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34300
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A Muslim nurse practitioner decapitated her 7-year-old son's head because of her religion.
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JihadWatch is a generally unreliable source of information that has been “repeatedly criticized by numerous academics who believe that it promotes an Islamophobic worldview and conspiracy theories.”
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unproven
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Politics, Islamophobia, jihadwatch, racial rumors
|
On 6 April 2018, the anti-Muslim blog JihadWatch.org reported that a 36-year-old woman they described as a “Muslima nurse practioner” had been arrested on suspicion of decapitating her 7-year-old son the night before, and that the heinous act had been motivated by her religious beliefs: “Zero indicators of anything religious, zero indicators of anything cultural,” said Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter. Yes of course. As always. But what about this? “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks …” (Qur’an 47:4) Authorities persist in their assumption that Muslims in the U.S. don’t believe that, and some Muslims, such as nurse practitioner Hanane Mouhib, keep proving them wrong. Why did it occur to her, in whatever rage she was feeling toward her son, to behead him? The “religious” and “cultural” factors kick in at that point. Police arrested Hanane Mouhib, 36, on allegations she used a large-blade kitchen knife to stab her son Abraham Cardenas in the back and behead him. In the weeks leading up to the horrifying incident, Mouhib had called 911 twice to complain about mental health issues, resulting in an 19-day stay at Rochester General Hospital. She had been released just ten days prior to the horrifying murder: [Monroe County Sheriff Todd] Baxter said that deputies had been called to the location twice [the previous] month when Mouhib had called 911 seeking assistance. On March 5 [2018], Baxter said it appeared that she recognized she was having mental health issues and called for help. Deputies took her to an area hospital. Three days later, she again called 911 telling dispatchers that she did not feel right. Because of the record of the March 5 encounter, Mouhib was taken to Rochester General Hospital, where she received treatment from March 8 to 26. There were no warning signs or indicators that preceded the fatal stabbing, Baxter said. What happened appeared to be “an isolated incident” inside the house, and there was no sign of a fight or altercation. No evidence has been released to the public identifying what Mouhib’s religious beliefs are, and the claim that she is Muslim appears to be based solely on the fact that she has an Arabic-sounding name. Furthermore, police investigating the murder said they have not found any indication that the killing was influenced by whatever Mouhib’s beliefs might be. When asked by a reporter during a press briefing whether Mouhib’s act “was any kind of maybe religious ritual,” Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter responded by saying that “No, someone else asked me that question. Absolutely zero indicators of anything religious, zero indicators of anything cultural … We have seen zero on that. There is really no indicators of that ‘why. '” Authorities have said they do not yet know what prompted Hanane Mouhib’s alleged attack on her son. Mouhib pleaded not guilty to murder charges at her 6 April 2018 arraignment on second-degree murder charges and is currently being held without bail.
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9321
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Novartis drug cut death risk by 35 percent in gene mutation breast cancer
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Cancer and its treatments can be challenging for reporters to cover. At times, this can lead to a misinterpretation of study findings or incorrect explanations of how a drug works or who it is for. In this article, there is a litany of errors that begins in the headline and continue on into the story. The end result is an article that inaccurately tells readers there is a new cancer drug, BYL719/alpelisib, that cuts the risk of death by 35 percent in patients with a breast cancer gene mutation. The drug improved progression-free survival, which is not the same as survival and does not necessarily reflect “risk of death.” The patients have not been followed long enough to know if the ones who received BYL719/alpelisib along with Faslodex (fulvestrant), an approved cancer drug, lived longer than those who received Faslodex alone. Also, BYL719/alpelisib is not for patients with an inherited gene mutation. It is for patients who have breast cancer cells with a type of genomic mutation that is seen in about 40 percent of patients with hormone-sensitive breast cancer. The words genomic and genetic are not interchangeable and do not mean the same thing. Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in women and the second leading cause of cancer death. Most women can be treated with a combination of surgery, hormones, radiation and chemotherapy depending upon the findings on imaging and pathology. However, some patients progress despite standard therapy and for these women new treatments that improve outcomes would be warranted. In this study, one of the common breast cancer types, hormone receptor positive, HER2 negative, is further characterized by the presence of a specific mutation, PIK3CA. The study reported compares treatment with a currently approved drug, fulvestrant, and the addition of a new drug targeting this mutation, alpelisib. The favorable outcomes reported in this article come from a meeting presentation. The available information about this drug, while promising, does not provide sufficient information to know whether this drug will end up as part of newer treatment options for women with this form of breast cancer who have progressed despite standard therapy. Both investors and patients deserve to know this.
|
false
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breast cancer
|
Although BYL719/alpelisib has not been approved by the FDA, it’s safe to assume that the drug will be costly, and there should have been some discussion of this. The only PI3K inhibitor approved as a cancer treatment, for certain types of lymphoma, is an injection and retails for about $4,700 per vial. Many vials may be given over the course of treatment. The first paragraph says the drug BYL719/alpelisib can “cut the risk of death or disease progression by more than a third in breast cancer patients with a hard-to-target gene mutation.” In the second paragraph we learn this effect was seen when BYL719/alpelisib was combined with Faslodex, a drug currently used to treat advanced breast cancer. In patients who received both drugs, the median progression-free survival was 11 months. It was 5.7 months for patients on Faslodex alone. In the next paragraph, we are told the drug combination cut the risk of death or progression by 35 percent, but there are no statistics about the absolute number of people who died included in the story. To learn more, we looked at the news release and study abstract put out by the organizers of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 conference in Munich, where the study was presented. This allowed us to discover that the study randomized 572 postmenopausal women or men with hormone-sensitive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer. Of these, 341 were found to have the PIK3CA mutation when their tumor was tested. The findings reported from the study were specific to that group of patients who had the mutation. The news release explains that 36% of 262 patients with this mutation responded to the combination. We also learn, in a quote from the study’s lead author, that “the follow-up is short so we cannot say whether there is a long-term survival benefit.” They hope that the progression-free survival will translate into an overall survival benefit–but they don’t know. In short: There is no data to support the headline’s claim that BYL719/alpelisib reduces the risk of death from breast cancer by 35 percent. The article quotes the head of cancer drug development for Novartis as saying, “We don’t see as much diarrhea, we do not have CNS (central nervous system) side effects, we do not have liver effects.” What any of this means is not clear. As much diarrhea as compared to what? Were they expecting CNS or liver effects? Do other PI3K inhibitors have those side effects? None of that is spelled out. Once again, we returned to the ESMO news release and abstract to learn more. This told us the most frequent side effects were hyperglycemia, nausea; decreased appetite and rash. The article never explains that this was a phase III clinical trial and that the primary endpoint was progression-free survival. It’s important that news stories point out progression-free survival is a surrogate outcome, and should not be confused with overall survival. It also doesn’t include any information about how many people were in the study or how many who were enrolled were found to have the mutation in their tumor tissue that the drug targets (see quantified benefits above to see what we found via the news release). The article provides sufficient information to make clear that this is a treatment for a specific group of women with breast cancer with this PIK3CA mutation. More could have been said about what percent of breast cancer patients this may represent, though. The article quotes Farbrice Andre. It does not mention that Andre is the lead author of the study. It also does not mention that Andre received a grant from Novartis while the study was being conducted, which is noted in the disclosure section of the abstract. The article also quotes the head of cancer drug development at Novartis. There are no quotes from researchers or experts not involved with the study. The study is comparing the combination of Faslodex and BYL719/alpelisib to Faslodex alone. It’s not clear if there are other treatment options for this patient population or if Faslodex alone would be the standard of care for these patients at this point in their treatment. The article states that Novartis plans to file for approval for the drug this year. We learn–via the lead researcher–that this trial provides the “most encouraging” results to date in a study looking at a PI3K inhibitor in breast cancer. That establishes novelty, but we think the story should have sought independent expert viewpoint to provide context on the limitations of the results, which were based on progression-free survival and not overall survival. It does not include the information that one other PI3K inhibitor is currently on the market and used to treat a type of lymphoma. The reporter appears to have interviewed one source directly. However, one source’s quote is taken directly from the drug company’s news release, and is not attributed to the release. This statement appears in both the news story and the news release: “These data have the potential to allow physicians to address an unmet need in this patient population by using a biomarker-driven treatment to inform their sequencing decisions,” Andre added. For this reason, the story scores not satisfactory on this criterion.
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34285
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Martial arts star Jet Li is in frail health, as shown in a recent photograph.
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We reached out to Chasman but have not received a response. Chasman has distributed a grinning photograph of the actor to the news media (absent glaring sunlight) that he said better represents Li’s physical condition.
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unproven
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Entertainment, china, Entertainment, health scares
|
On 19 May 2018, a photograph of renowned action movie star Jet Li went viral online purporting to show the martial arts expert in “frail” physical condition: So, apparently, Jet Li is suffering from “hyperthyroidism and spinal problems” and this is him now ❤️😓: pic.twitter.com/Ss0W2EL96D — simón (@StxNaty) May 19, 2018 The photograph caused an outpouring of concern for Li, who has a large international fan base, but the Beijing-born actor’s manager said Li is in good health and the image was taken in particularly unflattering light. Li is also 55 years old, and the natural graying of hair associated with age coupled with glaring sunlight could have created an optical illusion making him appear to have aged rapidly. Although we have no medical doctors on staff who can diagnose a person by viewing a single photograph, we found no evidence that Li’s health is in a downward spiral other than the fact he is abiding by the same rules regarding the passage of time as everyone else. Li’s Los Angeles-based manager, Steve Chasman, attempted to dispel concern, telling the Washington Post that the actor (whose real name is Li Lianjie) has a chronic condition, but he is otherwise well: He has hyperthyroidism that he’s been dealing with for almost 10 years. It’s nothing life-threatening and he’s dealing with it. Speaking to USA Today, Chasman said LI is in “great shape” and the photograph, which was taken in Tibet, is being blown out of proportion: It’s one picture and people are making these interpretations from it. If you took a picture me at the wrong angle and wrong time of the day, I could look frail as well. Perhaps adding to the illusion that Li has aged more rapidly than expected is the fact he now wears his hair shaved as opposed to the thick shock of hair seen in many of his movies. He also has taken to wearing round-rimmed glasses. According images and videos posted to his social media accounts, Li started sporting a bald head in 2017: Introducing #GSD to the world is my happiest moment in 2017, it was my pleasure to teach some basic #wushu steps to ambassadors from various countries. #jetli @jetli_com pic.twitter.com/kC8AKC4jkG — Jet Li 李连杰 (@jetli_official) January 24, 2018 Although some news reports fretted that Li hasn’t been seen on the big screen in recent years, he has simply has not been in the English-language arena. Instead, Li has been busy making Chinese-language films and television shows. He starred in and produced the action short film Gong Shou Dao in November 2017, playing the part of an old monk: Hot take: Jet Li is focused on his charity work and is no longer working in front of the camera, so he’s not dyeing/augmenting his hair, or stuffing himself with HGH like other action stars his age. His injuries have taken a toll, but zoom in; he looks like a content 55-year-old. pic.twitter.com/CcYy39Eozs — Phil Nobile Jr. (@PhilNobileJr) May 22, 2018 In early 2017, Li told fans he wanted to focus more of his efforts on humanitarianism through his nonprofit, the One Foundation, and his company Taiji Zen. Sporting his current look with a bald head and thick round glasses, he wished fans a happy New Year in 2018:
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28261
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The United States had 251 mass shootings during the first 216 days of 2019.
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"What's true: When ""mass shooting"" is defined as an incident in which four or more people are shot, the U.S. had 251 such incidents in the first 216 days of 2019. What's false: No set definition exists for ""mass shooting."" As such, the number of incidents varies greatly depending on the criteria used to count them."
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mixture
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Crime
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For most people, the word “mass shooting” invokes images of horrifying events such as the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where 26 people (including 20 children) were killed in December 2012, the massacre in Las Vegas in 2017 where more than 50 people were killed at a music festival, or the killing of more than 20 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in August 2019. So when outlets such as USA Today, CBS News, and Yahoo News published articles with headlines such as “El Paso, Dayton make 251 mass shootings in the US in 216 days, more shootings than days in the year,” or “There have been more mass shootings than days this year,” some readers were a bit shocked by the numbers. At the moment, no set definition exists for what is meant by “mass shooting.” That means the number of mass shootings that occur each year varies greatly depending on the criteria used to count them. For instance, one organization may count a mass shooting if it involves four or more people who are injured by a gun, while other organizations may only count a mass shooting if it involves four or more people killed by a gun. These numbers can also be skewed by other factors. For example, some organizations don’t include crimes involving gangs or domestic violence in their mass-shooting reports, while others do. The FBI itself has no set definition for “mass shooting.” In 2005, the government organization described “mass murder” as a single incident that results in four or more deaths. This standard was also used for a 2015 Congressional Research Service report about mass shootings: According to the FBI, the term “mass murder” has been defined generally as a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered, within one event, and in one or more locations in close geographical proximity. Based on this definition, for the purposes of this report, “mass shooting” is defined as a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms, within one event, and in one or more locations in close proximity. Similarly, a “mass public shooting” is defined to mean a multiple homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms, within one event, in at least one or more public locations, such as, a workplace, school, restaurant, house of worship, neighborhood, or other public setting. The claim that the United States had 251 mass shootings in the first 216 days of 2019 originates from data collected by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a non-profit organization that tracks gun-related violence in the U.S. The GVA counts any incident in which four or more people were shot and/or killed. Also, the GVA list includes ALL incidents of gun violence, meaning that they don’t exclude incidents involving gangs or domestic violence: GVA uses a purely statistical threshold to define mass shooting based ONLY on the numeric value of 4 or more shot or killed, not including the shooter. GVA does not parse the definition to remove any subcategory of shooting. To that end we don’t exclude, set apart, caveat, or differentiate victims based upon the circumstances in which they were shot. GVA believes that equal importance is given to the counting of those injured as well as killed in a mass shooting incident. The Gun Violence Archive’s ongoing tally of mass shootings can be viewed here. As the GVA only requires four or more people to be shot, and not necessarily killed, many of the shootings on this list don’t involve fatalities. As such, many of these incidents probably didn’t make headline news, which explains why so many people were shocked to see the number “251,” using GVA’s criteria, for the first 216 days of 2019. Beyond GVA, others have tallied mass shootings differently. News outlet Mother Jones, for instance, has been studying mass shootings since a dozen people were killed in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, in 2012. Mother Jones uses a stricter set of rules to define mass shootings. For that organization, a mass shooting is defined as an incident involving four or more people killed by guns. Mother Jones also excludes incidents that may stem from crimes, such as armed robbery or gang violence. In July 2012, in the aftermath of the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado, Mother Jones created a first-of-its-kind open-source database documenting mass shootings in the United States. Our research focused on indiscriminate rampages in public places resulting in four or more victims killed by the attacker. We exclude shootings stemming from more conventionally motivated crimes such as armed robbery or gang violence. Other news outlets and researchers have since published larger tallies that include a wide range of gun crimes in which four or more people have been either wounded or killed. While those larger datasets of multiple-victim shootings are useful for studying the broader problem of gun violence, our investigation provides an in-depth look at a distinct phenomenon—from the firearms used and mental health factors to the growing copycat problem. Tracking mass shootings is complex; we believe ours is the most useful approach. Under Mother Jones’ criteria, the number of mass shootings in the U.S for the first 216 days of 2019 is seven. ABC News used similar criteria for an August 2019 report on mass shootings in the U.S. The news outlet did not exclude shootings related to more conventional crimes, as Mother Jones did, and found that the U.S. had 17 deadly mass shootings in the same time period: The two shootings, first in El Paso, Texas, and then in Dayton, Ohio, are the latest instances of deadly mass shootings in 2019, bringing the total number of such incidents up to at least 17 — an average of one every 12.7 days this year. The FBI doesn’t have an official definition of a mass shooting, but defines a mass killing as an incident in which three or more people, not including the suspect, are killed. Various groups and watchdog organizations keep their own lists, often using different criteria for what qualifies as a mass shooting. For the list compiled by ABC News below, the incidents took place over the course of a day and involved four or more victims, not including the suspect, who died as a result of gunshot wounds. For instance, shooting sprees that spanned longer amounts of time were not included on this list. In sum, the question boils down to how “mass shooting” is defined. When defined as any incident in which four or more people are shot, the number of mass shootings for the first 216 days of 2019 is above 250. When mass shooting is defined as an incident in which more four or more people are killed (and excludes domestic and other more conventional crime-related violence) the number of mass shootings during that time period in 2019 is seven. If we include conventional crime-related incidents, such as domestic violence, the number of mass shootings is around 17.
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10200
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Palliative Care Extends Life, Study Finds
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"Our reviewers were split on one distinctive feature of this story – the discussion of the health care reform bill brought Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin into the story. One reviewer thought that had an uncertain effect and that the space could have been better used to provide more practical information about costs, benefits, and the limitations of this particular study. The other two reviewers felt it was an appropriate and laudable editorial decision – that because the field of palliative care has been haunted by the ""death panel"" rhetoric of last summer, bringing it to the forefront in this story confronts directly one of the issues that prevent people from accessing palliative care, even when it is available — concern about palliative care hastening death. We appreciate that the Times’s foray into this issue added some nuance that was missing in other coverage. The Times coverage also is notable for offering the most accessible description of what palliative care actually means, including practical examples of the services and treatment provided to patients. The competing coverage often relied on jargon about ""psychosocial support"" and other vague terminology that will likely be meaningless to many readers. We can’t know if palliative care is a good thing if we don’t know what it means. The Times description is good enough to be quoted at length: ""Palliative care typically begins with a long conversation about what the patient with a terminal diagnosis wants out of his remaining life. It includes the options any oncologist addresses: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation and their side effects. But it also includes how much suffering a patient wishes to bear, effects on the family, and legal, insurance and religious issues. Teams focus on controlling pain, nausea, swelling, shortness of breath and other side effects; they also address patients’ worries and make sure they have help with making meals, dressing and bathing when not hospitalized."""
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true
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"Although it touches on reimbursement, this story never addresses the key issues that most readers will be interested in — how much do palliative care consultations typically cost, does insurance cover it, and does this approach stand to increase or decrease the overall cost burden on our health care system? Like the competing coverage, this story featured prominent discussion of the survival benefit associated with palliative care. We were pleased to see that it also spent some time on the improvement in quality of life and depression scores as well as the reduction in aggressive chemotherapy usage toward the end of life in the palliative care group. We wish the story had been more precise in its quantification of some the benefits — it notes that the palliative care group reported ""less depression"" and ""happier lives"" but offers no way to judge the magnitude of the benefit. However, we don’t think these shortcomings were enough to throw the story out of balance. As with the competing coverage, we’ll rule this one not applicable since the harms of palliative care are thought to be minimal. This story deserves praise on a number of fronts: On the downside, there was no cautionary language at all about the limitations of this study. The WSJ, by contrast, explained that the study was conducted at a single site and couldn’t be blinded. It also noted that patients in the palliative care arm got more overall attention from caregivers, which might have affected the results. A close call, but since the evidence always has limitations, we think it’s an important journalistic best practice to always provide some kind of comment about those limitations. This story didn’t meet that standard. No disease-mongering here. A strong effort here. The story quotes one of the study authors, an independent editorialist, a physician-writer knowledgeable about end-of-life care, as well as leaders of professional groups that support hospice and palliative care. As noted in the competing reviews, the point of the study was to compare early palliative care with existing standard cancer treatment. However, this story, like the others, could have provided more information about what standard cancer treatment — the current ""existing alternative"" — entails. Mixed bag here. The Times noted that Medicare pays for some palliative care services but that billing difficulties may deter physicians from offering it. However, there was no mention of the difficulty patients may have accessing the type of outpatient palliative care services that were offered in this study. Most non-hospice palliative care is currently provided only in the inpatient / acute care hospital setting. A borderline satisfactory. By all accounts, this is the first randomized controlled study to show that providing palliative care early after a diagnosis of advanced cancer improves survival and other outcomes. The story accurately characterizes the significance of this. This story was not based on a press release."
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28305
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A man who stabbed his pregnant girlfriend “won’t be charged” because of New York’s recently enacted Reproductive Health Act.
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What's true: Anthony Hobson stabbed his girlfriend in the stomach, killing both her and her unborn child. Prosecutors originally intended to charge him with both second degree murder of the mother as well as “unlawful abortion,” but due to the passage of New York’s Reproductive Health Act the latter charge was dropped. What's false: Hobston was still charged with the murder of his girlfriend, and the dropping of the “unlawful abortion” charge likely would not affect his potential sentencing since the murder charge would supersede the unlawful abortion charge.
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mixture
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Politics, abortion
|
On 22 January 2019, New York state enacted the Reproductive Health Act (RHA), a law that — as described by its advocates — was intended to bring New York state, which had legalized abortion prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, in line with the less restrictive federal standards generated by that ruling and modern medical guidelines: The Reproductive Health Act would fix a troubling gap in New York’s abortion law. New York reformed its abortion law in 1970, three years before the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Roe v. Wade. While New York’s abortion statute allows abortion throughout a pregnancy when necessary to preserve a woman’s life, the statute does not allow abortion care after 24 weeks from the commencement of pregnancy to preserve a woman’s health or in cases of fetal non-viability. Thus, although the U.S. Constitution requires state law to allow for abortion in each of these circumstances, New York law does not comport with Supreme Court jurisprudence and the law is inconsistent with current medical guidelines. The most controversial effect of this act was that it removed abortion from the New York criminal code. Prior to the RHA, homicide charges could encompass the abortion of “an unborn child with which a female has been pregnant for more than twenty-four weeks” even if the fetus were not viable. Now in New York abortion is regulated under public health law rather than under the criminal code. This issue drew significant national attention following the New York Post’s coverage of the gruesome murder of Jennifer Irigoyen and her unborn child by her boyfriend, Anthony Hobson: Hobson was captured on surveillance video at around 1 a.m. as he dragged Irigoyen from the hallway of her third-floor apartment to a stairwell, officials said. “He’s got a knife! He’s going to kill the baby!” Irigoyen had shouted, a witness previously told The Post. The expectant mother was then knifed multiple times in the torso, neck and abdomen, authorities said. She was rushed to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, but neither she nor her unborn baby could be saved. Hobson was charged with second degree murder on 8 February 2019. The Post later reported that prosecutors had “initially included a charge of abortion … but rescinded it because of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new Reproductive Health Act.” Meris Campbell, a spokeswoman for the New York district attorney, told the New York Times that “prosecutors dropped a second-degree abortion charge after learning that the Reproductive Health Act, which was signed on Jan. 22, had stripped the crime from the state penal code.” This case became a galvanizing point for the pro-life movement. The Times cited the statements of New York State Catholic Conference spokesperson Dennis Poust, who tweeted that “Thanks to the #RHA, it’s open season on pregnant women in New York.” On 11 February 2019, Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, penned a story for LifeNews.com with the headline “He Stabbed His Girlfriend’s Stomach to Kill Her Baby, Won’t Be Charged Because of New York’s Abortion Law.” Donohue’s headline was misleading. Though it was made clear in the body of the article that Dobson was still being charged with second-degree murder, the headline made it sound as though he were not being charged with any crime. According to Daniel R. Alonso, a former chief assistant prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office, who spoke to the Times, the dropping of the abortion charge would not have affected Dobson’s potential sentence length: Alonso … said in an interview … that charging Mr. Hobson with abortion would not have affected his potential sentence for murder, which supersedes an assault charge. “The basic thing is, because the killing of the fetus is the same act as the killing of the mother, even though they were separate charges under the old law, you couldn’t get more than 25 to life,” he said. New York State Senators Liz Krueger and Anna Kaplan, the two co-sponsors of the Reproductive Health Act, argued in an 8 February 2019 editorial published in the Albany Times Union that the RHA does not prevent “appropriate charging and sentencing of violent perpetrators”: The RHA removes abortion from the penal code, treating it just like every other medical procedure. This has led to accusations that the RHA eliminates the ability for victims to seek justice when a violent crime causes the loss of a pregnancy. This is yet more misinformation. Physical assault resulting in the loss of pregnancy qualifies as first-degree assault, which carries a penalty of five to 25 years, far more than the previous sentence for “unlawful abortion.” Furthermore, judges have discretion to increase the penalty in cases where the crime was particularly violent. The RHA does not prevent appropriate charging and sentencing of violent perpetrators. The ambiguously constructed assertion presented by LifeNews and others that a man “Won’t Be Charged Because of New York’s Abortion Law” is only partially true. Dobson won’t be charged with “unlawful abortion” because the RHA removed that crime from the state penal code, but he is still charged with murdering his girlfriend, and the dropping of “unlawful abortion” charges against him will not alter his prospective sentence length if he is convicted.
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42215
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White House Erupting In RAGE After Obama Gets Invited To Royal Wedding – Trump Got DENIED.
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China, the world’s top pork consumer, will secure sufficient supplies of the meat for upcoming holidays, including the Lunar New Year in late January, said an official on Wednesday, as concerns grow over a looming shortage and soaring prices.
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false
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false stories,
|
China’s pig herd has shrunk by a third following a severe outbreak of deadly African swine fever, and pork prices have surged since June on tightening supplies. Peng Shaozong, a manager in the pricing department of the National Development and Reform Commission, however, told reporters that supplies will be sufficient for this week’s Mid-Autumn festival, as well as for the upcoming October holidays and Lunar New Year, which falls in January next year. China produces about half of the world’s pork, but analysts have said output could fall by as much as 25% this year, and that imports will not be able to cover the gap. Peng sought to allay growing fears about the rocketing prices, saying the government had the “confidence and capability” to secure enough meat and stabilise the market. He also said the government is studying plans to release pork from state reserves for the holidays. Some cities have already released pork from reserves and sold it into the market at discounted prices. Several ministries are as well rolling out policies to encourage farmers to expand their output. Those policies, though, will take time to bear fruit. Vice Agriculture Minister Yu Kangzhen, speaking at the same briefing, noted that the African swine fever situation is still “severe”. A fresh outbreak was reported by the ministry in the Ningxia region in China’s northwest on Tuesday. Yu said the government has not loosened its efforts to control and prevent the spread of the disease, which kills almost every pig it infects. Yu also said that Beijing will launch a national disinfection campaign in the autumn.
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9870
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Healing Power: Using Stem Cells to Build Better Bones
|
"CBS put a crawl under this story reading ""Stem cells to build better bones."" And then failed to mention stem cells even one time in the story. That’s one indication of how off-base this segment was. No discussion of costs – which are significant. No discussion of evidence, which is limited. No discussion of the source of the information, but we can assume it was a recent study for which there was no control group to compare the results to. Furthermore, that study has not yet been published and the full results have not been reviewed by other experts. These are important caveats that the story should have mentioned. Instead of data, the segment gushed calling it ""godsend…really exciting…very important…could be lifesaving."""
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false
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"A huge oversight. One other news account reported that the drug costs $800 a month. How could this NOT be part of the story? None. And segments tend to give the impression that the benefits are universal for anyone taking the drug. Instead of data, the segment gushed calling it ""godsend…really exciting…very important…could be lifesaving."" No discussion of harms. Not even a mention that the drug needs to be given by injection. None. Nada. Zip. Just a before-and-after image of one case. The medical correspondent notes that the risk of death can be as high as 1 in 4 within a year post major bone fracture. There is no evidence that the use of Forteo reduces this risk and the definition of a major bone fracture was not provided. The implication is that there are a lot of major bone fractures in the elderly due to falls, and the use of Forteo could reduce the unsubstantiated risk of death of 1 in 4. Since only a physician-correspondent appeared on the set, citing no evidence and no sources, we don’t know the source of the information. No other treatment options for bone healing were discussed. Story explains the drug Forteo was approved by the FDA for use in osteoporosis in 2002 but gives no idea how widely it’s used for bone healing. The story is based on a preliminary report involving 145 patients with poorly healing bone fractures. Based on the results of this small study, a larger and presumably more confirmatory study is in the planning stages. But you wouldn’t know that from the story. There is no mention of the fact that the drug is being used ""off label,"" an important consideration. The use of Forteo (actually a synthetic version of parathyroid hormone) in fracture healing has been studied for a number of years. Most of the work has been in animals. We can’t be sure if the segment relied solely or largely on a news release."
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11313
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How to best treat the unpleasant symptoms of menopause
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This story has several important limitations and conflates a number of different issues in a potentially confusing way. It fails to mention that the new findings on estrogen apply only to women who have had hysterectomy—some 200,000 women in 2000, according to the North American Menopause Society. The majority of women—about 1.8 million in 2000—go through menopause naturally, with their uterus intact. Many of them will not have “unpleasant” symptoms, and so may have no reason to face the question about hormones. If they do, their main hormone option is to take progesterone along with estrogen—not estrogen alone. The piece also does not mention that estrogen-only therapy also increases the risk of stroke and blood clots, which are rare but important side effects. The story is further confusing by mixing quotes that refer to the old hormone paradigm, which suggested a since disproven heart benefit with long-term hormone use, and the new paradigm of short-term hormone use only to manage symptoms.
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false
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No mention of costs. No data on benefits or harms. No data on benefits or harms. Study population not defined, which in this case is important since most women going through menopause still have their uterus and so would not be able to take estrogen alone. The story states that more than 50 million American women will be going through menopause in 2006. Based on 2000 census data, the North American Menopause Society estimated that 1.8 million women will reach menopause during 2000; and that about 260,000 will undergo surgical menopause–the only population to whom this study applies. No mention of alternatives. No evidence that this story relied solely or largely on a news release.
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9239
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Cleveland Clinic study finds whole grain diet reduces cardiovascular disease risk
|
This release describes a study by Cleveland Clinic researchers who assigned a group of volunteers with overweight and obesity to a diet either rich in whole grains or one with refined grains. Each diet contained the same nutritional values but the whole grain diet consumers experienced a lowering of their diastolic blood pressure, which the researchers say lowers their risk of developing cardiovascular disease. But lowered blood pressure was a surrogate outcome, not a reduction in risk as the release claimed. It would take a larger outcomes study to determine if the diet reduced cardiovascular risk. The release also points to reductions in relative risks rather than absolute risks, fails to mention costs or any potential harms from such diets, and neglects to state that three of the 11 authors work for the funding company, which also makes whole-grain foods. As the release explains, high blood pressure affects 30 percent of adults in the United States and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. If changing one’s diet to incorporate more whole-grain foods can substantially lower blood pressure, and perhaps reduce disease risk, then this would represent a public health gain. The release may too strongly link obesity and hypertension. While no doubt obesity increases risk, plenty of people without obesity also have hypertension.
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mixture
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Cleveland Clinic,whole grain diet
|
There were no mentions of costs in this release, which is unfortunate since a simple statement could have informed readers that both whole grain foods and refined grain foods are readily available and are usually similar in cost. The release states that, “While on the whole grain diet, participants saw a three-fold improvement in diastolic blood pressure (the lowest pressure when your heart relaxes between beats) compared to the refined grain diet. This improvement equates to reducing the risk of death from heart disease by almost one-third, and the risk of death from a stroke by two-fifths.” However that is a relative risk reduction, not an absolute risk reduction which would have provided readers with a better understanding of the observed change. The release also said, “Overall, there were substantial reductions in body weight, fat loss, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol during both diet periods,” but provided no numerical data explaining those reductions. There is no mention in the release of any harms arising from a diet rich in whole grains but we won’t fault them from that. The benefits of whole grain foods have been well documented. Providing more detail on what the diets contained would have been helpful to readers. This release explains that the research involved a “double-blind, randomized, controlled crossover trial” that provided data that “cannot be obtained from large observational studies.” However, the lowered blood pressure was a surrogate outcome and not a primary endpoint, i.e. reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. It would take a much larger outcomes study to demonstrate that. The release also described the research as “one of the largest controlled studies of its kind,” although it still only involved 33 participants and ran for two eight-week periods. No disease mongering here. The release identifies the funders of this research as both the National Institutes of Health and the Nestlé Corporation and points out that Solon and Cereal Partners Worldwide provided “the study meals and foods.” However, it does not mention, as the published study does, that three of the authors work for Nestlé. Since the study itself is a comparison between diets rich either in whole grains or refined grains, it’s obvious that there are a multitude of diet alternatives. As mentioned above, more details on the contents of the diet would have been beneficial. Whole grain foods are readily available at grocery stores and markets, so availability is not an issue here. The release establishes novelty with its claim that the Cleveland Clinic and Nestlé researchers “conducted one of the largest controlled studies of its kind.” A study group of 33 seems small to be called “one of the largest” but the release doubles down on novelty as it further explains: “The uniqueness of this study is that each of the 33 participants consumed both diets,” said Kirwan (the lead researcher). “This level of control can only be performed for small numbers and provides the essential empirical data that cannot be obtained from large observational studies.” While the release should have done more to clarify that “one of the largest” studies is still quite “small,” we’ll give the benefit of the doubt. No unjustifiable language here.
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14803
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"Marco Rubio Says Ted Cruz supports ""legalizing people who are in this country illegally."
|
"Rubio said Cruz ""is a supporter of legalizing people that are in this country illegally."" Cruz proposed an amendment in 2013 to the immigration bill that would have stripped the citizenship provision. But it would have kept intact the language in the Senate bill that allowed illegal immigrants to still apply for the Registered Provisional Immigrant program in the overall bill, which would have resulted in a work permit and 10 years later application for permanent residency. But it’s a stretch for Rubio to label Cruz as a supporter of legalization when he was an ardent critic of the overall bill for months and voted against it. Cruz’s amendment appeared to be a legislative tactic."
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false
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Immigration, Florida, Marco Rubio,
|
"During the Republican debate in Las Vegas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida accused one of his rivals, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, of being soft on immigration policy. ""Ted, you support legalizing people who are in this country illegally,"" Rubio said. ""Ted Cruz supported a 500 percent increase in the number of H1B visas, the guest workers that are allowed in this country. And Ted supports doubling the number of green cards."" Cruz responded, ""I understand that Marco wants to raise confusion. It is not accurate what he just said that I supported legalization. Indeed, I led the fight against his legalization and amnesty bill."" When pressed by Rubio about whether he had ruled out legalization, Cruz said, ""I have never supported legalization, and I do not intend to support legalization."" That was a more clearly worded statement then many of Cruz’s past comments about legalization. Cruz’s immigration plan released in November called for increasing deportations of criminals but didn’t address how he would handle all 11 million illegally here and whether they would get legal status. However, Rubio’s statement that Cruz supports ""legalizing people who are in this country illegally"" is a head-snapper, since Cruz holds himself out as tougher than the rest of his rivals on giving ground to people living in the United States without legal authorization. Rubio was one of the eight senators who co-authored a bill in 2013 that created a path to citizenship. The bill passed the Senate but died in the House. We’ve noted before that Cruz was the only one among the GOP presidential field who never plainly supported something like a path to citizenship or another form of legal status. In September 2015, PolitiFact rated Cruz’s claim that he alone among 10 candidates -- including Rubio -- never backed ""amnesty"" for immigrants. We’ll focus on whether Cruz supported legalization for illegal immigrants. (Rubio also said that Cruz supported more visas and green cards, but that’s not the same thing as legalizing people who are in the country illegally. We’ll leave the visa issue aside for now.) Much of the debate between Rubio and Cruz on this point revolves around an amendment Cruz offered to the 2013 bill to change immigration law -- and whether he truly intended that to provide legal status or proposed it as a legislative strategy without ever intending to support the bill anyway. Cruz’s statements about 2013 bill Let’s start by walking through what Cruz has proposed over the years about legal status for immigrants living in the United States without legal authorization. Cruz was a vocal critic of the 2013 bill to change immigration laws written by Rubio and seven other senators. Cruz spoke out often against the bill and proposed amendments to triple border security, among changes. On May 21, 2013, Cruz issued a press release saying that he’d offered amendments to the Senate measure that day to ""ensure that illegal immigrants are not given a path to citizenship, and modernize, streamline and expand legal immigration by reforming the green card program."" Cruz told the Senate Judiciary Committee that if the path to citizenship were eliminated from the Senate plan, as he proposed, some 11 million residents living ""in the shadows"" would ""still be eligible for RPI status."" (RPI stands for Registered Provisional Immigrant program, which gives a work permit to a successful applicant to travel outside the United States and return.) The Senate plan included RPI status for 10 years and then immigrants would be eligible to apply for permanent residency, as in a green card. In June 2013, Cruz told NPR News that if senators embraced his proposal stripping out the path to citizenship option, the ""11 million who are here illegally would be granted legal status once the border was secured — not before — but after the border was secured, they would be granted legal status. And indeed, they would be eligible for permanent legal residency. But they would not be eligible for citizenship."" That amendment and comments Cruz made related it to it are the crux of Rubio’s argument about why he says Cruz supports legislation. The Texas Tribune/New York Times wrote in September 2013 that Cruz -- who tries to appeal to tea party conservatives and represents a state with a large Latino population -- was trying to ""claim the middle ground on immigration."" Asked about what to do with the people here illegally, however, he (Cruz) stressed that he had never tried to undo the goal of allowing them to stay. ""The amendment that I introduced removed the path to citizenship, but it did not change the underlying work permit from the Gang of Eight,"" he said in 2013 in El Paso. After the Las Vegas debate, Rubio’s campaign cited comments Cruz made in November 2015. But we found that Cruz’s statements were vague because they left open the possibility of legalization. But he didn’t come out and support it outright. For example, at an event in Iowa Cruz said: ""Let’s demonstrate we can stop illegal immigration, we can protect our national security interests, we can protect our law enforcement interests,"" Cruz said. ""Then once that’s done, we can have a conversation at that point about whatever people remain here illegally."" Cruz’s amendment appeared to be a tactic Cruz campaign spokesman Brian Phillips said that each example of Cruz mentioning work permits in the Senate plan amounted to Cruz simply explaining what would remain in the Senate plan if the path to citizenship element were yanked -- and, Phillips said, Cruz never said he would vote for the plan, regardless. Cruz has changed his mind on some aspects of immigration laws. In 2013, he supported expanding H1B visas but this year called for a suspension due to abuse. He also called for increasing the number of green cards but now says we should not increase the level of immigration as long as unemployment remains high. Mark Krikorian, who advocated against the 2013 bill, told Bloomberg News in November that Cruz’s amendment to remove the path to citizenship element was a legislative tactic. ""You often introduce measures you hope will be poison pills if you're trying to kill a piece of legislation,"" said Krikorian who works for the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that focuses on lessening immigration. Stephen Miller, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., told Bloomberg News that ""numerous conservatives offered amendments to the progressive Gang of Eight bill that were designed to improve enforcement or combat amnesty."" He continued, ""That does not mean these senators supported the bill with those changes. That would be an extremely untenable interpretation."" (Sessions also fought against the bill.) Chris Chmielenski of NumbersUSA, an advocacy group that promotes reduced immigration, previously told PolitiFact he doesn’t think Cruz ""was ever willing to support legalization"" of immigrants living here ""before enforcement"" of border security. Chmielenski said that there also was no Cruz amendment proposing to give work permits to people living here without legal authorization. Cruz voted against the overall bill, which passed the Senate 68 to 32 in June 2013 and then died in the House. Our ruling Rubio said Cruz ""is a supporter of legalizing people that are in this country illegally."" Cruz proposed an amendment in 2013 to the immigration bill that would have stripped the citizenship provision. But it would have kept intact the language in the Senate bill that allowed illegal immigrants to still apply for the Registered Provisional Immigrant program in the overall bill, which would have resulted in a work permit and 10 years later application for permanent residency. But it’s a stretch for Rubio to label Cruz as a supporter of legalization when he was an ardent critic of the overall bill for months and voted against it. Cruz’s amendment appeared to be a legislative tactic."
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7131
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Larry King says he was operated on for lung cancer.
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Veteran broadcaster Larry King says he battled lung cancer this summer but appears to have the disease at bay.
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true
|
Health, Lung cancer, Entertainment, Larry King, Cancer
|
The former CNN host, who is 83, told Us Weekly that a spot on his lung was noticed this summer during a routine check-up. He said he had surgery in July. The tumor was malignant but King said it was found at such an early stage that his doctor told him he was lucky. King has had health issues in the past, including a heart attack and prostate cancer. He was a smoker but gave it up after his heart attack in the 1980s. King keeps working. He told the magazine that his secret wish is to do six months on Broadway, telling stories and taking audience questions.
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14134
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"Zika mosquitoes ""can’t catch me."
|
"Bolt said Zika mosquitoes ""can’t catch me."" The Olympic champion and world record holder clocks an average speed is 21.65 miles per hour in his races, with 23.35 miles per hour at the high end and 18.53 miles per hour at the low end. Female A. aegypti mosquitoes, the main vector for Zika, cruise between 1.12 and 3.35 miles per hour. That’s a lot slower than Bolt, though the mosquitoes fly for much longer than Bolt sprints. Don’t try this, people. (But if you do, send us a video!)"
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true
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Global News Service, Public Health, Sports, Usain Bolt,
|
"The world’s fastest man says he’s not scared of Zika since he can always outrun virus-carrying mosquitoes. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who is preparing for this summer’s Olympic games, was asked recently about the Zika epidemic in the host country of Brazil. No worries, he said. ""Because I’m fast,"" he joked in a May 18 interview on NBC’s Today. ""They can’t catch me."" This should be obvious: We are not saying that running is a Zika prevention method. (Here are some actual steps to take to avoid being bitten.) But we were curious whether Bolt really would outpace the mosquito. (People already have tried to figure out if Bolt can beat a cheetah. He can’t.) To the stat sheet! Bolt currently holds both the 100 meter and 200 meter world records at 9.58 seconds and 19.19 seconds respectively. That corresponds to 23.35 miles per hour for the 100-meter dash, and 23.31 miles per hour for the 200-meter dash. Based on how he’s performed in all past races listed by the International Association of Athletics Federations, Bolt’s average speed is 21.65 miles per hour. Even at his slowest, when he clocked 48.28 seconds at the 400-meter in 2001, he was still running at 18.53 miles per hour. The New York Times did an excellent job breaking down Bolt’s prowess in this video from the 2012 Olympics. So Bolt runs — in short bursts — around 22 miles per hour. How does that stack up against mosquitoes? Many mosquito species in the Aedes genus (africanus, apicoargenteus, luteocephalus, vitattus, furcifer, albopictus, hensilli and polynesiensis) can transmit the Zika virus, but the main vector is Aedes aegypti. Female aegypti mosquitoes (the ones that bite) are estimated to have a cruising speed of 0.5 to 1.5 meters per second. That’s the equivalent of 1.12 to 3.35 miles per hour — a fraction of Bolt’s speed, even at his slowest. In that sense, it’s not a contest. Until you factor in stamina. Bolt runs short distances, while the mosquitoes are in it for the long haul. Researchers have documented lady aegypti flying continuously for two to nine hours, with an average of 2.2 hours. So Bolt, or really anyone, would have to run more than 7.37 miles in that time frame to outpace the mosquito. Kenya’s Dennis Kimetto, Bolt’s world record counterpart in the marathon world, ran 26.219 miles in 2 hours, 2 minutes and 57 seconds. He’d leave the mosquito nearly 20 miles behind with that pace. Kimetto. (AP) Bolt and Kimetto would have a lot more to worry about if the Zika vector was a desert locust or earworm, which have respective average air speeds of 21 and 17 miles per hour. But for now, Zika-carrying mosquitoes can’t catch up to either man. Our ruling Bolt said Zika mosquitoes ""can’t catch me."" The Olympic champion and world record holder clocks an average speed is 21.65 miles per hour in his races, with 23.35 miles per hour at the high end and 18.53 miles per hour at the low end. Female A. aegypti mosquitoes, the main vector for Zika, cruise between 1.12 and 3.35 miles per hour. That’s a lot slower than Bolt, though the mosquitoes fly for much longer than Bolt sprints. Don’t try this, people. (But if you do, send us a video!)
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40502
|
There are a couple of stories about this. One warning says that a documentary on Dateline TV showed that E.coli bacteria were found in pre-packaged bags of salad and that the Dole company has issued a recall on some bags. The other from September of 2006 says the Food and Drug Administration has issued an alert that a strain of E.coli bacterium has been found in several U.S. states and that pre-packaged bags of spinach are suspect.
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E.coli bacteria found in bagged salads?.
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true
|
Food / Drink, Warnings
|
Both warnings are true. On September 18, 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expanded its warning about spinach, telling consumers not to eat any raw spinach, not just pre-packaged spinach as had initially been announced. The FDA also announced that it’s probe into the sources of spinach contaminated with a strain of E.coli bacterium had been expanded to other companies. On September 15, 2006, the FDA had announced that Natural Selection Foods of San Juan Bautista, California was recalling all of its products that contain spinach that have “best if used by” dates of August 17, 2006 through October 1, 2006 The FDA is continuing to investigate whether any other brands are involved. According to an FDA release, “Natural Selection Foods, LLC brands include: Natural Selection Foods, Pride of San Juan, Earthbound Farm, Bellissima, Dole, Rave Spinach, Emeril, Sysco, O Organic, Fresh Point, River Ranch, Superior, Nature’s Basket, Pro-Mark, Compliments, Trader Joe’s, Ready Pac, Jansal Valley, Cheney Brothers, Coastline, D’Arrigo Brothers, Green Harvest, Mann, Mills Family Farm, Pro*Act, Premium Fresh, Snoboy, The Farmer’s Market, Tanimura & Antle, President’s Choice, Cross Valley, and Riverside Farms. These products include spinach and any salad with spinach in a blend, both retail and food service products. Products that do not contain spinach are not part of this recall.” The FDA said that 109 cases of illness had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control including one death and 14 cases of what is called Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS), a form of kidney failure. States included in the warning include: California, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The FDA said the affected products were also distributed to Canada and Mexico. The other story was focused on Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Dateline show aired in April, 2006. When more than 10 cases of sick people with similar symptoms showed up within three days in September, 2005, a public health investigation was launched. The Minnesota Department of Public Health speculated that the sicknesses were food-related. One of the investigators suspected E.coli because of the symptoms of abdominal cramps and severe, bloody diarrhea. The problem was that E.coli poisoning was more commonly associated with eating contaminated and improperly cooked meat. One of the foods that most of the sick people had eaten was salads made from bagged lettuce. When a public health warning was issued about the salads, one of the victims called investigators from his hospital room and said he still had a partially-eaten bag in his refrigerator. That lettuce was tested and became the first evidence that the E.coli had come from the pre-packaged salads. The odd thing was that the bacterium was found in the lettuce, not just on it. As a result of that 2005 outbreak, the Dole company issued a voluntary recall for the “American Blend” and “Classic Romaine” packaged salads. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also issued a nationwide health alert in October, 2005, about the particular Dole salads implicated in the outbreak. According to Dateline, 26 people from three states got ill, some of them seriously. There were no known deaths and there have not been any repeats of the problem. Updated 9/18/06 Comments
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1076
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Congo Ebola deaths surpass 1,000 as attacks on treatment centers go on.
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The death toll from an Ebola outbreak in Congo rose above 1,000 on Friday, with attacks on treatment centers continuing to hamper efforts to control the “intense transmission” of the second-worst epidemic of the virus on record.
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true
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Health News
|
The World Health Organization said it expected the nine-month outbreak to continue spreading though the east of Democratic Republic of Congo, and announced plans to expand vaccinations in the coming weeks once a new treatment by Johnson & Johnson is approved. The WHO is already using another experimental vaccine made by Merck. Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme, said supplies were plentiful but hostility towards medical staff was making it hard to get to affected communities. He told reporters in Geneva that 119 attacks had been documented since January, and as a result, “we are anticipating a scenario of continued intense transmission”. More than 100,000 people have been vaccinated so far, and the treatment has been highly effective, the WHO says. The Merck vaccine will still be used in “ring vaccination” of people exposed to the virus and their contacts, Ryan said, but the WHO is also studying use of a single dose to stretch supplies, an option experts would review on Monday. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine would be deployed outside the rings in surrounding areas to protect people from infection, “as a way of laying down a barrier to the virus”, Ryan said. Congo’s Health Ministry said on Friday that 14 new Ebola deaths had been recorded, taking the toll to 1,008 deaths from confirmed and probable cases. Only the 2013-2016 outbreak in West Africa has been deadlier. More than 11,000 people died then out of 28,000 who were infected. Despite significant medical advances since then, including the vaccine and experimental treatments, health officials have struggled to control the current outbreak because of the violence and community mistrust in eastern Congo, where dozens of militias are active. Militiamen attacked a hospital treating Ebola patients two weeks ago, killing a senior WHO epidemiologist and wounding two others. “The numbers are nothing short of terrifying,” said Jeremy Farrar, an infectious disease specialist and director of the global health charity the Wellcome Trust. “This epidemic will not be brought under control without a really significant shift in the response,” he said. “Community trust and safety, as well as community engagement and ownership of the response is critical.” There was an attempted assault on an Ebola treatment facility in the city of Butembo on Thursday, but nobody was injured and the assailants were captured, the WHO’s Ryan said.
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4021
|
Pinterest to direct vaccine-related searches to health orgs.
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Pinterest said Wednesday it will try to combat misinformation about vaccines by showing only information from health organizations when people search.
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true
|
Technology, Media, General News, Social media, Health, Business, Measles
|
Social media sites have been tryingto combat the spread of misinformation about vaccines. Pinterest previously tried blocking all searches for vaccines with mixed results. Now searches for “measles,” ″vaccine safety” and related terms will bring up results from such groups as the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the WHO-established Vaccine Safety Net. Pinterest won’t show ads or other users’ posts, as they may contain misinformation. “We’re taking this approach because we believe that showing vaccine misinformation alongside resources from public health experts isn’t responsible,” San Francisco-based Pinterest said in a blog post. Though anti-vaccine sentiments have been around for as long as vaccines have existed, health experts worry that anti-vaccine propaganda can spread more quickly on social media. The misinformation includes soundly debunked notions that vaccines cause autism or that mercury preservatives and other substances in them can harm people. Experts say the spread of such information can push parents who are worried about vaccines toward refusing to inoculate their children, leading to a comeback of various diseases. Measles outbreaks have spiked in the U.S. this year to the highest number in more than 25 years. In the U.K., Prime Minister Boris Johnson blamed people “listening to that superstitious mumbo jumbo on the internet” for a rising incidence of measles in that country. The government plans to call a summit of social media companies to discuss what more they can do to fight online misinformation, though plans were still being worked out. Facebook said in March that it would no longer recommend groups and pages that spread hoaxes about vaccines and that it would reject ads that do this. But anti-vax information still slips through. The WHO praised Pinterest’s move and encouraged other social media companies to follow. “Misinformation about vaccination has spread far and fast on social media platforms in many different countries,” the statement said. “We see this as a critical issue and one that needs our collective effort to protect people’s health and lives.” ___ This story has been updated to read that the name of the institution is Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, not Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
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30165
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A scientific study has concluded that “drinking young people’s blood” provides health and longevity benefits.
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Regardless of the merits of Ambrosia’s efforts, no study has concluded that “drinking” a “young person’s blood” provides anti-aging health benefits. As such, we rank the claim false.
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false
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Medical, blood
|
On 10 September 2018, newspapers such as the UK’s Sun and the New York Post published the same story under the headline “Young Blood Could Be the Secret to Long-lasting Health: Study” — a headline which implied that a recently published scientific study had made a significant development in the field of medicinal blood drinking. The story, whose virality was ensured by an accompanying picture of bloody vampire teeth, opened with these claims: Drinking young people’s blood could help you live longer and prevent age-related diseases, a study has found. Blood factors taken from younger animals have been found to improve the later-life health of older creatures. The study, published in Nature, was conducted by researchers from University College London (UCL), who said it could reduce the chances of developing age-related disorders. This reporting has several things wrong with it right off the bat. First, nobody is advocating for the “drinking” of blood — the idea as posited would be to inject it via transfusion. Second, the study referenced by the Post and the Sun, authored by geneticist Linda Partridge, did not itself investigate blood transfusions for human longevity purposes but rather included a discussion of blood transfusions in animal studies as part of a larger review of the state of the longevity and aging fields. Third, “blood factors” refer to specific components of blood, not to blood as a whole. Partridge’s paper referenced one specific animal study to conclude that “Blood factors obtained from young individuals [can] improve late-life health in animals.” The animal study Pardridge cited, titled “Human umbilical cord plasma proteins revitalize hippocampal function in aged mice” and published in Nature in 2017, suggested that the injection of a specific component of human blood derived from human umbilical cords could prevent cognitive decline in mice, an important finding that could have relevance for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s: Here we show that human cord plasma treatment revitalizes the hippocampus and improves cognitive function in aged mice. Tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 2 (TIMP2), a blood-borne factor enriched in human cord plasma, young mouse plasma, and young mouse hippocampi, appears in the brain after systemic administration and increases synaptic plasticity and hippocampal-dependent cognition in aged mice … Our findings reveal that human cord plasma contains plasticity-enhancing proteins of high translational value for targeting ageing- or disease-associated hippocampal dysfunction. To be clear, the mice used in this study were not “drinking” blood: To assess whether human cord plasma revitalizes aspects of brain function, plasma pools were created from [human umbilical] cord, young adult, and elderly donors and injected intravenously into aged NSG mice every fourth day for 2 weeks. Additionally, these mice were not simply injected with a syringe of raw blood, but rather with purified versions that isolated specific chemicals from the blood: Cord (live umbilical venous collection at birth), young, and elderly blood was collected for the isolation of ethylenediaminetetraacetate (EDTA)-plasma under Stanford Institutional Review Board consent and approval … Isolated plasma was stored in aliquots at −80 °C until analysis or before pooling and dialysis to remove EDTA for treatment experiments where indicated. In her paper, Partridge made it clear that while such work was interesting, much work would need to be done to assess the viability of such a treatment in humans, arguing that “application to humans will require better biomarkers of disease risk and responses to interventions, closer alignment of work in animals and humans, and increased use of electronic health records, biobank resources and cohort studies.” Not to be dissuaded by this vitally important caveat, the Post and Sun articles attempted to muddy the waters further by linking the paper written by Partridge to the controversial, unpublished, and unrelated work of the Peter Thiel-backed company Ambrosia LLC, suggesting that Partridge’s work is part of Theil’s effort to inject humans with young blood to extend health and longevity: The research is part of a wave of studies and trials backed by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel at a San Francisco start-up called Ambrosia. Separate trials by Ambrosia involved 70 participants, all 35 or older. After being given plasma — the main component of blood — from volunteers ages 16 to 25, researchers noted improvements in biomarkers for various diseases. Ambrosia currently offers teenage blood plasma to customers at a cost of $8,000 for 2½ liters. First, Ambrosia LLC did not “back” Partridge’s study in any way. Via email, Partridge told us her study was not funded or connected to the Thiel-backed startup. Second, the “results” the Post and Sun story referenced with respect to Ambrosia were not taken from any actual published study, but from a talk the founder of Ambrosia gave at a TechCrunch conference in 2016. As such, it cannot be critically evaluated as scientific development at this time. The clinical trial run by Ambrosia LLC, which cost $8,000 to join, has been controversial in the scientific community for several reasons, most notably the fact that the study design lacked a control group. Arne Akbar, an immunologist at the University College London, argued to New Scientist in 2017 that “There is no telling what [results come] down to the placebo effect.” Derek Lowe, in a blog post for the Science Translational Medicine‘s “In The Pipeline” blog, expressed concerns about the demographics of the clinical trial, which he described as “shady”: A company called Ambrosia is signing up 600 patients 35 or older, running them through a battery of tests, and giving them a one-time infusion of young plasma. It will cost you $8000 to participate in this, which makes the whole thing seem suspiciously like a profit-making enterprise, and the design of the study makes it hard to say what’s going to be learned. There’s no control group, and the patients are apparently going to be a pretty heterogeneous bunch. The one thing they’ll have in common is that they have eight grand to spend.
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1619
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Science won't stop until it beats AIDS, says HIV pioneer.
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More than 30 years after she identified one of the most pernicious viruses to infect humankind, Francoise Barre Sinoussi, who shared a Nobel prize for discovering HIV, is hanging up her lab coat and retiring.
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true
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Health News
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She’s disappointed not to have been able to claim ultimate victory in the battle against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes the killer disease AIDS, but also proud that in three decades, the virus has been beaten into check. While a cure for AIDS may or may not be found in her lifetime, the 68-year-old says, achieving “remission” - where infected patients control HIV in their bodies and, crucially, can come off treatment for years - is definitely within reach. “I am personally convinced that remission...is achievable. When? I don’t know. But it is feasible,” she told Reuters at her laboratory at Paris’s Pasteur Institute, where she and her mentor Luc Montagnier discovered HIV in 1983. “We have ‘proof of concept’. We have...the famous Visconti patients, treated very early on. Now it is more than 10 years since they stopped their treatment and they are still doing very well, most of them.” Sinoussi is referring to a study group of 14 French patients known as the Visconti cohort, who started on antiretroviral treatment within 10 weeks of being infected and stayed on it for an average of three years. A decade after stopping the drugs, the majority have levels of HIV so low they are undetectable. These and other isolated cases of remission, or so-called “functional cure”, give hope to the 37 million people worldwide who, due to scientific progress, should now be able to live with, not have their lives cut short by, HIV. In developed countries at least - and in many poorer ones too - an HIV positive diagnosis is no longer an immediate death sentence, since patients can enjoy long, productive lives in decent health by taking antiretroviral drugs to control the virus. It’s a long way from the early 1980s, when Sinoussi remembers sick, dying HIV-positive patients coming to the doors of the Pasteur and pleading with scientists there for answers. “They asked us: ‘What we are going to do to cure us’,” she says. At that time, she says, she knew relatively little about HIV, but what she was sure of was that these patients would never live long enough to see a treatment developed, let alone a cure. “It was very, very hard.” Yet this interaction with real patients, and with their doctors and later their advocates, gave Sinoussi an important insight into what was needed to make her life in science one with meaning and impact — collaboration. Working across barriers - be they scientific disciplines, cultural, religious and political divides, international borders or gender distinctions, has been and remains Sinoussi’s driving force. In her earliest days, feeling disengaged while working on her PhD and itching for action in a real-life laboratory, she hustled her way in to working at the male-dominated Pasteur Institute for free with a virologist researching links between cancers and retroviruses in mice. While viruses are her thing, she has throughout her career worked with, cajoled and learned from immunologists, cancer specialists, experts in diseases of aging, pharmaceutical companies, AIDS patients, campaigners, and even the pope. “When you work in HIV, it’s not only working in HIV, it’s working far, far beyond,” she said. Freshly armed with her Nobel award and fired up about a lack of support for proven methods of preventing HIV’s spread, Sinoussi wrote an open letter to then-Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 criticising him for saying that condoms can promote the spread of AIDS. In what was widely seen as a modification of his stance in response to such criticism, Benedict said in a book a year later that use of condoms could sometimes be justified in certain limited cases as a way to fight AIDS. Sinoussi says: “HIV has shown the way to go in the field of science. You can’t be isolated in your laboratory. You need to work with others.” And this, she adds, is the “all together” spirit with which she advises her successors to continue after she’s gone. Many will be sad to see her leave, but she has faith that her chosen field will deliver for the people who need it. “Of course, I would love to have stopped and to see we had a vaccine against HIV and another treatment that could induce remission – but that’s life. I encourage the new generation of scientists today to continue our work. “Science never stops,” she says. “Just because a scientist stops, the science should not stop.”
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34405
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Pet food includes the rendered remains of euthanized cats and dogs.
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What's true: Drugs used to euthanize pets have been found in some pet foods, leading to rumors the product may include rendered dead cats and dogs. What's false: Definitive evidence proving the claim of rendered pets in pet food (such as DNA testing) is lacking.
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unproven
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Critter Country, contaminated pet food, pets
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Urban legends about pets are some of the most tenacious and reaction-provoking, prominent among them a long-held belief that pet food (particularly the cheapest brands) is made, in part, from the rendered euthanized remains of cats and dogs themselves: I have heard from a friend of mine (who heard it from her professors in college) that Old Roy can or once did pose a danger to dogs. According to what she head, Old Roy is made partially from Old Roy himself. That is, the dog food contains parts of euthanized dogs. Euthanasia drugs, of course, do not disperse or go inert, which is why when you have pets put down, you must have them cremated (at least that is what I am told). According to her source, several dogs had died from ingesting the drug in pet food. The origins of that belief are difficult to pin down. Like many rumors it tends to spike in popularity at seemingly random intervals, but one of its earliest and more prominent versions appeared around 1997 on a web page that has since vanished (although its text remains the basis for many versions of the rumor): In 1981 while Martin Zucker and I wrote the first of my two books, How to Have a Healthier Dog, we discovered the full extent of the negative effects of commercial pet foods of that time. Much more recently, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer John Eckhouse went even further with a two-part exposé entitled “Pet-Food Labels Baffle Consumers,” and (a good candidate for a horror movie title) “How Dogs and Cats Get Recycled Into Pet Food.” In the second article, published on February 19, 1990, Mr. Eckhouse, an investigative reporter, writes: “Each year, millions of dead American dogs and cats are processed along with billions of pounds of other animal materials by companies known as renderers. The finished products — tallow and meat meals — serve as raw materials for thousands of items that include cosmetics and pet food.” There were the usual denials by pet food executives. Yet federal and state agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration and medical groups such as the American Veterinary Medical Association and the California Veterinary Medical Association, confirm that pets, on a routine basis, are rendered after they die in animal shelters or are disposed of by health authorities, and the end product frequently finds its way into pet food … Now that the rendering companies are entities unto their own they can service many slaughterhouses, plus process any other animal remains that can be rendered. But first, to prevent the condemned meat from being rerouted and used for human consumption, government regulations require that the meat must be “denatured” before it is removed from the slaughterhouse. The denatured carcasses and other waste can then be transported to the rendering facility. Slate referenced the claim in a 2013& article, suggesting it could possibly be true due to a lack of stringent oversight of pet food manufacturers: There is essentially no federal enforcement of standards for the contents of pet food. FDA technically has authority, but the agency has passed this off to a set of partnerships and nongovernmental organizations that encourage mostly voluntary compliance with the few federal standards. The Association of American Feed Control Officials takes the lead in setting and maintaining standards, but it conducts no testing of food and has no enforcement authority … [E]ven California allows rendered pets to be processed and sold out of state for pet food as meat and bone meal. The city of Los Angeles alone sends about 200 tons of dead pets to a rendering plant each month. There is no inspection of pet food or meat and bone meal shipped in from other states. Many pet food manufacturers, including [a] site run by a pet food industry group, say that they are not using rendered pets to make a cannibal of your dog. But how would they really know? There is no simple way to look at a shipment of meat and bone meal and tell exactly what species are in the mix. The protein percentage of a load of cats and dogs looks basically the same as a shipment of carcasses from a poultry farm. The rendering industry gets very vague about what is in meat and bone meal, even in otherwise highly technical documents. Much of the evidence offered to corroborate the presence of dead pets in pet food can be traced back to a photograph of indeterminate origin (which is graphic) and an undated video news report from Seattle television station KING. In that video, former Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) president Hersh Pendell also states that it’s impossible to tell exactly what’s in rendered meat (but doesn’t say it necessarily includes dog or cat carcasses): Plants that collect their raw materials from a variety of offsite sources are called independent rendering plants. Independent plants obtain animal by-product materials, including grease, blood, feathers, offal, and entire animal carcasses, from the following sources: butcher shops, supermarkets, restaurants, fast-food chains, poultry processors, slaughterhouses, farms, ranches, feedlots, and animal shelters. The mention of the term “animal shelters” as one source of material for rendering plants again suggests the possibility that cats and dogs are being rendered, but many shelters also take in a variety of other species (including ones more typically consumed by humans and their pets), such as chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, goats, and various farm animals. Some versions of the rumor stem from legitimate instances in which pet food has been recalled over the presence of pentobarbital (a drug whose uses include the euthanization of companion animals), a situation which occurred in February 2017. However, that particular mishap (which resulted in the death of at least one dog) was attributed to contaminated beef and not to the presence of rendered dogs or cats in pet food. A risk assessment issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on 28 February 2002 addressed reports that pentobarbital might be losing its effectiveness as an anesthetizing agent for dogs and other animals because they were being exposed to it through its presence in pet foods: The low levels of exposure to sodium pentobarbital (pentobarbital) that dogs might receive through food is unlikely to cause them any adverse health effects, Food and Drug Administration scientists concluded after conducting a risk assessment. During the 1990s, FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) received reports from veterinarians that pentobarbital, an anesthetizing agent used for dogs and other animals, seemed to be losing its effectiveness in dogs. Based on these reports, CVM officials decided to investigate a plausible theory that the dogs were exposed to pentobarbital through dog food, and that this exposure was making them less responsive to pentobarbital when it was used as a drug. The investigation consisted of two parts. First, CVM had to determine if dog food could contain residues of the drug. Second, if residues were found, the Center had to determine what risk, if any, the residues posed to dogs. In conjunction with this investigation, the Center wanted to determine if pet food contained rendered remains of dogs and cats. The FDA assessment noted that “pentobarbital is routinely used to euthanize animals [so] the most likely way it could get into dog food would be in rendered animal products” and that “[pentobarbital] seems to be able to survive the rendering process,” leading that agency to posit that euthanized companion animals could be posing a contamination risk if they were being rendered into pet foods. However, although the FDA in their investigation of pet foods “found [that] some samples contained pentobarbital,” they found no evidence of cat or dog DNA in those samples and suggested the more likely source of pentobarbital in pet foods was rendered cattle or horses: Because pentobarbital is used to euthanize dogs and cats at animal shelters, finding pentobarbital in rendered feed ingredients could suggest that the pets were rendered and used in pet food. [S]cientists, as part of their investigation, developed a test to detect dog and cat DNA in the protein of the dog food. All samples from the most recent dog food survey (2000) that tested positive for pentobarbital, as well as a subset of samples that tested negative, were examined for the presence of remains derived from dogs or cats. The results demonstrated a complete absence of material that would have been derived from euthanized dogs or cats. The sensitivity of this method is 0.005% on a weight/weight basis; that is, the method can detect a minimum of 5 pounds of rendered remains in 50 tons of finished feed. Presently, it is assumed that the pentobarbital residues are entering pet foods from euthanized, rendered cattle or even horses. In February 2018, the J.M. Smucker Co. withdrew shipments of several brands of dog foods amid reports that the product was tainted with pentobarbital. How the drug might have entered the pet food supply chain was unknown, but the company said they were “focusing on a single supplier of a minor ingredient used at one manufacturing facility.” Although advances in DNA testing have made it much easier to detect the possible presence of material derived from euthanized dogs or cats in pet foods, we have turned no reports documenting anyone’s finding that to be the case. Despite two decades of sustained interest in this rumor, as far as we know the most affirmative conclusion reached by those who have investigated this claim is that “we can’t prove this isn’t happening.”
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2687
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UK scientists say find cheap, fast gene test method.
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British scientists say they have developed a way of pinpointing variations in a person’s genetic code using a chemical test on saliva, meaning quick, cheap DNA tests for risks of certain diseases may be around the corner.
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true
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Science News
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Researchers at Edinburgh University said their technique, based on chemical analysis, can deliver reliable results without the need for expensive enzymes used in conventional DNA testing. Juan Diaz-Mochon of the university’s School of Chemistry, who led the research, said the chemical method was able to detect genes linked to cystic fibrosis in laboratory experiments using synthetic DNA. With funding from commercial partners and the Scottish Enterprise fund, he said his team planned to market a cystic fibrosis test very soon and then run further research to see if the same method could be used to decode entire human genomes. “We’re hoping to bring the first test for cystic fibrosis to the market within five months,” he told Reuters. “With the scientific data we already have, we believe we can develop this test further and in different ways.” Tests which identify tiny variations or omissions in DNA code are increasingly being developed and marketed as ways of determining whether or not a person is healthy, susceptible to disease, or has a disease or serious risks of developing one. Cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening inherited disease in which internal organs such as the lungs and digestive system become clogged with thick sticky mucus, is one of a small number of diseases caused by a single, identifiable faulty gene. Companies around the world are racing to develop ever faster and cheaper gene sequencing techniques to offer scientists and drug developers swifter routes mapping whole genomes. U.S. firm Illumina launched its latest genome sequencing tool, HiSeq 2000, in January and challenges rivals at Life Technologies, Roche, Affymetrix, Agilent Technologies and Helicos BioSciences. Experts say the “holy grail” for such firms is to be able to decode a person’s entire genetic sequence for $1,000. Diaz-Mochon said the his chemical method would offer a “speedy, cost-efficient alternative” to existing DNA analysis. “The market for DNA testing is quickly expanding as it becomes more affordable. Our method could help reach the goal of complete genome analysis in a few hours for less than $1,000,” he said in a commentary about the study, which was published in the journal Angewandte Chemie and funded by Scottish Enterprise. Mark Bradley, who also worked on the study, said the team planned to extend their collaborations with researchers and companies working in DNA “and establish our first commercial operations within the next six months.”
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8022
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Nigeria orders 14-day cessation of movement in Lagos, Abuja to fight coronavirus.
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Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday ordered the cessation of movement in Lagos and the capital Abuja for 14 days in an attempt to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
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true
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Health News
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Nigeria has 97 confirmed cases, most of which have been in its two main cities. Buhari said the restrictions would begin at 11 p.m. (2200 GMT) on Monday, March 30. He said the measures would also apply to Ogun State, which neighbors Lagos State. Health experts are concerned about the potential for a widespread outbreak in a country which has around 200 million inhabitants and a poor public health system. The president’s televised speech marked his first major address to the nation since Nigeria’s first confirmed coronavirus case was announced in late February. Buhari said he was “directing the cessation of all movements” in Lagos, Abuja and Ogun for an “initial period” of 14 days. “All citizens in these areas are to stay in their homes. Travel to or from other states should be postponed. All businesses and offices within these locations should be fully closed during this period,” Buhari said. The 77-year-old president, whose chief of staff last week tested positive for the highly infectious disease, said the “containment period” would be used to identify, trace and isolate all individuals that have come into contact with confirmed cases. “We will ensure the treatment of confirmed cases while restricting further spread to other states,” he said. Buhari said the restriction would not apply to hospitals and in health care facilities related to manufacturing and distribution. Late on Sunday, long queues started to form at supermarkets in Lagos and Abuja. Buhari acknowledged that the restrictions may make it hard for people to feed themselves in a country where most people live on less than $2 a day. “We are fully aware that such measures will cause much hardship and inconvenience to many citizens. But this is a matter of life and death,” he said. Buhari added that “relief materials” would be distributed to communities around the states affected, but did not give further details. Lagos, the powerhouse of Africa’s biggest economy and the country’s commercial capital of some 20 million people, began a seven-day partial shutdown late last week. The global coronavirus outbreak has already torpedoed Africa’s biggest economy through its impact on major trade partner China, where the pandemic began. Amid low oil prices caused by a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, Nigeria earlier this month devalued its currency and said it must cut this year’s budget by $4.9 billion.
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14461
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We understand that this heroin is primarily coming from Mexico, over the border.
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Portman said that heroin is coming to the United States primarily from Mexico. He hasn’t been studying drug facts for nothing.
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true
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Ohio, Drugs, Rob Portman,
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"Ohio Sen. Rob Portman has been busy in Washington touting the Comprehensive Addiction Recovery Act in response to a shocking number of heroin overdoses in Ohio. The bill just passed in the Senate, 94-1. (Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse was the sole ""nay,"" saying he believes that fighting addiction is a local issue.) Ohio ranks high on the list of states reeling from the national epidemic. In Montgomery County, which encompasses Dayton, Ohio, heroin-related deaths increased 225 percent between 2011 and 2015. Back in the 1970s, the heroin on U.S. streets was the ""black tar"" variety, and much of it came from southeast Asia. In 2010, 80 percent of the heroin in the world came from poppy fields in Afghanistan, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. So when Portman said that most of the heroin in America comes from Mexico’s border, we were skeptical. Portman, it turns out, has done his homework. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s National Drug Threat Assessment of 2015 says that Mexico is the primary supplier of heroin to the United States. ""Southeast Asia was once the dominant supplier of heroin in the United States, but Southeast Asian heroin is now rarely detected in U.S. markets,"" the report state. ""Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Colombia dominate the U.S. heroin market, because of their proximity, established transportation and distribution infrastructure, and ability to satisfy U.S. heroin demand."" The report also says that Mexican ""transnational criminal organizations,"" (the DEA’s term for drug-dealing gangs) ""pose the greatest criminal drug threat to the United States; no other group is currently positioned to challenge them."" The National Drug Threat report notes that Colombian gangs were traditionally the suppliers of wholesale cocaine and heroin to Mexican and Dominican groups. But cartels in Mexico are ramping up their roles on the supply side -- opium production in Mexico increased by 50 percent in 2014. Mexican labs also produce fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller that is 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine. Fentanyl is sometimes mixed with heroin or substituted for heroin, and the DEA reports more than 700 overdoses attributed to fentanyl between late 2013 and early 2015. Drugs get past the U.S. borders mostly ""by land, not by sea,"" said Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, in the same March 8 hearing with Portman. And a 2015 Washington Post series on the surge of heroin puts the border detection rate at a scant 1.5 percent. Smugglers’ creativity defies gravity: One successful bust came when agents caught two men flying a drone carrying 28 pounds of heroin from Mexico to California. Our ruling Portman said that heroin is coming to the United States primarily from Mexico. He hasn’t been studying drug facts for nothing."
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9443
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Study Raises Questions About Stents in Some Heart Patients
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This Wall Street Journal story describes surprising news that a very common procedure– inserting a stent to open a blocked blood vessel — does not add benefit over medication in patients with angina. Angina is chest pain due to blocked heart arteries, and is common among people with heart disease. One strength of the story is the detailed description of the study itself and in finding outside sources to critique aspects of the study. We do think the cost of the procedure was worth discussion, as well as the potential harms, but they were not addressed in this story. These points were raised in the New York Times story, which we also reviewed. Heart disease is still the leading killer of Americans so any news about treating aspects of heart disease, such as blocked arteries, is newsworthy. In addition, this story suggests that stenting — common, but expensive — is a prime example of over-treatment.
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true
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angina,heart disease,stent
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The story does not mention the cost of stent insertion, which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. The story describes the main outcome measure — how long subjects could exercise on a treadmill before experiencing pain — and the change in exercise duration — a 28 second improvement after stent insertion versus 12 second improvement after sham surgery. Readers are told that no statistical difference exists between those averages. The story does not mention harms of the procedure, which should be a factor in weighing the risks and benefits of any intervention. The story describes the study’s size and methods and goes into some depth about how the sham procedure can control for placebo effects. Limitations were discussed, as well. The story also provides some critiques from outside sources, including the fact that study subjects, with only one major blockage, do not represent the majority of patients to whom doctors recommend stents. No disease mongering here. It was good to see the story discuss the concerns around over-use of stents. The story quotes one of the study authors and authors of an accompanying commentary in the journal, The Lancet. The reporter also sought comment from stent makers, who were mostly critical of the study — but these potential conflicts were made clear to readers. The story, in describing the study, makes clear that management of angina pain with medication is equally effective in these kinds of patients. The story makes clear that stent insertion is widely available and frequently done. The story makes clear that what is novel about this research is the use of a placebo group whose participants underwent procedures but didn’t receive a stent. The story goes well beyond what is contained in the news release from the host institution, Imperial College.
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29858
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R&B singer Avant was diagnosed with a terminal condition in March 2019 and was told he has only six months to live.
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Furthermore, when we reached out to Avant’s representatives at TWM Management, they told us that “It’s false statement, a rumor a fan started that has gotten out of control, no rep from our camp has made any statement.”
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false
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Junk News
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In mid-March 2019, a rumor began to circulate on social media holding that R&B singer Myron Avant had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and had only six months to live. This unfounded gossip, which was largely shared via text posts on Facebook, included a statement reportedly released by Avant’s public relations representative: We are sad to report that R&B singer, Avant, has been given only six months to live. According to close sources to then singer, he has been battling a terminal illness that the singer wants to keep private. Avant contracted the terminal disease about 8 years ago and it has taken a toll on his overall health. Avant’s public relations representative did release a statement on his behalf concerning the condition of Avant’s health: “I would like to thank all my fans for their tremendous support. I have lived my life to the fullest and I have given my life to God and I do not fear what’s in store for me. My doctors have given me about six months to live and during this time, I plan on making my transition as smooth as possible while spending time with family and friends. I’ve made my time here on the Earth a good one and I hope that my music continues to live on. One love.” This was not a genuine news story about Avant, and the statement quoted above did not come from his public relations team. The earliest iteration of this rumor that we could uncover was posted to the “satire” website “Most Shocking” (located at GenoBreaker.com) on 15 March 2019. Another such website with a strange domain name, IFRsolutions.com, shared a verbatim copy of this story on the same date. Both of these sites carried disclaimers labeling their content as fiction, but we’d like to showcase IFRsolutions’ disclaimer below, as it may be the smallest disclaimer we’ve ever encountered: For those without a magnifying glass, the disclaimer reads: “THE STORIES POSTED ON URBANINDUSTRYNEWS.COM ARE FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. THE STORIES MAY MIMIC ARTICLES FOUND IN THE HEADLINES, BUT REST ASSURED THEY ARE PURELY SATIRICAL.” We could not find this story on UrbandIndustryNews.com, which is another website with an unusually small disclaimer. Regardless of where this story originated, it is junk news. For one thing, if Avant’s public relations team truly put out a statement about their client’s health, they likely would have posted it to Avant’s official social media profiles or website. However, while Avant has been active on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram in the days since this rumor started circulating, we found no mention of any health problems posted to his accounts on those platforms.
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6081
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Sankey talks link between sports gambling, mental health.
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Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey considers the mental health of athletes an important issue to be considered when it comes to legalized betting on college sports.
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true
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Georgia, Mental health, College football, Sports, College sports, Gambling, Alabama, Health, Football
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Sankey opened the league’s media days Monday with plenty to say about sports gambling and continuing efforts to improve football officiating before yielding the podium to coaches talking about their hopes and concerns for the season. He focused on weighty off-the-field matters instead of whether Alabama, Georgia or some other SEC team might contend for the national title. Those concerns include possibly placing another element of pressure on athletes. “We’re seeing trends in the mental health area that should cause us all to pause before these ideas around specific event betting within college sports are allowed to take place,” he said. “And I’m talking about, for example, whether a field goal is made or missed, whether a 3-point try is successful. Is a pitched ball a strike or a ball? “That pause should happen before any of these types of activities take place.” He said mental health is an issue athletes now bring up in every meeting, replacing such near-universal student issues as limited campus parking. “The perspectives on mental health represent not a ripple of change, but a wave of new reality, which faces all of us in intercollegiate athletics and higher education,” Sankey said. Legalized sports gambling in some states — including in SEC country — also will be a new reality. A Supreme Court ruling in May 2018 cleared all 50 states to offer legal sports betting if they choose to. Sankey’s take remains that “it may be ideal for us not to experience any expansion in sports gambling.” But that’s beyond his control. “The SEC presidents and chancellors have expressed strong support for NCAA national office efforts to seek federal legislation that will regulate sports gambling,” Sankey said. “Ideally, there would be uniformed practices applicable across states throughout the country governing gambling on college sports, particularly eliminating specific in-game betting and proposition belts on college sports.” That was among the topics Sankey addressed to start the four-day event, which returned to suburban Birmingham after being held in Atlanta last year. It returns to Atlanta next year and moves to Nashville in 2021. Missouri coach Barry Odom — and graduate transfer quarterback Kelly Bryant — Florida’s Dan Mullen and LSU’s Ed Orgeron also addressed the media on Monday. They certainly have a vested interest in another one of Sankey’s primary topics: Football officiating. The SEC hired international accounting firm Deloitte to conduct a review of its football officiating, a reaction to the critical attention placed on officials by fans and media. Not to mention coaches. Sankey said officiating crews are set to make two-day trips to each school’s preseason football camp, sitting in on position meetings and talking rules with coaches and players. The SEC is adding a sideline monitor so that game officials can review a play and talk to the on-site replay officials and those monitoring from the SEC offices. “We also learned something interesting, and that is both our head coaches and our officials want to improve the working relationship,” Sankey said. ___ More AP college football: https://apnews.com/Collegefootball and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25
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5236
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Rhode Island awarded federal funding for addiction treatment.
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Rhode Island has been awarded nearly $3.5 million in federal funding for addiction treatment.
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true
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Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse, Opioids, Addiction treatment, Health, General News, Medicare, Medicaid
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The state’s congressional delegation announced the grant from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It’s meant to increase the treatment capacity of Medicaid providers for substance use disorder treatment and recovery services. U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, says the funding will help ensure services are there when needed. Whitehouse, who wrote a 2016 law to guide the federal response to the opioid epidemic, says no patient who wants help should be turned away. Behavioral health providers will receive telemedicine services and technical assistance in billing and administration. The grant will also allow Rhode Island to recruit and train new providers. There were 314 overdose deaths in Rhode Island in 2018.
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5772
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Gene-edited baby claim by Chinese scientist sparks outrage.
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Scientists and bioethics experts reacted with shock, anger and alarm Monday to a Chinese researcher’s claim that he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies.
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true
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Bioethics, Hong Kong, Genetic Frontiers , Health, AP Top News, China, Science, Asia Pacific, U.S. News, International News
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He Jiankui of Southern University of Science and Technology of China said he altered the DNA of twin girls born earlier this month to try to help them resist possible future infection with the AIDS virus — a dubious goal, ethically and scientifically. There is no independent confirmation of what He says he did, and it has not been published in a journal where other experts could review it. He revealed it Monday in Hong Kong where a gene editing conference is getting underway, and previously in exclusive interviews with The Associated Press. Reaction to the claim was swift and harsh. More than 100 scientists signed a petition calling for greater oversight on gene editing experiments. The university where He is based said it will hire experts to investigate, saying the work “seriously violated academic ethics and standards.” A spokesman for He said he has been on leave from teaching since early this year but remains on the faculty and has a lab at the university. Authorities in Shenzhen, the city where He’s lab is situated, also launched an investigation. And Rice University in the United States said it will investigate the involvement of physics professor Michael Deem. This sort of gene editing is banned in the U.S., though Deem said he worked with He on the project in China. “Regardless of where it was conducted, this work as described in press reports violates scientific conduct guidelines and is inconsistent with ethical norms of the scientific community and Rice University,” the school said in a statement. Gene editing is a way to rewrite DNA, the code of life, to try to supply a missing gene that is needed or disable one that is causing problems. It has only recently been tried in adults to treat serious diseases. Editing eggs, sperm or embryos is different, because it makes permanent changes that can pass to future generations. Its risks are unknown, and leading scientists have called for a moratorium on its use except in lab studies until more is learned. They include Feng Zhang and Jennifer Doudna, inventors of a powerful but simple new tool called CRISPR-cas9 that reportedly was used on the Chinese babies during fertility treatments when they were conceived. “Not only do I see this as risky, but I am also deeply concerned about the lack of transparency” around the work, Zhang, a scientist at MIT’s Broad Institute, said in a statement. Medical advances need to be openly discussed with patients, doctors, scientists and society, he said. Doudna, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley and one of the Hong Kong conference organizers, said that He met with her Monday to tell her of his work, and that she and others plan to let him speak at the conference Wednesday as originally planned. “None of the reported work has gone through the peer review process,” and the conference is aimed at hashing out important issues such as whether and when gene editing is appropriate, she said. Doudna is paid by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Zhang receives grant support from the organization, which also supports AP’s Health & Science Department. Another conference leader, Harvard Medical School dean Dr. George Daley, said he worries about other scientists trying this in the absence of regulations or a ban. “I would be concerned if this initial report opened the floodgates to broader practice,” Daley said. Notre Dame Law School professor O. Carter Snead, a former presidential adviser on bioethics, called the report “deeply troubling, if true.” “No matter how well intentioned, this intervention is dangerous, unethical, and represents a perilous new moment in human history,” he wrote in an email. “These children, and their children’s children, have had their futures irrevocably changed without consent, ethical review or meaningful deliberation.” Concerns have been raised about how He says he proceeded, and whether participants truly understood the potential risks and benefits before signing up to attempt pregnancy with edited embryos. He says he began the work in 2017, but he only gave notice of it earlier this month on a Chinese registry of clinical trials. The secrecy concerns have been compounded by lack of proof for his claims. He has said the parents involved declined to be identified or interviewed, and he would not say where they live or where the work was done. One independent expert even questioned whether the claim could be a hoax. Deem, the Rice scientist who says he took part in the work, called that ridiculous. “Of course the work occurred,” Deem said. “I met the parents. I was there for the informed consent of the parents.” ___ Marilynn Marchione can be followed at @MMarchioneAP ___ This Associated Press series was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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20636
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"Patrick Johnston Says abortion is ""the most common surgery in our country."
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Leader of personhood issue claims abortion the most common surgery in the country
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false
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Abortion, Ohio, Patrick Johnston,
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"Nearly four decades after the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case legalized abortion, it remains an emotionally-charged debate. It was against that backdrop that Dr. Patrick Johnston, the director of Personhood Ohio and a leader of the effort to get the so-called ""Personhood"" issue on the Ohio ballot, began his remarks on Cleveland public radio on Jan. 30 with a statement. At the outset of his remarks, Johnston referred to abortion as ""the most common surgery in our country."" The statement became the launching point for the Zanesville-area doctor to make his case that abortions have become too routine and for why Ohioans should back a rewriting of the Ohio Constitution so that a fertilized egg is defined as a person -- a change that effectively would outlaw abortion. Johnston’s claim seemed like the kind of straightforward assertion that Politifact Ohio can dig into while steering clear of the moral questions that surround the divisive issue. We began by checking with Johnston to see where he got his numbers on abortion, and the frequency of other procedures. He directed us to the website for the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research and policy analysis group, as the source for his abortion numbers—they count about 1.21 million abortions in 2008. He also pointed us to several websites for gall bladder surgery, which assert that the procedure is one of the most common surgeries in the United States with about 500,000 patients a year. The Guttmacher Institute numbers for abortions were much higher than those we found from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which reported about 828,000 abortions in 2007. However, the CDC numbers are based on reports from state health departments and do not include abortions done in California, Maryland and New Hampshire — three states where the reporting of abortions is apparently voluntary. Rebecca Wind, a spokeswoman with the Guttmacher Institute, said her group’s numbers include all 50 states and are based on actively surveying abortion providers rather than pulling data from state health department reports. Over the past several years, the Guttmacher Institute’s estimated number of abortions in the United States have basically held steady going from 1,206,200 in 2005 to 1,212,350 in 2008. But are there more common forms of surgery? The federal CDC keeps close tabs on what people are discharged from hospitals for based on a pair of national annual surveys, one for inpatient and one for outpatient clients. By far, the most common form of surgery in 2006 was eye surgery for cataracts. There were about 5.63 million eye surgeries that involved either removing or replacing the eye lens, according to the 2006 National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery (the latest outpatient survey available). There were about 1.4 million endoscopic polypectomies, which involves the removal of presumed pre-cancerous lesions such as polyps on the colon, according to the outpatient numbers. Meanwhile, there were about 1.34 million Caesarean sections where the fetus is delivered by cutting open the pregnant woman’s abdomen, according to the 2007 National Hospital Discharge Survey (the latest inpatient survey available). Abortion would rank fourth behind that trio in most common surgeries. But are they all examples of surgery or could they be considered just medical procedures? We spoke with Dr. Lisa Keder, an obstetrician and associate professor with the Ohio State University Medical Center, and she said that while the term surgery isn’t strictly defined, the way that patients are billed for medical procedures reflects whether it is officially considered ""surgery."" Keder said that eye operations, endoscopic polypectomies, C-sections and abortions are all coded for billing purposes as surgeries. Additionally, we should note here that because so many people go to the hospital for medical procedures -- almost 45 million inpatient procedures were done on 34.4 million people in 2007 in the United States -- that virtually every type of surgery on a human system when classified broadly was much more common than abortions. There were, for example, 6.94 million heart operations, but no specific procedure more than the 1.06 million cardiac catheterizations. So if you classify surgeries in broad terms, abortions tumble much farther than No. 4 on the most common surgeries list. Johnston , while trying to make his case that abortion has become too routine, told a Cleveland radio audience that abortion was ""the most common surgery in this country."" He’s not even close. The most comprehensive abortions statistics show about 1.21 million abortions a year in the United States. But annual surveys show there are about 5.63 million eye surgeries involving the removal or replacement of the lens in the eye. That procedure occurs more than four times as often as abortion. And abortion didn’t rank No. 2 or No. 3. There were about 1.4 million cases where presumed per-cancerous polyps were removed from inside a patient’s body the year of the most recent outpatient survey numbers available. Meanwhile, a procedure that is common among women who are giving birth -- a Caesarean section -- occured more frequently that year than did abortion. On the Truth-O-Meter, Johnston’s claim rates ."
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38547
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General Mills has issued a massive recall for Gold Medal Flour because a suspected E. coli outbreak.
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General Mills Gold Medal Flour Recall.
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true
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Business, Food / Drink, Health / Medical
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It’s true that General Mills voluntarily recalled 10 million pounds of flour across 20 states on May 31, 2016. In a statement, General Mills said it had voluntarily recalled flour sold under its Gold Medal, Gold Medal Wondra and Signature Kitchen brands after 38 cases of illness from E. coli contamination: State and federal authorities have been researching 38 occurrences of illnesses across 20 states related to a specific type of E. coli (E. coli O121), between December 21, 2015, and May 3, 2016. While attempting to track the cause of the illness, CDC found that approximately half of the individuals reported making something homemade with flour at some point prior to becoming ill. Some reported using a General Mills brand of flour. Based on the information that has been shared with General Mills, some of the ill consumers may have also consumed raw dough or batter. Consumers are reminded to not consume any raw products made with flour. Flour is an ingredient that comes from milling wheat, something grown outdoors that carries with it risks of bacteria which are rendered harmless by baking, frying or boiling. Consumers are reminded to wash their hands, work surfaces, and utensils thoroughly after contact with raw dough products or flour, and to never eat raw dough or batter. General Mills recalled 13.5-ounce Gold Medal Wondra flour; 2-pound, 5-pound and 10-pound packages of Gold Medal All Purpose Flour; 5-pound packages of Gold Medal unbleached flour; 5-pound packages of Signature Kitchens All Purpose Flour Enriched Bleach; 5-pound packages of Signature Kitchens Unbleached Flour; and 2-pound packages of Gold Medal self-rising flour. Click here to contact General Mills directly about the flour recall. Comments
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2655
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Fitting fitness inside the cubicle.
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Whether your office is in the business district or on the dining room table, sitting immobile for hours in front of a computer screen is at odds with the fit body.
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true
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Health News
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So fitness experts and entrepreneurs are thinking outside the box to transform the cubicle from sedentary prison to multitasking work and workout space. “We’ve made Americans fat by putting them in cubicles,” said Steve Bordley, CEO of TrekDesk. His solution is a workstation designed to fit over a treadmill. “There’s an obesity issue in every developed country, including China. Anywhere they’re sitting,” said Bordley, from his treadmill desk during the telephone interview. Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, Bordley said he developed TrekDesk after a leg injury in 2008 crimped his active lifestyle. “I couldn’t run anymore so I started experimenting with a treadmill,” said Bordley. “An epiphany occurred: Walking is a pretty powerful exercise. My back problems went away, I lost 26 pounds (11.8 kgs) and I slept great.” The daily goal for healthy adults in a walking program is 10,000 steps, according to the American College of Sports Medicine. Most sedentary adults walk less than 5,000. Multitasking work and workout is in our genes, according to Bordley, who said he’s already sold thousands of his product around the world. “We’ve evolved over millions of years to be moving through the wilderness while hunting game. Our body was designed around that movement,” he said. “It’s the people who sit all day who have to fight lethargy.” When it comes to doing her paperwork, Minneapolis-based personal trainer and group fitness instructor Chris Freytag prefers to stand. “I’m totally in love with my standing workstation,” she said. “The treadmill desk is a great concept, but it’s large. I would probably put mine in my basement and I’m not going to work in the basement.” As chair of the Board of Directors for the American Council on Exercise (ACE), Freytag is acutely aware of the need to move, even while forced to spend a lot of time at her desk. For her the beauty of the standing workstation lies in its mobility. “You can pull it into the family room or wheel it around the house,” she said. “It’s user-friendly and accessible and it literally changed my life.” She said just standing keeps her motivated and burns an extra calorie a minute. For those on a tight budget, Dr. Cedric Bryant, ACE’s chief science officer, has another solution. “Invest on a headset,” he said. “I handle all phone calls while standing or pacing.” He said getting outside the building is a growing corporate trend, and he holds as many standing, walking, or off-site meetings as he can. “Another strategy would be to set your scheduling device to remind you to get out and move for five minutes on the hour,” Bryant said. Personal trainer and wellness expert Shirley Archer, the author of “Fitness 9 to 5,” recommends stashing light dumbbells under your desk, or keeping resistance bands in your drawer. “Anyone who sits at a computer is going to have issues over time,” said Archer, a former Wall Street lawyer. “Life used to be more challenging. We don’t even push doors open anymore.”
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265
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Reckitt to pay $1.4 billion to end U.S. opioid addiction treatment probes.
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Reckitt Benckiser has agreed to pay up to $1.4 billion to resolve U.S. claims that its former pharmaceuticals business Indivior before it was spun out of the company carried out an illegal scheme to boost sales of an opioid addiction treatment.
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true
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Health News
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The settlement, the largest by any company related to the U.S. opioid epidemic, resolved long-running probes by the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission into the companies’ marketing and sales of Suboxone Film. The deal came after Indivior in April was indicted and accused of deceiving doctors and healthcare benefit programs into believing Suboxone Film, itself a form of opioid, was safer and less susceptible to abuse than similar drugs. The indictment said Indivior also used an internet and telephone program touted as a resource for opioid-addicted patients to connect them to doctors it knew were prescribing Suboxone and other opioids at high rates and in suspect circumstances. The Justice Department said the scheme began before Indivior spun out of Reckitt in 2014 and resulted in thousands of opioid-addicted patients using the drug. Opioids, including prescription painkillers and heroin, played a role in a record 47,600 U.S. overdose deaths in 2017, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said. Reckitt was not indicted like Indivior, but the department last year joined several whistleblower lawsuits alleging the British company improperly marketed the drug. As part of Thursday’s settlement, Reckitt entered into a non-prosecution agreement and agreed to pay nearly $1.35 billion to resolve the Justice Department’s criminal and civil claims. It will also pay $50 million to resolve FTC claims that it engaged in anticompetitive activities aimed at impeding competition from generic versions of Suboxone. Reckitt said in a statement that it “acted lawfully at all times and expressly denies all allegations that it engaged in any wrongful conduct.” But it said its board had decided the settlement was in the company’s best interests. Slough, England-based Indivior has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges. In a statement, it acknowledged Reckitt’s settlement but said it had no new information on the case. Its trial in federal court in Abingdon, Virginia is set for May. (GRAPHIC - Reckitt gains in value after Indivior spin-off: tmsnrt.rs/2NPlAJJ) Shares in Reckitt, whose products range from Mucinex cold medicine and Lysol cleaners, closed up 2.5%. While the settlement is significantly higher than the $400 million that the consumer goods group had set aside to cover the cost of the investigations, analysts said it could allow the company’s new chief executive to focus on a turnaround plan. In an effort to regain investor confidence after setbacks including a safety scandal in South Korea, a failed product launch and a cyber attack, Reckitt’s outgoing boss Rakesh Kapoor launched a plan to split the group into two business units – one for health and one for hygiene and home products. Investors had feared the U.S. probes could hinder the transformation. Analysts at JP Morgan wrote in a note that settlement “clarifies the legal environment for RB and should allow the new management to focus on the RB 2.0 transformation.” While welcoming the settlement, AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said the cost could limit incoming CEO Laxman Narasimhan’s ability to undertake much-needed investment in Reckitt’s brands. “The danger is that Narasimhan will be operating with one hand tied behind his back,” he said. The company said it would increase its provision related to the investigations to $1.5 billion to cover both the cost of the settlement and “any remaining litigation exposures.” It said the deal would be funded through existing borrowing facilities and cash generation. Separately, Indivior also raised its full-year profit and revenue guidance after Suboxone lost market share at a slower pace than expected. Its shares closed 6.73% higher.
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10531
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Mammogram benefits more modest than doctors thought
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However, it does not explain to readers what is new or different about this study compared to earlier reports. Also, the final word in the story goes to an expert who touts benefits of mammography screening that clash with what was seen in this study. By comparing this story with, for example, the Philadelphia Inquirer and WebMD stories, you see how some of the gaps we’ve identified were addressed by competitors, giving readers a more complete and helpful story.
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true
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The story does not mention the cost of mammography (or of follow up tests and treatments) to the individual, or, collectively, to society. And these costs are substantial. Based on the results of this study, 2,500 women would have to be screened every other year for a decade in order to prevent one death from breast cancer. As the story points out, during that same time 1,000 of those women would have at least one false alarm and 500 would undergo an unnecessary biopsy, thus adding to the price tag. On balance, this story does a fair job of describing the benefits of screening mammography as seen in this study. It reports the apparent 10 percent reduction in breast cancer deaths, while also pointing out that because relatively few women in the 50-69 age group die of breast cancer, that reduction can also be described as cutting the 10-year risk of death from 4.4 per 1,000 women to 4 per 1,000. The second statistic helps counteract popular assumptions about how many middle-aged women die from breast cancer. However, the framing of a story – and who gets the last word – sometimes overwhelms evidence-based explanations earlier in the story. That almost happened with this story, which gives the final word to an advocate of annual breast cancer screening for all women beginning by age 40, which is just the sort of blanket recommendation this latest study calls into question. The story includes a comment that because mammograms detect lumps that would not have become life-threatening, five to 15 women may be treated for every one whose life is saved by treatment. The story oversimplifies the methods used by researchers, saying they compared “women who were similar in most ways, except that one group received mammograms and the other didn’t,” without explaining that this was not a randomized trial where some women were assigned to screening and others weren’t, but rather an observational study that looked at data on women during a 9-year period when Norway phased in mammography region by region. The story does alert readers to some of the limitations of the study: one, that a longer follow-up period might have shown more benefit to screening and, two, that the researchers had no information on whether any of the women received mammograms outside of the national screening program. It’s a tossup for us to grade and, as we do in most such cases, we’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt.
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11581
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‘Electronic Nose’ Sniffs Out Asthma
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The new test looks for volatile organic compounds that are presumably uniquely exhaled by people with asthma. When used in combination with a somewhat standard test, the new process may provide somewhat greater ability to diagnose asthma. The story rightly notes the study was conducted in a small number of subjects and is far from definitive. Would that more stories could resist the temptation to gush about new medical gadgets before their benefits are proven. Asthma is a relatively common disease that appears to be increasing in its frequency. In its classic form, asthma is relatively easy to diagnose. However many patients present with atypical symptoms and require more extensive testing, including provocative testing with methacholine, for an accurate diagnosis. An easy-to-use, non-invasive and definitive test would be an advantage for many patients .
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true
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"Since this device is experimental, we can accept the fact that the story didn’t put a specific price tag on the technology. The story did note that cost might limit initial use of the device. The story tells us the percentage of asthma patients who were correctly diagnosed by the electronic nose, fractional exhaled nitric oxide, and spirometry. It provided this data in absolute terms and didn’t muddy the waters with relative comparisons of the three techniques. Although the study data by itself might suggest that the new device is superior to the other methods, the comments from the expert sources put the results in the appropriate context. They make it clear that we can’t tell yet whether this technology represents a better option than existing techniques. Although there appears to be little risk of harm from the new testing procedure itself, the story makes no mention of the downside that can accompany a faulty diagnosis–whether a false positive or negative. False positive tests (diagnosing asthma when the patient has another disease) and false negatives (failing to diagnose asthma) can have significant consequences. A brief comment on the potential harms associated with a faulty test would have been helpful. The story did a good job of describing what happened in the study being discussed. It notes that the ""electronic nose"" device was pitted against other diagnostic techniques to compare their accuracy for confirming physician-diagnosed asthma. Importantly, independent sources emphasized that this was a small study looking at patients with one particular type of asthma. They noted that much more research would be needed to prove that the device is effective in a broad range of patients. No disease-mongering in this story. The story cites two independent sources and identifies their affiliations. The story discusses current methods for diagnosing asthma including the physical exam, spirometry, and nitric oxide tests. Although the story never explicitly states that the device being discussed is experimental, comments from the experts make it pretty clear that the technology is still in development. The story explained in reasonable detail how the device differs from traditional diagnostic methods. The story could have done a bit more to explain that ""electronic nose"" technology has been in development for quite some time and is already in use in other fields (i.e. explosives detection). However, the story’s description of the device was pretty restrained and it didn’t try to hype the technology as ""new."" It’s clear that this story wasn’t based exclusively on a news release."
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27690
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Aerial spraying of an insecticide targeting Zika-carrying mosquitoes in South Carolina resulted in the deaths of millions of bees.
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Researchers at Clemson University took honey and soil samples from Stanley’s farm for further analysis.
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true
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Critter Country, Animal Welfare, bees, south carolina
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Officials in Dorchester County, South Carolina have issued an apology for aerial insecticide spraying that inadvertently killed millions of honeybees in the area, WCBD-TV reported on 1 September 2016. Beekeepers in the town of Summerville say they lost scores of active hives almost instantly after spraying began early in the morning on 28 August. The insecticide, naled (brand name Trumpet), is recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency for the control of the mosquito species Aedes aegypti, which carries the Zika virus. The insecticide is also highly toxic to bees. Administrators in Dorchester County (where there have been four confirmed diagnoses of Zika infection to date) said they followed guidelines for its proper use, including spraying before dawn to reduce exposure of the bee population and notifying local residents in advance. Locals say they weren’t notified in advance of the aerial spraying, however. Beekeeper Juanita Stanley told reporters: That’s true when they sprayed by trucks. But nobody called me about the aerial spraying; nobody told me at all. Stanley estimates she lost more than 3 million bees, and says she’ll have to destroy the contaminated honey and equipment and start over.
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3904
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Governor: Wisconsin must ‘step up’ after school shootings.
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Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said Wednesday that after shootings on consecutive days at Wisconsin high schools, the state must increase funding for mental health services at schools — a shift from his past insistence on passing gun control measures that Republicans legislators refused to consider.
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true
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Legislature, Shootings, Wisconsin, Mental health, Health, General News, School shootings, U.S. News
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Evers told The Associated Press in an interview that he is committed to working with Republicans who control the Legislature to secure additional mental health funding and that he’s optimistic because of the GOP’s past support for such funding. The Legislature this year approved about $25 million for children’s mental health programs over the next two years, which was far short of the $116 million Evers requested. Even so, they were closer on those issues than on gun safety bills. Evers called a special session on a pair of bills, but Republicans refused to debate either measure. One was a universal gun background check bill and the other was a “red flag” proposal that would allow judges to take guns away from people determined to be a risk to themselves or others. Evers said Wednesday that he still sees those as part of any solution to combating violence in schools, but he conceded that because of Republican opposition, “it’s not going to happen in the near future.” The shootings this week at high schools about 90 miles (145 kilometers) apart have shaken the state and caused a renewed debate over how to combat violence in schools. On Tuesday, an Oshkosh Police Department resource officer shot a 16-year-old student after the boy stabbed him at Oshkosh West High School. On Monday, a Waukesha police officer shot a 17-year-old Waukesha South High School student who pointed a pellet gun at another student’s head. Neither of the students who were shot suffered life-threatening injuries. Investigators on Wednesday released the names of the police officers involved. State Department of Justice officials said Oshkosh West High School Resource Officer Mike Wissink shot and wounded a 16-year-old student Tuesday after the boy stabbed him in his office. Wissink has 21 years of experience with the Oshkosh Police Department and has served as a school resource officer since 2017. The officer who shot the student in Waukesha was identified by the local police department as Sgt. Brady Esser, an 11-year veteran. Authorities have not released the names of the students involved. Evers is a former state superintendent of schools who worked as a principal, school superintendent and administrator before he was elected governor in 2018. He said the issue is particularly striking for him, given his background and the fact that has three grown children and nine grandchildren. Two of his children attended the high school in Oshkosh where the shooting occurred. Evers and Republicans have found little common ground during his first year in office. But in the wake of the shootings, Evers said he was optimistic that focusing on mental health services provides them with a path toward consensus. “I’ve heard him talk about mental health issues before, they get it,” Evers said of Republicans. “At the end of the day, if they listen to the school districts that they represent, those districts can tell them that kids are struggling more than ever before. And there is a need for some really specialized help.” Evers did not make a specific proposal and said he had not yet talked with Republican legislative leaders. Republican Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke reacted enthusiastically to Evers’ call for an emphasis on mental health funding, tweeting that it was “Great news!” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said it was good that Evers was focused on what he called the “real problem,” while noting that Republicans have led the way in expanding mental health treatment for schools, including making $100 million available in 2018 for school safety grants following mass shootings elsewhere. All but about $6.8 million of that has been allocated and Evers said it made sense to now prioritize mental health services over further fortifying schools. “Parents don’t want to send their kids to schools that look like prisons,” he said. One Republican lawmaker, state Rep. Barb Dittrich of Oconomowoc, said in a statement that lawmakers had a “mutual goal” of increasing school safety. She referred to past approval for increases in mental health services as an example. “While none of us likes that this is our new reality, we live in a broken world and must treat this no differently than our response to what happened with the September 11th attacks,” she said. Evers said he wasn’t a “defeatist” on school safety. “If we work hard as communities and prioritize our resources, I think we can get to a point where these things don’t happen again,” Evers said. “But until we’re serious about addressing issues that may cause kids to struggle mentally, we will struggle as a state and as a nation.” ___ Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbauerAP
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16116
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"Female students at UVA ""have a 20 percent chance of being sexually assaulted."
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"Saslaw says a female student attending U.Va. has a 20 percent chance of being sexually assaulted. Saslaw bases his claim on a Rolling Stone article about an alleged gang rape at UVa that said nationally, ""one in five women is sexually assaulted in college."" Rolling Stone didn’t cite a source, but the statistic is commonly used and is often based on a 2007 federal survey of women at two unnamed colleges. A few other studies have come up with comparable results. The key fact here is that none of the studies, as far as we know, examined U.Va. The university says it plans to start surveying its students next year to quantify incidences of sexual misconduct. Saslaw applies the 20 percent figure to U.Va. without any hard information and his comment suggests that the statistic is unique to the university. We’re not downplaying the issue of sexual assaults at U.Va., a problem that’s been repeatedly acknowledged by Teresa Sullivan, president of the university. But there’s a burden on Saslaw to prove his claim and he comes up short."
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false
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Crime, Public Safety, Virginia, Richard Saslaw,
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"Senate Minority Leader Richard Saslaw seethed after reading a Rolling Stone article detailing an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity. ""I can’t remember when I’ve been angrier as an adult, reading that,"" Saslaw, said during a Nov. 24 meeting with the Falls Church City Council to discuss priorities for the General Assembly session the will begin in January. Saslaw, D-Fairfax, said he will introduce a bill that would require that college officials who are told of a sexual assault to notify law enforcement within 24 hours. ""What parent in their right mind would send a daughter to U.Va. when she’s got – are you ready for this? – a 20 percent chance, a 20 percent chance of being sexually assaulted?"" Saslaw said in the clip posted by Blue Virginia, a liberal blog. Saslaw spoke more than a week before Rolling Stone backed off the story. The magazine’s editor said last week there were discrepancies in the accuser’s version of events and that the magazine’s trust in her ""had been misplaced."" Nonetheless, Saslaw’s statement that 20 percent of female students at U.Va are sexually assaulted at UVa warrants examination. The senator, whose daughter graduated from U.Va., told us the figure came from the Rolling Stone article, which says ""one in five women is sexually assaulted in college though only about 12 percent report it to police."" But the article didn’t say those are the figures are for U.Va. specifically, and for good reason. Let’s take a deeper look: Where does the statistic come from? The Rolling Stone article didn’t cite a source for the one-in-five statistic. But it likely originates from a widely cited study on college sexual assaults conducted in December 2007 by the U.S. Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice. Researchers surveyed 5,446 undergraduate women at two unnamed large public universities -- one in the Midwest and one in the South. The research gained a new wave of attention this year amid a White House push to raise awareness about rape and sexual assault. During an April 29 speech, Vice President Joe Biden said one in five college women are sexually assaulted during their college years. Biden’s office told our colleagues at PolitiFact National that the statement was based on the Justice Department’s findings. The study defined sexual assault as unwanted touching, intercourse, oral sex, anal sex or sexual penetration with an object or finger. Researchers wrote in a Journal of American College Health article in 2009 that 19.8 percent of women surveyed during their senior year had experienced a sexual assault since entering college. But there are some major caveats about the figure. Researchers noted the results were limited to the two unidentified colleges surveyed and may not generalize to the experiences of all college women. They also said the survey had a ""modest"" 42 percent response rate to their Web-based survey, which the researchers noted is lower than other methods, such as face-to-face interviews. They hoped, however, that anonymity would provide more candid answers and better data. James Fox, a professor of criminology, law and public policy at Northeastern University, told PolitiFact National in May that the ""one-in-five statistic shouldn’t just be taken with a grain of salt, but the entire shaker."" Fox said the issue of sexual assaults on campuses shouldn’t be diminished but faulted the White House for citing national estimates that are ""shaky at best."" Despite the issues with its methodology, the Department of Justice reached similar conclusions to several other studies on sexual assaults on campuses. In a survey this spring at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 17 percent of the school’s undergraduate women said they experienced a sexual assault -- broadly defined by researchers as ""unwanted sexual behaviors involving threats or incapacitation, unwanted sexual touching or kissing, oral sex, sexual penetration or attempted sexual penetration or attempted oral sex."" But the researchers found the undergraduates answered the question differently when asked if they had been ""sexually assaulted or raped"" and were allowed to apply their own definitions to the terms. Under those conditions, 11 percent of the women answered ""yes."" Since it was a voluntary, non-random survey, the school cautioned it would be wrong to ""use these numbers to generalize about the prevalence of unwanted sexual behavior in the lives of all MIT students."" In early 1997, the Department of Justice randomly surveyed 4,446 college women and found that 15.5 percent said they had been ""sexually victimized"" during that school year -- a term that included threats and actions ranging from unwanted touching to rape. The study said that during the course of an undergraduate career, which often extends five years, ""the percentage of completed or attempted rape among women in higher educational institutions might climb to between one-fifth and one-quarter."" Research that tries to quantify sexual assaults is complicated by a couple of factors. First of all, it is often an unreported crime. The results of the incidence of sexual assault can differ depending on how the crime is defined. The National Institute of Justice notes on its website that ""researchers have been unable to determine the precise incidence of sexual assault on American campuses because the incidence found depends on how the questions are worded and the context of the survey."" Despite such limitations, the institute adds that ""several studies indicate that a substantial proportion of female students -- between 18 and 20 percent -- experience rape or some other form of sexual assault during their college years."" Does the national figure apply to U.Va.? Although the 20 percent is a national number, Saslaw said it applies to U.Va. The senator noted that Rolling Stone reported that U.Va is among 12 universities that has been singled out for an proactive federal compliance review of its procedures handling students’ complaints of sexual assaults. That would ""kind of lead you to believe it’s definitely one-in-five there (at U.Va. ),"" Saslaw told us. ""They’re not reviewing all of the colleges across America."" But there’s no way to know whether the one-in-five figure actually does apply to U.Va. We asked the university whether it has figures for the percentage of women students who have been raped, but did not receive a direct response. ""The national statistics on sexual assaults and sexual misconduct on college campuses are alarming and disturbing for everyone, "" U.Va. spokesman Anthony P. de Bruyn told us in an email. ""UVA is taking aggressive action to address these important issues."" U.Va. President Teresa Sullivan, during a Dec. 1 speech, said the university will conduct a survey this spring to determine ""how commonly"" its students experience sexual assaults. We reached out to David Lisak, a forensic consultant and researcher on sex crimes, about the level of sexual assault at U.Va. and whether the 20 percent national figure that Saslaw cites applies to the college. ""Whether these rates of sexual assault apply specifically to UVa is of course an empirical question,"" Lisak told us in an email. ""However, there are by now numerous studies of sexual assault on college campuses, and they are quite consistent in their findings. So one would have to provide some real evidence to argue that the situation at UVa is markedly different than what has been found in national studies."" Our ruling Saslaw says a female student attending U.Va. has a 20 percent chance of being sexually assaulted. Saslaw bases his claim on a Rolling Stone article about an alleged gang rape at UVa that said nationally, ""one in five women is sexually assaulted in college."" Rolling Stone didn’t cite a source, but the statistic is commonly used and is often based on a 2007 federal survey of women at two unnamed colleges. A few other studies have come up with comparable results. The key fact here is that none of the studies, as far as we know, examined U.Va. The university says it plans to start surveying its students next year to quantify incidences of sexual misconduct. Saslaw applies the 20 percent figure to U.Va. without any hard information and his comment suggests that the statistic is unique to the university. We’re not downplaying the issue of sexual assaults at U.Va., a problem that’s been repeatedly acknowledged by Teresa Sullivan, president of the university. But there’s a burden on Saslaw to prove his claim and he comes up short."
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18939
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Individuals with mental illnesses die an average of 25 years earlier than those without a mental illness.
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NAMI Ohio leader Terry Russell says people with mental illnesses die 25 years earlier, on average, than those without
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true
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Ohio, Health Care, Medicaid, Terry Russell,
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"One of the questions about the state budget proposal that Gov. John Kasich is expected to announce in February is whether the state will follow through with the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid coverage. The federal health care law would expand coverage to people with incomes up to 138 percent of the poverty level -- a provision which was made optional under the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that otherwise upheld the law. A bipartisan group of 85 health coverage organizations has written to the governor saying anything less than the full 138 percent would cause people to drop or skip coverage, endangering their health. Terry Russell, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Ohio, told Gongwer News Service that mentally ill Ohioans struggle to stay employed, and that local mental health agencies have marginal resources to help. ""The sad statistic that haunts us every day is that individuals with mental illnesses die an average of 25 years earlier than those without a mental illness,"" he said. ""Sixty percent of these premature deaths are the result of preventable and treatable diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer and infections."" PolitiFact Ohio checked into his claim about 25 years, and quickly found his statement was right on the money. A study published in 2006 by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors that was the focus of wide attention and concern in the mental health community looked at data from 16 states, including Ohio. It found that, on average, people with severe mental illness die 25 years earlier than the general population. The figure for Ohio was actually worse. People with severe mental illness die 32 years earlier. Calling it ""a serious public health problem for the people served by our state mental health systems,"" the study said about 60 percent of premature deaths are due to conditions such as cardiovascular, pulmonary and infectious diseases. A number of factors contribute to risk, the study said, including modifiable factors like obesity, poor nutrition and alcohol and tobacco use. People with severe mental illness have poorer access to appropriate health care, and may be additionally vulnerable because of higher rates of homelessness, victimization, unemployment and poverty. Among its recommendations, the report called for better access to physical health care for people with serious mental illnesses to fight what it called an ""epidemic of premature death and its contributing causes."" Russell said that people with mental illnesses, on average, die 25 years earlier than those without a mental illness. He accurately cited findings of a major study on the issue. And in Ohio, the average is actually greater than 25 years. On the Truth-O-Meter, his claim rates ."
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11226
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Alzheimer’s theory set for drug test
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This story attempts to explain some of the on-going research to understand the increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease seen in people with type II diabetes. Utilization of sugar by the brain appears to be altered in Alzheimer’s disease patients, though whether this is a cause or a result of Alzheimer’s disease is not known. The experts quoted in the story think that this problem with sugar utilization in Alzheimer’s disease may be similar to what happens with type II diabetes. They propose that treatment of early Alzheimer’s disease with drugs currently used to improve sugar uptake in type II diabetics will help. This article does not report on results of such study, only the start of a study. Several people quoted in this story are either directly or indirectly connected to the company that manufactures the medication under study or are currently funded to test this proposed mechanism associating type II diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. The story could have included the perspective of some expert(s) less directly vested in this work. Costs are not mentioned. This article paints a disease mongering picture when it says: “It’s a scary scenario: Alzheimer’s already is expected to skyrocket as the population grays, rising from 4.5 million sufferers today to a staggering 14 million by 2050. If the new theory is right, the nation’s current obesity-fueled epidemic of Type 2 diabetes could worsen that toll.” None of the side effects or potential harms associated with rosiglitazone (Avandia) was mentioned in the article. And the story doesn’t quantify the benefits obtained in the specific subset of patients that showed improvement.
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false
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This drug is currently on the market for diabetes so the story could have at least included information about its current cost for its current approved use. The story doesn’t quantify the benefits obtained in the specific subset of patients with the genotype that showed improvement. None of the side effects or potential harms associated with rosiglitazone (Avandia) was mentioned in the article. The evidence comes from an article published in the journal Pharmacogenomics (though not clearly mentioned in the article). The evidence points toward a possible improvement in the subset of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s patients with a particular apolipoprotein E variant in the group given the highest dose of rosiglitazone. It is a preliminary study and additional clinical studies will be required to confirm the results. While this caveat is presented in the abstract of the study, the news story presents the study results as more definitive than the researchers did. This article paints a disease mongering picture when it says “It’s a scary scenario: Alzheimer’s already is expected to skyrocket as the population grays, rising from 4.5 million sufferers today to a staggering 14 million by 2050. If the new theory is right, the nation’s current obesity-fueled epidemic of Type 2 diabetes could worsen that toll.” Several people quoted in this story are either directly (Allen Roses) or indirectly (Sam Gandy) connected to the company that manufactures the medication under study or are currently funded (Yadong Huang, Suzanne Craft) to test this proposed mechanism associating type II diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. The story could have included the perspective of some expert(s) less directly vested in this work. The story doesn’t mention any other treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. The article did mention a second drug, Actos, used to treat type II diabetes. Although a researcher at GlaxoSmithKline, makers of rosiglitazone, is quoted as saying “Don’t use Avandia for Alzheimer’s until that question has been settled,” the article does not make clear that rosiglitazone is not FDA approved for the purpose of treating or delaying onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Rather than an association between type II diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease being “a provocative new theory” – the contention presented in this article – the clinical relation between these two diseases has been discussed for at least 10 years. We can’t be sure if the story relied solely or largely on a news release.
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2885
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Lexicon Pharma to cut 45 percent of workforce, CEO to leave.
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Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc said its chief executive would leave and it would cut its workforce by about 45 percent, as it moves its focus away from drug discovery to completing the studies of its drugs in late-stage development.
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true
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Health News
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Lexicon shares, which have lost about 15 percent of their value last year, fell as much as 7.5 percent to $1.85 on the Nasdaq in early trading on Monday. The company said Arthur Sands, CEO since 1995 and a co-founder, intends to develop a succession plan with the board. He will continue in his position until a successor is appointed. Analysts said Sands might have been perceived as more of a scientist who would not be able to lead the company into a commercial launch of the late-stage drugs. “I think Arthur Sands could have easily done the transition to commercial, but possibly the board felt they wanted someone with direct commercial experience”, Wedbush analyst Liana Moussatos said. Lexicon said it would cut 115 jobs, primarily positions in research and discovery, to reduce costs. The company said it would focus mainly on its drugs to treat diabetes and carcinoid syndrome, a condition which affects some people with a rare cancerous tumor. “Most of the value of the company is wrapped up in these late-stage drugs,” Morningstar analyst Karen Andersen said. “It makes sense to focus on what investors are really looking at.” Lexicon said it expects to lower expenses by about $14 million, net of severance costs and some other charges, for the rest of 2014. It expects to save about $22 million annually. “This could give them an extra two to three quarters of cash,” Moussatos said. The company had $151.2 million in cash and investments as of September 30 last year. Andersen said Lexicon needed to conserve cash while it looked for a partner to fund the development of its diabetes drug. “In order to do a comprehensive diabetes program, it takes hundreds of millions of dollars, which is more than Lexicon can afford right now,” she said. The company is testing two other drugs in mid-stage trials to treat irritable bowel syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis. It also has a glaucoma drug in early-stage development. Moussatos said that Lexicon could license the development of the drugs to other pharmaceutical companies. Lexicon has drug discovery agreements with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Roche Holding AG’s unit Genentech and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd. Lexicon shares, which once traded above $40, were down 4.5 percent at $1.91.
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41319
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Phenol / phenoxyethanol is in vaccines and is used as antifreeze. It is toxic to all cells and can destroy the immune system.
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These chemicals have been used in vaccines as preservatives. They are not in antifreeze.
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unproven
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online
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Beta-Propiolactone is in vaccines and is known to cause cancer, suspected gastrointestinal, liver, nerve and respiratory, skin and sense organ poison. It may be present in trace amounts of some vaccines. It is potentially carcinogenic, but only in much larger amounts than would be in a vaccine. The antibiotics gentamicin sulfate and polymyxin b are in vaccines and can cause allergic reactions ranging from mild to life-threatening. Traces of these antibiotics can end up in certain vaccines, but would only cause a reaction in someone severely allergic. Genetically modified yeast, animal, bacterial and viral DNA in vaccines can be incorporated into the recipient’s DNA causing unknown genetic mutations. Modified DNA can be used in the production of some vaccines, but is very unlikely to end up in the final product. Even if it did, there’s no evidence it can cause mutations. Glutaraldehyde is in vaccines and is poisonous if ingested and causes birth defects in animals. There are trace amounts in some vaccines from manufacturing, and not enough to cause harm. Formaldehyde is in vaccines and causes cancer in humans among other issues and is banned from vaccines in most European countries. It’s not banned in Europe. There are only trace amounts in certain vaccines and not enough to be carcinogenic. Latex rubber is in vaccines and causes life-threatening allergic reactions. Latex is used in the packaging of some vaccines, which could potentially cause harm if someone’s strongly allergic to it. Human and animal cells from sources like aborted foetuses are in vaccines and are linked to childhood leukaemia and diabetes. They may be used in certain vaccines’ production, but are unlikely to make it to the final product. Mercury (aka thimerosal or thiomersal) is in vaccines and can damage brain, gut, liver, bone marrow, nervous system and kidneys, is linked to autoimmune disorder, autism. Thiomersal isn’t in any UK vaccines any more. This is down to concern around a slightly different mercury-based chemical. MSG is in vaccines and is linked to birth defects, developmental delays, infertility and is banned in Europe. It’s not banned in Europe. It’s used in some vaccines to stabilise them. There’s no strong evidence it causes these problems in humans. Neomycin sulphate, an antibiotic, is in vaccines and can lead to epilepsy, brain damage and allergic reactions. Trace amounts of this antibiotic may end up in certain vaccines. If you are allergic to it could cause an allergic reaction. Phenol / phenoxyethanol is in vaccines and is used as antifreeze. It is toxic to all cells and can destroy the immune system. These chemicals have been used in vaccines as preservatives. They are not in antifreeze. Polysorbate 80 and 20 are in vaccines and cause cancer in animals and are linked to autoimmune issues and infertility. Tiny amounts of Polysorbate 80 is in a type of flu vaccine. There isn’t evidence ingesting it is linked to these issues in humans. Tri(n) butylphosphate is in vaccines and is potentially damaging to the kidneys and the nervous system. We can find no evidence of this being used in vaccines in the UK. Claim 1 of 14
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8453
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Explainer: What the U.S. funds freeze could mean for WHO and its work.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has told his administration to temporarily halt funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the new coronavirus.
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true
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Health News
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Here’s what we do and don’t know about what this might mean for the WHO and its programmes around the world: * Set up in 1948, the U.N. agency has a mandate to improve the standard of health worldwide. It is credited with leading a 10-year campaign to eliminate smallpox in the 1970s and has coordinated the fight against epidemics including Ebola. * The WHO is currently leading the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, providing countries with advice on how to contain its spread. It is also coordinating global research into potential drugs and vaccines against COVID-19. * The WHO now has more than 7,000 people working in 150 country offices, six regional offices and Geneva headquarters. * The WHO’s budget is biennial, spanning a two-year period. * The United States is the biggest overall donor to the WHO and had contributed more than $800 million by the end of 2019 for the 2018-2019 biennial funding period. The Gates Foundation is the second largest donor, followed by Britain. * The funding comes in two forms: - so-called “assessed contributions” from member states, which go towards keeping up the WHO’s core functions - and voluntary contributions, which are targeted at specific programmes such as polio eradication and the fight against AIDS, malaria and other infectious diseases. * At this stage, it is not clear whether the United States intends to halt its voluntary contributions, its assessed contributions, or both. * The WHO’s 2020-2021 budget, approved by health ministers last May, amounts to nearly $4.85 billion in total and represents a 9% rise from the previous two-year period. * It is not clear whether the United States has already made all or part of its payments towards the 2020-2021 budget, but its assessed contributions are normally made late in the year. * Almost $1 billion of the 2020-2021 budget is earmarked for WHO operations across Africa, the world’s poorest continent with the highest rates of under-five mortality from vaccine-preventable diseases. * Polio eradication remains a major WHO programme and the United States is a key contributor to this effort. * The WHO’s emergency programme is also seeking to stamp out other deadly infectious disease outbreaks including Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo. * Trump has taken an increasingly critical stance towards the WHO, accusing it of promoting China’s “disinformation” about the virus and saying that likely led to a wider outbreak than otherwise would have occurred. * China has said it has been transparent and shared information with the WHO and other countries, including the United States. The WHO says China shared information quickly and is cooperating in research and other areas. “Focus on the epic struggle right now and leave the recriminations until later,” WHO COVID-19 special envoy David Nabarro told an online conference on Wednesday, without naming the United States or Trump. * The agency has faced controversy before. It was accused of overreacting to the 2009-10 H1N1 flu pandemic, and then faced withering criticism for not reacting fast enough to the vast Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 that killed more than 11,000 people.
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9704
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The alternative infertility treatment that's helping some women get pregnant
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This Fox News article describes an experimental fertility treatment called in vitro maturation (IVM) that modifies the “gold standard” IVF (in vitro fertilization) for use in a subset of women for whom the IVF regimen is not an option. The article is less a “news” story than a “Q and A,” and it does a pretty good job overall of making clear that IVM is not for everyone and that controlled clinical trials have not been done to scientifically compare it to IVF in terms of success rates and fetal outcomes. Apart from the lack of critical information about comparative costs and risks of IVF and IVM or other forms of fertility treatments, the article avoids disorder mongering and readers/viewers will come away with a reasonable understanding of IVM’s limitations and uses. What is a bit problematic, perhaps, is why the article is appearing now. There are, for example, no recent or new data or studies cited; the latest one this article appears to refer to is from a 2014 article by a group at the Technion in Israel. The procedure has been around for about a decade. So the article comes across as a bit of an “ad” for private-practice, commercial fertility clinics that offer IVM. One of the experts cited in the article is from such a clinic, in New York, which has historically issued news releases about IVM, including one noting it was the site of the first successful IVM procedures in New York. As a public service, the article is informative, but for those with infertility problems, it’s unlikely to be telling them anything new, but instead reminding them that clinics offer the service. As the article emphasizes, IVM collects and matures a woman’s eggs in a laboratory dish, cutting down on the number and duration of hormone injections required for standard IVF, and initially, at least, reducing the overall cost of standard IVF. As the story also makes pretty clear, there are some women who might clearly benefit from IVM, because they cannot withstand the hormonal injections needed in IVF to stimulate ovarian release of their eggs because of cancer, other diseases, or disease therapies. So having an alternative may be useful for some. Infertility is a substantial issue from a growing number of couples, in part owing to delayed childbearing. In addition, IVF is a struggle and extremely costly, by some estimates $12,000 to $15,000 a course, and insurance companies often won’t pay for it.
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mixture
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in vitro fertlization,Pregnancy
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Although the article states that IVM is less expensive than standard IVF because women undergo fewer hormone injections, it does not cite any cost figures for either procedure, or other assisted reproductive technologies. And it should. We award a Satisfactory rating here because the story does quote a range of claimed “implantation” success rates for IVM and IVF given by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, noting that IVM appears to have much lower success rates. The article would be much stronger if it had also cited data for live births from IVF and IVM, along with the rate of adverse outcomes. Overall, 47% of assisted reproductive technology embryo transfers result in pregnancy; 38% result in live births. Although the article notes that for “some women” the hormone injections required for IVF (and presumably IVM as well) can be “downright dangerous,” it doesn’t say exactly how they are dangerous, what the dangers are, or what the dangers are of the rest of the IVF/IVM procedure in terms of fetal outcomes or biological/psychological tolls on women. We give this a Satisfactory rating because the article repeats the information that no randomized controlled trials have compared IVM and IVF or established IVM success/failure rates. The story concludes strongly that IVF remains the standard of care. Kudos for that. The article does a pretty good job of noting who is and is not a candidate for IVM. It could have done more to give a broader picture of the rates of infertility among various groups of women in the U.S. It also could have noted that 1-3% of all babies born in the U.S. are conceived with assisted reproductive technologies (IVF and its modifications). The article does quote two sources who were apparently interviewed, although both are principals in reproductive medicine clinics selling their services. This is a difficult call. Although it’s possible that the story could have mentioned other assisted reproductive technologies beyond standard IVF and IVM, we think that discussion would be highly technical and probably beyond the scope of this article. We’ll award a Satisfactory here. The article really could have used some information about how widely available assisted reproductive medical expertise is in the U.S. and the fact that academic medical center, and major public hospitals and health systems, also offer the treatments along with free standing fertility clinics. As mentioned earlier, it’s hard to say just why Fox is presenting this as “news now.” Hard to say for sure, but it would appear that there was none, and the reporter did apparently interview two sources.
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10558
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Circulation Solutions: Varicose veins can be disabling, but new remedies are easing removal
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In some ways, this story about new options for getting rid of varicose veins is thorough and thoughtful. The explanations of the condition and the treatments are detailed and easy to understand. The story includes important cost information and makes good use of outside experts. We wish, though, that it had taken a little more care walking readers through the evidence, avoiding disease-mongering and putting some hard numbers to both the benefits and potential harms of the different treatment options. Varicosities are very common, and for the vast majority of people, do not pose health risks. This story is off the mark for hyping the risk of varicose veins, when the majority of people are treated for cosmetic reasons. Anytime a procedure is being touted as quick, pain-free and relatively inexpensive, readers are likely to line up in droves. This is what makes it all the more important for reporters to carefully explain the trade-offs between risks and benefits. This story does this, in part, but could have been stronger with a few key data points.
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mixture
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Wall Street Journal
|
Applause all around for this fast and efficient cost comparison. “Smaller veins can often be treated with sclerotherapy, which involves injecting a chemical solution into the vein to destroy it, and costs $250 to $500 per treatment. For larger veins, doctors may recommend endovascular procedures, which range in price from $2,500 to $3,000. These involve threading a catheter into the vein and directing a heat source such as a laser or radio-frequency device into the vein to incinerate it.” There was no price put on the “stripping” option of pulling out the veins entirely, but we still give the story a satisfactory score here. We would have liked to have seen some hard numbers attached to the benefits of these therapies. One of the studies for the foam therapy approach, led by Suman Rathbun, who was quoted in the story, covered 166 patients over a three year period. The results are clearly enumerated in that study and could have been cited here. Along with failing to evaluate the evidence, the story completely skips the numbers attached to any harms. One study on the foam therapy does spell out the different side effects, although most of them appear minor. Perhaps most troubling to people looking mainly to get rid of unsightly veins is that 51 out of 166 people treated reported that their skin had changed color. So, perhaps, patients are trading one problem for another. It’s information that, at a minimum, should be included. The story says, of the surgical approach, “The surgery can cause bleeding, bruising, nerve injuries, scarring and infection, and legs may have to be wrapped with bandages for several weeks.” It needed to at least note some of the harms associated with the other approaches. This is where the piece falls down. There are a lot of allusions to studies but no true analysis of the evidence. “The drug has a strong safety record,” it says at one point. “Studies have shown that minimally invasive endovenous laser procedures that use local anesthesia are highly effective for removing the so-called saphenous veins,” it says at another. We wanted to see at least a few examples of the data or even a sense of how well understood this problem is. If “the exact cause of varicose veins isn’t known,” how can we know that these solutions are good? In some ways, this story gives varicose veins the appropriate weight. “As many as 25% of women and 15% of men suffer from varicose veins; over the age of 50, one out of two people are affected. Heredity plays a part, but obesity, prolonged standing on the job and hormone therapy increase the risks. Sometimes, varicose veins have no signs or symptoms and require no treatment, though doctors may recommend wearing compression stockings and elevating the legs. Exercise can also help relieve pain.” Then it tips over into disease-mongering. “But often, varicose veins can be disabling and dangerous, as well as a warning sign of more serious problems in the circulatory system.” For the majority of people, this is merely a cosmetic issue, like wrinkles. The story also says, “Veins near the surface of the skin can also rupture and bleed heavily.” Our physician reviewer on this story wrote, “I have never seen this or heard of it in my nearly two decades in medicine.” The story does a good job talking with experts who recommend a cautious approach to the new therapies. There is no cheerleading in this piece. The story balances the different approaches well. Again, we would have liked to have seen some numbers used in the comparisons, though. The story does a good job explaining what are basically three different approaches to varicose vein treatment: a surgical option, which is the most common; an injectable drug option, which is becoming more common; and the foaming injectable option, which some doctors use off label. The story makes it clear that these are emerging approaches. The story does not rely on a news release.
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4102
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University of Maryland gets $200M contract for flu research.
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The University of Maryland has received a $200 million contract to research seasonal flu vaccines.
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true
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Health, Flu, General News, Infectious diseases, Maryland
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The university’s School of Medicine said in a statement Friday that the research is aimed at testing vaccines and conducting controlled studies. The money is coming from the federal government’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. It hopes to develop a universal vaccine against new flu strains and to improve existing flu vaccines as well. The university said influenza affected more than 43 million people in the U.S. last flu season. The principal investigator for the research will be Dr. Kathleen Neuzil. She’s a professor of medicine and pediatrics and director of the school’s Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health. Neuzil is considered one of the leading scientists for vaccine development and policy.
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9846
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Acupressure bands for that sickening feeling
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This is an inspired type of health journalism: A well-researched response to a reader question about a widely used treatment–in this case, acupressure for common nausea. All of it is presented in conversational voice and easy-to-digest blocks of text. The author includes several details that anticipate readers’ questions: the kinds of nausea that acupressure is unlikely to treat successfully; how to locate the P6 acupressure point; and why it may be necessary to supplement the bands with manual pressure. The article would have been more credible and useful by citing a few details about the studies mentioned, particularly where they were published, how they were conducted, and the size of the benefits. Adding just a few details would not damage the story’s accessibility or light tone. A comment from an independent clinician would have helped too. The reader would have been well-served with information on the benefits, risks and costs of other treatments for common nausea.
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mixture
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"The article reports that the bands from either manufacturer named cost around $10. The alternative treatment–self-administered acupressure–is implicitly free. The article fails to include key details from either study that would help people understand the likelihood and amount of relief the treatments provide. The article mentions the possiblities of discomfort and lack of relief, which seem to be the two possible harms. The article briefly cites two studies, one verifying the utility of the bands and one the effect of acupressure on chemotherapy patients. The first study is much more focused on the consumer product that triggered the article, so it should have been described more fully so readers could judge its credibility–at least with where it was published and what kind of study it was. Including this would not have violated the (appropriate and useful) conversational tone of the piece. The researcher of the chemotherapy study offers good commentary–particularly mentioning her own skepticism going into the study. But the article would have been stronger by briefly characterizing the ""study after study"" demonstrating effectiveness. If it’s a solid group of rigorous reports from peer-reviewed journals–or not–the article should have said so. A good recent meta-analysis is accessible on PubMed. The article does a good job keeping nausea in perspective. When it mentions the use of acupressure in chemotherapy patients, it might have made clearer that nausea of that type is very different from typical cases. The author interviews two researchers who conducted relevant studies. It did not explore potential conflicts of interest. The story would have benefitted from the comments of a disinterested clinician. The author includes his own ""n of 1"" product test, which serves as a playful counterpoint at the end of the piece. The danger of this would be the reader making too much of his ""finding."" But the tone and presentation make that unlikely. The reader would have been well served by information on the cost and benefit/risks of those anti-nausea medications found on the same aisle (their potential for causing drowsiness is mentioned briefly). Any Rx drugs for more persistent or serious cases would have been worth mentioning too. Because one common cause of nausea is pregnancy, and anti-nausea medications are usually discouraged during pregnancy, it would have been helpful to include alternatives. A meta-analysis on studies of acupressure in pregnancy is available here. The article not only makes clear that the bands are available at drug stores, it mentions on which shelf it’s likely to be found. The report makes clear that the bands are widely used and that the acupressure treatment on which it is based has a long history. As a response to a reader question, the article did not use a press release as a point of departure. It quotes one product’s promotional material directly, making clear it is a claim by the maker, not a statement of fact."
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21699
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A clause hidden in the Obamacare bill, which is now law, gives Obama the right to form a private army.
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Victoria Jackson column claims health care law gives Obama power to raise a private army
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false
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National, Health Care, Military, Victoria Jackson,
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"If you thought that comparing President Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler was just a passing fad, you should know the trend lives on at the website WorldNetDaily. Comedian Victoria Jackson, a Saturday Night Live alum and tea party supporter, recently penned a column titled, ""The 3 scariest things about Obama."" Jackson is a regular WorldNetDaily columnist and is slated to attend the WND Tea Party at Sea cruise of Alaska later this summer. To quote the piece, the three scary things are ""private army (like Hitler), socialist (like Hitler), media control (like Hitler)."" She continues: ""A clause hidden in the Obamacare bill, which is now law, gives Obama the right to form a private army. Why isn't anyone freaking out?"" A reader sent us the column, published July 15, 2011, and asked us to fact-check it. Given Jackson's background as a comedian, we wondered if it was a joke. We concluded that it wasn't, and we're treating it here as a serious claim. Jackson backs up her points with YouTube videos of segments from Fox News. Her claim that Obama has the right to form a private army is based on a 2010 appearance of Fox analyst Andrew Napolitano, who discussed the health care law with Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. We're not sure of the exact date of the interview, but it was posted to YouTube on May 3, 2010, just months after final passage of the health care law. ""By referring to it as a reserve corps, and the training is the same as the regular corps, it gives you the impression that the president has the power to take over the National Guard from state governors in peace time. Now under the Constitution, he can't do that. But a fair reading of this legislation would let him do it,"" Napolitano said. ""Another way to read this legislation is that these are health care professionals, but they're going to train with the military, meaning they would carry sidearms,"" Napolitano said. Napolitano hedges his provocative claims by saying that the legislation raises many questions. ""We don't know how this is going to be implemented; the language is intentionally vague."" But he called the use of the military language ""scary."" We turned to the text of the bill to see if it said anything about the National Guard or about health care professionals training with the military. It didn't. Instead, the sliver of evidence for the claim is that the U.S. Public Health Service uses military terms to organize its Commissioned Corps, a uniformed group of 6,500 health professionals. The military-like organization dates back to 1871 and comes from the Commissioned Corps' work with Marine hospitals stationed along coastal and inland waterways. (It's also why the Surgeon General is called the Surgeon General.) Today, teams of Commissioned Corps officers often work with the military on humanitarian missions, and some serve on U.S. Navy hospital ships. In recent years, the Commisioned Corps' emergency response teams have responded to hurricanes hitting the Gulf Coast and international incidents like the earthquake in Haiti. But the Commissioned Corps is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, not the U.S. military. Likewise, the new ""Ready Reserve Corps"" will be part of HHS, and not part of the military. The text of the health care law says plainly, ""The purpose of the Ready Reserve Corps is to fulfill the need to have additional Commissioned Corps personnel available on short notice (similar to the uniformed service's reserve program) to assist regular Commissioned Corps personnel to meet both routine public health and emergency response missions."" The Public Health Service explains the new initiative similarly: ""The purpose of the Ready Reserve Corps is to have additional Commissioned Corps personnel available on short notice (similar to the other uniformed services' reserve programs) to assist full time Commissioned Corps personnel to meet both routine public health and emergency response missions. Prior to the passage of the new law, the USPHS Commissioned Corps did not have a reserve component to call upon in this fashion. The Ready Reserve Corps members perform duties for assigned periods of time as opposed to full time Corps members who are on extended active duty. Joining the Ready Reserve Corps is voluntary; however, members of the Ready Reserve Corps join knowing that they can be called at anytime to serve in times of national need."" Out of an abundance of caution, we contacted James Parascandola, who served as the Public Health Service historian from 1992 to 2004. He confirmed that the Commissioned Corps and the Ready Reserve Corps are uniformed health officials. ""They don't train with the military, and they don't carry weapons,"" he said. They sometimes work with the military, but they do so as medical personnel, not as a private army. Jackson said that the health care law gives Obama ""the right to form a private army."" We don't find that to be the case, and her source, Andrew Napolitano, seems to be making up interpretations of the health care law that have no basis in reality. The Ready Reserve Corps created by the law would be part of a long-established uniformed team of health care professionals that are part of the Department of Health and Human Services, not the military. They don't carry sidearms, and they don't have military training. If this is Obama's army, it's an army armed with tongue depressors and stethoscopes."
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33682
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"Dragnet's Sgt. Joe Friday character frequently implored female informants to provide ""Just the facts, ma'am."
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As this exchange entered the American subconscious, it soon found itself truncated to “Just the facts, ma’am” From that point on, every Webb interview, every newspaper and magazine article that had anything to do with Dragnet made use of the phrase. For the next year it so dominated media coverage of the show that finally, inevitably, the line was credited to Sgt. Friday, as if he’d been saying it all along. His actual phrase — “All we want (or “know”) are the facts, ma’am” — bit the dust.
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false
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Entertainment, dragnet, false memory, mandela effect
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Just as it’s difficult for anyone who didn’t experience the early days of television to realize now that Arthur Godfrey was one of America’s premier entertainers during the 1950s, so is it difficult for anyone whose only exposure to the long-running police drama Dragnet is “Nick at Nite” reruns of its late 1960s revival to appreciate how popular and influential a program it was. Dragnet, acclaimed for its attention to detail and realistic portrayal of the nuts and bolts of police work, was created by its star, Jack Webb. It started out as a radio drama in 1949, made the transition to television in 1951 (and aired in both media simultaneously through 1957), became a feature film in 1954, spawned a revival TV series and made-for-TV movie in 1966, was spoofed in a 1987 movie starring Dan Akroyd and Tom Hanks, and was spun off yet again (after Webb’s death) as a new syndicated series in 1989. The popularity and influence of Dragnet is attested to by the number of Dragnet-related items that have become firmly embedded in our pop culture idiom: the distinctive “dum-de-dum-dum” opening four notes of its theme music; the characters’ rapid-fire, staccato delivery of dialogue; the somber “The story you are about to hear is true; the names have been changed to protect the innocent” intonation of its prologue; and, of course, Sgt. Joe Friday’s famous business-like catch phrase, “Just the facts, ma’am.” Well, about that last item . . . Our language is replete with famous phrases from historic and literary characters who never uttered the words attributed to them: Marie Antoinette and “Let them eat cake”; Cary Grant and “Judy, Judy, Judy . . .”; Sherlock Holmes and “Elementary, my dear Watson.” Sometimes the phrases are made up out of whole cloth (because they sounded like something those people would say), and sometimes they’re corruptions or rephrasings of something that actually was said. “Just the facts, ma’am” is a case of the latter. So popular was Dragnet in its day that satirist Stan Freberg spoofed it on a 1953 record titled “St. George and the Dragonet.” This record and its flip side, “Little Blue Riding Hood” (also a Dragnet spoof) were extraordinarily popular as well, hitting the #1 spot on Billboard‘s pop chart and selling over two million copies; the record’s success prompted Ed Sullivan to invite Freberg to perform both sides of the single live on his Talk of the Town variety show. Jack Webb’s ‘Joe Friday’ character typically used the phrase “All we want are the facts, ma’am” (and sometimes “All we know are the facts ma’am”) when questioning women in the course of police investigations. Freberg’s “Little Blue Riding Hood” spoof changed the line slightly, and it was Freberg’s alteration — rather than anything Joe Friday said — that would enter the roll of immortal catch phrases: Little Blue Riding Hood: Why Grandma, what big ears you’ve got!Sgt. Wednesday: All the better to get the facts. I just want to get the facts, ma’am. Webb biographer Michael J. Hayde described the transition:
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28122
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Exposure to secondhand marijuana smoke will get you high and potentially show up in a drug test.
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What's true: It's possible to get high from secondhand smoke. What's false: It has to happen under a specific set of circumstances (little to no ventilation, for example.)
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true
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Medical, marijuana, second hand smoke
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A common stoner trope (and a well-worn excuse for those teenagers trying to hide their stoner status from their parents) is that of the secondhand high from marijuana smoke. It is not something taken lightly by scientists, either, especially in light of a wave of marijuana legalization across the United States; studies have investigated the effects of secondhand cannabis smoke on nonsmokers for decades. While this work comes with notable limitations, the consensus is that it is, in fact, possible to get high from secondhand cannabis smoke, at least under certain extremely unventilated and confined conditions. A relevant example of such conditions — and actually a model for researchers studying the effects of second hand cannabis smoke — would be “hotboxing,” which in cannabis culture is the process of smoking marijuana with a group of people in an unventilated car or room, potentially increasing the degree to which participants are exposed to cannabis smoke. Early research sought to recreate these conditions primarily to see if people not directly smoking would absorb the active components of cannabis to the point where they could be detected in urine or blood. Though small in sample size, numerous studies conducted in the 1980s have shown that under these extreme conditions passive participants could absorb enough THC and other cannabinoids so that they could be detected in blood or urine (and, as a result, potentially affect drug screening tests for a short period of time following exposure.) A 1986 study also reported that the subjective effects of being exposed indirectly to 16 “marijuana cigarettes” were similar to those produced by directly smoking a single joint, though it bears mentioning that this 1986 marijuana was up to 10 times weaker than modern high-potency medical or recreational marijuana. The question of a second-hand high was most recently investigated in a 2015 study performed at Johns Hopkins University. Researchers confined groups of six smokers (who were each provided with ten joints) and six non-smokers in a chamber under both ventilated and unventilated conditions, letting the smokers toke at their leisure for an hour in the company of the non-smokers. Using a battery of tests following these sessions, the scientists concluded that getting high indirectly (and mildly) is possible, though dependent on how ventilated a space is: Room ventilation has a pronounced effect on exposure to secondhand cannabis smoke. Under extreme, unventilated conditions, secondhand cannabis smoke exposure can produce detectable levels of THC in blood and urine, minor physiological and subjective drug effects, and minor impairment on a task requiring psychomotor ability and working memory. The authors of the study caution that it took specific and “extreme” conditions to produce effects from the second hand high, and that their study design may not accurately reflect the real world: The size of room, amount of cannabis consumed, duration of exposure, and frequency of such exposure are all variables that likely would influence outcomes in the real world. Their results do suggest, however, that secondhand highs are possible but that you would probably have to work pretty hard to get there. That means, if you’re in a position where you’re trying to brazen out a story about how you accidentally got a contact high after a long night, you might have to think up another excuse.
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10574
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Questioning a $30,000-a-Month Cancer Drug
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This story focuses on issue of the cost of a new cancer drug, but it also provides valuable and balanced information for the reader on the drug, Fotolyn, in terms of its potential benefits, availability, novelty, and evidence to support its use. Notably, the story quotes multiple stakeholders, including experts from the drug manufacturer, a large insurance company, and lymphoma researchers. These quotes provide diversity of perspectives on this controversial issue. Recent debates on health care reform in the United States have highlighted the complex problem of cost of drugs and treatments. Healthcare costs are rising at alarming rates, causing a significant drag on our economy. How much is too much to spend on a new drug? The recent news of the FDA approval of Folotyn, a chemotherapy drug for peripheral T-cell lymphoma, a rare and serious cancer, has raised this question in dramatic fashion. Folotyn is projected to cost $30,000 per month, quite a bit higher than other high priced cancer drugs. Folotyn is projected to be a money-maker for the manufacturer, Allos Therapeutics.
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true
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The story goes into some detail about the cost of Folotyn, which is extraordinarily high. The story also does a great job of comparing the cost of the drug to other expensive cancer drugs. Costs were the main focus of the story. The story adequately quantitifes the benefits of Folotyn, which are not that impressive. The story provides the percentage of patients with reductions in tumor size and the median time that the benefits lasted. The story does not mention any potential harms of Folotyn. Although the primary focus of the story realtes to the drug’s cost, it would have desriable to provide a brief comment on the toxicity of the drug as well. The addition of the information would help the reader place the value of the drug into a better perspective. According to the package insert, 44% of patients treated in the clinical trial suffered from a serious side effect of the drug The story describes the evidence to support Folotyn, which is rather thin. The story mentions one clinical trial that showed a reduction in tumor size in some participants, but that to date, the drug has not been shown to prolong longevity. The quote from a member of the FDA advisory board that recommended approval provides an excellent overview and counterpoint to the comments of the company spokesperson. The story accurately represents the seriousness and prevalence of peripheral T-cell Lymphoma, which is quite rare and serious. The story quotes multiple stakeholders, including experts from the drug manufacturer, a large insurance company, and lymphoma researchers. The provide valuable diversity of perspectives on this controversial issue. The story clearly states that there are no alternatives to Folotyn for this particular indications, but compares the price of the drug to several other expensive cancer drugs. The story should have emphasized that Folotyn was studied in patients who have relapsed and a comparison with currently used regimens is not available. The story clearly states that Folotyn is not currently available but that the manufacturer plans to market the drug in January. The story clearly states that Folotyn is new. It could have stated that a host of older and less expensive treatment options are currently available. Because the story quotes mutliple experts, the reader can assume the story did not rely on a press release as the sole source of information.
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22747
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"If the Stamp Farm wind turbine is built, the ""health risk of 'flicker' impact created by shadows of blades of turbines poses real and significant health risks, particularly seizures."
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North Kingstown wind turbine critics say spinning blades pose risk of seizures
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false
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Environment, Rhode Island, Energy, Laurence Ehrhardt,
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"To some, spinning wind turbines are a majestic source of pollution-free energy. But when they're proposed for residential areas, opponents often portray them as a menace to healthy, safety, aesthetics and property values. The rhetoric can get pretty extreme. When one was proposed in Barrington in 2008, opponents claimed that unnamed ""independent medical experts"" had found that turbines can cause everything from headaches to heart problems, and that sunlight flashing through the blades can produce a stroboscopic effect that may lead to nausea, dizziness, disorientation and seizures. So when a massive 427-foot turbine was proposed for Stamp Farm on Route 2 in North Kingstown, it wasn't surprising that the opposition would echo those claims. One opponent was state Rep. Laurence Ehrhardt of North Kingstown. He co-authored an opinion column published in The Providence Journal with former North Kingstown Town Council President Edward Cooney. For one of their bullet points, they played the epilepsy card: ""The health risk of 'flicker' impact created by shadows of blades of turbines poses real and significant health risks, particularly seizures."" We've seen reports in the medical literature documenting that seizures can be caused by everything from Pokemon cartoons and ""Super Mario Brothers"" to the voice of former Entertainment Tonight host Mary Hart, but we've never seen any real evidence that wind turbines can trigger seizures. So we decided to investigate. We contacted Ehrhardt and Cooney to ask for their source for the statement. Ehrhardt said Cooney was responsible for that part of the commentary. Cooney sent us links to various articles available on anti-turbine websites. None of them offered any documented case histories of people having seizures because of wind turbines. Instead, they say the turbines ""may"" cause seizures and they raise other issues with similarly tenuous evidence. For example, North Kingstown opponents sent us to the website WindVigilance.com asserting that ""the health impact of visual burdens cannot be underestimated."" But the WindVigilance.com page, drafted by turbine opponents, doesn't say turbines pose a ""real"" seizure risk, as Ehrhardt and Cooney said. Instead, it says that flicker just ""has the potential to induce photosensitive epilepsy seizures, however the risk is low with large modern models and if proper planning is adhered to."" Similarly, opponents sent us copies of a research report that looked at flicker and epilepsy, but the report only examined the conditions that might cause a seizure. Cooney referred us to ""a well-known study by Dr. Nina Pierpont, which addresses 'wind turbine syndrome' and the health risks associated with such."" Pierpont's ""study"" is actually a book in which she reports on people who claim to have suffered all kinds of ills from living next to turbines, from blurred vision to rapid heart rate and panic attacks. But, according to her online resume, she has never published a study on any human health topic in any respected medical or scientific journal. One of her stated goals was to prove that the physical symptoms of the residents were real, not psychosomatic, a bias that most researchers try to avoid. In one of his emails, Cooney referred us to a 2007 report on wind turbines written by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. It reported that ""Thus far, there has been relatively little dispassionate analysis of the human impacts of wind-energy projects. Much that has been written has been from the vantage points of either proponents or opponents."" That report, written by a panel of experts, concluded that shadow flicker ""can be a nuisance to people living near a wind-energy project"" but the frequency of the flickering ""is harmless to humans."" In his e-mail, Cooney quotes the ""harmless to humans"" paragraph, which directly contradicts his claim. When asked about the contradiction, he responded: ""I stand by my statement."" Another piece of evidence supplied by Cooney was a portion of a report called ""Planning for Renewable Energy. The section on flicker and epilepsy says only 0.5 percent of the population is epileptic, only about 5 percent of those are sensitive to flickering light, and less than 5 percent of those would be sensitive to the type of flicker produced by turbine blades. That's less than 1 in 80,000 people. We contacted two epilepsy experts who said the concern was ridiculous because it was so unlikely. David Mandelbaum, a neurologist and pediatrician at Brown University's Alpert Medical School, said even if an epileptic is sensitive to light, the flicker has to be at just the right frequency, and that frequency can vary widely from person to person. Dr. Gregory Kent Bergey, director of the epilepsy center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said in an email: ""The fact is, the great majority of people with seizures [probably greater than 95 percent] do not have this photosensitivity."" Some patients may experience a brief spasm if they see the sun coming through the trees, ""but these seizures are usually readily controlled by medication. I do not tell these patients not to drive in the forest!"" He said ""the risk from sun coming through a wind turbine would be very small -- the person would first have to be looking at the sun, not just at a turbine, and most of us know not to look at the sun directly. . . . We cannot use this as a reason not to erect wind turbine farms."" Mandelbaum said he has never seen any reliable documentation that turbines can cause seizures, or any other health problems. ""They're using the epileptic community. It's clever and it's nonsense, and I find it personally offensive,"" he said. Finally, we called a place where, if wind turbines did cause health problems, doctors would probably know about it. Cogdell Memorial Hospital is near what is reputed to be the world's largest wind farm, located in Roscoe, Texas. The farm has 627 turbines spread out over 100,000 acres and 4 counties. Several are located along Route 84, where motorists would be exposed to flicker. Said spokeswoman Belinda Kerr: ""We have not seen or treated any illnesses or injuries related to these wind farms."" In the end, there may be valid arguments to make both for and against wind turbines in residential neighborhoods. But the seizure risk that Ehrhardt and Cooney cite is not one of them. The ""real and significant"" health risks that they say turbine flicker poses are undocumented. If they exist, they are probably not very significant. To say that seizures are the best example is ridiculous. We wish there were a more environmentally-friendly solution, but the Truth-O-Meter calls for some carbon-based combustion."
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27515
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Graham crackers were named for a man who believed unhealthy diet led to sexual excess.
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Today’s graham crackers are made with bleached white flour, a deviation that would have set Sylvester Graham to spinning in his grave — he regarded refined flour as one of the world’s great dietary evils.
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true
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Food, Food Origins, Product Origins
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The Reverend Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian minister who became a social reformer and a ferocious advocate of healthful living, is the man who put the ‘graham’ into the treat we now know and love as graham crackers. Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) believed physical lust was harmful to the body and caused such dire maladies in the sexually overheated as pulmonary consumption, spinal diseases, epilepsy, and insanity, as well as such lesser ailments as headaches and indigestion. He also thought too much lust could result in the early death of offspring, who would have been conceived from weakened stock. Graham believed a strict vegetarian diet would aid in suppressing carnal urges; to this end, he advocated a regimen devoid of meat and rich in fiber as a way of combating rampant desire. His famed “Graham bread” was fashioned from the coarsely ground wheat flour he espoused and which came to bear his name: The Reverend Sylvester Graham, an eccentric Presbyterian minister from Connecticut, promoted a strict, abstemious diet that won him countless converts during America’s health craze of the 1820s and 1830s. Convinced that eating meat and fat leads to sinful sexual excess, the good reverend urged total vegetarianism. He also warned that mustard and ketchup cause insanity, urged followers to drink only water, and recommended sleeping with one’s windows open regardless of the weather. More reasonably, he touted the merits of a high-fiber diet and promoted the use of homemade unsifted wheat flour instead of refined white flour.1 Although Graham had his adherents during his lifetime, he was mostly regarded as a bit of a nut. Still, there were those who followed his recommendations and happily incarcerated themselves in “Graham boarding houses” in New York and Boston as part of the health craze he inspired. A high-fiber vegetarian diet wasn’t the only thing he pushed: Graham was also strongly against the use of tobacco or alcohol and advocated fresh air, exercise, and a good night’s sleep as excellent components of a healthy lifestyle. Who actually produced the first ‘graham crackers’ — so named because they were made of the unsifted wheat flour that Sylvester Graham promoted — is the subject of dispute. Some sources assert Graham himself invented the snack in 1829; others claim the graham cracker did not come into being until 1882, 31 years after Graham’s death. (The latter date appears to be based on the year recipes for graham crackers started appearing in cookbooks.) Many bakers tried to market the crackers, but it wasn’t until 1898 that the National Biscuit Company (now Nabisco) made any real inroads into the market with their Nabisco Graham Crackers product. Nabisco achieved even greater success with their Honey Maid line, introduced in 1925, which boosted the original graham flavor through the addition of honey.
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21678
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"Michele Bachmann Says Tim Pawlenty said in 2006, ""The era of small government is over... the government has to be more proactive and more aggressive."
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"Did Tim Pawlenty say, ""The era of small government is over""?"
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true
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National, Candidate Biography, Michele Bachmann,
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"What happened to Minnesota nice? Michele Bachmann blasted her fellow Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty after he questioned her experience. The two are competing for the Republican nomination for president. ""These are serious times that require serious solutions -- not more of the same. Being right on the issues is critical -- it is what the American people demand. Executive experience is not an asset if it simply means bigger and more intrusive government,"" Bachmann said in a prepared statement on July 24, 2011. ""Governor Pawlenty said in 2006, 'The era of small government is over... the government has to be more proactive and more aggressive.' That's the same philosophy that, under President Obama, has brought us record deficits, massive unemployment and an unconstitutional health care plan."" We wanted to see if Bachmann was correct about what Pawlenty said about small government, as it seems like a sentiment unlikely to be popular in a Republican primary. We contacted both campaigns for comment but didn't hear back from either one. We were able to easily find the comment; it originated with an August 2006 report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. (We found it in the Nexis newspaper database.) ""Pawlenty sees his role as reformer,"" says the headline. ""The GOP governor has targeted what he calls excessive corporate power. Critics call his election-year 'populism' cosmetic."" The story says that starting in 2006, Pawlenty ""repeatedly made himself a nuisance to major industries that frequently back Republicans,"" particularly calling on Congress to put new regulations on prescription drug companies and auto makers. The story said he called for a two-year ban on advertising prescription drugs, urged regulators to speed the release of generic insulin products and proposed new regulations to support the use of ethanol. ""Those kinds of proposals for government intervention in the free market on the surface might seem unusual coming from a conservative GOP politician. But they are illustrations of the way that Pawlenty, a fiscal and social conservative, also styles himself a kind of latter-day trust buster, a reformer who is unafraid to challenge big business and wield government power to correct imbalances in the marketplace,"" the story said. And here's the key section: ""The era of small government is over,"" Pawlenty said in an interview with the Star Tribune. ""I'm a market person, but there are certain circumstances where you've got to have government put up the guardrails or bust up entrenched interests before they become too powerful ... Government has to be more proactive, more aggressive."" ... Pawlenty insists his own populist streak is no election-year attempt to steer toward the middle. Peel back the conservative, he said, and you find the boy who grew up near South St. Paul's stockyards and learned what happened when power became too concentrated. When companies gain too much power, he said, they can suppress wages. Drug companies can command high prices for brand-name products long after they could have gone generic. Oil companies can use their muscle to keep out renewable fuels. HMOs can shift costs from their members to the public at large. While he may not fit the DFL [Democratic-Farm-Labor Party] definition of a populist, Pawlenty said, ""it's a matter of where you draw the line. ... I know that concentrated power unchecked leads to bad things,"" he said. We're not sure what Pawlenty's own reaction to the story was, but his press secretary didn't like it. The next day, the Star Tribune ran a ""clarification,"" that said the story ""quoted Gov. Tim Pawlenty saying 'The era of small government is over,' a comment he made in reference to a point made in a 2004 column by New York Times columnist David Brooks. Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung said Monday that Pawlenty's record shows he is not a supporter of 'big government' and that he was 'simply talking about the need for government to be more effective and active.'"" The Star Tribune story doesn't mention David Brooks, but we went searching for the relevant story, and it seems likely it was a story Brooks wrote for the New York Times Magazine that took the measure of the conservative movement in 2004, headlined ""How to re-invent the G.O.P."" In the story, Brooks noted that historical forces like Islamic extremism and the end of socialism were changing the nature of conservatism, pushing it away from a minimalist vision for government. The new conservatism ""understands the paradox that if you don't have a positive vision of government, you won't be able to limit the growth of government. If you can't offer people a vision of what government should do, you won't be able to persuade them about the things it shouldn't do. If the Republican Party is going to evolve into a principled majority party, members of this group are going to have to build a governing philosophy based on this insight,"" Brooks wrote. Brooks said George W. Bush typified this new approach. ""By the time he began his campaign for president in 1999, Bush understood that the simple government-is-the-problem philosophy of the older Republicans was obsolete. During that campaign, Bush criticized what he called the 'destructive mind-set: the idea that if government would only get out of our way, all our problems would be solved. An approach with no higher goal, no nobler purpose, than ""Leave us alone.''' Instead, Bush argued, 'government must be carefully limited but strong and active.'"" Pawlenty maintains that he was incorrectly quoted in the Star Tribune story. In May 2011, he went on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, and Limbaugh asked him if he had indeed said, ""The era of small government is over."" ""The other side has pushed that falsely for a number of years,"" Pawleny said, according to the show's transcript. ""What happened is in the Minnesota Star Tribune -- not exactly a conservative publication -- I made reference to an article that David Brooks wrote which was entitled, 'The Era of Small Government is Over.' I didn't say those words myself; I was referencing his article. ""The very next day, the Star Tribune, after a big battle, printed a clarification or a correction in their correction page,"" he continued. ""Of course, the main article was on page one and the correction was buried in some footnote in page three, but that incorrect quote has haunted me -- and I'm glad I had a chance in this big national forum on your great show to clarify, because if you go to the next day's newspaper you'll see the clarification in the Star Tribune."" We should note that the headline of the Brooks' article we found was not ""The Era of Small Government is Over,"" but we won't quibble about that. Pawlenty could have seen the article or another one like it somewhere with a modified headline, and the phrase certainly captures the article's sentiment. We also contacted the Star Tribune to see if it still stood by the story. The story's author, Patricia Lopez, is now the newspaper's political editor. Here's what she said: ""The governor was quoted correctly, which is why we printed only a clarification. He was quoting a David Brooks column, but as you can see, it was in support of other statements he made about the role of government. He never asked to have any other statement in the article corrected."" But even if Pawlenty was quoting Brooks when he said the phrase ""the era of small government is over"" during the interview, he seemed to be doing so approvingly. The rest of the article portrays Pawlenty as someone who was willing to use government to intervene in the markets and gives examples to support that. Here's a little more from the story. ""Oil companies have played a role in suppressing the development of alternative fuels,"" Pawlenty said, with heavy-handed contracts that prevent gasoline stations from providing pumps for renewable fuels such as ethanol. With the nation's economic security at stake, ""that is disproportionate power,"" he said. ""Government has to step in."" Similarly, when he testified before Congress for reimportation of drugs from Canada, where prices are government-regulated, Pawlenty said he got a taste of the pharmaceutical industry's might. ""I've seen it firsthand,"" he said. ""They've got a power that would frighten most citizens."" Pawlenty has changed positions on energy policy; he once supported a cap and trade system but no longer does. We looked for any recent statements he's made about reimporting drugs from Canada, but couldn't find any. We also asked two political watchers in Minnesota if the Star Tribune story was generally reflective of Pawlenty's political views in 2006. They said it was. ""In terms of his views on government, I think he can best be described as actively wanting to use the government to achieve certain ends, only with less taxes,"" said David Schultz, a professor at Hamline University who studies Minnesota politics. Schultz said Pawlenty's rhetoric became more conservative starting around 2008, when his name was mentioned as a potential running mate for John McCain. ""In fairness, Pawlenty did restrain spending by the Democratic Legislature. But he was more moderate on several other issues than he now appears, and the (Star Tribune story) is an example of that,"" said Steve Schier, a professor of political science at Carleton College. So where does this leave us? Back in 2006, Pawlenty was portraying himself as a conservative who was willing to intervene in markets, and he said that government has to ""bust up entrenched interests before they become too powerful."" It appears he's been backing off those positions in 2011, but that doesn't change what his views were years ago. If he was quoting David Brooks when he said ""the era of small government is over,"" he seemed to be doing so approvingly, though a spokesman said he did not mean to imply that he supported ""big government.""."
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9965
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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Can Be as Effective as Second-Generation Antidepressants to Treat Major Depressive Disorder
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This news release from RTI International states that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and second generation antidepressants are equally effective as first-line treatments for treating major depressive disorder (MDD). CBT is a general term for a wide variety of psychotherapy strategies that involve talking about one’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors in order to make positive changes. Second generation antidepressants refer to drugs introduced in the 1980s and 1990s and include the brand name drugs Prozac, Lexapro and Wellbutrin. The findings reported come from a mega-analysis of 11 previous randomized controlled studies that looked at CBT and antidepressant outcomes. The claim that they are equally effective as first-line treatments for MDD conflict with current practice guidelines recommended by the American Psychiatric Association and the British Association for Psychopharmacology that state, “psychotherapy is sufficient for treating mild depression, antidepressant medications (ADMs) should be used to treat severe depression in the context of major depressive disorder.” The news release’s claims about benefits aren’t backed up by hard numbers showing what the study authors found. An estimated 15.7 million (or 6.7% of adults) U.S. adults experience major depression at least once during 2013, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Antidepressants as a class have been one of the top 5 prescribed drugs in the U.S. for the last dozen years. The cost and adverse reactions caused by antidepressant medications is significant and an alternative such as CBT is important to know about.
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mixture
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Independent research center news release,mental health
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The release gives a slight nod to costs without saying very much. It states, “However, psychotherapy can be time-consuming and may be substantially more expensive, depending on the patient’s insurance benefits.” Medications and CBT both have costs so it would have been nice to compare them. There was no quantification of benefits. That’s a big omission considering people with major depressive disorder are being told that talk therapy and medications yield the same outcome. Some of the important quantifiers missing include: How long was the treatment? What percent improved after treatment? How much did they improve? What was the rate of relapse? How long did they improve? The release mentions harms from both CBT and antidepressants. While promoting the advantages of CBT over medications, the release discusses some harms from antidepressants (“constipation, diarrhea and dizziness”) but didn’t touch on the more serious harms associated with SSRIs, particularly when going through withdrawal. This was a systematic review that looked only at randomized, controlled trials, which should reflect high quality, reliable results. While we’ll award a Satisfactory rating, we wish that the release had done more to explain where this type of study sits in the evidence hierarchy and how it differs from other types of research. Some comment on limitations of the included studies would also have been appropriate — for example the study itself said this: “Results should be interpreted cautiously given the low strength of evidence for most outcomes.” The release doesn’t use fear mongering language. Perhaps it even under-stressed the ill effects of major depression. The release notes that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) funded the study. AHRQ is a government agency that studies and promotes improved quality in health care. While the release is about comparative trials it didn’t delve into what improvement means. While CBT is in wide use, the release glides over the long wait times even people with health insurance must wait to be matched with a CBT therapist. In some states, the wait can take months. In addition, the release notes that most patients see their primary care physician first. We are unclear on what percentage of primary care physicians are trained in CBT and are willing to offer it. This meta-analysis research on CBT and antidepressants has been around the block a few times. A similar study involving 16 studies and 1700 patients and with a similar conclusion was published in JAMA Psychiatry in September 2015. Prior to being published in the BMJ, this research was presented at a 2014 neurology conference. The release doesn’t use unjustifiable language. Some of the language is muddied in that it doesn’t spell out the difference between major depressive disorder and other types of depression.
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13734
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"Trade deals threaten ""India’s role as the pharmacy of the developing world"" for new HIV medicines."
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Doctors Without Borders said that trade deals threaten the capacity of Indian generic drug makers to produce the next round of HIV drugs. We found that trade negotiations, whether part of large regional trade agreements or unilateral discussions between the United States and India, have language that work against India generic drug makers. They push India to be more ready to grant patents for drugs that are extensions of drugs that already enjoy patent protection. And they want India to bar generic drug makers from relying on the clinical trial data produced by the inventor of the drug. Both measures would make patents last longer and give the drug companies more time to charge higher prices. None of the articles we read or experts we reached doubted this result or that this would undermine the generic drug makers. Our experts disagreed on whether this would reduce access to critical drugs. The trade deals do no favors for India’s generic drug makers. With a caveat about future access to drugs.
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true
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Global News Service, Public Health, Trade, Doctors Without Borders,
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"If there was one success story to emerge from the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, it was that more people are getting treated for HIV/AIDS than ever before -- about 17 million by the latest United Nations estimate. Falling drug prices played a key role in helping providers reach this point. But the international health group Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) warned at a press conference that trade negotiations around the world put future gains at risk. The group said its latest report ""examines multiple global threats to access to affordable treatment, including trade deals which threaten India’s role as the ‘pharmacy of the developing world.’"" Trade is at the center of the U.S. presidential election for its effect on the American work force. But is there more at play? We wondered if it’s true that the next round of agreements, both those that involve the United States and those that don’t, would undermine some large drug makers in India. Why India India matters because thanks to the country’s patent laws, India and generics go together like toast and jam. The rules there make it easier than other places for companies to churn out generic drugs once the patent on the original version runs out. Generics are cheaper than their brand name cousins and if you want to stretch a dollar, you take the generic option. Doctors Without Borders said 97 percent of the drugs it uses to treat people with HIV are generics made in India. That includes medicines for HIV itself, as well as for diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis that hit people with suppressed immune systems. Doctors Without Borders is worried less about the drugs it uses today and more about the ones it’s counting on in the future. As the number of people coming in for treatment rises, doctors are finding more who don’t respond to the most common, or first-line, medications. Doctors Without Borders is focused on making second-and-third-line drugs more affordable to keep pace with a growing need, and they see India as the place to make that happen. Impact of trade deals Although the Trans-Pacific Partnership gets a lot of attention in the United States, India is not part of it. But it is part of discussions involving the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, a mega-regional pact that aims to tie together 16 countries including China, India, Australia, Japan, South Korea and many other Asian nations. The European Union is also seeking a regional trade agreement with India and other Asian countries. Both of those trade negotiations have sought to get India to tighten its patent laws. The United States has too, through a one-on-one process overseen by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The issues that office has raised mirror ones in the big trade deals. The USTR’s latest report criticizes India’s patent laws, saying ""the pharmaceutical industry in particular faces a host of challenges related to intellectual property rights."" What do U.S. trade negotiators not like in particular? For one, India is reluctant to grant new patents for a drug or blend of drugs built around medications that already enjoy patent protection. These so-called secondary patents extend the time for the drug maker to enjoy exclusive production rights. That translates into a chance to charge higher prices. American officials also don’t care for India’s rules on clinical trial information. When someone invents a drug, they have to prove it’s safe and effective. That proof is in the trial reports. India lets generic drug makers rely on the original clinical trials. One way to extend the exclusive right to make a drug is to bar generic drug makers from using that data for a number of years. Would these sorts of changes make life easier for the makers of new drugs and harder for the generic manufacturers? We found no dispute that they would. We talked with independent experts who think India should stand its ground and those who thought it ought to bend, but either way, they agreed on who wins and who loses. There are good arguments on both sides for protecting the profits of companies that invent new drugs, versus making drugs more affordable. We take no position on the larger question of where the right balance point falls. We're focused only on the claim that large trading partners want to move Indian law in favor of the inventors of new drugs. Lee Branstetter is a professor and trade specialist at Carnegie Mellon University. He thinks Indian law ought to change at the expense of the generic companies. ""In the short run, this will constrain the profit opportunities for the generic producers,"" he told us. Srividhya Ragavan, a professor of law at Texas A&M, thinks India’s laws strike the right balance as they are. She told us she sees the U.S. position as ""an effort to weaken India’s generic drug industry."" We found any number of articles that reached the same conclusion. But just because Branstetter and Ragavan see eye to eye on how these policy shifts would undermine generic drug makers, that doesn't mean they agree on what this means for the availability of low-cost drugs. Ragavan told us ""the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and EU’s trade negotiations, are all targeting India’s generic drug industry much to the detriment of access to medication to the poor people."" Branstetter said that’s unlikely and highlights an important feature in the overarching trade rules of the World Trade Organization. The escape hatch Branstetter said based on what he’s seen in other countries (he cited Peru as an example) he doubts that would happen. But even if it did, he said, a part of the WTO code -- the Doha Declaration on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Agreement -- gives countries the chance to override a patent that limits a drug’s availability. Branstetter calls it an escape hatch. ""Any member state could declare we have a public health emergency,"" Branstetter said. ""Then, they can force the company that holds the patent to licence the manufacture of that drug to a domestic or foreign drug producer, who would provide it at an agreed price."" Branstetter notes that the Trans-Pacific Partnership specifically requires any country that signs it to accept that Doha declaration. Countries have taken this step before. At the height of the AIDS crisis in the mid 2000s, Indonesia, Malaysia, Ghana, Mozambique and many others issued what are called compulsory licenses to get affordable HIV/AIDS drugs to their citizens. Still, Rohit Malpani, director of policy of the Doctors Without Borders- Access Campaign, told us that in recent years, the number of compulsory licenses has fallen off. ""Even if countries have the right to use the safeguard and can use them they do not,"" Malpani said. He suggested several reasons, including a lack of political will and pressure from the United States, the EU and the drug companies. Our ruling Doctors Without Borders said that trade deals threaten the capacity of Indian generic drug makers to produce the next round of HIV drugs. We found that trade negotiations, whether part of large regional trade agreements or unilateral discussions between the United States and India, have language that work against India generic drug makers. They push India to be more ready to grant patents for drugs that are extensions of drugs that already enjoy patent protection. And they want India to bar generic drug makers from relying on the clinical trial data produced by the inventor of the drug. Both measures would make patents last longer and give the drug companies more time to charge higher prices. None of the articles we read or experts we reached doubted this result or that this would undermine the generic drug makers. Our experts disagreed on whether this would reduce access to critical drugs. The trade deals do no favors for India’s generic drug makers."
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3607
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Alex Trebek shares ‘mind-boggling’ pancreatic cancer update.
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“Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek says his doctors say he’s in “near remission” of advanced pancreatic cancer and his response to the treatment is “kind of mind-boggling.”
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true
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Cancer, Pancreatic cancer, Entertainment, North America, Health, Alex Trebek, TV
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The 78-year-old TV personality tells People magazine he’s responding very well to chemotherapy and the doctors have told him “they hadn’t seen this kind of positive results in their memory.” Trebek says some of the tumors have shrunk by more than 50%. Trebek announced his diagnosis in March, but said he intended to keep working. He said he planned to beat the disease’s low survival rate with the love and support of family and friends and with prayers from viewers. The American Cancer Society estimates 3% of patients with stage 4 pancreatic cancer are alive 5 years after being diagnosed. Trebek says he still has several more rounds of treatment to hopefully get into full remission.
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6937
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Could anyone have stopped gene-edited babies experiment?.
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Early last year, a little-known Chinese researcher turned up at an elite meeting in Berkeley, California, where scientists and ethicists were discussing a technology that had shaken the field to its core — an emerging tool for “editing” genes, the strings of DNA that form the blueprint of life.
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true
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AP Top News, University of California, Hong Kong, United States, Genetic Frontiers, Health, California, Science, Stanford University, Asia Pacific, U.S. News, Technology, International News
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The young scientist, He Jiankui, saw the power of this tool, called CRISPR, to transform not only genes, but also his own career. In visits to the United States, he sought out CRISPR pioneers such as Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University’s Dr. Matthew Porteus, and big thinkers on its use, like Stanford ethicist Dr. William Hurlbut. Last week, those shocked researchers watched as He hijacked an international conference they helped organize with an astonishing claim: He said he helped make the world’s first gene-edited babies , despite clear scientific consensus that making genetic changes that could be passed to future generations should not be attempted at this point . U.S. National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins called He’s experiment “a misadventure of a major sort” — starring “a scientist who apparently believed that he was a hero. In fact, he crossed every line, scientifically and ethically.” But nobody stopped him. How can that be? To be fair, scientists say there’s no certain way to stop someone intent on monkeying with DNA, no matter what laws or standards are in place. CRISPR is cheap and easy to use — which is why scientists began to worry almost as soon as the technology was invented that something like this would happen. And there is a long history in science and medicine of researchers launching experiments prematurely that were met with scorn or horror — some of which led to what are now common practices, such as in-vitro fertilization. Gene-editing for reproductive purposes is effectively banned in the U.S. and most of Europe. In China, ministerial guidelines prohibit embryo research that “violates ethical or moral principles.” It turns out He wasn’t exactly tight-lipped about his goals . He pursued international experts at Stanford and Rice Universities, where he had done graduate studies work, and elsewhere, seeking advice before and during the experiment. Should scientists who knew of He’s plans have spoken up? Could they have dissuaded him? The answers aren’t clear. “It doesn’t fall into the category of legal responsibility, but ethical responsibility,” said Collins. He said that not speaking up “doesn’t seem like a scientist taking responsibility.” China’s National Commission of Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences and He’s own university have said they were in dark and have since condemned him . But three Stanford scientists — Hurlbut, Porteus and He’s former fellowship adviser, Stephen Quake — had extensive contact with him over the last few years. They and other scientists knew or strongly suspected that He intended to try to make genetically edited babies. Some confidantes didn’t think He would follow through; others raised concerns that were never heeded. Stanford has not responded to an interview request. Quake, a bioengineering professor, was one of the first to know about He’s ambition. Quake said he had met with He through the years whenever his former student was in town, and that He confided his interest a few years ago in editing embryos for live births to try to make them resistant to the AIDS virus. Quake said he gave He only general advice and encouraged him to talk with mainstream scientists, to choose situations where there’s consensus that the risks are justified, to meet the highest ethics standards and to publish his results in a peer-reviewed journal. “My advice was very broad,” Quake said. Hurlbut thinks he first met He in early 2017, when he and Doudna, co-inventor of CRISPR, held the first of three meetings with leading scientists and ethicists to discuss the technology. “Somehow, he ended up at our meeting,” Hurlbut said. Since then, He returned several times to Stanford, and Hurlbut said he “spent many hours” talking with He about situations where gene editing might be appropriate. Four or five weeks ago, Hurlbut said He came to see him again and discussed embryo gene editing to try to prevent HIV. Hurlbut said he suspected He had tried to implant a modified embryo in a woman’s womb. “I admonished him,” he said. “I didn’t green-light his work. I challenged him on it. I didn’t approve of what he was doing.” Porteus said he knew that He had been talking with Hurlbut and assumed Hurlbut discouraged the Chinese scientist. In February, He asked to meet with Porteus and told him he had gotten approval from a hospital ethics board to move forward. “I think he was expecting me to be more receptive, and I was very negative,” Porteus said. “I was angry at his naivete, I was angry at his recklessness.” Porteus said he urged He “to go talk to your senior Chinese colleagues.” After that meeting, “I didn’t hear from him and assumed he would not proceed,” Porteus said. “In retrospect, I could have raised a hue and cry.” In a draft article about the gene-edited twin girls, which He planned to submit to journals, he thanked UC Berkeley biophysicist Mark DeWitt for “editing the manuscript.” DeWitt said he tried to dissuade He and disputed that he edited the paper. He said he saw the paper, but the feedback he offered was “pretty general.” He’s claims, including that his work has resulted in a second pregnancy , cannot be independently confirmed and his work has not been published. He defended his actions last week at a gene editing summit in Hong Kong. In contrast, another U.S. scientist said he not only encouraged He but played a large role in the project. Michael Deem, a bioengineering professor at Rice University and He’s doctoral degree adviser, said he had worked with He since the scientist returned to China around 2012, and that he sits on the advisory boards and holds “a small stake” in He’s two genetics companies in Shenzhen. Deem defended He’s actions, saying the research team did earlier experiments on animals. “We have multiple generations of animals that were genetically edited and produced viable offspring,” and a lot of research on unintended effects on other genes, Deem said. Deem also said he was present in China when some study participants gave their consent to try embryo gene editing. Rice said it had no knowledge of Deem’s involvement and is now investigating. So far most of the attention has focused on regulatory gaps in China. But that’s not the whole story, said Rosario Isasi, an expert on genomics law in the U.S. and China at the University of Miami. “Let’s focus on how it happened and why it happened, and the way it happened,” said Isasi. “How can we establish a system that has better transparency?” There’s no international governing body to enforce bioethics rules, but scientific bodies and universities can use other tools. “If someone breaks those rules, scientists can ostracize, journals can refuse to publish, employers can refuse to employ, funders can refuse to fund,” said Hank Greely, a professor of law and genetics at Stanford. Greely expects He’s experiment will have ripple effects in academia, whether or not regulators act. “Universities are going to take a harder look at what’s going on. This incident will put everyone on alert about any related research.” Of course, sometimes bad beginnings can turn into better endings. In 1980, University of California, Los Angeles, professor Martin Cline was sanctioned for performing the first gene therapy on two women in Israel and Italy because he hadn’t gotten approval to try it at UCLA. Cline announced his work rather than publishing it in a scientific journal, and faced criticism for trying “genetic engineering” on people when its safety and effectiveness hadn’t yet been established in animals. Now gene therapy is an established, although still fairly novel, treatment method. Two years earlier, in 1978, Dr. Robert Edwards was similarly denounced when he announced through the press the world’s first “test tube baby,” Louise Brown. The work later earned a Nobel Prize, and IFV has helped millions to have a child. And this year, Louise Brown — mother of two sons, conceived in the old-fashioned way — turned 40. ___ Larson reported from Washington, D.C. ___ 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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Blood spots were visible in the left eye of Joe Biden, a 2020 U.S. Democratic presidential candidate, during a CNN debate in September 2019.
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We asked Biden’s campaign to clarify what had happened, and what the causes were, but we did not receive a response in time for publication.
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true
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Politics
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We received multiple inquiries from readers in September 2019 about news reports that claimed one of former Vice President Joe Biden’s eyes “filled with blood” during a CNN town hall debate on Sept. 4 and about the authenticity of video footage that appeared to show the incident. The Daily Mail wrote: “Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s left eye appeared to fill up with blood as he answered a question during CNN’s climate town hall on Wednesday night. Biden was answering a question about fracking when the blood suddenly became noticeable. As he turned away from the camera to take a question about China’s role in carbon emissions, the blood in his eye was easy to spot.” The right-leaning Washington Examiner published an article with the headline “Biden’s Eye Fills With Blood During CNN Climate Town Hall” and reported that: “Former Vice President Joe Biden appeared to have a blood vessel burst in his left eye while participating in CNN’s town hall on climate change. A broken blood vessel in the eye, also known as a subconjuctival hemorrhage, can be caused by several things, including high blood pressure, bleeding disorders, blood thinners, or even excessive straining.” Similar reports were published by the Daily Express and the right-leaning Townhall website. Many reports were accompanied by footage that appeared to show blood gathering in the corner of Biden’s left eye during the debate: The video footage was authentic, and blood did indeed gather, internally, in the corner of Biden’s eye during his appearance at the televised town hall. However, it’s not clear what caused that to happen, and much of the reporting that alluded to “health concerns” appeared to have been based on speculation. The incident began around 26 minutes into Biden’s appearance at the debate, which can be viewed on the CNN website. The blood becomes visible around 50 seconds into the following clip, which was posted to Twitter by CNN itself: “We can take millions of vehicles off the road if we have high-speed rail,” former Vice President Joe Biden says. “I’ve been the champion of that for the last 25 years.” #ClimateTownHall https://t.co/B8y4m3SMc5 pic.twitter.com/DNHPKJzDT3 — CNN (@CNN) September 5, 2019 It’s not clear what caused the incident. Some news reports speculated that the footage showed the aftermath of a blood vessel bursting in Biden’s eye, something that is relatively quite common and “usually harmless,” according to the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Burst blood vessels in the eye can be caused by straining, coughing or sneezing, but can also be linked to underlying health issues such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or the use of blood-thinning medications. Complications from the use of contact lenses can also cause blood vessels in the eye to break.
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3147
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In a 24/7 food culture, periodic fasting gains followers.
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On low-carb diets, meat and cheese are OK.
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true
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AP Top News, Health, General News, Weekend Reads
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On low-fat diets, fruit and oatmeal are fine. With the latest diet trend, no foods at all are allowed for long stretches of time. A diet that forbids eating for hours on end might seem doomed in a culture where food is constantly available, but apps and Facebook groups are popping up for people practicing “intermittent fasting.” Bri Wyatt, a 32-year-old Tennessee resident, tried it this summer. “At first I was like, there’s no way,” she said. But after reading more about it, she thought it might not be that hard. She started by skipping breakfast and night-time snacks, and later moved on to a 60-day challenge of fasting every other day. Melissa Breaux Bankston, a Crossfit instructor in New Orleans, Louisiana, also tried intermittent fasting as a way to curb her snacking. “I wanted to limit the amount of time that I was eating,” she said. Studies on the potential health benefits of intermittent fasting are still limited, including for its effectiveness with weight loss. But heading into the new year, you may be wondering whether it could help you get in better shape. WHEN, NOT WHAT Like other diets, intermittent fasting helps you lose weight by setting boundaries around food. But instead of limiting what you eat, it restricts when you eat. “It’s really another way of fooling your body into eating less calories,” said Krista Varady, who studies intermittent fasting at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Proponents say intermittent fasting helps with weight loss in other ways. For instance, they say it forces your body to start burning its own fat for fuel after depleting the energy it normally gets from food. But any effects would depend on the specific approach you take, and Varady said there isn’t strong evidence yet that intermittent fasting has any unique effects compared with other diets. Regardless, people should consult their doctor before trying it. It’s not advised for children, people on certain medications and people with a history of eating disorders. FASTING MENU One of the more popular approaches to intermittent fasting is to limit eating to an 8-hour window and to fast during the day’s other 16 hours. This is called time-restricted feeding and isn’t as difficult as some other approaches, since the fasting period can include the time you’re asleep. Many people tailor the eating window to be shorter or longer. Some eat just one meal a day, while others fast entire days a couple times a week. On fasting days, people may allow themselves around 600 calories if needed. But Dr. Jason Fung, who has written books on intermittent fasting, says skipping food altogether might actually be easier, since eating small amounts could stimulate appetite. Whatever the method, people aren’t supposed to gorge when they stop fasting. Fung says it’s a myth that fasting leaves you famished. Sumaya Kazi, who posts about her intermittent fasting online and offers coaching services on the diet, says it seems more difficult than it is partly because overeating has become the norm. “Intermittent fasting is more of a mental challenge than a physical challenge,” she says. But people react differently to diets, and fasting may be a lot harder for some than for others, says Dr. Fatima Stanford, a Harvard Medical School obesity specialist. “There’s no one size fits all,” she said. FASTING ON TRIAL Obesity experts have become interested in intermittent fasting, but studies on the diet are still emerging. For now, limited research suggests it may not be any better for weight loss than conventional calorie-cutting over the long term. “Unfortunately, intermittent fasting gets a little hyped,” said Courtney Peterson, who studies the diet at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Still, some fasting approaches may be more effective than others. And Peterson notes the difficulty of designing studies that definitively capture a diet’s effects. That’s in part because so many other variables could be at play. For instance, researchers are looking at whether any benefits of intermittent fasting might be tied to when the eating period falls and fluctuations in how well our bodies process food throughout the day. Some health experts say intermittent fasting might be too difficult for many people. They point to a study of 100 people where those placed in the alternate-day fasting group lost around the same amount of weight as those on conventional calorie-restriction diets over time. But the fasting group had a dropout rate of 38%, compared with 29% for the conventional diet group. But intermittent fasting may be easier than other diets for people who already skip meals when they’re too busy, said Varady of the University of Illinois at Chicago. To make weight loss stick, she said people should pick diets that resemble how they already eat. “Different diets do work for different people,” she said. ___ 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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34782
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A child dying of cancer wants you to send him cards so he can get into the Guinness World Book of Records.
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Chain Letters (Make-a-Wish Foundation)
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mixture
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Inboxer Rebellion, addie fausett, christmas cards, craig shergold
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An urban legend rivaled in tenacity by only the infamous “Cookie Recipe” tale (and even that monster runs a distant second), this appeal from a dying child touches the generosity in all of us and taps into our urge to do something — anything — in the face of unthinkable tragedy. In a perfect world, children wouldn’t die of horrible diseases. Our natural impulse upon encountering such cosmic injustice is to look for some way to make up for the tragedy. That such a child would have a final wish — and especially that the wish would be such a simple one — moves us to action. We can do little to alter the harsh reality of young lives snuffed out by incurable disease, but we can collect a few business cards. So we do. It’s hard to believe that so much good will and fine intentions could wreak havoc, but they have. And they still are. There really is a Craig Shergold, and he did have cancer. In 1989 an appeal was made on behalf of this then 9-year-old English boy afflicted with a terminal brain tumor. Young Craig wanted to be in the Guinness Book of World Records for having received the most greeting cards. By 1990, 16 million cards had arrived, and his wish had come true. (According to the 1997 edition of that book, by May 1991 he had collected 33 million.) Ah, but that was then, and this is now. Shergold’s tumor was successfully removed in March 1991, and this lad (born 24 June 1979) is now a healthy young man. However, like the implements in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the cards and letters have proved impossible to stop — they just keep rolling in. Several versions of the Craig Shergold appeal still circulate, and almost every one of them now asks for business cards, not greeting cards. (In yet another form of the same hoax, compliments slips are solicited.) The child’s name also gets munged on a regular basis. “Craig Shelford” and “Craig Stafford” and “Craig Sheppard” and “Greg Sherwood” are common variations, but there’s a double handful of similar-sounding names out there too. With some of the names, it’s difficult at first to be sure if they’re Shergold mungings (“John Craig” comes immediately to mind. And yes, it is.) In those cases, a quick look at the address where the cards or slips are to be mailed will settle matters — many Shergold appeals direct mail to an address on Selby, Selsby, or Shelby Road. (The real Craig Shergold did at one time live on Shelby Road in Carshalton, England. The family has since left that address.) One of the addresses used in the “request for cards” letter is that of the “81 Perimeter Center East” in Atlanta, which before the emergence of the hoax was the office of the Children’s Wish Foundation International. The foundation had to relocate because of all the unwanted Shergold mail. The U.S. Postal Service in Atlanta holds the hoax mailings (now more than 100 million) for a required length of time and, after they remain unclaimed, releases them to an Atlanta paper recycler. So end all those thousands of business cards everyone was scurrying around to gather up and mail off. A related “dying wish” request went out in the name of Ryan McGee of Virginia (a name sometimes munged in e-mail as “Ron McKee”). Though Ryan was a real person who was indeed battling a form of cancer (to which he succumbed in 2004), the request made in his name was not: He never expressed any wish for cards or to get into the record books, but somewhere along the line someone starred him in a version of the Craig Shergold hoax, transforming him into a dying child with a jones for cards. Because of the volume of mail sent to his home, the family moved and halted mail delivery to their address. To give an idea of how specious appeals like these can impact real people, we note that a woman with the same last name who lived in the same area as Ryan’s family was contemplating getting an unlisted phone number because she was getting upwards of 18 messages per day on her answering machine from people looking for information about the boy. Though the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America has never been involved with this appeal, it became a permanent fixture in the standard chain letter. Kind-hearted souls are invariably directed to mail business card offerings to it. Make-A-Wish has made repeated requests that “people please stop sending business cards or greeting cards to Craig Shergold” but these continue to go unheeded. It has a web page about the many false claims of its being involved in such efforts. Having learned its lesson about Pandora’s Box and dying child appeals, Guinness World Records retired the category for the most get-well cards, leaving Craig’s 1992 record of 33 million unchallenged. Cards continue to flow in, though, and the latest guesstimate has it that over 200 million have been received. Years ago Craig’s Shelby Road home was granted the British equivalent of its own postal code. Guinness explains its position very clearly in the FAQ on its web site, saying of Shergold record: This record attempt has ceased. Many years ago, a boy fighting cancer started a campaign for people to send him get-well messages in order to set a record for the most items received. Not only was that boy successful in getting a mention in the 1991 edition of the Guinness World Records book, he also made a full recovery.However, since then, chain mails have started up with variations on the original story, some requesting business cards or compliments slips rather than get-well messages. Please don’t respond to any such requests, and if anyone asks you about it please tell them it’s a hoax! Make-A-Wish and Guinness World Records weren’t the only ones who pleaded for the madness to end: both Craig and his parents granted a number of interviews in an attempt to put an end to the flood, including an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America on 26 October 1997. In a similar December 2014 appeal, the family of Addie Fausett, a 6-year-old girl with a terminal brain disorder, asked the public to send Addie a “lifetime of Christmas cards”: Addie Fausett, 6, of Fountain Green, Utah, is likely celebrating her last Christmas this year due to an atrophy of her brain that has left doctors puzzled. And in the face of devastating news, her family has come up with a beautiful idea: They are asking people to send Addie a “lifetime of Christmas cards.”Addie was just 3 years old when her mother, Tami, noticed that her girl could no longer hold a crayon or spoon, suddenly had difficulty speaking and her growth came to a standstill. Doctors found that her brain was shrinking and filling with fluid — a condition called diffuse atrophy — but the underlying cause of Addie’s atrophy remains undiagnosed, a medical mystery. Even now at 6 years old, Addie has never weighed more than 25 pounds. Last month, doctors delivered heartbreaking news: Addie had roughly a year to live, and her mental state would deteriorate before her physicality — she will forget what and who she knows. If you’d like to contribute a greeting, send it to: Addie Lynn and Sisters, P.O. Box 162, Fountain Green, UT 84632 Sadly, Addie passed away in July 2016. Additional information:
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9492
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First gene therapy — ‘a true living drug’ — on the cusp of FDA approval
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The story focuses on a treatment called CAR T-cell therapy, which is under review by the FDA for use in treating children with leukemia who are not responding to standard treatments. The story does a good job of describing the treatment, how it’s different from similar therapies, and how expensive it is. However, the story could have done a better job of discussing the numbers on both the remission rates and the side effects. This story looks specifically at using an immunotherapy treatment to tackle treatment-resistant leukemia in young people. And while childhood leukemia is rare, it is the most common form of cancer in children and adolescents. That alone makes the subject matter here of widespread interest. But the story also makes clear that the CAR T-cell treatment may be only the tip of the iceberg, with an array of other research initiatives aimed at using customized immunotherapy to tackle a variety of cancers. That means that the CAR T-cell treatment is being viewed — fairly or unfairly — as a bellwether for individualized immunotherapy in general. As a result, the way that the public perceives this type of cancer therapy may be strongly influenced by the way people perceive CAR T-cell treatment for juvenile leukemia cases. That makes it especially important for stories to give readers accurate information, and to place it in a context that helps people understand the associated pros and cons. Overall, we think the story does a pretty good job here.
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true
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cancer,FDA,gene therapy,immunotherapy,leukemia
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The story tackles this issue head on, as here: “Novartis has not disclosed the price for its therapy, but analysts are predicting $300,000 to $600,000 for a one-time infusion.” This is satisfactory, but barely. Here’s how the story addresses benefits for the CAR T-cell treatment: “In the pivotal trial testing the therapy in almost a dozen countries, 83 percent of patients went into remission. A year later, two-thirds remained so.” That information would be much more useful if it placed those numbers in context. For example, how many patients were enrolled in the study? 83 percent could be 13 out of 16 patients, or it could be 1,328 patients out of 1,600. And how does 83 percent compare to standard treatment? Similarly, is the story telling us that two-thirds of all patients were still in remission a year later? Or did it mean that two-thirds of the 83 percent were still in remission a year later? Contextual information would have provided some much-needed clarity here. The story notes: “The revved-up immune system [that results from the CAR T-cell treatment] becomes a potent cancer-fighting agent but also a dangerous threat to the patient. Serious side effects abound, raising concerns about broad use.” The story then goes on to discuss those potential harms more thoroughly. Ordinarily, this would be sufficient for a Satisfactory rating. But given the severity and frequency of serious, life-threatening events, the story needed numbers: What percentage of patients in the trial experienced a serious immune reaction? How many died? There are also plenty of unknowns with a new cancer treatment, such as lack of data on long-term prognosis. The story refers to a “pivotal trial testing the therapy in almost a dozen countries,” but offers little additional information. While the story offers an in-depth history of the research that led up to this treatment, readers are given very little information about the trials that provide insight into how well the treatment works and its associated risks. There’s really no disease mongering here, though there is one point that we’d like to single out. The story states that the CAR T-cell treatment “initially would be available only for the small number of children and young adults whose leukemia does not respond to standard care. Those patients typically have a grim prognosis” [emphasis added]. What does it mean to “typically have a grim prognosis”? It’s a fine turn of phrase, but it doesn’t actually convey much information — and it’s scary. In a case like this, it would likely be better to let the numbers speak for themselves. Or, if a story does include this sort of language, to back it up with some numbers. All of the sources in the story are patients, parents of patients, are associated with the pharmaceutical industry, or were involved with the relevant research being discussed. That said, the sources — and their conflicts of interest — were all clearly identified. Still, the story would have benefited from some independent, expert input. First of all, the story makes clear that CAR T-cell treatment — if approved — would be available only to those for whom conventional treatments have not worked. That’s a key point. Second, the story does articulate the difference between this form of immunotherapy (which is customized to the patient) and other immunotherapy techniques, which are so-called “checkpoint inhibitors” and are not individualized. As mentioned earlier, we would have liked to have seen more data on the success rates of standard treatment vs these treatments. The story clearly lays out where this treatment is in the FDA review process, how that process may unfold, and what this may mean for future availability. In addition, the story explains that CAR T-cell treatment would not be rolled out universally, but — if approved — would be available only through designated treatment facilities that have the relevant expertise. The story does a good job here, articulating what makes this treatment novel and how it works relative to other immunotherapy treatments. The story goes well beyond any news release.
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1922
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Polar bear threatens beaver as Canada national symbol.
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A Canadian senator has launched a campaign to replace the industrious beaver with the indomitable polar bear as Canada’s national emblem, saying the incumbent is “a dentally defective rat.”
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true
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Environment
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A World Wildlife Fund photograph taken along the western shore of Hudson Bay in November 2010 shows a female polar bear with two cubs near Churchill, Canada, in this image released to Reuters on February 9, 2011. REUTERS/Geoff York/World Wildlife Fund/Handout Conservative Senator Nicole Eaton delivered her damning criticism in the Senate on Thursday, noting that the beavers wreak havoc on the dock at her waterfront cottage every summer. “A country’s symbols are not constant and can change over time,” she said. “The polar bear, with its strength, courage, resourcefulness and dignity is perfect for the part.” The beaver became Canada’s only official national animal in 1975. Trade in the beaver pelts, used to make fashionable fur hats, drove European expansion in North America in the 1600s and early 1700s. Eaton said the ever-busy dambuilders are now nuisance, but avoided mentioning another gnawing problem with the emblem: In modern times, its name is slang for female genitals. Last year The Beaver, one of Canada’s oldest magazines, re-christened itself Canada’s History, complaining that its emails and newsletters were being blocked by Internet filters. The magazine said market research showed younger Canadians and women were not interested in buying the publication because of its name. As for Eaton’s proposed replacement, Keith Stewart, a climate change campaigner with Greenpeace Canada, was skeptical. “You have a Conservative senator proposing to replace the beaver with the polar bear as the symbol of Canada, yet her government’s climate policy would appear to do everything possible to wipe out polar bears by the end of the century,” he said. Stewart said the debate was a distraction. Eaton went out of her way to praise the country’s treatment of polar bears. “Contrary to unsubstantiated accusations, Canada is a world leader in its exemplary system of polar bear management,” she said in the Senate. “Our approach features co-management involving aboriginal groups and government, and a strict system of quotas and tags.”
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34686
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The interaction of Motrin and Robitussin causes heart attacks in children.
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If you’ve seen a Facebook post about Motrin and Robitussin, please read and share this. The information in the post is not correct and was not posted by one of our employees. We encourage caregivers to discuss any over-the-counter medications with their doctor and to ask about information found on the Internet.
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unproven
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Medical
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We first received an admonition not to combine Motrin with Robitussin via email in December 2008: Medicine interaction! Madison, age 8, passed away just a few days ago. We’ve been asked to pass this on. Doctors told her family that there have been quite a few children Madison’s age that have died recently the same way that she did. The only common link between them was that they were given Motrin (ibuprofen) and Robitussin together, this caused a heart attack. They believe this is what happened to them. They told her to alert everyone to this. Do not give children both of these medicines together. You can give them one or the other but not both. When Madison collapsed she suffered a heart attack and they were able to revive her but the loss of oxygen damaged her brain and she was put on the respirator. After this she had four strokes before she died after being taken off the respirator. Please pass this on. The story the warning is framed upon, that an eight-year-old girl named Madison died from a heart attack and strokes brought about by this combination of over-the-counter drugs, was unverifiable: the account provided no information as to Madison’s surname, where she lived, who her doctors were, where she was treated, or even the date she died. Absent any of that information, trying to determine if there actually was such a child proved a nearly impossible task. It is possible that a child can have a heart attack. For example, a news report of 2 October 2007 noted heart attacks in children are a rare but under-recognized problem that are most likely caused by heart spasms which briefly cut off the blood supply. It therefore cannot be ruled out that a child called Madison (of no known last name or address) did experience an acute myocardial infarction. However, that in rare instances children have experienced heart attacks only proves that such events happen, not that any particular drug interaction causes them. The active ingredient in Children’s Motrin is Ibuprofen, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug effective in relieving pain and reducing inflammation. (Ibuprofen is also marketed under several other brand names, such as Advil, Medipren, and Nuprin.) Children’s Motrin Suspension first became available as a prescription product in 1989, and in 1995 it was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration for marketing as an over-the-counter product. Both those landmarks occurred only after the product had been extensively tested on children: Robitussin Pediatric Cough is a syrup that contains Dextromethorphan HBr, a cough suppressant. Its Pediatric Cough & Cold formulation contains Chlorpheniramine maleate, an antihistamine, in addition to the Dextromethorphan HBr. We have not yet turned up any studies confirming heart attacks brought about by the combination of these two over-the-counter medications, either in children or adults, but that is not to say children should be taking OTC cold medications. An 8 October 2008 statement by the FDA supports the recommendation of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association that children under the age of four should not be dosed with over-the-counter cough and cold products. This follows its January 2008 advisory that these products not be used in children under the age of 2 because of the risk of serious and potentially life-threatening side effects. As noted in a news report from September 2007: “An FDA review of side-effect records filed with the agency between 1969 and September 2006 found 54 reports of deaths in children associated with decongestant medicines made with pseudoephedrine, phenylephrine or ephedrine. It also found 69 reports of deaths associated with antihistamine medicines containing diphenhydramine, brompheniramine or chlorpheniramine. Most of the deaths were children younger than 2.” The FDA offers these medication tips to the parents and caregivers of small children: In 2003, another personal account circulated by e-mail implicated Children’s Motrin in the formation of stomach ulcers in a child dosed with it. We did not encounter any subsequent reports of similar instances, and no specific interaction precaution guidance exists for that drug combination. On 22 December 2014, Children’s Medical Center of Dallas addressed the recirculating rumor on Twitter:
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3818
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Dick Burack dies, wrote ‘Handbook of Prescription Drugs’.
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Dr. Walter Richard “Dick” Burack, who wrote “The Handbook of Prescription Drugs” advocating affordable prescriptions for patients, has died. He was 93.
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true
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New Hampshire, General News, Prescription drugs
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Burack died Sunday in hospice care in Jackson, New Hampshire, said his son, Tom Burack, former commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Services. His book was first published in 1967. The New England Journal of Medicine likened it to “David standing up to Goliath.” That year, Burack was a witness in a multi-year Congressional investigation into competitive practices in the drug industry. Burack believed that doctors were purchasing agents for their patients and owed them a duty to not impose costs for medicines that they couldn’t afford, and to not prescribe brand-name medicines for conditions for which there were already proven and cost-effective generics available. Burack was chairman of the Massachusetts Drug Formulary Commission, which prepared a list of interchangeable drug products. In New Hampshire, he practiced internal medicine and cardiology at North Conway’s Memorial Hospital. He later was a medical director for Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company’s steel mill in East Chicago, Indiana, and for Allied-Signal/Honeywell Inc. in Morristown, New Jersey. He retired in 1988. His wife of 65 years, Mary, died in June. He’s survived by his five children and 10 grandchildren.
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5160
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Opioid epidemic has addiction revealed in obituaries.
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The toll opioid addiction took on Miranda Ferguson is evident when her mother flips through family photos.
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true
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Scranton, Health, Obituaries, Epidemics
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“You could see how healthy and happy she was until she was introduced to that drug,” said Ann Marie Riggi-Hopkins, of Scranton. “As I progressed with the pictures, you could see how things dwindled. It just takes every part of your life away.” Raynor Bloom’s family was unaware of his opioid addiction until they received a call from his roommate. By then, it was too late. “I can’t tell you how long he struggled with addiction,” said his mother, Lynn Bloom, of Dunmore. Ferguson, 25, and Bloom, 29, were two of 69 people to die of drug overdoses in Lackawanna County last year, according to the most recent numbers posted to Overdose Free PA, a website that tracks county overdose information submitted by coroners. The 2017 number is expected to grow once all toxicology tests are completed. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, was the most common drug observed in toxicology tests, appearing in 36 cases. Both Riggi-Hopkins and Lynn Bloom, who suspect fentanyl played roles in their children’s deaths, join a growing number of parents, both locally and nationally, to share their children’s struggles in candid obituaries. Two or three years ago, this kind of openness in obituaries was unheard of, said Jim Hood, co-founder and CEO of Facing Addiction, a Danbury, Connecticut-based advocacy organization. He likened the stigma associated with the opioid epidemic to a time when cancer, HIV and AIDS causes of death were not included in obituaries. That the obituaries are becoming more candid could be a reflection of how prevalent the epidemic is and an understanding that people are starting to look at addiction as an illness, he said. “I think it’s cathartic for parents but also helpful for the people next door, to spread the word that this is a pernicious illness that is stealing our youth,” said Hood, who lost his son to an overdose five years ago. “The more people understand that, the more people might do something about it.” According to Legacy.com, there were hundreds of obituaries published nationwide last year that included information on the struggles and dangers of heroin and opioid addiction. The Sunday Times published about a dozen obituaries last year that included information about a struggle with addiction or named an overdose as the cause of death. Locally, those only started to appear within the last two years or so, said Christopher James, funeral director at Vanston & James Funeral Home in Scranton and James Wilson Funeral Home in Lake Ariel. Some families also are being open about it during viewings or funeral services, he said. “The people who bring it to light are doing it out of genuine concern for other people,” James said. “I think that’s what folks want to do. They want to say, this is ultimately what will happen if you don’t get help.” ‘Not suffering anymore’ Riggi-Hopkins wanted her daughter’s obituary to give strength to those in recovery or family and friends grieving the loss of a loved one to addiction. The family also wanted to send a message that, with drugs like fentanyl on the streets, the problem is getting worse. “The family wants to break the silence of addiction. To anyone reading this obituary, this demon is still out on the streets waiting to kill the next innocent suffering person thinking about using or having reservations. If we can save one or several lives to the sick and suffering and spare their families, we pray that breaking the silence of addiction works,” Ferguson’s obituary reads. The response to the obituary was overwhelming, Riggi-Hopkins said. She said she received many calls of thanks and the outpouring helped her grieve and heal. Her daughter had a good life and was going places, she said. Ferguson was blessed with a strong work ethic and, despite a quiet demeanor, a love of working with people. She got a job when she was a teenager and still in school, first at Gerrity’s on Meadow Avenue in Scranton, and later, at Hobby Lobby in Dickson City. People noticed her strong customer service skills, Riggi-Hopkins said. She started at the Dickson City store putting shelves together around the time it first opened and rose to department manager. There was talk of her managing her own store somewhere, she said. She was a great mother, too, Riggi-Hopkins said. Ferguson gave birth to her daughter, Baylee, in 2011. About two years after Baylee’s birth, something happened. Ferguson made a drastic change in friends and started acting differently, her mother said. Then, the physical changes started. She lost her job. Money went missing, Riggi-Hopkins said. About a year before her death, Ferguson hit “rock bottom,” and came clean about her drug use, her mother said. She wanted help and to change for Baylee, she said. Ferguson entered rehab at Marworth Treatment Center and completed the program, but relapsed a few weeks later. She returned and then spent three months in a sober house in Dallas. Even after her daughter completed a more comprehensive program, Riggi-Hopkins said she never thought she was out of the woods in dealing with addiction. “I do understand the disease, that it’s a one-day-at-a-time disease,” her mother said. On Aug. 24, Riggi-Hopkins went with Ferguson to a job interview. She was hired. They shopped afterward and then Ferguson dropped her mother off at a friend’s house. She didn’t return to pick her up and did not answer phone calls, Riggi-Hopkins said. Riggi-Hopkins had a friend drive her home. She frantically ran upstairs to check on Baylee. Not finding her there, she ran to the basement where she found her daughter dead. Baylee lay on top of her, asleep. Beyond the anguish of losing her daughter, Riggi-Hopkins also had to explain to her granddaughter what happened. She sought help and the advice she received was to be honest. “I told her mommy took a bad drug that stopped her heart and now she’s an angel in heaven,” Riggi-Hopkins said. Baylee is doing well now, her grandmother said. The kindergartner takes piano and dance lessons. Riggi-Hopkins sees a lot of her daughter in Baylee, though the little girl is more outgoing. They talk about what happened and the good memories of Ferguson almost daily, Riggi-Hopkins said. “One thing I think that helps me is she’s not suffering anymore,” Riggi-Hopkins said. ‘Losing a generation’ For their son’s obituary, the Blooms wanted to be honest and straightforward. They included that his cause of death was a heroin overdose. “We felt that if we could make one person more aware or make one parent pay a little closer attention and notice something wrong, speak up, ask about it, do something about it, that will make Raynor give the gift of life,” Lynn Bloom said. The decision drew a mixed response from members of the family, Bloom said. Some applauded the decision and felt it was brave because it went against the norm. Others were upset and felt the obituary aired “dirty laundry,” she said. She doesn’t regret the decision. The drug epidemic affects all parts of the community, regardless of race, class or socioeconomic status, and the only way to further shine a light on it is to be honest, Bloom said. Acknowledging it helps de-stigmatize it. The less stigma there is, the more likely people will seek help, she said. “My husband and I felt that at the time he passed away that his addiction did not define him,” Bloom said. “It is what killed him.” Her son “came in the world fighting” at a mere two pounds, 13 ounces in 1988, she said. He was so small, his father, Larry, was afraid to hold him. As the years went by, he grew into a big man with a heart to match, she said. He grew up on Long Island, New York, and maintained lifelong friendships with elementary school pals made there, his mother said. He was a great brother to his siblings and had a special bond with his youngest brother, Joshua, 17. The family moved to Dunmore in 2007, and Raynor Bloom followed shortly thereafter. He got a job at GoodFellas Pizza on South Main Avenue in West Scranton, first as a delivery driver and, ultimately, as a manager, Bloom said. When the store changed hands in June, and became West Side Food and Beer, the new management kept him. While there, he earned a reputation for generosity, geniality and hard work. It was not uncommon for him to work 70-plus hours a week, Bloom said of her son. His final Facebook post, on Oct. 9, mentions an 87-hour work week. When he had free time, he enjoyed playing video games and going to concerts with friends. He loved heavy metal music, especially Pantera. His taste in tunes proved a sharp juxtaposition to his kind, gentle, giving disposition, his mother said. “He was friendly and smiling and treated everyone the same,” she said. Despite the long hours, he still found time to call home and spend time with family, his mother said. Sometimes he phoned to see what was for dinner, even if he didn’t plan on stopping by, she said with a laugh. He made it to the theater with his father and brother to see the latest “Star Wars” movies. He did not display any physical changes that would denote drug use, she said. On Oct. 17, Raynor’s roommate called the Blooms to tell them their son died of an overdose at his apartment. His parents suspect fentanyl-tinged heroin was responsible. His reasons for starting to take the drugs are a mystery, his mother said. He had some health issues, including sleeping disorders, she said, and it is possible he was self-medicating. “It was something he kept secret from his friends and family,” she said. “The fact he was doing those drugs and working those kind of hours is mind-boggling.” For now, the family is trying to cope with their loss. His death hit Joshua hard and Bloom recently started attending a grief support group. She said she thinks there should be more resources for people — those dealing with addiction, those in recovery, police and first responders and grieving family and friends. “We’re losing a generation to this and I don’t think anyone is realizing that,” she said. ___ Online: http://bit.ly/2E1O0Le ___ Information from: The Times-Tribune, http://thetimes-tribune.com/
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2771
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U.S. pig virus cases see biggest weekly rise since PEDv found.
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Confirmed cases of a deadly pig virus spreading across the U.S. Hog Belt jumped by 215, its highest weekly increase since it was discovered in the United States in April 2013, according to the USDA’s National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN).
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true
|
Health News
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Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus (PEDv), which causes diarrhea, vomiting and severe dehydration is transmitted orally and through pig faeces. While older pigs have a chance of survival, the virus kills 80 to 100 percent of piglets that contract it. The total number of confirmed cases has increased to 2,692 in 23 states as of the week ended January 25. Nearly 40 percent of the cases, 1,006, were confirmed in Iowa, the top U.S. pork producing state. As defined by the USDA, each diagnostic case could represent multiple animals at either a single farm site or several locations. The USDA's NAHLN released its latest PEDv data on Wednesday. (here) There are no official figures for pigs lost to the PEDv - which does not affect humans - but up to 4 million pigs may have died from the virus, according to industry analyst estimates. Additionally, the virus was confirmed in Canada last week. PEDv has spread to a fourth farm in the Canadian province of Ontario, the provincial government said on Wednesday, despite the hog industry’s efforts to stop it by disinfecting delivery trucks and clothing used on farms. PEDv has forced the U.S. hog industry to increase its biosecurity measures and has fueled concerns hog supplies will slump in the spring and summer.
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37753
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Circulating posts by a man named Richard Rose demonstrate his position that COVID-19 was a hoax; Rose died from COVID-19 in July 2020.
|
It is true that a man named Richard Rose (who appeared to go by “Rick”) published a Facebook post in April 2020, expressing his belief that the use of masks to cut down on COVID-19 transmission was “damn hype.” We did not find extensive posting from Rose about the pandemic. It is further true that Rose posted about his illness on July 1 and 2 2020, and he died of complications from COVID-19 on July 4 2020. His last post referenced “heaven,” but chronologically he appeared to go from viewing his diagnosis as an inconvenience on July 1 2020 to dying three days later. Rose’s page was memorialized on the afternoon of July 10 2020, likely in response to a flood of comments.
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true
|
Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On July 10 2020, a number of Facebook users shared posts like the one below — purportedly screenshots from the profile of a user, Richard Rose, who initially adopted the position of a “COVID denier” before dying from it on July 4 2020:Circulating Posts About Richard Rose’s Posts and DeathIn the post above, four chronological posts attributed to Rose appeared, alongside the following status update from the poster:There’s obviously no shortage of people who believe that following COVID-19 protocols makes you look weak. The insecurity and ignorance that fuels these outspoken acts of bravado are a separate conversation, but If you have a moment, please follow the last three months in the life of Richard Rose: https://www.facebook.com/rickrose2007In a post dated April 28 2020, Rose was quoted as refusing to buy or wear a mask, vowing not to buy into that “damn hype.” On June 12 2020, a post captured Rose’s check-in to “Put-in-Bay, South Bass Island” in Ohio — alongside a remark that it was “not that packed lol.”Two posts attributed to Rose were dated July 1 2020, the first of which was about Rose’s illness in the preceding days. In the second, Rose disclosed he was quarantined for fourteen days after testing positive for COVID-19.A fifth and final screenshot included a smiling photograph of a genial-looking man and the words “Richard Rose, III Obituary.” Visible in that image were the dates of Rose’s birth and death: July 25 1982 and July 4 2020.A similar collection of screenshots shared by the page “Guess what he says next” on July 10 2020 was shared thousands of times in just a few hours. In place of the two July 1 2020 posts, a single July 2 2020 post attributed to Rose was included:On July 7 2020, somebody claiming to be a friend of Rose’s wrote:This was my friend Richard Rose. Rick was diagnosed with COVID-19 on July 1. Rick lost his life 3 days later on July 4th. Rick was healthy as far as we know and was only in his 30’s. Rick was like a lot of my friends, and didn’t feel the need to wear a mask because he was young and healthy. Please know that this virus is real. Just because you don’t personally know someone effected yet doesn’t mean it’s not real.Rick Rose’s Facebook PagePosts seen in the screenshots were available and initially open to comments on public posts. It appeared that Rose’s Facebook page was memorialized at some point on July 10 2020, judging by the amount of activity to that date — a flood of engagement which ceased when the page was memorialized.On April 28 2020, Rose posted the status commonly shared first in the circulating posts, in which he said “I’m not buying a fucking mask,” and “I’ve made it this far by not buying into that damn hype”:On June 13 2020, Rose commented “it’s not that packed lol” on his check-in post:On June 29 2020, Rose expressed concern Halloween might “not happen” in 2020:The posts seen from July 1 and 2 2020 also were visible on Rose’s timeline:Rose’s final post appeared on July 3 2020, a meme that read:When you see me in heaven don’t shit yourselves you judgmental pricks.Comments on the post between July 4 2020 and July 7 2020 appeared to be solely from Rose’s friends, expressing shock and grief at his death. On July 10 2020, a number of new comments — apparently spurred by posts about his comments and death — appeared:Does he still think it’s a hoax though?An Obituary for Richard Rose IIICrosser Funeral Home in Port Clinton, Ohio published an obituary for Rose, archived here. It confirmed the cause of Rose’s death and included details about his life:Richard Donald Rose, III July 25, 1982 – July 4, 2020 Born in Port Clinton, Ohio Resided in Port Clinton, OhioRichard Donald Rose, III, 37, of Port Clinton passed away Saturday, July 4, 2020 due to complications of Covid-19 at his home. He was born July 25, 1982 in Port Clinton. He graduated from Port Clinton High School. He served his country in the United States Army for nine years serving two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He enjoyed social media, online streaming, paranormal and his two cats Dale and Tucker. He was a fan of NASCAR, Dirt Track Racing and Georgia Bulldogs Football. Surviving are his mother and step-father: Tina and Kenny Heschel of Port Clinton; sister: Krystal Campbell of Genoa; brother: K. C. Heschel of Concord, NC; half-sister: Melissa Rose of Port Clinton. He was preceded in death by his grandparents: Carl and Marla Kessler, Cooper and Janice Heschel, Richard Rose, Mildred DeBlase. Funeral services will be conducted 11:00 am Wednesday, July 8, 2020 at Neidecker, Crosser & Priesman Funeral Home & Cremation Service, 1124 Fulton St. Port Clinton, OH where visitation will be held Tuesday from 2:00 – 4:00 and 6:00 – 8:00pm. Interment will be at Riverview Cemetery, Port Clinton, OH. Memorial contributions may be given to the family. Online condolences may be shared with the family at www.neideckercrosserpriesman.com[. ]SummaryIt is true that a man named Richard Rose (who appeared to go by “Rick”) published a Facebook post in April 2020, expressing his belief that the use of masks to cut down on COVID-19 transmission was “damn hype.” We did not find extensive posting from Rose about the pandemic. It is further true that Rose posted about his illness on July 1 and 2 2020, and he died of complications from COVID-19 on July 4 2020. His last post referenced “heaven,” but chronologically he appeared to go from viewing his diagnosis as an inconvenience on July 1 2020 to dying three days later. Rose’s page was memorialized on the afternoon of July 10 2020, likely in response to a flood of comments.Comments
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4775
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Republicans lack votes _ and appetite _ to end ‘Obamacare’.
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Arizona’s new senator says he’d vote to repeal the nation’s health care law. That’s one additional Republican ready to obliterate the statute because his predecessor, the late Sen. John McCain, helped derail the party’s drive with his fabled thumbs-down vote last year.
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true
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Steve Scalise, John Cornyn, AP Top News, Health, Statutes, Politics, North America, John McCain, Business, Arizona, Elections, Michael Pence, Barack Obama
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It could well be too little, too late. After years of trying to demolish former President Barack Obama’s prized law, GOP leaders still lack the votes to succeed. Along with the law’s growing popularity and easing premium increases, that’s left top Republicans showing no appetite to quickly refight the repeal battle. “I’m not going to be asking for another vote on that this year,” No. 2 Senate GOP leader John Cornyn of Texas said last week when asked if he favored reopening the issue in a postelection lame duck session. No. 3 House leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said, “We need to win this election and then get more seats next year.” Each is their party’s chief vote counter. That means any serious push to annul the statute would almost certainly hinge on Republicans retaining House control and adding Senate seats in November’s elections, neither of which is assured. If either goal eludes them on Election Day, President Donald Trump’s ability to deliver on one of his top campaign promises would have to wait for a second term, if he gets one. Republicans seemed to gain ground last week when Sen. Jon Kyl replaced McCain, who died in August from brain cancer. Kyl said in a brief interview that he would have backed the measure that McCain opposed, a pivotal vote that would have sustained the repeal drive. “It seems to me that would have been a useful thing to do,” Kyl said. That bill failed 51-49. A “yes” from McCain would have meant a 50-50 tie that Vice President Mike Pence could have broken by casting his own vote. Yet the two other GOP senators who also voted no, Maine’s Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, haven’t relented. With Republicans controlling the Senate 51-49, the GOP remains short of the 50 votes they’d need. “I would still oppose outright repeal,” Collins said in a short interview last week. In a written statement, aides said Murkowski “is not interested in another rushed, partisan process in the absence of a quality, comprehensive replacement” for the law. Republicans have one fewer seat this year because Alabama Democrat Doug Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore in a December special election. Moore had defeated incumbent GOP Sen. Luther Strange in a party primary. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has ruled out revisiting the health care fight before November’s midterm elections, citing the crush of spending and other bills facing Congress. He’s displayed little desire to revisit the issue, which many Democrats are using in their election campaigns because Obama’s law is widely accepted, especially provisions like requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions. Returning to the health care fight is a decision “I don’t have to reach anytime soon and don’t have time to facilitate, even if I was so inclined,” McConnell told reporters last week. He has said he doesn’t want to resume the fight unless he can win, and his House counterpart is also showing his focus is elsewhere. “I haven’t even thought about it,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. A lame-duck session would last barely over a month and likely be absorbed with lingering budget disputes and picking the new Congress’ leaders. That would leave scant time for health care work, such as resolving intractable disputes about what a replacement bill would look like. Then they would need an official cost estimate of any bill from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which could take weeks. They’d also have to take procedural steps to protect their bill from a Senate Democratic filibuster, which would otherwise essentially kill the measure by requiring Republicans to garner 60 votes to succeed. “There’s still a process that we have to go through, and people have to be aware of it,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who opposes the health care program. “You don’t just drop it from heaven like manna.” Explaining the diminished urgency, Cornyn cited Congress’ repeal last December of the tax penalty on people who don’t buy individual insurance. That requirement, aimed at prodding healthier people to buy coverage and stabilize health markets, was one of the law’s least popular provisions. Cornyn also mentioned Trump administration rules making it easier for people to buy short-term health care policies or association plans offered by groups of small businesses or self-employed people. Such packages could offer lower premiums but cover fewer benefits, and Democrats criticize them as undermining the consumer protections Obama’s law was designed to enshrine. Also easing pressure on Republicans to act are indications that insurance premiums, a major vexation for voters, are growing more slowly. An analysis by the consulting firm Avalere Health and The Associated Press last week found a 3.3 percent average increase in proposed or approved premiums across 47 states and Washington, D.C., for 2019. The average increase nationally this year was about 30 percent. Meanwhile, the House plans to vote this week on a bill easing requirements the law imposed on employers. The measure would make it easier for companies to provide health insurance for fewer workers, refund tax penalties firms paid for not covering employees and postpone a levy on expensive policies companies provide workers. Further underscoring the effort’s lack of traction, that measure seems certain never to emerge from Congress.
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5188
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Mental health/urgent care addition planned for VA med center.
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The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is holding a groundbreaking to kick off the construction of its new mental health/urgent care building in at the medical center in Manchester.
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true
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Mental health, Health, General News, Manchester, Veterans, Veterans affairs
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The building design is for a two-story, 16,000 square-foot addition to support current and future outpatient urgent care and mental health services. It also will offer a direct entrance with curbside access to urgent care. The addition will be next to the radiology, pharmacy and phlebotomy departments. The groundbreaking is scheduled for Friday. Construction is scheduled to start in October and is expected to take about two years.
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10833
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New Views on Frequency of Osteoporosis Screening
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The story includes some independent experts’ viewpoints and presented some of the study’s limitations that were ignored in the Los Angeles Times story. Like the Times story, though, this one could have spent more time explaining the data behind the findings. Osteoporosis is a serious and debilitating condition that hits women especially hard in old age. Screening every two years has been a common clinical recommendation, and this study challenges that. For patients to know how to factor this information into their health planning, they need a complete picture of the science involved in these conclusions. This story does a better job than the LA Times story in presenting that picture – but only barely.
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mixture
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"This story makes no mention of costs. There are no numbers in this story attached to the benefits of less frequent bone density testing. This story did not quantify any harms associated with bone density testing, with osteoperosis or with waiting too long to have ones bones tested. The story could have done more to evaluate the quality of evidence, but we will give it the benefit of the doubt. No disease mongering in this story. The entire story is about different intervals for bone density screening. The story talks about ""women’s T-score, which is a measure of bone density"", but it never explains how a bone density test is conducted or who might conduct it. Does a woman have to go to a specialist? What kind of equipment is involved? It doesn’t take much to address these questions. The novelty here is not bone density screening, but less frequent use of this widely used test. Sadly, research that looks at screening intervals is a novelty. But neither story establishes that novelty. The study appears to be quite significant given the size of the cohort and the time period of the study. One quote – the story admits – comes from a news release. But there is evidence of independent reporting elsewhere."
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5613
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Daughter’s addiction changed former officer’s perspective.
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Kevin Simmers knows the feeling of helplessness in fighting heroin addiction first hand.
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true
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Health, Hagerstown, Heroin addiction
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For Simmers, a retired Hagerstown police officer, that helplessness developed into frustration as he and his then 18 year-old daughter Brooke ran into a series of roadblocks and administrative red tape in seeking treatment for her heroin addiction in late 2013. “We tried all the things that we thought would help,” said Simmers, during a special lecture sponsored by the Shepherd University Department of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Sport Studies at Erma Ora Byrd auditorium Monday night. However, after multiple tries to get and stay clean, accompanied by a succession of relapses, Brook Simmers, then 19 years-old, died of a heroin overdose in April 2015 when she was found in the back seat of her car in a church parking lot. Simmers’ attitude toward drug addiction was somewhat different in the early1980s after he had graduated high school. “When I finished school, President Ronald Reagan had a big push then for the war on drugs,” Simmers said. “The way we were going to do it is handcuffs and incarceration.” Simmers joined the Air Force where he trained dogs to sniff out narcotics. Discharged four years later, he was hired by the Hagerstown Police Department in the early 1990s where he was assigned to the narcotics unit and eventually became part of a Drug Enforcement Administration Task Force. “I was targeting users and dealers — any type of narcotics,” Simmers said. “My feeling back then was ‘make as many arrests as you possibly can.’ ” Simmers recalled the day his daughter called him in late 2013 to ask for help, telling him she had developed an addiction to the opioid pain killer Percocet. The next year and half would be an in-the-field education for Simmers and his daughter, running into seemingly counter intuitive administrative regulations to securing Brooke immediate addiction treatment. According to Simmers, Brooke was initially refused insurance coverage for treatment because she was deemed a non-critical candidate. “Her addiction had not progressed to the point where she needed in-patient treatment,” Simmers said “It was not serious enough, they said, because she had not been arrested, she had not overdosed, and she had not been hospitalized.” Instead, Brooke was approved for out-patient treatment where she would go to daily classes every night. “I didn’t want to take that as an answer,” Simmers said. “If you are having a heart attack with chest pains, the doctors are not going to say, ‘well you’re still conscious. Let’s not call an ambulance just yet.’” After attending two weeks of out- patient classes, Brooke dropped out, telling her father she had her addiction under control. She returned to work In a few months, Simmers again heard from his daughter. “She had lost her job, and she had started to look unkempt, which was very unlike her,” Simmers said. “You could tell that things were spinning out of control again. She said she was now addicted to heroin and was shooting up every morning.” Now 18 years old, Brooke had to be the one to commit to treatment. Brooke was eventually accepted to an in-patient treatment facility in early 2014. However, Simmers later found out that she had checked herself out against medical advice and had relapsed back to drug use. After a few more attempted recoveries and relapses — including an overdose at a heroin dealer’s house in Baltimore, Maryland. Seeing his daughter’s drug addiction struggles first hand changed Simmers perspective on drug abuse and its unrelenting pull on the user. “An addict is not a weak-minded person,” Simmer said. “I am not of that camp anymore.” In the wake of his daughter’s death, Simmers and his wife Dana decided to start “Brooke’s House,” a public charity whose goals is to build a long-term, residential treatment facility for young women suffering from addiction in Smithsburg, Maryland. The HPERS department presented Simmers with a $300 donation from the Vince Gonino Fund to help with the construction of Brooke’s House. “This is one small way for HPERS faculty and students to give back to community and help fight drug addiction,” said Professor Stacey Kendig, department chair of HPERS. ___ Information from: The Journal, http://journal-news.net/
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36233
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"A graphic listing ""Insulin Prices"" accurately compares prices for the medication in the US to that of other countries."
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Comparing the Cost of Insulin Pens in the United States with Other Countries
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Medical
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A graphic spreading online apparently attempts to advocate for people with diabetes by listing several claims related to the price of insulin pens in the United States and other countries:“I think this is a real problem, so there’s no need to exaggerate it,” said Diana Isaacs, a spokesperson for the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE). “When you put something out there that’s not true it does take away from the awareness of it.”The graphic lists no sources or insulin pen brands but still lists purported costs (presumably out-of-pocket) of similar products:Isaacs, who is also a clinical pharmacy specialist at the Cleveland Clinic Diabetes Center, told us that in the United States, the price of insulin will vary for people living with diabetes, depending on whether they have insurance and other factors.“That does hold true, and that is true. We do have people that are dying because they can’t afford their insulin,” she said. “This graphic makes a very important point — the point of it is true; it’s just a bit exaggerated.”Some of the figures listed in the graphic were listed without citation from a story published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in December 2018 about state lawmakers convening a discussion with people with diabetes and parents of minors also managing the disease:“We spend more time struggling with insurance companies and struggling with pharmacies,” said Lija Greenseid of St. Paul, whose 12-year-old daughter is diabetic.Two years ago Greenseid learned just how much cheaper insulin is in other countries when her family traveled internationally. A box of insulin pens, for example, cost just $40 in Taiwan, $65 in Canada, $50 in Greece and $61 in Italy, she said. They saved so much money on insulin that it helped finance the trip.However, the story does not list any sources for the prices Greenseid mentioned.The rising cost of insulin in the United States has been well-documented; a report published by Reuters in January 2019 showed that the cost of insulin for Type 1 diabetes patients almost doubled between 2012 and 2016. A month later, the news outlet France24 reported that according to a study by researchers at Yale University, one in four people living with diabetes are now rationing their insulin.Other news reports have focused on patients traveling to Canada or Mexico in order to purchase their insulin at more reasonable prices than they would find in the United States. However, as with many memes, this graphic distills the complexity of the United States’ health care system into oversimplified costs.The AADE maintains a list of programs available to people in the US with diabetes that can offer help paying for their insulin.8/26/2019, 3:21pm: Edited story for clarification purposes. You can find the previous version archived here.
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23234
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Hank Gilbert Says the Texas Department of Agriculture seeks to purchase up to 300,000 promotional stress balls.
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Hank Gilbert says Texas Department of Agriculture could be buying up to 300,000 stress balls
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true
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Economy, Health Care, Texas, Hank Gilbert,
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"Bounciest Democrat on November's statewide ballot? It might be Hank Gilbert, making his second hard charge for state agriculture commissioner versus Todd Staples, the Republican who topped him four years ago. Gilbert, ever prowling for issues, recently trumpeted that the Texas Department of Agriculture is looking at buying thousands of stress balls -- squeezable toys. He said in a Sept. 24 press release: ""Make no mistake, Texans love their balls: footballs, baseballs, basketballs, and soccer balls. But 300,000 stress balls? It seems a little extreme, but that's the quantity of grape, barbell, and book-shaped polyurethane stress balls the Texas Department of Agriculture could be spending taxpayer dollars on..."" Really? To our inquiry, Gilbert's campaign provided Web links to the agriculture agency's June request for bids as well as a September post on a state website indicating that a $99,000 contract to provide promotional materials was awarded to a Massachusetts company, Oceans Promotions. We downloaded the June 29 bid-request package from a site for state requisitions overseen by the state comptroller's office. The package shows the department was seeking bids to provide up to 300,000 stress ""relievers,"" which we're guessing are not balls because they're not round. Precisely, the package says, the agency sought bids to make ""promotional items with logo imprints to follow through on (the) TDA Food and Nutrition Texans Bring It Campaign,"" with the items to include grape-shaped stress relievers with ""Texans Bring It"" written on them or ""Eating Right,"" which would be made of polyurethane and be two inches high by three inches wide. The package says a second set of stress relievers, each one called ""Dumbbell,"" would be imprinted ""Texans Bring It"" and ""Exercise"" and be five inches high by 1.8 inches in diameter. A third stress reliever would be imprinted ""Book"" and ""Texans Bring It,"" according to the bid package, while other promotional items would include pencils, buttons and bumperstickers. The package says the bids were sought for various quantities, starting from 2,500 and topping out at 100,000 each. It electronically links to a Branders.com site showing what the agency wanted the stress relievers to look like (our interpretation: bunches of purple grapes). Is all this a real deal? To our inquiry, Bryan Black, Staples' spokesman, replied via e-mail: ""An invitation for bid was issued for these federally funded educational items to reduce the $5.8 billion avoidable health care expenditures, paid by taxpayers, associated with overweight and obesity health problems."" We followed up with Black, asking if it's accurate to conclude that up to 300,000 of the stress relievers are being purchased. We also wondered why the purchase was being made. Black said he'd limit his comment to his e-mailed statement. Surely the agency would pipe up if Gilbert got its purchase plans wrong."
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10767
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Angioplasty’s golden era may be fading
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This was an informative story exploring how medical therapy alone stacks up against medical therapy plus angioplasty as a treatment for coronary artery disease. It highlighted several important issues about medical practice and the treatment of coronary artery disease in particular. While the story never fully described the importance of randomized clinical trials for establishing whether treatment approaches provide the benefit they are thought to convey, it was clear from this story that several recent studies have failed to demonstrate superiority of angioplasty as a treatment for coronary artery disease. The story did mention that angioplasty is a beneficial treatment during a heart attack. The point to be made here is that just because it is an effective way of treating a heart attack does not mean that it is an effective way of preventing a heart attack. Overall, a solid job with independent analyses, context, and data.
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true
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"The story provided cost estimates for angioplasty. It would have been more complete to include comparable information about the costs of medical therapy. The story discussed the comparable outcomes of the two treatments in terms of heart attacks and death. It also explained that at least initially, angioplasty coupled with medical therapy provided relief of angina to more people (8%) than did medical therapy alone but that this difference between the treatments only lasted for 3 years. The story did not provide an explicit list of harms associated with either treatment. It did mention the increased clotting risks associated with one particular type of stent (drug-coated). The story mentioned several studies that compared people with coronary artery disease who were treated with angioplasty and medical therapy with those that received only medical therapy which found no difference in outcomes such as the numbers who had heart attacks. It also provided quantitative information about how the two treatment approaches compared in terms of symptom reduction For the most part, the story did not engage in overt disease mongering. That said, however, the story opened with a disease mongering vignette that involved medical protocols which were not the subject of the story. And describing angina as ""crushing"" and ""debilitating"" makes it seem worse on the average than it really is. However, the balance of the story did not use scare tactics when talking about coronary artery disease, and in using data to tell the story. Several cardiologists were interviewed for this story. The story covered two of the three treatment options for coronary artery disease. It would have been a more complete piece if it had included mention of coronary bypass surgery. The story was about the use of angioplasty (stents) and medical therapy as compared to medical therapy alone as treatment for coronary artery disease. From the discussion, it was clear that both treatments are currently in common use and appear to be widely available. It was clear from that the story was not about a novel form of treatment but rather a recent line of evaluation of two treatment approaches in current practice. It’s clear this story didn’t rely on a news release; it was based on independent analyses."
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11217
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Newly Published Results Show Investigational Treatment Brexanolone Consistently Reduced Depressive Symptoms Across Three Postpartum Depression Trials, Supporting Submission for FDA Approval
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An injectable drug, brexanolone, showed some effectiveness in treating postpartum depression in two phase 3 double-blind randomized controlled trials including 247 women from 30 different research centers, according to research led by the University of North Carolina. Their research showed reductions in reported depression symptoms among study volunteers receiving either the drug or placebo (17 points for those on the drug, compared to a reduction of 12.8 points reduction for those on a placebo). This study about a potential new drug is important, but the way it is reported leaves holes for the reader. The research was funded by the drug maker, Sage Therapeutics, and the two researchers quoted in the release have financial links to the drug manufacturer. The release should have given us more context about the amount of improvement, and been straightforward about the conflicts of interest. The American Psychological Association estimates that up to one-in-seven women in the US suffer from some form of postpartum depression, and this disorder can linger for some of them and interfere with their bonding with their child. Existing treatments, such as talk therapy and antidepressants are not always successful and may take weeks to improve the situation. If approved by the FDA, the drug could be an advance in the treatment of postpartum depression which is common and sometimes serious.
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true
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Academic medical center news release
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The news release does not mention costs. While a new therapy may not have an established price, the release could have stated “no price is available for this drug.” What would be even better is some context for what women suffering from postpartum pay typically for counseling and medications. The release notes that there was a reduction in depressive symptoms of 17 points for those on the drug, and 12.8 for those in the placebo group based on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. The absolute reduction in the rating scale is given for each group. This information would have been much more helpful if the release also clarified the magnitude of the scale and whether a 4.2-point difference is clinically meaningful. The release contains one somewhat vague sentence on harms. The most common (≥10% of subjects) adverse events following during brexanolone injection administration were headache, dizziness and somnolence. Readers would also be interested in details on whether the drug is safe for nursing infants. That’s not mentioned. The double-blinded randomized trials are described in detail and readers are able to judge the quality of the evidence. The published study includes an important limitation of the research that’s not mentioned in the release: The trials assessed women for only 30 days; the effects of the treatment beyond 30 days are “unknown.” There is no disease mongering. The release explains how common postpartum depression is worldwide. The release notes that Sage Therapeutics funded the research. Sage Therapeutics is the developer of brexanolone injection and sponsor of the trials. A New Drug Application is currently under review by the FDA and brexanolone injection has been granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation. The FDA has assigned a Prescription Drug User Fee Act target date of December 19, 2018. What the release doesn’t tell us is that both quoted researchers disclosed financial ties with Sage Therapeutics. This information was included in the studies published in the Lancet. SM-B reports personal fees from MedScape and grants from Sage Therapeutics, awarded to the University of North Carolina … DRR reports personal fees and has stock options in Sage Therapeutics…. The release mentions that women currently can receive antidepressants for postpartum depression, but that the new drug being studied goes to work relieving symptoms faster than traditional antidepressants — days rather than weeks. The release notes that the drug is currently under FDA review, with a decision on its approval expected by the end of the year. The release notes that the new drug would be a novel treatment for postpartum depression, if approved. There is no unjustifiable language.
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62
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Oklahoma judge reduces Johnson & Johnson opioid payout to $465 million.
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An Oklahoma judge on Friday said Johnson & Johnson must pay that state $465 million for fueling the opioid epidemic through the deceptive marketing of painkillers, down from his original award of $572 million.
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true
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Health News
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The decision by Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman in Norman, Oklahoma, came in the first case to go to trial out of 2,700 nationally by states, counties and cities seeking to hold drug companies responsible for the deadly epidemic. Balkman reduced the amount he had awarded in August by $107 million after agreeing with New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J that he had made a math error. J&J said it will appeal, and that the award and finding of liability were “neither supported by the facts nor the law.” A spokesman for Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter said that office is reviewing the decision and will formally respond within the next few days. Opioids were involved in almost 400,000 overdose deaths from 1999 to 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Following a non-jury trial, Balkman ruled in August that Oklahoma had proven that J&J engaged in misleading marketing about the benefits of painkillers, and that their addictive risks caused a public nuisance in the form of the opioid crisis. Hunter had sought to have J&J pay $17 billion to help fund addiction treatment and other services to repair damage from the opioid epidemic over the next 30 years. Balkman, however, awarded only enough money for one year of programs, saying Oklahoma failed to support its claims regarding the need to abate the epidemic in future years. Following the August ruling, Oklahoma asked Balkman for permission to return to his courtroom annually to prove those costs, but Balkman on Friday maintained his prior ruling. J&J, meanwhile, argued that it deserved a $355 million credit, reflecting pre-trial settlements by the drugmakers Purdue Pharma LP and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Balkman concluded on Friday that state law did not allow such credits. Last month, J&J and four other companies proposed a $48 billion settlement framework to resolve all of the opioid cases they face, with J&J paying $4 billion. Lawyers for the local governments have opposed the proposal. If approved, the settlement would let J&J resolve some of the thousands of product liability lawsuits it faces. The company also faces litigation over whether its baby powder causes cancer, a claim it denies.
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9217
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Light therapy effectively treats early prostate cancer
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This news release reports the results of a phase 3 trial of a cancer treatment called vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy (VTP), which involves injecting a light-sensitive drug into the bloodstream and then activating it with a laser to destroy tumor tissue. Researchers in Europe randomized 413 men with low-risk prostate cancer, assigning half to VTP and half to the current standard of care, active surveillance, and tracked their progress over 24 months. The news release reports quantified benefits and harms and mentions that the research was funded by a company that holds a commercial license for the therapy. However, it does not state the full extent of harms, offers no discussion of study limitations, and hypes the findings with speculative quotes, a faulty comparison with breast cancer treatment, and a patient anecdote that includes scary language. This poorly done news release was also rehashed nearly verbatim by Reuters. We also reviewed that story, which earned one star. Medical practice is evolving away from treating low-risk prostate cancer, in which the cancer is small and expected to grow very slowly. The current standard of care is active surveillance, in which no treatment is given and periodic tests are performed to see if the cancer is growing. For most men, treatment is never required or can be postponed for years without lowering the chance of a cure. Researchers in this study argue VTP is a “safe, effective treatment for low-risk, localized prostate cancer” and “might allow more men to consider a tissue-preserving approach and defer or avoid radical therapy” on the off chance that their cancer were to grow and require more invasive measures. But in an accompanying editorial, Stephen Freedland, M.D., of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, argues it’s “not readily apparent” who might benefit from VTP, which he says amounts to over-treatment for patients with low-risk disease and under-treatment for patients with aggressive cancers. A larger question is, are the financial costs and potential adverse effects of this therapy worth a marginal short-term improvement for patients who have a low risk? Any discussion of the merits of this potential treatment must address that uncertainty. While VTP apparently was derived from bacteria that thrive with little sunlight, that’s a property not shared by science.
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false
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active surveillance,prostate cancer
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There’s no discussion of the costs of either VTP or of active surveillance, the current standard of care for low-risk prostate cancers. Given that VTP is a new commercialized therapy involving both a drug and a device, it’s likely to be considerably more expensive than monitoring. Furthermore, the study indicates that 75 of the 197 patients who started the therapy were retreated within 2 years. Because cancer was still being detected during follow up, this implies that these patients will need the same monitoring as those undergoing active surveillance. The news release states that the study found that 49% of patients treated with VTP went into “complete remission” compared with 13.5% in the control group. It further states: In the trial only 6% of patients treated with VTP needed radical therapy compared with 30% of patients in the control arm who were under active surveillance. While it’s good to see some numbers, we have concerns about the “radical therapy” statistic and what it means, which we’ll address below in the “Evidence Quality” criterion. We also call foul on a patient quoted in the release who says. “I’m now cancer-free with no side-effects and don’t have to worry about needing surgery in future.” Unless he has a crystal ball, there’s no way to know with certainty whether he’ll need surgery or not in the future. Perhaps the biggest issue, however, is that the outcomes reported in the news release–and the study–are only surrogate markers. They are proxies for the things we care about like length of life and quality of life. The key question–which would take at least a decade to answer–is whether men undergoing initial VTP are less likely to die from prostate cancer than those opting for active surveillance. And the release doesn’t make this clear. We’re also uncomfortable with the release’s description of patients achieving “complete remission,” a phrase that we’ve never seen used to describe prostate cancer treatments. All we know is that these men had no evidence of prostate cancer on repeat biopsy. However, biopsies sample only a small portion of the prostate and often miss areas of cancer. Using the phrase “complete remission” is likely to give readers a false sense of how beneficial this treatment really is. The release states VTP “only caused short-term urinary and erectile problems which resolved within three months, and no significant side-effects remained after two years.” While it’s good that harms were mentioned, it’s a disservice to patients to downplay their impact with the word “only.” Further, the news release does not give the proportion of patients on VTP who experience adverse events, which was 80 percent. Nor does it mention that 30 percent of VTP patients versus 10 percent of those in the active surveillance group had serious adverse events. Finally, the news release glosses over the fact that over 1/3 of subjects needed repeat treatment within 2 years and that men undergoing VTP appear likely to need to be on the same monitoring protocol as those on active surveillance (meaning they will need biopsies, which carry risks). VTP and prostate biopsies can cause harms. The news release describes the scope and methodology of the study, including the number of patients and treatment sites. But it does not discuss some important limitations described in the study, including the fact that more research is needed to determine the long-term efficacy of tissue-preserving therapies such as VTP in controlling prostate cancer. As pointed out in the accompanying editorial, applying more rigorous criteria to define low-risk cancer would likely identify men who clearly would not benefit from any active treatment. Moreover, one of the outcomes reported in the release — the need for radical prostate surgery, which the researchers say is lower with VTP — is problematic because neither the release nor the article say how it was determined that additional treatment was needed. One reason that men switch from active surveillance to surgery is that they are uncomfortable not treating their cancer. In this study, the men in the intervention group may have been more comfortable not aggressively treating their cancer because they were getting the VTP. The cancer progression reported in this study is actually much higher than has been reported in other studies. The news release contains an inflammatory quote from a patient who signed up for the trial because, he said, “Some men prefer to delay treatment, but I couldn’t live with the fear of the cancer spreading until it either couldn’t be treated or needed a treatment that would stop me living a normal life.” That’s one man’s take, certainly not representative of all men — and it exaggerates the risk of small prostate cancers. Quotes from the investigator are also questionable. Active surveillance is described as monitoring and treating only “when” the cancer becomes more severe. The correct phrasing would be “if and when” the cancer progresses, because many of these cancers will not progress. Moreover, we are not still “commonly” removing or irradiating the whole prostate–studies have shown a marked increase in the uptake of active surveillance. The news release states that the trial was funded by Steba Biotech, which holds the commercial license for the treatment. However, it does not mention that all of the study authors received compensation from Steba, and some also receive money from other biotech firms. In some cases, the news release accurately compares VTP with the control, active surveillance. However, it also misleads readers by comparing VTP with aggressive treatment for higher-risk prostate cancer. For example, it states: Radical therapy causes lifelong erectile problems and around one in five patients also suffer from incontinence. By contrast, VTP only caused short-term urinary and erectile problems which resolved within three months, and no significant side-effects remained after two years. Moreover, the wording used by the release is misleading–radical therapy does not always cause lifelong erectile problems as suggested. Nerve-sparing procedures can preserve potency for a substantial proportion of patients. But with respect to VTP, even short-term problems are unacceptable if the treatment is not actually necessary. The news release passes the bar with this statement at the very end: The VTP treatment is currently being reviewed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), so it is likely to be a number of years before it can be offered to patients more widely. The news release also quotes a researcher stating that the treatment’s implementation at 47 sites “without complication” indicates it’s “safe, efficient and relatively easy to scale up.” That’s an optimistic take but we’ll give the benefit of the doubt here. The news release does not appear to overstate the novelty of this treatment. According to the research paper, “To our knowledge, our study is the first prospective comparative rial of the efficacy and safety of focal therapy and the first assessment of active surveillance for prostate cancer in a comparative setting.” A researcher’s statement that VTP represents a “a huge leap forward for prostate cancer treatment” is overblown. Further, we don’t like that same researcher’s flawed comparison of VTP with advances in breast cancer treatment: In 1975 almost everyone with breast cancer was given a radical mastectomy, but since then treatments have steadily improved and we now rarely need to remove the whole breast. In prostate cancer we are still commonly removing or irradiating the whole prostate, so the success of this new tissue-preserving treatment is welcome news indeed. It remains to be seen whether VTP will “steadily improve” treatment for prostate cancer. We also take issue with this data-free speculation from a researcher: We can now pinpoint prostate cancers using MRI scans and targeted biopsies, allowing a much more targeted approach to diagnosis and treatment. This means we could accurately identify men who would benefit from VTP and deliver treatment more precisely to the tumour. With such an approach we should be able to achieve a significantly higher remission rate than in the trial and send nearly all low-risk localised prostate cancers into remission. We also hope that VTP will be effective against other types of cancer – the treatment was developed for prostate cancer because of the urgent need for new therapies, but it should be translatable to other solid cancers including breast and liver cancer. We submit that the “urgent need” is to find tumor markers that better identify low-risk patients who do not need any treatment at all.
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10001
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How To Help People Lose Weight? Give ‘Em Free Meals and Money!
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"This smartly written blog post manages to pack more information into a tight space than many longer pieces. We wish it had spent a little more time with the evidence behind this study on weight loss programs. For example, a MedPageToday story explained: Clinical outcomes were not evaluated. ""The findings likely represent a best-case scenario, and obese patients enrolling in a similar program outside of a clinical trial setting will probably not achieve comparable results."" The editorial writer ""cited a cohort study of Jenny Craig participants that showed that just 7% of enrollees completed a full year of the program. In contrast, 92.1% of the participants in the current study were available for the two-year follow-up. Because the program was delivered free-of-charge in the randomized trial, cost may explain the difference in adherence."" The researchers ""acknowledged that the finding may not apply to a real-world setting because the weight-loss program was delivered at no cost. … In the current study, the participants’ average food costs would have averaged out to about $4,080 for a year, the researchers noted."" Additional limitations of the study included the use of participants who were likely highly motivated to lose weight, which partially explained the low dropout rate, the use of unblinded weight-loss counselors, and the use of a control intervention that would be a likely first step for individuals seeking guidance to lose weight. Each of those is important points – and limitations that readers should have been told about – somehow – even in a short blog piece. As the story points out, the majority of Americans are either overweight or obese, and losing that weight can prove very difficult. Anyone who has picked up a lifestyle magazine knows how fat-fighting fads catch fire and then disappear. Solid research into what motivates people to lose weight and to keep it off is necessary to help guide public policy on a number of fronts."
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mixture
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"The story excels in this criteria where so many others fail. The story says, ""The program costs about $1,600 for 12 weeks,"" and then it goes on to make an important comparison. ""Compare that to the $19,000 to $29,000 cost of bariatric surgery, which is often reimbursed by insurers."" This helps readers understand that dieting is a far cheaper approach to weight loss, and that the burden of expensive weight-loss surgeries is actually passed onto all of us in the form of higher insurance premiums. We wish the story had driven home the point more emphatically – as it alluded to in the headline and in one line in the story – that people in the trial got the intervention for free. That’s a big leap from reality. The story does quantify the benefits of each of the plans studied. We would have liked to have seen the total number of people in each group and the highest and lowest amount of weight lost. This would have shown, for example, whether anyone in the control group lost more weight than people in the Jenny Craig face-to-face group. This story does not quantify the harms of either the diet plans or of obesity. The story missed an opportunity here to explore some of the limitations of the study, even though it does make note of a few of them. The study was funded by Jenny Craig, as the story points out, and it compared three different groups of people. There were so many factors going on in this study, though — counseling, the diet itself, cash payments — that it would have been nice to see some acknowledgment of the difficulty in teasing out the real triggers for the weight loss. The story talks about the program being 12 weeks long but then also says that ""average weight loss was greater at one year than at the end of the study."" Are we to take this to mean that people stuck with the program for a year and lost more weight? Were there people from different income groups in this study? A $25 incentive might not mean much to a high earner. For comparison, a MedPageToday story did a far better job explaining limitations of this research. The story repeats the commonly cited CDC statistics on people who are obese and overweight. It does not engage in disease-mongering. The story does not quote any ""live"" sources, but it does make good use of an editorial that accompanied the study. It also points out that the study was finded by diet giant Jenny Craig and that the editorial writer, Rena Wing, a professor of psychiatry at Brown University called for ""cost-effectiveness studies, conducted by researchers without any financial ties to the companies involved, that compare different commercial programs with each other."" The story says up high that ""there’s not much clinical evidence on the best way to lose weight, outside of research on bariatric surgery. (True, “Eat less and exercise more” is great advice if you can manage to follow it, but public-health authorities have repeated that line until they’re blue in the face and as a population we’ve only gotten fatter.)"" The study itself compared three different approaches, and the story also makes this important note: ""The countervailing theory is that people value things more when they pay for them, and that the mere act of ponying up $1,600 for three months of a diet program may make you take it more seriously."" This is a tricky one. Because the study was funded by Jenny Craig, it seems some mention of how widespread Jenny Criag programs are would have been warranted. Absent that, the story could have said how easy it might be for the typical person to find a diet program of any sourt that would provide people once-weekly face-to-face counseling, which was the regimen that had the best results – and for free! It might seem obvious that these programs are popping up all over the place, but they are not uniformly available, especially in rural and poor areas in counties that have high concentrations of obesity. If the story had even mentioned how many Jenny Craig centers (according to the company’s website it is 565) we would have given this one a passing grade. The story could have put this study into the larger context of cash payments for health incentives. This has been demonstrated to work on a number of fronts, including encouraging mothers to give birth in health centers, discouraging risky sex, and smoking cessation. This story does not rely on a news release."
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22784
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New provisions of the health care law bar the use of flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts to pay for aspirin and other non-prescription health needs.
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GOP Chairman Mullins says health care bill ends pre-tax puchases of aspirin and other non-prescription drugs
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true
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Health Care, Virginia, Pat Mullins,
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"Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Pat Mullins kicked off the New Year attacking recent side effects of health care overhaul on Flexible Spending Accounts, which allow workers to pay medical expenses with pre-tax dollars. In an e-letter titled ""FSA at Work? Jim Webb Just Made It a Lot Less Useful,"" Mullins staples Virginia’s senior Senator to new provisions of the health care law that took effect Jan. 1. ""Desperate for tax dollars to pay for their $1 trillion health care takeover, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Jim Webb decided to pick the pockets of consumers who opted to take responsibility for their own health care costs and remove the ability of consumers to use FSA and HSA plans to pay for things like aspirin and other non-prescription health needs,"" Mullins wrote. He later reiterates the point, writing: ""Until this week, consumers could use their accounts to set aside pre-tax money for medical expenses. But thanks to Webb and other tax happy Democrats, over-the-counter drug purchases are now off limits to FSA and HSA accounts."" There’s plenty of confusion about health care reform, so we checked to see if his claim about over-the-counter drugs is correct. As a source, Mullins cited a news report from KSAT 12 out of San Antonio, Texas. The report says, ""Over-the-counter medications will no longer be reimbursable through a health care flexible spending account, or FSA, even if the account has a grace period. So, Dec. 31 is the last day to stock up on pain relievers, allergy tablets, antacids and more for people who want to use them to exhaust their use-it-or-lose-it FSA."" Not convinced San Antonio’s KSAT 12 is an end-all source for health care reform, we dug deeper. According to the Internal Revenue Service guidance on flexible spending accounts, a new provision ""as added by the Affordable Care Act, provides that...beginning after December 31, 2010, expenses incurred for a medicine or a drug shall be treated as a reimbursement for medical expenses only if such medicine or drug is a prescribed drug (determined without regard to whether such drug is available without a prescription) or is insulin."" In other words, you will no longer be able to use FSAs to pay for your aspirin, antacids and other over-the-counter drugs if they’re not prescribed by a physician. What about HSAs -- tax-advantaged health savings accounts? Pretty much the same. The IRS says that ""a distribution from an HSA...for a medicine or drug is a tax-free qualified medical expense only if (1) the medicine or drug requires a prescription, (2) is an over-the-counter medicine or drug and the individual obtains a prescription, or (3) is insulin."" Otherwise, those ""non-qualified expenses"" will be taxed at 20 percent rather than the current 10 percent for HSA plan participants. So, while the recently enacted portion of the health care law will not stop consumers from being able to buy over-the-counter drugs through their plans, it will require a prescription to do so. On that count, Mullins stays relatively safe by employing the phrase ""non-prescription health needs"" at the end of his claim. , those items like aspirin can still qualify for reimbursement with a prescription, but then they would not longer be ""non-prescription."" But the same phrase also presents a problem for Mullins because other ""non-prescription"" items such as medical supplies and first-aid items remain eligible for reimbursement without a prescription. ""Over-the-counter medications are treated differently than over-the-counter medical items like Band-Aids, which are covered without a prescription,"" said Michael Waxman of Save Flexible Spending Plans. If you’re wondering why these changes are taking place, the answer is likely money. ""I think [federal officials] were just looking for revenue raisers,"" Mike Thompson, a human resource services principal with the PwC recently told the Washington Post. As that story notes, employee contributions to FSAs are made on a pretax basis, reducing earnings and thus the amount workers pay in income tax. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, tightening up the tax break on over-the-counter purchases will generate an estimated $5 billion in federal revenues through 2019. And one last note: Webb, as Mullins said, did vote for the massive health care reform bill that limits the use of flexible spending accounts. Let’s look back. Mullins says health care law provisions that took effect Jan. 1 will ""remove the ability of consumers to use FSA and HSA plans to pay for things like aspirin and other non-prescription health needs."" It’s that as of Jan. 1, FSA and HSA plans no longer offered reimbursements for over-the-counter drugs without a prescription. However, those same items could be covered with a prescription. Mullins misses a caveat by not noting that non-prescription items like crutches, bandages, and health supplies like diagnostic devices and blood sugar test kits remain covered. But his comments seem directed at drugs. We find his claim ."
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25982
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Multiple studies “all said for decades, masks do not work with viruses.”
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"North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, who’s running for governor against incumbent Democrat Roy Cooper, said scientific evidence shows masks ""do not work with viruses."" Masks don't guarantee protection from the virus. But that's beside the point, since no experts are arguing that. Multiple studies published this year show that mask-wearing on a broad scale can reduce the spread of COVID-19, a fact that's been emphasized by the news media, the CDC and Trump advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci."
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false
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North Carolina, Coronavirus, Dan Forest,
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"At a campaign event in western North Carolina on July 4, the state’s Republican candidate for governor dismissed the need for face coverings during the coronavirus pandemic. Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, who’s running for governor against incumbent Democrat Roy Cooper, said scientific evidence doesn’t support mask mandates. ""There have been multiple comprehensive studies at the deepest level held to scientific standards in controlled environments that have all said for decades, masks do not work with viruses,"" he told a reporter for The Hendersonville Times-News. Is it true that studies ""all said"" that masks ""do not work on viruses?"" Forest’s statement that they ""do not work"" ignores recent studies -- and federal healthcare guidance -- showing that mask-wearing does reduce the spread of coronavirus. While virologist and Trump advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and other experts have said masks alone don’t guarantee protection from the virus, they do believe masks can help slow down the spread of COVID-19. But, by saying ""all"" studies show no use for masks, Forest left himself no margin for error. So we asked the Forest campaign to cite Forest’s sources. Campaign spokesman Andrew Dunn noted an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine on April 1 titled, ""Universal masking in hospitals in the Covid-19 era."" Dunn quoted a line from the authors’ opening statement, which reads: ""We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection."" Authors go on to say the purpose of their article is to examine ""whether a mask offers any further protection in health care settings in which the wearer has no direct interactions with symptomatic patients."" Authors later noticed that people were quoting their article to discourage mask-wearing, so they released a follow-up letter to clarify their position. ""We understand that some people are citing our Perspective article (published on April 1 at NEJM.org) as support for discrediting widespread masking. In truth, the intent of our article was to push for more masking, not less,"" researchers wrote in a June 1 letter. They acknowledged writing the sentence that Dunn cited, then said: ""but as the rest of the paragraph makes clear, we intended this statement to apply to passing encounters in public spaces, not sustained interactions within closed environments. A growing body of research shows that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is strongly correlated with the duration and intensity of contact."" Dunn also cited a study, published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine in 2015, that examined the use of ""non-pharmaceutical interventions"" to reduce the spread of the flu. Non-pharmaceutical interventions are public health strategies used to reduce virus transmissions. These interventions include home quarantine for infected persons, social distancing, reduction in public gatherings, and masks. Dunn pointed out that researchers wrote that there are ""widely disparate findings on masks' effectiveness in combating viruses."" The study examined existing reports on NPIs, but found that many of the reports were flawed. Researchers reviewed 100 studies on intervention strategies and found inconclusive results for most of them, including masks. Of those 100 studies, researchers wrote that ""only seven met all selection criteria and pooled analysis was not feasible"" because they had ""significant design flaws."" Researchers wrote: ""Reduction of viral transmission by non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) has a significant appeal and is often recommended. However, the efficacy of such interventions is unclear … Despite the potential for NPI in preventing influenza transmission, there is very limited data available. … Properly designed studies evaluating large populations including ‘at risk’ patients and in a variety of communities are needed."" That was 2015. Now fast forward to the emergence of COVID-19. Researchers have launched multiple studies on potential methods for stifling the outbreak, finding that masks could help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Back in April, researchers wrote in the U.S. National Library of Medicine that ""to date, no study has been done to examine the effectiveness of masks against the SARS‐CoV‐2 causing COVID‐19. However, a recent study in patients with seasonal coronaviruses has demonstrated that surgical face masks significantly reduced detection of viral RNA in aerosols and shows a trend in reducing viral RNA in droplets."" A study published in The Royal Society on June 10 found ""the results of two mathematical models and show that facemask use by the public could make a major contribution to reducing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic."" Another study, published in The Lancet medical journal on June 1, found that ""face mask use could result in a large reduction in risk of infection."" Another study, coming out in the August edition of the International Journal of Nursing Studies, concluded that ""community mask use by well people could be beneficial, particularly for COVID-19, where transmission may be pre-symptomatic."" Rachel Graham, assistant professor of epidemiology at the UNG Gillings School of Global Public Health, noted that a study out of Germany found that a mask mandate decreased the COVID-19 growth rate by about 40%. When it comes to mask-wearing, Graham said: ""It’s not that there’s no transmission, it’s that there’s less."" The CDC, which earlier this year said masks weren’t necessary in public places, changed its guidance on April 3 after studies found that the virus can be spread by asymptomatic individuals. Now, the CDC recommends nearly everyone wear a face covering saying they ""help protect people around you"" and are ""most likely to reduce the spread of COVID-19 when they are widely used by people in public settings."" PolitiFact has reported on the effectiveness of masks on several occasions, quoting experts who say coverings, when worn properly, can effectively reduce the spread of COVID-19 when combined with other prevention methods such as frequent hand washing and social distancing. Forest said ""there have been multiple comprehensive studies at the deepest level held to scientific standards in controlled environments that have all said for decades, masks do not work with viruses."" His statement overlooks recent data, news stories, CDC guidance and the advice of one of President Trump’s top pandemic advisors. While face coverings alone can’t guarantee protection from a virus, recent studies show they do reduce the risk of spreading the virus. And that’s the goal in this pandemic: to stop the spread. So Forest’s claim that masks ""do not work"" is inaccurate."
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35185
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A meme documents U.S. President Donald Trump's statements about the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
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On Feb. 26, at a White House news conference, commenting on the country’s first reported cases: “We’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time. So we’ve had very good luck.”
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true
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Politics, COVID-19
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Amidst the debate about the Trump administration’s response to the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic that began in early 2020, which many critics contended was too slow because the president initially failed to acknowledge the severity of the issue, social media users circulated a meme that supposedly documented a marked contradiction in the U.S. president’s statements on the issue across time: According to this meme, as late as March 9, 2020, Donald Trump was still criticizing the press for supposedly “inflam[ing] the CoronaVirus situation” and quoting the U.S. surgeon general as asserting that, “The risk is low to the average American.” Yet a mere eight days later, according to the meme, Trump claimed he “felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” However observers might choose to interpret them, both of these statements are accurately dated and attributed to Trump in the meme. Trump tweeted the first statement on March 9: The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant. Surgeon General, “The risk is low to the average American.” — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2020 The latter was a statement Trump made during a Coronavirus Task Force press briefing from the White House on March 17. As can be seen in the following video (at the 1:05:00 mark), as Trump fielded a question from a reporter about whether his “tone” on the pandemic had suddenly changed the previous day, he declared, “This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. All you had to do is look at other countries; I think now it’s in almost 120 countries all over the world. No, I’ve always viewed it as very serious. There was no difference yesterday from days before”: The New York Times chronicled this statement from Trump and contrasted it with others he had made in the weeks leading up to it: For weeks, President Trump has minimized the coronavirus, mocked concern about it and treated the risk from it cavalierly. On [March 17] he took to the White House lectern and made a remarkable assertion: He knew it was a pandemic all along. “This is a pandemic,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.” This is what Mr. Trump has actually said over the past two months: On Jan. 22, asked by a CNBC reporter whether there were “worries about a pandemic,” the president replied: “No, not at all. We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”
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27806
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Photographs show a crow landing on and riding atop an eagle in flight.
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"""This would be kind of like a dog chasing a car and jumping up on it."""
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true
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Fauxtography, animals birds
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In July 2015, a series of photographs purportedly showing a crow landing on and riding atop the back of an eagle in flight were a subject of social media fascination: The photographs, which followed on the heels of similar animal ride-hitching images such as a weasel riding a woodpecker and a raccoon riding an alligator, left many viewers questioning their authenticity. Although some commenters disclaimed the above-displayed photographs as depicting an aerodynamically impossible activity, according to Kevin McGowan, a biologist who specializes in crow behavior, they are indeed real: “This would be kind of like a dog chasing a car and jumping up” on it, says McGowan. “Dogs always want to catch the car, but they never know what they’d do if they get it.” But why didn’t the eagle react to the crow landing? Since the crow wasn’t pecking, it didn’t warrant the Eagle’s attention. As the largest bird of prey, eagles are harassed nonstop by birds of all species. Sometimes the hecklers are so persistent, it looks like the eagles “are being followed by mosquitoes,” says McGowan. Phoo Chan, the bird photographer who snapped the photographs back in May 2014, offered a similar explanation on his 500px page: Crows are known for aggressively harassing other raptors that are much bigger in size when spotted in their territories and usually these ‘intruders’ simply retreat without much fuss. However, in this frame the crow did not seem to harass the bald eagle at such close proximity and neither did the bald eagle seem to mind the crow’s presence invading its personal space. What made it even more bizarre was that the crow even made a brief stop on the back of the eagle as if it was taking a free scenic ride and the eagle simply obliged. Chan’s photographs may seemingly depict an impossible (or at least one-in-a-million) scene, but other images of crows “riding” eagles abound online. In 2012, for example, Caters News photographer Hyeongchol Kim captured a similar occurrence in South Korea: I saw the crow flying towards the much bigger eagle, and prepared myself to capture the fight on camera. However, the bird just hovered above the eagle for a few seconds – and then appeared to just latch onto his back. The eagle didn’t seem to mind at all — I think they must have been friends.
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5832
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Report finds cases of STDs reach 30-year high in California.
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The number of cases of three major sexually transmitted diseases in California reached a 30-year high in 2018, according to a state report released Tuesday.
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true
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Sexually transmitted diseases, Chlamydia, Health, General News, California, Gonorrhea, Syphilis
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More than 336,000 cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis were reported last year, as rates of all three STDs continued to increase across the state, the California Department of Public Health reported. Officials said they are particularly concerned by the number of congenital syphilis cases, which were 14% higher than the previous year and nearly 900% higher than in 2012. There were 22 stillbirths or neonatal deaths because of syphilis last year, the report said. If left untreated, syphilis can result in blindness, hearing loss and neurological problems. Chlamydia and gonorrhea can lead to infertility, ectopic pregnancy and chronic pelvic pain. Many STDs can be cured with antibiotics. The highest rates of STDs are among young people ages 15 to 24, officials said. The department’s acting director, Dr. Charity Dean, urged sexually active people to use condoms and get tested. “Regular testing and treatment are essential prevention strategies, even for people who have no symptoms,” Dean said in a statement. “Most people infected with an STD do not know it.” State officials are collaborating with local agencies to coordinate efforts to control STDs, the health department said.
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9112
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Scientists discover biomarkers which could lead to better treatments for CF patients
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This news release focuses on a recent study that found new biomarkers in the sweat of infants that are associated with cystic fibrosis (CF). The news release does a good job of explaining how these biomarkers may be valuable in helping to diagnose borderline cases of CF, in which conventional diagnostic techniques leave some uncertainty about whether an infant has the disease. However, in spite of speculation and a suggestive headline, there is little explanation of how the new findings could possibly affect treatment for CF patients — which is a significant oversight, given that the headline focuses on CF treatment, not diagnosis. Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disorder that affects a relatively small number of people each year. But those with the disease face a lifetime of extensive medical treatments to address the disease and its symptoms. CF is not curable. Life expectancy for those with the disease in the U.S. is now approximately 37 years, up from a median survival age of only 10 years in 1962. That improvement is due to significant advances in treatment, which cannot begin until the condition is diagnosed. Ergo, diagnosis is crucial. That would appear to be the biggest advantage we can clearly define from the new study. While it is possible that the study’s finding may also contribute to new advances in CF treatment, that is currently only conjecture. Anyone expecting details of new advances in treatment based on the headline of this news release is sure to be disappointed.
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false
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biological markers,cystic fibrosis,McMaster University
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The study does not address costs. The method used to identify the new biomarkers is described as “a specialized technique developed at McMaster [University]” (where the research was done), making it difficult or impossible to estimate what the cost may be. The benefit here would appear to be that diagnostic testing for CF would be better able to identify infants who have CF, and possibly understand more about the expected course for individual patients — particularly patients with borderline results on the sweat chloride test currently used to diagnose CF in newborns. However, it’s not clear how common these cases are. Are there a lot of patients who have borderline sweat chloride tests? In addition, the release doesn’t tell us how much better the new biomarkers are at diagnosing CF. It suggests that the new tests add accuracy to the diagnosis — but by how much? The potential harms here involve errors in diagnosis. More specifically, the story does not address the specificity or sensitivity of the biomarker testing. And this is important. Specificity indicates how good a test is at ruling out people who don’t have a problem. Sensitivity addresses how good a test is at positively identifying people who actually have the problem. False positives can result in unnecessary treatments and costs. False negatives can result in patients not getting treatments that could help them. And if it’s still too early to tell what the specificity or sensitivity of the tests are, they need to address that. The release does not tell readers how many patients were involved in the study, making it impossible to tell how robust these findings are. In this case, the relevant journal article tells us that there were 50 infants who were not affected by CF and 18 that were affected by CF. For most conditions, this would be considered a very small sample size. It’s not clear whether consideration needs to be given to the fact that CF is a relatively uncommon disorder, making it more difficult to garner a larger sample size. The release would have been stronger if it had addressed this. No disease mongering here. The funding source is clearly marked and there does not appear to be a conflict of interest. However, it’s not clear whether the “specialized technique developed at McMaster” is being patented for use in the marketplace, or if it is being made freely available to other researchers. Either way, that would be a valuable point to make in the release. The release does a good job of explaining the sweat chloride test, which is widely used to make a final diagnosis of CF in infants and children. It is not clear how far these research findings are from making their way into clinical use. The story does a good job of explaining what is new here — researchers have found specific chemicals in the sweat of infants with CF that appear to be related to the disease. The release only stumbles when presenting what these findings mean or how they may be used in the context of clinical diagnosis and care. Here’s the news release headline: “Scientists discover biomarkers which could lead to better treatments for CF patients” (emphasis added). Treatments are mentioned only twice in the text of the release. Here, in the second paragraph: “The findings…shed new light on the underlying mechanisms of CF and could lead to improved prognosis and better therapies for a disease which is quite variable, affecting different children in different ways, say researchers.” And here, in the ninth paragraph: “The biomarkers also point to other underlying mechanisms that contribute to the progression of CF and could lead to better therapeutic interventions earlier in life.” In short, the release offers very little to support the idea of better treatments for CF patients. How does the study improve our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of CF? And how could that potentially lead to improved treatments? The release doesn’t tell us. One could see how it may lead to earlier treatment, if diagnoses are improved, but the release doesn’t address how earlier treatment could improve patient outcomes. So, while one can say that these biomarkers “could” lead to better treatments, one could just as easily say that these biomarkers “may not” lead to better treatments. The release would have been on much firmer ground if it had either fleshed out how the findings may inform future treatment research or had focused on the value of the study’s findings in regard to diagnostics.
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8992
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Temple researchers reverse cognitive impairments in mice with dementia
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This news release from Temple University Health System describes a study in genetically engineered mice showing that an anti-inflammatory asthma drug was able to reverse the impact of particular kinds of brain damage associated with human Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. The drug, an anti-leukotriene steroid called zileuton, is believed to target the biological pathways involved with damage to “tau” nerve cells in the brain. That damage leads to the fiber-like “tangles” that are suspected of sabotaging the chemical signaling between brain cells needed for learning and memory. We applaud the release for including the words “in mice” in the headline, something that our reviewers have called the university out for previously. The release would have been strengthened by explicitly addressing the long road still to travel between reversal of tau damage in designer mice and a potential treatment to restore spatial or any other kind of memory in people. A quote noting that the work “could soon be translated” to clinical use was buried at the end of the release, but still left a potentially misleading impression. It also does not mention cost or side effects. The use of use of words like “breakthrough,” and a phrase about “new hope” for patients, detract from the otherwise balanced release. The U.S. and world public understands the threat of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias on aging populations. Moreover, to date, these disorders have proven resistant to virtually every medical effort to prevent or treat the devastating loss of cognitive function and overall disability that mark them. Thus, any discovery — no matter how far from actual clinical use — is often the trigger for premature enthusiasm and hype. News releases and articles therefore must do their utmost to present findings in cautious context, especially when the research described is in laboratory animals.
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false
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Temple University Health System
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At this level of research, speaking to costs would seem to be unnecessary but since the drug used in the study is commercially available, the cost is relevant and should have been mentioned in the release. The drug is expensive — at $500 to $3,000 a month for asthma patients depending on insurance and co-pays — even though it’s impossible to know at this stage what the costs or dosing would be if it is ever proven to be useful in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Noting the cost could have been done in the context of the costs to care for someone with Alzheimer’s for years or decades. The release is light on data describing how much better at maze navigation the treated mice were compared to non-treated mice. “… significantly better on the tests…” and “…superior performance do not provide an adequate quantification of the test results. There is also a tacit and unfounded assumption that the reductions in leukotrienes and in tau are sustainable during prolonged treatment. Harms in a mouse model do not necessarily translate to humans but we do know what the side effects profile looks like. The harms include alteration of liver function, sleep and behavioral disorders — to name a few. It’s irresponsible to say that this research “could soon be translated to the clinic,” which is simply not true. There’s a tremendous gap between this research and proving clinical effectiveness. As we noted in the summary, the release should have specifically addressed the work still to do in understanding how the reversal of tau damage in designer mice translates to a potential treatment for restoring brain function in people. No mongering here. But nor does the release provide any context on the prevalence of Alzheimer’s. Funding sources are named. The release would have been improved if it had acknowledged the multiple failures over many decades of other once promising drugs for dementia tested in animals. The take-home message should be that these disorders, and brain chemistry in general, are complicated, and although research may bring hope, it has yet to bring effective treatments. The release makes the statement, albeit at the very end, that the research could “soon translate” into clinical use. That is at best misleading and provides a false hope for patients and their families, given that no timetable or process is given for what would be required to take the step to human use. A plus is that the drug already is approved for use in asthma, but it is likely that even if further animal studies confirm the current work, clinical use is still months or even years away. The release could have been improved if it noted that the current research is an extension of work done by these researchers. A 2013 publication in PLOS Medicine previously demonstrated cognitive improvements in mice treated with zileutin and alterations in levels of tau. The suggestion that this was a breakthrough seems a bit of a stretch given their previous work. Although parts of the release are cautious in describing what the drug can do, the use of words like “breakthrough” and “especially exciting” appear unwarranted.
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28417
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"A pedophilia group put up a sign reading ""Pedophiles are People Too"" near a school in Oregon."
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"What's true: A sign reading ""Pedophiles are People Too"" was briefly posted on a telephone pole near a school in Oregon. What's false: The sign has no apparent connection with a genuine attempt to integrate pedophiles into the LGBTQ community or to ""normalize"" pedophilia."
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mixture
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Fauxtography, 4chan, james woods, lgbtq
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On 27 July 2018, an image of a sign reading “Pedophiles Are People Too” and “Love is Love” over a rainbow background reminiscent of the LGBTQ pride flag started making its way around social media: And so it begins… pic.twitter.com/ku6FQpBbAO — James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) July 31, 2018 Facebook posts were often accompanied by text indicating the sign had been stapled to a telephone pole near a school in Oregon: Edited to add – I do NOT support this at all. I am posting this because I am concerned because I think children should be protected. This is NOT ok by any standards and should NEVER be considered normal behavior. And since no one reads this to the bottom and sees it – this is in no way shape or form accepted by the LGBTQ community. —- As a parent, this is extremely alarming and NEEDS to be addressed for our children’s safety: There is a movement being pushed right now, nationally and on a global scale – by a growing group of men and women trying NORMALIZE pedophilia. There are several TED Talks supporting this, many celebrities publicly defending it, and now they are trying to be masked and hidden under the umbrella of the “love is love” movement… Trying desperately to piggy back off the LBGTQ community, and the endless numbers of sexual preferences and gender identities newly created lately, they has given us the “MAPS” movement which stands for “minor attracted person.” Because every false narrative needs a misleading euphemism. If you get confused trying to make sense of the perverse jargon, here are some definitions: MAPS: Minor attracted person (pedophile) NOMAPS: It doesn’t mean they’re against it like you’d think, it means they’re a “non offending” non-contact pedophile, which they seem to think makes them moral. NAMBLA: The North American Man/Boy Love association, their goal is to abolish all ages of consent. Hebephile: Pedophile attracted to pubescent kids. Nepiophile: Someone who’s sexually attracted to toddlers and babies. THIS IS NOT JUST SOMETHING FAKE TO FEAR-MONGER. This was physically stapled to a phone pole in the Portland, OR area. THIS IS IN OUR BACKYARDS NOW. Please, I urge you, to be diligent and be oh so careful. Please watch who you let in to your children’s lives. This is a sad time in the world, it has fallen so far into confusion and depravity… trying to blur the lines between right and wrong. Keep your children innocent and safe the best you can. Please feel free to share this. Information can keep children safe. ETA: Please note that this is NOT condoned by the LGBTQ community. Portland television station KATU confirmed that this sign was briefly posted near a school in the city of West Linn, and that it was removed shortly after it was noticed by area residents. While it’s still unclear who put up this particular sign, it is eerily similar to previous troll campaigns aimed at connecting the LGBTQ community with pedophiles. In December 2017, for instance, users on the internet forum 4Chan concocted a false rumor that a “P” (for “Pedosexual”) was being added to the well known LGBTQ initialism. 4Chan users were encouraged to spread a Photoshopped flyer bearing taglines such as “love is ageless,” a more on-the-nose version of the tagline seen on the Oregon poster, “love is love.” A similar ruse was circulated on Tumblr in June 2018. That time an image supposedly showing a pride flag for MAPs (Minor Attracted Persons) was shared along with baseless rumors about pedophiles’ supposedly “rebranding” themselves in an effort to gain acceptance into the LGBTQ community. These campaigns, as well as the “Pedophiles are people too” poster found in Oregon, all push the unfounded notion that the LGBTQ community has been party to a concerted effort to legitimize and normalize pedophilia. Our previous investigations into these troll campaigns, however, has found that no legitimate LGBTQ organizations have created, endorsed, or promoted any such idea. Cameron Whitten, the executive director of the LGBTQ community and non-profit Q Center organization in Oregon, said of the mysterious poster that “It’s just very clear that this message was meant to stigmatize and stereotype LGBTQ people. At a time when we are facing homophobia, transphobia, it is not helpful for these kinds of harmful messages to be disseminated out.” It should also be noted that while these fabricated campaigns have repeatedly attempted to link homosexuality with pedophilia, no such connection has actually been found: An especially pernicious myth is that most adults who sexually abuse children are gay. A number of researchers have looked at this question to determine if homosexuals are more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals, and the data indicate that’s not the case. For example, in a 1989 study led by Kurt Freund of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in Canada, scientists showed pictures of children to adult gay and straight males, and measured sexual arousal. Homosexual men reacted no more strongly to pictures of male children than heterosexual men reacted to pictures of female children. A 1994 study, led by Carole Jenny of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, surveyed 269 cases of children who were sexually molested by adults. In 82 percent of cases, the alleged offender was a heterosexual partner of a close relative of the child, the researchers reported in the journal Pediatrics. In only two out of 269 cases, the offender was identified as being gay or lesbian.
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36104
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Sailor and explorer Christopher Columbus proved the earth was round.
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‘Columbus Set Out to Prove the Earth Was Round’
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false
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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In October 2019, a number of memes about the legacy of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus circulated on Facebook around Columbus Day, among them a meme about the claim that he “proved” that Earth is round:In the above meme, the top and bottom text read:“COLUMBUS DISCOVERED THE WORLD WAS ROUND” NO THE FUCK HE DID NOTClockwise from the top left, three images including spherical globes were captioned:Statue of Atlas holding the world 148 AD Crate of Mallus globe 160 BC Behaim Globe started 1490The first image at the middle top left appeared to show Greek titan Atlas, represented, as he frequently is, in his now-familiar position “with bent knees and back, straining to hold the globe on his shoulders.” Depictions of Atlas date back to at least six centuries before the current era, or BCE, and the precise year labeled in this image is 148 BCE.Atlas as seen in this particular meme is a work known as the Farnese Atlas, dated to around 150 BCE. Although experts still dispute its precise age, it came from well before the time of Columbus.Next. the meme cites the “Crate of Mallus globe” from 160 BCE; Crates of Mallus was a philosopher and grammarian in ancient Greece. Crates devised one of the earliest, if not the earliest, known spherical model of the Earth (also known as a globe) around 150 BCE, fairly close to the meme’s representation.Third cited by the meme was “Behaim Globe,” started presumably in 1490 CE. Also known as “Erdapfel,” or “Earth Apple,” the artifact (dated coincidentally to 1492) is believed to be the earliest surviving actual globe:Also called the Behaim Globe, the construction of the Erdapfel is credited to the 15th century polymath Martin Behaim. Behaim, a German, was a well-known geographer, merchant, mariner, and philosopher. It was after his travels across the Known World, to places such as Portugal and the West Coast of Africa, that he returned to his native Nuremberg, where he convinced the city council of his hometown to commission a globe from him.All three of the images are roughly correct, if possibly off by a few years across the millennia. But the meme’s central claim was that contrary to history lessons trotted out every October in schools throughout the United States, Christopher Columbus didn’t actually “prove the Earth was round” or disabuse sailors of their fear that their ships would plummet off the edge of a flat ocean should they travel too far.Widely repeated claims that Christopher Columbus “prove” that the world is spherical were addressed in Jeffrey Burton Russell’s 1991 book Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians. In his book. Russell described a push — predominantly between 1870 and 1920 — to rewrite history by advancing the idea that people in the Middle Ages were ignorant of a spherical planet. He said in a 1997 talk on the same subject:Historians of science have been [attempting to debunk the myth of widespread belief in a flat Earth] for at least 70 years (most recently Edward Grant, David Lindberg, Daniel Woodward, and Robert S. Westman), without making notable headway against the error. Schoolchildren in the US, Europe, and Japan are for the most part being taught the same old nonsense. How and why did this nonsense emerge?In my research, I looked to see how old the idea was that medieval Christians believed the earth was flat. I obviously did not find it among medieval Christians. Nor among anti-Catholic Protestant reformers. Nor in Copernicus or Galileo or their followers, who had to demonstrate the superiority of a heliocentric system, but not of a spherical earth. I was sure I would find it among the eighteenth-century philosophes, among all their vitriolic sneers at Christianity, but not a word. I am still amazed at where it first appears.No one before the 1830s believed that medieval people thought that the earth was flat.The idea was established, almost contemporaneously, by a Frenchman and an American, between whom I have not been able to establish a connection, though they were both in Paris at the same time. One was Antoine-Jean Letronne (1787-1848), an academic of strong antireligious prejudices who had studied both geography and patristics and who cleverly drew upon both to misrepresent the church fathers and their medieval successors as believing in a flat earth, in his On the Cosmographical Ideas of the Church Fathers (1834). The American was no other than our beloved storyteller Washington Irving (1783-1859), who loved to write historical fiction under the guise of history. His misrepresentations of the history of early New York City and of the life of Washington were topped by his history of Christopher Columbus (1828). It was [Irving] who invented the indelible picture of the young Columbus, a “simple mariner,” appearing before a dark crowd of benighted inquisitors and hooded theologians at a council of Salamanca, all of whom believed, according to Irving, that the earth was flat like a plate. Well, yes, there was a meeting at Salamanca in 1491, but Irving’s version of it, to quote a distinguished modern historian of Columbus, was “pure moonshine. Washington Irving, scenting his opportunity for a picturesque and moving scene,” created a fictitious account of this “nonexistent university council” and “let his imagination go completely…the whole story is misleading and mischievous nonsense.”Russell was disputing a myth within a myth, the belief that Columbus had bravely sought to disprove a prevailing scientific and geographic notion in his time within the larger story of the explorer’s role in history. He cited academic Antoine-Jean Letronne as one of the higher-profile anti-religious scholars to develop and promulgate the story as part of a larger effort to link religion and religious leaders of Columbus’ time with ignorance and hostility to scientific notions.Russell also pointed to author Washington Irving as an originator of the tale, thanks to Irving’s described penchant for blending “historical fiction” with history under the auspices of strictly authoring history. Russell described Irving’s claims about Columbus and a flat-earth belief as “misleading” as well as “mischievous nonsense.”In that 1997 talk, Russell concluded by arguing that the creation of the myth of flat Earth belief in the Middle Ages was really about a dispute over evolution, an allegory intended to cast doubt on creationists:The reason for promoting both the specific lie about the sphericity of the earth and the general lie that religion and science are in natural and eternal conflict in Western society, is to defend Darwinism. The answer is really only slightly more complicated than that bald statement. The flat-earth lie was ammunition against the creationists. The argument was simple and powerful, if not elegant: “Look how stupid these Christians are. They are always getting in the way of science and progress. These people who deny evolution today are exactly the same sort of people as those idiots who for at least a thousand years denied that the earth was round. How stupid can you get?”As RationalWiki notes, both Letronne and Irving died before Darwinism was introduced. Letronne died in 1849 and Irving in 1859; Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species was first published in 1859.History.com also identifies Letronne and Irving in advancing the myth, but posits that mischievousness and creative license (not a smear campaign against Darwin’s then-nascent theory) was the culprit in Irving’s case:That was thanks to scientists, philosophers and mathematicians who, as early as around 600 B.C., made observations that Earth was round. Using calculations based on the sun’s rise and fall, shadows and other physical properties of the planet, Greek scholars like Pythagoras and Aristotle determined that the planet is actually a sphere … The myth of Columbus’ supposed flat earth theory is tempting: It casts the explorer’s intrepid journey in an even more daring light. Problem is, it’s completely untrue. The legend doesn’t even date from Columbus’ own lifetime. Rather, it was invented in 1828, when Washington Irving published The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus.Irving, a master storyteller, was already famous for tales like “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” when he tackled the life of Columbus. His inspiration came after his friend, Alexander Hill Everett, the United States’ minister to Spain, invited Irving to stay with him in Madrid. While visiting the city, Irving was tempted by a giganticarchive of documents about Columbus and decided to write the explorer’s biography.The archive may have been extensive, but Irving couldn’t help from adding fictional flourishes to Columbus’ already fascinating life. Crucially, he claimed that when the explorer told Spanish geographers the earth was not actually flat, they refused to believe him, even questioning his faith and endangering his life.As that article noted, there was a dispute between Columbus and his financiers about his proposed voyage. But it didn’t involve a widespread belief the world was flat; rather, it was over an ongoing debate about the length of the route and the general distances between land masses.A careful reading of history has always shown that humans acknowledged the Earth’s spherical nature before the Middle Ages, and even in antiquity. But it doesn’t prevent folklore about Columbus’ motivations from infecting lessons and talks about the science of previous eras. In 2014, historian Darin Hayton referenced writings and remarks by astronomer Chris Impey and writes:More recently still, Chris Impey, an astronomer at University of Arizona who claims to be interested in and knowledgable about history, fell prey to the Columbus myth in a lecture posted on YouTube, “Ancient Astronomy.” … [Impey] underscores this claim in his video series “Teach Astronomy” (which is part of an online textbook). In the section on “The Dark Ages” he says:In the fourth century with the fall of Rome and the sacking of the great library at Alexandria scientific darkness fell across Europe. Even the language of learning, Latin, splintered as warring tribes took over. The theology of the day was defined by Augustine, and the Christian church was mostly anti-science. The learning of the Romans and the Greeks was denigrated as pagan knowledge. Even the knowledge of the round Earth was lost for many centuries.Impey’s comments reveal, I think, the power of the Columbus myth. It has become so central to the idea of modernity, that even a self-described student of history who is both smart and very educated — part of the “educated extreme” — is not motivated to do a simple internet search to fact check that part of his lecture and textbook. Whereas Irving had mixed truths and truthiness into a “clear and continued narrative,” subsequent authors have pruned the historical truths from the story, leaving just a myth that has become part of modern folklore.It is not a carefully guarded secret that Christopher Columbus’ journey to the New World was never to disprove the common man’s belief that the Earth was actually flat. Many texts and other items from centuries past show without a doubt that previous generations were well aware the Earth was “round,” and that knowledge was not “lost” by the Middle Ages, only to be rediscovered by Columbus. Notions to the contrary did not really stick until author Washington Irving embellished Columbus’ backstory in an 1828 book. That creative exaggeration gave rise to a pernicious myth still referenced today (albeit likely not by anyone who spent any time at all double-checking the claim.) As Hayton observed, so pervasive is the misconception that — ironically — even educators and lecturers sometimes fall prey to its existence as part of a broader treatise on valuing science and history over superstition and mythos.
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22172
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Troy Fraser Says it probably costs more than $300,000 to run for a seat on the Pedernales Electric Cooperative board of directors.
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State senator says it probably costs more than $300,000 to run for Pedernales Electric Cooperative board
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false
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Elections, Energy, Texas, Troy Fraser,
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"State Sen. Troy Fraser, who’s been in the thick of years-long tussling regarding the Pedernales Electric Cooperative, wants co-op directors elected from regional single-member districts. Pitching legislation mandating that change, the Horseshoe Bay Republican noted the expense of seeking election via at-large balloting open to the co-op’s entire membership. Fraser told the Senate Committee on Business & Commerce on April 19: ""If you’re a person that lives, let’s say, in Marble Falls and you want to run, you’ve got to... solicit the support of 210,000 people, probably costing in excess of $300,000 to run for a co-op board, which is a little absurd."" Ka-ching. Is his claim on the money? In an interview, Fraser pointed out that each of the seven Pedernales directors is elected by the co-op’s 200,000-plus members, spread across a 24-county region. In contrast, Texas House members represent about 139,000 residents each. Fraser told us his cost estimate presumes a board candidate would send at least one mailing to every co-op member, at a minimum cost of $1 per recipient so a single mass mailing would cost more than $200,000. He said candidates also spend money on items such as websites. But what do campaign spending reports for Pedernales director candidates show? Turns out there are none. The state does not require them because the co-op is not a government entity. For his part, Fraser referred to Texas House candidate campaign spending tallies indicating that into October 2010, the least costly winning House campaign had cost about $296,300.The most costly campaign--which did not end in victory--had cost more than $1.2 million. Fraser drew the spending figures from a Texas Tribune chart published in November. The chart, limited to candidates in contested races, totaled spending from July 2009 through Oct. 23, 2010 -- hence understating how much candidates likely spent through the November general election. And according to the chart, Nueces County Republican Raul Torres spent $296,284 through Oct. 23 on his way to victory while Democrat Patrick Rose of Dripping Springs spent $1.2 million in his re-election try. Using the same chart, we later identified more than 50 House winners who spent less than Torres through Oct. 23, though many of the lightest spenders faced only third-party challengers. Re-elected GOP Rep. Susan King, on her way to besting a Libertarian and Independent, spent the least: $30,995. Among victors with major-party opponents, Republican John V. Garza, who unseated Democratic Rep. David Leibowitz, had spent $72,583. When we inquired into the cost of past board campaigns, PEC spokeswoman Anne Harvey encouraged us to contact candidates directly. We emailed or left telephone messages with the 13 candidates for two board seats last year, asking how much they spent on what. Among defeated hopefuls, Ken Rigsbee saId he spent $2,700 of his own money traveling around, Dan Pedersen said he spent around $1,000 on yard signs, T-shirts and advertising and Ted Lehr said he spent less than $500. At the low end, Thornton Keel said he spent a small sum to buy a list of co-op members. Geoffrey Vanderpal and Bob Driscoll each said he spent no money. More detail from losing candidates:: --Steven Carriker said he spent $2,000 almost exclusively on newspaper ads. He said too that a group that backed him, Clean Water Action, sent out 4,000 postcards, perhaps costing $2,000. David Foster, state program director for Clean Water Action in Texas, told us in an interview that for the annual board races in 2008 through 2010, the group spent $15,000 on postcards listing its preferred candidates that were mailed to the group’s 7,000 members in the co-op's service area. It also reached members electronically and by phone. Carriker said he doesn’t think a shift to 30,000-resident districts, as Fraser proposes, would change much: ""I recognize (due to first-hand experience) the formidable task of communicating successfully with 200,000 other members, (but) it is hardly a less formidable task to communicate with even one-seventh that number."" --Joe Summy said: ""I had little money, less than $3,000 and had to depend on volunteers and word of mouth."" As for Fraser’s $300,000 figure, he said, ""I have no way to confirm that number."" Summy’s email continued: ""However, unless a candidate has the backing of special interest groups and/or political parties the common candidate has little chance of winning....especially when only 10-12 percent of the (co-op) members vote. in the 2010 races, 20,727 co-op members voted, according to results made public by the co-op at the board’s June 28 meeting. ""The PEC area is over 8,000 square miles. Five of the six candidates have won"" in elections since 2009 ""because they had the support of various special-interest groups"" which ""want to maintain the at-large system because any candidate with their support has a tremendous advantage,"" Summy said. ""The system now has been established to keep a certain elite in power."" As for successful candidates: --Chris Perry, who won the District 4 seat, said he spent less than $1,000 of his own money, mostly for a website, leaflets and travel. He said he did not seek or accept donations, but fielded endorsements ""from a variety of individuals and organizations but I have no idea what they may have spent or what they may have done to support me, other than notifying their friends or members of their endorsement."" Perry said: ""I don’t know anyone who would"" spend $300,000-plus. ""It would be an outrageous amount of money to spend on a cooperative board election."" --Ross Fischer, who won the District 5 race, said he spent about $4,200, or less than $1 for each of the 4,824 votes he drew ""to communicate directly with PEC voters in order to overcome a coordinated effort to control"" the board. He said in his email that Fraser ""is right that it is cost prohibitive to reach (all) PEC voters. A candidate must be willing to spend money in order to compete with the special interests who want to raise rates in order to finance an environmental agenda. Single-member districts would make it financially feasible for an average ratepayer to run for the PEC board, and would increase meaningful communications between members and their board."" Fischer and Summy both referenced a Feb. 15 letter to board members from the steering committee of PEC4U which describes the group’s formation four and a half years ago as a ""loose-knit organization and website"" that initially wanted whose ""initial motivation was ""to encourage PEC to reduce fossil fuel use and make renewable energy and conservation programs available to all PEC members. We quickly learned that no real change would come about without substantial changes in PEC's governance and board election process."" The letter also expresses pride in the group’s recruitment and backing of candidates in the last three board elections. ""You are all directors whom we endorsed and helped get elected,"" the letter says. ""We feel that our close relationship with the press, as well as with Clean Water Action and Public Citizen, played a key role in those elections."" At Public Citizen’s Texas office, researcher/organizer Andy Wilson told us that group does not endorse Pedernales board candidates but encourages voter turnout. Wilson said it has taken no position on whether co-op members should elect the board from single-member districts. Next, we asked PEC4U steering committee members about their expenditures. They replied that the group never has had a political kitty and has not made candidate donations or campaign-related expenditures. ""We have no hidden deep pockets and have not spent money on campaigns,"" said committee member Sue Barnett. However, steering committee member John Watson said, the group has ""engaged in emailing, phoning and personal contact"" with co-op members. Member Bill Christensen said: ""Though some individuals may have spent a few dollars here and there to make photocopies and such, PEC4U itself does not spend any money - it doesn't even have a bank account or any legal status. It's a very loose organization."" Member Ric Sternberg said: ""My out-of-pocket expenses have been about $30/year for (web) domain renewal fees since 2006 or 2007 . . . I think we may have also donated some poster board and toner and paper for our printer."" Summing up: Of 10 candidates who responded to our inquiry, only one said he spent more than $4,000; others said they spent from nothing to $3,000. We circled back to Fraser, who said his original ""offhand remark"" reflected what it would cost a typical resident to beat a foe backed by PEC4U and Clean Water Action, which along with Public Citizen he called ""the machine."" Noting that only the well-prepared Fischer has bested such a candidate since the groups started influencing co-op elections, Fraser said: ""I’m not sure if it’s $300,000 or $50,000 or $1.2 million... Under any scenario, if you’re going to contact 210,000 people, it’s expensive."" Our final analysis of Fraser’s cost declaration: Get out. We see no reason for using any Texas House race as a guide to estimating the costs of seeking a board seat. And the responses we got from most of last year’s candidates suggests there’s no basis for pegging the costs of such campaigns anywhere near $300,000, which is more than 60 times--60!--the most that anyone told us they spent. The statement is so inaccurate, it smokes. ."
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32675
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A ban on smoking in cars when children are present took effect on 30 January 2018.
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There was a whole lot wrong with this article; namely that it originated with Now8News, a fake news site that masquerades as a local television news site while publishing fabricated clickbait stories; that the article text makes no mention of where the referenced smoking ban is supposed to take place; and that the article is simply a republication of a previous hoax with the year updated from 2015 to 2016. The basis of the original Now8News article was a report of a vehicle smoking ban enacted in England and Wales in 2015.
|
false
|
Junk News
|
In February 2018, a post on the photo sharing web site LoveThisPic.com conveyed an announcement that smoking in cars when children are present is illegal thanks to a law that became effective on 30 January 2018: #1 No More Smoking In Cars With Children The law, that becomes effective on January 30, 2018 is to protect children from secondhand smoking. Violations would result in a fine of up to $100. #2 Thousands Of Chemicals According to the Department of Health, when a child breathes in secondhand smoke, they breathe in thousands of chemicals, just like the smoker does. This puts them at risk of serious conditions including cancer, bronchitis, and pneumonia. And it can worsen asthma. #3 All Private Vehicles The law applies to any private vehicle that is enclosed wholly or partly by a roof. It still applies if people have the windows or sunroof open, have the air-conditioning on, or if they sit in a parked car with the door open. Insofar as it gives the impression that there exists a nationwide ban on smoking in cars with children, the post is wholly incorrect. Some state and local governments have instituted such a ban, but no such statute exists in federal law. Shifting to the state and local level, we were unable to find any announcements of smoking bans in vehicles with minor passengers going into effect on 30 January 2018. However, we did find that a legislative bill passed in the Alabama House of Representatives on that date would, if it becomes law, institute such a ban in that state. Much of the content in the LoveThisPic.com post was taken from a Yahoo! article reporting on the passage of the bill and exploring the larger issue of smoking prohibitions. To be clear, the proposed Alabama ban did not go into effect on 30 January 2018, and won’t go into effect until and unless the bill becomes law. Another false report of a ban on smoking in cars with minors present appeared in May 2016 on the web site Now8News: Starting October 1, 2016, it will be illegal to smoke in a car or other vehicles, with anyone under the age of 18. The law is changing to protect children and young people from the dangers of secondhand smoke. Both the driver and the smoker in the car could be fined as much as $80. This law applies to every driver, including those age 17 and those with a driving permit.
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31981
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The 'Podesta e-mails' revealed the existence of a secret society of pedophiles operating through a pizza place loosely connected to Clinton associate David Brock.
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Although the Pizzagate controversy remains a high-interest conspiracy, we are unable to locate any substantive aspect of the claims that could be fact-checked or otherwise held up to the light to determine their veracity. And while rumors about pedophilia and child trafficking remain standard in urban folklore, roughly 90 percent [PDF] of assaults on children in the U.S. are committed by a friend or family member, a number reiterated by the United States Department of Justice. Most [PDF] abuse of the nature alleged is committed by family members, family friends, or other trusted adults — without the use of coded toys or pizzeria sex rings.
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false
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Politics Conspiracy Theories, david brock, hillary clinton, john podesta
|
On 4 November 2016, Reddit user u/DumbScribblyUnctious published a thread titled “Comet Ping Pong – Pizzagate Summary” to subreddit r/The_Donald (a community of Donald Trump supporters), which appears to have touched off a complex and detailed conspiracy theory involving WikiLeaks’ release of e-mails from former Hillary Clinton presidential campaign chair John Podesta, child exploitation, and a Washington, D.C., pizzeria called Comet Ping Pong. None of this elaborate conspiracy theory was true, as the New York Times noted: None of it was true. While [Comet Ping Pong pizzeria owner James] Alefantis has some prominent Democratic friends in Washington and was a supporter of Mrs. Clinton, he has never met her, does not sell or abuse children, and is not being investigated by law enforcement for any of these claims. He and his 40 employees had unwittingly become real people caught in the middle of a storm of fake news. “From this insane, fabricated conspiracy theory, we’ve come under constant assault,” said Mr. Alefantis, 42, who was once in a relationship with David Brock, a provocative former right-wing journalist who became an outspoken advocate for Mrs. Clinton. Although the original “Pizzagate” post was deleted at some point between 4 and 21 November 2016, archived versions of it contained what appeared to be the original post in its entirety. (A subreddit dedicated to the controversy, r/pizzagate, was created in the interim.) A brief and incomplete summary of the theory espoused in the original post goes as follows: Comet Pizza is a pizza place owned by James Alefantis, who is the former gay boyfriend of David Brock, the CEO of Correct The Record. It has been the venue for dozens of events for the Hillary campaign staff. John Podesta has had campaign fundraisers there for both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. John’s brother and business partner Tony Podesta has his birthday party there every year. [https://i.sli.mg/1MqPHA.png] It’s also a dive that according to reviews and photos has hidden bathroom doors and creepy murals. The bathrooms in particular have murals exclusively of nude women, as well as a great deal of graffiti relating to sex. Reviews of the restaurant are bizarrely polarized. Websites describing it positively note that there are regularly “unsupervised children running around”. Their menu include a pedophilic symbol, as do the signs and decorations of other neighboring businesses. The music acts and the posters promoting same acts are bizarre in their presentation, content, and lyrical focus, but are still promoted as being “for all ages”. The overtly sexual content would suggest otherwise. The same has taken place in reference to videos recorded inside Comet Ping Pong by people that frequent their establishment as well as video referencing Comet Ping Pong positively from the exterior. While initially not the central focus of the investigation at the onset, Comet Ping Pong is a much more overt and much more disturbing hub of coincidences. Everyone associated with the business is making semi-overt, semi-tongue-in-cheek, and semi-sarcastic inferences towards sex with minors. The artists that work for and with the business also generate nothing but cultish imagery of disembodiment, blood, beheadings, sex, and of course pizza. Several pages were linked to support the details of the claim (an e-mail in which David Brock was described as “batshit crazy” by Clinton associate Neera Tanden was among them) and the post primarily focused on Alefantis and his loose ties to the Clinton campaign via a former romantic relationship with David Brock of Media Matters for America. Users tracked down Alefantis’ purported Instagram account (since deleted or restricted), which they said hosted images of children, gay clubs, drugs, and generally “bizarre” or unsettling imagery: James Alefantis’ instagram late 11/5/16. by morning of 11/7/16 it was set to private. We recently found the instagram account of James Alefantis. The contents of it are indescribably bizarre and the contexts of the posts and comment chains are weird. Alefantis does not have any children nor do his closest associates, but the photos seem to be a near constant assortment of different children of a variety of ages, intermingled between posts about gay bars, clubs, photos of common rape drugs, and piles of foreign currency. After it being trawled through for 24 hours it has been set to private. A large set of archived copies can be seen here in the next section. Similarly the instagram and twitter accounts of Comet Ping Pong are being edited selectively. The accounts of the people favoriting and commenting on these posts are equally bizarre in both content, context, and demeanor. However, the photographs that the Instagram account purportedly hosted were instead, apparently, taken from the pages of various people who “liked” the restaurant’s page on Facebook: In a statement, the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department said it was monitoring the situation and is “aware of general threats being made against this establishment.” The F.B.I. said it “does not confirm or deny the existence of investigations.” Most troubling for Mr. Alefantis and staff has been the use of children’s images, pilfered from the restaurant’s social media pages and the personal accounts of friends who had “liked” Comet Ping Pong online. Those photos have been used across dozens of websites. Parents, who declined to talk publicly for fear of retribution, have hired lawyers to get the photos removed. Some of the photographs were apparently taken from random web sites: @HagmannPI Why did you lie? You showed a supposedly authentic picture, but it’s from a website. So was everything a lie?? pic.twitter.com/YwqoXWYGKr — Marla Craig (@marla_mulder) November 5, 2016 Alefantis also said many of the photographs were of children of family and friends, not patrons of Comet Ping Pong: “The most sickening part of this vicious attack has been the stealing of Instagram images, Facebook images of children, minors, aged 5, 7, and 8 years old that are then slapped across their chat boards as nothing but pawns,” Alefantis says. “Yes, it’s scary to be attacked, it’s dangerous for business, but it’s disgusting and filthy of these people to be posting photos on these websites. … Someone should be prosecuting these people.” Alefantis says the photos have been lifted from his personal social media accounts, and those of his friends and employees—not from the restaurant. “Kids in the restaurant are completely safe, none of these people are going there, they’re cowards,” he says, emphasizing that this scandal only exists on the internet. Inside the restaurant it’s business as usual … While Alefantis says he can weather the storm, he’s concerned about others who may not have as much community backing as he does. “I personally worry for the individuals who are being attacked and smeared and slandered and maligned and for other independent businesses or restaurants who are less established than Comet.” Scattered evidence from previously leaked Podesta communications was included, such as an e-mail about children orphaned after 2010’s catastrophic earthquake in Haiti (along with information about adoption agencies and trafficking), or another thread claiming Clinton campaign manager John Podesta and his brother Tony Podesta were purportedly in Portugal at the time Madeleine McCann disappeared. Additional evidence was presented in collage format, visually “linking” unrelated Instagram screengrabs, a number of individuals supposedly involved, purported coded signaling for pedophiles (such as a butterfly or a “play, eat, drink” insignia which could be abbreviated “PED”), and assertions that underground tunnels linked adjacent business (which themselves also use pedophilia code in their materials): Imagery widely believed to be code for pedophiles to signal one another was a common theme in the myriad Pizzagate theories. Purported symbols such as butterflies and spirals were increasingly spotted in unrelated places, creating the impression that conspiracy was as vast as it was nebulous. (As we have noted in the past, fear of “pedophile code” imagery is occasionally the basis for panic, but law enforcement officials believed that the symbols themselves are used among adults to signal preferences, not as labels for children, not as markers placing them in any danger.) On 6 November 2016, Washington City Paper summarized the claims, noting that the rumors originated with long-circulating claims about Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein, and confirming Alefantis’ link to Brock: Trump supporters on sites like Reddit and 4chan have long been looking for a stronger connection between Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein, a financial tycoon and sex offender whose plane Bill Clinton sometimes used. The Wikileaks release of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s hacked emails inspired a feverish, and mostly hapless, search for salacious scandal evidence, while PolitiFact calls the evidence for a Clinton sex network “ridiculously thin.” Late this week, Trump supporters on 4chan and Reddit began to focus on “Pizzagate”— innocuous connections between Podesta and emails mentioning pizza that they claimed were far more sinister than they initially appeared. Why, they wondered, did Podesta have a handkerchief with a “pizza-related” map on it? And why did Podesta get so many emails about eating pizza? The answer to any reasonable person would be that Podesta eats pizza sometimes. Indeed, Alefantis says, “pizza’s always a big thing in politics.” … To the alt right, though, “pizza” became a suspected code word for illegal sex trafficking. … In one 2008 email released by Wikileaks, Alefantis thanked Podesta for attending a fundraiser at the restaurant but regretted not making him a pizza. That drew amateur theorists’ attention to the restaurant’s murals, which they declared “creepy,” and the sliding doors in front of the restaurant’s bathrooms, dubbed “hidden rooms.” In the period between 6 November 2016 and 21 November 2016, social media users continued to examine purported links to the pizzeria. Not long after Comet Ping Pong became the center of myriad ambiguous child abuse theories, the business’ Yelp page was locked down by the site’s operators, along with the following note: This business recently made waves in the news, which often means that people come to this page to post their views on the news … While we don’t take a stand one way or the other when it comes to these news events, we do work to remove both positive and negative posts that appear to be motivated more by the news coverage itself than the reviewer’s personal consumer experience with the business. By 15 November 2016, Alefantis told Washington City Paper the rumors showed no sign of abating, and had begun to affect adjacent venues (who were, according to the conspiracy theory, connected to the pizza restaurant by underground tunnels, apparently including a non-governmental organization across the street that works with Haitian orphans). The Pizzagate/Comet Ping Pong social media investigation bore striking similarity to a similar Reddit-based panic concerning a “creepy day care” in January 2015. The Fun Time Kidz Day Care conspiracy quickly spiraled into offline harassment and in-person surveillance, but nothing came of the deeply scrutinized claims. On 1 December 2016, Comet Ping Pong announced the addition of stronger security measures due to then-ongoing harassment, some of which affected nearby businesses: Articles [about Pizzagate have] proliferated on websites that publish intentionally fake news stories … The conspiracy-peddling spilled over into the real world as Comet Ping Pong, Alefantis, and his restaurant’s employees started receiving threatening phone calls, text messages, and social-media messages. Neighboring businesses like Little Red Fox and Politics & Prose have reported receiving some spillover abuse as the “Pizzagate” rumors continue to fester. Via Facebook update, the venue stated: Comet Ping Pong, like any respectable venue, is dedicated to creating a safe and inviting space for all of our concert-goers. There have been no hostile situations at the venue, and we do not anticipate any altercations as much of the harassment has occurred online, but as we have before we now have security present at every show. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact the Comet Ping Pong Live Music page or any of the show staff. On 4 December 2016, police detained an unidentified man who entered Comet Ping Pong carrying an assault rifle and allegedly fired one shot: A North Carolina man was arrested Sunday after he walked into a popular pizza restaurant in Northwest D.C. carrying an assault rifle and fired one or more shots, D.C. Police said, prompting patrons and employees to flee. The incident caused panic, with several businesses going into lockdown as police swarmed the neighborhood after receiving the call shortly before 3 p.m. Police Chief Peter Newsham said the lone suspect in his late-20s walked in the front door of Comet Ping Pong and appears to have fired one or multiple shots into the ground after employees and patrons had fled. The suspect, who police say is from Salisbury, N.C., has not been identified and his motives were not clear. Police said charges were pending … Vivek Jain, of Potomac, Md. was eating lunch inside Banana Leaf, a nearby Indian restaurant, when Comet patrons came rushing inside. He said Banana Leaf was locked down for about 90 minutes. “A bunch of people ran in from Comet and said a man walked in with a gun,” Jain said.
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Face masks may be 'new normal' in post-virus life as U.S. prepares gradual reopening.
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The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in the United States approached 31,000 on Wednesday as governors began cautiously preparing Americans for a post-virus life that would likely include public face coverings as the “new normal.”
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Health News
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The governors of Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania each issued orders or recommendations that residents wear face masks as they emerge from isolation in the coming weeks. “If you are going to be in public and you cannot maintain social distancing, then have a mask, and put that mask on,” said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. Similar orders were imposed in New Jersey and Los Angeles last week and face coverings were recommended by Kansas Governor Laura Kelly on Tuesday. California Governor Gavin Newsom has said residents across the nation’s most-populous state would likely be wearing masks in public for some time to come. “We are going to be getting back to normal; it will be a new normal,” Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said, echoing a phrase used by at least two of his fellow governors in recent days. U.S. Midwest governors were also making plans together to restart their economies, said Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokeswoman for Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. In Michigan, hundreds of cars flooded the streets around the state Capitol in Lansing on Wednesday to protest Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders, some of the strictest in the country. Some protesters, in the demonstration organized by conservative and pro-President Donald Trump groups, left their cars to gather on the lawn in front of the Capitol building, many of them not wearing masks or practicing social distancing. As of Wednesday night, 30,885 people in the United States had died of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, according to a Reuters tally. That includes more than 4,000 deaths newly attributed to the disease in New York City after health officials revised their counting methods to include “probable,” but unconfirmed, cases. Healthcare workers have faced unique health threats while working on the front lines trying to tackle the pandemic. Reuters has identified more than 50 nurses, doctors and medical technicians who have died after being diagnosed with COVID-19 or showing symptoms of it. At least 16 were in New York state. “The emergency room is like a war zone,” said Raj Aya, whose wife, Madhvi Aya - a physician’s assistant in Brooklyn - was one of the healthcare workers who died in New York. As the outbreak begins to slow, political leaders have bickered over how and when to begin the process of unwinding unprecedented lockdowns that have damaged the economy and largely confined Americans to their homes. Washington state Governor Jay Inslee told an afternoon news conference the largest obstacle to a return to normalcy was a shortage of coronavirus tests. “We simply haven’t had enough test kits – they simply do not exist anywhere in the United States right now,” Inslee said, adding the state had purchased about a million swabs, along with vials and test medium but they were just starting to arrive. At his daily White House briefing hours later, Trump boasted that the United States had “the most expansive testing system anywhere in the world”. But, he said, testing was a problem for the states and not the federal government. “We can’t be thinking about a Walmart parking lot,” where some testing is being done, but the states and cities should do that, he said. Senate Democrats on Wednesday unveiled a $30 billion plan to vastly increase nationwide testing for the coronavirus. Trump, citing data suggesting the peak of new infections had passed, said he would announce guidelines on Thursday for reopening the economy. The sweeping closures of businesses have left millions of Americans unemployed and store owners struggling to pay rent. Government data released on Wednesday showed that retail sales dropped by 8.7% in March, the biggest decline since tracking began in 1992. Consumer spending accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. In addition, output at U.S. factories declined by the most since 1946 as the pandemic fractured supply chains. “The economy is almost in free fall,” said Sung Won Sohn, a business economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The United States, with the world’s third-largest population, has now suffered the greatest number of reported fatalities from the coronavirus, ahead of Italy and Spain. Globally, the number of infections has crossed the 2 million mark and over 136,000 people have died, a Reuters tally shows. The pathogen emerged last year in China. Trump said on Wednesday his government was trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a lab in Wuhan, China, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Beijing “needs to come clean” on what they know. The official death toll released by the Chinese government stands at about 3,600. The source of the virus remains a mystery. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that U.S. intelligence indicated the coronavirus likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in a laboratory in China, but there was no certainty either way.
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Heart stents found no more effective than drugs in prolonging life
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This broadcast nicely reassures viewers that millions of Americans with stable, non-emergency coronary artery disease can manage their heart problems well with medicine and do not need to undergo surgery to implant stents that prop open clogged arteries. It clearly differentiates between patients with “unstable” disease who might benefit from stenting and those in the current study with “stable situations” who have a lower risk of heart attacks and death—an important distinction for viewers to understand. The broadcast notes that about a million people receive coronary stents each year, and that, at $15,000 to $25,000 apiece, fewer procedures would save the healthcare system substantial amounts of money. Though the broadcast neglects to note some useful information—about the potential harms of drug therapy and stents, as well as about other therapies that might help patients with stable disease (including lifestyle interventions such as smoking cessation, changes in diet, and exercise)—the take-home message remains appropriate and clear: “When it comes to getting a stent, most patients don’t need to rush,” according to ABC News correspondent John McKenzie. Readers should note that the new trial was published online in the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with its presentation at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology, a detail omitted in the broadcast. Overall, this was a good job, especially within the often self-imposed limitations of TV news.
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The broadcast explains that the cost of implanting a stent runs between “15 to 25 thousand bucks,” and suggests that the procedure is not cost-effective in about half of those currently considered candidates. The broadcast summarizes the trial’s results in general terms but does not report the actual number or percentage of heart attacks and deaths (the trial’s primary outcome). Over the course of follow-up, there were 211 deaths and nonfatal heart attacks in the group receiving stents plus optimal medical therapy, and 202 such events among patients receiving optimal medical therapy alone. After 4.6 years, the cumulative event rates in the two groups were 19% and 18.5%, respectively—nonsignificant differences. The broadcast does not mention potential harms of medical therapy or stenting. This information was also omitted from the trial’s published manuscript. What should a patient know about complications and other side effects associated with these treatments? A sentence summarizing harms reported in previous studies would have been helpful. The broadcast describes a large, randomized, controlled trial in which one group of more than a thousand patients received medical therapy and another group of equal size received medical therapy plus stents. The story does not mention that the new study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine simultaneous with its presentation at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology. Nor does it mention previous smaller studies that reached much the same conclusion. The story is careful to distinguish between coronary artery disease that is characterized by unstable, potentially dangerous angina and “stable situations” that are less likely to result in heart attacks and death. Rather than stirring up fear about disease, the broadcast is appropriately reassuring, pointing out that millions of people with stable angina can be safely treated with medication alone and do not require stents. The broadcast includes interviews with two experts, though it fails to provide details about their potential conflicts of interest, including the fact that Dr. Boden was the principal investigator of the trial under discussion.
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Tailwind helps retrain brain of stroke victims
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Stroke is a major cause of disability and death among adults in the U.S. It is estimated that 2/3 of people who suffer a stroke do not regain full physical function. When the upper body is affected, patients can have difficulty performing activities of daily living such as dressing, bathing and self-care. This story covers a novel rehabilitation device called the Tailwind. This simple mechanical device allows a patient to use exercise both arms independently, instead of just the affected arm. However, this story seems a bit like a marketing strategy for an entrepreneur who is selling the Tailwind. It features a patient who has had great success with rehabilitation. It does not provide any detailed information about the evidence supporting the physical benefits. The story fails to indicate the Tailwind was developed based on two small, short-term studies. These studies showed rehabilitation with a prototype of the Tailwind device can improve movement-related activation in some areas of the brain and arm function in some cases. These improvements are significant because they occurred in stroke survivors years after further recovery was anticipated. Thus, this type of rehabilitation device has potential to improve upper body function for chronic stroke patients. But, the story also fails to mention that about 1/3 of patients using the device had no improvement. Overall this story highlights an interesting and potentially important advance in stroke rehabilitation. What it lacks is balance in providing evidence to support the commercial sale of the Tailwind.
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"This story states that the Tailwind device costs $2,400. (The actual price is $2,495 + shipping.) The stroke patient featured in the story was given this device for free. At the time the article went to press, no Tailwind devices have been sold. This article provides some information on benefits including increased activation of some areas of the brain when the affected arm moves and improvement in function that allows patients to have better use of the affected arm. However, without citing specific scientific evidence, the reader cannot determine whether these results are typical or whether this patient featured is the exception. We are given a case study of a single patient who goes from a ""useless limb"" to ""…play catch with his grandson and hit a golf ball nearly 100 feet."" We have no idea if this is a representative effect or an outlier. There are no quantitative data given about benefits. No harms were noted in the story. While the potential for adverse effects seems limited, 2 studies involving a total of 35 patients is inadequate to address this issue. In addition, in the small studies, patients were carefully monitored. This story presents very little scientific evidence other than referencing to studies published in Stroke (2000) and the Journal of the American Medical Association (2004). These studies were conducted in chronic stroke patients with severe weakness and partial paralysis in their upper body. What the article should have mentioned is that the initial pilot study had 14 patients and was not a randomized controlled trial (RCT). This pilot study showed improvement in movement of the affected arm and patient satisfaction. The follow-up study was a small RCT conducted in a total of 21 patients about 3 years after they had a stroke. Patients using the prototype Tailwind device showed increased activity in some areas of the brain. About 2/3 of these patients had functional improvements while 1/3 had no improvement. The story notes the incidence of stroke and that strokes are a leading cause of adult disabilities. The story could have been improved by telling readers how many of the 750,000 with stroke have important functional disabilities at 3 or 6 months post-stroke. A variety of people were interviewed for this story. Information was presented by researchers who developed and tested the device, a chronic stroke patient who has had positive results from rehabilitation, and an indepent medical expert. It wasn’t a very balanced group of interviewees, but at least some attempt was made to consult an independent expert. Only high tech options seemed to get any mention – such as robot-assisted movement, electrical impulses to the brain and specialized treadmills.. But there was no mention of standard stroke rehab programs. There is no mention of ""stroke units"" used during the acute phase. The story made it clear that ""Formal marketing begins in the next few weeks, and none have sold yet."" However, the hefty price tag and the fact that this device is not covered by Medicare will likely limit availability. (See Cost and Benefits comments.) The Tailwind device does offer a new approach to stroke rehabilitation. This article does not appear to rely on a press release."
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Cuban doctors proud to risk lives in mission to halt Ebola.
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Cuban doctors and nurses departing for West Africa to combat Ebola consider themselves lucky. Among the 15,000 who volunteered, they are among only 256 who have been chosen for the job.
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Health News
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“There have been fights breaking out, heated arguments, with some doctors asking, ‘How come my colleague gets to go and I can’t?’” doctor Adrian Benitez, 46, said on Tuesday just hours before he was due to board a plane for Liberia. Despite a global alarm over the worst Ebola outbreak on record, Cuban doctors are eager to travel to West Africa and start healing the sick. Nicknamed as the “army of white robes” and citing a long history of Cuban medical missions in Africa and elsewhere, they speak of a sense of duty and are willing to assume the risks. “We know that we are fighting against something that we don’t totally understand. We know what can happen. We know we’re going to a hostile environment,” said Leonardo Fernandez, 63. “But it is our duty. That’s how we’ve been educated.” The Ebola virus has killed more than 4,500 people since March, mostly in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. The numbers include more than 200 healthcare workers. Some Cuban 165 doctors and nurses have already arrived in Sierra Leone and another 91 were flying on Tuesday for six-month missions, with 53 destined for Liberia and 38 for Guinea. Yet another 205 medical professionals have undergone a three-week training course in Cuba, with extensive practice in using the protective, full-body suits, but have yet to receive an Ebola assignment. It is the latest example of Cuba’s medical diplomacy. The Caribbean island has dispatched medical brigades to disaster sites around the world since the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. The communist government made 11 of the departing doctors available to reporters on Tuesday. All of them have been on previous overseas missions, and they all expressed pride in their mission, saying their families were supportive. There is no proven cure for Ebola, and about half those who contract it die. Several of the doctors repeated an often-cited slogan within Cuba’s medical culture: “We don’t offer what we have left over. We share what we have.” “This little bit that we have, when people need it, we are capable of sharing. It’s a basic concept,” Fernandez said. When Castro’s rebels took power in 1959, Cuba had 6,000 doctors, and half of them quickly left the country, the government says. With economic aid from the Soviet Union, Cuba built a healthcare system that was the envy of the developing world, though some of those advances have been lost since the communist bloc collapsed. Many Cuban hospitals have fallen into disrepair and Cubans say they have difficulty getting medical appointments or finding medicine. With 83,000 doctors today, Cuba says it has 7.2 physicians per 1,000 people, one of the highest rates in the world. But with about 25,000 doctors working overseas, that ratio falls to about 4.6, even when counting 5,500 recent medical school graduates, according to Health Minister Roberto Morales. While Cuba provides doctors and nurses for disaster relief free of charge, it also exchanges them for cash or goods on more routine missions. The island receives an estimated 100,000 barrels of oil per day from Venezuela, where some 30,000 Cuban medical professionals are posted. In all, there are more than 50,000 health workers in 66 countries. Those recruited for the Ebola missions underwent three weeks of training at the Pedro Kouri Tropical Medicine Institute on the outskirts of Havana, where trainers set up a field hospital of tents to simulate conditions in West Africa. Should any Cuban doctors or nurses contract Ebola in West Africa, they will be treated at a special site for international aid workers until they are cured or die, said Jorge Perez, director of the Pedro Kouri institute. All of them will be held for at least 21 days of observation at the hospital upon returning to Cuba, the same as any visitor coming to the island from the affected countries. Despite the risks and inconvenience, Ivan Rodriguez, 50, said his family was supportive and proud. “I would have felt disappointed and sad if they would have been afraid for me to take this step,” Rodriguez said. “Now, there are 15,000 (volunteers). I’m convinced there could be 15,000 more.”
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Breast cancer prognosis of African-American patients may improve with chemotherapy before surgery
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Britain, the birthplace of coal power, produced more electricity from zero-carbon sources such as wind, solar and nuclear than from fossil fuel plants for the first time in 2019, National Grid said on Wednesday.
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African-American women,Georgia State University,health disparities
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Having built the world’s first coal-fired power plant in the 1880s, coal became Britain’s dominant electricity source and a major economic driver for the next century. But last year Britain became the first G7 country to commit to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and in November will host the United Nations’ international climate talks in Glasgow. “As we enter a new decade, this truly is a historic moment,” said National Grid Chief Executive John Pettigrew, referring to the company’s latest data. The data shows wind, solar, hydro, nuclear and imports produced about 48.5% of Britain’s electricity in 2019 while fossil fuels such as coal and gas contributed about 43%. The rest came from biomass. (GRAPHIC: Britain's electricity mix - here) The increase in zero-carbon power marks a huge shift from almost two decades ago when fossil fuels provided about three quarters of the country’s electricity. The shift has been mainly thanks to a rapid increase in Britain’s renewable power capacity, with wind, solar and hydro producing more than a quarter of the country’s electricity in 2019, up from only 2.3% in 1990. This figure is expected to continue to grow as more large offshore wind farms are built. The National Grid data shows that 8% of Britain’s electricity came from imports from Europe via interconnectors with France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland. About 66% of these imports came from zero-carbon generation. The data confirmed expectations for growth in low-carbon power published by National Grid in mid-2019, based on data for the first five months of the year. Britain’s windy coastlines in particular have proved to be an ideal host for large wind projects, with the northwest coast of England home to the world’s largest offshore wind farm, Orsted’s Walney Extension.
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Study finds lung cancer screenings could save lives
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"This story satisfactorily provides information about costs as well as quantifies benefits (although the story seems to ""cherry-pick"" the best outcomes), but overall feels like a promotional piece for lung cancer screening. While there are no obvious elements of disease mongering, there are elements of overstating the evidence of benefit for lung cancer screening. There is no mention of what type of study these findings are from (observational) or any cautionary statements about why there are limitations to these findings (because direct survival comparisons from an observational study are not possible and the study design could not account for all potential confounders). The concept that a survival advantage has not been demonstrated is mentioned only briefly at the end and is not given adequate coverage. Harms of screening are also not mentioned. The story presents a very rosy picture of screening and doesn't mention that screening can also lead to unnecessary treatment (like surgery) in some whose cancers may never have caused harm. While the story does disclose that its parent company makes CT scans, there is no independent comment on the study findings, or indeed, no balancing perspective included about why lung cancer screening may not be a good idea just yet."
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"The story states the cost of CT lung screening (about $200) and that it's not generally covered by insurance. However, the newscast also states this latest study will put pressure on payors to start paying for this screening test. While this may be true, this latest study still does not prove that lung cancer screening saves lives and widespread adoption of this practice is probably premature. The story provides an estimated survival rate for those who get screened and get treatment if cancer is found. Because this is not a randomized clinical trial, an absolute risk reduction is not possible (because there is no control group to compare this to). However, the newscast chose to present the ""best"" outcomes in a select group of people by providing a rate of 92% who survived at 10 years if they got treatment. A better statistic would probably have been to report all people who survived at 10 years, whether or not they got treatment. Yet, the statistics used in the story are not incorrect. The story does not mention any harms of treatment. Specifically, screening can lead to unnecessary treatment of cancers that may never have caused harm. Screening has downsides which were not mentioned at all. The story does not adequately describe the strength of the evidence for the current findings. In other words, people don't know that this was an observational study with some limitations (the gold standard is a randomized controlled trial or RCT). Until an RCT is available, direct survival comparisons are difficult. This is a key limitation and is mentioned only briefly at the end of the story. The newscast presents a very rosy, unbalanced picture of the latest findings. The story states that lung cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, which is true. The newscast also describes that the earliest stage of lung cancers–stage I–is the most curable, which is accurate. No obvious embellishments about the disease state, but some overstatements about treatment (""treatment mongering""), although the latter is not officially evaluated here. For instance, the story leads with a statement that this could completely change how lung cancer is diagnosed, which is dramatic and probably premature given that experts still don't know whether it saves lives. The story provides no independent comment on the results and notably does not present comments from experts who believe this type of screening is premature (because of the lack of randomized clinical trial or RCT data showing a survival benefit and because screening also has harms). Additionally, the lead author is allowed to promote her findings. Based on the observed study outcomes, the lead author describes who she believes should consider screening. This is probably premature given that a direct survival advantage has not been demonstrated (because this is not an RCT), although she does use language that leaves screening as a choice. The use of anecdotes, while engaging to viewers, is also prone to bias, particularly because the only anecdote is a positive one. There is no balancing perspective from someone in the study who experienced harms from screening. The story states that most people are diagnosed at later stages (than stage I), but the point is that until now there hasn't been any screening strategy for lung cancer. The article made a pretty good effort to talk about the availability of treatment, its cost, and the fact that insurance doesn't cover it because it is not yet widely accepted as standard of care. The story states this could change how lung cancer is diagnosed, implying that this would be a new approach. Not known."
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9767
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2 Studies Back Guidelines for Wider Use of Statins
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The consensus around wider statin use has been building, but significant questions remain about costs, long-term risks, and the quality of the evidence supporting wider use. This story focuses on two new studies that address these issues (see here and here). It brings clarity where much of the competing coverage — including a competing piece by NBC — tended to focus on the idea that greater statin use would be a net win for people. While it did a great job overall, the Times piece leaves us with a few lingering questions that we discuss below in the review. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the USA. The number of adults who could potentially be taking statins is very large, and the costs involved very high.
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true
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cholesterol,statins
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We were surprised to see that a story that covered as much ground as this one did somehow missed costs. The competing story by NBC spelled out the costs. The story nicely explained that while one of the new studies showed, as expected, that following the updated statin guidelines did increase the number of people who would be treated with statins, following the guidelines would apparently not have saved a significant number of people from dying or having a heart attack or stroke. The story said, “Among the people eligible for statins under the old guidelines, 6.9 percent had a heart attack or stroke or died from coronary disease over the ensuing nine years. Among those eligible for statins under the new guidelines, the figure was 6.3 percent, almost as high. That suggests that the new guidelines do not lead to treatment of many more people who do not need statins.” At the same time, the story noted that the new guidelines “over all did a better job in discriminating between those who should and should not get statins.” It said that “only 1 percent of participants deemed ineligible for statins under the new guidelines had a heart attack or stroke over nine years, compared with 2.4 percent of those ineligible under the old guidelines.” While an NBC story also used absolute numbers in talking about the potential benefits in terms of heart attacks, we liked the greater level of context provided in the Times piece. Nevertheless, we think it would have been useful for the Times to include the Number Needed to Treat in its discussion of benefits — this is an easy-to-understand metric that was reported in the study. In addition, we question the Times’s contention that the new criteria “do not lead to treatment of many more people who do not need statins.” According to the study, approximately 94% of both guideline groups did not have a cardiovascular event, and yet the new criteria now extend the use of statins to much larger number of people. In light of such findings, it’s unclear that the new criteria don’t lead to unnecessary treatment for more people as the Time states. We wish the story had explored this result more thoroughly. We thought that NBC did a better job detailing some of the potential harms from statin use, but we give the Times credit here for framing the story as a discussion of risks vs. benefits and making it clear that experts critical of the new guidelines believe that they “would lead millions of additional people to take statins, exposing them to potential side effects such as muscle pain or damage with little to gain.” Covering two studies in little more than 1,000 words is already a feat. Doing so while bringing in enough context to explain the caveats to the study is an order of magnitude greater. Compared to the NBC piece, the Times did a superior job showing that, despite the enthusiasm in some quarters of the scientific community, the two studies did not settle the debate over whether statins should be more widely prescribed. The story did not engage in disease mongering. The story sought out and made good use of independent sources. It mentions that the guidelines were widely criticized and links to some printed criticisms made at the time. It quotes a variety of supportive and critical researchers regarding their opinions on the new research. The story did not make any reference to dietary changes, lifestyle changes, or exercise. The story made it clear that statins are widely prescribed. One in four Americans take them by some estimates. The story established that the findings of the studies were not novel but rather were in keeping with earlier findings about statins. Because it contains comments from independent experts, we can be sure the story did not rely excessively on any news release.
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6378
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Stocks plunge to 8-month lows on growth fears; J&J nosedives.
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Stocks staggered to eight-month lows Friday after weak economic data from China and Europe set off more worries about the global economy. Mounting tensions in Europe over Britain’s impending departure from the European Union also darkened traders’ moods.
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true
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European Union, AP Top News, Technology, North America, Financial markets, Health, Business, China, Economy, Europe, Euro
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Major U.S. indexes fell about 2 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped as much as 563 points. On the benchmark S&P 500 index, health care and technology companies absorbed the worst losses. Johnson & Johnson plunged by the most in 16 years after Reuters reported that the company has known since the 1970s that its talc Baby Powder sometimes contained carcinogenic asbestos. The company denied the report. China said industrial output and retail sales both slowed in November. That could be another sign that China’s trade dispute with the U.S. and tighter lending conditions are chilling its economy, which is the second-largest in the world. Meanwhile, purchasing managers in Europe signaled that economic growth was slipping. Sameer Samana, senior global market strategist for Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said investors are concerned that weakness will make it way to the U.S. They’re wondering if the U.S. economy is likely to run out of steam sooner than they had thought. “Market consensus has been that the next recession is probably in 2020 or beyond,” he said. Now, he said, the market is “really testing that assumption and trying to figure out whether it’s sooner.” Rising interest rates and tighter credit conditions are adding to investors’ nervousness because they both tend to slow down economic growth. This week the European Central Bank said it is ending a bond-buying program that has pumped trillions into Europe’s economy. The Federal Reserve is expected to increase U.S. rates again on Wednesday, as it’s been doing for the last three years. It may also shed light on whether it plans to raise rates further in 2019. For more than 20 years, China has been one of the biggest contributors to growth in the global economy, and when investors see signs the Chinese economy is weakening, they expect it will affect other countries like the U.S. that sell things to China. In Europe, the index of purchase managers fell in France, which is racked by protests, to a level that points toward economic contraction. Germany’s reading still pointed to growth, but it fell to its lowest level in four years. Those reports canceled out some potential good news on trade: the Chinese government announced a 90-day suspension of tariff increases on U.S. cars, trucks and auto imports. It’s part of a cease-fire that China and the U.S. announced earlier this month to give them time to work on other issues. December is typically the best month of the year for stocks as a “Santa Claus rally” often adds to the year’s gains. With 10 trading days left this month, however, the S&P 500 is down 5.8 percent. That followed a small gain in November and a steep 6.9 percent drop in October. The S&P 500 index lost 50.59 points, or 1.9 percent, to 2,599.95, its lowest close since April 2. The Dow retreated 496.87 points, or 2 percent, to 24,100.51. The Dow has fallen 10 percent from its record high in early October, reaching a mark known on Wall Street as a “correction.” The other major U.S. indexes were already in “corrections.” The Nasdaq composite slid 159.67 points, or 2.3 percent, to 6,910.66. The Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks fell 21.89 points, or 1.5 percent, to 1,410.81. Johnson & Johnson dropped 10 percent to $133 in very heavy trading. Its market value fell by $40 billion. Reuters reported that court documents and test results show Johnson & Johnson has known for decades that its raw talc and finished Baby Powder sometimes contained asbestos, but that the company didn’t inform regulators or the public. The company called the story “false and inflammatory.” In July the company lost a lawsuit from plaintiffs who argued that its products were linked to cases of ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. A St. Louis jury awarded plaintiffs $4.7 billion. Johnson & Johnson faces thousands of other lawsuits. Among technology companies, Apple dipped 3.2 percent to $165.48. Adobe skidded 7.3 percent to $230 after its fourth-quarter profit disappointed investors and it also forecast lower-than-expected earnings in the current fiscal year. Industrial companies sank as well. Boeing lost 2.1 percent to $318.75. Oil prices again turned lower, as a slower global economy would weaken demand for oil and other fuels. Benchmark U.S. crude fell 2.6 percent to $51.20 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, dropped 1.9 percent to settle at $60.28 a barrel in London. European Union leaders rejected British Prime Minister Theresa May’s request to make changes to their deal covering Britain’s departure from the EU on March 29. British legislators aren’t satisfied with the terms May negotiated, and she canceled a scheduled vote earlier this week because it was clear Parliament wouldn’t approve it. Britain’s economy and financial markets across Europe face severe disruption without an agreement. In other trading: —European bond prices rose and yields fell. Both the British pound and the euro weakened. The pound slipped to $1.2579 from $1.2660 and the euro fell to $1.1303 from $1.1367. —Germany’s DAX declined 0.5 percent and the CAC 40 in France declined 0.8 percent. Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.5 percent. —Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slid 2 percent and the Kospi in South Korea lost 1.3 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 1.6 percent. —Bond prices edged higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.89 percent 2.90 percent. —In other commodities trading, wholesale gasoline lost 3 percent to $1.43 a gallon. Heating oil fell 1.7 percent to $1.85 a gallon and natural gas dropped 7.2 percent to $3.83 per 1,000 cubic feet. —Gold fell 0.5 percent to $1,241.40 an ounce. Silver dipped 1.5 percent to $14.64 an ounce. Copper was little changed at $2.77 a pound. —The dollar fell to 113.29 yen from 113.60 yen. ____ Associated Press Writer Josh Boak contributed to this report from Washington. ___ AP Markets Writer Marley Jay can be reached at http://twitter.com/MarleyJayAP
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33712
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Ernest Hemingway once won a bet by crafting a six-word short story.
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On a concluding note, we observe that the Hemingway legend bears a passing resemblance to a familiar urban legend about a student who utilizes similar brevity in acing an essay assignment.
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false
|
History, Literary Legends
|
Certain anecdotes about notable figures continue to be told and retold as true — whether they actually are true or not — because they so perfectly encapsulate quintessential aspect of the persons they’re told about. One such anecdote clings to author Ernest Hemingway, a tale of a six-word-long story he supposedly authored that, in its terseness, seems to be a perfect encapsulation of not just Hemingway’s economic writing style but also of the man himself: More than thirty years ago, at the beginning of my career, I had lunch with a well-established newspaper syndicator who told me the following story: Ernest Hemingway was lunching at the Algonquin, sitting at the famous “round table” with several writers, claiming he could write a six-word-long short story. The other writers balked. Hemingway told them to ante up ten dollars each. If he was wrong, he would match it; if he was right, he would keep the pot. He quickly wrote six words on a napkin and passed it around. The words were: “For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn.” Papa won the bet: His short story was complete. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end! A question that has bedeviled many Hemingway fans is: Which is the literary fiction — the six-word story itself, or the claim that Hemingway wrote such a story? Two curious elements of the “baby shoes” tale are that no one seems to have been able to locate an original source or publication that establishes Hemingway’s authorship of the story, and that the tale itself (i.e., the claim that Hemingway wrote such a story) apparently doesn’t go back much further than the 1990s. An explanation we believe accounts for both these elements is that the six-word-story originated not with Hemingway himself, but with Papa, a one-man play about Hemingway which was written by John deGroot and debuted in 1996. As the New York Daily News noted in a May 1996 review of Papa: No writer of this century captured the popular imagination more powerfully than Ernest Hemingway. Three decades after his suicide, we are still fascinated by the man who taught Americans about the running of the bulls at Pamplona, who personified an idea of machismo now woefully out of fashion, who was a legendary hunter, fisherman and drinker, and who incidentally, wrote “A Farewell to Arms” and “The Old Man and the Sea.” Most remarkably, because he wrote in short, declarative sentences, his books most remarkably, are still read. In “Papa,” a one-man show about Hemingway, John deGroot illustrates how pungent brevity can be, when he has his subject tell “a short story in six words — ‘For sale: Baby shoes, never worn. '” Set in Cuba in 1959, the play takes place during a photo session with a Life photographer. There is the further dramatic peg of the writer’s anxiety and anger about his wife, Mary, who has just left him after a fight. Unfortunately, as the Hemingway Review noted, the nature of the source material which deGroot drew upon in crafting Papa doesn’t lend itself to verification: deGroot defends his portrayal of Hemingway in Playbill, saying “Everything in the play is based on events as described by Ernest Hemingway, or those who knew him well. Whether or not these things actually happened is something we’ll never know truly. But Hemingway and many others claimed they did.” One interesting coincidence we’ve uncovered is (an almost certainly unrelated) non-literary antecedent for this tale, one which appeared in the “Miscellaneous Items for Sale” classified ad column of a Tucson newspaper in 1945:
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1529
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First U.S. bumble bee added to endangered species list.
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The rusty patched bumble bee became the first wild bee in the continental United States to gain federal protection on Tuesday when it was added to the government’s list of endangered and threatened species.
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true
|
Science News
|
The bee, once widely found in the upper Midwest and Northeastern United States, was listed after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration lifted a hold it had placed on a plan for federal protections proposed last fall by the administration of former President Barack Obama. Bumble bees are key pollinators of crops such as blueberries and cranberries, and are almost the only insect pollinator of tomatoes in the United States, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Conservation groups that had called for the new classification welcomed the move. “The listing helps mediate threats for this species and for all of those other animals out on the landscape that are suffering similar setbacks,” Rich Hatfield, senior biologist at the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, said by phone on Tuesday. The rusty patched bumble bee, or Bombus affinis, is one of 47 varieties of native bumble bees in the United States and Canada, more than a quarter of which face risk of extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The population and range of the bee, named for the reddish blotch on its abdomen, have declined by more than 90 percent since the late 1990s due to disease, pesticides, climate change and habitat loss, according to wildlife officials. The agency in September proposed safeguarding the bee, but the listing was delayed by Trump’s White House as part of a broader freeze on rules issued by the prior administration. Environmental advocacy group the Natural Resources Defense Council sued last month, arguing that suspending the listing without public notice or comment violated the law. The NRDC said on Tuesday it was evaluating the next steps in its legal fight. Government scientists said the delay, part of a standard review, was not expected to affect the insect’s conservation, Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said in a statement on Tuesday. The agency “will work with stakeholders to ensure collaborative conservation among landowners, farmers, industry, and developers in the areas where the species is native,” she added. Bumble bees pollinate wildflowers and about a third of U.S. crops, according to the Xerces Society. A recent study by the Center for Biological Diversity found that more than 700 of the 4,000 bee species native to North America and Hawaii may be inching toward extinction.
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21415
|
Ten years ago the Austin Water Utility used a total of 240.3 million gallons. Every summer since then our peak day of water use has been lower.
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Save Our Springs says water utility customers have used less water on peak day every year since 2001
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true
|
City Budget, City Government, Water, Texas, Save Our Springs Alliance,
|
"Crediting conservation in Austin, the Save Our Springs Alliance said in an Aug. 16, 2011, entry in its online newsletter: ""Ten years ago the Austin Water Utility used a total of 240.3 million gallons. Every summer since then our peak day of water use has been lower."" After noting that this year’s peak water use in a day was 217 million gallons, the entry continues: ""So raise a tall glass of ice water in honor of our success: water conservation gains have outpaced population growth for a decade. Add a ‘Salud!’ to another 10 years of flat or declining water use — easily achieved with cost-effective conservation measures and an emerging ‘culture of conservation,’ one that recognizes that we can thrive and be happy without oversized, overwatered New England-style turf grass lawns."" We can’t check on the next decade, but we can check if peak water usage has been less every year than what it was in 2001. Indeed, the Austin Water Utility sent us figures indicating that on the peak days of water consumption from 2002 through August 2011, customers used less water than the 240.3 million gallons used on Aug. 13, 2001, though that was barely so in one year. The greatest peak use day since 2001 was Aug. 26, 2006, when usage was 240.17 million gallons — about 5/100ths of a percent shy of the amount gulped, flushed and otherwise used in 2001. The lowest peak-use amount in the 10 years after 2001 was 176.98 million gallons on Aug. 13, 2007. Put another way, the average peak water use in a day in the period was about 214 million gallons, 11 percent off the 2001 peak. The utility’s director, Greg Meszaros, told us in an interview that conservation helps explain the lower peak-use amounts, though he said consumption generally bounces around year to year partly due to variations in the weather — rainy summers reduce demand — and the economy. Per-capita water consumption has been relatively flat, Meszaros said, since the utility instituted a conservation program in 2007 that, among features, encourages customers to use low-water appliances and limit lawn watering. According to the utility, customers have used less water per person lately than individuals did in past years. Per-capita daily use has averaged 190 gallons or more four times since 1990, the last time being 2006. Average per-person consumption slid to 151 gallons in 2007, reached 170 gallons in 2008 and then dipped two straight years, reaching less than 140 gallons in 2010. Daryl Slusher, an assistant director for the utility, said the average will approach 160 gallons for the year that ends Sept. 30. Save Our Springs maintains the area’s conservation successes demonstrate that a water treatment plant slated for Northwest Austin won’t be needed for many years. Meszaros told us Austin needs the new plant because two current plants can’t be relied on indefinitely. Also, he said, the new project will include a vital water transmission main easing the delivery of water to the fast-growing northern third of the utility’s service area. ""We’re not doing (the new plant) just to meet a peak water demand,"" Meszaros said. In an interview, Bill Bunch, SOS’s executive director, expressed skepticism about strains in the existing water delivery system. He also said there’s not sufficient water demand to justify the new one and forwarded an April 2002 recommendation from city staff about preliminary engineering for the new plant. The document states the plant would be needed by 2009 to meet increasing water demands, predicting too that the utility’s peak one-day demand in summer 2009 would be 281 million gallons; the peak amount that year turned out to be 228 million gallons. Utility spokesman Kevin Buchman later told us by email that in 2002, the ""main reason for moving forward with the construction of a new plant was to meet the projected demands."" He said, though, the utility’s mid-decade focus on conservation allowed the city to postpone the plant’s completion by more than five years. ""Also,"" Buchman said, ""since 2002 we have had one of our (originally three) plants decommissioned and our other two water plants have been expanded as much as possible."" We won’t try to settle the water plant debate here. But the alliance’s statement about peak water use rates ."
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