all ages) do not get enough vitamin D through diet alone and will need to take supplements to met daily requirements. To illustrate this point, the story provides an example that children would have to drink 1 quart of milk each day to get the recommended amount of vitamin D, 400 IU per day. It does provide examples of good dietary sources of vitamin D: fortified cereal, milk, and oily fish. On the other hand, this story only makes brief mention of sunlight and fails to explain that sunlight is the best source of vitamin D. (Also see Harms of Treatment comments.) This story properly indicates that the news being reported is an update of a previous guideline issued in 2003. We can’t be sure if the segment relied solely or largely on a news release. It interviewed only one guest and we don’t know why he was chosen. (See Sources below.)
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11963
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On NFL players protesting during the national anthem.
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"Walker initially didn’t tell NFL players what they should do, but he did note the right to protest. Less than a month later, he said: ""It is time for players in the NFL to stop their protests during the anthem,"" and he asked the players to stand during the pre-game playing of the anthem. Then Walker went further, saying: ""For the NFL, it’s simple. Stand up, put your hand over your heart."" Finally, his campaign launched an online petition and digital ad campaign to pressure the players to stop their protests. On the Flip-O-Meter, our ratings are No Flip, Half Flip or Full Flop. For a partial change in position, we give Walker a Half Flip. Our rating Walker initially didn’t tell NFL players what they should do, but he did note the right to protest. Less than a month later, he said: ""It is time for players in the NFL to stop their protests during the anthem,"" and he asked the players to stand during the pre-game playing of the anthem. Then Walker went further, saying: ""For the NFL, it’s simple. Stand up, put your hand over your heart."" Finally, his campaign launched an online petition and digital ad campaign to pressure the players to stop their protests. On the Flip-O-Meter, our ratings are No Flip, Half Flip or Full Flop. For a partial change in position, we give Walker a Half Flip. "
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mixture
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Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Patriotism, Sports, Wisconsin, Scott Walker,
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"Responding to the controversy over NFL players kneeling or sitting during the national anthem, Green Bay Packers players issued a statement saying the ""NFL family is one of the most diverse communities in the world."" We found mixed evidence on that claim. The next day, on Sept. 27, 2017, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was asked in Green Bay about the protests. He didn’t say what the protesting players should be doing. But less than a month later, the Republican governor, who is widely expected to run for a third term in 2018, was sending a different message. Which means it’s time to turn to our Flip-O-Meter, which assesses whether a politician has been consistent on an issue. Three Walker statements, and a mobilization effort, are key. They show the governor pivoting from a hands-off position to telling the NFL players exactly what they should do during the anthem. He also suggested the players instead take a stand against domestic violence, even though the protests have centered on racial inequality and police brutality. 1. ‘They should have to explain’ Walker was asked by a reporter in Green Bay on Sept. 27, 2017: ""You don’t find it disrespectful what’s happening, entering this political debate to sports? He said: ""Well, again, I’ll let others explain what they’re doing it and why they’re doing it. I just know in my household, my kids were always taught, as I was always taught, you stand and put your hand over your heart ….Now, part of those rights are the right to protest, so others can do that. But then they should have to explain why they’re doing that."" So, he made no direct statement to what players who had been protesting should do. 2. ‘Time for players in the NFL to stop their protests during the anthem’ In a letter Walker sent to the NFL and its players union, Oct. 16, 2017, Walker wrote: ""A lot has been made about National Football League players protesting by kneeling, remaining in the locker room, or other means during the national anthem. Speaking up for what you believe in is a profoundly American idea, but disrespecting our flag, and the men and women who have fought to protect and defend our country, is not American in the slightest. ""It is time for players in the NFL to stop their protests during the anthem and move on from what has become a divisive political sideshow …. ""My request is simple: Stand for the American flag and the national anthem out of respect for those who risk their lives for our freedoms, and then take a stand against domestic violence to keep American families safe."" Walker then repeated his call for the protests to end. 3. ‘It’s simple: Stand up’ In an interview on the ""Fox & Friends"" talk show on the Fox News Channel on Oct. 23, 2017, Walker said: ""For the NFL, it’s simple: Stand up, put your hand over your heart. Do what Americans are taught to do, like we were taught to do in my family and I passed on to my kids. When the national anthem is played, stand up and show respect for the men and women who are currently in harm’s way, as well as all those great veterans who fought for that flag. If you want to speak out on something else, do it at a different time in a different platform …."" 4. Mobilization Two days after the Fox interview, Walker’s campaign announced an online petition and digital ad campaign ""to build pressure on the NFL and its players to stop protesting the national anthem and flag."" So, Walker had gone from not directly addressing the players who were protesting to trying to mobilize Americans against them. Worth noting Walker has made it a point to underscore his new position. The anthem controversy had begun to die down when Walker took the step of sending his letter. And Walker’s campaign organization highlighted the governor’s statements about it on ""Fox & Friends,"" issuing a news release saying that he had ""urged"" players to stand, and starting the mobilization effort. There appears to be a wider political connection. The day after Walker released his letter, the Republican Governors Association, of which Walker is chairman, sent out a fundraising solicitation announcing ""I Stand"" bumper stickers were available in exchange for a campaign contribution to the association. The email says the stickers are available for a donation of $5 or more. The liberal advocacy group One Wisconsin Now pointed out the timing. Our rating Walker initially didn’t tell NFL players what they should do, but he did note the right to protest. Less than a month later, he said: ""It is time for players in the NFL to stop their protests during the anthem,"" and he asked the players to stand during the pre-game playing of the anthem. Then Walker went further, saying: ""For the NFL, it’s simple. Stand up, put your hand over your heart."" Finally, his campaign launched an online petition and digital ad campaign to pressure the players to stop their protests. On the Flip-O-Meter, our ratings are No Flip, or Full Flop. For a partial change in position, we give Walker a . Our rating Walker initially didn’t tell NFL players what they should do, but he did note the right to protest. Less than a month later, he said: ""It is time for players in the NFL to stop their protests during the anthem,"" and he asked the players to stand during the pre-game playing of the anthem. Then Walker went further, saying: ""For the NFL, it’s simple. Stand up, put your hand over your heart."" Finally, his campaign launched an online petition and digital ad campaign to pressure the players to stop their protests. On the Flip-O-Meter, our ratings are No Flip, or Full Flop. For a partial change in position, we give Walker a ."
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10505
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Drug may cut menopause after breast cancer chemo
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This brief article focuses on a treatment that attempts to preserve fertility for young (under 40) breast cancer survivors. It does a good job of describing the potential benefits but leaves gaps in explaining some of the potential limitations and side effects, in particular the failure to mention the potential adverse affects on disease outcome. Young breast cancer survivors can be devastated by the possibility that treating their cancer may leave them unable to bear children. It is critical that they have full information about the impact of treatment approaches on their fertility and on their cancer. The editorial is especially useful for practicing physicians partnering with their patients around cancer treatment and fertility issues.
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mixture
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Cancer,CNN,women's health
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Costs of the treatment are not mentioned in the article; rather, the costliness of an alternative, storing eggs prior to treatment, is emphasized. The primary benefit from the described approach to loss of fertility in women of child-bearing age with early-stage breast cancer was described as a lowered rate of early menopause. The article did an excellent job of putting this in perspective by including the editorial statement cautioning the reader to not equate resumption of menstrual cycles with preserved fertility. The largest gap in this story is its failure to mention potential harms. In particular, it fails to mention the concern about potential adverse effects on disease outcome, a concern clearly stated in the editorial and in the original article. If longer, this article could have benefited from added detail: long-term outcome data is not available; perhaps most importantly, there is no mention of potential adverse effects on disease outcome. The article headline could have been improved if it included the quality of caution so clearly stated in the last paragraph. The weight of the editorial statement, with a good deal of detail in a few sentences, will be highly useful to readers. This story is free of disease-mongering and clearly states the importance of the issue for a specific population, younger breast cancer patients. The story cited an editorial that accompanied the journal article. However, there was no indication of potential conflicts or lack of conflicts of interest, despite disclosures stated in the journal article. The article did a satisfactory job of mentioning one major alternative to the reviewed procedure. There is no statement in the article as to availability of the treatment, although the information is correctly identified as arising from a “phase three study.” But are readers really supposed to know what a Phase Three study means? Want to do a reader poll to test how many do? The article describes the study as new but fails to indicate whether or not the drug and procedure are new. And as the editorial points out, there are 5 other studies testing this so there is more data out there and it appears to be a bit contradictory. The article did an adequate job of citing the original study and the associated editorial but omitted some significant detail needed to help the reader reach a clear understanding. .
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37414
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Any history of antidepressant use disqualifies a person from the military and/or the draft.
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Does Using Antidepressants Disqualify You from a Military Draft?
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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After a January 3 2020 United States-led strike killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani in Baghdad, Iraq, speculation flew about impending war, eventually turning into rumors about an American military draft.On the day Suleimani was killed, news organizations addressed the possibility of war with Iran:A deadly opening attack. Nearly untraceable, ruthless proxies spreading chaos on multiple continents. Costly miscalculations. And thousands — perhaps hundreds of thousands — killed in a conflict that would dwarf the war in Iraq.Welcome to the US-Iran war, which has the potential to be one of the worst conflicts in history.Readers expressed anxiety and fear as they contemplated a new war, and several discussions turned to military recruiting and the possibility of a draft. Some people posted questions on Facebook about what a draft might look like in 2020:I saw a meme somewhere claiming that being on antidepressants disqualifies you from the US military draft but haven’t found a definitive answer for whether that’s true. I see posts saying that if you want to join the military and have depression, then you could be disqualified, but if you still want to and can be considered stable, then you have a fair shot. What about people who would be forced to join thru a draft tho?Concerns about the prospect of war with Iran and who might be conscripted for the potential conflict also emerged in meme form:As usual, discourse also took place on Twitter, where speculation also involved ADHD medications like Adderall as possible draft disqualifiers:bruh how they gonna draft any of gen z if it's required to be off antidepressants for 2 years— Jadyn (@wetritzcracker) January 4, 2020me finding out they can’t draft me bc i’m on antidepressants #WWIII pic.twitter.com/4gP2ZoyUJe— Tori (@torideprow) January 3, 2020Military also won’t draft you if you are employed, have taken any antidepressants or drugs for mental health including adderall https://t.co/cs3ZhrX3Yf— koplin (@kopi_wan) January 3, 2020All of these assertions were underpinned by uncertainty — both about whether a military draft could conceivably be in the cards, and whether something like having been prescribed Lexapro or Zoloft was sufficient to avoid being drafted or conscripted to fight a war.For context, the last time the United States drafted anyone into service was 1973, nearly half a century prior to 2020 speculation about war with Iran. However, ongoing discussion about how a 2020 draft might appear was disrupted by a series of hoax text messages received by many Americans several days after Soleimani’s death.On January 7 2020, the official United States Army Recruiting account tweeted out a fact check confirming that citizens had received text message notifications they’d been contacted about a draft:Fact check: The @USArmy is NOT contacting anyone regarding the draft.Text messages currently circulating are false and are not official Army communications.Read more: https://t.co/csGpTQNfQc— U.S. Army Recruiting (@usarec) January 7, 2020Twitter users in the comments asked whether a draft could occur, and @usarec responded with information about the legislative structure of a draft:The U.S. Army does not control the draft. Per the @SSS_gov, the agency that oversees Selective Service system, in the event that a national emergency necessitates a draft, Congress and the President would need to pass official legislation to enact a draft.— U.S. Army Recruiting (@usarec) January 7, 2020U.S. Army Recruiting Command indicated in their fact check that they had received multiple queries about “fake text messages” announcing a draft, and clarified:U.S. Army Recruiting Command has received multiple calls and emails about these fake text messages and wants to ensure Americans understand these texts are false and were not initiated by this command or the U.S. Army.The decision to enact a draft is not made at or by U.S. Army Recruiting Command. The Selective Service System, a separate agency outside of the Department of Defense, is the organization that manages registration for the Selective Service.“The Selective Service System is conducting business as usual,” according to the Selective Service System’s official Facebook page. “In the event that a national emergency necessitates a draft, Congress and the President would need to pass official legislation to authorize a draft.”The draft has not been in effect since 1973. The military has been an all-volunteer force since that time. Registering for the Selective Service does not enlist a person into the military.Army recruiting operations are proceeding as normal.But as evidenced by the reply embedded above, worries about the draft nevertheless persisted. And an aspect of that lingering fear involved whether antidepressants (or therapeutic stimulants) disqualified people from being drafted.As indicated in the U.S. Army Recruiting Command’s Twitter replies and fact check, no one has been drafted in the United States since 1973. As such, any information about a potential future draft can only be based on existing information regarding volunteer recruitment.Privately-run resource Military.com hosted a FAQ about recruitment, and question number nine had to do with antidepressants and enlistment, not a draft. Answers were compiled from information submitted on forums “monitored and answered by real recruiters,” and the scope of the question about whether “anti-depressants disqualifying” was wide. Two answers were submitted, with a broad scope of application to putative draftees and recruits.According to that information, antidepressants disqualified potential recruits for a year after ceasing to take the medication. Moreover, the answering recruiter said self-initiated cessation was insufficient to enlist. A second question appeared to have been answered by an Air Force member:Response 1: Anti depressants are disqualifying for 1 year after you stop taking them. You MUST stop with your doctors advice, DO NOT stop on your own. These medications often have to be reduced slowly to lower side effects and reduce risk of relapse. Once you are off and depression free for 1 year get copies of your treatment paperwork, including therapy notes and take them with you to your recruiter. They will submit the documents to [United States Military Entrance Processing Command/Station, or MEPS] for review. MEPS will either DQ you, allow you to physical and enlist, or allow you to physical with a waiver (most likely).Response 2: You’ll need to bring my medical records from the doctor who prescribed the anti-depressants. You’ll go to MEPS, take the [Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, or ASVAB] but your processing will be terminated at a certain point due to being honest about depression. Your records will be sent to the [Air Force] surgeon general’s office for review. This supposedly takes between six weeks and three months — mine took a full three months. If the waiver is granted, you’ll be cleared to return to MEPS. On your return trip, they’ll do a height/weight check then send you offsite to a psych consult. The doctor will then send his recommendation to MEPS where you will be reviewed further. This took nearly five weeks for me. If you are deemed fit for service, you will return to MEPS for job selection. Contrary to what I was initially told, depression rules out many jobs in the AF.It appears that the military and its branches had a fluid and changing policy on mental health conditions, medication, and medical history. In November 2017, USA Today reported on a previously undisclosed policy allowing people with a medical history of mental illness to obtain waivers and serve:People with a history of “self-mutilation,” bipolar disorder, depression and drug and alcohol abuse can now seek waivers to join the Army under an unannounced policy enacted in August [2017], according to documents obtained by USA TODAY.The decision to open Army recruiting to those with mental health conditions comes as the service faces the challenging goal of recruiting 80,000 new soldiers through September 2018. To meet last year’s goal of 69,000, the Army accepted more recruits who fared poorly on aptitude tests, increased the number of waivers granted for marijuana use and offered hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses.U.S. Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Randy Taylor told the outlet that the new guidelines were not necessarily hard and fast ones:“With the additional data available, Army officials can now consider applicants as a whole person, allowing a series of Army leaders and medical professionals to review the case fully to assess the applicant’s physical limitations or medical conditions and their possible impact upon the applicant’s ability to complete training and finish an Army career … These waivers are not considered lightly.”In April 2018, ArmyTimes.com reported that relaxation of prior policies around medical and mental health histories had caused controversy following the November 2017 USA Today piece. Again, the specifics of the policy did not seem to be fully clear at that time, and Army higher-ups described the changes as something of a case-by-case basis adopted for children of servicemen and women with more comprehensive childhood records:The Army’s personnel chief responded to the memo in November [2017] by clarifying that it was mistakenly distributed, but adding that the service was beginning to have more of an open mind about recruits’ mental health history.“It’s also important to note that the conditions themselves have been unfairly characterized,” Lt. Gen. Thomas Seamands, the Army G-1, said in a statement at the time. “For example, a child who received behavioral counseling at age 10 would be forever banned from military service were it not for the ability to make a waiver request.”… And in fact, it has been a concern for many military families. A spate of military children have been kicked out of initial military training after their childhood medical records were added to their service member records, sometimes revealing that they had turned to therapy as young children.It was also, as noted, a focus on volunteer enlistment — not a policy enacted with a draft in mind:“The waivers are really indicating to me that our recruiters are doing exactly what we’ve asked them to do,” Sergeant Major of the Army Dan Dailey said [in April 2018]. “If they see something in the record that is of concern or is a question of meeting a DoD standard, they ask for somebody to review it.”In January 2019, the Psychological Health Center of Excellence (or PHCoE, formerly known as the Deployment Health Clinical Center) Clinician’s Corner blog included an entry titled “Navy Changes Policy on Psychotropic Medications and Aviation.” It discussed whether a service member who was diagnosed with a mental health condition could maintain their military flight status during treatment, explaining:Can a service member who has been diagnosed with a mental health disorder and is being treated with psychotropic medication maintain their military flight status while in treatment? YES! The use of psychotropic medications was disqualifying for U. S. Naval Aviators (pilots, flight officers, air traffic controllers and aircrew members) before November 2018. After this date, the U.S. Navy Aeromedical Reference and Waiver Guide (ARWG)(link is external) was updated to allow Navy and Marine Corps personnel who are on a stable dose of FDA-approved psychotropic medications to maintain their flight status during treatment.According to the PHCoE blog, the first Navy waivers were granted in 2017 — around the time the first report disclosing the existence of waivers appeared:The first waiver for a class of psychotropic medication use in Army aircrews was granted in 2004 for a diagnosis of chronic pain. Currently, Army aviators on stable doses of selected medications for most mental health diagnoses are eligible to maintain flight status. Similarly, Air Force policy allows designated personnel to fly while on monotherapy with one of four approved medications for treatment of specified conditions after the prescribed waiting periods officially went into effect in 2013. The Air Force is currently conducting a 20-year study to follow airmen on antidepressants, where results from the first five years found that no antidepressant medication has been associated with any Air Force mishap since the protocol started in 2013.The first waivers granted in the Navy began in 2017, for diagnoses of major depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. Upon review of selected individuals, the Consult Advisory Board voted to allow aviators, in specified flying billets (e.g. dual-piloted, non-tactical aircraft), to be eligible for waiver consideration with continued therapy with FDA-approved psychotropic medication(s). Consideration for a waiver may be requested after a suitable period of observation in a non-flying status has elapsed, provided that the dose of the medication(s) is stable and the clinical condition is determined to be in stable remission. The duration of this period of observation in a non-flying status is dictated by the psychiatric diagnosis and is outlined in the relevant section of the ARWG.Operation Military Kids’ “20 Health Conditions That May Not Allow You to Join the Military” page was updated on January 3 2020, and it contained a section on depression. According to that site, a history of depression (and presumably having taken antidepressants) might make it “difficult” (but not impossible) to enlist:Since the U.S. Armed Forces deal with arming individuals with powerful weapons it must tread on mental health very carefully. Though people with mental health concerns are very good people that are still capable of living high-quality lives, the U.S. Military is very strict on how it handles mood disorders … [That] means that if you or someone you know that is considering enlisting in the U.S. Military has been diagnosed with [depression] in the past, it may be difficult to join.Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder were labeled “possibly disqualifying,” while bipolar disorder was described as “disqualifying.” Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder was also described as a disqualifying condition, with the following caveat:The military is currently reexamining its approach for ADHD and has noted recently that it might start assessing circumstances on a case by case basis.After conflict between the United States and Iran was initiated due to Suleimani’s death, speculation about war led to rumors that using antidepressants disqualified Americans from any military draft. An unrelated hoax exploited simmering draft fears, leading military recruiters to reiterate that reinstatement of the draft was a legislatively complicated process. Given that nearly half a century had passed since the previous active draft, the only up-to-date information available had to do with voluntary enlistment. As of 2017, the United States military had relaxed their policies about mental health and antidepressants to some degree, but those policies appeared to be in ongoing flux. Further, it was incredibly difficult to extrapolate how such fluid guidelines might apply to an involuntary enlistment process or draft. Because of this, we have rated this claim Decontextualized due to the complexity of its elements.
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11833
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"Eddie Rodriguez Says that ""perpetrators of domestic violence accounted for 54% of mass shootings between 2009 and 2016, according to the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety."
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"Rodriguez wrote that according to an Everytown study, ""perpetrators of domestic violence accounted for 54% of mass shootings between 2009 and 2016."" Rodriguez’s statement incorrectly suggests that domestic violence was a precursor to 54 percent of mass shootings. The research he cited did not confirm as much. Rather, it says 54 percent of such shootings involved a person shooting multiple family members. Other research suggests that about 20 percent of individuals who committed such shootings from 2006 through 2016 had a history of domestic violence."
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false
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Crime, Texas, Eddie Rodriguez,
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"An Austin legislator’s imperfect citation of a study led us to gauge whether domestic violence can reasonably be considered a predictor of mass shootings. Answer: No. In a Nov. 9, 2017, email blast to constituents, Democratic state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez noted that the shooter at the church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, leaving 26 people dead, had been convicted years before of beating his then-wife and young stepson. According to news accounts, Devin P. Kelley subsequently served a year in a Navy brig. Rodriguez’s email blast said the Texas shootings led him to suggest steps ""we can take,"" among them: ""Strengthening existing laws and ensuring they’re implemented correctly to keep guns out of the hands of criminals."" Parenthetically, Rodriguez said next that ""perpetrators of domestic violence accounted for 54% of mass shootings between 2009 and 2016, according to the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety."" Domestic violence and mass shootings Rodriguez’s linkage made us wonder, in part because Everytown’s research drew wide mention after the Texas shootings. A Nov. 6, 2017, New York Times news story quoted Billy Rosen, the group’s deputy legal director, saying: ""We have seen over and over this pattern where in these notorious mass shootings, it is a very common thread where the person had a particular history of domestic violence. A history of this particular kind of conduct may really demonstrate that someone has dangerous propensities and should not be allowed to have guns."" Time magazine similarly quoted the group’s Sarah Tofte saying: ""You could think of domestic violence as a canary in the coal mine for future violence. We may not know everything we need to know about why and when it reverberates outside the home, but we know that it does, and we’ve seen it over and over again."" However, the relevant April 2017 report from the Everytown group doesn’t offer data linking past domestic violence to the likelihood of anyone becoming a mass shooter. Rather, the report says that ""in 54 percent of mass shootings, the shooters killed intimate partners or other family members."" We asked Rodriguez about this contrast. In reply, he conceded in a letter that his email blast lacked clarity. ""As I read your question,"" Rodriguez wrote, ""I can understand how my language could inadvertently imply that 54% of mass shooters also had a history of domestic violence, as opposed to the analysis' findings that 54% of the incidents were directly related to domestic violence. ""I agree that my language was unclear,"" Rodriguez wrote, ""as ‘perpetrators of domestic violence’ could be read as shooters who had committed domestic violence in the past or, as I meant it, as shooters who perpetrated domestic violence when they ‘shot a current or former intimate or family member.’ While grammatically vague, I had no intention of misrepresenting the group's findings."" The legislator’s claim and clarification made us wonder what data actually show about mass shooters having domestic violence backgrounds. April 2017 report The Everytown report says the group drew on news stories, FBI figures and police and court records (in 76 instances) to identify 156 mass shootings in the study period--including 85 (54.5 percent) in which the perpetrator ""shot a current or former intimate partner or family member."" Mass shootings can be defined in different ways. The Everytown group tallied shootings involving four or more victims, not counting the shooter. In the report’s appendix, which summarizes each identified shooting, we spotted 13, or 8 percent, that occurred after a domestic dispute or in which the shooter had previously been charged with or linked to domestic violence. Around the same time, though, criminologist James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University professor, found more domestic violence links to the shootings catalogued by the group. Fox said in a USA Today commentary published after Rodriguez sent out his email blast that of Everytown’s 85 listed shootings in which a person shot a family member, 41 percent were preceded by other acts of domestic violence. More broadly, Fox wrote, 25 percent of all the men listed as committing mass shootings showed ""any indication of prior domestic violence."" We asked Fox to share the specifics behind his percentages. By email, he said we’d need to get the spreadsheet directly from the Everytown group. Its spokeswoman, Phoebe Kilgour, had earlier emailed us a sheet lacking entries specifying prior domestic violence charges or convictions. Kilgour, asked for more detail, said the limited information was ""what we're comfortable sharing at this point."" Separately, Lisa Growette Bostaph, a Boise State University criminologist, responded to our inquiry by saying that her review of Everytown’s information delivered domestic-violence counts matching what Fox reported; she also provided her annotated review of what Everytown listed. By email, Bostaph also cautioned against dwelling on whether mass shooters have documented backgrounds of domestic violence, writing: Parsing ""out whether or not a protection order was granted or a criminal charge resulted in a conviction is ignoring everything that we know about domestic violence: that victims are often manipulated and controlled by fear to rescind requests for protection and criminal charges; that victims are often silent about the domestic violence out of fear of involving others who may later be threatened or hurt; fear of angering the perpetrator and risking further violence for ""bringing others into our business""; fear that the perpetrator may lose their job and the victim cannot provide for their children on their own; fear that, by leaving their abuser, they could be risking their abuser having custody or unsupervised visitation with their children who are often witnesses to the violence and/or abused themselves. This means that, if the domestic violence victim is also a victim in the mass shooting, we may never know if there was a history of domestic violence. But, does that really matter, when the end result of that relationship was the ultimate act of domestic and/or family violence?"" A ‘mass killing’ compilation Fox otherwise alerted us to an ongoing USA Today compilation of U.S. mass killings, drawing from FBI figures plus police and news reports. When we examined it in November 2017, it showed 271 mass shootings of four or more victims from 2006 through Nov. 5, 2017. We sorted those figures to find that 129 of the shootings, or 48 percent, involved family killings including 13 of 23 Texas mass shootings. The day that we looked, the latest listed Texas mass shooting involving family had occurred in Houston in April 2017; a single mother shot and killed four people including her mother and sister. That compilation doesn’t filter out shootings involving a shooter with a domestic violence history. But Fox connected us with Emma Fridel, a Northeastern doctoral student who’s conducted more detailed research rooted in USA Today’s compilation. To our inquiry, Fridel summarized her findings in an email stating that from 2006 through 2016, the country experienced 205 solved mass murders exclusively involving firearms. Of those, Fridel said, she found that 41, or 20 percent, involved one or more perpetrators with a history of domestic violence. (See Fridel’s full analysis, published in early November 2017, here.) Fox, summing up, said: ""You could certainly say about half the cases of mass shootings are extreme incidents of domestic violence,"" which in itself persists as ""a serious problem,"" Fox said. ""But it’s not generally a precursor to mass murder,"" he said. Report: Domestic disputes precipitated a fifth of ‘mass public shootings’ Separately, Time's story after the Texas shootings led us to experts including Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, who by email pointed us to a 2015 report on U.S. mass murders by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. According to the CRS report, in the 15 years from 1999 through 2013, the United States saw about 8.5 familicide mass shootings per year on average. From another vantage point, the report says, a domestic dispute of some type was allegedly a precipitating factor in roughly a fifth (21.2%) of ""mass public shootings,"" or at least 14 of 66 such incidents. Four other mass public shooting incidents could also be characterized as familicides, the report says, in that a spouse or former intimate partner murdered four or more family members--in each case in a public space. Time’s article also drew us to interview Susan B. Sorenson, who directs the Evelyn Jacobs Ortner Center on Family Violence at the University of Pennsylvania. By phone, Sorenson endorsed Everytown’s statistic--that 54 percent of its catalogued mass shootings were acts of domestic violence. Sorenson also told us there’s not research cementing a cause-and-effect link between someone committing domestic violence and later shooting and killing four or more people. ""That’s all speculative,"" Sorenson said. ""We just don’t have that information."" From a public health perspective, Sorenson commented, the focus should be on reducing gun violence. She said there are angry men ""who abuse women all over the globe. What makes us different is the guns."" Our ruling Rodriguez wrote that according to an Everytown study, ""perpetrators of domestic violence accounted for 54% of mass shootings between 2009 and 2016."" Rodriguez’s statement incorrectly suggests that domestic violence was a precursor to 54 percent of mass shootings. The research he cited did not confirm as much. Rather, it says 54 percent of such shootings involved a person shooting multiple family members. Other research suggests that about 20 percent of individuals who committed such shootings from 2006 through 2016 had a history of domestic violence. The statement is not accurate."
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11054
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Acupuncture, real or fake, called best for lower back pain
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This article reports on the largest randomized controlled trial to date investigating the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating chronic low back pain. It explains that both acupuncture and sham needling are more effective than conventional medical therapies, but that “fake acupuncture works nearly as well as the real thing.” In addition to describing the quality of the evidence, the story mentions several other treatment options, tells the reader the cost of acupuncture, and hints at its novelty. The story neglects to mention harms. (A recent systematic review reinforces the study’s finding that acupuncture poses few risks; see Spine 2005;30:944-63). And it also provides an incomplete picture of the treatment’s apparent benefits. Although it notes the proportion of patients who improved with each therapy, it does not define success or otherwise quantify how much people improved clinically–in either relative or absolute terms. For a treatment to be considered successful, for example, a patient could have reported as little as a 12% improvement in function during an interview conducted over the telephone 6 months after enrollment. This is important information if people are to weigh the apparent benefit of a therapy against its cost. The article cites one of the study’s coauthors and two physicians who appear to be users and/or proponents of complementary therapies. They attempt to explain why needling seems to work. To provide some balance, the study’s coauthor suggests that the apparent benefit could merely be the result of patients’ expectations of improvement from acupuncture, on the one hand, and of poor results from conventional medicine on the other. (Unfortunately, the researchers did not measure patients’ expectations.) It would have been interesting to hear from others. Some might point out that the new study shows that acupuncture and sham needling are only more effective than treatments that are not themselves very effective. Others might make the case that acupuncture provides no specific treatment effect and is unethical to use—because it could be construed as prescribing a placebo. People with chronic low back pain are desperate for anything that will help. When a large new study provides apparently strong evidence to buttress a therapy that previously had little high-quality evidence to support it, readers might also benefit from more context. A major systematic review that analyzed 35 randomized trials involving 2861 patients recently concluded that acupuncture appears to confer modest, short-term pain relief, but that the quality of the studies was not very good. The reviewers were careful not to overstate the benefits of acupuncture (Spine 2005;30:944-63). Overall, this was a good article that would have been helped by some more context.
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true
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The article states that acupuncture costs $45 to $100 per session. It does not say how this compares to other treatments and whether the cost of care is the same, more or less than alternatives. The story states the proportion of patients who successfully responded to each therapy, and clearly explains that “real” acupuncture was no better than sham needling. But it does not define success or otherwise quantify how much people improved clinically in either relative or absolute terms. For a treatment to be considered successful, a patient must have reported either a 33% improvement in pain or as little as a 12% improvement in function during an interview conducted over the telephone 6 months after enrollment. Nonethless we’ll grade this criterion as satisfactory. The story did not mention harms from any of the treatments patients received. Previous research suggests that acupuncture poses few risks when performed with sterile, disposable needles. The article describes the largest randomized controlled trial to date investigating the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating chronic low back pain, and reports its published results. It discusses the three treatment groups studied and potential reasons for the outcomes observed. There are no obvious elements of disease mongering. The story explains that the study participants were people with chronic low back pain. These results wouldn’t apply to other back pain conditions. The article cites one of the study’s coauthors and two physicians who appear to be users and/or proponents of complementary therapies. It would have been interesting to hear from a skeptical observer. The story lists the therapies received by patients assigned to the conventional medicine group. The literature suggests that these treatments generally provide very modest benefits. The article does not mention other therapies that may be effective for managing chronic pain and improving flexibility and strength. These include cognitive therapy alone or in combination with intensive exercise and strengthening. Acupuncture is estimated to be the third most popular complementary therapy for chronic low back pain. Though the article does not say much about its availability, readers are likely to be familiar with it. The story notes that this is the largest study yet of acupuncture for chronic back pain, suggesting that the treatment is not new. There is no obvious use of text from a press release.
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33457
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Fruit must be eaten on an empty stomach in order for the body to absorb it properly.
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Must fruit be eaten on an empty stomach in order for the body to absorb it properly?
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false
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Food, ASP Article, food warnings, fruit
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The item quoted below, typically titled “The Correct Way of Eating Fruits,” has been circulating on the Internet since August 2001. It was written in 1998 by Devagi Sanmugam, a chef and culinary writer who lives in Singapore: EATING FRUIT We all think eating fruits means just buying fruits, cutting it and just popping it into our mouths. It’s not as easy as you think. It’s important to know how and when to eat. What is the correct way of eating fruits? IT MEANS NOT EATING FRUITS AFTER YOUR MEALS! * FRUITS SHOULD BE EATEN ON AN EMPTY STOMACH. If you eat fruit like that, it will play a major role to detoxify your system, supplying you with a great deal of energy for weight loss and other life activities. FRUIT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FOOD. Let’s say you eat two slices of bread and then a slice of fruit. The slice of fruit is ready to go straight through the stomach into the intestines, but it is prevented from doing so. In the meantime the whole meal rots and ferments and turns to acid. The minute the fruit comes into contact with the food in the stomach and digestive juices, the entire mass of food begins to spoil. So please eat your fruits on an empty stomach or before your meals! You have heard people complaining – every time I eat water-melon I burp, when I eat durian my stomach bloats up, when I eat a banana I feel like running to the toilet etc – actually all this will not arise if you eat the fruit on an empty stomach. The fruit mixes with the putrefying other food and produces gas and hence you will bloat! Graying hair, balding, nervous outburst, and dark circles under the eyes all these will not happen if you take fruits on an empty stomach. There is no such thing as some fruits, like orange and lemon are acidic, because all fruits become alkaline in our body, according to Dr. Herbert Shelton who did research on this matter. If you have mastered the correct way of eating fruits, you have the Secret of beauty, longevity, health, energy, happiness and normal weight. When you need to drink fruit juice – drink only fresh fruit juice, NOT from the cans. Don’t even drink juice that has been heated up. Don’t eat cooked fruits because you don’t get the nutrients at all. You only get to taste. Cooking destroys all the vitamins. But eating a whole fruit is better than drinking the juice. If you should drink the juice, drink it mouthful by mouthful slowly, because you must let it mix with your saliva before swallowing it. You can go on a 3-day fruit fast to cleanse your body. Just eat fruits and drink fruit juice throughout the 3 days and you will be surprised when your friends tell you how radiant you look! KIWI: Tiny but mighty. This is a good source of potassium, magnesium, vitamin E & fiber. Its vitamin C content is twice that of an orange. APPLE: An apple a day keeps the doctor away? Although an apple has a low vitamin C content, it has antioxidants & flavonoids which enhances the activity of vitamin C thereby helping to lower the risks of colon cancer, heart attack & stroke. STRAWBERRY: Protective Fruit. Strawberries have the highest total antioxidant power among major fruits & protect the body from cancer-causing, blood vessel-clogging free radicals. ORANGE: Sweetest medicine. Taking 2-4 oranges a day may help keep colds away, lower cholesterol, prevent & dissolve kidney stones as well as lessens the risk of colon cancer. WATERMELON: Coolest thirst quencher. Composed of 92% water, it is also packed with a giant dose of glutathione, which helps boost our immune system. They are also a key source of lycopene – the cancer fighting oxidant. Other nutrients found in watermelon are vitamin C & Potassium. GUAVA & PAPAYA: Top awards for vitamin C. They are the clear winners for their high vitamin C content. Guava is also rich in fiber, which helps prevent constipation. Papaya is rich in carotene; this is good for your eyes. Other versions of this text in circulation in 2010 were titled “Dr. Oz on Eating Fruit.” There’s no good reason to associate the television health pundit’s name with the Internet-circulated piece, because Dr. Oz is not the author of the item, nor has he endorsed its claims about ingesting fruit only at specific times. In April 2002, versions of the ‘Eat fruit on an empty stomach” e-mail were appended with a list of six fruits and their properties, which was excerpted from a much longer e-mail about foods that supposedly cause cancer and “miracle cures” that could be found in supermarkets. In July 2007, the 2006 admonition against drinking cold water immediately after meals because it causes cancer (it doesn’t) was added to the piece, as was in November 2007 the 1999 advisory about surviving heart attacks by using cough CPR (in a nutshell, don’t try it). The Dr. Herbert Shelton mentioned in the e-mail was a well-known health educator and author who died in 1985. Dr. Shelton held a doctorate degree in naturopathy rather than medicine and was arrested numerous times for practicing medicine without a license. As to the substance of the advice being proffered, the nutritional value of a piece of fruit is the same whether it’s eaten on an empty stomach or after a meal. Beliefs regarding ingesting fruit unaccompanied by any other foodstuff and/or only on an empty stomach, appear to have come from various weight loss gurus, the earliest of which might be Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. In the 1980s, part of the regimen advocated by the Diamonds, authors of Fit for Life, dictated that nothing but fruit and fruit juices be consumed before noon. (They believed the body has three natural cycles regarding its use of food: noon to 8 p.m. for eating and digestion, 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. for absorption and use, and 4 a.m. to noon for elimination of body wastes and food debris. Fruit in the morning — and nothing but fruit at that time — is therefore key to the elimination cycle.) Eat fruit on an empty stomach only, said the Diamonds, otherwise the meal can rot, ferment, and turn to acid because the fruit is being delayed in the stomach and prevented from immediately entering the intestine. The Diamonds also advocated “food combining,” which is the belief that particular foods need to be eaten with other particular foods (and only those foods), while some certain ingestibles must be consumed unaccompanied by anything else. Dieticians frown on the idea of combining certain foods to lose weight because the theory is not based on scientific research and the claims made of it have yet to be proven, however, food combining continues to find its advocates in the weight loss arena, including Suzanne Somers, TV personality and author of Eat Great, Lose Weight (1997) and Marilu Henner, actress and author of Total Health Makeover (2000). (Somers is also numbered among those who recommend eating fruit on an empty stomach.) There is nothing unhealthful about eating fruit along with other foods or after a meal. While it is true fruit (or any other foodstuff) will be more quickly digested if it’s the only thing in the stomach, it does not rot in that organ if it happens to share that space with something else. The e-mail’s claims that “The fruit mixes with the putrefying other food and produces gas and hence you will bloat!” and “Graying hair, balding, nervous outburst, and dark circles under the eyes all these will not happen if you take fruits on an empty stomach” harken back to the Diamonds, who said much the same thing about what they viewed as improper food combining: that it created acid in the system, causing the body to retain water to neutralize it, adding weight and bloat and that it “produces fatigue and lethargy, dark circles under the eyes and the graying of hair.” Indeed, there are some who would do better to ensure they consume fruits along with other items rather than as a stand-alone. Diabetics, for instance, can somewhat mollify the effect fruit has on spiking their blood sugar levels by ingesting it as part of a meal. (While fructose, the sweetener in most fruits, is not absorbed as rapidly as sucrose and glucose and thus has much less effect on blood sugar levels and insulin, it’s still something diabetics have to look out for.)
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4836
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Brazil’s environmental workers tell of decline before fires.
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As fires burn across the Brazilian Amazon, the vast state of Amazonas has been among the hardest hit, with more than 6,600 blazes recorded in August, 2 1/2 times more than the same month a year ago.
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true
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Brazil, Deforestation, Caribbean, Rio de Janeiro, International News, General News, Forests, Latin America, Environment
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Yet official documents seen by The Associated Press show that Brazil’s government has begun legal procedures to transfer all employees out of three of the state’s four federal environmental protection offices, which are in charge of defending the rainforest from deforestation, land grabbing and illegal fires. It’s part of a broader erosion of the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, known by its Portuguese initials as Ibama, whose field operations appear to have declined sharply since the early part of this year. The agency’s funding for discretionary spending and enforcement operations this year faces a 24% cut, a significant blow to what two experts described as an already small budget. The budget decrease came as part of a wider austerity push by President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office Jan. 1 and is seeking to rein in spending by Brazil’s financially strapped government. But critics note that he has also complained that environmental regulations hinder development in the Amazon. Ibama staffers say the regional offices are critical to their jobs, giving them closer knowledge of problem areas and faster response times in the country’s most extensive state. larger than Texas, California and Montana combined. Ibama agents often plunge deep into the jungle aboard helicopters or boats, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying arms to confront illegal loggers or ranchers who cut away the forest and then set fires to clear the land. The sharp increase in fires this year has roused global concern because the Amazon rainforest acts as a bulwark against climate change. Its lush vegetation absorbs heat-trapping carbon dioxide and the moisture given off by its trees affects rainfall patterns and climate across South America and beyond. Boslonaro told reporters he would attend the upcoming U.N. General Assembly in September to deliver a speech expected to focus on the Amazon, which he says was “ignored” by previous administrations. His administration argues that the lack of economic opportunities and cumbersome red tape in the Amazon region contributes to rampant illegal deforestation. It says the region can be protected while allowing far more development than conservationists believe is safe. Bolsonaro has sent troops to aid in fighting the blazes and banned fires to clear land in the Amazon for 60 days. But the president has fiercely resisted efforts to treat the Amazon as a global issue, notably clashing with French President Emmanuel Macron, who told his Brazilian counterpart during the peak of the fires: “We cannot allow you to destroy everything.” Bolsonaro has also accused non-governmental groups of inefficiency and trying to stifle Brazil’s economy by preventing development in the region. The president also is no big fan of Ibama and its enforcement actions, complaining that an “industry of fines” has slowed economic development in Latin America’s largest nation. “I will no longer allow Ibama to distribute fines right, left and center,” Bolsonaro said before taking office. There is a personal edge to the issue: He was fined by the agency years ago for fishing in a protected area. Bolsonaro and Environment Minister Ricardo Salles have also talked of ending Ibama’s legal authority to burn heavy equipment being used by illegal loggers. Critics say the top-level skepticism and budget cuts are having an impact in the field. On-the-ground operations carried out by Ibama agents from January through April declined 58% from the same period last year, according to official data obtained by the Brazilian group Climate Observatory. The decline began under the previous government in 2018, when operations were down 23% but accelerated this year. Prosecutors in the northeastern state of Para, which borders Amazonas, are investigating the link between the decline in Ibama’s activities and the rise in fires this year, which have broken out at a pace not seen since 2010. Federal prosecutor Ricardo Negrini said authorities failed to act when his office warned of reports that farmers in Para had called for “a day of fire” to ignite multiple blazes Aug. 10. Ibama told prosecutors it wasn’t able to intervene because police forces in the state had been refusing to offer security. Ibama agents have sometimes been met with gunfire when confronting illegal loggers and miners. Negrini said he found that state police had declined to escort Ibama agents for months despite a longstanding tradition of cooperation between the two bodies. Documents seen by AP show that police forces denied six requests from Ibama in June and July. In the documents, police say the lack of an official cooperation agreement prevented them from joining such operations, though Negrini said that had not been an issue in the past. Ibama and the environment ministry did not reply to several requests for comments. But in the past months, hundreds of workers from Ibama and another public agency, the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, have signed letters denouncing what they contend is government neglect of the environment. Ten employees of environmental agencies interviewed by AP complained of a growing sense of censorship, intimidation and retaliations from superiors. “This is not a problem of difficult transition (from one administration to the other), because people are trying to understand how to do their jobs,” said André Barbosa, president of an association of federal environmental employees in Rio de Janeiro. “This is a project to break the system down, so that people no longer have the capacity to work.” In response to such complaints from public workers, federal prosecutors issued a statement this month asking government officials to strengthen environmental protection and to refrain from encouraging law-breaking or delegitimizing the work of Ibama agents. They also gave officials 30 days to present information that proves they had used “technical criteria” to appoint new supervisors, many of whom have a military background.
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11311
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Virtual reality to help detect early risk of Alzheimer’s
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Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann on Thursday batted back calls for the European Central Bank to take a bigger role in protecting the environment, saying it was up to governments and not the ECB to fight climate change.
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false
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The Guardian
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“Monetary policy that explicitly pursues environmental goals runs the risk of being overburdened,” Weidmann said in Berlin. “Politicians with democratic legitimacy must decide how society should combat climate change and they must also bear the responsibility this.” New ECB president Christine Lagarde has promised to discuss sustainability considerations in the bank’s upcoming strategic review. Activists have also called on the ECB to use its vast purchase power to favor green assets and thus provide firms an incentive to invest in clean technology. The ECB has so far rejected these calls, arguing that its mandate to keep prices stable requires market neutrality, a premise Lagarde has also affirmed. But the bank also said that its purchases fueled a rapid growth in issuance as it bought up close to 20% of the eligible green bonds market, so even market neutral purchases were boosting green finance. Weidmann, a frequent critic of the ECB’s bond purchases, said the ECB still had a role, for example in understanding the economic impact of climate change since extreme weather events could increase growth and inflation volatility. He also said that banks, which are supervised by the ECB, must also incorporate climate change into their risk management. Repeating his criticism of the ECB’s easy money policy, Weidmann said it risked fuelling bubbles and German house prices are now 15-30 percent overvalued but argued that he did not for now see a dangerous build up of risk in the sector. ($1 = 0.9 euros)
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26945
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Viral image Says the coronavirus isn’t new because “Lysol has it listed as one of the viruses that it kills.”
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There are seven kinds of coronaviruses that can infect humans and some of the viruses are common. The strain of coronavirus spreading from Wuhan, China, is categorized as the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). Lysol says some of its surface cleaning products, including its disinfectant spray, have been effective against viruses “similar to” 2019 Novel Coronavirus.
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false
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Public Health, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Viral image,
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"Many social media users are sharing posts that suggest health officials are lying when they claim ignorance about the recent coronavirus outbreak, such as this one from Jan. 31. ""Don’t fall for the B.S. they claim the Coronavirus is new… But regular over the counter Lysol has it listed as one of the viruses that it kills!"" the post says. It shows one image of someone holding a Lysol disinfectant spray can, and another of what looks like the back of the can, where the words ""Human Coronavirus"" appear. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We’ve already debunked several hoaxes and conspiracies about the coronavirus, including one that’s similar to the claim in this Facebook post: that Clorox bottles prove the coronavirus was developed before the recent outbreak in China. Here’s what you should know. There are seven kinds of coronaviruses that can infect humans. They were first identified in the mid-1960s and some of the viruses are common, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The strain of coronavirus spreading from Wuhan, China, is categorized as the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). According to the World Health Organization, a novel coronavirus is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans. The 2019 strain was first reported from Wuhan on Dec. 31. As of Feb. 4, more than 20,000 cases have been confirmed globally. Deaths total 426, with only one occurring outside of China. Some cleaning product labels mention ""human coronavirus"" because those surface products have been proven effective against past strains of coronavirus. On its website, Lysol has a section dedicated to the coronavirus. It says that specific Lysol products, including its disinfectant spray, ""have demonstrated effectiveness against viruses similar to 2019 Novel coronavirus (2019-n-CoV) on hard, non-porous surfaces."" (Again, this is only when used to clean surfaces; such products should never be ingested!) This Facebook post ly assumes that because the label for Lysol disinfectant spray includes mention of its effectiveness against ""coronavirus,"" media descriptions of a current outbreak as being caused by a new virus are ""B.S."" But that assumption is wrong. The Lysol spray has demonstrated effectiveness against past strains of coronavirus. The current outbreak spreading from Wuhan, China, is caused by a previously unidentified strain known as the 2019 Novel coronavirus. Cleaning products that list coronavirus on their labels are not referring to this strain."
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4615
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U of Illinois at Chicago gets $12M for Hispanic health study.
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The University of Illinois at Chicago is getting $12 million from the National Institute of Health to continue taking part in a national study of health issues facing Hispanics.
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true
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Race and ethnicity, Hispanics, Health, Chicago, Illinois, University of Illinois, United States
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UIC says in a news release that the money will allow it to continue to serve as the Chicago field office for a study that began in 2008 with the collection of health information from thousands of Hispanics around the United States. The release says participants who have been examined and filled out questionnaires have given researchers a better understanding of health risk factors as well as chronic diseases prevalent in Hispanic communities. Over the next seven years, researchers will re-examine participants in the hopes of identifying associations between lifestyle and cardiovascular disease and other health issues.
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10839
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Benefit of mammograms even greater than thought
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This story reports on the results of a long-term Swedish study showing that 29 years after their first mammogram, women who were invited to get routine screening had a significant reduction in breast cancer mortality compared to those who received usual care. This story failed to meet many of our criteria. For instance, the story does not give readers a balanced review of the benefits and harms, provides no cost information, lacks independent perspective, fails to report absolute data, and it does not include a discussion of the study limitations. The available evidence on the utility of screening mammograms is conflicting and complex and this story muddies the waters even more by largely ignoring the discussion of harms associated with mammography and introducing a suggested screening schedule, which this study was not even designed to address. In addition, the story line about the mammography debate is not, “Does screening save lives or not?” Rather, it is, “Is it worth it for an individual woman to be screened, when for some (e.g. 40-50 year olds), the benefit is quite small?” The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force did not say that screening did not reduce mortality. It said that for some women, the trade-off between that benefit and the potential harms is a close call and should be weighed by the woman and her physician. CNN, by comparison, included a response from the chair of the USPSTF – something this story omitted. The LA Times blog headline was “Mammograms can find breast cancer, true, but cost-benefit question remains” – more skeptical framing that this story didn’t approach.
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false
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Reuters Health,women's health
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This story did not mention the cost or insurance coverage for mammograms, though it did allude to the expense of having additional biopsies and tests to distinguish between a cancerous and noncancerous lesion found via screening. The story reports the percentage difference in death rates, without including absolute numbers, but it does quote the lead study author in presenting the Number Needed to Treat (NNT) to explain the results. In this case, he estimates that 1,000 women will need to be screened for 10 years to prevent 3 deaths from breast cancer. The story evokes the U.S. Preventive Task Force and the controversy associated with the revised recommendations for women aged 40-49 years, but the study does not break down the results by age, so one cannot be confident that these results will influence the current recommendations in any way. Other stories addressed this issue; this one did not. Furthermore, the lead author suggests that screening should take place every 18 months for women age 40-54 and every 2 years for women 55 and over, but results from this study do not address the issue of screening frequency. The story evokes the U.S. Preventive Task Force and the controversy associated with the revised recommendations for women aged 40-49 years, but the study does not break down the results by age, so one cannot be confident that these results will influence the current recommendations in any way. Other stories addressed this issue; this one did not. Furthermore, the lead author suggests that screening should take place every 18 months for women age 40-54 and every 2 years for women 55 and over, but results from this study do not address the issue of screening frequency.
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8323
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AstraZeneca to test impact of cancer drug Calquence on coronavirus patients.
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AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) said on Tuesday it would start a clinical trial of its cancer drug Calquence to assess its potential to control the exaggerated immune system response associated with COVID-19 infection in severely ill patients.
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true
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Health News
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Calquence (acalabrutinib) belongs to a class of drugs called Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors which can suppress autoimmune diseases. The drug, which is currently used to treat certain types of blood cancers, has already been approved for the treatment of adult patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia in the U.S. and several other countries. Calquence competes with AbbVie Inc (ABBV.N) and Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ.N) established treatment Imbruvica as a treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, one of the most common types of leukemia in adults. The British drugmaker’s shares rose as much as 7.3% to 7642 pence by 0855 BST. AstraZeneca’s announcement comes as drugmakers are having to pause clinical trials for other disease areas as they focus on testing potential treatments for the fast-spreading coronavirus. Patients with severe symptoms including pneumonia are believed to suffer from an over reaction of the immune system known as cytokine storm and AstraZeneca aims to test whether Calquence, which suppresses certain elements of the immune system, can help control this immune response. “Given the well documented role of the protein BTK in regulating inflammation, it is possible that inhibiting BTK with acalabrutinib could provide clinical benefit in patients with advanced COVID-19 lung disease,” said Louis Staudt, chief of the lymphoid malignancies branch at the National Cancer Institute. The trial will evaluate the effectiveness and safety of adding the drug to best supportive care to reduce mortality and the need for assisted ventilation in patients with life-threatening COVID-19 symptoms, the drugmaker said. It is expected to open for enrolment in the coming days in the U.S. and several countries in Europe, AstraZeneca said. Earlier this month, AstraZeneca and its domestic rival GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK.L) agreed to set up a testing laboratory to aid in COVID-19 testing with Cambridge University.
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30714
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"The ""radiation"" from cell phones is causing mass insanity resulting in ""snowflake"" people."
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In recent days Adams has taken time out from his apparent mission of bringing life expectancy back to Dark Age-levels to hawk anti-LGBT hate, fretting in an 8 January 2018 post that the “LGBT mafia” was “indoctrinating” children because primary school textbooks in California now include include the contributions of LGBT historical figures.
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false
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Medical, cell phone warnings, cell phones, electronic magnetic pulse
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On 15 December 2017, junk science site NaturalNews.com published a screed comparing cell phone use to “Big Tobacco” and arguing the devices should be banned because the radiation they emit is making people insane. The post, written by repeat offender Mike Adams, manages to entwine bigotry and quackery by claiming cell phones cause brain damage that lead to the “mental illness” of belonging to the LGBT community: The bigger question here, however, is what I’m posing today: By ignoring the very real health risks of brain damage caused by cellphone radiation exposure, have we allowed an entire generation to become brain damaged? It’s hard to look at “snowflakes” today and not conclude they are mentally deranged lunatics. […] As these videos demonstrate, a shocking number of today’s youthful people are nothing short of raging lunatics. This is especially evident in the LGBT / trans community, which is now expanding its “tolerance” acronyms to include men who enjoy having intercourse with the tailpipes of automobiles. Every freakish, deranged sexual deviancy is now claimed to be a “protected” victim group, and there’s no question the deranged Left will soon demand special protection for bestiality, pedophilia and those who engage in sexual acts with corpses. (Love wins! Um… dude, maybe that isn’t the kind of love you should be looking for…) There is no scientific evidence that the radio waves emitted from cell phones cause mental illness, and to say members of LGBT communities are lunatics or mentally ill is a bogus line of propaganda employed by hate groups. After maligning these already-marginalized groups, Adams takes the cop-out route by saying he’s “just raising the question here for future debate.” (It’s worth noting Adams linked to a web site that equated “the Left’s ATTACKS on white people” with the Holocaust.) Research into the health effects of cell phone use has focused the risk of cancer, although no conclusive evidence that a link between cell phone use and cancer exists. Further, scientific research points to biology determining sexual orientation. According to the World Health Organization, there’s no concrete evidence cell phones or towers produce and adverse health effects: Mobile phones allow people to be within reach at all times. These low-power radiowave devices transmit and receive signals from a network of fixed low power base stations. Each base station provides coverage to a given area. Depending on the number of calls being handled, base stations may be from only a few hundred metres apart in major cities to several kilometres apart in rural areas. Mobile phone base stations are usually mounted on the tops of buildings or on towers at heights of between 15 and 50 metres. The levels of transmissions from any particular base station are variable and depend on the number of calls and the callers’ distance from the base station. Antennas emit a very narrow beam of radiowaves which spreads out almost parallel to the ground. Therefore, radiofrequency fields at ground level and in regions normally accessible to the public are many times below hazard levels. Guidelines would only be exceeded if a person were to approach to within a metre or two directly in front of the antennas. Until mobile phones became widely used, members of the public were mainly exposed to radiofrequency emissions from radio and TV stations. Even today, the phone towers themselves add little to our total exposure, as signal strengths in places of public access are normally similar to or lower than those from distant radio and TV stations. However, the user of a mobile phone is exposed to radiofrequency fields much higher than those found in the general environment. Mobile phones are operated very close to the head. Therefore, rather than looking at the heating effect across the whole body, the distribution of absorbed energy in the head of the user must be determined. From sophisticated computer modeling and measurements using models of heads, it appears that the energy absorbed from a mobile phone is not in excess of current guidelines. Concerns about other so-called non-thermal effects arising from exposure to mobile phone frequencies have also been raised. These include suggestions of subtle effects on cells that could have an effect on cancer development. Effects on electrically excitable tissues that may influence the function of the brain and nervous tissue have also been hypothesized. However, the overall evidence available to date does not suggest that the use of mobile phones has any detrimental effect on human health. According to the National Cancer Institute, “Cell phones emit radiofrequency energy (radio waves), a form of non-ionizing radiation, from their antennas. Tissues nearest to the antenna can absorb this energy.” But studies have not shown a definitive link to cancer, although research is ongoing. So far, the only consistent physical impact from cell phone usage is localized heating. Natural News regularly traffics in conspiracy theories and nonsense some may call alternative science. Per RationalWiki, Adams “is a flat-out opponent of modern medicine,” noting: “If you cite NaturalNews on any matter whatsoever, you are almost certainly wrong.” After a gunman opened fire on a crowd at a country music festival in Las Vegas on 1 October 2017, killing dozens, Adams helped spread the false rumor that there was a second shooter.
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7800
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McDonald's in U.S., Canada to use only cage-free eggs by 2025.
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McDonald’s Corp’s 16,000 U.S. and Canadian restaurants will serve only eggs laid by cage-free chickens within 10 years, the company said on Wednesday.
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true
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Health News
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McDonald’s USA has been buying more than 13 million cage-free eggs annually since 2011. The long-awaited switch is happening as North American egg suppliers are slowly starting to rebuild flocks after the worst bird flu outbreak in U.S. history. The move comes as McDonald’s, the world’s biggest restaurant chain, is preparing to serve breakfast all day at U.S. outlets in October. McDonald’s USA, which is fighting sagging sales, made waves in March by announcing a two-year plan to phase out meat from chickens raised with antibiotics used to fight human infections. McDonald’s buys about 2 billion eggs annually for its U.S. restaurants and 120 million for Canada to serve breakfast items such as Egg McMuffin and Egg White Delight. Fast-food rival Burger King already has committed to using only cage-free eggs by 2017. Other large companies such as Starbucks Corp, General Mills Inc, Nestle, Sodexo Inc and Aramark also are in the process of switching. Groups such as the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Mercy for Animals and World Animal Protection have successfully lobbied many companies to adopt animal welfare practices. Such groups also have won commitments from nearly 100 major companies to phase out so-called gestation crates, which are small cages for breeding sows. Celebrities such as film star Ryan Gosling have teamed up with HSUS to pressure Costco Wholesale Corp to eliminate cage-confined chickens from the company’s egg supply chain. HSUS said Costco has committed to going cage free, but has not set a timeline for its full transition. HSUS said Costco rival Wal-Mart Stores Inc also has not set a timeline. U.S. companies, led by burrito seller Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc and other popular brands, increasingly are sourcing their ingredients from suppliers who vow to use humane and environmentally sustainable agricultural practices. California voters in 2008 passed a law mandating that all eggs sold in the state come from chickens given more spacious living quarters. That law went into effect on Jan. 1 and other states and countries since have followed Calfornia’s lead. So far this year, the price of a dozen eggs has averaged 67 cents more in California than in the Midwest, said Brian Moscogiuri, market reporter for shell eggs and egg products at Urner Barry.
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305
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Crystal meth and crowded jails: problems mount in Iraqi oil city.
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The southern Iraqi city of Basra is struggling to cope with a growing drug problem that has overcrowded prisons and strained police resources, only months after violent protests over poor municipal services.
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true
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Health News
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Basra’s prison system is clogged up and creaking. On a recent day in one police station, Reuters reporters saw about 150 men, their heads shaved, squatting in two small, cramped holding cells. Arrests of drug users and dealers have shot up in the past year, further stretching prison services and police in a sign that the problems with municipal resources that prompted protests in Basra last summer have not gone away. “Drugs spread because the youth are lost, they have no money, they are sick of life. It’s escapism,” Major Shaker Aziz, a senior member of Basra police narcotics unit, told Reuters. “Prison authorities tell us: ‘Ninety percent of inmates are convicted on drug charges, stop sending them.’ So we keep them here,” Aziz said of the holding cells. The situation in prisons, worsened by a lack of treatment centers for recovering addicts, highlights the contrast between the wealth Basra province produces - its oil contributes over 90 percent of state revenues - and its poor living conditions. Once known as the Venice of the East, Basra city, which has a population of 4 million, lacks clean water and does not have enough electricity to power air conditioners in the scorching summer heat. Unemployment is widespread, especially among youth. Thousands protested against the conditions, unemployment and corruption last summer, when searing heat made matters worse and hundreds were treated in hospital after drinking unclean water. Protesters set ablaze government buildings and political groups’ headquarters, and clashed with police. Officials fear a repeat of the violence this year, and while the drug problem is a concern in several areas of Iraq, Basra suffers from it the most. Basra is struggling even though Iraq declared victory in the four-year war against Islamic State in 2017, and the city never fell to the militant Sunni Islamist group. The number of drug arrests has risen year-on-year since 2015, Aziz said. By March, police had picked up 15 kilograms (33 lb) of illegal drugs this year, half of 2018’s entire haul. Some 50 to 60 people are arrested each week on drugs-related offences, compared to more than 1,000 all last year, he said. Methamphetamine, known popularly as crystal meth, is the most widespread drug, said a police spokesman, Colonel Bassem Ghanem. Opium, cannabis and pill abuse are also common. Basra’s police department says 97 percent of drug users arrested in 2018 were unemployed, and more than two thirds were 25 or younger. All the drugs come from abroad, said Colonel Ismail al-Maliki, who heads the Basra police narcotics unit. Basra Police Chief Rashid Fleih said in November that 80 percent of drugs entering the city come from Iran. Tehran denied this but officials still point the finger indirectly at Iran, using euphemisms such as “neighboring countries”. Preventing drug trafficking is a serious challenge for Iran which borders Afghanistan, the world’s largest opium producer, and Pakistan, a major transit country for drugs. Iraq once had the death penalty for users and dealers but passed new legislation in 2017 under which judges can order rehabilitation for users or sentence them to jail for up to three years. In the absence of rehab centers, they are jailed. Under the new law, the health ministry was given two years to provide rehab centers. Local health officials pledged to reopen and upgrade a 44-bed rehabilitation center this month but the police say 44 beds is not enough. “All of Basra’s oil and we can’t afford rehab?” said Aziz. Asked about the situation, the state-owned Basra Oil Company said it has pledged $5 million for a rehab center. Inside a training complex on the edge of Basra province, police have re-purposed a building as a makeshift rehab center for users nearing release. About 40 men live in comparatively comfortable conditions, sleeping six per room with access to television, a gym and books. Clerics, officers and teachers lecture on the sinfulness and dangers of drug use. Experts say recovering users need treatment and rehabilitation when they first stop using, not towards the end of sentences. Prisoners say they suffer the worst withdrawal symptoms during the first 20 days, unable to eat or sleep. “This is just a model, to get the health ministry to build real centers,” said Ghanem, the spokesman. Prisoners interviewed by Reuters were chosen by police, who sat in on interviews. Some were handcuffed. One user-turned-dealer said he was recruited a year after he started buying, wooed by the idea of free crystal meth. “I paid 50,000 dinars ($40) per gram as a user. I only paid 20,000 ($16) as a dealer. I would sell some and smoke some. I was smoking for free,” he said. He described a network of dealers that went up to a “big boss” whom he would not identify to police out of fear for his life. He faces a minimum of five years in jail. Some said they were falsely arrested. Asked if the police offered suspects lighter sentences if the provided them with information, one police officer said they rarely needed to. “They always cooperate,” he said, asking not to be named as he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
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39753
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Online marketers guarantee that the Quantum Vision System can give its users 20/20 vision in less than seven days.
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Quantum Vision System Guarantees Improved Eye Vision-Reported to be Fiction!
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false
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9/11 Attack on America
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"The Quantum Vision System appears to be a scam. The Quantum Vision System uses deceptive online marketing and a fictional medical professional to dupe people into purchasing an unexplained “system” that will supposedly give them 20/20 vision in less than a week without surgery. A marketing video that was shared more than 36,000 times on Facebook features testimonials from so-called satisfied customers, and it promises perfect vision using just a few “simple, easy, soothing and fun” exercises. Like many “miraculous” online health claims, however, marketers of the Quantum Vision System never explain exactly what it is, or how it can produce such incredible results. The website’s disclaimer doesn’t instill any confidence, either. It says that the information is provided “as is” and goes on to explain: “All products from QuantumVisionSystem.com and its related companies are strictly for informational purposes only. While all attempts have been made to verify the accuracy of information provided on our website and within the publications, neither the authors nor the publishers are responsible for assuming liability for possible inaccuracies. “The authors and publishers disclaim any responsibility for the inaccuracy of the content, including but not limited to errors or omissions. Loss of property, injury to self or others, and even death could occur as a direct or indirect consequence of the use and application of any content found herein.” The Quantum Vision System has many online advertisements that are made to look like glowing reviews from satisfied customers. One of those “reviews” offers a little perspective into what exactly the Quantum Vision System provides. The user said it comes with three “Quantum Reports” that supposedly help users expand memory power, help users detect “lies that moreover enhance brain ability,” and help users learn to read faster. It’s not clear how those things would be able to provide 20/20 vision. Also, a man who appears in the video is identified as a Dr. John Kemp, an optometrist from Virginia, in a number of the advertisements. However, there are no records of a licensed optometrist named John Kemp in the state. The Quantum Vision System is marketed by ClickBank, which identifies itself as “an online marketplace for digital information products.” The company has had nearly 250 customer complaints filed against it with the Better Business Bureau over the last three years. Customers have complained of deceptive claims, rude customer service providers, and unfounded charges on their credit card bills. Comments"
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17462
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The minimum wage is mostly an entry-level wage for young people.
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"McConnell said ""the minimum wage is mostly an entry-level wage for young people."" The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that indeed half of all workers making a minimum wage are 16 to 24, and another 20 percent are in their late 20s or early 30s. That’s a large chunk of the minimum wage workforce, though about 30 percent of people making the minimum wage are 35 and older. McConnell also goes a bit too far in calling these jobs ""entry-level."" For most young people, these are part-time jobs in the food or retail businesses or similar industries with little hope for career advancement."
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true
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National, Income, Mitch McConnell,
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"President Barack Obama is expected to take another stab at raising the minimum wage when he delivers his State of the Union speech this week. But Republicans appear ready to stymie that proposal once again. The topic came up Jan. 26, 2014, on Fox News Sunday during a discussion between host Chris Wallace and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. ""Isn't it reasonable that somebody who's working full time, 40 hours a week, should be able to live above the poverty line?"" Wallace asked McConnell, referring to Obama’s calls to hike the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. ""Yeah. But of course, the minimum wage is mostly an entry-level wage for young people,"" McConnell replied. ""We have a crisis in employment among young people right now."" McConnell went on to say that he believes raising the minimum wage will hurt employment and ""we ought to be doing things that create more jobs."" But what about McConnell’s characterization of minimum wage workers? Is it a workforce mostly made up of young folks? We’ll stick to the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25, since that’s the topic up for debate. As it stands, 21 states and the District of Columbia have set their minimum wage higher than the federal level. A spokesman for McConnell pointed us to a study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, ""Characterizations of Minimum Wage Workers,"" released in February of last year. We’re familiar with it, having written a couple of fact-checks recently on the minimum wage. According to the report, of the 75 million people making hourly wages in 2012, about 1.6 million earned the minimum wage while another 2 million earned less than $7.25 an hour. (How does one earn less than the minimum wage? Certain exceptions are carved out for ""vocational education students,"" ""full-time students employed by retail or service establishments, agriculture, or institutions of higher education,"" and those ""impaired by a physical or mental disability."") The underlying data in the report largely backs up McConnell’s claim. In fact, the report even says ""Minimum wage workers tend to be young."" How young? Only 20 percent of individuals earning hourly wages are ages 16-24, but that demographic makes up half of all individuals earning at or below the minimum wage. About a quarter of those individuals are teenagers ages 16-19 and another 25 percent are 20 to 24 years old. Broadened to include 25-29 year olds, and nearly two-thirds of all workers making at or below the minimum wage are younger than 30. The older you get, the more likely you’re making more than $7.25. But McConnell also described minimum wage jobs as ""entry-level."" That’s a characterization with which some may take an issue. Entry-level jobs typically indicate positions that, while at the bottom of the totem pole, have potential for growth. Young adults take entry-level jobs at companies hoping to climb the career ladder. And while wages are lower, there is potential to see considerable salary increases and/or career advancement. A majority of minimum-wage jobs don’t really fit that description. According to the report, two-thirds are part-time, and half of all minimum wage jobs are in the leisure or hospitality industry. This includes food service jobs like waiters and cooks, hotel employees or movie theater workers, among other jobs. While many of those jobs are traditionally held by young people, they don’t typically lead to careers in those industries. The same can be said for retail jobs, which make up another 16 percent of all minimum wage-or-less positions. Our ruling McConnell said ""the minimum wage is mostly an entry-level wage for young people."" The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that indeed half of all workers making a minimum wage are 16 to 24, and another 20 percent are in their late 20s or early 30s. That’s a large chunk of the minimum wage workforce, though about 30 percent of people making the minimum wage are 35 and older. McConnell also goes a bit too far in calling these jobs ""entry-level."" For most young people, these are part-time jobs in the food or retail businesses or similar industries with little hope for career advancement."
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2143
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Hour of exercise may be too much for busy U.S. women.
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Healthy middle-aged women in America will be hard pressed to get in the full hour of moderate exercise it will take to avoid gaining weight as they age, and it may be too challenging for some.
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true
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Health News
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People participate in a YogaWorks class in Santa Monica, California in this handout picture taken early 2009. REUTERS/Handout A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Tuesday found that middle-aged women need to get at least an hour a day of moderate exercise if they hope to ward off the creep of extra pounds that comes with aging. “Time is a four-letter word,” said Eva Lazarra, 48, a pharmacist at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois, who was taking a break from work to lift weights at the facility’s fitness center. “In a realistic world of a working mom with a family, it can be difficult. I’ve done my best,” said Lazarra. “I have done marathons. I have done triathlons. Unfortunately, we have to start looking at prevention, and that being part of our daily life.” President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are already waging a war on childhood obesity. It may take a similar push in adults to help them avoid the health consequences of obesity such as heart attacks, strokes and diabetes. Already, two-thirds of U.S. adults and nearly one in three children are overweight or obese — a condition that increases their risk for diabetes, heart disease and other chronic illnesses. The United States spends nearly $150 billion a year on obesity and related complications — twice what it cost in 1998 and more than every cancer cost put together. Many experts, including the independent and influential Institute of Medicine, have said it will take policy changes at all levels of government to help Americans exercise more — by creating bicycle paths, reducing crime in rough neighborhoods and building more public transport. Dr. Mary Tillema, 42, a neonatologist at the medical center, said an hour a day of moderate exercise will be tough. “I think that’s a lot to ask of the typical person. If I don’t watch what I eat, I gain, even though I try to consistently exercise.” Tillema works out three to four days a week, with a routine that includes 35 minutes of cardiovascular exercise and about a half hour of weight training. “I’d like to think that I can get away with less, but I can’t because I see the weight start to creep up and I don’t feel as good. But I certainly don’t get an hour a day,” she said. Sheila Anderson, 50, of Berwyn, Illinois, works out at the fitness center three to four times a week, doing 45 minutes of cardiovascular training and a couple of hours a week of weight training. “Does it strike me as too much?” she said of the finding. “Maybe. It sure is hard to fit in an hour each day. I could not come to the gym seven days a week,” she said.
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31401
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If the vial to a mercury-containing vaccine is broken, the building must be evacuated.
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We rank this aspect of the claim as false, as the CDC itself disputes the characterization of its own document when used to make the argument and because Mr. Kennedy’s claims rest on comparing two things of completely different scales without providing any relevant context.
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false
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Medical, anti-vaccine, Centers for Disease Control, mercury
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Historically, some vaccines and other injections have contained a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal. An early and scientifically unsubstantiated anti-vaccine talking talking point includes the claim that the compound’s presence in childhood vaccines is responsible for an increase in autism rates. The fact that autism rates are still climbing (despite the fact that childhood vaccines no longer contain this ingredient) has hindered this specific interpretation of thimerosal risk, but not its general use as a scare tactic. Thimerosal is included in a handful of specific flu vaccine formulations packaged in multi-use vials; despite this, mercury from thimerosal is still frequently cited in efforts to make children’s vaccines sound like a health risk. A recent example of this guilt-by-spurious-association came from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time sower of vaccine safety fears, who said on a 20 April 2017 appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight”: [Mercury] is the most potent neurotoxin known to man that is not radioactive. How can we inject that into a child? If you take that vaccine vial and break it, you have to dispose of that as hazardous waste. You have to evacuate the building. We attempted to contact Mr. Kennedy through multiple avenues to ask him what on information he based that statement. After sending a message to the e-mail address listed for him on the Pace University Law School web site (where Kennedy holds a professorship), we received a response from a different individual named who identified himself as Frederick Spendlove, whose email did not appear to be associated with Pace University. Spendlove did not respond to our questions about his role in Kennedy’s work or his authority to speak on Kennedy’s behalf, but he did send us four loosely connected documents that, he said, demonstrated that an evacuation would be the common protocol. Two of the documents regarded mercury’s classification as a hazardous chemical. One was a memo from the North Dakota Department of Health from January 2010, addressed to various local immunization providers. The second was a flyer from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources: According to state and federal hazardous waste management requirements, discarded Thimerosal-preserved vaccines need to be managed as hazardous waste, using the waste code D009 (mercury). Spendlove, as well, sent us a link to Missouri State University’s “Hazardous Waste & Hazardous Materials Contingency Plan” in defense of the claim that a building need be evacuated if a vaccine vial breaks. This document states that spills equal to or smaller than the amount of mercury found in a fever thermometer could be handled with a mercury spill kit: A spill of elemental mercury, such as with the breaking of a thermometer, may result in the release of harmful mercury vapors. Environmental Management has a vacuum that is specifically designed to clean up mercury spills and eliminate the release of mercury vapors. Only the aforementioned recovery system should be used in response to mercury spills involving more than a small thermometer. For spills involving small thermometers, mercury spill kits are available in the chemistry stockroom at Temple Hall. Both the MSU document and the last document sent by Spendlove, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention poster titled “Don’t Mess With Mercury” both make the case that a thermometer-scale spill would require a spill kit and the necessity to allow the room to ventilate for 24 hours. This is a far cry from a building-wide “evacuation”: Ignoring the fact that the ethylmercury in thimerosal differs chemically from the elemental mercury in thermometers in significant ways, the relevance of these documents to Kennedy’s claim hinge on the assumption that that the amount of mercury contained in a vaccine is an anyway comparable to the amount of mercury contained in a thermometer. It is not. A small fever thermometer typically contains about 610,000 micrograms of mercury. For comparison, a broken 10 dose multi-use flu shot vial would contain about 250 micrograms of mercury — about 0.04 percent of that in the broken thermometer. For further comparison, this puts the amount of mercury released by a broken 10-dose flu shot vial at an order of magnitude above the amount of mercury found in a three-ounce can of tuna (around 65 micrograms), but an order of magnitude below the amount released from a broken CFL light bulb (around 3000-5000 micrograms). Neither events would necessitate evacuating the building, no matter how pungent the tuna may be. We reached out to the CDC to see if these broader guidelines regarding elemental mercury spills apply, at least on a federal level, to a broken vaccine vial containing thimerosal. While acknowledging that state and local regulations may differ, a representative told us that there is no federal requirement that a building be evacuated if a vaccine vial breaks. We are in no way arguing that mercury is not a neurotoxic substance, nor are we disputing that it is classified as a hazardous chemical. What we do dispute is that its classification as a hazardous chemical makes its spill a large-scale emergency that necessitates a building wide evacuation, specifically when talking about the amount found in a multi-use flu vaccine vial.
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33244
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Wearing certain types of sanitary pads causes uterine and bladder cancer and has resulted in the death of 56 girls.
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It is true that synthetic materials of the types used in some high-absorbency feminine sanitary products can trap heat and dampness, which may promote the growth of yeast and bacteria and (in rare cases) create the potential for toxic shock syndrome, but that issue is associated with the use of tampons rather than sanitary pads.
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false
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Medical, menstrual periods, Toxin Du Jour
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This warning about the dangers of women wearing various brands of absorbent sanitary pads for more than five hours per day was circulated widely on the Internet in September 2013: Examples: [Collected via e-mail, September 2013] Attention Sisters!! !FORWARD AS U RECEIVE: 56 girls died because of using whisper, stayfree, etc. One Single pad for the whole day because of the chemical used in Ultra Napkins. Which converts liquid into gel. It causes cancer in bladder & uterus. So please try to use cotton made pads and if you are using ultra pads, Please change that with in 5 hours, per day, at least. If the time is prolonged the blood becomes green & the fungus formed gets inside the uterus & body. Please don’t feel shy to forward this message to all girls and even boys so that they can share with their wives n friends, whom they care for. This is a public service msg from Tata Cancer Hospital. Attributed to a “public service message” from the Tata Cancer Hospital, it warned that the extended use of certain types of sanitary napkins (e.g., Procter & Gamble’s Whisper and Always Ultra, and McNeil’s Stayfree) results in uterine and bladder cancer, and that 56 girls had died from such causes. Wearing a single pad of the types listed (rather than ordinary cotton pads) for more than five hours per day, it claimed, would turn one’s blood “green” and cause a fungus to form “inside the uterus and body.” There is a facility known as the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, India, but it professed neither knowing nor endorsing anything about the warnings and its claims. And although the extended wear of a single sanitary pad for a prolonged period of time might potentially cause some hygiene and health issues, we found nothing to substantiate the notion that simply wearing one pad per day (rather than changing pads every five hours or less) creates any serious medical concern, much less that it leads to uterine and bladder cancer, has turned anyone’s blood green, or has caused the deaths of 56 young women.
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6163
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Bird flu hot spot: Scientists track virus in huge migration.
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Huge flocks of famished birds scour the sands of Delaware Bay for the tiny greenish eggs an army of horseshoe crabs lays every spring.
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true
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AP Top News, Health, South America, Delaware, Flu, North America, Bird flu, Pandemics, U.S. News, Science
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It’s a marvel of ecology as shorebirds migrating from South America to the Arctic time a stop critical to their survival to this mass crab spawning. It’s also one of the world’s hot spots for bird flu — a bonanza for scientists seeking clues about how influenza evolves so they just might better protect people. “Eventually, we would like to be able to predict which would be the next pandemic,” said flu pioneer Robert Webster of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. These humble beaches turn into a mixing bowl for influenza between mid-May and early June, as thousands of shorebirds and gulls crowd together and swap viruses. Researchers carefully step around the nesting crabs to scoop up the evidence — potentially flu-infected bird droppings. “We have trained our eyes for this, that’s for sure,” said St. Jude researcher Pamela McKenzie as she bent over damp sand last month in search of the freshest samples to go on ice for later testing. Not just any splat will do. Too dry, and tests might not be able to detect virus. Too big, and it’s likely not from the species that carries the most flu here, the calico-patterned ruddy turnstone. Why test birds? “That’s where all flu viruses come from,” said Richard Webby, who directs St. Jude’s Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance, a program funded by the National Institutes of Health. Aquatic birds, including wild ducks and migrating shorebirds, are considered nature’s main reservoir for influenza. Whether it’s the typical winter misery or a pandemic, every strain that infects humans “started off somewhere along the family tree in the aquatic bird reservoirs,” Webby said. Usually wild birds don’t get sick, simply trading flu viruses they carry in the gut. But every so often strains from wild birds kill domesticated chickens and turkeys, and threaten pigs or even people, too. St. Jude’s annual study at Delaware Bay offers a glimpse into little-known efforts around the world — including testing migrating ducks in China and Canada, and live poultry markets in Bangladesh — to track how bird flu circulates and changes, information that can help determine what vaccines to make for animals and people. And nowhere else in the world have scientists found so many shorebirds carrying diverse flu strains as when red knots, ruddy turnstones and other species make their migratory stopover at this bay nestled between New Jersey and Delaware. Most bird flu isn’t easily spread to people, stressed McKenzie, who doesn’t even wear gloves as she pooper-scoops along a beach before the tide washes back. Still, “it’s amazing how the virus can change so rapidly, what genes they inherit,” added McKenzie, who oversees St. Jude’s global bird flu surveillance. The U.S. stockpiles just-in-case vaccines against worrisome strains. “It only has to happen once,” Webby said. “The right virus comes and gets into the right population which happens to fly over the right farm of turkeys which happens at the right time of year where the right farmer picks up the wrong bird — and we’re in trouble.” _____ Webster, now an emeritus virologist at St. Jude, made the connection between bird and human flu decades ago when he found some seabirds in Australia carrying antibodies against the strain that caused the 1957 pandemic. In 1985, his continuing hunt for bird flu took him to Delaware Bay. Today, scientists know that if two different types of flu infect a single animal at the same time — say a pig catches both a chicken strain and a human strain — the genes can shuffle to produce a totally new virus. But worry about bird flu as a threat to both poultry farms and humans has grown since a strain named H5N1 spread directly to people in the late 1990s in Hong Kong’s crowded live-poultry markets. Cousins of that virus have cropped up, as has another flu named H7N9 that since 2013 has infected more than 1,500 people in China through close contact with infected chickens. Those are very different viruses than what St. Jude finds in shorebirds passing through Delaware Bay, Webby said. For some reason, viruses carried by Asian and European birds rarely make it to the Americas, he said, but it’s important to look — and to understand the normal ebb and flow of different strains so it’s more obvious when something new crops up. The research is “one way to stay a little bit ahead of the virus,” said Marciela DeGrace of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Understanding how this virus can change and how much it can change in a quick amount of time is going to be critical for us to make countermeasures like vaccines.” _____ Why flu erupts during the Delaware Bay stopover remains a mystery. But the longest travelers arrive wasted, and must double their weight in two weeks. “You can hold a bird and say, ‘This bird just got here.’ They’re here to do work,” said Alinde Fojtik of the University of Georgia’s Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, a longtime flu researcher who this year volunteered her vacation to help count and tag shorebirds. So the birds can feast uninterrupted, only scientists and conservation workers are allowed on their preferred beaches, carefully catching and counting them, testing their overall health and tagging them for tracking as the migration continues. For the flu hunters, finding the right spot is a trick. St. Jude researcher Patrick Seiler pulls out binoculars: Nope, mostly gulls on one beach. Down the road, he spots a better target, a crowd of ruddy turnstones with their distinctive black, white and brown plumage. The skittish birds take flight as the team approaches. Each dropping gets whisked up on a cotton swab, put into a small vial of preservative and stored in a cooler. The team carried more than 600 samples back to St. Jude’s labs in Memphis, Tennessee, where researchers are beginning the monthslong process to test how many droppings harbor flu and what kind. The viral library is used for further experiments to test how well strains spread, said NIH’s DeGrace. “I would love to be able to look at the sequence of virus we find in Delaware Bay this year say, ‘Uh-oh, that’s the guy that’s coming.’ We’re not at that point yet,” Webby cautioned. “That’s our end goal, to be able to say, ‘Uh-oh, here’s something we have to worry about.’” __ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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11365
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Study: Simple blood test can detect evidence of concussions up to a week after injury
|
A study of about 600 patients at a non-profit Orlando hospital group showed that two markers in the blood of patients who had blows to the head could predict whether they had suffered head injuries. The news release about the study, published in JAMA Neurology, drew immediate widespread press coverage, including stories in the New York Times, Newsweek, NBC News and Time, whose story we also reviewed. We thought the release was well-written, but could have been improved with a better summary of the study evidence, by addressing funders, and by including a caveat that more study is needed. We were a bit troubled by the release talking about children’s injuries when this study only evaluated adults. Thousands of people — both children and adults — suffer blows to the head and some suffer a concussion (also now know as traumatic brain injury or TBI). Unfortunately, no perfect test exists to quickly diagnose the level of severity of the injury other than symptoms or anatomic changes detected on a computed tomography (CT) scan. In the majority of cases, the symptoms resolve over time but in a minority of cases, symptoms worsen. A blood test for a potential marker of damage to the brain might one day help keep athletes and workers from returning to their work (or play) too soon. A simple test that could distinguish between those who have a mild injury from those with more damage would be useful. We previously reviewed the media’s handling of another approach using eye movements to distinguish between the two groups. In both instances, the research findings were encouraging. But we cannot stress enough that encouraging results are not conclusive. The title of the report clearly overstates the study results. While the test may eventually be useful in the detection of concussion there is little evidence at the moment that it can.
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mixture
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Diagnostic tests,Hospital news release,Screening tests
|
We were glad to see a very brief mention in the release that if the biomarker research is confirmed in larger studies, it might someday replace what the release calls “expensive” CT scans used in emergency rooms to try to diagnose concussion. But there is a tacit assumption that the biomarker would replace the use of CT scans. Experience would suggest, however, that new tests tend not to replace existing methods but are simply added to them. We also want to point out that if this new biomarker test became a commonplace screening tool, it could result in over-screening. Tools for screening have to be evaluated very carefully to have the greatest benefit for the right patients. The release states that the blood test “was able to detect mild to moderate traumatic brain lesions with up to 97 percent accuracy in patients 18 years and older.” According to the published study, researchers used a statistic called Area Under Curve (AUC), a predictive model, that reflects both the sensitivity and specificity of the test. A value of 0.5 implies that the test has the diagnostic accuracy of a coin flip, whereas a value of 1.0 indicates perfect discrimination between diseased and non-diseased patients. Sensitivity and specificity are important characteristics of any screening or diagnostic test and we encourage health care journalists to incorporate these concepts into their reporting. The 97 percent accuracy figure used in the story appears to refer to the state of metabolic blood levels at 36 to 60 hours after injury. It appears that the initial determination over whether the patient had mild traumatic brain injury was highly accurate. The release did not mention any potential harms of this screening tool. Just to mention one hypothetical case, it is possible that caregivers relying on the blood levels alone may err and fail to test in other ways for brain injury. In general, medical tests have two potential harms. The first is that the test does not demonstrate the presence of injury when in fact there is one. This would lead to under-diagnosis. The second is the test demonstrates the presence of injury when it does not exist. That would lead to over-diagnosis. While obvious, the report should have included some caveats to its otherwise glowing comments. The release makes some inaccurate statements about the published study: “Researchers analyzed nearly 600 patients for 3 years. When cross-checked with scans, the blood test was able to detect mild to moderate traumatic brain lesions with up to 97 percent accuracy in patients 18 years and older. The blood test also indicated which patients were in need of life-saving neurosurgery. This suggests that the blood test could be used by clinicians for up to a week after injury to detect brain injury. This is important because many patients with concussion may not seek medical attention for days after injury.” Let’s put this into perspective. First, the study lasted for 3 years and did not analyze 600 patients for 3 years. There is a big difference. Subjects in the study were followed for 180 hours. In reality there were two groups of subjects studied, trauma patients with (N=325) and without evidence (N=259) of mild to moderate traumatic brain injury. The blood test did distinguish between the 7 subjects who had severe injury (2 of whom underwent a neurosurgical procedure and 7 who required hospitalization in an intensive care unit (ICU). So the sample of those who truly had significant injury was small indeed. The release does not include disease mongering. The release mentions that a lead researcher is “NIH funded” but does not specify funders for this study nor does it include a statement about potential conflicts of conflicts. (Just to clarify — we’re always pleased to see a statement even if no conflicts are known to exist.) The journal article itself has a disclosure footnote that states Papa is an unpaid consultant to Banyan Biomarkers, Inc., while Welch and Lewis disclosed receiving contract research funding from Banyan. Banyan is a for-profit biotech company in Florida seeking to commercialize a biomarker for head injury. We think this connection between the research and the biotech should have been mentioned in the release. The news release described how trauma patients would routinely be evaluated and possibly have a CT scan in order to diagnose without the use of blood markers. It would have been useful to include a mention of other research involving blood markers for concussion that have been undertaken. The release makes clear that the test is only part of a clinical trial and not available. The release claims novelty through this statement, “We have so many diagnostic blood tests for different parts of the body, like the heart, liver and kidneys, but there’s never been a reliable blood test to identify trauma in the brain. We think this test could change that.” In addition, the release mentions the lead researcher’s earlier research involving this blood test. This release includes some unjustified language. For starters, there is no such thing as a “simple blood test,” particularly one that tries to diagnose a brain injury based on a blood sample. We’ve addressed this in a previous review of an Orlando Health news release. We also have concerns about the use of the term “can” in the headline. This is still preliminary research and more studies are required to prove its usefulness.
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30499
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A trail cam in Alabama snapped a photograph of an unknown creature's horrifying feet in March 2018.
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We're not certain where a photograph of a pair of monstrous claws comes from, but it certainly wasn't taken in Alabama in 2018.
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false
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Fauxtography, werewolf
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A somewhat disturbing image of an unknown animal’s feet has been circulating online for several years, alongside a variety of claims about its origins. In March 2018, the photograph was re-purposed and shared as if the creature whose prints it captured had been spotted recently on a game trail in Cleburne County, Alabama: We have not been able to identify the source of this photograph. However, the claims made in recent Facebook posts about it are false: This picture was not taken in March 2018, and the animal it captured traces of (if any) did not destroy a trail camera or kill an Alabama farmer’s livestock. This image has been online since at least as far back as October 2015, when it was shared on Instagram along with a story about a sailor in Oman who was “shocked” to find the image on his camera. This photograph has also been used to illustrate similar stories about a strange creature that was supposedly found in India, Brazil, and Hawaii. Needless to say, we’re skeptical that this exact same photograph was pulled from cameras in so many different locations and times. So what does this picture actually show? While this image is frequently claimed to depict evidence of a lobisomem, South America’s version of a werewolf, we’re fairly certain that this is a dog (or another extant species) suffering from mange: “Mange (demodicosis) is an inflammatory disease in dogs caused by various types of the Demodex mite. When the number of mites inhabiting the hair follicles and skin of the dog become exorbitant, it can lead to skin lesions, genetic disorders, problems with the immune system and hair loss (alopecia).” In fact, the paws in this viral photograph closely resemble a 2014 photograph taken by the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at the University of Nottingham, UK, of a dog suffering from a severe case of sarcoptic mange:
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36075
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"The University of Oxford banned clapping because it makes ""snowflakes"" anxious."
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‘University of Oxford Clapping Ban’ Rumor
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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In October 2019, a number of tabloids claimed that the University of Oxford had “banned clapping,” a move made at the behest of “snowflakes” made “anxious” by applause.The Daily Mail was one of those outlets, reporting:Snowflake students at Oxford University are latest to demand clapping is banned because applause noise could trigger anxiety as they call for ‘jazz hands’ to be used insteadSnowflake students at Oxford University are the latest to demand that clapping should be banned because applause noise can trigger anxiety and want ‘jazz hands’ to be used instead.Noting that “snowflake students” were the latest to “demand” clapping be banned, the site reported that there were proposed alternatives, including what they described as “jazz hands.” A headline on a story from The Sun blared, “CLAPTRAP ‘Snowflake’ Oxford University students ban clapping and replace it with ‘jazz hands’ to stop ‘anxiety,'” quoting people who were apparently offended by the ban:Student union leaders hope it will make its meetings and events more accessible and inclusive to those with anxiety.One former student fumed: “Oxford University Student Union is always seeking to be more accommodating.“But this idea will not work and is completely ludicrous.”Another outrage-bait headline emanated from Metro, suggesting that clapping was banned at Oxford University “to stop people being triggered”:Students at the University of Oxford have voted to ‘replace clapping’ with a silent wave because it ‘could trigger anxiety’.They are instead being told to use ‘jazz hands’, where they wave their hands in the air.The motion to ‘mandate the encouragement of silent clapping’ was successfully passed by the university’s student union officers, following their first meeting of the year on Tuesday. It will come apply at student union events, and if successful, rolled out to other societies and events.Oxford students had argued that alternatives to clapping already existed in some organisations and institutions and that they should follow suit.Other iterations of the claim emphasized that “jazz hands” as a gesture was more inclusive to anxiety sufferers, with some stories strongly implying that “jazz hands” had been selected to mollify people with delicate sensibilities. Tacked on to the end of that item was the following, more honest characterization:Jazz hands is the British Sign Language expression for applause and is considered a more inclusive gesture.Sabbatical Officers Roisin McCallion said: ‘The policy was proposed in order to encourage the use of British Sign Language clapping during our democratic events, to make those events more accessible and inclusive for all, including people who suffer from anxiety.Note that in that context, the British Sign Language gesture for “applause” was indeed more “inclusive” — but for hearing impaired people and those with sensory sensitivities, not fun-hating “snowflakes.” Across all three tabloid articles, it would be reasonable to walk away with the impression that clapping was “banned” thanks to demands from the emotionally sensitive.However, an October 23 2019 Oxford Student campus newspaper article reported the change much more clearly and accurately:SU Adopts BSL Clapping To Replace Traditional ApplauseThe first Student Council meeting of the academic year, [on October 22 2019], passed the motion to mandate the Sabbatical Officers to encourage the use of British Sign Language (BSL) clapping, otherwise known as ‘silent jazz hands’ at Student Council meetings and other official SU events.The motion was presented to Council last year by Ellie Macdonald (former VP Welfare and Equal Opportunities) and Ebie Edwards Cole (Chair for Oxford SU Disabilities Campaign), presented again this year by Ebie and Roisin McCallion (VP Welfare & Equal Opportunity).BSL clapping is used by the National Union of Students since loud noises, including whooping and traditional applause, are argued to present an access issue for some disabled students who have anxiety disorders, sensory sensitivity, and/or those who use hearing impairment aids.First and foremost, clapping was not banned as the headlines inaccurately claimed — it was simply replaced as a default with sign language. The reasoning, as explained by the original school paper reporting, was that audible applause as well as whooping and yelling presented an access issue for hearing impaired students as well as those diagnosed with anxiety or sensory processing disorders.Second, that was in no way a “ban.” Instead of defaulting to a mainly auditory response (whooping, clapping), the students agreed to use sign language in order to make their gatherings more accessible. Misleading descriptions of disability accommodations and inclusivity as a “ban” is a common tactic to create “ragebait” headlines by falsely insinuating such accommodations are forced upon the public at large by “offended” people rather attempting to include the requests of people with disabilities and their advocates.In short, Oxford University did not “ban clapping,” nor did it acquiesce to “demands” made by “snowflakes.” Oxford’s student union voted to encourage the use of British Sign Language for applause so that students could more fully participate in ceremonies, but clapping and cheering have not been banned.
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8255
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Top epidemiologist: UK had no time to lose on coronavirus battle.
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One of Britain’s top epidemiologists said on Tuesday that the British government got the timing of its coronavirus strategy about right but that there was no time to lose on moving to more stringent measures.
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true
|
Health News
|
“The measures which have just been taken, the earliest we’d expect to see an effect on the growth of the epidemic is about two to three weeks time,” said Professor Neil Ferguson, an expert on the spread of infectious diseases at Imperial College London. “I think we’re still behind the epidemic seen in other European countries,” he told BBC radio. “I overall think we’ve got the timing about right.” “Certainly there wasn’t any time to lose,” he said.
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13388
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"Dana Young Says she ""voted for a statewide fracking ban."
|
"A mailer from Young says she ""voted for a statewide ban on fracking."" That vote is in reference to HB 191, which would have set up a temporary moratorium on fracking in anticipation of future regulations. The bill would have authorized a study on which to base further regulation. It was not an outright ban on fracking. Young’s claim is partially accurate but is missing context that would give the reader a different impression. Correction: A previous version of this fact-check incorrectly reported who sent the mailer. The piece has been updated to reflect that it was sent by an outside committee with Young's approval.
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mixture
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Environment, Corrections and Updates, Florida, Dana Young,
|
"In an attempt to position herself as a more environmentally-friendly candidate, state Rep. Dana Young, R-Tampa, has sent mailers touting her vote for a recent bill targeting fracking. The effects of the legislation Young voted for are not as clear cut as the claim Young makes. A third-party group supporting Young, who is facing Democrat Bob Buesing for state Senate in the newly created District 18, sent the mailer in the last weeks of September that says she ""voted for a statewide fracking ban to protect our water."" The group, the Florida Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, paid for the mailpiece, but the mailer says that Young approved the message. So we are putting Young on the Truth-O-Meter. The mailer refers to Young’s vote on House Bill 191, legislation aimed at regulating fracking in Florida. We were curious about the Young’s statement and the specifics of the measure. As we looked further into the bill, we found the mailer is somewhat misleading. What Young voted for would have regulated fracking, but it wouldn’t have permanently banned it. A closer look at House Bill 191 HB 191, dubbed ""Regulation of Oil and Gas Resources,"" was sponsored by Rep. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, and passed 73 to 45 on Jan. 27 in the Florida House. Young voted in favor of this bill, along with 72 other Republicans, while 38 Democrats and 7 Republicans opposed the bill. Young reasoned that HB 191 could have been the first step to a permanent ban on fracking. However, the bill only called for a temporary moratorium on the process, not a ""ban"" like her mailer says. Democrats who voted against the bill echoed arguments of environmental groups and said a temporary ban doesn’t go far enough to protect Florida’s water. Had the bill passed (it was defeated in a Florida Senate committee), the measure would have allowed Florida to regulate fracking — a process that involves pumping large amounts of water, sand and chemicals into the ground to harness oil and gas reserves. Per the bill, fracking permits would not have been issued until a study was completed in 2017 by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP would have proposed rules based on the study’s results, which would have been subject to approval of the Legislature. Point being, the bill was never intended to ban fracking permanently, but place a moratorium on the practice while its effects were studied. Democrats also took issue with the fact the bill would have prohibited Florida's counties and cities from passing local bans against fracking. According to the Miami Herald, 41 cities and 27 counties oppose fracking. St. Petersburg has passed a resolution against hydraulic fracturing, along with Broward County, which outlawed fracking in January. In addition, there were several amendments to HB191 offered up by Democrats that would have created more safeguards against fracking, including a restriction on what chemicals can be used and studies on prenatal health, but they didn’t pass. Young voted against some of these, but her spokesperson said those issues were unnecessary, trusting the DEP study would have addressed those concerns. Young’s office said she strongly opposes fracking in Florida and will continue to seek a statewide ban. Our ruling A mailer from Young says she ""voted for a statewide ban on fracking."" That vote is in reference to HB 191, which would have set up a temporary moratorium on fracking in anticipation of future regulations. The bill would have authorized a study on which to base further regulation. It was not an outright ban on fracking. Young’s claim is partially accurate but is missing context that would give the reader a different impression. Correction: A previous version of this fact-check incorrectly reported who sent the mailer. The piece has been updated to reflect that it was sent by an outside committee with Young's approval.
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35880
|
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised parents to prepare for a “sudden sleepover” in the event of an emergency, which included COVID-19 outbreaks in schools.
|
What's true: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offered recommendations to parents and guardians in advance of the 2020 academic year, which included advice to prepare for a “sudden sleepover” in the event of an unexpected emergency or natural disaster. What's false: Health officials did not specify that students would be kept overnight at schools in the event of an emergency, COVID-19-related or otherwise.
|
mixture
|
Politics Medical, COVID-19
|
As some schools reopened in fall 2020 following nationwide closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a rumor circulated that health officials had recommended parents and guardians plan for a possible “sudden sleepover” at school in the event of an emergency or natural disaster, which could include COVID-19. Snopes readers asked our team to verify whether this advice was, in fact, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We found the rumor to be based in truth but taken out of context and seasoned with a political spin. The reported advice was first published by Intellihub, a website that media background-checking tool Newsguard found to have “promoted false and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories” and has “inconsistent” information about its content creators, for example, referring to its reporters as “staff writers” or omitting their names altogether. The Intellihub article in question read that “the government must be expecting some sort of disaster,” which placed the CDC’s advice in a paranoid context. Many of Intellihub’s other articles include similar tactics that appear to try to scare readers, such as those that claimed that “tsunami waves will swamp Washington coast,” or the suggestion that governments were “igniting wildfire[s] in California from space.” USSA News, a blog launched in opposition to the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act and that goes by a tagline of the “Tea Party’s Front Page,” subsequently shared the Intellihub article in its entirety, which read: The Center for Disease Control issued a three-step preparedness card questionnaire that asks parents the unthinkable and insinuates what should be done when it comes to protecting “your child during emergencies in the school day.” The CDC guidelines say it’s as “easy as ABC.” “How would you be reunited with your child in an emergency?” the questionnaire asks parents. “Bring extra medicines, special foods, or supplies your child would need if separated overnight,” it reads. “Complete a backpack card and tuck one in your child’s backpack and your wallet.” Additionally, it reads: “An emergency might require a sudden sleepover. Tell school administrators about any extra supplies your child may need to safely make it through a night away from home.” It is important to note that the Intellihub article did not mention COVID-19. That reference was added when the story was picked up on Sept. 5, 2020, by Ohio Statehouse News, a media source described on its Facebook page as a “political news outlet, minus the liberal-media slant.” The publication noted that the CDC was “advising parents to prepare for a ‘sudden sleepover’ for their children in the case of a disaster, which could include COVID-19.” The CDC did offer advice to schools for reopening amid the COVID-19 pandemic, including a printable “backpack emergency card” available on the agency’s website. In it, health care experts recommended three steps for parents to take in order to ensure that their child is safe in the event of an emergency or evacuation at school. This advice includes: Asking how a parent or guardian would be reunited with their child during an emergency; Bringing extra medicines, special food, or supplies that a child might need if they were separated overnight; and Completing a backpack card to be kept in both the child’s backpack and in the caregiver’s wallet. It is not known whether the backpack card was created specifically for the 2020-21 academic year or if it had previously existed as part of general emergency planning recommendations. Snopes contacted the CDC for further clarification but did not hear back at the time of publication. It is true that the backpack emergency card posits that an “emergency might require a sudden sleepover” and advises caregivers to tell their school administrators about any extra supplies that a child might need to “make it through a night away from home.” However, there is no mention of COVID-19 or coronavirus listed anywhere in the infographic. Additionally, the CDC did not specify that children are expected to stay the night at school. Rather, parents and guardians should consider that an emergency might mean that a relative or emergency contact may need to pick up a child from school and, as such, the child should have the resources necessary to plan for possible overnight arrangements away from home. The card is part of the CDC’s “Caring for Children in a Disaster” campaign aimed at helping parents and guardians prepare for an emergency at the launch of the 2020 academic year.
|
4017
|
Nearly 50,000 students unvaccinated in Wisconsin.
|
Health officials say nearly 50,000 children in Wisconsin have vaccination waivers as the school year gets underway, leaving them vulnerable to measles at a time when the number of cases has grown exponentially across the country.
|
true
|
Immunizations, Health, Measles, General News, Wisconsin
|
The Journal Sentinel says figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show 1,215 cases of measles this year across the nation, the highest number since 1992. Wisconsin health officials have investigated 382 suspected measles cases since last November and not one case has been confirmed. Immunization rates of 92% to 95% are considered necessary to prevent the virus from spreading to those who are vulnerable, including children with weakened immune systems. Wisconsin’s county-by-county immunization rates show that none of the state’s 72 counties came close to the 92% threshold in 2018. In fact, 40 counties had immunization rates below 80%. ___ Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com
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17572
|
"Federal law for Obamacare navigators ""does not bar — or even require screening for — convicted felons, including individuals convicted of identity theft or fraud."
|
"Sessions said federal law related to Obamacare navigators ""does not bar—or even require screening for—convicted felons, including individuals convicted of identity theft or fraud."" That’s correct, but this claim is missing important meaningful information. For instance, it fails to note that the federal government has an Excluded Parties list that prevents grants from going to agencies not in good standing. Also, the claim doesn’t acknowledge that states are permitted to impose background checks. A Texas agency was already weighing such a mandate when Sessions made this claim while nationally, other states have done so or are considering as much. Finally, this claim fails to note that the biggest Texas contractor for navigators has reported conducting a background check of each navigator it hired."
|
mixture
|
Criminal Justice, Health Care, Crime, Texas, Pete Sessions,
|
"A Dallas congressman charged the Obamacare law with failing to bar convicts from helping Americans shop for health coverage. In an oped article written with Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., Republican Pete Sessions suggested the patient ""navigators"" authorized by the Affordable Care Act could include individuals experienced in stealing identities. The article was posted online Dec. 15, 2013, by the Dallas Morning News. Under the law, navigators are groups or individuals entrusted with helping individuals as they shop online for health coverage to comply with the Obamacare law’s mandate that most Americans obtain health insurance. The federal government says too that a navigator may help a consumer complete eligibility and enrollment forms. ""These individuals and organizations are required to be unbiased. Their services are free to consumers,"" the government says. However, Sessions wrote, the 2010 health-care law ""does not bar — or even require screening for — convicted felons, including individuals convicted of identity theft or fraud. This is particularly dangerous because navigators may have access to applicants’ personally identifiable information, including Social Security number date of birth, address, phone number and annual income. This poorly conceived program endangers families and individuals across the country by heightening the risk of identity theft or financial loss."" Is that so? Law doesn't mandate Our review of the law yielded no sign of a mandate that navigators be subject to criminal background checks, though the law says the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services ""shall establish standards for navigators… including provisions to ensure that any private or public entity that is selected as a navigator is qualified, and licensed if appropriate, to engage in the navigator activities described in this subsection and to avoid conflicts of interest."" The law continues: ""Under such standards, a navigator shall not... be a health insurance issuer; or...receive any consideration directly or indirectly from any health insurance issuer in connection with the enrollment of any qualified individuals or employees of a qualified employer in a qualified health plan."" The law further says the secretary shall, in collaboration with the states, develop standards to ensure information made available by navigators is fair, accurate and impartial. On April 5, 2013, Health and Human Services proposed rules for navigators; we did not spot a directive to conduct background checks there, nor was there one in the final rules, dated July 17, 2013. And by telephone, analyst Stacey Pogue of the liberal Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities, which has spoken up against proposed state rules imposing more training for navigators, pointed out that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has spoken to Sessions’ claim. In a Nov. 6, 2013, hearing of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, the secretary was asked by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas: ""Isn't it true that there is no federal requirement for navigators to undergo a criminal background, even though they will receive personal -- sensitive personal information from the individuals they helped sign up for the Affordable Care Act?"" Sebelius: ""That is true. States could add an additional background checks and other features, but it is not part of the federal requirement."" Cornyn: ""So a convicted felon could be a navigator and could acquire sensitive personal information from an individual, unbeknownst to them."" Sebelius: ""That is possible. We have contracts with the organizations, and they have taken the responsibility to screen their individual navigators and make sure that they are sufficiently trained for the job."" Republican staff inquiry Sessions’ spokeswoman Torrie Miller, responding to our request for the basis of his claim, pointed by email to a Sept. 18, 2013, preliminary report by the Republican staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform quoting Vicki Gottlich, described as overseeing the navigator program for the federal government until June 2013, as confirming in an April 18, 2013, response to committee staff that ""convicted felons, including individuals convicted of identity theft"" could become navigators. According to the report, Gottlich also testified ""there’s nothing that prohibited HHS from (requiring individuals to have gone through a background check),"" but HHS ""determined that it would be up to the individual grantee to comply with state requirements for background checks and investigations of their employees."" According to Gottlich, the report said, ""in many states, there would be sufficient checks"" and ""the cost (of background checks) might be prohibitive for some entities,"" while entities in rural areas might have difficulty with background checks and fingerprinting. According to the report, Gottlich also testified that the agency never considered banning convicted felons or individuals convicted of identity theft from being navigators. The report quoted her as saying that all such hiring decisions were ""going to be up to each individual (navigator award) grantee,"" and, if a state’s laws allow, navigator organizations ""can hire convicted felons including those individuals convicted of identity theft."" Federal ""excluded parties"" list And what are the groups getting the navigator grants? Our search of the HHS website yielded a written statement prepared by a deputy administrator, Gary Cohen, for his May 21, 2013, appearance before a House subcommittee. Cohen said entities chosen to receive federal funds as navigators ""will be subjected to a robust screening process before grants are awarded."" A related footnote said: ""Entities and individuals are not eligible for a federal grant, including a navigator grant, if they are on the Excluded Parties List, which is a list of any entities or individuals who have been suspended or debarred by any federal agency. Entities or individuals may be suspended from receiving federal grant money for up to one year based on indictments, information or adequate evidence involving environmental crimes, contract fraud, embezzlement, theft, forgery, bribery, poor performance, non-performance or false statements."" The footnote continued: ""Entities or individuals may be debarred from receiving federal grant money for a longer period of time based on convictions, civil judgment or fact-based cases involving environmental crimes, contract fraud, embezzlement, theft, forgery, bribery, poor performance, non-performance or false statements as well as other causes. This careful screening will help to ensure that individuals or organizations that pose a risk to the federal government are not awarded federal navigator grants."" Texas grant recipient says it conducts checks In August 2013, according to a document posted online by the Texas State Library, the groups chosen to field navigator grants were: the United Way of Metropolitan Tarrant County; Migrant Health Promotion, Inc.; the National Hispanic Council on Aging; Change Happens, a Houston nonprofit; United Way of El Paso County; Southern United Neighborhoods, an anti-poverty group; the East Texas Behavioral Healthcare Network; and the National Urban League. Separately, the Texas Tribune said in an Aug. 15, 2013, news story that $10.8 million was awarded to the grant recipients with the biggest awardees being Tarrant County’s United Way ($5.8 million) and the East Texas network ($1.3 million). By email, an HHS spokesman in Washington, D.C., Fabien Levy, told us: ""Navigator grants are given to trusted community organizations that have a track record of working in their communities and all navigators must complete a minimum of 20 hours of training and comply with privacy and security standards. We take any alleged impropriety seriously and take immediate action in cases where navigators have failed to live up to their responsibilities."" It could be, too, that navigator grant recipients are conducting background checks already, though Miller of Sessions’ office told us by email that ""we have no way of knowing how many have actually done so."" A Dec. 3, 2013, news blog post by the Dallas Morning News said the Community Council of Greater Dallas and other partners in the navigator grant overseen by United Way of Tarrant County ""voluntarily subjected all navigators hired to criminal background checks and additional training on privacy."" By telephone, United Way spokeswoman Cassie McQuitty told us all of its 146 navigators underwent criminal background checks prior to being hired. By email, she said they also had been trained in consumer needs and privacy. Texas agency proposes mandatory background checks The News’ story noted, too, that the Texas Department of Insurance had proposed state-specific rules for navigators in the state. The agency’s Nov. 26, 2013, proposed rules state: ""HHS does not conduct or require a background check on navigators or individuals who represent navigator grant recipients."" The agency proposal says, too, that a measure passed into law by the 2013 Legislature authorized the state insurance commissioner to adopt rules providing that anyone who becomes a navigator not have a professional license suspended or revoked or have been the subject of any other disciplinary action by a financial or insurance regulator in the country--or been convicted of a felony. According to the agency’s proposal, TDI learned at a Sept. 30, 2013, Texas ""stakeholders"" meeting ""that one navigator entity in Texas had taken steps to provide protections beyond those set out in federal standards. These steps included background checks on employees and extra training focused on Texas Medicaid and privacy."" Sessions’ oped article said the ""lack of federal oversight of the navigator program has already led to reports of improper and illegal behavior, including two instances in North Texas. In Dallas, a navigator recommended that an applicant lie about his income in order to qualify for additional subsidies to lessen the costs of his health care plan. In Irving, a part-time receptionist who worked at a navigator center encouraged an individual to lie about his tobacco use to keep his premiums down."" A Nov. 12, 2013, Dallas Morning News’ blog post said that hidden-camera video taken by activist James O’Keefe evidently showed three Dallas navigators advising a consumer to lie about his income and whether he smokes as part of getting a better deal on subsidized health coverage in visits to offices in Irving and Oak Cliff in Dallas. The newspaper said the taped navigators advised a young man posing as a university student. ""He says he has a $15,000 a year job and unreported income from odd jobs. They tell him not to report the outside income on his health insurance application, if he has not disclosed it on his income taxes,"" the News said. ""They also urge him not to divulge that he occasionally smokes. ""‘You lie because your premiums will be higher,’ one says."" Later the same day, the newspaper reported, the Urban League of Greater Dallas and North Central Texas fired three navigator trainees and another employee in the wake of the incident. The proposed state rules would require navigators to: be 18 years of age; provide proof of U.S. citizenship or compliance with all federal laws pertaining to employment or to the transaction of business in the United States; provide proof of compliance with education requirements; and submit to fingerprinting and a background check. On its website, the department urges Texans to be careful while shopping for a policy. The agency further says: ""Currently, the federal government oversees navigators and counselors that help consumers shop for insurance in the federal marketplace. To verify a navigator or counselor is certified by the federal government, call the federal marketplace at 1-800-318-2596 or visit www.healthcare.gov. In addition, TDI is in the process of developing rules to further regulate navigators, ensuring that consumers’ personal information is protected and that navigators are well-trained and qualified."" A squib on another agency web page says: ""Navigators are funded through federal grants and should not request any money from you, nor will they receive a commission from an insurance company for helping you purchase coverage."" By telephone, agency spokesman John Greeley said the state rules are to be finalized after public hearings, the last one scheduled for Jan. 6, 2014. Other states Next, we wondered if other states were considering mandatory background checks of navigators. At Pogue’s suggestion, we reached Justin Giovannelli of the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute who said by email that at least a dozen other states have created or proposed some sort of required criminal background check of individuals seeking to be navigators: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin. Our ruling Sessions said federal law related to Obamacare navigators ""does not bar—or even require screening for—convicted felons, including individuals convicted of identity theft or fraud."" That’s correct, but this claim is missing important meaningful information. For instance, it fails to note that the federal government has an Excluded Parties list that prevents grants from going to agencies not in good standing. Also, the claim doesn’t acknowledge that states are permitted to impose background checks. A Texas agency was already weighing such a mandate when Sessions made this claim while nationally, other states have done so or are considering as much. Finally, this claim fails to note that the biggest Texas contractor for navigators has reported conducting a background check of each navigator it hired. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context."
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28566
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Photographs shows dozens of bomb-sniffing dogs killed by a security company in Kuwait.
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What's true: A series of photographs show dozens of dead dogs that were killed in Kuwait. What's undetermined: The reason why the dogs were killed and who was ultimately responsible for their deaths is unknown.
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mixture
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Fauxtography, kuwait
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In June 2016, a series of photographs purportedly showing dozens of dead bomb-sniffing dogs circulated on social media, along with the claim that the animals were killed by Eastern Securities after their contract with the Kuwait National Petroleum Company was cancelled: Eastern Securities or E Sec was awarded a contract with Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) to provide explosive detection dogs for their oil rigs. When KNPC canceled the contract with Eastern Securities, they were left with 140+ dogs that no longer had a job and were costing them money to feed and house them. Instead of being responsible with the working dogs and finding them homes, Eastern Securities chose the most cost-effective way of dealing with the unemployed working dogs, euthanasia. It is unknown at this time exactly how the dogs were killed or even if the remaining 90 are still alive. The images were first posted by Missy Skye, the founder of My Cats And Dogs in Kuwait, a non-profit dedicated to helping stray animals. The images received wider attention when they were posted to the Instagram page of Kuwait Animal Rescue Unit on 19 June 2016. According to these social media posts, 24 dogs were killed in the 17 June incident: There was an extremely sad and horrifying animal abuse/massacre incident at a security company based in Kuwait on June 17, 2016 in Kuwait. Due to their contract being revoked, they slaughtered 24 of their US K9 dogs whom were trained by USK9 dog training facility which is located in Louisiana, USA. This security company is an American company which worked with Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC). KNPC paid 3000KD (equivalent of $9900)/month to the security company for each dog. Early this morning, a brave lawer, Esmail Al Misri, representing the workers from Nepal at the security company and an avid animal lover, advocate, and rescuer, Mimi Maamoun, went to file a complain at Mina Abdullha police station against the security company. The environment police and municipality registered the case. There are another 91 dogs remaining at the security company. While they abused the dogs by having them on duty for 24 hours without rest, their foreign workers would not dare to speak up and raise any issues with the company as they were also being mistreated and abused. At this point, we as animal lovers in kuwait, USA, and other countries, we need to advocate all the animals by spreading the news and be the voice for these poor animals. We must help save the remaining animals! PLEASE NO DONATION IS NEEDED from/to any individuals or organizations. I will keep you posted as soon as I obtain further information. The reasons the dogs were killed and who is ultimately responsible for their deaths remains unclear. The Kuwait National Petroleum Company denied that they had anything to do with the killings, and unconfirmed sources told the Kuwait Times that the animals had been put down for humane reasons. A local animal rights activist, Mimi Mamoun, disputed that account: The Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) issued a statement denying any link with the reported ‘execution’ of sniffer dogs that were supposed to be used by the company according to deal with a local contractor. KNPC official spokesman Khaled Al-Asousi expressed regret in a statement to KUNA that the contractor put the animals to death. Reports on social media suggested that at least 24 dogs had been euthanatized due to the cancellation of a contract and unpaid salaries. Unconfirmed sources said that the animals were sick and had been put to death for humane reasons. But local animal rescuer and activist, Mimi Mamoun has disputed this account. “The dogs were not sick, only two, three I heard; in fact my Filipino friend who handles the dogs told me that the dogs were healthy and only a few of them were old but they killed them to punished the handlers who has filed complaints at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor (shoun) for nonpayment of salaries,” she said. The dog training company USK9 Unlimited also commented on the incident, releasing a statement saying that they had not sold any dogs or trained any handlers for Eastern Security since 2009, and that they played no part in the recent mass euthanasia: SK9 RESPONSE ABOUT THE KUWAIT INCIDENT: There is a lot of confusion over a story about the alleged massacre of dogs by a Kuwaiti Security company “Eastern Security” (ES), in the country of Kuwait. TO BE VERY CLEAR: USK9 HAD NO PART OF SUCH AN INHUMANE ACT. If if this alleged massacre of dogs is validated, our position shall be one of absolute condemnation of such a gross and vile act against defenseless animals. At USK9, we are true animal lovers and have always believed and treated each and every dog as “man’s best friend”. To see these type pictures simply makes all of us here sick to our stomachs. USK9 has NOT sold any dogs nor trained any handlers for “Eastern Security” since 2009. Since that time, many other dog suppliers/trainers have sold dogs to ES and we have no way of determining who those suppliers are. We are hopeful that an investigation into the matter will reveal and hold all parties responsible for this tragedy accountable to the fullest extent of the law in Kuwait. USK9 is making every effort to monitor this story as it unfolds through a contact in Kuwait, but we have no way of validating information. We have made a firm demand that the authorities investigate this alleged incident and protect any animals that may be in danger if this incident is determined to be one of animal cruelty and abuse. We have see some media publications in recent days that suggest that the incident is in fact being investigated and we remain hopeful that the remaining dogs will be protected and safe. USK9 will defend itself vigorously against any story or social media postings that depict a false representation that USK9 was even the least bit involved in this alleged incident in Kuwait or is somehow responsible for the alleged incident. Eastern Securities confirmed that 24 dogs had been killed but denied they were responsible fpr the canine deaths. In an e-mailed statement, the company claimed that the dogs had been killed by a rival company in an act of “sabotage”: On June 17, 2016, Eastern Securities, one of the premier private contactors providing K-9 security in Kuwait and other Middle East countries, found out, via a social media post, that 24 of its dogs had been killed. In what is developing into a case of corporate sabotage, a veterinarian technician, who worked for the agency where Eastern Securities leases its kennels, went to the kennels in the middle of the night, euthanized 24 dogs, photographed and sent pictures to a competitor of Eastern Securities, that have been since been leaked on the internet. Eastern Securities immediately launched an investigation and during the interrogation of both the veterinarian technician and the K-9 manager, an admission was made that Eastern Securities had nothing to do with the killing of the dogs. Criminal charges were filed against this depraved killer, who put down the dogs and an investigation continues to ascertain and bring to justice the names of additional culprits that helped commit this heinous crime. “Eastern Securities has spent years building a reputation as one of the best providers of K-9 security in the Middle East. It is the reason government agencies and top corporations trust us. Taking care of our animals has always been and will always be one of our top priorities. To be targeted by our competitors in such a vile and ruthless manner is a despicable display of greed. We are asking that this case be prosecuted to the fullest extent and are working with the Kuwaiti government to ensure those responsible are held accountable and something this horrific never happens again. We will not stop until all those involved are brought to justice,” said Bill Baisey, CEO of Eastern Solutions Group, the parent company of Eastern Securities. Facts to Know: A veterinarian technician, who worked for the kennels where Eastern Securities leased space, went to kennels at 3:00am on June 17, 2016 and killed 24 dogs. Pictures of the dogs being killed were sent to competitors of Eastern Securities. The technician immediately admitted his premeditation and commission of his crime and specifically confirmed the absence of any involvement or wrongdoing by Eastern Securities. The case continues to be under investigation by the Kuwaiti government and criminal charges against the technician were filed.
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36623
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"A scientist called ""China's Frankenstein"" because he claims he created the first ""gene-edited babies"" has gone missing."
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Has a Scientist Who Claimed He Created the First ‘Gene-Edited Babies’ Disappeared?
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unproven
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Fact Checks, Medical, Viral Content
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In November 2018, a scientist from China named He Jankui appeared to have ushered in a new era in humanity — and re-ignited an already heated international conversation about the ethics of editing genes to make “designer babies” — by announcing that he had successfully used gene-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 to modify the DNA of two embryos before birth:CRISPR-Cas9 was adapted from a naturally occurring genome editing system in bacteria. The bacteria capture snippets of DNA from invading viruses and use them to create DNA segments known as CRISPR arrays. The CRISPR arrays allow the bacteria to “remember” the viruses (or closely related ones). If the viruses attack again, the bacteria produce RNA segments from the CRISPR arrays to target the viruses’ DNA. The bacteria then use Cas9 or a similar enzyme to cut the DNA apart, which disables the virus.He says he did so in order to create children who are immune to human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. The announcement was met with criticism and some approval by scientists:It’s “unconscionable … an experiment on human beings that is not morally or ethically defensible,” said Dr. Kiran Musunuru, a University of Pennsylvania gene editing expert and editor of a genetics journal.“This is far too premature,” said Dr. Eric Topol, who heads the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California. “We’re dealing with the operating instructions of a human being. It’s a big deal.”However, one famed geneticist, Harvard University’s George Church, defended attempting gene editing for HIV, which he called “a major and growing public health threat.”“I think this is justifiable,” Church said of that goal.He studied at Rice and Stanford universities in the United States before returning to his homeland to open a lab at Southern University of Science and Technology of China in Shenzhen:The university said He’s work “seriously violated academic ethics and standards” and planned to investigate. A spokesman for He confirmed that he has been on leave from teaching since early this year, but he remains on the faculty and has a lab at the school.China condemned He’s announcement and said it had no knowledge of his research, even as the university distanced itself from his work. Just days later, He disappeared amid stories that he had been returned to Shenzhen:Over the weekend, some media outlets reported that the scientist had been brought back to Shenzhen by the university’s president.The reports claimed he was being kept under effective house arrest after he made an appearance at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong on Wednesday.It is not yet clear what has happened to He or why. However, as yet there is no independent verification of his claims and no peer-reviewed paper detailing his work exists
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5673
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2 Ebola patients in Congo “cured” with drugs, say doctors.
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Two Ebola patients who were treated with new drugs in the city of Goma in eastern Congo have been declared “cured” and returned to their home.
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true
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Africa, Health, General News, Ebola virus, International News
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Top doctors fighting Ebola quickly used the case on Tuesday to press the message that people can recover from the potentially deadly disease if they seek proper care. Ebola is dangerous but it is also curable with correct treatment, said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research. “Ebola kills quickly and Ebola heals quickly. That’s the message,” said Muyembe, at a press conference in Goma. “These cases were detected very quickly. The husband was infected, he was at home for 10 days and his wife and son were infected,” said Muyembe. “As soon as the response teams detected these cases, they brought them here to the treatment center. We gave them treatment that is effective and here in a short time both are cured.” Muyembe said two new drugs “are now be used to treat Ebola patients because, according to the studies and the results we obtained in the lab, these are the two drugs that are effective.” Muyembe and other scientists announced this week that preliminary results from two trials in Congo found two drugs — made by Regeneron and the U.S. National Institutes of Health — seem to be saving lives. Researchers said more study is needed to nail down how well those two compounds work. The drugs are antibodies that block Ebola. In the trial, significantly fewer people died among those given the Regeneron drug or the NIH’s, about 30%, compared to those who received another treatment. Esperance Nabintu rejoiced that she and her young son had survived Ebola. “May the Lord be praised, I thank the Lord very much. I and my child were sick with Ebola, but God has just healed us. “My brothers, we must not doubt. Ebola exists, “said Nabintu, whose husband was the second Ebola victim to die in Goma. No other Ebola death has been detected since then. After a public announcement that Nabintu and her son, Ebenezer Fataki, 1, had recovered from Ebola, the response team accompanied the two former patients their home in the Kiziba area, where the medical team educated the residents about proper Ebola treatment. There is less danger that Ebola will spread through Goma, the capital of North Kivu province with more than 2 million inhabitants, because about 200 contacts and suspected cases have been identified and have received proper medication, said Muyembe. He said people arriving in Goma are being monitored at the city’s entry points. “People who come from Beni and Butembo (nearby cities where there are many Ebola cases) must be carefully examined, “said Muyembe. “All of the 200 contacts we are following are doing well. We are waiting until the end of the 21-day surveillance period. We are at day 13, so there are still 8 days to go before we can say that Goma has won against Ebola.” Health officials have also vaccinated tens of thousands of people in Congo and surrounding countries in an attempt to stop the outbreak, but the virus has now continued to spread for more than a year. Response efforts have been repeatedly hampered by attacks on health workers and continuing mistrust among the affected communities; many people in the region don’t believe the virus is real and choose to stay at home when they fall ill, infecting those who care for them. ___ Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa
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8848
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U.S. reviewing safety of Glaxo, Bristol AIDS drugs.
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U.S. health officials are reviewing the safety of AIDS drugs sold by GlaxoSmithKline Plc (GSK.L) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co (BMY.N) after a study showed a higher heart-attack risk compared with other HIV medicines, the Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday.
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true
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Health News
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The FDA said it was still evaluating the data on Glaxo’s Ziagen and Bristol-Myers’ Videx, and that the review “may result in the need to revise labeling for the products.” “Until this evaluation is complete, health-care providers should evaluate the potential risks and benefits” of each HIV drug their patients are taking, the FDA said in a notice on its Web site. Glaxo and Bristol-Myers said their own evaluations had not found that the drugs raised the chances of a heart attack. The concern arose from a study of more than 33,000 patients called the D:A:D Study, which is examining the short- and long- term effects of various HIV drugs. Researchers examined heart attack risk among patients taking certain medicines from the class of AIDS drugs known as nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, or NRTIs. Patients taking either Ziagen or Videx “had a greater chance of developing a heart attack than patients taking other medications,” the FDA said. The risk did not appear to increase over time and seemed reversible after the drugs were stopped, the agency said. “The effect was not seen six months after stopping the drugs,” the FDA said. The FDA said it currently believed analyses of the D:A:D study were incomplete and noted that researchers had not evaluated heart-attack risk when patients were taking two other NRTIs, Gilead Sciences Inc’s (GILD.O) Viread and Emtriva. Glaxo spokesman Marc Meachem said the data had been presented at a medical conference in February. Glaxo analyzed its own databases and “did not see any sign of an increased risk of heart attack” with Ziagen, he said. Ziagen, which is known generically as abacavir, had 2007 global sales of $218 million. The drug also is a component of Glaxo’s Trizivir, Epzicom and Kivexa AIDS drugs, which had more than $1 billion in combined 2007 sales. Bristol-Myers spokeswoman Sonia Choi said “we haven’t seen an increase of cardiovascular events in our studies of Videx or in our (company) safety database.” Videx is sold generically and, therefore, is not one of the company’s top products. The drug’s generic name is didanosine. The FDA said the results from Glaxo and Bristol-Myers analyses were inconclusive. Bear Stearns analyst Mark Schoenebaum said in a research note he believed safety concerns with Ziagen “will drive increased switching to Gilead-based regimens.” Viread is known generically as tenofovir, and Emtriva is known as emtricitabine. The FDA notice was issued as part of an effort to notify the public about early signs of potential safety concerns before officials have reached a final conclusion.
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9547
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Mail-Order Tests Check Cells for Signs of Early Aging
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Boeing Co’s (BA.N) Starliner astronaut spacecraft made a “bull’s-eye” landing in the New Mexico desert on Sunday, a successful ending to a crewless test mission that two days earlier failed to reach the orbit needed to dock with the International Space Station.
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mixture
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telomere test
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The 7:58 a.m. ET (1258 GMT) landing at the White Sands desert capped a turbulent 48 hours for Boeing’s botched milestone test of an astronaut capsule that is designed to help NASA regain its human spaceflight capabilities. A software problem on Friday caused the capsule to fail to attain the orbit needed to rendezvous with the space station, another unwelcome engineering black eye for Boeing in a year that has seen corporate crisis over the grounding of its 737 MAX jetliner following two fatal crashes of the aircraft. Officials from the aerospace company and NASA breathed sighs of relief following the landing, a highly challenging feat. “Today it couldn’t really have gone any better,” Boeing space chief executive Jim Chilton told reporters on Sunday, adding that experts would need weeks to analyze the data from this mission before determining if Boeing could move forward with its plan to send a crewed mission on the craft in 2020. The landing, which tested the capsule’s difficult reentry into the atmosphere and parachute deployment, will yield the mission’s most valuable test data after it failed to meet one of its core objectives of docking to the space station. “We’re going to get I think a lot more data than we would have gotten if the test had gone according to plan,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said. After Starliner’s touchdown, teams of engineers in trucks raced to inspect the vehicle, whose six airbags cushioned its impact on the desert surface as planned, a live video feed showed. The spacecraft was in good condition after landing, Chilton said, with little charring and stable air pressure and temperature in the cabin. The CST-100 Starliner’s debut launch to orbit was a milestone test for Boeing. The company is vying with SpaceX, the privately held rocket company of billionaire high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, to revive NASA’s human spaceflight capabilities. SpaceX carried out a successful unmanned flight of its Crew Dragon capsule to the space station in March. After the Starliner capsule was launched from Florida on Friday, an automated timer error prevented it from attaining the right orbit to meet and dock with the space station. Chilton said the timer was running 11 hours ahead, which caused the spacecraft to burn fuel too quickly. Starliner’s three main parachutes deployed just over one mile (1,600 meters) from the Earth’s surface on Sunday after enduring intense heat from the violent reentry through the atmosphere, plummeting at 25 times the speed of sound. The parachute deployment, one of the most challenging procedures under the program to develop a commercial manned space capsule, earned Boeing a win after a previous mishap where one parachute failed to deploy during a November test of Starliner’s abort thrusters. That test tossed the capsule miles into the sky to demonstrate its ability to land a crew safely back on the ground in the event of a launch failure. For the current mission, Boeing and NASA officials said they still do not understand why software caused the craft to miss the orbit required. Sunday’s landing marked the first time a U.S. orbital space capsule designed for humans landed on land. All past U.S. capsules, including SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, splashed down in the ocean. Russia’s Soyuz capsules and China’s past crew capsules made land landings. The now-retired Space Shuttle used to glide in like a massive plane. (GRAPHIC: Space missions - here)
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7212
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Lawmakers, first responders sound alarm on 9/11 fund.
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More than 17 years after the 9/11 attacks, first responders and their advocates were back at the Capitol Monday urging Congress to ensure that a victims’ compensation fund does not run out of money.
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true
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Health, Politics, North America, Business, Sept 11 anniversary, Jon Stewart
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Members of the New York delegation, joined by first responders, survivors and family members, lamented an announcement by the Justice Department that the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund is running low on money and future payments may be cut by up to 70 percent. Comedian Jon Stewart, a longtime advocate for 9/11 responders, called the Feb. 15 announcement by the fund’s special master “unconscionable” and said Congress has a moral obligation to step in. At a news conference at the Capitol, Stewart said it was “nonsense” that first responders and their families again have to “beg” Congress for money nearly 18 years after the attacks. “This is nonsense. This is theater. You know it and I know it,” Stewart said. “If the American people in their busy lives had any sense that these shenanigans were going on, they would be outraged.” He and other speakers urged Congress to act quickly to restore the fund and ensure it has enough money to pay benefits for the next 70 years — or as long as victims need it. Anything less than full and permanent funding is “shameful,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., adding the death toll from the 2001 attacks “is still growing.” “It should not be a fight to pass this bill again,” Gillibrand said. The collapse of the World Trade Center in September 2001 sent a cloud of thick dust billowing over Lower Manhattan. Fires burned for weeks. Thousands of construction workers, police officers, firefighters and others spent time working in the soot, often without proper respiratory protection. In the years since, many have seen their health decline, some with respiratory or digestive-system ailments that appeared almost immediately, others with illnesses that developed as they aged, including cancer. Nearly 40,000 people have applied to the federal fund for people with illnesses potentially related to being at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon or Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the attacks. About 19,000 claims are pending. Nearly $5 billion in benefits have been awarded out of the $7.3 billion fund. Rupa Bhattacharyya, special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, said she was “painfully aware of the inequity” of the potential cuts, but said awarding some funds for every valid claim would be preferable to sending some legitimate claimants away empty-handed. Fund officials estimate it would take another $5 billion to pay pending claims and claims that officials anticipate will be submitted before the fund’s December 2020 deadline. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said the cost of restoring the program is minimal compared to the cruelty of failing to do so. “A great nation cannot nickel-and-dime people that have sacrificed their health on our behalf,” he said. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., said the 9/11 attacks “were not just a New York event” or an East Coast event, but were an attack on all Americans. “This is a sea-to-shining-sea moment, a sea-to-shining sea promise, a sea-to-shining-sea obligation,” Gardner said. The victims’ fund should “not be extended for a moment but for a lifetime,” he added. Stewart, reverting to comic form, said the victims’ fund was “like a Starbucks card. We’re just asking to get a little more money.”
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33524
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A video clip shows a man being struck by lightning twice.
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A video clip purportedly shows a man being struck by lightning two times in quick succession.
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false
|
Fauxtography, accidents
|
A video clip in circulation online since 2011, appears to be security camera footage recorded during a storm in which a pedestrian is struck by a bolt of lightning, lies on the ground dazed or unconscious for about a minute, gets up and continues walking (while rubbing his presumably aching head), is promptly struck down by a second bolt of lighting (which he also survives), and after another half-minute gets up and strolls out of camera range: Although we don’t yet know the specific origins of this video, it is, for a number of reasons, certainly a staged/created one and not actual camera footage of the occurrences it purports to depict: Direct [lightning] strikes occur when the victims are outside, often carrying metal objects, such as an umbrella. Metal (e.g., a hairpin) worn in the hair increases the chances of a direct strike compared with a metal object worn lower on the body. Although not always fatal, direct strikes are associated with high morbidity, because they frequently involve the head. Lightning strikes near the head may enter the eyes, ears, and mouth to cause multiple problems. Lightning can cause mild to severe damage to numerous body systems. Although the current from lightning may flow through the victim’s body for only a short time, it can short-circuit the body’s electrical systems, such as the heart and the respiratory center of the brain. A side flash (also called a side splash) occurs when lightning strikes a taller object near the victim and a portion of the current jumps from taller object to the victim. In essence, the person acts as a “short circuit: for some of energy in the lightning discharge. Side flashes generally occur when the victim is within a foot or two of the object that is struck. Most often, side flash victims have taken shelter under a tree to avoid rain or hail. The following video features a technical deconstruction of the original:
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31421
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Criminals are marking homes with bags tied to trees or colored stickers in order to steal dogs for use in dogfighting events.
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Yet again, the warning to dog owners was shared tens of thousands of times. We contacted the Dallastown Police Department in Dallastown, Pennsylvania in an attempt to confirm that police validated the user’s concerns about bags in trees and dog theft. An employee with whom we spoke denied they received any reports of dog kidnapping overall, including the sort connected to bags in trees.
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false
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Crime, bag in tree dog warning, crime warnings, dell schanze
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Warnings about dog-snatchers tagging homes with colored stickers to facilitate the stealing of canines for use in dogfighting events were originally circulated in the suburbs of Perth, Australia, in February 2013 before being relocated to a UK setting the following month: Any dog owners beware, leaflet droppers or anyone walking around housing estates. Keep your eye out for small coloured STICKERS on gates or doors, gangs are marking how many dogs live there to steal and they are using them for DOG BAIT FOR FIGHTING. Ring the police immediately if you see any and inform the home owners. Remove the stickers immediately! Red stickers are for big dogs Yellow for medium and Pink for small breeds Please re-share and keep your dog safe! This is already happening in the Goole Yorkshire area, UK and could be spreading across the country. This is disgusting The same rumor has also been spread involving plastic bags in trees: I’ve seen on Facebook that people’s homes are being marked by plastic bags tied in trees indicating they have a dog. This is a sign for criminals to abduct the dog for it be used as bait in dog fighting rings. This just doesn’t seem feasible. Officials in the former area quickly got out the word that this warning was a hoax: The internet has been flooded with chilling tales of an organised underground dog fighting ring operating out of Perth’s suburbs. Family pets have been systematically stolen from their yards to be trained as fighting dogs, according to reports appearing on social media and online classified websites. While many in Perth claim to know somebody who knows somebody whose pet has fallen prey to a kidnapping, authorities and social media experts have dismissed the warnings as a viral hoax. Animal welfare authorities in Perth, who have been inundated with phone calls since the messages started to appear, said the warnings were “completely unfounded.” “It’s a viral hoax,” RSPCA spokesman Tim Mayne told Fairfax Media. “Police and the RSPCA have no solid evidence on this at all. “We’ve been monitoring this situation and still, to the best of our knowledge, it’s a viral hoax.” Curtin University internet studies lecturer and social media expert Tama Leaver said the lack of specific details in the messages was a dead giveaway for a viral hoax. “If people were really trying to stop something there would be specific details about it and who they could contact,” he said. He said the messages were so vague they had managed to cover “the entire spectrum of Perth”. “If something like that is appearing for two weeks and there’s no official information released whatsoever — there’s no police follow up — and there’s no evidence of an actual fight, you’d have to question it,” he said. Similarly, in March 2013 UK officials in Yorkshire issued a denial that area dognappers were placing stickers or other markings on vehicle tires to identify the homes of dog owners (a variant of a similar rumor that such a method was being used to target gun owners): Police in Whitby and other areas of the county want to reassure residents that there are no gangs of dog thieves operating in the area and placing stickers on vehicles. A local officer who was called by concerned residents, has enlisted the advice of a local tyre fitter to prove that marks left on vehicle tyres are not the work of dog-nappers. Rumours have been circulating on social media sites that dog thieves have been placing stickers on vehicle tyres to mark the homes of dog owners, ready for them to go back and steal the dogs. This is not the case. The red and yellow dots seen on tyres are placed there by tyre manufacturers. The red dot denotes the heaviest part of the tyre and a yellow dot denotes the lightest. They are not the work of dog thieves. The rumor traveled to the U.S. in early 2015, when it emerged in the form of a warning involving plastic bags tied to trees as a harbinger of dognappers. According to the rumor (which spread widely on Facebook), criminals marked dog-owning homes by tying grocery bags to trees so pets could later be kidnapped for dogfighting rings. There was no explanation of how those who became wise to the purported ruse managed to differentiate bags purposefully tied to trees for signaling from discarded grocery bags that coincidentally came to rest among the branches after being blown about by wind. And as with prior variations, no instances in which pets were abducted were linked to plastic bags mysteriously found in trees prior to the canines’ disappearances. As noted in our article about a similar putative home-marking scheme, there’s no practical reason for persons seeking to perpetrate crimes against property to surreptitiously mark the homes of their intended victims rather than simply recording the addresses of those homes. A related warning was originally circulated in March 2012 (and again in March 2013) about a man named Michael Anthony Burdis who was reportedly attempting to obtain dogs from animal shelters to “use as bait in dog fighting”: This is Michael Anthony Burdis — watch out for him in all rescue centres as he’s trying to get his hands on a dog to use as bait in dog fighting! Please share this far and wide — we have to stop this evil man! This warning was apparently based on information originating with the UK-based Scruples Whippet Rescue, who posted on their Facebook page back in March 2012 that: There is currently a statement being posted all over facebook about a Michael Burdis. It is claimed that the statement was written by Scruples Whippet Rescue and is badly written and reads like Michael is a volunteer for us. The statement was NOT written by any member of the Scruples team. Michael Burdis is NOT in any way a Volunteer for Scruples or in any way associated with our Rescue. He wrote on our Facebook page last week enquiring about young dogs and was REFUSED a dog and was BLOCKED from our page due to his dog fighting links. This man is currently under investigation by the RSPCA . All our Volunteers are very strictly vetted and home checked and Scruples Whippet Rescue will not have, and never have had anything to do with anyone involved in the barbaric illegal activity that is dog fighting. We are very concerned that this badly worded statement that has been written by someone unknown to Scruples is making people believe that we are involved with Michael and his activities and we are asking all Facebook groups to delete the incorrect post and post and share this statement instead. However, we found no evidence that someone named Michael Burdis is (or was) being investigated by the RSPCA in connection with dogfighting activities, and the Scruples Whippet Rescue notice states only that someone using that name inquired of them about some dogs via Facebook. The photograph circulated with this warning (not reproduced here) appears to be a picture of someone by the same name from the U.S. who has no connection to any of the claims. A similar unconfirmed warning was circulated in April 2013 naming Dell Schanze as the person going to animal shelters to obtain dogs for use as bait in dog fights. And in May 2017, the “bags in trees” version of the rumor re-emerged on Facebook, purportedly confirmed by a police department in Pennsylvania: SHARING!!! !I usually don’t post much on Facebook however, I just wanted to spread the word/ make people aware of this. So I came home yesterday and noticed a bag hanging from a tree that had not been there when I left my house for about an hour, if that. The bag immediately caught my attention for some reason and it’s placement looked like it had been put there on purpose rather than trash that blew into the tree. It was positioned right at the corner of my fence. For some reason, I thought I remembered hearing someone tell me that there had been other cases of this and that it was related to marking houses for people who apparently steal dogs. When I walked out and looked at the tree and the bag, I noticed that the bag was tied in 3 different places to the tree meaning someone clearly put it there for a reason, so that alone was strange to me. Even though I thought they would tell me I was psycho for calling, I called 911 and explained the situation to them and asked if I should contact SPCA or something with this problem. I was surprised to hear that this was a concerning problem and that I was correct for calling/ report it to the police. I was even more alarmed when the 911 dispatcher asked me if I had any dogs and if so if they were inside to which I replied that my dog was inside. He then asked me if I was aware of the several recent cases of dogs being stolen/ going missing while in their own backyards. I was instructed to lock my doors, keep myself and my dog inside, not to touch the bag or any evidence at the scene and that they were sending out a police officer right away. I was told that this “tagging” or “marking” is thought to be used for people who are scoping out neighborhoods/ homes in which people have dogs that go outside or are left outside alone even for brief periods of time. They mark the house with a plastic bag tied to a tree at the home to leave a mark for people who will then come later and apparently lure dogs out of their yard and steal them. Although not absolutely certain why they are stealing them, they are apparently being used for dog fighting. Smaller breeds, larger breeds, or medium breeds. As I knew many of my friends here on Facebook have dogs or many of us have dogs of course, I wanted to spread the word. I was told by the police officer as well as the 911 dispatcher that even if letting the dog out for 5 minutes to go with them. please read this especially if you have a dog or dogs!!!! pic.twitter.com/Gh0sYVtD2l — Bella (@b3llaconigliaro) May 19, 2017
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37780
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There's a garden in England dedicated entirely to plants that are deadly and can kill you. It's the most dangerous garden in the world. It holds over 100 killers [such as hemlock], strychnine, and nightshade.
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Is There a Garden in England Dedicated Solely to Deadly Plants Called the ‘Poison Garden’?
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On June 21 2020, the Facebook page “The Runic Witch” shared the following meme, which described a garden in England “dedicated entirely to plants that … can kill you”:At the bottom of the meme was a photograph of a black gate, the archway of which read “The Poison Garden.” Both doors featured a skull and crossbones symbol and the words “these plants can kill.” Text at the top read:There’s a garden in England dedicated entirely to plants that are deadly and can kill you. It’s the most dangerous garden in the world. It holds over 100 killers [such as hemlock], strychnine, and nightshade.The Alnwick Garden is a “complex of formal gardens” not far from the Scottish border. It contains a number of sub-sections, including a massive treehouse, a cherry orchard, a bamboo labyrinth, and water features:Number nine on the above “Map Key” is marked to the left of the center fountain, and a rendering of the iron gates seen in the meme is visible.The Poison Garden was added in 2005, and a page on the Garden’s visitor site says of the deadlier plant section:The Alnwick Garden plays host to the small but deadly Poison Garden—filled exclusively with around 100 toxic, intoxicating, and narcotic plants. The boundaries of the Poison Garden are kept behind black iron gates, only open on guided tours.Visitors are strictly prohibited from smelling, touching, or tasting any plants, although some people still occasionally faint from inhaling toxic fumes while walking in the garden.An archived version of the page shed a bit more light onto the garden’s creation:It’s not often that the Home Office becomes involved with plants in the setting of a public garden, but in this instance a number of the ‘inmates’ have to have their very own license in order to be there at all.Many of the plants are already well-known for their medicinal properties, but as its creator, the Duchess of Northumberland said:‘I wondered why so many gardens around the world focused on the healing power of plants rather than their ability to kill… I felt that most children I knew would be more interested in hearing how a plant killed, how long it would take you to die if you ate it and how gruesome and painful the death might be.’Another since updated section, titled “Intoxicating inhabitants,” described some of the plants growing in the garden as the ones mentioned in the meme:There are over 100 plants of varying deadliness grown in the Poison Garden. Some of the plants are beautiful despite being deadly, and other look so harmless it is hard to imagine their dangerous, even fatal, qualities.Nux vomica’s Latin name implies much, but it perhaps rings more bells as strychnine. Interestingly, hemlock, a poison in its own right, can be used as an antidote to Strychnine, but don’t tell Socrates, who was sent to his death with a cup of hemlock.Those of a certain age will be familiar with Castor Oil, which is made from the plant Ricinus communis, but a single seed from the same plant will kill an adult in the most horrible way. Ricin causes nausea, severe vomiting, convulsions and subsequent disintegration of the kidneys, liver and spleen…In 2014, Smithsonian Magazine profiled the Poison Garden and spoke to Jane Percy, the Duchess of Northumberland about the macabre project’s inspiration:The duchess thought she might want to include an apothecary garden, but a trip to Italy set her on a slightly different course. After visiting the infamous Medici poison garden, the duchess became enthralled with the idea of creating a garden of plants that could kill instead of heal. Another trip—this one to the archeological site of the largest hospital in medieval Scotland, where the duchess learned about soporific sponges soaked in henbane, opium and hemlock used to anesthetize amputees during 15th-century surgeries—reinforced her interest in creating a garden of lethal plants.“I thought, ‘This is a way to interest children,'” she says. “Children don’t care that aspirin comes from a bark of a tree. What’s really interesting is to know how a plant kills you, and how the patient dies, and what you feel like before you die.”[…]“What’s extraordinary about the plants is that it’s the most common ones that people don’t know are killers,” the duchess says. Visitors are often surprised to learn that the laurel hedge, nearly ubiquitous in English gardens, can be highly toxic. But some visitors have had experience with laurel’s sinister side—the duchess has heard a few talk about how, after loading up their cars with pruned laurel leaves to take to the dump, drivers have fallen asleep behind the wheel of their car from the toxic fumes the branches emit.In the meme, plants in the nightshade family (which also contains potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant) were mentioned. In the article, a more specific explanation appeared alongside a detail about the garden’s other interesting inhabitants:As part of the Poison Garden’s educational mission, the duchess grows a variety of drugs, from cannabis to cocaine (derived from the leaves of the coca plant), which she and garden guides use as a jumping-off point for drug education. “It’s a way of educating children without having them realize they’re being educated,” she says.Other poisonous plants might be less well-known to visitors, but are no less potent. One of the duchess’s favorite plants is Brugmansia, or angel’s trumpet, a member of the Solanaceae family (which includes deadly nightshade) that grows in the wild in South America. “It’s an amazing aphrodisiac before it kills you,” she says, explaining that Victorian ladies would often keep a flower from the plant on their card tables and add small amounts of its pollen to their tea to incite an LSD-like trip. “[Angel’s trumpet] is an amazing way to die because it’s quite pain-free,” the duchess says. “A great killer is usually an incredible aphrodisiac.”As such, the “Poison Garden” meme was both popular and largely accurate. The Poison Garden is a sub-attraction as part of the larger Alnwick Garden, and it is grown behind the depicted, imposing iron gates. Among the deadly plants in it are hemlock, Nux vomica (strychnine), and Ricinus communis (ricin).Comments
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28334
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A half dozen Trump-related entities were under criminal investigation in December 2018.
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A spokesperson for the New York Attorney General’s Office told us that “As a matter of policy we do not confirm criminal investigations.” Neither the IRS nor the New York State Office of Tax Enforcement responded to our inquiries as to whether either body had initiated a criminal investigation against the Trump Foundation or its directors. A spokesperson for the Trump Organization, who has in the past issued statements on behalf of the Trump Foundation, did not respond to our request for comment.
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mixture
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Politics, donald trump, russia investigation
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President Donald Trump and several of his associates faced mounting legal and political jeopardy in the final days and weeks of 2018. On 12 December, for example, Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion and campaign-finance violations related to his involvement in a scheme to pay “hush money” to two women who claimed to have had sexual encounters with Trump. Cohen declared his willingness to fully cooperate with prosecutors in relation to other investigations, and he openly alleged that the president personally directed him to carry out the payments, telling the judge in his own case that he had spent years of his life covering up Trump’s alleged “dirty deeds.” The day after Cohen’s sentencing, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported that the same federal prosecutors in New York had launched a criminal investigation into President Trump’s inauguration committee, examining whether some of the non-profit committee’s funds were improperly spent, as well as whether donors (including foreign donors) had been given or promised policy concessions or access to the incoming Trump administration in exchange for their contributions. Against this background, a popular tweet appeared to offer a startling summary of alleged crimes surrounding the 45th president. On 13 December, Judd Legum, founder of ThinkProgress web site, took to Twitter to note: Entities under criminal investigation: 1. The Trump campaign 2. The Trump transition 3. The Trump inauguration 4. The Trump administration 5. The Trump Organization 6. The Trump Foundation Entities under criminal investigation: 1. The Trump campaign 2. The Trump transition 3. The Trump inauguration 4. The Trump administration 5. The Trump Organization 6. The Trump Foundation https://t.co/DpDm64H6A5 — Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) December 13, 2018 That list was promulgated further when the activist group MoveOn posted a screenshot of Legum’s tweet to Facebook: Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is leading a special counsel investigation into whether Russia directed efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and whether the campaign of Donald Trump (or individuals associated with it) colluded with agents or representatives of the Russian state in that effort. According to the original order given by acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in May 2017, Mueller’s probe was to be a continuation of an ongoing FBI investigation into the possibility of Russian election interference and Trump campaign collusion: The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James B. Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including: (i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and (ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation … The order also specified that “If the Special Counsel believes it is necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters.” As a result, it is accurate to state that “the Trump campaign” is under criminal investigation. Just as Mueller’s team has the authority to investigate potential criminal wrongdoing by Trump campaign associates and representatives that took place before the election on 8 November 2016, the special counsel has also been investigating the activities of Trump associates after election night and before Trump’s inauguration on 21 January 2017 — that is, during the Trump transition. Most notably, prosecutors have secured a guilty plea from Michael Flynn in response to a charge of providing false statements to the FBI about conversations he had with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak. Those conversations took place in late December 2016, at the height of the transition period, and were not trivial in nature. After then-President Obama ordered economic sanctions against Russian entities in response to Russian-directed efforts to interfere in the 2016 election, Flynn (who was at the time a member of Trump’s transition team) conveyed a message of conciliation to Kislyak. Flynn asked that the Russian government respond moderately to the sanctions. In November 2017, Mueller outlined Flynn’s criminal offense of lying about those (and other) conversations, writing: The defendant, Michael T. Flynn, who served as a surrogate and national security advisor for the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, as a senior member of President-Elect Trump’s Transition Team and as the National Security Advisor to President Trump, made materially false statements and omissions during an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on January 24, 2017, in Washington, D.C … Flynn falsely stated that he did not ask Russia’s Ambassador to the United States to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia. Flynn also falsely stated that he did not remember a follow-up conversation in which the Russian ambassador stated that Russia had chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of Flynn’s request. Flynn was forced to resign as national security adviser in February 2017, after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his December 2016 phone conversations with Kislyak. In December 2018, Mueller recommended that Flynn be given a relatively lenient sentence for lying to the FBI, partly in acknowledgement of his guilty plea and what Mueller described as the “substantial assistance” Flynn had since given to “several ongoing investigations.” Flynn is scheduled to be sentenced on 18 December 2018. This claim stems from the December 2018 news reports mentioned above, which alleged that the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who conducted the successful prosecution of President Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, had turned his attention to the president’s inauguration committee. On 13 December, the Wall Street Journal reported that: Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee misspent some of the record $107 million it raised from donations, people familiar with the matter said. The criminal probe by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, which is in its early stages, also is examining whether some of the committee’s top donors gave money in exchange for access to the incoming Trump administration, policy concessions or to influence official administration positions, some of the people said. Later the same day, the New York Times reported an additional angle to the criminal probe, raising the specter of potentially illegal foreign influence over the then-incoming Trump administration: Federal prosecutors are examining whether foreigners illegally funneled donations to President Trump’s inaugural committee and a pro-Trump super PAC in hopes of buying influence over American policy, according to people familiar with the inquiry. The inquiry focuses on whether people from Middle Eastern nations — including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — used straw donors to disguise their donations to the two funds. Federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, political action committees and inaugural funds. Although these reports were published by two reputable news organizations, they do not contain concrete evidence to support their central claims, which are instead based on information provided by unnamed sources. This does not mean they are not accurate, but since we cannot examine any concrete evidence, the articles themselves are not sufficient for us to establish the veracity of the claims of a criminal investigation into Trump’s inaugural committee. A spokesperson for the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York declined to comment when asked whether they could confirm the claims contained in the Journal and Times reports. The White House did not respond to a similar request. It’s unclear how the Trump administration (i.e., the White House, cabinet, and government entities under President Donald Trump’s purview) is facing criminal investigation. The “administration” is a loose, collective term rather than a discrete legal entity and therefore is not subject to criminal prosecution, although various government departments and agencies have been the subject of numerous civil and administrative lawsuits (as is typical for any government on the federal, state, or local level) including, for example, high-profile court challenges to the Trump administration’s policies on immigration. It’s also true that former and current figures within the Trump administration have faced, or may in the future face, criminal investigation and prosecution. For example, Michael Flynn briefly served as Trump’s national security adviser before being charged and pleading guilty to lying to the FBI. Furthermore, Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who holds an administration position as senior adviser to the president, has been the subject of intense scrutiny for his participation in a June 2016 meeting often referred to as the “Trump Tower” meeting. That meeting took place in Donald Trump Jr.’s Manhattan office, after an intermediary earlier offered the president’s son “official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary [Clinton] and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” The meeting was ultimately attended by Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya, Donald Trump Jr., Kushner, Paul Manafort, and four other Russian nationals. Federal campaign finance law prohibits campaigns or their representatives from soliciting or receiving anything “of value” from foreign nationals or entities (which some experts have argued could be interpreted to include information, as well as financial contributions). It is possible that Kushner (and other attendees) could face criminal investigation or prosecution if Mueller or another prosecutor decides they have evidence that his attendance at the Trump Tower meeting constituted involvement in a conspiracy to solicit a “thing of value” from the Russians in the context of his father-in-law’s presidential campaign. Finally, President Trump himself, the senior figure in the Trump administration, could potentially face criminal investigation or prosecution emerging from the conviction of his lawyer Michael Cohen for campaign finance violations relating to the payment of “hush money” to the two women who claimed they had affairs with Trump. In pleading guilty in August 2018, Cohen said Trump had directed those payments, thereby implicating the president in a federal crime. In December 2018, New York prosecutors appeared to re-affirm that position, writing that: During the campaign, Cohen played a central role in two similar schemes to purchase the rights to stories — each from women who claimed to have had an affair with Individual-1 — so as to suppress the stories and thereby prevent them from influencing the election. With respect to both payments, Cohen acted with the intent to influence the 2016 presidential election. Cohen coordinated his actions with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature, and timing of the payments. In particular, and as Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1. As a result of Cohen’s actions, neither woman spoke to the press prior to the election. It’s also conceivable that President Trump could face criminal investigation or prosecution on charges of obstruction of justice stemming from his long-standing and repeated calls for the closing down of Mueller’s Russia investigation. This entry relates once again to the conviction of Cohen and the payment of “hush money” to the two women mentioned above. In a December 2018 sentencing memo relating to Cohen’s case, Robert Khuzami, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, outlined the alleged involvement of the Trump Organization (referred to as “The Company”) in the scheme. The prosecutor alleged that the Trump Organization reimbursed Cohen for paying $130,000 to one of the women (the porn actor Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels) and subsequently lied about it in their accounts: After the election, Cohen sought reimbursement for election-related expenses, including the $130,000 payment he had made to Woman-2. Cohen presented an executive of the Company with a copy of a bank statement reflecting the $130,000 wire transfer. Cohen also requested reimbursement of an additional $50,000, which represented a claimed payment for campaign-related “tech services.” Executives of the Company [the Trump Organization] agreed to reimburse Cohen by adding $130,000 and $50,000, “grossing up” that amount to $360,000 for tax purposes, and adding a $60,000 bonus, such that Cohen would be paid $420,000 in total. Executives of the Company decided to pay the $420,000 in monthly installments of $35,000 over the course of a year. At the instruction of an executive for the Company, Cohen sent monthly invoices to the Company for these $35,000 payments, falsely indicating that the invoices were being sent pursuant to a “retainer agreement.” The Company then falsely accounted for these payments as “legal expenses.” In fact, no such retainer agreement existed and these payments were not “legal expenses” — Cohen in fact provided negligible legal services to Individual-1 [Donald Trump] or the Company in 2017 – but were reimbursement payments. Cohen then received the $420,000 during the course of 2017. This means that federal prosecutors in New York have publicly implicated “executives” from the Trump Organization in the payment scheme that saw Cohen convicted of campaign finance violations, and they alleged that the Trump Organization lied in how they accounted for their reimbursement of Cohen. Those actions could well see the Trump Organization as an entity, or specific individuals who work for it, subjected to criminal investigation or prosecution, but as of 17 December 2018 no official confirmation of any such investigation had been issued. In particular, the potential role of Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, has come under scrutiny. In August 2018, the Wall Street Journal cited unnamed sources in a report that claimed Weisselberg was one of the “executives” mentioned in court records relating to Cohen’s trial, and that New York prosecutors had offered him immunity from prosecution in return for telling them what he allegedly knew about the “hush money” scheme and the Trump Organization’s alleged involvement in it. A spokesperson for the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York again declined to comment when asked to confirm whether such an investigation against Trump’s company, or its employees, was under way. The Trump Organization did not respond to a similar request for comment. In June 2018, New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood brought a lawsuit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation, accusing the non-profit and its directors (Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump) of “extensive and persistent violations of state and federal law”: For more than a decade, the Donald J. Trump Foundation has operated in persistent violation of state and federal law governing New York state charities. This pattern of illegal conduct by the Foundation and its board members includes improper and extensive political activity, repeated and willful self-dealing transactions, and failure to follow basic fiduciary obligations or to implement even elementary corporate formalities required by law. Much of this alleged activity has been covered in detail since 2016 in a series of articles by the Washington Post‘s David Fahrenthold. Underwood’s lawsuit was a civil action, petitioning the New York Supreme Court to dissolve the Trump Foundation, bar Trump and his children from being directors of a non-profit organization for between one and 10 years, and order them to pay $2.8 million in restitution and fees and arrange for the distribution of the organization’s remaining assets to other charities. Although the June 2018 lawsuit did not in itself constitute the opening of a criminal case against the Trump Foundation or the Trump family, Underwood alleged several violations of criminal law and referred the results of her investigation to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which has the authority to initiate a criminal investigation with a view to bringing charges. A month after Underwood announced her lawsuit, Bloomberg News reported that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had followed up on the attorney general’s actions, ordering New York tax authorities to open their own probe with the possibility of eventually bringing criminal charges against the Trump Foundation: The Donald J. Trump Foundation has been under criminal investigation in New York for more than a month for violating the state’s tax laws. The Department of Taxation and Finance is taking the lead on the investigation, but other agencies may be involved, an aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) told Bloomberg. The aide, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation, said the investigation could lead to a criminal referral to the state attorney general or the Manhattan district attorney. No concrete evidence or official statement was offered to support that claim, something that does not mean it is inaccurate but does mean we cannot independently verify its accuracy.
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13317
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Of course, there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day.
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"Trump said, ""Of course, there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day."" Actual instances of voter fraud — such as voter impersonation, ballot stuffing and bought votes — are extremely rare, often unintentional and not on a scale large enough to affect a national election. Trump's alarming claim, once again, is without proof."
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false
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National, Corrections and Updates, Elections, Donald Trump,
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"Donald Trump tripled down on his baseless claim that the U.S. election system is rigged against him, capping a weekend of lashing out at the media for publishing ""fabricated"" allegations of sexual assault and at Alec Baldwin for impersonating Trump on Saturday Night Live. House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans defended the Election Day process at an Oct. 15 rally, but Trump continued to blame the media for ""pushing Crooked Hillary"" and added that rigging is happening at ""many polling places."" ""Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!"" Trump tweeted the morning of Oct. 17. Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive! The Trump campaign reiterated Trump’s stance that the cards are stacked against Trump, pointing to a column from The Hill's media reporter Joe Concha on how the media could influence voter perceptions of Trump. To be clear, this is not the same thing as a voter committing fraud. The Trump campaign also pointed us to a 2012 Pew Center study that estimated about 24 million, equal to one in every eight, voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are inaccurate. But as we have previously reported, no evidence of voter fraud was found — this is about record-keeping that is badly managed and in disarray. The other piece of evidence offered by the Trump campaign is a 2014 study that says approximately 6.4 percent of noncitizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent in 2010. That study has been criticized by election experts for using an unreliable database of Internet respondents. And finally, the Trump campaign forwarded us reports of voting irregularities in swing states like Pennsylvania, Colorado and Virginia. But these reports were either of reported and prevented cases of fraud or isolated instances. They do not amount to rampant, widespread fraud or assert that the few cases affected the outcome of an election. Voter fraud is rare. Trump talking about it is not. Voter fraud isn’t a catch-all term for any election shenanigan. Voter fraud is rare and refers to illegal interference in voting, such as ballot stuffing, voter impersonation or vote buying. Before his White House bid, Trump tweeted about dead voters delivering President Barack Obama’s victory in 2012, floated charges about multiple voting in the primaries, and suggested that undocumented immigrants ""just walk in and vote"" in some polling places. These charges do not reflect reality. News 21, a national investigative reporting project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, found 150 alleged cases of double voting, 56 cases of noncitizens voting, and 10 cases of voter impersonation across all elections from 2000 to 2011. Many of these allegations never led to charges, while others were acquitted or dismissed. Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School and an expert on voter fraud, found an even smaller number: 31 credible incidents out of more than 1 billion votes cast from 2000 to 2014. Put it in another way: More people are struck by lightning or attacked by sharks than are accused of voter fraud. When voter fraud does occur, it’s not always intentional. Multiple studies have traced known cases not to willful deception but to clerical errors or confusion. For example, one case of a dead person voting (Alan J. Mandell) happened because a poll worker accidentally marked his name instead of the man who actually cast the ballot, Alan J. Mandel. Similarly, in one of just five cases of a noncitizen voting between 2000 and 2004, a permanent resident was told he was eligible and given a voter registration form by a DMV clerk when renewing his license. So, given the rarity of occurrence, the lack of intent, and a federal penalty of a $10,000 fine or up to five years in prison, experts say it would be extremely difficult to rig an election through the ways Trump has decried. ""I'd like to see him try to vote 10 times on Election Day. It would be virtually impossible and a knuckle-headed way to try to corrupt an election,"" Lorraine Minnite, a political science professor at Rutgers University who wrote The Myth of Voter Fraud, previously told PolitiFact. For double or triple voting to sway an election, an army of voters would have to visit multiple polling locations each, know the names and addresses of the people they were impersonating and produce fake IDs (in many states) or forge their signatures — plus commit to committing perjury the entire time. ""Campaigns don’t pay people to pretend to be people they’re not. That’s too stupid,"" said Mary Frances Berry, former chairwoman of the U.S Commission on Civil Rights and author of Five Dollars and a Pork Chop Sandwich, a book about electoral fraud. So there is no evidence of a massive attempt to rig the election on and before Election Day. Collusion confusion Trump elaborated on his voter fraud theory a few hours after his initial tweet. ""Voter fraud! Crooked Hillary Clinton even got the questions to a debate, and nobody says a word. Can you imagine if I got the questions?"" he tweeted. His follow-up is not evidence of large-scale voter fraud, though it does bring up a separate concern revealed by Wikileaks. Trump is referring to an email obtained by Wikileaks from then-CNN contributor and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile with the subject line, ""From time to time, I get the the questions in advance."" ""Here’s one that worries me about HRC,"" Brazile wrote to Clinton’s communications director Jennifer Palmieri on March 12, 2016. ""Should Ohio and the 30 other states join the current list and abolish the death penalty?"" Palmieri wrote back: ""Hi. Yes, it is one she gets asked about. Not everyone likes her answer but can share it."" The next day, CNN co-moderated a Democratic primary town hall, and one person asked Clinton about the death penalty. But Brazile, who is now interim Democratic National Committee chairwoman, has denied that she notified the Clinton camp of the question and says she never had access to the questions in the first place. (The Clinton campaign has yet to confirm or deny the authenticity of the emails.) A CNN spokesperson told Politico, ""we have never, ever given a town hall question to anyone beforehand."" CNN host Jake Tapper, one of the debate moderators, called the leak ""very, very upsetting,"" and the network has blamed debate partner TV One as the source. This is concerning, but none of it is evidence of voter fraud. Our ruling Trump said, ""Of course, there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day."" Actual instances of voter fraud — such as voter impersonation, ballot stuffing and bought votes — are extremely rare, often unintentional and not on a scale large enough to affect a national election. Trump's alarming claim, once again, is without proof. Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly characterized Joe Concha's current job title. He is a media reporter and columnist at The Hill."
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Drug That Stops Bleeding Could Save Lives
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The story also should have done more to examine whether the results of this international study are applicable to patients in the United States and other Western countries. Bleeding from trauma represents a significant cause of death espeicially in developing countries. So, the availability of an inexpensive and easy to administer drug that could reduce blood loss in patients with trauma would be welcomed. The results of a randomized, placebo controlled trial demonstrating the value of such an approach were recently reported in The Lancet. The results of the study are important in both the developed and developing world.
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true
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"The story notes that TXA is cheap, but we wish it had put a dollar amount on it the way competing coverage did. The cost of the medication was cited in the press release put out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and could easily have been included. ""Cheap"" is relative. And, pertinent to this issue, what’s ""cheap"" in the West may not be so cheap in developing countries. Unlike some competing coverage, this story describes the benefits of TXA in both relative and absolute terms, providing readers with an accurate view of the magnitude of the effect observed in the study. Unfortunately, the story loses this balance when it unquestioningly passes along the claim that TXA could save 100,000 lives in a year if it were used around the globe. While a back-of-the-envelope calculation may suggest that this is possible, many hurdles stand in the way of this drug being universally dispensed for trauma cases worldwide. It’s also far from clear that the findings of this study can be replicated under everyday conditions in emergency departments around the globe. The story should have tapped an expert to help put this pie-in-the-sky figure in a more appropriate context for readers. The story correctly states that the researchers observed no increase in clots in the patients receiving TXA, earning enough for a satisfactory. However, we wish it had included, as the AP did, a caveat regarding the difficulty of identifying clots in trauma patients who subsequently die. Similar to the competing coverage from the AP and NPR, this story provided the essentials but lacked sufficient discussion of limitations. To wit: Can a study that includes data from India, China, Nigeria and many other developing countries be generalized to emergency department patients in the United States? No disease-mongering here. The story quotes the author of an accompanying editorial who was not affiliated with the study and does not appear to have conflicts regarding the research. Unlike the competing coverage from the AP and NPR, this story mentions the fact that there are other drugs which help promote clotting and might be useful for trauma patients. The story correctly warns that the benefits of TXA can’t be generalized to other drugs without additional research. The story notes that TXA is widely available around the world and easily administered. The story quotes an expert who says that using TXA in trauma patients is a new idea. The approach does appear to be novel. The story quotes two expert sources, one of whom was not mentioned in the press release issued to promote the study. This is enough to rule out the possibility that the story was based entirely on a release."
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Climate change activists target BlackRock in London.
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Climate activists targeted BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, in London on Monday, demanding that major financial institutions starve fossil fuel companies of the money they need to build new mines, wells and pipelines.
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true
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Environment
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Extinction Rebellion, which uses civil disobedience to highlight the risks posed by climate change and the accelerating loss of plant and animal species, is midway through a new two-week wave of actions in cities around the world. Activists thronged the financial heart of London on Monday, unfurling banners, addressing passersby by megaphone or blocking streets around locations including BlackRock, the Bank of England, Bank of China and Barclays. At BlackRock, volunteers glued themselves to the doors while others staged a mock dinner party with rolled-up banknotes on their plates. Police said they arrested more than 90 people. The arrestees included Rabbi Jeffrey Newman of the Finchley Reform Synagogue, who was arrested near the Bank of England praying, singing and wearing a prayer shawl for the first day of the Jewish festival Sukkot, Extinction Rebellion said. “The City of London is a preeminent nexus of power in the global system that is killing our world,” said Carolina Rosa, spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion. BlackRock declined to comment. Police later ordered a halt to all assembly linked to Extinction Rebellion in London. At Trafalgar Square in the heart of the city, where demonstrators have pitched camp for the past week amid fountains at the base of Nelson’s Column, protesters began removing tents. Police made no immediate move to shut down another main protest camp in the district of Vauxhall. “Officers have begun the process of clearing Trafalgar Square and getting things back to normal,” said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor. Extinction Rebellion said it had left Trafalgar Square but would continue actions in London and cities around the world. “The Climate and Ecological Emergency isn’t going away and we remain resolute in facing it. We urge the Government and the authorities to join us in doing the same,” the group said in a statement. “This is bigger than all of us.” Extinction Rebellion wants to cause enough disruption to force governments to rapidly cut carbon emissions and reverse the collapse of ecosystems to avert the worst of the devastation scientists project if business as usual continues. Critics say the group is proposing what amounts to the overthrow of capitalism without any clear idea of what would follow, and that the world needs fossil fuels. Extinction Rebellion said that more than 1,400 people had been arrested in London since it launched its latest actions a week ago. A similar number has in total been arrested in 20 cities in countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. While activists have long targeted fossil fuel companies, a growing global climate protest movement is increasingly scrutinizing the role fund managers, banks and insurance companies play in enabling oil and gas extraction. Emily Grossman, a British science broadcaster who has a PhD in molecular biology, who joined the protest outside BlackRock, said that financing fossil fuel projects was undermining the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit global warming. “This is criminal damage that they are doing to our lives and to the lives of our children and it has to stop,” said Grossman, who was later led away by police. Major oil companies have approved $50 billion of projects since last year that run contrary to the goals of the Paris Agreement, according to an analysis published last month by financial think-tank Carbon Tracker. Fossil fuel companies say they need to invest in new projects to meet future demand for energy, particularly in fast-growing regions such as Asia. Climate protesters want to pressure index fund firms such as BlackRock because the sector, which now controls half the U.S. stock mutual fund market, has enormous power to influence companies in which they invest trillions of dollars. The leading U.S. index fund firms, BlackRock, Vanguard Group and State Street Corp, rarely use that clout, a Reuters analysis of their shareholder-voting records found this month.
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2806
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Covidien to stop selling hypertension device.
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Covidien Plc said it would stop making a device for treating high blood pressure due to weak demand for the product, raising more doubts about the future of the novel technology.
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true
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Health News
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The decision comes less than two weeks after Medtronic Inc said it was halting clinical trials for its high blood pressure device after the treatment, known as renal denervation, failed to prove effective in a key U.S. study. Medtronic’s move surprised many observers. The devices, which are not available in the United States, take a new approach to treating hypertension and are aimed at patients resistant to traditional drug-based therapies. Some analysts had predicted the technology, which works by deadening nerves in the kidneys, could evolve into a $2 billion market by providing an alternative to drug therapy. Covidien said the decision to exit the business was a result of its regular review of strategic programs. “The company took a close look at the renal denervation market and realized it really is growing much slower than expected,” said Covidien spokesman Peter Lucht. He declined to comment on whether Medtronic’s study outcome played a role in his company’s decision. S&P Capital analyst Phillip Seligman said the failed clinical trial of Medtronic’s product likely influenced Covidien’s decision but noted sales of the device were modest. He maintained a “strong buy” rating on Covidien shares. Covidien’s device, called OneShot, was sold in Europe and the Middle East. In Europe, where the product was approved in February 2012, adoption of such devices has run into reimbursement hurdles as governments have been reluctant to pay for the new technology. The 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. Following its decision to halt clinical studies of its renal denervation system, Medtronic said it would form an independent panel of experts to make recommendations on the future of the product, called Symplicity. Medtronic continues to sell the product in 85 countries. It has been approved in Europe since April 2010. St Jude Medical Inc and Boston Scientific Corp also sell renal denervation products in Europe and other markets. Boston Scientific acquired its system through the purchase of Vessix Vascular Inc in November 2012. A Medtronic spokeswoman said it was too soon to determine the next steps for Symplicity. “We don’t know if we would consider another clinical trial. We don’t know anything yet,” said spokeswoman Wendy Dougherty. Covidien said it expects to record after-tax charges of $20-$25 million as a result of exiting the program. The company’s shares fell 1 cent to $68.19 on Tuesday. (This January 21 story was corrected to fix name of Medtronic hypertension product to Symplicity, not Ardian, paragraphs 9, 12)
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GSK pharma head flags need for speed in high-pressure drug market.
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Doing things one at a time in drug development is not a luxury that GlaxoSmithKline can afford any longer, the head of pharmaceuticals at Britain’s largest drugmaker told Reuters.
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true
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Health News
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Luke Miels, who joined GSK in September 2017 after a contract dispute with his former employer AstraZeneca, said picking the most promising projects and developing them quickly now takes precedence over spreading the risk of failure. “In the past, 10 programs were chosen, a budget for eight was allocated. Usually what happened was that time was the trade off that was made,” he said in an interview. “Now what we do is we pick five or six programs, and concentrate investment there.” GSK, like rivals, was in the habit of testing new drugs first on patients who had run out of other treatment options. If successful, it would try patients at an earlier stage of their disease, replacing older, established treatments. In today’s market, where rivals in the United States and China catch up fast if a new class of drug shows promise, GSK has to run costly drug tests on humans in several settings at the same time, even if it means dropping other drug candidates. “Rather than do things sequentially, you do them in parallel, or as close to parallel as possible,” Miels said. GSK, which is battling to return to profit growth, has taken this approach for instance with an experimental drug that for now goes by the code name of GSK’916 against multiple myeloma, a common and incurable type of blood cancer. Likewise, GSK doubled down on its quest to bring a drug known as GSK’165 to market as a rheumatoid arthritis treatment, even after initial results in a mid-stage drug trial did not show a clear enough reading. “This drug has very interesting effects on pain. That could potentially reduce the use of opioids and pain meds,” Miels said. More trials will be run to make the pain argument more clearly, he added. GSK expects a decline of 5%-9% in adjusted earnings per share this year, excluding exchange rate moves, as it suffers from generic competition to its inhalable lung drug Advair and pressure from rival Gilead in HIV treatments. Miels said a tougher stance on drug prices by U.S. lawmakers and medical insurers was one of the reasons for the need for speed in bringing drugs to market - to try to remain ahead of competitors for as long as possible. At the same time, rapid growth in the Chinese market was spurring a more sophisticated healthcare system there, with local biotech groups quick to catch up with Western pioneers in drug development, producing similar drugs for their home market.
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3454
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Immigrant still hospitalized in Iowa, 18 months after crash.
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An African man who was trying to build a new life in Cedar Rapids has spent the past 18 months at an Iowa City hospital, recovering from a traffic accident that killed two fellow immigrants.
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true
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Iowa, Health, General News, Immigration, Iowa City, Africa, Cedar Rapids, Jean, Accidents, Injuries
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Jean-Claude Shako suffered head and other injuries in the June 25, 2018, collision while he and four other immigrants from the Democratic Republic of Congo were headed to work at a meatpacking plant in Tama. The collision with a construction vehicle also injured both drivers and a fifth person in the car carrying Shako, according to The Gazette. Shako’s severe brain trauma has impaired his mobility, speech and memory. He’s well enough to be discharged from the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, doctors have said, but he has no family to move in with, no money for a rehabilitation center and isn’t yet eligible for assistance through Medicaid. “I’m getting stronger,” Shako told the newspaper through an interpreter last week. “If my family would take me, I would go. But I don’t have family here.” He has been granted permanent U.S. residency. He carries in his wallet pictures of his wife and five children, who remain in Congo. Hospital officials cite privacy rules in declining to answer questions about Shako and about why the hospital hadn’t subsidized a move to a lower-cost skilled nursing facility. In fiscal 2018, the hospital provided free care for 14,548 patients and absorbing costs of $14.2 million, according to Iowa Hospital Association figures. Shako’s friend and co-legal guardian Peter Nkumu, of Iowa City, has been scrambling to find help for him, including asking lawmakers to consider waiving a wait rule for legal immigrants wanting access to Medicaid. State Sen. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, an Ottumwa Republican, said she plans to inquire about Shako’s case and said lawmakers might be willing — in extreme circumstances — to consider exceptions to the five-year wait rule. But Miller-Meeks also said she wants to make sure other avenues and options are considered, such as stringent insurance requirements for legal immigrants. Nkumu and other immigrants have explored trying to bring someone from Congo to support Shako, but visas are tough to come by. Shako received one of 2,664 permanent visas issued to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017, according to the U.S. State Department. They fear sending Shako back to Congo, saying the poor conditions there could be prove fatal to him. Geoffrey Lauer, executive director of the Iowa Brain Injury Alliance based in Iowa City, said getting Shako out of the hospital and into a more appropriate setting not only would save state resources, it could accelerate his rehabilitation. And, Lauer said, Shako now is an Iowan, making him “part of our mission.”
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266
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Cuadrilla to restart fracking at British site.
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British shale gas company Cuadrilla said on Thursday it would restart fracking at its Preston New Road site in Britain in the third quarter of 2019 and plans to use a thicker fracking fluid to help reduce earth tremors.
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true
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Environment
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Fracking, or hydraulically fracturing, involves extracting gas from rocks by breaking them up with water and chemicals at high pressure. Operations at the first well at the Preston New road site in Lancashire where halted several times last year because of minor seismic events. British regulations demand work be suspended if seismic activity of magnitude 0.5 or more is detected. Cuadrilla CEO Francis Egan said he hoped the use of a thicker fracking liquid would help to cut down on seismic events at the second well. “We have in effect increased the concentration of the fluid so essentially there is more sand and less water,” he said in an interview with Reuters. “We may still have events reaching the 0.5 limit but hopefully not as many.” Egan said the fluid alterations had been approved by Britain’s Environment Agency. Cuadrilla and chemical firm Ineos, which has the largest shale gas license acreage in Britain, have called on the government to change seismicity regulations which the companies say have threatened to stall the industry’s development. The government has said it has no plans to change the rules. Fracking is opposed by environmentalists who say extracting more fossil fuel is at odds with Britain’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. “At a time when the government has declared a climate emergency, the last thing we should be doing is starting an industry that extracts gas,” said Jamie Peters, a Friends of the Earth campaigner. Britain last month became the first G7 country to adopt an ambitious law to reach net zero emissions by 2050. The move will require much less gas-fired power generation and a move away from domestic natural gas, currently used to heat around 80% of the country’s homes. But Egan said the fracked gas could become a feedstock to create hydrogen and help the country meet its climate target. “The CCC (committee on climate change) report was clear hydrogen will be needed for net zero and surely it’s better to use domestically produced gas for this than imports of LNG (liquefied natural gas),” he said. Britain’s climate advisers, the CCC, said in a May report Britain will need to begin using low-carbon hydrogen in industry and for home heating to help cut its emissions and meet the target. Subject to regulatory approvals Cuadrilla said it would complete the program of fracking and testing equipment at the second well by the end of November.
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Outgoing US Interior secretary defends legacy as he leaves.
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As former U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke exits Washington chased by ethics investigations and criticism of his actions favoring industry, he told The Associated Press he’s lived up to the conservation ideals of Theodore Roosevelt and insisted the myriad allegations against him will be proven untrue.
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true
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Cabinets, Politics, North America, Environment, AP Top News, Ryan Zinke, Montana, Billings, U.S. News, Donald Trump
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The former Montana congressman also said he quit President Donald Trump’s cabinet on his own terms, despite indications he was pressured by the White House to resign effective Wednesday. During almost two years overseeing an agency responsible for managing 500 million acres of public lands, Zinke’s broad rollbacks of restrictions on oil and gas drilling were cheered by industry. But they brought a scathing backlash from environmental groups and Democratic lawmakers who accused him of putting corporate profits ahead of preservation. In his first interview since stepping down, Zinke said the changes he instituted meshed with Roosevelt’s belief in balance between nature and industry. He added that they were needed in part to unfetter energy companies bound by unreasonable curbs on drilling that were largely imposed under former President Barack Obama. “Teddy Roosevelt said conservation is as much development as it is preservation,” Zinke said, referencing a 1910 speech by the Republican president. “Much of our work returned the American conservation ethic to best science, best practices ... rather than an elitist view of non-management that lets nature take its course.” Zinke mentioned Roosevelt often during his almost two-year tenure, and historian Patricia Limerick said it’s accurate that the former president talked of development as a component of conservation. But Limerick noted Zinke’s recommendations to Trump to reduce the size of national monuments in the West and elsewhere was in direct contrast to Roosevelt’s embrace of the law that allowed their creation, the Antiquities Act of 1906. “You don’t get to call yourself a follower of Roosevelt if you’re really chiseling away at one of his principal heritages,” said Limerick, who chairs the board of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado, where she’s a history professor. House Democrats plan to put Zinke’s policies under the spotlight with oversight hearings beginning next month, said Adam Sarvana, a spokesman for Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, the Democrat in line to lead the House Natural Resources Committee. The hearings initially will focus on policy changes such as “giveaways” to the oil and gas industry under the leadership of Zinke, Sarvana said. He added they later could be expanded to include the various ethics investigations pending against Zinke, a former Navy SEAL and avowed Trump loyalist. The investigations have ranged from a probe into a land deal involving Zinke and the chairman of energy services giant Halliburton, to questions about his decision to reject a casino in Connecticut sought by two tribes. During his interview with the AP, Zinke denied a Washington Post report that Interior Department investigators believe he may have lied to them, which has reportedly prompted an examination of potential criminal violations by the U.S. Justice Department’s public integrity section. Several other investigations into Zinke concluded with no findings of wrongdoing. In one case he was faulted by investigators for violating a department policy by allowing his wife to ride in government vehicles with him. That report also said the Interior Department spent more than $25,000 to provide security for the couple during a vacation to Turkey and Greece. For the energy industry, Zinke brought relief from rules imposed under Obama that were meant to limit drilling in sensitive wildlife habitat, curb emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon monoxide and protect water supplies. Despite the Democrats’ newfound power in Washington after taking control of the House of Representatives, industry representatives said Zinke’s impact will be lasting. That’s because they involved agency regulations rather than congressional action and came at the order of Trump, said Dan Naatz, vice president of government relations for the Independent Petroleum Association of America. “Although Secretary Zinke was effective at what he was doing, the policy really came from the president,” Naatz said. Until Trump nominates and the Senate confirms a permanent replacement, Zinke’s shoes will be filled on an acting basis by his deputy, David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the oil and gas industry. Left-leaning groups that campaigned against Zinke already have turned their attention to Bernhardt with claims that his prior work leaves him compromised. “David Bernhardt is too conflicted to serve him in any position, whether it’s deputy, acting or full Interior secretary,” said Aaron Weiss with the Center for Western Priorities. Weiss also suggested the pending investigations against Zinke are likely to continue and said the former secretary “can’t make his trouble go away by simply walking away.” Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said Zinke worked closely with western states and respected their priorities. Barrasso said it was important for the next secretary to likewise pursue Trump’s American “energy dominance” agenda while following sound environmental practices. In his resignation letter, Zinke said he was compelled to stop down because the political attacks against him had created a distraction from Trump’s drive to boost U.S. energy production. He told the AP that the allegations fit into a “playbook” used by the administration’s critics to stifle Trump’s energy agenda, smear Zinke’s name and undercut any future bid he might make for public office. He said he won’t run for Montana governor in 2020, but did not rule out a future run. In the weeks leading up to his resignation, the White House concluded Zinke was likely the Cabinet member most vulnerable to investigations led by newly empowered Democrats in Congress, according to an administration official not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters who spoke on condition of anonymity. In Zinke’s telling of events, Trump remained fully supportive to the end and it was the secretary himself who made the decision to go. His departure comes amid a partial government shutdown in which Zinke ordered many national parks to stay open, saying visitors shouldn’t be penalized for the political feud centered on Trump’s proposed border wall with Mexico. With reports of overflowing trash bins spurring calls for the parks to be closed until the shutdown ends, Zinke offered some parting advice as he prepared to head back to his hometown of Whitefish, Montana, just outside Glacier National Park: “I would encourage everyone that visits their parks to help pitch in, grab a trash bag and take some trash out with you,” he said. “Pack it in, pack it out.” ___ Follow Matthew Brown at https://twitter.com/matthewbrownap .
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We can't beat cancer with drugs alone; prevention crucial: WHO.
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Governments must make better use of vaccines and preventative public health policies in the fight against cancer as treatment alone cannot stem the disease, a World Health Organization (WHO) agency said on Monday.
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true
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Health News
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The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said cancer was growing “at an alarming pace” worldwide and new strategies were needed to curb the sometimes fatal and often costly disease. “It’s untenable to think we can treat our way out of the cancer problem. That alone will not be a sufficient response,” Christopher Wild, IARC’s director and co-editor of its World Cancer Report 2014, told reporters at a London briefing. “More commitment to prevention and early detection is desperately needed... to complement improved treatments and address the alarming rise in the cancer burden globally.” The World Cancer Report, which is only produced roughly once every five years, involved a collaboration of around 250 scientists from more than 40 countries. It said access to effective and relatively inexpensive cancer drugs would significantly cut death rates, even in places where health-care services are less well developed. The spiraling costs of cancer are hurting the economies of even the richest countries and are often way beyond the reach of poorer nations. In 2010, the total annual economic cost of cancer was estimated at around $1.16 trillion. Yet around half of all cancers could be avoided if current knowledge about cancer prevention was properly implemented, Wild told reporters. The report said that in 2012 - the latest year for which data are available - new cancer cases rose to an estimated 14 million a year, a figure expected to grow to 22 million within the next two decades. Over the same period, cancer deaths are predicted to rise from an estimated 8.2 million a year to 13 million per year. The data mean that at current rates, one in five men and one in six women worldwide will develop cancer before they reach 75 years old, while one in eight men and one in 12 women will die from the disease. In 2012, the most common cancers diagnosed were lung, breast and colon or bowel cancers, while the most common causes of cancer death were lung, liver and stomach cancers. As populations across the world are both growing and ageing, IARC said developing countries were disproportionately affected by the increasing numbers of cancers. “Behind each one of these numbers, there’s an individual and a family faced with a tragic situation,” Wild said. More than 60 percent of the world’s total cases occur in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, and these regions account for about 70 percent of the world’s cancer deaths, it said. The situation is made worse in poorer countries by the lack of early detection and access to treatment. “Governments must show political commitment to progressively step up the implementation of high-quality screening and early detection programs, which are an investment rather than a cost,” said Bernard Stewart, another co-editor of the report. The experts highlighted efforts to curb rates of smoking, the use of vaccines to prevent infections that cause cervical and liver cancers and policies aimed at bringing down rates of obesity as key areas in which more should be done. “Adequate legislation can encourage healthier behavior,” said Stewart.
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Puerto Rico struggles with jump in asthma cases post-Maria.
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Shortly after he turned 2, Yadriel Hernandez started struggling to breathe. His doctor prescribed an inhaler and an allergy pill for asthma, and his symptoms were mostly under control.
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true
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AP Top News, Asthma, Health, San Juan, Latin America, Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Hurricanes, Hurricane Maria, U.S. News
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Then Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, strewing mold-producing wreckage across the island and forcing many to use fume-spewing generators for power. The boy, now 8, started having twice-monthly attacks and needing nearly four times the amount of medicine he used to take. His mother said weekly power outages in their coastal town of Aguadilla also feed his anxiety, which can make symptoms worse. He panics about not being able to turn on the plug-in nebulizer that helps control his attacks. “The lights go out and he breaks down,” said Johana Hernandez. “He cries out, ‘The power is gone, mom! The power is gone! I’m going to have an asthma attack!’” Doctors in Puerto Rico say they are seeing an alarming rise in the number and severity of asthma cases that they attribute to destruction caused by the deadly hurricane that walloped the island in September. The chronic lung disease is caused by such things as pollution, airborne mold and pollen, all of which have increased post-Maria. “It has increased so, so, so much after the hurricane,” said Dr. Ivette Bonet, who treats low-income patients at a clinic in the working-class neighborhood of Santurce. Bonet says she has dozens of new patients who never had asthma before the Category 4 storm hit. “Now they have this cough that they can never get rid of,” she said. Puerto Rico had high rates of asthma even before the hurricane. An estimated 435,000 people on the island of 3.3 million, or 13 percent, had asthma before Maria pummeled the territory on Sept. 20, according to Puerto Rico’s Health Department. That compares to 8.3 percent who suffered from asthma on the U.S. mainland in 2016, according to the latest available figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. There are no figures for Puerto Rico in the months after Maria, though new accountings are under way. Experts say the high rates may be partly due to the relatively high humidity in the Caribbean and the poor state of housing and infrastructure because of Puerto Rico’s high poverty rate and bankrupt government. Now, towering piles of building and plant debris from the hurricane remain in many neighborhoods. Puerto Rico recorded the highest levels of mold spores in more than a decade in May, said Benjamin Bolanos, director of the San Juan Aeroallergens Station of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. Heavy seasonal rains are contributing to the problem, he said. “We have never seen something like this,” Bolanos said. Generators powered by diesel or gasoline once used only in emergencies belch fumes daily at hospitals, schools and water treatment plants because the power grid remains fragile and plagued by blackouts. Many are older models that don’t meet current pollution standards. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency waved those rules because of the power emergency, the first time it has made such an allowance, agency spokesman David Kluesner said. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Administration alone has more than 1,200 generators still operating on the island. FEMA spokeswoman Dasha Castillo said all generators run by the agency meet current federal environmental laws. Meanwhile, mold has invaded homes, especially the tens of thousands that still don’t have a proper roof. And there’s a problem with rats, mice and cockroaches, all of which can trigger an asthma attack. “There are a lot of factors that are still affecting people,” said the Health Department’s Ibis Montalvo, who heads a program that sends health workers to the homes of asthma patients. Melissa Pesante says fumes from generators worsened her 5-year-old son’s asthma and he spent nearly two weeks in a San Juan hospital. The family lives on the second floor above a home that runs a generator and across from an abandoned house where people keep dumping hurricane debris. Since the hurricane, her son has been prescribed additional medication and has attacks and trouble breathing several times a month, compared with hardly any attacks before the storm, she said. “He’s supposed to use a face mask, but he tells me, ‘I don’t like it, mom,’” and takes it off, Pesante said of the surgical mask her son is supposed to use whenever he goes outside. She’d like to eventually join relatives in Orlando or Miami in hopes that her son’s health and her finances will improve. Some asthma patients actually need generators to power their asthma treatment nebulizers, said Dr. Jorge Rosado, a pediatrician who volunteers at a clinic in the northern town of Toa Baja. That’s sometimes the case for Yadriel, whose mother has to turn on a generator if he needs treatment during a blackout. The situation is particularly bad on the islands of Vieques and Culebra, just east of Puerto Rico, that are still completely dependent on generators. Dr. Juan Manuel Roman travels to Culebra weekly and said that in addition to new patients, his regular patients are seeking treatment far more often. Roman said it’s hard to escape the fumes from all the generators that keep the tiny island energized. “They’re always going to inhale them,” he said.
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11424
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Study finds overuse of implanted defibrillators
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This story about a study on the overuse of implanted defibrillators packs in more information than many competing stories and hits nearly all of our marks, giving readers good context and a clear understanding of the study and its implications. We would have liked to have seen a bit more background information on the registry and on the guidelines. We are mystified by the lack of attention to the accompanying editorial in the journal that places the study into an important frame of reference and provides a good counter balance. The study in question examined data collected from a national registry on over 100,000 patients and concluded that 1/5 of the implants were outside existing guidelines. This number is troubling at face value but the story appears to be a bit more complicated. The accompanying editorial places the results in a slightly different perspective. Of the four criteria examined, only one (placement of the ICD in patients with severe heart failure) is an absolute. The other three criteria are related purely to timing and not to whether the device is of value. This nuance was not clarified in the story.
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true
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Devices,Los Angeles Times
|
Both stories we reviewed discussed costs, but the LA Times provided more details. “They can be lifesaving in appropriate patients. The devices cost $20,000 to $30,000, and normal hospitalization expenses can bring the total cost to $40,000 or more.” A bit more information would have provided a more complete picture. While the cost per patient is high, the true economic picture is more complicated. In reality, the cost of ICD in appropriate patients rivals those of the treatment of high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol in terms of life years saved. The story quantifies the potential benefits of following the guidelines for implants in a couple of different ways. “Deaths in the hospital among patients receiving defibrillators outside the guidelines were 0.57%, compared with 0.18% among those who received them within the guidelines. About 3.23% of those receiving the devices outside guidelines had complications, compared with 2.41% of those within guidelines. The median length of a hospital stay was three days for those outside the guidelines, compared with one day for those within them.” High in the story, the LA Times explains that unnecessary defibrillators increased the risk of harm, but it also put in some important context. “Although the absolute risk of dying is still low — less than 1% — such patients also endure longer hospitalizations and other complications and add substantially to the nation’s healthcare costs, researchers from the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, N.C., reported in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.” The story also quantifies harms later in the piece. The story does a good job examining the evidence with the help of some outside experts. One of the best parts of the story, in comparison with the Wall Street Journal blog, is how this story explains why certain patients didn’t meet the guidelines for the implants. The story does so in clear terms, unlike the Journal. “The team found that 25,145 of the implants were for causes that were not covered by the guidelines. Of those, 9,257 were in patients who had had a heart attack within 40 days and 15,604 were in patients with newly diagnosed heart failure. These problems fall outside the guidelines because they have not been studied in clinical trials of the devices or because clinical trials have shown that the devices are not effective in treating them.” We wish the story had taken advantage of the accompanying editorial. In reality, only one of the criteria (severe heart failure) is an absolute and only includes about 2.5% of the ICD implanted patients. The other patients who did not meet criteria did so because of the timing of the implant. Not all patients who have a heart attack or who undergo coronary artery surgery will eventually need an ICD. Many however are left with a sufficiently damaged heart to meet criteria. So, while the story does a good job reporting on the study, it really does not go as far as we would have liked in its interpretation. The story does not engage in disease-mongering, far from it. The story provides good insights and context from outside sources, including Dr. Shephal Doshi and Dr. Robert Ruelaz. We wish the story had pointed out, as the Wall Street Journal blog did, that the study was funded by Medtronic, which makes one of these devices. That is important context for readers. Without it, we feel this story does not meet this criteria. And, as already noted above, we often wonder, as we did in this case, why the accompanying journal editorial wasn’t cited. The story does not offer a comparison of the implants to other treatments. Even a line about other approaches may have satisfied this criterion. Unlike the WSJ blog post we reviewed, this story pointed out the massive scope of this study and, thus, the widespread use of these implants. “The researchers examined a registry of implants maintained by the American College of Cardiology that covers an estimated 95% of all U.S. implants. The team studied 111,707 implants for what is called primary prevention, performed between January 2006 and June 2009. Primary prevention is for patients who had not had a recent heart attack or a problem with the bottom chambers of the heart.” This story points out, as the WSJ blog story failed to do, that this same team of researchers had previously studied the underuse of these implants. “In previous studies, Al-Khatib and her colleagues have examined underuse of the devices and found that many patients who could benefit from the defibrillators did not get them. This time, she said, “we decided to look at the flip side.”” This speaks to the novelty and the importance of the devices in the population of patients who meet the guidelines. The story does not rely on a news release.
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7839
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"Nobel for quantum ""parlor trick"" that could make super computers."
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A French and an American scientist won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for finding ways to measure quantum particles without destroying them, which could make it possible to build a new kind of computer far more powerful than any seen before.
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true
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Science News
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Serge Haroche of France and American David Wineland, both 68, found ways to manipulate the very smallest particles of matter and light to observe strange behavior that previously could only be imagined in equations and thought experiments. Wineland once described his own work as a “parlor trick” that performed the seemingly magical feat of putting an object in two places at once. Other scientists praised the achievements as bringing to life the wildest dreams of science fiction. “The Nobel laureates have opened the door to a new era of experimentation with quantum physics by demonstrating the direct observation of individual quantum particles without destroying them,” said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded them the 8 million crown ($1.2 million) prize. “Perhaps the quantum computer will change our everyday lives in this century in the same radical way as the classical computer did in the last century.” Haroche said he was walking in the street with his wife when he recognized the Swedish country code on the incoming call to inform him of the award. “I saw the area code 46, then I sat down,” he told reporters in Sweden by telephone. “First I called my children, then I called my closest colleagues, without whom I would never have won this prize,” he said. Asked how he would celebrate, he said: “I will have champagne, of course.” He told Reuters he hoped the prize would give him a platform “that will allow me to communicate ideas, not just in this field of research but for research in general, fundamental research”. Wineland was asleep at home in Boulder, Colorado, when the phone call from Stockholm arrived before dawn on Tuesday morning, he said at a press conference. (His wife answered.) Physics is the second of this year’s crop of awards; scientists from Britain and Japan shared the first prize on Monday, in medicine, for adult stem cell research. The prizes, which reward achievements in science, literature and peace, were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of Swedish dynamite millionaire Alfred Nobel. “This year’s Nobel Prize recognizes some of the most incredible experimental tests of the weirder aspects of quantum mechanics,” said Jim Al-Khalili, professor of physics at the University of Surrey in Britain. “Until the last decade or two, some of these results were nothing more than ideas in science fiction or, at best, the wilder imaginations of quantum physicists. Wineland and Haroche and their teams have shown just how strange the quantum world really is and opened up the potential for new technologies undreamt of not so long ago.” Quantum physics studies the behavior of the fundamental building blocks of the universe at a scale smaller than atoms, when tiny particles act in strange ways that can only be described with advanced mathematics. Researchers have long dreamt of building “quantum computers” that would operate using that mathematics - able to conduct far more complicated calculations and hold vastly more data than classical computers. But they could only be built if the behavior of individual particles could be observed. “Single particles are not easily isolated from their surrounding environment, and they lose their mysterious quantum properties as soon as they interact with the outside world,” the Nobel committee explained. “Through their ingenious laboratory methods Haroche and Wineland, together with their research groups, have managed to measure and control very fragile quantum states, which were previously thought inaccessible for direct observation. The new methods allow them to examine, control and count the particles.” Both scientists work in the field of quantum optics, studying the fundamental interactions between light and matter. The Nobel committee said they used opposite approaches to the same problem: Wineland uses light particles - or photons - to measure and control particles of matter - electrons - while Haroche uses electrons to control and measure photons. In one of the strange properties of quantum mechanics, tiny particles act as if they are simultaneously in two locations, based on the likelihood that they would be found at either, known as a “superposition.” It was long thought that it would be impossible to demonstrate this in a lab. But Wineland’s “parlor trick” was to hit an atom with laser light, which according to quantum theory had a 50 percent chance of moving it, and observe the atom at two different locations, 80 billionths of a meter apart. In a normal computer, a switch must either be on or off. A quantum computer would work with switches that, like the particles in Wineland’s experiment, behaved as if they were in more than one position at the same time. An example is a computer trying to work out the shortest route around town for a travelling salesman. A traditional computer might try every possible route and then choose the shortest. A quantum computer could do the calculation in one step, as if the salesman travelled each route simultaneously. Wineland is a dedicated experimentalist, not bothered by the bizarre philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, such as the notion that reality does not exist until an observer measures it. “You can find debate on this, but I’m not sure we’re so special in the universe” as to have the power to bring reality into being, he told Reuters. His realism extends to applications of his work. “I wouldn’t recommend anybody buy stock in a quantum computing company,” Wineland told reporters, but he said he was optimistic that it might be possible to build one eventually. He plans to be part of the quest. Asked if his science career was nearing an end, he said he had no plans to retire “until they drag me out of here for being too old”. ($1 = 6.6125 Swedish crowns)
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27917
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PING provides wounded veterans with free lessons and golf clubs.
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Does Ping provide wounded veterans with free lessons and golf clubs?
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true
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Politics
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Example: [Collected via e-mail, May 2011] I don’t know who wrote the article, but have a friend who is a pro golfer. He confirmed that Ping indeed does do this. What a great gesture… and they don’t even use it as a promo gimmick. Now that’s class. This isn’t a joke or cartoon; just something interesting to know… you may want to forward this on to others.On Monday, I played the Disney, Lake Buena Vista course. As usual the starters matched me with three other players. After a few holes we began to get to know each other a bit. One fellow was rather young and had his wife riding along in the golf cart with him. I noticed that his golf bag had his name on it and after closer inspection, it also said “wounded war veterans”. When I had my first chance to chat with him I asked him about the bag. His response was simply that it was a gift. I then asked if he was wounded and he said yes. When I asked more about his injury, his response was “I’d rather not talk about it, sir”. Over a few holes I learned that he had spent the last 15 months in an army rehabilitation hospital in San Antonio Texas . His wife moved there to be with him and he was released from the hospital in September. He was a rather quiet fellow; however, he did say that he wanted to get good at golf. We had a nice round and as we became a bit more familiar I asked him about the a brand new set of Ping woods and irons he was playing. Some looked like they had never been hit. His response was simple. He said that this round was the first full round he had played with these clubs. Later in the round he told me the following. As part of the discharge process from the rehabilitation hospital, Ping comes in and provides three days of golf instruction, followed by club fitting. Upon discharge from the hospital, Ping gives each of the discharged veterans, generally about 40 soldiers, a brand new set of custom fitted clubs along with the impressive golf bags. The fellow I met was named Ben Woods and he looked me in the eye and said that being fitted for those clubs was one of the best things that ever happened to him and he was determined to learn to play golf well enough to deserve the gift Ping had given him. Ben is now out of the service, medically discharged just a month ago. He is as fine a young man as you would ever want to meet. Ping has the good judgment not to advertise this program. God Bless America and the game of golf. The item quoted above refers to PING’s being one of the Gold Sponsors of Disabled Sports USA’s (DS/USA) Wounded Warrior Disabled Sports Project (WWDSP): Through this program, service men and women severely wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will participate in a summer-long sports rehabilitation program offered by Disabled Sports USA (DS/USA) in partnership with the Wounded Warrior Project and 29 DS/USA chapters across the country. The program includes a series of more than 60 “learn-to” clinics in cycling, golf, sailing, outrigger canoeing, kayaking, scuba, rock climbing, camping, water skiing, rafting, wake boarding, track and field, fishing, equestrian, ropes courses and other sports.The WWDSP also provides advanced level training and competitions to help wounded warriors remain active throughout their lives with some participants going on to compete at the Paralympic level or becoming active mentors in DS/USA chapter activities when they return to civilian life. The Wounded Warrior Project leads funding of the WWDSP which enables Disabled Sports USA to provide all programs free of cost for severely wounded service members and their families. This includes the cost of transportation, special adaptive sports equipment, training from qualified adaptive sports instructors, lodging, meals and other expenses. In addition, Gold Sponsors include: Ariel Corporation; Bank of America; The Chart Group; Trijicon; Non Commissioned Officers Association; Tee It Up For The Troops; Robert Trent Jones Golf Club Charitable Foundation; PING; US Association of Former Members of Congress; The Darby Foundation. Silver Sponsors include: Battelle; HUB Financial Charities; Fournier Family Foundation; Moore Capital Management; Miami International Holdings; Phoenix Beverages; PGA of America. In response to our inquiry, PING told us that: PING is proud to be involved with the Wounded Warriors Sports Project. The Project is currently partnering with PGA of America to offer golf lessons at five of the major military medical centers in the U.S. The format involves running an eight week long course where Warriors receive instruction from PGA professionals that have been trained in adaptive teaching techniques. Those wounded warriors who attend at least six of the training sessions and have a permanent severe disability receive a full bag of custom-fit and custom-built PING golf clubs. If you would like additional information on the Wounded Warrior Sports Project, please feel free to contact that organization at (904) 296-7350 or visit www.woundedwarriorproject.org.
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3645
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Scientists successfully clone monkeys; are humans up next?.
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For the first time, researchers have used the cloning technique that produced Dolly the sheep to create healthy monkeys, bringing science an important step closer to being able to do the same with humans.
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true
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Sheep, Health, Science, Primates, Monkeys, Cloning
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Since Dolly’s birth in 1996, scientists have cloned nearly two dozen kinds of mammals, including dogs, cats, pigs, cows and polo ponies, and have also created human embryos with this method. But until now, they have been unable to make babies this way in primates, the category that includes monkeys, apes and people. “The barrier of cloning primate species is now overcome,” declared Muming Poo of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. In a paper released Wednesday by the journal Cell, he and his colleagues announced that they successfully created two macaques. The female baby monkeys, about 7 and 8 weeks old, are named Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua. “It’s been a long road,” said one scientist who tried and failed to make monkeys and was not involved in the new research, Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health & Science University. “Finally, they did it.” The Vatican’s top bioethics official said Thursday that it was an important scientific development, but one that requires urgent ethical debate. Archbishop Vincenzio Paglia, head of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said scientific progress must have as its goal prioritizing human life, and said this could allow cloned animals to be designed for medical experimentation. But he warned that many animal lives were lost in reaching the milestone and that “we must always consider the effect of our interference in the ecosystem and evaluate the risks.” Poo said the feat shows that the cloning of humans is theoretically possible. But he said his team has no intention of doing that. Mainstream scientists generally oppose making human babies by cloning, and Poo said society would ban it for ethical reasons. Instead, he said, the goal is to create lots of genetically identical monkeys for use in medical research, where they would be particularly valuable because they are more like humans than other lab animals such as mice or rats. The process is still very inefficient — it took 127 eggs to get the two babies — and so far it has succeeded only by starting with a monkey fetus. The scientists failed to produce healthy babies from an adult monkey, though they are still trying and are awaiting the outcome of some pregnancies. Dolly caused a sensation because she was the first mammal cloned from an adult. The procedure was technically challenging. Essentially, the Chinese scientists removed the DNA-containing nucleus from monkey eggs and replaced it with DNA from the monkey fetus. These reconstituted eggs grew and divided, finally becoming an early embryo, which was then placed into female monkeys to grow to birth. The scientists implanted 79 embryos to produce the two babies. Still, the approach succeeded where others had failed. Poo said that was because of improvements in lab techniques and because researchers added two substances that helped reprogram the DNA from the fetus. That let the DNA abandon its job in the fetus, which involves things like helping to make collagen, and take on the new task of creating an entire monkey. The Chinese researchers said cloning of fetal cells could be combined with gene editing techniques to produce large numbers of monkeys with certain genetic defects that cause disease in people. The animals could then be used to study such diseases and test treatments. The researchers said their initial targets will be Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Mitalipov, noting the Chinese failed to produce healthy babies from adult cells, said he suspects attempts to clone babies from a human adult would also fail. “I don’t think it would be advisable to anyone to even think about it,” he said. Jose Cibelli, a scientist at Michigan State University, said it might be technically possible someday, but “criminal” to try now because of the suffering caused by the many lost pregnancies the process entails. If the procedure became efficient enough in monkeys, he said, society could face “a big ethical dilemma” over whether to adapt it for humans. The key step of transferring DNA might be combined with gene editing to correct genetic disorders in embryos, allowing healthy babies to be born, he said. Of course, the familiar image of human cloning involves making a copy of someone already born. That might be possible someday, but “I don’t think it should be pursued,” said researcher Dieter Egli of Columbia University. “I can’t think of a strong benefit.” Henry Greely, a Stanford University law professor who specializes in the implications of biomedical technologies, said the strongest argument he can think of would be the desire of grieving parents to produce a genetic duplicate of a dead child. But he doubts that’s a compelling enough reason to undertake the extensive and costly effort needed to get such a procedure approved, at least for “decades and decades.” Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, California, called it unethical to subject that new child to “the psychological and emotional risks of living under the shadow of its genetic predecessor.” Human cloning could also require many women to donate eggs and to serve as surrogates, she said. At the moment, because of safety concerns, federal regulators in the U.S. would not allow making a human baby by cloning, and international scientific groups also oppose it, said biomedical ethics expert Insoo Hyun of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals condemned the monkey-cloning experiments. “Cloning is a horror show: a waste of lives, time and money — and the suffering that such experiments cause is unimaginable,” PETA Senior Vice President Kathy Guillermo said in a statement. ___ Associated Press reporters Dake Kang in Beijing and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this story. ___ Follow Malcolm Ritter at @MalcolmRitter His recent work can be found at http://tinyurl.com/RitterAP ___ This Associated Press series was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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36865
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After Hillary Clinton condemned Mylan, the maker of EpiPens, for increasing prices of the life-saving devices by 400 percent since 2008, allegations that the price hikes were tied to Mylan’s Clinton Foundation donations went viral.
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EpiPen Maker Donated to Clinton Foundation, Hiked Prices
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mixture
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Health / Medical, Politics
|
The Clinton Foundation once partnered Mylan, but the partnership didn’t have anything to do with EpiPens. First, we’ll provide a little context. Mylan CEO Heather Bresch came under fire in August 2016 over her company increasing the price of EpiPens by 400 percent since 2008. Hillary Clinton quickly condemned Mylan’s price hikes, calling them “outrageous” in an official campaign release “That’s outrageous – and it’s just the latest troubling example of a company taking advantage of its consumers. I believe that our pharmaceutical and biotech industries can be an incredible source of American innovation, giving us revolutionary treatments for debilitating diseases. But it’s wrong when drug companies put profits ahead of patients, raising prices without justifying the value behind them. “That’s why I’ve put forward a plan to address exorbitant drug price hikes like these. As part of my plan, I’ve made clear that pharmaceutical manufacturers should be required to explain significant price increases, and prove that any additional costs are linked to additional patient benefits and better value. Since there is no apparent justification in this case, I am calling on Mylan to immediately reduce the price of EpiPens. FOX Business News accused Clinton of crying crocodile tears about the price hikes in a segment, noting that Mylan had partnered with the Clinton Foundation shortly before the price hikes began. Other outlets picked up the story and showed a picture of Bill Clinton accepting a check from former Mylan CEO Robert Coury in about 2009. Claims that the Clinton Foundation had directly benefits from the EpiPen price hikes, or had in some way shielded Mylan from scrutiny over it, immediately followed. But there’s no proof that either of those things are true. While it is true that the Clinton Foundation announced a partnership with Mylan in 2009 to make second-line antiretroviral (ARV) HIV/AIDS drugs more affordable, that partnership had nothing to do with EpiPens. And the notion that Mylan would have needed protection from the Clinton Foundation to raise the price of EpiPens by 400 percent is wrong. As the New York Times reports, these types of price hikes are legal and common among drug companies: Mylan, while not commenting on why it has repeatedly increased the price, says that most EpiPen users are insured and that the company offers a coupon that can reduce or cover the patient’s co-payments. Such co-payment assistance is part of the standard playbook for companies selling expensive drugs: The goal is to spare the consumer, who might create a political uproar, and yet still get paid by the insurance company or government health program. So, while it’s true that the Clinton Foundation once partnered with Mylan on HIV/AIDs drugs, there’s no proof that the partnership impacted EpiPen prices in any way. Bresch has been called to testify before a congressional panel.
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35249
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Medicare is paying hospitals $13,000 for patients admitted with COVID-19 diagnoses and $39,000 if those patients are placed on ventilators.
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What's true: It is plausible that Medicare is paying hospital fees for some COVID-19 cases in the range of the figures given by Dr. Scott Jensen, a Minnesota state senator, during a Fox News interview. What's false: However, Medicare says it does not make standard, one-size-fits-all payments to hospitals for patients admitted with COVID-19 diagnoses and placed on ventilators. The $13,000 and $39,000 figures appear to be based on generic industry estimates for admitting and treating patients with similar conditions.
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mixture
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Politics, COVID-19
|
In mid-April 2020, social media users shared a meme implying that hospitals had a financial incentive to inflate the number of COVID-19 patients they were admitting in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic. The meme contained red text that said, “So, hospitals get an extra $13,000 if they diagnose a death as COVID-19 and an additional $39,000 if they use a ventilator!” and prompted readers to ask Snopes.com to verify whether the statement is true: The idea that hospitals are getting paid $13,000 for patients with COVID-19 diagnoses and $39,000 more if those patients are placed on ventilators appears to have originated with an interview given on the Fox News prime-time program “Ingraham Angle” by Dr. Scott Jensen, a physician who also serves as a Republican state senator in Minnesota. During the April 9, 2020 interview, Jensen suggested to host Laura Ingraham that he believed the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. was being artificially inflated. “The idea that we’re going to allow people to massage and sort of game the numbers is a real issue because we’re going to undermine the (public) trust,” he said. Ingraham then played footage from a press conference with comments from Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in which Fauci called claims that the number of coronavirus cases are being “padded” a conspiracy theory. In an exchange that followed, Jensen suggested that Medicare, the national health care plan for the elderly, was paying hospitals set amounts for each patient diagnosed and treated for COVID-19: INGRAHAM: Dr. Fauci was asked about the COVID death count today. Here’s what he said, in part. [Cut to briefing] REPORTER: What do you say to those folks who are making the claim without really any evidence that these deaths are being padded, that the number of COVID-19 deaths are being padded? FAUCI: You will always have conspiracy theories when you have very challenging public health crises. They are nothing but distractions. [Cut back to Ingraham] INGRAHAM: Conspiracy theories, doctor? So you’re engaging in conspiracy theories. What do you say to Dr. Fauci tonight? JENSEN: Well I would remind him that any time health care intersects with dollars it gets awkward. Right now Medicare has determined that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital, you’ll get paid $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator, you get $39,000, three times as much. Nobody can tell me after 35 years in the world of medicine that sometimes those kinds of things impact on what we do. We attempted to reach Jensen by phone and email, but did not get a response in time for publication. We also reached out to the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to ask whether the statement that Medicare was paying hospitals $13,000 and $39,000, respectively, for patients admitted with COVID-19 diagnoses and patients with the disease who are placed on ventilators. A spokesperson for CMS told us that whether hospitals are paid by Medicare for care of a COVID-19 patient would depend on whether that patient was covered by Medicare insurance. CMS also told us there is no set or predetermined amount paid to hospitals for diagnosing and treating COVID-19 patients, and the amounts would depend on a variety of factors driven by the needs of each patient. Pay-outs would also depend on the variance of the costs of medical care in different regions.
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4815
|
The way you speak now was shaped by what your ancestors ate.
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The way most of us speak today is shaped in part by how long ago our ancestors gave up chewing tough, raw meat.
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true
|
Science, Language, North America
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It’s widely known that languages evolve as societies develop and change, but the sounds we utter are also shaped, literally, by the placement of our jaw — and that is influenced by how we chew our food, researchers report Thursday in the journal Science. Language study often focuses on cultural factors, “but our work shows that language is also a biological phenomenon — you can’t fully separate culture and biology,” said Balthasar Bickel, a linguist at the University of Zurich and co-author of the new study. The researchers analyzed Stone Age and modern skulls and created simulations of how different jaw placements allow our mouths to make different sounds. They analyzed a database of roughly 2,000 languages — more than a quarter of languages in existence today — to identify which sounds were more and less frequently used, and where. Languages spoken by groups with hunter-gatherer societies in their more recent past are far less likely to use consonants used by longtime farming societies, the study found. “Our anatomy actually changed the types of sounds being incorporated into languages,” Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Buffalo who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email. Before societies cultivated crops and learned to cook food, early humans chewed tough raw meat — which was hard work on our jaws and teeth. Stone Age adult skulls don’t look like modern skulls. These older skulls have upper and lower teeth closing directly on top of each other — whereas today most people have some degree of overbite, with the front teeth extending in front of bottom teeth when the mouth is closed. “If you are raised on softer foods, you don’t have the same kind of wear and tear on your bite that your ancestors had, so you keep an overbite,” said Bickel. Eating softer foods not only sets the jaw in a different fashion, but also changes which sounds are easily pronounced. In particular, it becomes much easier to say “f″ and “v,” which linguists call “labiodental” sounds. (Try it. Put your upper and lower incisors — or “front teeth” — directly on top of each other and try say “favor.” It’s difficult.) The researchers looked closely at 52 languages from what is called the Indo-European language group — including dialects spoken from Iceland to India — and charted how the “f″ and “v″ sounds appeared in a rising number of languages over time. As more societies developed agriculture and traded in raw meat for softer fare — whether it’s cooked meat and potatoes, or rice and stewed vegetables — these sounds became more common, the researchers found. “New sounds get introduced into languages, and then are more widely adopted,” said Steven Moran, also a linguist at the University of Zurich and co-author of the paper. The notion that agriculture shaped language was first suggested decades ago by American linguist Charles Hockett, but he did not attempt to prove it. Elan Dresher, a linguist at the University of Toronto who was not involved in the study, commended testing Hockett’s theory, but said the research could be fine-tuned by looking at historical reconstructions of languages, rather than using language databases to make comparisons. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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"Robert Pittenger Says the Republican plan to replace Obamacare, ""absolutely does not eliminate protections for pre-existing conditions."
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"Pittenger said that the Republican AHCA health care plan ""does not eliminate protections for pre-existing conditions."" While insurers technically would still be required to offer coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, the AHCA would weaken protections for those people. Insurers would be able to charge people significantly more if they had a pre-existing condition like heart disease, cancer, diabetes or arthritis – possibly requiring people to pay thousands of dollars extra every year to remain insured."
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false
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Families, Health Care, Public Health, Regulation, States, North Carolina, Robert Pittenger,
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"One of the key sticking points over U.S. House Republicans’ plan to repeal and replace Obamacare is what will happen to people with pre-existing health conditions if this new plan passes. North Carolina Republican Rep. Robert Pittenger supports the bill. He said Tuesday that people still would be able to buy health insurance even if they already have cancer, heart disease, diabetes or some other type of health issue. One of the biggest changes in the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was a requirement that insurers cannot reject people on the basis of pre-existing conditions or charge them exorbitant rates for their premiums. ""The American Health Care Act absolutely does not eliminate protections for pre-existing conditions,"" Pittenger said. However, that is misleading. It’s an issue that affects many people, too. According to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, more than one in four Americans between 18 and 64 has a pre-existing condition – including more than 1.6 million people in Pittenger’s state of North Carolina. Of those, 86,000 North Carolinians with pre-existing conditions buy their insurance through the Obamacare marketplace, according to Avalere, a Washington, D.C, health care consulting company – as do nearly 2.3 million people nationwide. President Donald Trump made a similar claim to Pittenger’s, saying on April 30 that ""pre-existing conditions are in the bill."" PolitiFact rated that . Pittenger made his claim two days later. However, nothing changed in that time regarding the AHCA’s proposed rules for protecting people with pre-existing conditions. So Pittenger’s claim misses the mark, too. Weakening current protections The AHCA does keep the requirement that people with pre-existing conditions must be offered health insurance. But it would drop Obamacare’s rules capping how much extra those people can be charged. The part of the AHCA dealing with pre-existing conditions is the MacArthur Amendment, named after Republican Rep. Tom MacArthur of New Jersey. (See PolitiFact’s full analysis of the amendment here.) Compare two of the amendment’s key provisions: So it appears people wouldn’t pay wildly different rates due only to their gender, which is also the case under Obamacare. But by contrast, insurers would only have to provide access to coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. It says nothing about the rates of that coverage. That means if the AHCA passes, it would allow for people with pre-existing conditions to be charged more per year for their insurance coverage – possibly to the tune of thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars more per year, some studies have found. The exact amount might differ regionally, since some states might not allow the higher rates. Pittenger said that if the AHCA passes and people want better health insurance, they could move to a different state. How the changes work Matt Fiedler, a health care analyst for the Brookings Institute, said the AHCA would force people with a pre-existing condition to choose between two different pools of insurance coverage, both with ""a very high premium."" ""In either case, people with serious health conditions would lack access to affordable insurance options,"" he said. The AARP opposes the AHCA for that reason. So does the nation’s largest group of doctors, the American Medical Association, which said the AHCA will do ""serious harm to patients and the health care delivery system."" Upton amendment and high-risk pools For people with pre-existing conditions, states could allow insurers to charge more if they set up a high-risk pool or participate in a new federal invisible risk-sharing program. Medical professionals question the quality of care those pools would provide. ""The history of high-risk pools demonstrates that Americans with pre-existing conditions will be stuck in second-class health care coverage – if they are able to obtain coverage at all,"" said Dr. Andrew Gurman, president of the American Medical Association. Ten groups that advocate for patients – including the American Cancer Society and American Heart Association – also issued a joint statement in opposition. They said in the past, high-risk pools ""resulted in higher premiums, long waiting lists and inadequate coverage."" One of Pittenger’s fellow Republicans, Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, initially said the AHCA ""torpedoes"" pre-existing condition protections. But Upton changed his mind Wednesday after House leadership set aside an extra $8 billion, spread over five years, to subsidize people whose premiums skyrocket. However, there's disagreement as to whether the money is enough. And it’s not clear who would be eligible to receive subsidies, how much they could receive or how much they would be required to pay on their own. Our ruling Pittenger said that the Republican AHCA health care plan ""does not eliminate protections for pre-existing conditions."" While insurers technically would still be required to offer coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, the AHCA would weaken protections for those people. Insurers would be able to charge people significantly more if they had a pre-existing condition like heart disease, cancer, diabetes or arthritis – possibly requiring people to pay thousands of dollars extra every year to remain insured."
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10278
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Yoga May Help Low Back Pain. Mental Effects? Not So Much
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It is an interesting point to explore, since the study authors mentioned it as well. But the journalist could have dug a little deeper and noticed the study was never designed to prove this point—and didn’t. So the Wall St. Journal led with a mischaracterization of the study results. The study found that yoga and intensive stretching exercises were equally effective in relieving pain and enhancing function—and that both were superior to a self-care educational booklet in the management of chronic back pain at the primary study endpoint of 12 weeks. “Finding similar effects for both approaches suggests that yoga’s benefits were largely attributable to the physical benefits of stretching and not to its mental component,” the authors wrote in the discussion section. But this is just an opinion. And it is just as possible that both group interventions—yoga and intensive stretching—had physical and mental benefits in the management of low back pain. A recent article in the Lancet pointed out that the causes of low back pain are generally obscure, as are the mechanisms of pain relief. (See Balagué et al., 2011) The Wall St. Journal article offered a brief but useful description of the study, its background, and context. But as with a New York Times article on the same topic, there was a hole in the coverage. The journalist included the views of the study authors but offered no perspectives from independent experts. The study had an important limitation that should have at least been mentioned. The researchers studied relatively affluent subjects with mild, uncomplicated back pain that did not result in substantial functional problems. So the results may not apply to the individuals who bear the heaviest burden from chronic back pain and related disability: those on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, those with medicolegal dilemmas in the workplace, and those with other more complicated mental and physical health problems. The study also did not compare yoga to the “usual treatments” for low back pain offered in the U.S. medical system. So yoga’s overall benefits may not be quite as clear as the Wall St. Journal article suggests. Chronic back pain is a huge social, economic, and medical problem. In the United States, back pain is the ninth most expensive medical condition for women, and the 10th for men, in terms of direct medical costs—with chronic back pain accounting for a disproportionate chunk of those expenses. And the costs of work absence and disability claims related to back pain vastly exceed the medical price tag. Though Americans spend almost $35 billion per year on the medical treatment of back pain, the prevalence of chronic back pain appears to be rising—and self-rated spinal health among Americans appears be declining. (See Soni, 2011; Freburger et al., 2009; and Martin et al., 2008). A number of nonsurgical treatments—analgesics, exercise, manual therapies, complementary/alternative therapies, psychological interventions, and multidisciplinary rehabilitation—are modestly effective in the management of chronic back pain. Yet for various reasons, Americans overuse ineffective treatments and underuse effective ones. (See Carey et al., 2009). So the identification of treatments that facilitate recovery and are popular with patients is a key social and medical priority. References for This Review: Balagué F et al., Non-specific low back pain, Lancet, epub ahead of print, October 7, 2011; DOI:10.1016/S0140- 6736(11)60610-7. Carey TS et al., A long way to go: Practice patterns and evidence in chronic low back pain care, Spine, 2009; 34(7):718–24. Medicine, 2007; 147(7):478– 91. Freburger J et al., The rising prevalence of chronic low back pain, Archives of Internal Medicine, 2009; 169(3):251–8. Martin BI et al. Expenditures and health status among adults with back and neck problems. JAMA 2008; 299:656-664. Soni A, Top ten most costly conditions among men and women, 2008, Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research, Statistical Brief #331, 2011. www.meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_files/publications/st331/stat331.pdf.
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mixture
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Back pain,Wall Street Journal
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The Wall St. Journal article did not discuss the costs or cost-effectiveness of any of the interventions. For a short article, the Wall St. Journal story framed and quantified the benefits adequately. The article didn’t discuss adverse events related to yoga or intensive stretching. Yet the authors of the study reported on both. These are important issues, as many patients with chronic back pain fear that becoming physically active will exacerbate their symptoms. We have two reasons to judge this unsatisfactory. There was no obvious disease-mongering in the article. Chronic back pain is a common, vexing problem. The story could have benefitted substantially from independent commentary by a researcher or healthcare provider not associated with the study. There were no stated conflicts-of-interest in the study. So none needed to be identified in the article. The clinical trial trial itself involved multiple alternatives: yoga, aerobic exercise and stretching, and a self-care educational intervention involving activity and lifetyle modification. So that probably fulfills this criterion. The journalist probably assumed that yoga and stretching programs are widely available in the U.S.—which is a reasonable assumption. So the article wins a “satisfatory” on this point. But in fact, it is not all that clear that similarly standardized “viniyoga” classes designed to accommodate back pain patients are widely available—or whether most health insurance plans will cover them. Intensive stretching classes would appear to be uncommon. So physical therapists or exercise physiologists might have to create them based on the study model. The journalist probably assumed that neither yoga nor stretching programs are novel so didn’t address these issues in detail. And that is a reasonable assumption. But as mentioned above, the intensive stretching intervention does appear to be somewhat novel. At least it is not widely available. And the standardized “viniyoga” program is a rather distinctive program oriented around back pain patients. The article was not based on a press release.
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Business owner ready to fight looming federal ban on Kratom.
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Jeremy Haley, a Denver business owner and entrepreneur, received a notice from the Drug Enforcement Administration on Aug. 30 that the natural substance he had been selling for nearly 5 years — first out of his home, then out of his storefront — would soon be considered more dangerous than methamphetamine.
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true
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CO State Wire, Health, Denver, Asia, Environmental health
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“This is our freedom on the line,” Haley said. “If they make it Schedule I, technically they’ll be treating it the same as heroin. And that could have me locked up in jail for life.” Less than a week after the DEA’s notice of intent to temporarily place kratom — a product made from the leaves of a southeast Asian tree — on the most restrictive tier of the Controlled Substances Act, the State Department of Environmental Health was at Rocky Mountain Kratom’s door. Haley’s supply was put on a hold order. As a result, his business, which is one of the only kratom storefronts in the nation, was forced to close shop that same day, reported Colorado Public Radio (http://bit.ly/2cUmD3r). “Given the fact that (the DEA) is framing this as pressing public health concern, and given our roles and responsibilities here as a local public health authority, we felt that it was our responsibility to address kratom products in the Denver markets,” said Danica Lee, the director of public health inspections division for the DEH in Denver. Holds have now been placed on the kratom stock of 15 Denver stores. The DEA says the reason behind the emergency scheduling is due to signs that kratom abuse is on the rise. The dried leaves are most commonly crushed into a powder, which can then be mixed with other liquids and drunk. It can also be brewed as a tea, or swallowed in capsule form. Across the U.S. there were 15 kratom-related deaths between 2014 and 2016, including one in Colorado. The Centers for Disease Control reports receiving 660 calls related to kratom exposure between 2010 and 2015. Dr. Jeffrey Brent, a distinguished clinical professor of medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, says those numbers don’t seem overly concerning. “Frankly, if they were unambiguous kratom-caused deaths, I’d be a little bit more concerned than these kind of mixed drug overdoses, or mix-drug usage where kratom might not have even been a particularity big player,” Brent said. “And it can be very hard to sort out with people with multiple substances.” He adds that the anecdotal accounts of users, who say it’s helpful for chronic pain management, overcoming depression and anxiety, and even weaning off opioids and alcohol, are just that — not necessarily reliable, since little research has been done. For comparison, the National Center for Health Statistics reports 18,893 deaths from opioid pain relievers in 2014 alone. ″(Kratom) is quite weak though, it doesn’t cause a huge number of problems in most people,” Brent said. “But like anything else, all exposures to anything no matter what we’re talking about is dose-dependent. And if you take enough, anything can make you sick and certainly that is true of kratom.” The DEA’s announcement to officially ban kratom has not been made. Barbara Carreno, a spokesperson with the DEA, acknowledged the hundreds of calls and comments coming from users, adding that the response has been unexpected. The outcry from the community includes a letter from Congress, with the signatures of 51 representatives ? including 22 Republicans ? addressed to acting DEA administrator Chuck Rosenberg and asking the federal government to delay the scheduling of kratom until further research can be done. Colorado Democratic Rep. Jared Polis helped compose the letter. “It is absolutely ridiculous,” Polis said. “The DEA to add kratom to Schedule I, along with marijuana, and say that both of them need to be controlled even more than opioids is ridiculous — when opioids are the devastating health crisis that so many families have faced and is causing so many deaths.” He adds that banning kratom could make the opioid crisis worse, and that this decision would be “counterproductive.” “I really worry that if it’s allowed to go to Schedule I, some of those people might turn to opioids or harder drugs,” Polis said. The letter was sent to the DEA on Sept. 28 and Congress has not yet received a response. But the DEA’s silence doesn’t mean there is any change in plans to ban kratom. It simply means it hasn’t happened yet. Until they make the formal announcement, kratom remains legal. Where does that leave Rocky Mountain Kratom? According to Danica Lee with the Department of Environmental Health, most likely right where they are now. “If there was a change in the decision, we would certainly want to evaluate that before making a decision on action,” Lee said. “If the time frame is extended, but the result seems as though it will be the same, we would likely leave those hold orders in place.” For Jeremy Haley, the actions against kratom have only encouraged him to fight for the plant he says saves lives. ‘Kratom Kingpin’ Haley first heard of Kratom while listening to a podcast. The guest of the show briefly mentioned his use of it for pain management. Haley started doing research and tried it for himself, and quickly found his anxiety and depression diminished, along with his cravings for alcohol. “My life has been a 180 since then,” Haley said. “I was working in oil and gas at the time actually, and now I’m advocating for botanicals.” He says it helped him work the 16-hour days in the field, and helped him excel at his job. But in 2012, he was arrested for a DUI after a night of light drinking, and was caught with MDMA ? commonly known as ecstasy ? in his pocket. He lost his job and his right to drive, and moved back to Colorado where he is originally from. “It’s one of my biggest regrets in life, but it did lead me down this road,” Haley said. “And it pushed me towards seriously looking for better ways to live.” He continued to use kratom, and he says it kept away the urges to drink while on probation. That’s when he got the idea to start selling it. “I had a feeling inside that people needed to know about this, and I needed to be the one to at least introduce it to people,” he said. “And to counteract the head shops that were selling it at the time, because a lot of the head shops are also giving kratom a bad name.” He applied for his peddler permit, and was allowed to sell kratom on the street. He set up a website and engineered it to be a top result after searching “opioid withdrawal help in Denver.” “I’d walk out there with my big, goofy peddler’s badge, and there’d be such a diverse group of clientele,” Haley said. “There’d be like, soccer moms and the elderly. I was really shocked by it actually at first. I kind of had my own personal stigma and idea of what kratom users, what the demographic would be.” He admits he looked sketchy, with his brown paper bags and meeting people on corners. But he had to start somewhere. “People were coming to me desperate, in really really rough situations. It was the only way I could figure out to make it work,” Haley said. He was even the subject of an undercover investigation by CBS4, and called a “street dealer.” He was worried what his probation officer might think. “It was just kind of me flying solo there for a bit,” Haley said. “Which was a really cool experience, because it really let me dive in deep and meet a lot of the people and learn their stories and learn how much it’s changed their lives in so many different ways and for so many different conditions, from multiple sclerosis to lupus, you can go on and on.” He continued selling this way for two years when he eventually saved up enough to rent out a space on Broadway. “Things would start looking good, and then you would tell people what you’re selling, Kratom, and then they’d Google it, and that CBS story would come up: ‘Denver Street Dealer.’ And then before you know it, no return phone calls or messages,” he said. But after a year and a half, business was pouring in. “We were about ready to blow up,” Haley said. “We were on the verge of becoming a major business and opening many shops. Especially getting into wholesale was a huge goal of mine, and getting our product as accessible as possible in as many outlets as possible across the country for people to use it.” He said it probably would have taken off even faster if it wasn’t for the legal troubles his business has encountered. “We were on the brink of getting shut down, and that’s with amazing profits,” Haley said. “The profits didn’t have anything to do with it. It’s all the other loopholes, it really felt like playing some weird, twisted game.” Banks would close down his accounts because of what he was selling, and his product started being seized at customs after the FDA put out a notice saying that kratom was a substance of concern. “The customs agencies felt like they needed to take some sort of action, in order to enforce that,” Haley said “And they seized hundreds of kilograms from several different vendors, not just us. And it’s just thousands of dollars down the drain.” Haley had to get creative to keep the kratom coming in; he switched over to a Chinese shipping carrier, and had a lab perform tests on his product before it entered the U.S., to guarantee purity for the FDA. And all of it was labeled “not for human consumption,” something Haley had been doing since he started his business. “It’s pretty unfair, and it’s always felt very gross having to put those disclaimers on there,” Haley said. “Because we obviously all know the deal. We were making like, kratom candles even. Just so we could keep our customers, you know, provide them the relief that they need. Because we’ve had so many that have been depending on this stuff.” He says that with all the troubles he’d already experienced, that he knew the DEA’s announcement was inevitable. “I just didn’t expect it to be this soon, or to happen the way that it did,” Haley said. He now sits in his yet-to-be-open shop on Broadway and Alameda, called Artisans Apothecary. It will focus on natural foods and supplements, and was supposed to be his new spot to sell kratom. It was scheduled to be up and running by Sept. 26, but he and his staff decided to focus their efforts on stopping the ban instead. They flew to Washington to join the protest march on the capital Sept. 13, and they were inspired to put together their own event at the Denver capitol building. About 100 supporters showed up on Sept. 23, holding handmade signs, shouting “Kratom saves lives” and sharing their stories. Many of the speakers at the event were customers of Haley’s, including Jason Delapp ? a veteran from Colorado who was diagnosed with MS in 2005. Delapp found kratom and Haley after suffering from opioid dependency for 10 years. “My wife and I had lost a daughter, 9 years ago,” Delapp said. “After that, we both used that pain even more than just physical pain and really abused prescription opiates.” He admitted that when it was tough to get the pills, it was easier to get meth and heroine, and he did both. “That was probably self-esteem wise, the lowest point of my life ever,” Delapp said. “I drank when I was younger a little bit, teenager stuff. But I never did drugs. That wasn’t me.” He says his wife got tired of their addiction, and found kratom as an option during her search for help. Delapp says he immediately saw a difference in her, and it convinced him to start using kratom himself. He’s now entirely off his medications. ″(Kratom) enables me to be in a good mood, and to think clearly, and to make good decisions with my MS to where I know if I’ve done too much,” Delapp said. “The energy and mood alone makes it possible for me to be part of my family’s life again, and I can remember it.” It’s people like Delapp that keeps Haley in the fight. “I pray that we can all ban together and make our voices heard,” Haley said. “Even if it does get outlawed or made Schedule I, that we keep harping on (the DEA) and we do it the right way. Not angry phone calls or letters, or trying to tear anybody down. Because these guys are just trying to do their jobs too and most of them are good guys. But we really need to make it heard that we’re united, as a people. And we’re not going to let our personal freedoms get taken away unless there’s valid explanation at least for why they’re doing this, and they have yet to do that so far.” ___ Information from: KCFR-FM, http://www.cpr.org/news
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[Then-Vice President] Biden, he calls [Ukraine] and says, 'Don’t you dare prosecute, if you don’t fire this prosecutor' — the prosecutor was after his son.
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President Donald Trump, in a lengthy interview on Fox News, made several statements that were false, misleading or not supported by the evidence.
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mixture
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automakers, China, North Korea, nuclear weapons, trade,
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President Donald Trump, in a lengthy interview on Fox News, made several statements that were false, misleading or not supported by the evidence:In a wide-ranging interview that aired May 19 on “The Next Revolution,” Trump and the show’s host, Steve Hilton, discussed foreign policy, international trade, the economy, politics and more.At one point, Hilton raised Trump’s campaign promise to “drain the swamp,” asking the president whether former White House aides should be allowed to lobby for foreign companies. The president pivoted to 2020 — implying that a potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden, intervened while he was vice president to halt an investigation in Ukraine of his son, Hunter.Trump twisted the facts when he said that the then-vice president threatened to withhold $2 billion in U.S. loan guarantees unless Ukraine dropped its investigation into Hunter and fired the prosecutor. There’s no evidence that Hunter was under investigation.Trump: Biden, he calls them and says, “Don’t you dare prosecute, if you don’t fire this prosecutor” — the prosecutor was after his son. Then he said, “If you fire the prosecutor, you’ll be OK. And if you don’t fire the prosecutor, we’re not giving you $2 billion in loan guarantees,” or whatever he was supposed to give. Can you imagine if I did that?Let’s review what we know — and don’t know — about the Bidens and Ukraine.As vice president, Biden went to Ukraine and told the government that the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees if Ukraine failed to address corruption and remove its prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin. We know this because Biden boasted about it last year during an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations.The former vice president, who is now running for president, said the incident occurred during a visit to Kiev.Biden, Jan. 23, 2018: I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from [then-Ukraine President Petro] Poroshenko and from [then-Ukraine Prime Minister Arseniy] Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t.So they said they had — they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to — or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said — I said, call him. I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.The U.S. wasn’t the only one critical of Ukraine’s anti-corruption efforts. A month earlier, the International Monetary Fund threatened to withhold $40 billion unless Ukraine undertook “a substantial new effort” to fight corruption.At the time, Hunter Biden was a board member for the Burisma Group, one of the biggest private gas companies in Ukraine. He joined the board in May 2014, instantly raising concerns about a potential conflict of interest. An Associated Press article called Biden’s hiring “politically awkward.”“Hunter Biden’s employment means he will be working as a director and top lawyer for a Ukrainian energy company during the period when his father and others in the Obama administration attempt to influence the policies of Ukraine’s new government, especially on energy issues,” the AP wrote.However, there is no evidence that Hunter Biden was under investigation or that his father pressured Ukraine on his behalf.A few days before Fox News aired the Trump interview, Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine’s current prosecutor general, gave his own interview to Bloomberg News and said: “Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing.”Lutsenko told Bloomberg that the prosecutor general’s office in 2014 — before Shokin took office — opened a corruption investigation against Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, and numerous others. He said the probe’s focus was Serghi Kurchenko, who owned a number of gas companies, and a transaction that occurred in November 2013, months before Biden joined Burisma.Bloomberg News, May 16: As part of the 5-year-old inquiry, the prosecutor general’s office has been looking at whether Kurchenko’s purchase of an oil storage terminal in southern Ukraine from Zlochevksy in November 2013 helped Kurchenko launder money. Lutsenko said the transaction under scrutiny came months before Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board.“Biden was definitely not involved,” Lutsenko said. “We do not have any grounds to think that there was any wrongdoing starting from 2014.”The investigation is still active, he said.The president also spoke about North Korea and its nuclear weapons program. Trump met with North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un in June of last year, and the two leaders agreed to “promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”During Kim’s reign, North Korea has conducted numerous nuclear tests and missile launches — including four nuclear weapons tests and three test launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs.Trump: But, they haven’t had any tests over the last two years — zero. There’s a chart and it shows 24 tests, 22 tests, 18 tests. Then I come, and once I’m there for a little while you know, we went through a pretty rough rhetorical period. Once I’m there for a little while, no tests, no tests, no tests.It’s true that North Korea has not conducted a nuclear test since Sept. 3, 2017, and it hasn’t launched an ICBM since Nov. 29, 2017. (See details in the Arms Control Association timeline.) But North Korea has conducted short-range missile tests twice this month, and it continues to actively pursue a nuclear weapons program.The U.S. intelligence community released a threat assessment report in January that said, “We continue to observe activity inconsistent with full denuclearization.”The report didn’t detail what kind of activity. But a week earlier, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington issued a report that said it found “approximately 20 undeclared missile operating bases,” including one that serves as a missile headquarters.A month later, three Stanford University researchers issued a report that said North Korea “continued to operate and, in some cases, expand the nuclear weapons complex infrastructure. It continued to operate its nuclear facilities to produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium that may allow it to increase the number of nuclear weapons in its arsenal from roughly 30 in 2017 to 35-37.”Another subject that the president addressed was the ongoing trade war with China.The Trump administration last year imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, and China responded with tariffs on $110 billion of U.S. goods. The trade dispute escalated this month. First, the Trump administration on May 10 raised tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on about $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. China responded three days later when it announced that it would increase tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on roughly $60 billion worth of U.S. goods, beginning June 1.The dispute has hurt U.S. agricultural exports in particular, and the administration responded by authorizing up to $12 billion in aid to U.S. farmers. Trump said he would increase financial assistance to $15 billion and explained how he arrived at that number.Trump: I said to Sonny Perdue, Department of Agriculture — secretary of Agriculture – “Sonny, what’s the most money that China has ever paid toward agriculture, toward buying food product?” He said $15 billion a number of years ago. I said “Is that the most?” He said “Yes.” Some people will say close to (inaudible) but $15 billion was about the most. I said “Good. I’m going to take $15 billion out of the $100 billion, and I’m going to give that to our farmers.”Trump told a similar story in a recent speech to the National Association of Realtors.Trump, May 17: So I called Sonny Perdue, our great Secretary of Agriculture, and I said, “Sonny…” — (applause) — I said, “Sonny, what’s the biggest amount they’ve ever spent in this country?” He said, “About $15 billion. People could say 18, 19. But basically $15 billion.” And I said, “So let’s take $15 billion, set it aside out of the 100 or 125 billion [in annual tariffs imposed on all imports].”We asked the White House and the Department of Agriculture about this conversation. Neither responded. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative referred us to the White House.But this much we know based on available data and emails from two federal agencies: $15 billion isn’t “the biggest amount” that China has spent on U.S. agricultural exports.In its annual reports on shifts in U.S. merchandise trade, the United States International Trade Commission reported that China purchased $27.2 billion in U.S. agricultural products in 2012 – the most in one year from 2010 to 2017.The most recent USITC report covers 2013 to 2017, and a commission spokeswoman told us a new report covering 2018 would not be released until November. However, according to the Department of Agriculture, agricultural exports to China fell dramatically to $9.2 billion in 2018. That was “almost all due to retaliatory tariffs” imposed by China, Wallace E. Tyner, who teaches agricultural economics at Purdue University, told us in an email.We also know that, as of the morning of May 20, the U.S. has paid $8.54 billion to farmers through three aid programs, a USDA spokesperson said.The Market Facilitation Program — the largest of the three programs — can provide up to $10 billion to producers of corn, cotton, sorghum, soybean, wheat, dairy, hogs, almonds and sweet cherries, according to a December report by the Congressional Research Service on the trade aid programs. The top five commodities that received assistance through the program were soybeans, corn, wheat, cotton and sorghum, the USDA spokesperson told us.We found that, from 2009 through 2018, the most that China imported of those five commodities in any one year totaled nearly $20 billion, according to Census Bureau export data. That occurred in 2012, when China’s agricultural purchases included nearly $14.9 billion in soybeans, $3.4 billion in raw cotton and $1.3 billion in corn, according to Census data.As we said, we don’t know what the president meant when he said that $15 billion was “the biggest amount they’ve ever spent in this country.” We will update this item if the White House responds.In talking about the U.S. economy, Trump boasted about companies coming to the United States — singling out one car company in particular.Trump: Well, really very simply, we have companies coming in here, as you know, by the dozens and by the hundreds and big ones, car companies, Honda’s coming in with $14.5 billion.We don’t know how many companies have relocated to the U.S. or have left the U.S. But the president overestimates Honda’s future investment in the U.S.On its website, Honda said that its total capital investment in the U.S. (not just auto manufacturing) has been $21 billion over the last 60 years, including $5.6 billion in the last five years. We could not find any new automotive investments that would equal $14.5 billion, so we reached out to the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research Group, which tracks new investments in the United States.Kristin Dziczek, vice president of industry, labor and economics, told us that she, too, could not match the $14.5 billion figure cited by Trump, and “we try to keep very close tabs on these things.” She said Honda has announced auto manufacturing investments totaling $1.7 billion over the last five years.In February, Honda announced that it would close a manufacturing plant in Swindon, England, in 2121, when it stops production of its current Civic model. Honda Chief Executive Officer Takahiro Hachigo told Automotive News that the next generation Civic will be manufactured in North America, but the company has yet to say where the plant or plants will be located.Update, May 24: “We have not provided any further detail other than we are considering production of Civic for North America in North America,” Honda corporate spokesman Chris Abbruzzese told us in an email. He provided us with a list of $712 million worth of vehicle manufacturing investments that Honda had made in the United States in 2017 and 2018. “We do not disclose our future investment plans publicly,” Abbruzzese said. Honda currently has five vehicle manufacturing plants in the United States, including one in Indiana that builds the current Civic models. It also manufactures Civic models in Ontario, Canada.The president also boasted that he has “tremendous poll numbers now.”It’s subjective, of course, to describe one’s poll numbers as “tremendous.” But Trump’s average job approval rating — based on polling data assembled from dozens of polls by Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight — is currently below 43 percent.As of May 22, Trump’s average job approval rating on Real Clear Politics was 42.5 percent, and FiveThirtyEight put it at 41.1 percent. By contrast, those who disapproved of Trump’s job performance averaged 53.7 percent, according to Real Clear Politics, and 53.8 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight.As for individual polls taken this month, Trump’s job approval rating reached a peak of 51 percent in the Zogby Poll, which was conducted May 2 to May 9 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent. The low point was a Morning Consult poll, which showed the president at 37 percent. That poll was taken May 17 to 19, and had an error margin of plus or minus 2 percent.As we often find, the president also repeated some false claims that we have previously debunked:China Trade Deficit: The president said, “We have a trade deficit with China of $500 billion.” That’s false. As we have written before, the U.S. trade deficit with China in goods and services was a record $378.7 billion in 2018, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (see table 3). The U.S. had a $419.3 billion deficit with China in goods (table 6) and a $40.5 billion surplus in services (table 9).Tariff Revenue: Trump said that, as a result of tariffs he has placed on Chinese goods, “we are going to be taking in possibly $100 billion, possibly more than that in tariffs. We never took in 10 cents from China.” It’s not true, as we have previously said, that the U.S. has never collected tariffs on Chinese goods. The amount of tariff revenue has increased, but the U.S. did collect billions of dollars each year since at least 2000. For example, the U.S. collected about $13.4 billion in 2016, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission database. As we also wrote, tariffs are taxes paid by U.S. importers in the form of customs duties, not by the Chinese government or its companies. Liquefied Natural Gas Exporting. The president said, “I was in Louisiana opening up a $10 billion LNG plant that would’ve never been approved under another type of administration, never,” and, “They’ve been trying for years to get it built, but we got approvals very quickly for the big LNG.” That’s false. As we wrote before, the plant in question, Sempra Energy’s Cameron LNG plant, was approved in 2014 by the Obama administration, a fact Sempra Energy confirmed.Update, Sept. 27: An earlier version of this story said that Biden’s threat to withhold a $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine occurred in March 2016. We could not verify the exact date when Biden issued his ultimatum.
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6859
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Oklahoma quakes tied to how deep wastewater is injected.
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A new study finds that a major trigger of man-made earthquakes rattling Oklahoma is how deep — not just how much — fracking wastewater is injected into the ground.
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true
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Hydraulic fracturing, Oklahoma, Earthquakes, North America, Science, U.S. News, Wastewater
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Scientists analyzed more than 10,000 wastewater injection wells where 96 billion gallons of fluid — leftover from hydraulic fracturing — are pumped yearly. The amount of wastewater injected and the depth are key to understanding the quake outbreak since 2009, they reported in Thursday’s journal Science . The quakes included a damaging magnitude 5.8 in 2016, the strongest in state history. State regulators could cut about in half the number of man-made quakes by restricting deep injections in the ground, said lead author Thea Hincks, an earth scientist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. Companies drilling for oil and gas should not inject waste within 600 to 1500 feet (200 to 500 meters) of the geologic basement. That’s the stable harder rock deep underground usually made of metamorphic and igneous rocks. That region is usually crisscrossed with earthquake faults. The closer you get to the faults, the more likely you are to trigger them, said Stanford University geophysicist Matthew Weingarten, who wasn’t part of the study. Lab experiments show basement rocks are more susceptible to earthquakes because “having fluids in a rock is going to weaken the rock,” said co-author Thomas Gernon, a geologist at the University of Southampton. Previous studies had pinpointed the amount of fluids injected into wells as an issue. Gernon said volume does trigger earthquakes, but when volume levels were reduced the number of quakes didn’t drop as much as had been expected. That’s because where the stuff is put matters slightly more, he said. The findings only apply to quakes in Oklahoma, researchers said. ___ Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears . His work can be found here .
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9433
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Fecal transplant via a pill? Newsweek’s coverage points out possible selection bias of study participants
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This Newsweek story reports on the results of a small study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study compared two methods of delivering a fecal microbiota transplant (FMT), via a colonoscopy or with an oral pill, to treat Clostridium difficile infection. An FMT involves taking feces from a healthy person and transplanting it into a sick person, to see if that can help eradicate unwanted microbes. Both approaches were equally successful and the oral pill — as might be expected — was perceived as less objectionable by patients. The story covers most of the bases we require, though it was unclear on the availability of the pill-based treatment, and what role standard antibiotics play in treatment and research outcomes. As the story points out, Clostridium difficile infections in hospital patients is a serious public health problem, infecting “half a million people in the United States per year and killing 15,000 people” annually. Fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) is fast becoming the treatment of choice in these cases and any improvement to facilitate this approach would obviously be welcome. The pill approach diminishes the “yuck factor” with this treatment, based on the study results.
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true
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fecal transplant
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The story does a good job of pointing out one advantage of the pill approach compared to delivery via colonoscopy–the reduced cost. “There was a significant difference in cost. Though the procedures were done in a Canadian hospital, the FMTs delivered by colonoscopy cost nearly $500 USD more than the capsules, which cost about $300.” This was a close call. Early on, it says the pill was 90% effective for treating recurrent Clostridium difficile infections. Later on, the story explains that both were equally successful in treating the Clostridium difficile infections. It would take a bit of deduction to figure out that the 90% treatment rate applies to both the pills and colonoscopies. And the study puts this figure close to 96%. But we’ll give the benefit of the doubt and rate it satisfactory. The story gets a satisfactory here for including the differences between the two methods of delivery: One source is quoted saying, “colonoscopies and the anesthesia required for the procedure can put a lot of stress on a person’s body and can be complicated for the people most at risk for C. difficile infections.” It could have gone a step further and reminded readers that a colonoscopy is an invasive procedure with the inherent risks of infection and perforation that obviously aren’t there when taking a pill. The story did not mention the other adverse events described in the paper such as nausea and vomiting, though. The story comments on the size of the study and quotes a researcher about strengths (a randomized, controlled trial) and limitations (selection bias) of the study. Selection bias, in this case, means many people were excluded from the clinical trial if they had any number of issues (patients with severe or complicated cases were excluded, for example), potentially biasing the results. In a more real-world setting, the effectiveness rate may drop once it’s tried on a wider range of people. No disease mongering here. The story does include comments from an independent source unaffiliated with the research. But, it doesn’t specify that the source has received research money from a drug company that’s developing microbiome drugs. Standard treatment for C. diff is antibiotics. This should have been mentioned. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t spell out whether the pill form FMT is now, or soon will be, available to the public. The story does mention that numerous other clinical trials are using FMT as a possible treatment for various diseases but it is unclear whether the pill form is an option for physicians at this point. What’s new here is that a pill form for delivery of a fecal transplant is being tested against a colonoscopy. The story established this. It does not appear to rely on a news release.
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17984
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"Obamacare-caused paperwork will annually absorb 190 million hours or more--and Mount Rushmore could be built 1,547 times over ""with the paperwork."
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"Cruz said the Affordable Care Act would ""add paperwork burdens totaling nearly 190 million hours or more every year."" He went on to say that Mount Rushmore could be built 1,547 times over ""with the paperwork."" Based on the 190 million figure, that mount count is ridiculously off, premised on the notion that one person carved the monument around the clock for 14 years--or something equivalent. And about the 190 million hours: the landmark law indeed appears responsible for creating a large amount, at least 75 million hours, of confirmed additional paperwork. However, that total is less than half Cruz’s declared number. The tracker that Cruz relied upon has unexplained holes, miscalculates some burdens and folds in paperwork associated with non-health-care programs such as student loan changes. Significantly, too, we could not tell how the document’s largest single entry--46 million of the declared hours--was calculated."
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false
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Federal Budget, Health Care, Texas, Ted Cruz,
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"Ted Cruz, the junior Republican senator from Texas, said the health care overhaul signed into law by President Barack Obama would create mountains--or at least Mount Rushmores--of paperwork. In Senate floor remarks on July 30, 2013, Cruz said: ""According to federal agency estimates, Obamacare will add paperwork burdens totaling nearly 190 million hours or more every year. And... to put that in perspective, Mount Rushmore, which took 14 years to build, could be constructed 1,547 times with the paperwork."" By email, a Tennessee doctor asked us to investigate. Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Utah Sen. Mike Lee have taken center stage in a campaign from the right to ""defund"" changes set to roll out under the Obamacare law. The senators and their supporters declare that otherwise the economy will be gutted. And to spread their message, they’ve released online ads and held town halls. Without a doubt, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 is highly complicated and extensive; the text runs 974 pages. Does it generate millions of hours of paperwork? By email, Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier directed us to the Obamacare Burden Tracker, an 18-page document issued in February 2013 by the Republican sides of three House committees. It states that per six agencies--including the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Labor and Social Security Administration--the Obamacare law will result in 189,822,836 hours of paperwork a year, plus nearly 80 million once-only hours. Frazier also pointed us to the National Park Service’s website, which says Mount Rushmore was built between Oct. 4,1927, and Oct. 13, 1941, or a little more than 14 years. And, she sent us to a May 7, 2013 Energy and Commerce Committee press release that says those 14 years could be used to construct 1,547 monuments. Here is what we take to be the relevant equation: The Burden Tracker’s 189,822,836 hours divided by 24 comes out to 7,909,284.83 days, equal to 21,669.27 years. Divide that by 14 and you find out that during 21,669.27 years, there are 1,547.8 spans of 14 years. Let’s review the paperwork details, then tackle those mountains. Committee explains tracker The Burden Tracker was described in a Feb. 6, 2013, press release from the Republican side of the Ways and Means Committee as ""a real-time online resource to help the public keep track of all of the new government mandates, rules, and red tape as a result of Obamacare."" The release said that burden would fall on individuals, businesses and health care providers. The tracker was updated in May 2013 and is to be updated every few months, according to Ways and Means Committee spokespeople. When we peeked, the tracker listed 174 separate Obamacare-related paperwork tasks, each one leading to online documentation intended to show the associated paperwork hours. The tracker says, for instance, that according to Health and Human Services and two other agencies, changes to coverage for certain types of care, including contraceptive services, would require 2.5 hours of paperwork each year from health organizations. Meanwhile, regulations for government-funded insurance programs would generate paperwork for hospitals and other groups absorbing 45,982,371 million hours annually, which is the tracker’s largest single entry. By phone, Sarah Swinehart, a staff spokeswoman for the Republican side of the Ways and Means Committee, told us that staff members went through federal documents that list all paperwork associated with the regulations for government-funded insurance programs to reach the 45.98 million figure. We tried to follow similar steps, but ended up with a much smaller sum of several million hours. When we shared our tally with Swinehart, she said the committee didn’t have anyone available to explain in detail how its 45.98 million number was reached. We also couldn’t confirm the smallest paperwork burden of 2.5 hours, which did not appear in the documents referenced in the tracker. Michelle Dimarob, a spokeswoman for the Ways and Means Committee’s Republican office, said by email that most of the paperwork hours came from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which is part of the Obama administration’s Office of Management and Budget. Congress created the regulatory office in the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980. Swinehart said committee staff members built the tracker by using a search function on the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website. It allows users to check a box that filters out all paperwork burdens related to the Obamacare law, Swinehart said. In the most straightforward instances, she said, a provision by itself created a paperwork burden. In sticky cases, she said, the law was among several contributing to a paperwork burden, which meant committee staff had to extract the Obamacare-tied burden. To do so, she said, staff looked at documents in the Federal Register, which include paperwork burden estimates. We drew no comment on the accuracy of the tracker from Health and Human Services as well as the OMB and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office. Spokespeople for each agency also said they had not estimated paperwork burdens related to the law. Examining the numbers Federal law defines a burden as the ""time, effort, or financial resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, or provide information to or for a federal agency."" Burdens can include gathering information, disseminating information to the public and installing technology. For context, the public spent 9.14 billion hours completing paperwork burdens for the federal government in 2011, according to OMB’s 2012 Information Collection Budget, the latest available annual report. Obamacare’s supposed 190 million burden hours would represent a 2.1 percent increase from that 2011 figure. The Obamacare law is not alone in creating significant paperwork burdens, according to the information collection budget. A 2009 change in how investment companies are regulated resulted in 33.5 million hours of additional paperwork a year, a figure that was based on forms that mutual funds had to newly fill out to report information to the public and the IRS. Perhaps a more familiar burden, one that college students and their families bear, is the estimated 26 million hours total it takes to fill out forms used to determine eligibility for financial aid. Before a federal agency can require the public to comply with a paperwork burden, it must seek public comment, and obtain review and approval from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Fabien Levy, a Washington, D.C.-based HHS spokesman, said by email that the health care law reduces some paperwork burdens, noting that applications consumers will use to enroll in health insurance under the law will be ""simple and significantly shortened."" When we looked, the tracker did not refer to reduced paperwork hours from enrollment applications. Among the burdens specified in the tracker are 21.3 million paperwork hours for insurance agencies related to changes in Medicaid eligibility and 10.8 million hours for health plans that will sell insurance under the law. In one case, the tracker suggests paperwork time will drop. New rules limiting how long it takes for insurance benefits to kick in will cut paperwork by 341,000 hours, according to the tracker. To sample the tracker’s accuracy, we looked into three of the largest identified paperwork burdens. Together, these burdens total 75,537,966 hours -- about 40 percent of the 190 million number aired by Cruz. One of those burdens comes from the Obamacare law’s menu-labeling provision requiring chain restaurants and vending machine operators to disclose nutritional information. The tracker says this provision will annually impose 14,068,808 hours in paperwork. A 2011 OMB report backs up that figure, listing it as one of five ""significant burden increases."" Another of the highest paperwork burdens, the 40,189,456 hours created by forms that small employers will use to figure out tax credits for health insurance premiums, was listed in a 2012 OMB report in an appendix attributing the burden to the Obamacare law. Our examination of other sizeable items in the tracker revealed miscalculations. For instance, the tracker overcounted 6.75 million hours it attributes to additional information that hospitals must report. A document from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services says that increase stems partly from a section of the Obamacare law, but also from the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act. The document also says the 6.75 million hours hospitals spend reporting the information would save them 2.5 million hours they currently put toward giving the same information to accreditation groups. The tracker also incorrectly counted a preliminary estimate that regulations regarding Medicaid eligibility would generate about 11 million hours of paperwork. Health and Human Services updated that figure in March 2012, predicting it would create more than 21 million hours of paperwork. The tracker lists both the original estimate plus the revised one. We noticed as well that some listed burdens are from a college student loan overhaul rolled into the health care law. The tracker counted 2,232,386 hours of new annual paperwork for Stafford and Ford loans. Admittedly, we devoted only a few days to looking over the tracker. Still, it looks like at least 57 million of the listed hours--the 45.98 million that the Ways and Means committee couldn’t explain, plus the miscalculations we found--are factually unsupported or insufficiently documented. On the flip side, we found that at least 75 million hours of paperwork has been forecasted in connection with the Obamacare law. Experts weigh in Other issues may be worth chewing over, outside experts suggested. Donald Arbuckle, who was second-in-command at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs from 1996 to 2006, said by phone that any estimate of a law’s paperwork hours is ""soft"" because each federal agency uses a different method to calculate the hours. Some agencies, he said, are more diligent than others. Arbuckle, a public affairs professor at the University of Texas-Dallas, said that generally, such information helps track government activity. ""Paperwork burdens are usually associated with government red tape, which is bad,"" Arbuckle said. ""Except, one person’s red tape is another person’s accountability. If the government is putting money toward Medicare or Medicaid, using tax dollars, the government needs to be ultra, obsessively responsible"" for ""where that money is going."" Chris Jacobs, a health care analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, emphasized by phone that the Obama administration recognized the large paperwork burdens created by the law by delaying the requirement for some employers to provide insurance to workers. In July 2013, the White House announced that it was delaying from 2014 to 2015 the law’s mandate that businesses with 50 or more full-time employees offer health insurance. In a July 2, 2013, agency blog post, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s assistant secretary for tax policy, Mark J. Mazur, wrote that the employer mandate was delayed because of ""concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively."" Building Mount Rushmores When we turned to the second half of Cruz’s statement--that the time spent on Obamacare paperwork could be used to build Mount Rushmore 1,547 times--we spoke to National Park Service Mount Rushmore spokeswoman Maureen McGee-Ballinger. Cruz’s calculation uses the total number of hours in 14 years--122,640. That assumes, in effect, that one person created Mount Rushmore by working around the clock for 14 years--or any other scenario getting to the hours’ total. McGee-Ballinger said by phone that there are no records of how many worker hours went into Mount Rushmore, which was created in South Dakota at a cost of nearly $990,000 ($15.7 million in 2013 dollars). A web search led us to Lou Del Bianco, who has researched his grandfather Luigi Del Bianco’s role in carving Mount Rushmore. By phone, Del Bianco said that some of the 400 people who built Mount Rushmore--doing tasks like blasting away granite with dynamite or carving the stone--worked only for half a year while others stayed for all 14. Their hours varied greatly, he said, and they didn’t work for about four to six months during the cold. Just to get a handle on how that might affect the numbers, we estimated the total hours if Mount Rushmore had been created by 400 people who each stuck with the project for 12 years, working 40 hours a week (which became the federal standard in 1938) for 32 weeks per year, or about eight months. We got 6,144,000 hours, which means they could build 30 Mount Rushmores in the Burden Tracker’s 189.8 million hours. To cook up a low-end estimate, we tweaked it to 400 people working three years each, putting in 40 hours a week but averaging only about six months of labor in each year -- say, 26 weeks. This time we got 1,248,000 hours, which means those efficient 400 people could build 152 Mount Rushmores in the hours aired by Cruz. When we reached out to Frazier, Cruz’s spokeswoman, about the seeming shortcomings of the tracker and the Mount Rushmore calculation, she did not speak directly to them. In an email, she noted that several lawmakers have relied on the tracker’s paperwork tally. Our ruling Cruz said the Affordable Care Act would ""add paperwork burdens totaling nearly 190 million hours or more every year."" He went on to say that Mount Rushmore could be built 1,547 times over ""with the paperwork."" Based on the 190 million figure, that mount count is ridiculously off, premised on the notion that one person carved the monument around the clock for 14 years--or something equivalent. And about the 190 million hours: the landmark law indeed appears responsible for creating a large amount, at least 75 million hours, of confirmed additional paperwork. However, that total is less than half Cruz’s declared number. The tracker that Cruz relied upon has unexplained holes, miscalculates some burdens and folds in paperwork associated with non-health-care programs such as student loan changes. Significantly, too, we could not tell how the document’s largest single entry--46 million of the declared hours--was calculated. We rate this statement, based on a partially unsupported hour count plus unrealistic Mount Rushmore math. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression."
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35232
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"Financier George Soros owns the lab in Wuhan, China, where the COVID-19 coronavirus disease was ""developed."
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The theory that SARS-CoV-2 was manufactured in, and escaped from, a lab in Wuhan is based solely on the proximity of infectious-disease labs near a potential source of the COVID-19 outbreak. Several “scientific” claims have been made or manufactured to further bolster the notion that something nefarious is going on with COVID-19 and these labs, but this information comes from non-peer-reviewed papers misconstrued to be actual additions to the scientific record, or from disreputable websites such as Mercola.com. The actual scientific facts known about the novel coronavirus leave little room for it to be a virus of human creation, however.
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false
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Politics, COVID-19
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As the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic spread across the globe in March 2020, conspiracy buffs shared memes and videos featuring variations on a common theme — the SARS-CoV-2 virus was a human-made creation developed in a Chinese lab owned by all-purpose boogeyman George Soros for the purpose of causing economic disruption that would unseat Donald Trump from the U.S. presidency: We’ve extensively covered the false notion that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was bioengineered in a lab in Wuhan, China, in a separate article and concluded that:
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12515
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Bill Zedler Says a federal program that collects reported side-effects of vaccinations doesn’t accept possible outcomes extending to road accidents, heart attacks or suicides.
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Zedler said a federal program that compiles reported side-effects of vaccinations doesn’t take in reports of extreme results such as road accidents, heart attacks and suicides. It looks to us, from our sampling, that some results such as suicides are rarely reported as related to vaccinations. Still, the CDC-run VAERS evidently accepts reports of all kinds of outcomes from all corners, though having a submission accepted doesn't equal federal confirmation that a vaccination caused any effects. Further investigation might.
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false
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Health Care, Public Health, Texas, Bill Zedler,
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"Addressing a physician during testimony about Texas laws affecting vaccinations, state Rep. Bill Zedler said a federal program that gathers reports of vaccination side-effects doesn’t draw in all kinds of outcomes. The Houston physician disputed Zedler on that, leading us to roll out the Truth-O-Meter. We heard about the pair’s vigorous public back and forth from Jason Sabo, a lobbyist for the Immunization Partnership, a Katy-based nonprofit focused on eradicating vaccine-preventable diseases. Sabo emailed us a web link to a video excerpt from the April 25, 2017, hearing of the House Public Health Committee on House Bill 1124, which would make it easier for parents to opt children out of having immunizations required to attend public schools. The video initially shows Lindy McGee, a physician at Texas Children’s Hospital, opposing the measure on behalf of herself and the partnership. Zedler, R-Arlington, then pressed McGee about his conclusion from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database that more people have died from the measles vaccination than from measles, a claim he repeated in our May 2017 follow-up interview with him (there’s a fact-check in the works). At the hearing, McGee replied that the database, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System or VAERS, doesn’t ""report causality. People report to that system what they’ve seen. So I can report if I get hit by a truck after I’ve gotten a vaccine and that would be reported as associated with a vaccine. It does not make any implication of causality. That’s just the way it is."" McGee went on: ""So that is just everyone reporting any time they’ve had an adverse event, any time within a certain amount of period from having a vaccine. It does not make any implications about causality. That’s the way it’s set up."" The parry-and-thrust went on: Zedler: ""So in other words, all you’ve got to do is just think it could be."" McGee: ""Yes. That’s exactly what it is. So I could break my arm the next day and I can report that to that reporting system. And I want the reporting system, it’s meant to be set up that way because that’s how we can figure out if vaccines cause injury."" Zedler: ""No, no, no, no, are you going to tell me that if somebody got a vaccine, and within hours to days had died, that it’s not due to the vaccine?"" McGee: ""It’s not necessarily due to the vaccine, no, absolutely not. I could have a vaccine and I could get hit by a truck tomorrow and die. I could have a vaccine and I could commit suicide tomorrow and die. I could have a vaccine and have a heart attack tomorrow."" Zedler: ""Whoa, stop, stop. Nobody puts that down."" McGee: ""Yes, they do."" Zedler: ""No, they don’t."" McGee: ""Yes, they do."" Zedler: ""Let me tell you, that is patently and you know it."" McGee: ""It’s not. You can look at it. You can look at the reports."" Zedler: ""So they put on there and they say, oh, just any death, and we don’t have to prove causality?"" McGee: ""Yes. It’s not a system to prove causality. It’s a system to track data and then the physicians or researchers at the CDC go and determine causality after that. It is not a system that could determine causality, it’s not."" Zedler said a moment later: ""For you to get up and tell this committee that in essence they can put anything down there they want is quite a dishonest."" McGee: ""No, you can. You can report anything you want to."" Zedler: ""Well, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t buy that. And you know what? For you to tell this committee that is dishonest."" McGee: ""I welcome committee members to look up the system."" Zedler reaffirms statement We took McGee up on that, also reaching out to the CDC, also following up with Zedler, who said in an interview off the House floor that he was trying to say at the hearing that people don’t routinely report automobile accidents and the like as the result of vaccinations. ""Now you might find one or two kind-of unusual ones,"" Zedler said of reports recorded in the VAERS (pronounced vairs). ""That they were killed in an automobile accident--nonsense."" Program open to reports of effects from anyone The VAERS, according to the CDC, is a national vaccine safety surveillance program co-sponsored by the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration that, since its launch in 1990, has collected hundreds of thousands of reports of ""adverse events"" that occurred after the administration of vaccines in the United States. ""Anyone can file a VAERS report,"" CDC says, ""including health care providers, manufacturers, and vaccine recipients. The majority of VAERS reports are sent in by vaccine manufacturers (37%) and health care providers (36%). The remaining reports are obtained from state immunization programs (10%), vaccine recipients (or their parent/guardians, 7%) and other sources (10%)."" By email to our inquiry, CDC spokeswoman Martha Sharan stressed that the program accepts all reports without rendering judgment on clinical importance or whether a vaccine or vaccines might have caused the adverse event. Investigators focus, though, on ""the reports that ‘signal’ a possible safety problem,"" Sharan wrote. On its website, the agency similarly says that every adverse effect recorded by the program isn’t confirmed to have resulted from a vaccine. ""VAERS receives reports of many adverse events that occur after vaccination. Some occur coincidentally following vaccination, while others may be caused by vaccination,"" CDC says. ""Studies help determine if a vaccine really caused an adverse event."" Even the Hulk? Rehka Lakshmanan of the Immunization Partnership, responding to our inquiry, suggested we look up an anesthesiologist she described as having reported to the VAERS that after a vaccination, he felt like he was turning into the Hulk of Marvel Comics fame. In a July 2005 web post, Dr. James R. Laidler wrote: ""The chief problem with the VAERS data is that reports can be entered by anyone and are not routinely verified. To demonstrate this, a few years ago I entered a report that an influenza vaccine had turned me into The Hulk. The report was accepted and entered into the database. ""Because the reported adverse event was so… unusual,"" Laidler wrote, ""a representative of VAERS contacted me. After a discussion of the VAERS database and its limitations, they asked for my permission to delete the record, which I granted. If I had not agreed, the record would be there still, showing that any claim can become part of the database, no matter how outrageous or improbable."" We did not find primary documentation of Laidler’s described VAERS submission though he reaffirmed such actions in a phone interview. Laidler, of Portland, Ore., said he recalled submitting a report in the early 2000s stating that after a measles vaccination, his skin turned green, his muscles grew and he started having rage problems--all symptoms intended to show he was becoming the Hulk. Laidler said his greater point, in the face of others who were citing VAERS entries as an indication the measles vaccination causes autism, was that anyone may report any adverse effect of a vaccination to the program. By email, the CDC’s Sharan separately replied that the Hulk story ""is true."" Checking reported effects from Texas, U.S. Online, we queried the VAERS database for serious reported side-effects of vaccinations in Texas. Among 635 summarized results dating from 1990 into February 2017, we spotted one mention of suicide; after a person got a seasonal flu shot in 2013, he was diagnosed with Auto Immune Limbic Encephalitis, according to the entry, and had suicidal thoughts. We also looked for entries about car or truck accidents. According to one entry, a physician reported in 2008 that a woman who received a dose of Gardasil was subsequently ""found dead in her truck from a blood clot that traveled from her legs to her lungs."" Another entry says an 18-year-old woman vaccinated against meningitis ""passed out while driving her car and crossed over the highway into oncoming traffic"" before dying. A third entry says a woman who’d received a flu shot ""passed out while driving. She required emergency abdominal exploration for bleeding"" and internal injuries, the entry says. Our search yielded three reports of Texas heart attacks after vaccinations. In October 2007, an entry says, a 68-year-old man got a flu shot, then died from a heart attack by the next morning. In 2015, a person had a heart attack on the day he or she got vaccinated against pneumococcal pneumonia, subsequently spending five days in a hospital, the entry says. In May 2016, according to another entry, a 61-year-old man died after a heart attack and car accident that occurred 10 days after he got a shot. We ran a similar search for serious reported post-vaccination events nationally in the year up to March 2017. From 159 results, we identified a reported fatal heart attack reported in Indiana after a flu shot in 2016. Our ruling Zedler said a federal program that compiles reported side-effects of vaccinations doesn’t take in reports of extreme results such as road accidents, heart attacks and suicides. It looks to us, from our sampling, that some results such as suicides are rarely reported as related to vaccinations. Still, the CDC-run VAERS evidently accepts reports of all kinds of outcomes from all corners, though having a submission accepted doesn't equal federal confirmation that a vaccination caused any effects. Further investigation might."
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34684
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Purina's Beneful brand dog food is causing dogs to become ill and die.
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We are pleased that after hearing arguments from both sides, the Judge dismissed all claims. Today’s ruling confirms what millions of pet owners already know – that Beneful is a safe, healthy, and nutritious dog food that millions of dogs enjoy every day.
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unproven
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Critter Country, ASP Article, beneful, Crusader Habit
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In January 2007, Huntsville, Texas, resident Robert Barley switched the diet for Pearl, his 5-year-old German Shepherd/Labrador mix, and started feeding her Beneful brand dog food. Soon afterwards the seemingly healthy dog died. Around the same time another resident of Huntsville, Janet Rambeck, also began feeding Sooner, her 7-year-old Dachshund, from a bag of Beneful she had purchased at WalMart the previous month. A few days later her dog was dead, too. Those two incidents were a few of dozens of similar cases reported by dog owners to the canine product web site DoggyBling.com, each involving Beneful brand dog food purchased at WalMart. Most or all of the afflicted dogs displayed common symptoms, including white gums, glazed eyes, trouble standing erect, sluggishness, lethargy, and loss of appetite. Does this pattern indicate a manufacturing problem (on the part of Purina) or a handling/storage issue (on the part of WalMart) that might have introduced some form of toxin (such as aflatoxin) into bags of Beneful, or could the stricken dogs have become ill through other causes (with the Beneful connection being purely coincidental)? On 6 February 2007 Beneful’s manufacturer, Nestle/Purina, sent us a response indicating they had investigated the Hunstville deaths and analyzed samples of the product involved, and that “the results confirmed the safety and quality of the products made at our factories” and “the samples showed no presence of aflatoxin”: Purina Beneful Update In recent days, Purina learned about the unfortunate deaths of two dogs in the Huntsville, Texas, area. Concerns were raised about the possible link between consumption of Purina’s Beneful dry dog food and the deaths of the two dogs. Purina takes these matters seriously, and initiated a thorough investigation. Purina’s quality testing, including testing at independent laboratories, confirm the safety and efficacy of our products and confirm that the two dogs’ unfortunate deaths were unrelated to our product. Importantly, one of the Huntsville, Texas, consumers also requested product testing through her veterinarian. The veterinarian submitted a sample of product to the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory for aflatoxin analysis. We received confirmation from the consumer’s veterinarian late Monday, Feb. 5, that the results for aflatoxin were negative. Additionally, we have conducted physical inspections and analytical testing, all of which confirm that our Beneful dry dog food products are safe, and meet all quality assurance specifications. Purina initiated the testing, which was conducted by an independent third party analytical laboratory, as part of its investigation related to the two Huntsville consumer contacts. As soon as we could contact the consumers to verify product code and packaging information, we secured finished product from our factories with the same production run and date code as the products in question and submitted the samples for testing. We received test results for the samples late Monday, Feb. 5, and the results confirmed the safety and quality of the products made at our factories. More specifically, the samples showed no presence of aflatoxin. Because the quality and safety of our products and the trust of our consumers are top priorities, Purina took additional steps, including visiting the store in Huntsville, Texas, to confirm the quality of product at retail. We obtained additional samples for any available product matching date codes and production runs related to these consumer contacts. We then submitted samples of the product for analytical testing, which also showed no presence of aflatoxin. We at Purina are saddened to hear of the loss of these consumers’ pets and appreciate the opportunity to investigate and demonstrate how seriously we take matters of this kind. We stand firmly behind the high quality of our products and reassure consumers that they can continue to feed Purina products with total confidence. Complaints about pet deaths due to Beneful saw a resurgence in January 2013, such as the following example: My husband and I lost our best friend, Cruise, on Dec. 30 [2012]. On Dec. 17, I changed his food to a softer food that still had substance to help prevent tartar buildup. I chose Purina Beneful. He was eating the Beneful up until Dec. 24, when he started vomiting and had very loose bowels. We immediately admitted him into the Animal Emergency Center with a temperature of 104. They administered IV fluids, the x-rays showed an enlarged liver and gall bladder, and the pancreas was fine. The blood results showed the liver enzymes at more than three times the normal level. On Dec. 26, his temperature returned to normal, he was transferred to The Animal Hospital, they continued fluids and ran a barium test. On Dec. 27, the vet was concerned that he may have a mass blocking the intestines. He opted for exploratory surgery. No mass was found, the liver and gall bladder were enlarged, but the color looked good. They sent away for a biopsy of the liver. They were feeding him with a syringe, but nothing was staying down. My husband and I would go everyday to try and hand feed him chicken and rice, but to no avail. The morning of Dec. 30, we received a call that Cruise had passed away. The biopsy results showed necrosis of the liver. Premature death of cells and living tissue. Necrosis is caused by external factors, such as infection, toxins or trauma. We want to make other pet owners aware. It doesn’t matter the breed, the age, or the length of consumption time, these pets are becoming seriously ill or dying. If Purina has chosen to turn a blind eye to this and the FDA does not issue a recall, then we have a responsibility to get the word out before another innocent animal has to endure what our best friend had to endure. We are contacting family members and friends, warning them that Beneful is not on the FDA recall list. We have contacted the store where I purchased the food. We have contacted a lab for testing of the food, but they informed us that they could “only test for salmonella.” We have contacted the FDA and are awaiting a return call. In response to rumors in 2013, Nestle/Purina sent us the following statement: Beneful is a high quality, nutritious product that millions of dogs enjoy every day. We are aware of some recent unsupported and misleading allegations circulating on-line and in social media, which can cause undue concern and confusion among consumers. There are no known product issues with Beneful dog food. Our products are formulated by professional pet nutritionists and veterinarians and are produced under quality standards that are among the strictest in the United States. Each of our U.S. facilities where Beneful is made have on-site quality assurance laboratories and staff. We have a comprehensive food safety program, and we test and monitor to help ensure product quality and safety. For more than 80 years, Purina has stood for trust with pets and the people who love them. We’re pet owners, too, and the quality and safety of our products are our top priorities. Consumers can continue to feed Beneful to their pets with total confidence. We always appreciate hearing from our consumers, and we encourage anyone with a question or comment about Beneful to call us at 1-888-236-3385. A class action lawsuit against Nestle/Purina’s Beneful brand was initiated on 5 February 2015. A Twitter account associated with the Beneful brand replied to a number of worried pet owners and denied the existence of any pet health issues related to the product: We believe the lawsuit is without merit and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves. There are no product quality issues. We feel the lawsuit is groundless. We intend to vigorously defend ourselves through the legal process On 25 February 2015, Nestle/Purina forwarded a statement to us regarding the lawsuit filed that month. The brand reiterated their position on Beneful’s safety and described the suit as “baseless”: First and foremost, there are no quality issues with Beneful. Beneful is a high quality, nutritious food enjoyed by millions of dogs every day. In fact, in 2014, nearly 1.5 billion Beneful meals were served to millions of happy, healthy dogs who enjoy and thrive on this food.Recently, a class action lawsuit was filed against Beneful in Northern California. We believe the lawsuit is baseless, and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves and our brand. Beneful had two previous class action suits filed in recent years with similar baseless allegations, and both were dismissed by the courts. Class action suits are common in business these days. They are not indicative of a product issue. Beneful is backed by Purina’s strict quality controls and comprehensive food safety program. Like other pet foods, Beneful is occasionally the subject of social media-driven misinformation. On-line postings often contain false, unsupported and misleading allegations that cause undue concern and confusion for our Beneful customers. Bottom line: Consumers can continue to feed Beneful with total confidence. At Purina we’re passionate about pets. We encourage anyone with a comment or question about Purina to contact us directly at the toll-free number on every package. For answers to FAQs about Beneful, go to https://www.beneful.com/frequently-asked-questions, On 17 November 2016, the case was dismissed after a judge ruled that it was impossible to prove that Beneful had been responsible for the dogs’ deaths: An analysis of 28 samples revealed three types of toxins: propylene glycol; mycotoxins, a fungal mold on grain; and the heavy metals arsenic and lead. But the level of toxins found in the dog chow did not exceed limits permitted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Plaintiffs’ expert analyzed 28 of 1,400 dog food samples from incidents of dogs that got ill after eating Beneful. The sampling was limited because not all dog owners had kept the chow. The expert, animal toxicologist Dr. John Tegzes, claimed the FDA based its dog chow toxin limits only on short-term exposure and did not consider the effects of long-term exposure. Purina released a statement on their web site in response to the ruling:
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7561
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‘Murder Hornets,’ with sting that can kill, land in US.
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The world’s largest hornet, a 2-inch killer dubbed the “Murder Hornet” with an appetite for honey bees, has been found in Washington state, where entomologists were making plans to wipe it out.
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true
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AP Top News, Spokane, General News, Washington, Insects, Science, Invasive species, Health, U.S. News
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The giant Asian insect, with a sting that could be fatal to some people, is just now starting to emerge from winter hibernation. “They’re like something out of a monster cartoon with this huge yellow-orange face,” said Susan Cobey, a bee breeder at Washington State University. “It’s a shockingly large hornet,” said Todd Murray, a WSU Extension entomologist and invasive species specialist. “It’s a health hazard, and more importantly, a significant predator of honey bees.” The hornet was sighted for the first time in the U.S. last December, when the state Department of Agriculture verified two reports near Blaine, Washington, close to the Canadian border. It also received two probable, but unconfirmed reports from sites in Custer, Washington, south of Blaine. The hornet can sting through most beekeeper suits, deliver nearly seven times the amount of venom as a honey bee, and sting multiple times, the department said, adding that it ordered special reinforced suits from China. The university said it isn’t known how or where the hornets arrived in North America. It normally lives in the forests and low mountains of eastern and southeast Asia and feeds on large insects, including wasps and bees. It was dubbed the “Murder Hornet” in Japan, where it is known to kill people. The hornet’s life cycle begins in April, when queens emerge from hibernation, feed on plant sap and fruit, and look for underground dens to build their nests. Hornets are most destructive in the late summer and early fall. Like a marauding army, they attack honey bee hives, killing adult bees and devouring larvae and pupae, WSU said. Their stings are big and painful, with a potent neurotoxin. Multiple stings can kill humans, even if they are not allergic, the university said. Farmers depend on honey bees to pollinate many important northwest crops such as apples, blueberries and cherries. With the threat from giant hornets, “beekeepers may be reluctant to bring their hives here,” said Island County Extension scientist Tim Lawrence. An invasive species can dramatically change growing conditions, Murray said, adding that now is the time to deal with the predators. “We need to teach people how to recognize and identify this hornet while populations are small, so that we can eradicate it while we still have a chance,″ Murray said. The state Department of Agriculture will begin trapping queens this spring, with a focus on Whatcom, Skagit, San Juan, and Island counties. Hunting the hornets is no job for ordinary people. “Don’t try to take them out yourself if you see them,” Looney said. “If you get into them, run away, then call us!″
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11973
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Seventy-three percent of our veterans are graduating from drug courts. By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent. The point of that is that drug courts are working for veterans.
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"Our ruling Greitens said, ""73 percent of our veterans are graduating from drug courts. By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent. The point of that is that drug courts are working for veterans."" Greitens said, ""73 percent of our veterans are graduating from drug courts. By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent. The point of that is that drug courts are working for veterans."" While the overall numbers are small, Greitens is correct that in 2016, 73 percent of veterans successfully completed treatment court. Over the same time period, the overall graduation rate from adult treatment court was 52 percent, officials say. While the overall numbers are small, Greitens is correct that in 2016, 73 percent of veterans successfully completed treatment court. Over the same time period, the overall graduation rate from adult treatment court was 52 percent, officials say. However, officials also pointed out that the two programs are not identical, which makes comparing them imprecise. In addition, while graduation rate is one measurement of success, it’s not the only one, and as Riggert noted, veteran treatment courts are so new that no data on recidivism rates have been collected. However, officials also pointed out that the two programs are not identical, which makes comparing them imprecise. In addition, while graduation rate is one measurement of success, it’s not the only one, and as Riggert noted, veteran treatment courts are so new that no data on recidivism rates have been collected."
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true
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Health Care, Legal Issues, Public Health, Veterans, Missouri, Eric Greitens,
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"In his August Facebook Live video, Gov. Eric Greitens encouraged viewers to submit their questions. One viewer asked, ""What do we do for our veterans except use them as our reason to get mad when it fits our agenda?"" In response, Greitens touched on providing jobs for veterans, in addition to citing the rate of veterans graduating from treatment courts in Missouri. ""Our veterans in our veterans court, are graduating — 73 percent of our veterans are graduating from drug courts,"" Greitens said. ""By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent. The point of that is that drug courts are working for veterans."" We were wondering: Are 73 percent of veterans graduating from treatment courts? While we never heard back from Greitens’ spokesman, a Supreme Court of Missouri spokeswoman pointed us in the direction of where those numbers came from. According to the Missouri Courts website, treatment courts began as a way to battle increasing substance abuse problems. Treatment courts have existed in Missouri for nearly 25 years. The first treatment court was started in 1993 in Jackson County. Legislation in 2013 established the first veterans treatment courts programs, which ""are hybrid drug and mental health court dockets that use the treatment court model to serve veterans struggling with addiction, serious mental illness and/or co-occurring disorders,"" according to a treatment courts fact sheet. As of August 2017, there were 147 treatment court programs throughout the state. Of those, 12 are veterans treatment courts, with the remaining being adult, juvenile, family and DWI courts. Veterans can be accepted into treatment courts for drug-involved offenses and DWI offenses, Beth Riggert, communications counsel for the Supreme Court of Missouri, wrote in an email. According to the treatment courts fact sheet, ""The graduation rate for all programs in fiscal 2017 exceeds 61 percent."" However, the most recent data on veterans treatment courts is from calendar year 2016, Riggert said. In that time frame, there were a total of 247 veterans participating in veterans treatment courts in the state, Riggert said. However, because the program is rolling, only a total of 82 veterans exited the program in 2016. Of those, 60 successfully graduated the program and 22 did not. That translates to a success rate of 73.17 percent, or just about what Greitens said. Since 2011, the graduation rate from veterans treatment courts has steadily been increasing as more veterans have gone through the program. Greitens also said, ""By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent."" Because we were unable to reach Greitens’ spokesman for comment, we are unsure which specific treatment courts program Greitens was referring to when he said ""the very good drug court program."" However, Riggert elaborated on the graduation for other treatment court programs. In the same period, the graduation rate from adult drug courts was 52 percent, and the graduation rate from DWI courts was 90 percent, Riggert said. While Greitens is correct that the veterans treatment courts’ graduation rate was higher than some, such as the adult drug court’s rate, it is still not as high as the DWI court’s graduation rate of 90 percent. However, Riggert said it may not be accurate to compare graduation rates between treatment courts to prove one program’s success. ""The various types of treatment court programs are distinct, and so it is not helpful to try to make a side-by-side comparison,"" Riggert said. While 73 percent of veterans exiting the program did graduate in 2016, it is unclear how many veterans who graduate from the program have to return for additional treatment. ""Because veterans treatment courts are relatively new, we do not yet have sufficient quantifiable data from which to determine recidivism rates for these programs,"" Riggert said. Greitens said, ""73 percent of our veterans are graduating from drug courts. By contrast, I think most of the people in the very good drug court program — the graduation rate’s like 53, 55 percent. The point of that is that drug courts are working for veterans."" While the overall numbers are small, Greitens is correct that in 2016, 73 percent of veterans successfully completed treatment court. Over the same time period, the overall graduation rate from adult treatment court was 52 percent, officials say. However, officials also pointed out that the two programs are not identical, which makes comparing them imprecise. In addition, while graduation rate is one measurement of success, it’s not the only one, and as Riggert noted, veteran treatment courts are so new that no data on recidivism rates have been collected."
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1257
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UK doctors reveal separation of twins joined at the head.
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Two-year-old twins joined at the head have undergone successful surgery at a British hospital to separate their skulls, brains and blood vessels, doctors said on Tuesday.
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true
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Health News
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The highly complex surgery involved multiple operations on Safa and Marwa Ullah, who were born in Pakistan in January 2017 with a condition known as “craniopagus” in which the girls’ skulls and parts of their brains were joined and intertwined. “Craniopagus is an exceptionally rare and complex condition,” said David J. Dunaway, who co-led the surgical team that treated the twins. The operation, conducted in February, was the most complex such separation his team had performed to date, he said. Having twins joined at the head with fused skulls and separate bodies occurs in less than one in a million births, while having the connection extend into the brain tissue is rarer still. Around 50 sets of craniopagus twins are estimated to be born around the world every year, of which only around 15 are thought to survive beyond the first 30 days of life. Dunaway said this separation was helped by state-of-the-art technology including virtual reality, advanced imaging and three-dimensional rapid prototyping - allowing the surgeons to use images of the girls’ brains and blood vessels to plan and practice the surgery in advance to minimize complications. The procedures took place at London’s Great Ormond Street hospital, with the girls well enough to be discharged from hospital four months later on July 1. “These cutting-edge scientific techniques greatly increased the chance of success for Safa and Marwa. Their brains were more intertwined than the previous sets of craniopagus twins making it the most complicated separation to date,” the Great Ormond Street team said in a statement. Five months after their final operation, Safa and Marwa are making slow but steady progress, the doctors said, adding that “a further period of recuperation and rehabilitation is essential to maximize their recovery”.
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21952
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"Commercial buses in the United States have ""a stellar safety record, a safety record that exceeds that of any other commercial mode or surface transportation mode."
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Bus association head says buses safest mode of commercial transportation
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mixture
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Public Safety, Transportation, Virginia, Peter Pantuso,
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"A May 31 bus crash north of Richmond that left four dead and more than 50 injured has prompted a re-examination of bus safety. The bus was traveling from North Carolina to New York City’s Chinatown district when it swerved off I-95, struck an embankment and flipped over in Caroline County. Driver Kin Yiu Cheung faces charges of involuntary manslaughter. Virginia State Police say driver fatigue contributed to the crash. Peter Pantuso, president and CEO of the American Bus Association, a lobbying group, said the tragedy should not overshadow an excellent safety record by the U.S. bus industry. Buses travel the country ""with a stellar safety record, a safety record that exceeds that of any other commercial mode or surface transportation mode,"" he said at a June 7 press conference in Richmond. Pantuso made two claims about safety: 1) That buses are safer than any other commercial mode, and; 2) That buses are the safest surface transportation mode. We checked out both. The Department of Transportation keeps safety statistics, but you have to go to a lot of offices to collect them. Different data -- often hard to compare -- is kept by the various agencies that oversee planes, trains and automobiles. We started by looking at highway safety. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 33,808 people were killed in automobile accidents during 2009, the latest year statistics are available. Of those people, 26 were bus passengers -- less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the total fatalities. In 2008, according to the NHTSA, 37,423 people died in U.S. vehicle accidents. That year, 67 of those killed, or about two-tenths of one percent, were bus passengers. Data going back to 2005 show bus passengers accounted for a similar percentage of vehicle deaths in other years. Airlines are safer than buses. In 2010, there were no fatalities in commercial U.S. airline travel. During the past decade, there has not been a single year when more than 100 people were killed in airline crashes, with the exception of 2001. That year airline deaths were high because of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Though fatalities are very low among airlines, there are several hundred air-travel deaths each year, primarily when private or chartered planes crash. All of these raw statistics, though, don’t give us a good ""apples-to-apples"" comparison of the safety of different transportation modes. So we turned to the National Safety Council, which focuses on improving workplace and transportation safety. Each year, the NSC produces a book of injury facts. The book’s transportation section determines how many deaths occur per passenger mile. Here’s how the statistic is calculated: If four friends leave Richmond and drive 100 miles to Norfolk, that’s 400 passenger miles. The return trip is another 400 passenger miles. The same principle applies to air or train travel. The NSC, using Department of Transportation data on fatalities and miles traveled, computes fatality rates for travel by plane, bus, train and automobile, The agency’s 2011 report contains average fatality rates for 2006 through 2008. Each rate is per 100 million passenger miles: * Scheduled airlines: 0.003 * Commercial buses: 0.05 * Passenger trains: 0.06 * Automobiles, including taxis: 0.61 Similar results emerge if you look at a 10-year average, from 1998 through 2007. Airlines have the lowest fatality rate, at 0.01 deaths per 100 million passenger miles. Buses and trains both have a rate of 0.04 deaths, and automobiles have a rate of 0.75 deaths. Statistics show that private auto fatalities have declined over the past 15 years, even as the number of drivers and amount of miles traveled has increased. The number of bus deaths has remained roughly constant, though far below the fatality rate for private auto travel. Let’s review our findings. Pantuso, the industry lobbyist, said buses have ""a safety record that exceeds that of any other commercial mode or surface transportation mode."" According to a wealth of transportation data, buses have been the safest mode of surface transportation in recent years, narrowly edging trains when fatalities are measured per 100 million miles. Passengers are far less likely to die in a bus crash than a car crash. So buses have a strong claim as the safest mode of surface transportation. But when it comes to moving passengers safely, nothing tops commercial air travel. The death rate of airlines is much lower than that of commercial buses. Pantuso was right about buses being the safest form of surface transportation, but wrong about them being the safest form of all commercial transportation. We’ll split the difference and rate his claim ."
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33240
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Medicare regulations require that doctors ask patients whether they own guns.
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Medicare regulations do not require that doctors ask patients whether they own guns.
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false
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Politics Guns, guns, medicare
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This March 2012 item combines a claim that Medicare regulations require doctors to ask patients whether they keep guns in their houses with a 2009 piece about VA patients’ being reported to Homeland Security and losing their concealed carry permits for answering “yes” to any one of three diagnostic questions. In the former case, although some doctors (particularly pediatricians) may ask their patients whether they have guns at home, there is no provision of Medicare regulations that requires them to do so; it’s purely an individual initiative on the part of various doctors. In June 2011, Florida became the first state to pass a law prohibiting such inquiries when Gov. Rick Scott signed a law barring doctors from routinely asking patients if they own guns unless such questions are “relevant to the patient’s medical care or safety.” In September 2011, a federal judge declared the law to be unconstitutional and issued an injunction blocking its implementation, but in July 2014 an appeals court overturned that decision and upheld the law: A federal appeals court [has] upheld a 2011 law that prohibits doctors from asking patients about gun ownership or recording that information in medical records unless it was medically necessary. The law was declared unconstitutional by a federal district judge, Marcia Cooke, who agreed with doctors and gun control advocates that it violated doctors’ free speech rights. But a panel of judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, overturned that ruling, saying that the law was a “legitimate regulation of professional conduct” and that the limits it imposed were “incidental.” In the latter case, the three questions about feeling stressed, threatened, or wanting to harm others are standard diagnostic queries for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which are routinely posed to VA patients (particularly those who have served in combat areas such as Iraq or Afganistan). Patients’ answers to such questions are protected by doctor/patient confidentiality laws and, except in very limited circumstances, may not be disclosed to government agencies (or anyone else) without the patient’s consent, as noted on the web site of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA): A widely circulated email, allegedly from a “Vietnam vet and retired police officer,” claims he visited a Department of Veterans Affairs clinic and was asked several mental health questions. The message goes on to claim that the nurse told him a “wrong” answer would be “reported … to Homeland Security” and result in the loss of his Right-to-Carry permit. Fortunately for veterans, that warning was incorrect. It’s true that mental health questions are now standard procedure during the patient intake process at VA facilities. That’s a result of heightened concern about post-traumatic stress disorder and similar legitimate issues affecting veterans. However, the Department of Homeland Security isn’t the agency that compiles records of people who are prohibited from possessing firearms. The FBI does that, in order to operate the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. And although some VA records are reported to NICS, a record will only be reported if the person has been “adjudicated as a mental defective” — in other words, that the person is mentally incompetent. At the VA, a person can only be found incompetent after a lengthy process that includes the opportunity for a hearing and appeal. Just telling a nurse you feel “stressed” (as the email claims) wouldn’t be enough. And the NICS Improvement Amendment Act of 2007 not only makes clear that any “adjudication” without those procedures won’t result in the loss of gun rights, but also provides a way for those who have been found incompetent to get the finding reversed. In fact, as Pennsylvania television station WPMT reported in November 2014: Doctors actually could lose their licenses if they share information about patients owning guns, and language in the Affordable Care Act specifically says that a doctor is not required to ask about guns. “The Government and Obamacare are not forcing us to do this,” said Wellspan Health Pediatrician Caroline Hall. “We ask because we’re concerned about anything that could pose a danger to children, just like we ask about if there are smokers around the children.”
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34642
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A recent uptick in Zika virus infections is linked to the introduction of a genetically modified mosquito farm in Brazil in 2012.
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Finally, no aspect of the rumor made any clear or distinct connection between Zika and genetically modified mosquitoes. The claims simply pointed to an outbreak after the introduction of the mosquitoes in 2012, without any additional elaboration on how one might have affected the other. If genetically modified mosquitoes were a possible factor in the spread of Zika or increase in microcephaly births, it remained extremely unlikely such a link would escape the world’s epidemiology experts and be discovered only by speculation by internet commenters in Reddit’s conspiracy sub.
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unproven
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Uncategorized, brazil, genetically modified mosquitoes, gmos
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In January 2016, a number of news outlets reported an outbreak of the Zika virus across a number of Latin American and Caribbean countries, appearing to originate from Brazil. On 23 January 2016, BBC published an article that confirmed the virus as a suspected factor in a sharp increase in the incidence of microcephaly: Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador and Jamaica recommended to delay pregnancies until more was known about the mosquito-borne Zika virus … Brazil said the number of babies born with suspected microcephaly – or abnormally small heads – had reached nearly 4,000 since October. The link between microcephaly and Zika has not been confirmed – but a small number of babies who died had the virus in their brain and no other explanation for the surge in microcephaly has been suggested. Although the outbreak caused alarm, Zika virus was itself not new. According to a New York Times item, the virus was isolated more than half a century earlier, in April 1947: Until recently, health officials paid little attention to Zika virus. It circulated in the same regions as dengue and chikungunya, and compared to those two painful infections – nicknamed “break-bone fever” and “bending-up fever” – Zika was usually mild. The virus is thought to have reached Asia from Africa at least 50 years ago. While it may have caused spikes in microcephaly as it first spread, there was no testing to pin down which of many possible causes was to blame … In 2007, a Southeast Asian strain of the Zika virus began leap-frogging the South Pacific, sparking rapid outbreaks on islands where no one had immunity to it. However, the 2015-2016 outbreaks apepared to be different. The Times piece surmised that introduction to a new population was a potential factor in the microcephaly spikes: Zika was first confirmed in Brazil — a country of 200 million — last May, and it spread like wildfire. The first alarms about microcephaly were raised only in October, when doctors in the northeastern state of Pernambuco reported a surge in babies born with it. Pernambuco has nine million people and 129,000 annual births. In a typical year, nine are microcephalic infants. On 29 January 2016, the unreliable alternative medicine web site Health Nut News published an article titled “Breaking: Zika Outbreak Epicenter in Same Area Where GM Mosquitoes Were Released in 2015.” It speculated that the Zika outbreak was caused by the introduction of mosquitoes, which were genetically modified to decrease their ability to be vectors of disease, in Brazil: Zika seemingly exploded out of nowhere. Though it was first discovered in 1947, cases only sporadically occurred throughout Africa and southern Asia. In 2007, the first case was reported in the Pacific. In 2013, a smattering of small outbreaks and individual cases were officially documented in Africa and the western Pacific. They also began showing up in the Americas. In May 2015, Brazil reported its first case of Zika virus — and the situation changed dramatically. Oxitec first unveiled its large-scale, genetically-modified mosquito farm in Brazil in July 2012, with the goal of reducing “the incidence of dengue fever,” as The Disease Daily reported. Dengue fever is spread by the same Aedes mosquitoes which spread the Zika virus — and though they “cannot fly more than 400 meters,” WHO stated, “it may inadvertently be transported by humans from one place to another.” By July 2015, shortly after the GM mosquitoes were first released into the wild in Juazeiro, Brazil, Oxitec proudly announced they had “successfully controlled the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads dengue fever, chikungunya and zika virus, by reducing the target population by more than 90%.” The article pointed to a Reddit thread published to the Conspiracy subreddit. Its original poster described the confluence of genetically modified mosquitoes appearing in 2012 and a Zika outbreak in 2015: Zika was first confirmed in Brazil in may of 2015, but had been seen in other nations before. Question: Why didn’t it cause an epidemic of birth defects in any other countries? How exactly would you miss a tenfold increase in children born with most of their brain missing? Zika in Brazil does not seem to behave like the Zika we were familiar with before. How could the Zika catastrophe be linked to genetically modified mosquitoes? … What is the effect on these mosquitoes that grow up with a mutilated genome? It is thought that this should introduce a fitness cost, that is, they should have greater difficulty surviving. What do we know about these mosquitoes? Has adequate research ever been done on how a genetically mutilated mosquito copes with viral infections? Could the mosquito be more susceptible to certain pathogens, that it then passes on to humans? If a pathogen like the Zika virus can thrive in the mosquito without restraint, it could evolve into something far more dangerous than its original incarnation, pulling the lever on the slot machine with every replication until it hits the genetic jackpot. This echoed similar fears expressed in the Florida Keys in 2012, when residents feared that genetically modified mosquitoes posed unpredictable threats: Hadyn Parry, Oxitec’s chief executive, said that that the company had been approached by officials in Florida after dengue fever was reported in the Keys in 2009 and 2010. “The decision to go ahead is entirely a local Floridal decision — it’s not up to us,” he said. The petition calls on the federal regulator the US Food and Drug Administration to withhold permission for Oxitec’s mosquito to be released. De Mier said there are too many questions left hanging, such as whether the gene introduced into the insect could itself mutate, or whether the reduction of the A. aegypti mosquito could have adverse connotations for the local ecosystem. Parry dismissed those fears. Only male mosquitoes would be released, he said, that do not bite and do not carry dengue fever. The potential implications of fear about the Zika outbreak caught the attention of the World Health Organization, which quickly released a briefing reporting that the “level of alarm [was] extremely high” and the virus was “spreading explosively” in 23 countries. It continued: Arrival of the virus in some places has been associated with a steep increase in the birth of babies with abnormally small heads and in cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome. A causal relationship between Zika virus infection and birth malformations and neurological syndromes has not yet been established, but is strongly suspected. The possible links, only recently suspected, have rapidly changed the risk profile of Zika, from a mild threat to one of alarming proportions. The increased incidence of microcephaly is particularly alarming, as it places a heart-breaking burden on families and communities. However, the release didn’t mention genetically modified mosquitoes as an area of epidemiology focus. Noting that having more questions than answers was exacerbating the described alarm over the zika virus, the WHO’s press release stated: Moreover, conditions associated with this year’s El Nino weather pattern are expected to increase mosquito populations greatly in many areas. The level of concern is high, as is the level of uncertainty. Questions abound. We need to get some answers quickly. A 14 January 2016 U.S. News and World Report article titled “Zika Disease in Pregnant Women Can Be Devastating” reported that no fetal abnormalities were initially observed during a 2007 outbreak in French Polynesia. After the 2015 outbreak in Brazil researchers discovered that an unspecified number of microcephaly cases emerged concurrent with the 2007 outbreak, but were either unreported or not initially attributed to Zika: In a 2007 outbreak on the island of Yap, a diving mecca in Micronesia, roughly 75 percent of the island’s 5,000 inhabitants were infected, says Dr. Lyle Petersen, director of the CDC’s division of vector-borne diseases. There were no birth defects reported, but that may be because the population of Yap is so small, Petersen says. A much larger outbreak was reported in French Polynesia in 2013 and 2014, affecting 30,000 people. At the time of the outbreak, no fetal abnormalities were identified, Petersen says. “When they saw what was happening in Brazil, they went back and found microcephaly cases.” While the scope of those fetal abnormalities was indeterminate, it was clear public health agencies worldwide took the 2015-2016 Zika outbreak seriously. But CNN noted that the aggregate threat posed was minimal, and the spread was likely a function of countries ill-equipped to fight unusual mosquito-borne viruses: For those who aren’t pregnant, most will either have no symptoms or mild ones, and it’s not serious at all. Eighty percent of those affected never know they have the disease. In fact, what typically happens is that once you get it, you become immune … However, there has also been an association with the Zika virus and Guillain-Barre syndrome, an inflammatory syndrome of the central nervous system. It occurs with bad viral infections, sometimes the flu. But again, most people really have no problems at all. … But it’s spreading in many different countries where people are in close quarters, lots of mosquitoes are more present, and where there is a lack of screens on windows, air conditioning in buildings and insect repellent. South Africa’s Sunday Times addressed credible epidemiological theories as to how the virus became a problem in previously unaffected regions: Genetic analysis of the virus revealed that the strain in Brazil was most similar to one that had been circulating in the Pacific … Brazil had been on alert for an introduction of a new virus following the 2014 FIFA World Cup, because the event concentrated people from all over the world. However, no Pacific island nation with Zika transmission had competed at this event, making it less likely to be the source. There is another theory that Zika virus may have been introduced following an international canoe event held in Rio de Janeiro in August of 2014, which hosted competitors from various Pacific islands. Another possible route of introduction was overland from Chile, since that country had detected a case of Zika disease in a returning traveler from Easter Island. Dr. Amy Y. Vittor, an assistant professor with University of Florida‘s Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Medicine, concluded by explaining how researchers worked to untangle the causative factors to eventually slow or stop Zika’s transmission: My colleagues and I are studying the role of these [myriad factors] as they relate to the outbreak of yet another mosquito-borne virus … There, we are examining the association between deforestation, mosquito vector factors, and the susceptibility of migrants compared to indigenous people in the affected area. In our highly interconnected world which is being subjected to massive ecological change, we can expect ongoing outbreaks of viruses originating in far-flung regions with names we can barely pronounce – yet. In short, epidemiologists worldwide were hard at work to identify the cause or causes of Zika’s spread in previously unaffected regions, determine the specifics of the possible link to microcephaly births, and generally resolve the many lingering questions about what was an unexpected and severe impact on pregnant women and developing fetuses. By all accounts, the Zika outbreak was both mosquito-borne and potentially severe. Epidemiologists developed some theories as to how the virus shifted course, but none have definitively been pinpointed as an absolute, supported-by-evidence factor. Not present, however, among those developing threads was any suspicion that genetic modification of mosquitoes led to the outbreak. The only factor cited in the WHO’s report was potential disruption to ecosystems by El Niño.
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17296
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"American Petroleum Institute Says ""Bill Clinton and George Bush both say build the Keystone XL."
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"The American Petroleum Institute ad says, ""Bill Clinton and George Bush both say build the Keystone XL"" pipeline. While their evidence is two years old, it’s not fabricated. Since voicing support of the pipeline in 2012, Clinton has not publicly weighed in on the controversy. But his backing of the project was not an offhand comment. It came during a publicized energy speech on the same day his wife was testifying before Congress. It seems unlikely he would endorse the proposal on such an occasion if he did not mean it."
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true
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Environment, National, Climate Change, Energy, Jobs, American Petroleum Institute,
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"March 7 is the last day the U.S. Department of State will hear public comments on Keystone XL, a proposed pipeline that would carry diluted oil sands from Western Canada to Nebraska and then to refineries on the Gulf Coast. With the closing of the 30-day comment period, six years of contentious debate between environmentalists and pipeline supporters is expected to come to a head when President Barack Obama makes a final decision on whether to proceed. In an attempt to sway public opinion, the American Petroleum Institute relaunched an ad campaign backing the pipeline. The 30-second spot, which is airing in the District of Columbia, Montana, New Mexico and North Carolina, claims that in the land of deadlock, the pipeline is one of few projects to win support from both sides of the spectrum. ""Washington. It’s gridlock, division, bitter partisanship,"" the ad says. ""But one jobs plan brings both sides together. Bill Clinton and George (W.) Bush both say build the Keystone XL."" A ringing endorsement of the Keystone pipeline from 42 and 43? That sounds like something worth looking into. Bush backs it The American Petroleum Institute ad clearly identifies sources backing up their claim for viewers. For Bush, the ad references an article from Bloomberg published in March 2012, in which the former Republican president calls the pipeline ""a no-brainer,"" according to the report. ""The clear goal ought to be how to get the private sector to grow,"" Bush said. ""If you say that, then an issue like the Keystone pipeline becomes an easy issue."" We weren’t surprised Bush supports the plan. Republicans have been overwhelmingly supportive of the proposal and Bush has ties to the oil industry. Heck, he made the aforementioned remarks during the keynote speech of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers conference. But what about Clinton? Clinton’s backing of Keystone did cause us to raise an eyebrow. The ad points to a Feb. 29, 2012, article from Politico. In it, Clinton calls for Americans to ""embrace"" the pipeline. We tracked down the original speech. It was given at the 2012 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, a conference held by the U.S. Department of Energy. Here’s what Clinton had to say: ""One of the most amazing things to me about this Keystone Pipeline deal is that they ever filed that route in the first place since they could've gone around the Nebraska Sandhills and avoided most of the danger, no matter how imagined, to the Ogallala (aquifer) with a different route, which I presume we'll get now, because the extra cost of running it is infinitesimal compared to the revenues that will be generated over a long period of time. ""So, I think we should embrace it and develop a stakeholder-driven system of high standards for doing the work modeled on what was done with auto mileage agreement."" Clinton’s remarks are somewhat hard to follow. But he seems to say that Americans should ""embrace"" the Keystone pipeline and the government should work with the oil industry and environmentalists to develop standards for implementing and overseeing the project, similar to how all the stakeholders got together to develop higher standards for gas mileage in new vehicles. That’s how media reports characterized his comments, and Clinton made no attempt to correct them in the two years since. Within a year, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman approved a new route for the pipeline that largely avoided the Nebraska Sandhills, as Clinton predicted. If he was not placated by the route change, Clinton never said so publicly. In fact, we couldn’t find any more public statements by Clinton regarding the Keystone XL pipeline. Several environmental groups we contacted said they had no recollection of Clinton speaking on the issue since 2012. We reached out to Clinton through the Clinton Global Initiative to see if his position had changed or could be affirmed for us. We didn’t hear back. Putting Clinton’s speech in context So we’re left with one public comment made two years ago. But we can deduce a few things based off what he said. First, in his remarks, Clinton was largely endorsing an all-of-the-above energy approach that focused on greener and sustainable methods. And while he expressed support for the Keystone project, he also said that tapping into homegrown natural resources was not a panacea. ""There are some hazards to the innovation project, right now,"" Clinton said. ""We have massive new recovery technologies in oil and gas which could lead us down the primrose path of thinking we don't have to keep using less energy and developing clean energy and technologies."" But Clinton’s call to ""embrace"" the pipeline also came as the U.S. State Department was deciding whether to recommend the project’s approval. The State Department, at that time, was headed by his wife. Indeed, not hours after Clinton gave his speech in 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was testifying before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where she fielded questions about the State Department’s oversight of the pipeline proposal. In the hearing, Secretary Clinton was even asked about her husband’s comments from earlier that day. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla., noted, ""Even the former President, Bill Clinton, says, ‘Embrace it and we need to move forward with the Keystone XL pipeline.’ "" Clinton respond, ""He is a very smart man,"" inciting laughter. She then added, ""But unfortunately he is not bound by the laws and regulations and longer of the United States to make decisions that follow a certain procedure. And that is what we have to do."" ""So is it a mistake for the former president to say, ‘embrace it’?"" Mack then asked. ""Of course not,"" Clinton replied. ""This is America. People say they embrace it, people say they hate it. Our job is to take a very clear-eyed look at what the facts are."" So not only did Bill Clinton come out in favor of the pipeline in 2012, he did so during a public speech hosted by the U.S. Energy Department just hours before his wife, who oversaw the administration’s review of the pipeline, was set to testify in front of a Republican-controlled House committee. For her part, Hillary Clinton has gone back and forth on the pipeline. In 2010 she said she was ""inclined"" to approve the project. But under her command, the State Department also recommended Obama deny approval of the pipeline in 2012 after congressional Republicans forced a decision from the White House within 60 days. At the time, Clinton said the window was too short to review the environmental impact of the project. Our ruling The American Petroleum Institute ad says, ""Bill Clinton and George Bush both say build the Keystone XL"" pipeline. While their evidence is two years old, it’s not fabricated. Since voicing support of the pipeline in 2012, Clinton has not publicly weighed in on the controversy. But his backing of the project was not an offhand comment. It came during a publicized energy speech on the same day his wife was testifying before Congress. It seems unlikely he would endorse the proposal on such an occasion if he did not mean it."
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28024
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Massachusetts has certain strict gun-ownership requirements and the lowest rate of gun deaths in the United States.
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What's true: Massachusetts requires gun-license applicants to provide character references; first-time applicants must complete a one-day safety training course; and many police departments require an in-person interview before approving license applications. Massachusetts regularly has either the lowest or second-lowest rate of gun deaths in the United States. What's false: In 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, Massachusetts had the second-lowest rate of gun deaths, but data for 2018 and 2019 are not yet available. The gun-license requirements set out in the meme do not necessarily apply to all applicants.
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true
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Politics
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After a spate of mass shootings in early August 2019 in the United States, gun violence once again became a major topic of political debate in the country, and many expressed their views on potential solutions to the problem. The left-leaning Facebook page Occupy Democrats suggested that tighter gun-ownership regulations could help to reduce levels of firearms-related fatalities. On Aug. 7, the page posted a meme that claimed: “In Massachusetts, to buy a gun you have to take a four-hour gun safety course, get character references from two people, and have a one-on-one interview with a police officer. Oh, and it has the lowest gun death rate in America. Let’s do this everywhere.” We received inquiries from readers about the accuracy of that two-part claim. On the whole, the Occupy Democrats meme had a high degree of accuracy. Elements of the meme appeared to have been copied from a Facebook post earlier on Aug. 7 by U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass. The meme itself was accompanied by text that read: “‘Adjusted for age and population, the gun fatality rate in Massachusetts for 2016 was the lowest in the U.S. And that’s how it’s been for most of the last 30 years, although sometimes another state, like Hawaii, which also has very strict gun laws, ends up with a slightly lower rate. '” That text is actually a quotation taken from a May 6, 2018, article published by the Huffington Post, which went on to provide the following disclaimer: “Just how much that low rate has to do with the state’s gun laws is a matter of ongoing debate, even among experts. Pretty much any legitimate study is going to rely on assumptions that will be open to valid criticism; separating out cause and effect can be virtually impossible. But the available research provides a good reason to think Massachusetts laws in general and the permit system in particular have made violence less likely.” This fact check won’t attempt to rule on the validity of any claim that relatively strict gun regulations in Massachusetts are the primary or exclusive cause of that state’s purportedly low rate of firearms-related deaths, merely whether both factors are present there. Massachusetts state law certainly contains comparatively stringent requirements for obtaining and renewing firearms licenses, as well as purchasing and carrying firearms, and the claims made in the Occupy Democrats meme were largely accurate. In Massachusetts, anyone who wishes to purchase or carry a firearm must obtain a firearms license, of which there are two kinds: a license to carry and a firearms identification card (FID), the latter of which relates to rifles and shotguns. Applications for firearms licenses are processed by local police forces, and a 2014 state law gave law-enforcement agencies relatively wide authority and discretion to deny license applications, through a court process, where a license applicant poses a demonstrable risk to public safety. All first-time applicants for a license to carry or an FID must complete a one-day MA Certified Firearms Safety Course or a Basic Hunter Education Course, as part of the application. So the meme’s claim is accurate as regards first-time license applicants, but not for those who already have one, who are not required to undergo training every time they wish to purchase a new gun, for example. Furthermore, all applicants (whether first-time applicants or those applying to renew their firearms license) must provide two character references, as outlined in the state-issued “LTC/FID/Machine gun application,” which can be viewed here. The meme is accurate in this regard. Finally, Massachusetts state law does not oblige a “licensing authority” (typically a police force) to require an in-person interview with license applicants, but many police forces, including the largest in the state, Boston’s, do require such an interview. So that obligation is not prescribed in law, but is a practical necessity for many firearms-license applicants, which partially vindicates the meme’s claim in this regard. This was true in 2016, as the Huffington Post article (which Occupy Democrats indirectly cited as its source) outlined, though not quite accurate in 2017. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracks gun deaths (along with many other cause of death) in each state every year. The CDC also calculates gun death rates in each state every year — that is, the number of firearms-related deaths per 100,000 people living in the state, after taking into account and standardizing age distributions across states. In its standard measure of gun deaths, the CDC counts all forms of firearms fatalities including homicides, suicides and accidental discharges. In 2016, Massachusetts had the lowest age-adjusted gun death rate in the country, with 3.4 fatalities per 100,000 people. Rhode Island, New York, Hawaii and Connecticut had the next-lowest death rates, while Alaska, Alabama and Louisiana had the highest rates of gun deaths in the U.S., with 23.3, 21.5 and 21.3 fatalities per 100,000 people, respectively: Along with New York, Massachusetts had the joint second-lowest gun death rate in 2017, with 3.7 per 100,000 people, behind Hawaii, which had 2.5 such fatalities per 100,000 people: As the Huffington Post article pointed out, Massachusetts regularly has among the lowest annual rates of gun deaths in the United States. As well as in 2016, it also had the lowest rate in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2009, 2012 and 2015, The chart below shows the age-adjusted gun death rate of every state, taking into account all gun deaths between 1999 and 2017. Massachusetts had the second-lowest gun death rate over that 19-year period, behind Hawaii. Louisiana, Alaska, the District of Columbia and Mississippi had the highest: Although the Occupy Democrats Facebook post clearly specified that the basis of the claim in the meme were the figures for 2016, a year in which Massachusetts did indeed have the lowest gun death rate in the country, the meme itself did not make that clear. Taken on its face, the meme was claiming that Massachusetts had the lowest rate of gun deaths in either 2019 (the year in which it was posted) or 2018 (the most recent full year). The state may well ultimately be shown to have the lowest rate of gun deaths in the country during those years, but CDC data for 2019 and 2018 will not be available until 2021 and 2020, respectively. On the whole, the Occupy Democrats meme was highly accurate, though not perfectly so.
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15341
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"The United States is ""fighting with Iraqis to defeat ISIS along with Iran. But in Yemen we're fighting Iran with Iraqis and Saudis."
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"Stewart said the United States is ""fighting with Iraqis to defeat ISIS along with Iran. But in Yemen we're fighting Iran with Iraqis and Saudis."" As Obama pointed out, Stewart's claim is off on a few points — Iran is not an official ally of the United States against ISIS even though both countries are fighting the terrorist group; the United States is not directly fighting Iran in Yemen; and Iraqi soldiers are not involved in the Yemen conflict. But Stewart's overall perspective that the United States and Iran are in the unusual position of fighting against the same enemy in one country and working against each other in another is not too far off the mark. His statement is partially accurate but lacking in some details. So we rate his claim Half True."
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mixture
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Iraq, Military, PunditFact, Jon Stewart,
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"President Barack Obama thanked retiring Daily Show host Jon Stewart for being a ""great gift to the country"" in the commander in chief’s seventh and final appearance on the show with Stewart as its leader. ""I can’t believe that you’re leaving before me,"" Obama said, adding that he would be issuing a new executive order that Stewart cannot leave. When the laughs died down, Stewart tried to press Obama for serious answers about the Iran nuclear deal and Middle East relations. ""Let me ask you a question about Iran. Whose team are we on in the Middle East?"" Stewart said. ""So we're fighting with Iraqis to defeat ISIS along with Iran. But in Yemen we're fighting Iran with Iraqis and Saudis."" ""That’s not quite right,"" Obama laughed, ""but that’s okay."" Obama went on to call Iran an anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic adversary that sponsors terrorist organizations, but he never said what wasn’t quite right about the relationships that Stewart described. We wanted to fact-check Stewart on the United States’ complicated ties in the Middle East. Was Stewart right in saying that Iran was a U.S. ally against ISIS and an enemy in Yemen? U.S. and Iran against ISIS While both the United States and Iran are fighting against ISIS, they are not cooperating or fighting as allies. Iran is not included as part of the 60-member coalition the United States has assembled to fight ISIS. Stewart overstated the Iran-U.S. relationship, said Richard Brennan, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Even though the United States and Iran are on the same side in fighting ISIS, the nations are not allies. Iran wants more influence in the area than the United States wants it to have. ""Iran has the longstanding goal of establishing itself as a prominent power in the region,"" Brennan said. Iran wants a ""weak and stable"" Iraq that will acquiesce to Iran’s goals. Iran’s support of certain Shia militias in Iraq is also a reason that the United States has ""expressed concerns about Iran’s role in Iraq,"" said Alistair Baskey, White House National Security Council spokesman. Shia militias often target Iraqi Sunnis (and vice-versa) in a conflict that dates back centuries. So even though the Shia militias are part of a broader front against ISIS, Brennan said they are still the same people responsible for killing Americans in previous conflicts. One example is Abu Mohandis (also known as Jamal Jafaar Mohammed), the current leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces (the sum total of all Shia militias in Iraq) who was responsible for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait. He acted in the capacity of an ""Iranian agent in Iraq"" according to a 2007 CNN article. Another reason why the United States refuses to openly support or work as an official ally of Iran: It is a staunch supporter of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. The United States opposes Assad’s regime and has called for Assad to ""step aside"" multiple times as the government brutally cracked down on its people, including the regime’s chemical weapon attacks on Syrian citizens dating back to 2012. The battle in Yemen Now for the other arrangement Stewart described: Is the U.S. fighting against Iran in Yemen? Not directly. The United States continues to ""provide logistical and intelligence support"" to a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of the Gulf Cooperation Council fighting the Houthi militia in Yemen, Baskey said. The coalition includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar. (Oman is not a member of the coalition, although it is a member of the GCC.) The Houthi militia forces have rallied against Yemen’s president, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who took office in 2012 but was forced to resign by Houthi rebels in January 2015. (On Feb. 6, 2015, Houthi rebels announced Mohammed Ali al-Houthi as the president of their Revolutionary Committee). Analysts said Iran is suspected of arming, training and equipping Houthi militia. According to a Defense News article, the United States was ""monitoring"" Iranian ships that may have been delivering weapons to Houthi military. The Iranian government has officially denied helping Houthi forces, according to a BBC article. However, neither Iran nor the United States is doing the actual fighting in Yemen. "" ‘We’ are not fighting in Yemen – though U.S. Special Forces may be involved,"" said Theodore R. Bromund, a senior research fellow at the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation. ""It is the Saudis who are doing the fighting."" Several experts also pointed out that Stewart was wrong about Iraq’s participation in Yemen. ""We are not aware of any Iraqi involvement in the Yemen conflict,"" Baskey confirmed. Our ruling Stewart said the United States is ""fighting with Iraqis to defeat ISIS along with Iran. But in Yemen we're fighting Iran with Iraqis and Saudis."" As Obama pointed out, Stewart's claim is off on a few points — Iran is not an official ally of the United States against ISIS even though both countries are fighting the terrorist group; the United States is not directly fighting Iran in Yemen; and Iraqi soldiers are not involved in the Yemen conflict. But Stewart's overall perspective that the United States and Iran are in the unusual position of fighting against the same enemy in one country and working against each other in another is not too far off the mark. His statement is partially accurate but lacking in some details. So we rate his claim ."
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9080
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Ibuprofen better choice over oral morphine for pain relief in children after minor surgery
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This news release reports the outcome of a randomized controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of ibuprofen and oral morphine for managing pain in children who had received a range of minor orthopedic surgeries. No difference was found in self-reported pain for the two groups, but more adverse effects were reported for the oral morphine group. The release quotes the lead author who urges that ibuprofen should be consider to be a superior option for children in such cases. With the opioid epidemic consistently in the news over the past few years, a study that suggests an alternative to narcotics for pain is likely to garner interest. At the same time, some orthopedic surgeons have been reluctant to prescribe non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen and aspirin for pain after orthopedic procedures because of concerns about their impact on bone-healing.
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mixture
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Canadian Medical Association Journal,pediatric medicine
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Readers are likely aware that non-prescription strength ibuprofen is readily available at a low price. The release doesn’t mention how much oral morphine costs, however. Thus, readers can’t tell whether ibuprofen might not only save children some unpleasant side effects, but save their parents money as well. This news release is missing a few details about the benefits that would make it better. We learn that 80 percent of children required pain relief at home and that there was no difference in the effectiveness of the two medications. The advantage appears to be in the reduced amount of side effects from ibuprofen compared to oral morphine. The release states: “Pain scores for children in both the oral morphine and ibuprofen groups were similar, but the children receiving oral morphine reported more adverse effects, such as nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, dizziness and constipation. “Morphine did not provide superior analgesia, but was associated with significantly more adverse effects, making ibuprofen a better analgesic option,” write the authors. We’d like the release to define what “significantly more adverse affects” really means. Harms, or adverse effects, are a central part of this study, so a numerical comparison would be useful. As it turns out, 69 percent of children given oral morphine complained of negative side effects compared to 39 percent of those taking ibuprofen, according to the study. That’s a pretty big difference. We also don’t learn exactly which negative effects were most common, which turn out to be drowsiness (48 percent of study participants) and nausea (46 percent of participants). Side effects from the drugs were listed as nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, dizziness and constipation. The release explains that this was a randomized clinical trial with 154 participants, their ages, that they had a range of different minor orthopedic surgeries, and that their response to pain medication was assessed for 24 hours. That’s sufficient information for the brief format of a news release. There’s no disease mongering here. The news release clearly states that these children had minor procedures. It’s a little bit confusing that one take-away provided from the study is that more study needs to be done about management of severe pain, but overall the case is stated matter-of-factly. On EurekAlert!, where the release is hosted, it’s noted that the research was funded by Western University. We encourage news releases to include funders in the body of the release as well. The original study reports no conflict of interest. This news release reports the results of a randomized superiority trial designed to specifically compare two alternatives. So the release scores well on this criterion. Just like with cost, we don’t get information about how available oral morphine is. However, it seems safe to assume it’s widely available with a prescription. We feel a little bit misled by this news release. This isn’t the first study to demonstrate that ibuprofen can be equally as effective as morphine for mild to moderate pain by a long shot. It’s not even the first to show an equal effect in children with orthopedic issues receiving care at home. The news release should have made clear why exactly this study is news. No unjustifiable language was noted.
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7385
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Tensions rise as Texas governor readies to lift more rules.
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Two weeks into the reopening of Texas, coronavirus cases are climbing. New outbreaks still crop up. And at Guero’s Taco Bar in Austin, which offers the occasional celebrity sighting, a log of every diner and where they sat is begrudgingly in the works.
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true
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AP Top News, General News, Greg Abbott, U.S. News, Virus Outbreak, Austin, Public health, Texas, U.S. News
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“It seems like a huge invasion of privacy,” said owner Cathy Lipincott, who is nonetheless trying to comply with Austin’s local public health guidelines by asking, but not requiring, customers to give their information. Few states are rebooting quicker than Texas, where stay-at-home orders expired May 1. With cases still rising — including single-day highs of 1,458 new cases and 58 deaths Thursday and only slightly lower Friday with 1,347 new cases and 56 new deaths reported, bringing the state’s total to more than 45,000 — Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has defended the pace by emphasizing that hospitalization and infection rates are steady, and pointing out that Texas’ 1,200 deaths still lag similarly big states, including California and Florida. The true number of cases and deaths is likely higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected without feeling sick. Even so, on the cusp of even more restrictions ending Monday, including gyms being cleared to reopen, a political confrontation is growing over attempts by big cities to keep some guardrails in place. The dispute underscores the gulf between Democrats who run city halls and GOP leaders who call the shots in the capital in Texas, one of a number of states where local officials and governors have clashed over restrictions during the pandemic. The renewed tensions come at a moment when Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, warned Congress this week of “needless suffering and death” if the U.S. moves too quickly. Nevertheless, Wisconsin’s courts tossed out the state’s stay-at-home orders, throwing communities into chaos as some bars opened immediately while strict local restrictions were kept elsewhere. In Georgia, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has also expressed unease at the speed that Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has reopened the state. Oklahoma lawmakers, irritated by local officials who imposed stricter measures during this health crisis, passed a House bill Thursday that would weaken the power of cities during the next one. And in Texas, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton this week lashed out at the cities of Dallas, Austin and San Antonio over what he called “unlawful” local orders that are tougher than restrictions prescribed by Abbott, and threatened lawsuits if the cities don’t back off. The warning came one day after El Paso pleaded to postpone easing up on any more lockdown measures in light of the number of COVID-19 cases there surging 60% over the past two weeks. “Unfortunately, a few Texas counties and cities seem to have confused recommendations with requirements and have grossly exceeded state law to impose their own will on private citizens and businesses,” Paxton said. City leaders said their local orders, which include more stringent emphasis on face coverings in public and restaurant protocols that aren’t strictly enforced, don’t conflict. El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, the county’s top elected official, said he made his case to the governor during a phone call and asked for a few more weeks to assess data and reduce cases before more restrictions are lifted. But he doesn’t think he’ll get an answer before Abbott’s public announcement Monday. “I’m not fighting his plan, I’m fighting his timing,” Samaniego said. “It looks like it would work for us months from now.” The spat is a reversal from the early days of the outbreak in Texas, when Abbott gave cities and counties wide latitude to issue restrictions as they saw fit. But Abbott has since taken the reins over how quickly Texas will reboot, which last week included moving up the reopening of hair salons following complaints from conservatives. Testing for most of May has fallen well short of Abbott’s stated goal of 30,000 per day, although testing numbers have surged in recent days, according to state health officials. Overflow hospitals set up in Dallas and Houston were dismantled without ever being used, and the rate of new cases in Texas has dropped since April even as testing has expanded, down to a seven-day average of 5.3% as of Thursday, according to data from Abbott’s office. But experts still worry. “They see the decline going in and they pat themselves on the back and say, ‘Look at the good work we’ve done, now we can let this happen and open up things,’” said Dennis Perrotta, a retired state epidemiologist in Texas. “And then we get slammed with a second peak.” In Austin, restaurants have grumbled over recommendations to log dine-in customers for the purposes of contact tracing, coupled with a warning that health officials otherwise might have to publicly out eateries if outbreaks spread. Some restaurateurs saw that as a threat, but at The Peached Tortilla, owner Eric Silverstein says his industry has to do what it takes to reopen. “We have no choice,” he said. “You kind of have to going back to doing some form of business.” A few blocks away at Brentwood Social House, a neighborhood coffee shop, owner Suzanne Daniels isn’t so sure. Though her competitors have reopened, her indoor seating remains closed, and she doesn’t know when she’ll feel safe to follow them. “It feels early,” Daniels said. “In my gut, it doesn’t feel right or good.” ___ Associated Press writers Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City, Cedar Attanasio in El Paso and Terry Wallace in Dallas contributed to this report. ___ Follow AP coverage of the virus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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