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"The United States government canceled an $80 million contract with sports apparel manufacture Nike, Inc. because the company ""hates America"" and ""disrespects dead veterans."
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A related story on the website falsely claims that Nike rescinded their endorsement deal with Kaepernick after the latter went on an “anti-white” tirade.
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false
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Junk News, colin kaepernick, national anthem protests, nike
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Nike, Inc.’s renewal of an endorsement deal with currently unsigned NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick has prompted the federal government to cancel an $80 million contract with the company, according to a website notorious for publishing fabricated news. Last Line of Defense (LLOD) reported on 4 September 2018 that the Trump administration’s action “sent the company stocks tumbling”: The Trump administration has quietly dealt a blow to Nike that has sent the company stocks tumbling. According to Housing, Clothing, and Utility Bill Director, Art Tubolls: “HCUB has canceled it’s contract with Nike to provide footwear, outerwear and other sports apparel to any US athlete. Whether they compete at the Junior Olympic, National Championship, Olympic, or Special Olympic event, athletes wearing the American Flag are no longer to be associated with this hateful company.” If you haven’t been watching, Nike has decided it hates America by backing the people who feel it necessary to disrespect dead veterans. They gave Colin Kaepernick a contract and he doesn’t even play football. That right there should be illegal. When the middle class of this country decides a person isn’t good enough, that’s final. But although Nike’s stock price did take a temporary hit in the wake of the Kaepernick deal, it had nothing to do with any actions taken by the Trump administration. MarketWatch.com reported that: Nike’s shares were down 2.6 percent, or $2.19, shaving about 15 points from the price-weighted Dow DJIA, -0.16 percent of which it is a component, after the sports-apparel giant unveiled a new 30th anniversary ad campaign that features Colin Kaepernick, the NFL quarterback who led player protests against racial injustice and police brutality during the national anthem. The move by Nike is being viewed as highly political and at odds with President Donald Trump’s views. Contrary to the LLOD report, the U.S. government does not (and did not) have a contract with Nike, Inc. to provide footwear to athletes. There is no “Housing, Clothing, and Utility Bill” agency in the federal government, nor is that nonexistent department headed by a director named “Art Tubolls” (a stock LLOD anagram of “Busta Troll”). Last Line of Defense is part of a network of websites devoted to publishing and promoting junk news articles about hot-button political topics under the guise of “satire.” A disclaimer on the site states: Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site’s pure fantasy and actual people, places and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical. See above if you’re still having an issue with that satire thing.
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17819
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"The federal government ""has $3 trillion in cash flow, so we can pay our bills"" and won’t default."
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"Williams said the government ""has $3 trillion in cash flow, so we can pay our bills"" and won’t default. In the 12 months through September 2014, the government is projected to raise $3 trillion in revenue, far more than enough to cover some $237 billion in its projected interest costs. In this way, perhaps, default could be avoided. Still, Williams made a broader reference to paying ""our bills,"" and on that front, there’s debate over whether the government could meet all its obligations or have the authority to pick and choose what to pay. These are important details."
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mixture
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Debt, Federal Budget, Texas, Roger Williams,
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"In an interview, first-term U.S. Rep. Roger Williams vowed not to vote for raising the federal debt ceiling. ""I just won’t do it,"" the Austin Republican was quoted as saying in an Oct. 11, 2013, Austin American-Statesman news story. Besides, Williams said, even if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, ""we are not going to default. We have $3 trillion in cash flow, so we can pay our bills."" We wondered about that, mindful that the U.S. Treasury secretary has speculated about the risks of the government not having enough cash on hand. Treasury secretary's warning The debt ceiling, now nearly $16.7 trillion, constrains how much the government can borrow to meet obligations. And in October 2013, the Treasury secretary, Jack Lew, told a Senate panel that unless Congress raised the ceiling, ""extraordinary measures"" taken since the spring would be exhausted no later than Oct. 17 ""at which point the federal government will have run out of borrowing authority. At that point, we will be left to meet our country’s commitments with only the cash on hand and any incoming revenues, placing our economy in a dangerous position. ""If we have insufficient cash on hand,"" Lew said, ""it would be impossible for the United States of America to meet all of its obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, payments to our military and veterans and contracts with private suppliers for the first time in our history. At the same time,"" he said, ""we’re relying on investors from all over the world to continue to hold U.S. bonds. Every week we roll over approximately $100 billion in U.S. (Treasury) bills. If U.S. bond-holders decided that they wanted to be repaid rather than continuing to roll over their investments, we could unexpectedly dissipate our entire cash balance."" Williams' backup cites projected interest costs We asked Williams how he reached his conclusion. By email, Williams’ spokeswoman Haley Graves provided a transcript of the Statesman’s question to Williams, who has long owned automobile dealerships, and his response. Statesman: ""Do you think the warnings about what a failure to enact a debt ceiling increase, the effect on the economy, is overblown or is that real?"" Williams: ""We’re not going to default because we do have $3 trillion of cash flow coming in to America. Alright? Now the cash flow doesn’t flow evenly – it’s like your business. You have receivable, this and that, but you do have $3 trillion in cash. That’s more cash flow than we’ve ever had coming in to the government than ever. And so we can pay our bills. We can pay our debt service. We can pay our military. We’re not going to default."" Graves said Williams based his $3 trillion reference on a May 2013 projection by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that the government would collect $3.042 trillion in revenues through the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2013. Asked if Williams was referring to the government paying all its bills, Graves said Williams has said ""all along"" that the government will not default because its cash flow would be enough to pay bond holders and to fulfill interest payments. What's default? Observers of the debt-ceiling debate diverge on how to define a government default, though they agree it’s not happened before. By telephone, economist Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute, a limited-government think tank, said Williams’ main point is supported by the CBO’s projection of $237 billion in net interest costs through the same fiscal year. Everyone agrees not paying such interest would hurt financial markets, Edwards said, but his sense is that if interest costs are paid on time, the government can avoid default, though that course could prove ""ugly,"" he said, because the Treasury would need to pick and choose which other obligations--ranging from Social Security checks to Pentagon contracts--to pay in full and on time. ""It would make people very mad,"" Edwards said, ""but it wouldn’t be a default."" Edwards also noted an Oct. 2, 2013, Yahoo Finance interview with David Stockman. Stockman, who headed the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, said that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, the government could easily tap incoming revenue to make its interest payments while also covering regular payments to Social Security retirees, the armed services and Medicare reimbursements. ""It is a complete red herring to say there will be a default,"" Stockman said. ""There will never be a time in which there is not enough cash to pay the interest."" Then again, Edwards told us, a counter-argument he attributed to liberals and Democrats is that it would be very hard for the Treasury to make the described alternative spending choices. A Brookings Institution economist, Gary Burtless, said by email that it’s conceivable the Treasury could prevent default on government-backed securities by keeping up with interest payments, though he said he lacked the expertise to judge whether the Treasury could legally implement a choose-the-bill-to-pay strategy. Realistically, Burtless said, if the government runs short of the revenue required to pay non-interest costs, that would seem like a default to any affected creditors. ""If a business makes timely payments on its secured and unsecured bank debt but does not make promised payment to its suppliers (for supplies already delivered), workers (for hours of work already supplied), and pensioners (for pensions promised under the company pension plan),"" he said, ""most observers would say the company has defaulted on its obligations to some of its creditors. Suppliers, workers, and pensioners are creditors of the company just as certainly as banks that have extended the company a loan."" Also responding to our inquiry, economist Jared Bernstein of the liberal-leaning Center on Budget Policy Priorities pointed out by email that the CBO-projected $3 trillion in revenue stands to be outpaced by predicted expenditures of $3.6 trillion in the fiscal year. This leads to a key question, Bernstein said, as to whether there will be days when cash flow undershoots what must be paid. Bernstein noted that a September 2013 report by the Bipartisan Policy Center said this will occur with, for instance, revenue a few weeks after mid-October 2013 running behind spending demands by more than $100 billion. The report also said that if the government exhausted its ability to pay all its bills by Oct. 18, 2013, the Treasury would run about $106 billion short of meeting obligations over the next 20 business days. ""Approximately 32% of the funds owed for the period would go unpaid,"" the report said, with the reality proving ""chaotic."" Uncertainty at Treasury We did not find any indication that the Treasury has aired a strategy to pick and choose which bills it pays in the event of cash-flow slowing. A Sept. 19, 2013, report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service floated opposite speculations. In 2012, the report said, a Treasury official said the agency lacked congressional guidance on prioritization and hence only had a system to pay bills as they came in, one after the other. In contrast, according to the report, the Government Accountability Office said in a 1985 letter to the then-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Bob Packwood, that the Treasury was ""free to liquidate obligations in any order it finds will best serve the interests of the United States."" Burtless said that his understanding is the Treasury cannot prioritize its payments to contractors, Social Security pensioners, Medicare payees (doctors and hospitals that have provided services to the Medicare-insured population), non-furloughed civilian workers, members of the uniformed military, etc. If a supplier, a pensioner, a non-furloughed worker, military serviceperson, doctor or hospital does not receive timely payment, does that constitute a ‘default’?"" An Oct. 13, 2013, PolitiFact story listing questions and answers about the debt ceiling said that if the ceiling is not raised, the government isn’t expected to have sufficient cash to meet all obligations in a timely manner past the beginning of November 2013, at latest. ""So what happens then?"" PolitiFact wrote. ""The most obvious solution (beyond simply doing nothing) is to prioritize payments. Bondholders would likely be paid off first, since a missed or delayed payment on a financial instrument would entail the most severe peril for the government. Outraging senior citizens by delaying or missing a Social Security check is bad enough, the thinking goes, but if investors decide en masse to abandon U.S. bonds in the future, it would put the entire stability of the federal government’s finances (and ultimately, the U.S. economy) at risk. And according to experts, prioritization has problems. ""For one thing, the federal government’s computer systems are not set up to do this, meaning it might not be a practical option (and could result in costly errors),"" PolitiFact said. ""In addition, the Treasury says it’s not clear it would have the legal authority to make those sorts of decisions. And it could cost more, since the law requires the government to pay interest on top of any payments that are delayed. It’s also not clear whether prioritizing bondholder payments would keep the United States from a ‘default.’ ""It all depends on how you define the word ‘default.’ Some lawmakers who downplay the consequences of hitting the debt ceiling argue that a default only happens if interest on securities isn’t paid. A missed payment to a federal contractor or a Social Security recipient, according to this argument, doesn’t trigger a default."" The story noted that the CRS has ""acknowledged that there’s no clear answer to this question, but it does note that Black’s Law Dictionary defines the term ‘default’ as ‘the failure to make a payment when due’ — a definition that does not restrict a default to a missed interest payment. Ultimately, CRS notes, ‘financial markets’ perceptions of what constitutes a default, or a real threat of default, may be more relevant when assessing the potential impacts of not raising the debt limit.’"" Our ruling Williams said the government ""has $3 trillion in cash flow, so we can pay our bills"" and won’t default. In the 12 months through September 2014, the government is projected to raise $3 trillion in revenue, far more than enough to cover some $237 billion in its projected interest costs. In this way, perhaps, default could be avoided. Still, Williams made a broader reference to paying ""our bills,"" and on that front, there’s debate over whether the government could meet all its obligations or have the authority to pick and choose what to pay. These are important details. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context."
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5046
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California officials: Immigration facilities lack oversight.
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Detainees confined to federal immigration detention facilities located in California have inadequate access to health care, lawyers and family, state Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Tuesday.
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true
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Access to health care, Health, Immigration, California, Xavier Becerra
|
Becerra was discussing the findings of a 147-page report prepared by his office that also found that detainees face long periods of confinement without breaks and language barriers in the 10 detention facilities state authorities inspected in 2017. Becerra said the annual report released Tuesday is the first of 10 that the state Legislature requires of the California Department of Justice, which is tasked with inspecting all federal immigration detention facilities in the state. That law was one of three immigration-related “sanctuary state” bills passed in 2017 that the Trump administration unsuccessfully challenged in court. Inspectors spent one day on scheduled visits at 10 facilities in operation in 2017. ICE contracted with four for-profit prison companies and six county sheriffs to house and care for the inmates. Since then and amid growing protests, sheriffs in Sacramento and Contra Costa counties terminated their contracts with ICE to house federal immigration inmates in the local jails. A third facility near Bakersfield is also facing closure after the city of McFarland told ICE it would not renew its contract when it expires in March. Becerra said many of the problems are caused by inadequate federal oversight. He said a common “challenge” inspectors found at most facilities included confining inmates to their cells for up to 22 hours a day. He noted that most of the detainees are not accused of crimes and are awaiting court decisions on their immigration status. ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley said the private prison companies and county jails that house detainees “must meet rigorous performance standards.” “The safety, rights and health of detainees in ICE’s care are of paramount concern and all ICE detention facilities are subject to stringent, regular inspections,” Haley said. The attorney general’s report estimated that 74,000 immigrant detainees have been held in California detention centers over a three-year period ending in 2017 with an average stay of 50 days per inmate. Becerra said the state inspections of federal immigration facilities in California were necessary “because everyone in this country has constitutional rights and everyone at the end of the day — child and adult — deserve to be treated in a human way.” In a separate report , California’s state auditor Elaine Howle said cities and counties failed to properly monitor the facilities in their locales. Howle’s report also called on ICE to be more transparent in its detention operations. “The state lacks complete information about how much it costs and what conditions the detainees face,” Howle’s report concluded. “Also unclear are how many detainees are being held throughout California, where they are being held, and for how long.”
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5593
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Missouri agency tracked Planned Parenthood patients’ periods.
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Missouri’s health department director on Tuesday said he tracked the menstrual cycles of Planned Parenthood patients as part of an effort to identify what the agency says were “failed abortions” at a St. Louis clinic.
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true
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Michael Brown, Health, General News, Kansas, Abortion, St. Louis, U.S. News
|
Department of Health and Senior Services Director Randall Williams made the revelation during the second day of an administrative hearing to determine whether Missouri’s only abortion clinic will lose its license to perform the procedure. Williams said an investigator made a spreadsheet at his request that included the dates of patients’ last periods, The Kansas City Star reported. He said the goal was to find women who needed multiple procedures to complete an abortion. The head of the St. Louis clinic called the move “deeply disturbing.” “Missouri’s top health official, Randall Williams, scrutinized menstrual cycles of women in this state in order to end abortion access,” Yamelsie Rodriguez, president and CEO of Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, said in a statement. Missouri House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Democrat from Springfield, called for an investigation to see if patient privacy was compromised or if laws were broken. She also was critical of Williams’ actions. “State law requires the health department director to be ‘of recognized character and integrity,’” Quade said in a statement. “This unsettling behavior calls into question whether Dr. Williams meets that high standard.” The state had moved to revoke the clinic’s license in June, citing concerns about a series of “failed abortions,” and a lack of cooperation from some of the doctors involved. While Williams said concerns about the clinic are “grave,” he said the issues are “imminently fixable.” He believes there are solutions that both the state and Planned Parenthood would agree to that would allow for licensure. Planned Parenthood says there are no deals on the table. Wrangling over the license began when an investigator involved in a March inspection of the clinic found that a woman had undergone an abortion that took five attempts to complete. William Koebel, director of the section of the health department responsible for abortion clinic licensing, said Monday that the clinic failed to provide a “complication report” for that incident. That failure led the health department to launch an investigation of other instances where women were required to undergo multiple procedures before an abortion was completed, Koebel said. As part of that investigation, the state obtained medical records of women who had abortions at the clinic. They found four women who required multiple procedures, including one where the physician apparently missed that a woman was pregnant with twins. The woman underwent two procedures five weeks apart. Planned Parenthood officials contend the state “cherry-picked” a handful of difficult cases out of thousands of otherwise successful abortions. They have accused the state of using the licensing process as a tool to eliminate abortions in Missouri, saying the state is among several conservative-led states seeking to end abortion through tough new laws and tighter restrictions. The Administrative Hearing Commission isn’t expected to rule on the licensing issue until February at the earliest. In the meantime, the clinic remains open. Missouri would become the first state since 1974, the year after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, without a functioning abortion clinic if the license is revoked. Missouri is among several states to pass new restrictions on abortions in the hope that the increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court will eventually overturn Roe v. Wade. Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, signed legislation in May banning abortions at or beyond eight weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for medical emergencies but not for rape or incest. The law is on hold while a legal challenge plays out in court. While the Missouri case unfolded, Planned Parenthood quietly built a new abortion clinic in Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, in part to meet demand from Missouri residents. The clinic in Fairview Heights opened Wednesday. Missouri women have been increasingly getting abortions at the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois, another St. Louis suburb. Deputy Director Alison Dreith said 58% of the abortions performed at the Hope Clinic through August of this year involved Missouri women, compared with 37% involving Illinois women. Another abortion clinic sits in Overland Park, Kansas, a Kansas City suburb. The clinic is 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the state line. Information from the state of Kansas shows about 3,300 of the 7,000 abortions performed there last year involved Missouri residents.
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12936
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New York state law says you are alive when you begin to breathe.
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"Glick said during an Assembly debate that ""New York state law says you are alive when you begin to breathe."" State law says a person has been born alive when the fetus has exited the woman’s body and shows signs of life. The law specifically mentions breathing as one of the signs. But the law also mentions other evidence of life, such as a beating heart."
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true
|
Abortion, New York, Deborah Glick,
|
"Assembly Democrats want to guarantee access to abortion for New York state residents if the Supreme Court overturns the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. A bill, commonly referred to as the Reproductive Health Act, would change state law to guarantee women the choice to have or refuse an abortion or contraception if the Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade. Different versions of the bill have been introduced for at least seven years in the Legislature. This year’s debate over the measure included tough questions to the bill’s sponsor, Assemblymember Deborah J. Glick, from members opposed to the bill. ""So, if a baby is born intact and alive but has not yet taken its first breath, it has no rights?"" Assemblymember Steven F. McLaughlin asked. ""Is that the position you are taking?"" ""New York state law says you are alive when you begin to breathe,"" Glick said. ""That’s not me, that’s just the law."" Is Glick right? Is that the law? State abortion law Glick said her definition comes from the current state law on abortion. The definition is included in the state’s penal law, or criminal code, which defines the crime of abortion, where someone intentionally causes a pregnancy to be terminated without consent or justification. The law says a person, ""when referring to the victim of a homicide, means a human being who has been born and is alive."" So a fetus inside the womb is not considered a person, and therefore does not have rights under state law. That is why someone can legally have an abortion after being pregnant for 24 weeks to preserve the life of the mother. State health law State health law goes a step further in defining when someone is considered born. Under Public Health Law, live birth is defined as ""the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception, irrespective of the duration of pregnancy, which, after such separation, breathes or shows any other evidence of life such as beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, whether or not the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta is attached; each product of such a birth is considered live born."" It is up to a medical professional to determine if there is evidence of life in the infant. If the medical professional finds evidence, it is legally considered the birth of a person. ""The reality is that if they are born and alive they are a person and have full rights,"" Glick said in a phone interview. ""And that is the determination of a medical person at the time."" Our ruling Glick said during an Assembly debate that ""New York state law says you are alive when you begin to breathe."" State law says a person has been born alive when the fetus has exited the woman’s body and shows signs of life. The law specifically mentions breathing as one of the signs. But the law also mentions other evidence of life, such as a beating heart.s ."
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5376
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Wisconsin glassblower customizes glassware for scientists.
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When Tracy Drier comes to Science Expeditions, the annual public open house held across the UW-Madison campus, he’ll arrive with a wealth of scientific glassblowing knowledge and, of course, his Wisconsin FireWagon.
|
true
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Madison, Chemistry, Wisconsin, Science, Education
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The FireWagon is equipped with Drier’s tools of the trade: a delicate torch, a small cylinder of propane and a stock of borosilicate — glass that can tolerate heat and is chemically inert. Drier frequently takes the portable lab-on-wheels around the city to demonstrate his passion: scientific glassblowing. But his real home base is his expansive shop in the lower level of the UW-Madison chemistry building, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. Here, wearing special dark glasses and using a glassblowing technique called flame-working or lamp-working, Drier makes customized, highly specialized glassware used in cutting-edge research across campus: from chemistry to the departments of medical physics, geology, medicine, food science, molecular and civil engineering, material science, medical engineering, and more. “Definitely a lot of people,” request glassware, he said. “And a lot of work.” Drier’s craft is also showcased at the Madison Children’s Museum, where his Rube Goldberg-esque maze of scientific glassware hangs in a window called the “Sidewalk Surprise.” The piece can be viewed inside the museum’s free community concourse area and also from the street, and will be on display through summer. Drier built the glass bubble columns that are a permanent feature in the “Wayback” area of the museum’s second floor, as well. When he brings his FireWagon to the children’s museum, “the kids just love to watch — because it’s mesmerizing,” said museum exhibit designer and developer Nadia Niggli. “It almost feels like magic.” “It’s such a specialized art,” she said. “He’s got this interesting crossover between art and science. And here (with his ‘Sidewalk Surprise’), he’s using these serious, very functional pieces in a new, more playful way. It has a little of the ‘mad scientist’ feel to it.” Drier, for one, can’t believe his luck. As a scientific glassblower, he’s not just shaping glass, but inventing new processes. “How awesome is that,” he said, as he lit a gas blower and aimed a flame at a glass tube while doing an interview in his shop. “That’s why this job is so fantastic. This is a great job, and every day I give thanks.” Associate Professor of Chemistry Zach Wickens, who came to UW-Madison last fall, was partly lured here because the university has its own resident glassblower. Harvard University, where Wickens previously was a postdoctoral research scholar, does not. “It’s been amazing” to have a scientific glassblower on campus, said Wickens. Along with making a broad range of glassware for chemistry labs across the department, Drier “has been helping me get into a new area of chemistry that there isn’t commercial glassware for, where we’re using electricity to help run chemical reactions. And this lets us reduce chemical waste really dramatically. “I’m actually working with Tracy to design new glassware that we can use to quickly test these ideas,” Wickens said. “With this glassware, we’re going to be able to ask questions we couldn’t otherwise ask, and develop reactions we otherwise couldn’t develop. So it’s pretty profound. I don’t know what I would be doing without him.” Drier first got into glass as a kid, when his father brought home a how-to book from the library. It kindled an avid hobby for Drier, his father and his brother Tim. Tim dove into scientific glassblowing right out of high school, enrolling at Salem Community College in Alloway, New Jersey — the only college in the country offering a two-year degree in scientific glassblowing — and then moved to jobs at Kodak and Dow Chemical. Drier, instead, got a degree in paper engineering from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and went to work in the pulp and paper industry. At age 30, he quit and enrolled at Salem. “Our family always kind of worked with our hands. Engineering is fascinating, but at the end of the day you don’t have much to show,” said Drier, 55. “With glassblowing, you have something at the end of the day that you’ve done.” He came to UW-Madison in 2000 after working as a scientific glassblower at a chemical company in Milwaukee. Having a background in engineering isn’t essential, “but I think it’s what helped me get this job here,” he said. “Breaking things down, critical thinking, is definitely a plus. But also, creativity is a plus,” Drier said. “You have a drawing, and it doesn’t matter how you get there. That’s one of the nice things about this — there’s more than one way to do it.” Drier has become something of an ambassador for the field of scientific glassblowing. He takes his Wisconsin FireWagon to schools and works with students from the glass program at UW-Madison. He also presents papers and shares tips with fellow members of the American Scientific Glassblowers Society, or ASGS. “I’ll share anything that can be useful to the next guy,” he said. At UW-Madison, “I’m one guy here. I don’t know everything. So having the network to say, ‘Hey, Jimmy — I’ve never done these platinum seals. Can you give me something to work with?’ There are a number of books, but nothing beats having someone who’s done it before.” The approximately 500 ASGS members include about 200 who are professional scientific glassblowers, said Jim Cornell, ASGS office co-manager. He estimates about 40 or 50 work in universities. Drier is the only scientific glassblower employed at UW-Madison. The society’s membership also includes students, international members, independent glassblowers and even those who create “functional art” — glass paraphernalia that’s useful in a day when the legalization of medical marijuana is becoming more commonplace. On the science end of things, “there are not enough scientific glassblowers in this world,” said Drier, who makes the job look easy. That’s mainly thanks to “practice, practice, practice.” And patience. “That would be the thing — do you have patience? Because this thing will eat you alive if you don’t,” he said. “Glass breaks. For people watching, I would imagine it’s like watching paint dry. It’s a very slow process. Each of the steps is hand-work, and it does not go fast.” But Drier also loves the puzzles he must solve to turn a researcher’s ideas and diagrams into a working piece of the lab. “One of the beautiful things with this job, specifically, is the collaboration with the scientists,” he said. “That’s some serious science these guys are doing, state of the art, and I get to work with them. They tell me about it, and it’s exciting for me.” At the West Side home he shares with wife Amy Anderson, Drier has a shop in his garage for his main hobby: more glassblowing. “Honestly, what I do here helps me with what I do at home, and what I do at home helps me here,” he said. “This is the greatest job I’ve ever had. I can’t say enough about it,” Drier said. “And I think everybody should be a scientific glassblower.” ___ Information from: Wisconsin State Journal, http://www.madison.com/wsj
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3538
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New Hampshire reports 1st vaping-related lung injury.
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New Hampshire health authorities say they’ve identified the first person in the state with a lung injury associated with electronic cigarette use.
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true
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New Hampshire, Health, Public health, Vaping, Injuries
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The state’s Division of Public Health Services says the person is an adult from Sullivan County who developed respiratory symptoms and had chest imaging showing evidence of lung injury. This person reported recent vaping of nicotine products. The division said the individual was hospitalized, but has since been discharged. As of Oct. 1, there are 1,080 lung injury cases reported from 48 states and 1 U.S. territory. Of these, 18 deaths have been confirmed in 15 states. All reported patients have a history of e-cigarette/vaping product use. Symptoms of vaping-related lung injuries include cough, shortness of breath or chest pain. Some patients have also experienced nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or abdominal pain.
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9690
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Panel Reasserts Mammogram Advice That Triggered Breast Cancer Debate
|
The story provides an excellent overview of new recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) on when, and how often, women should receive mammograms to screen for breast cancer. The story discusses the long-running debate over mammogram recommendations, as well as the differing advice that various organizations provide on when women at average risk of breast cancer should begin mammogram screening and how often they should have the tests, though the story would have been stronger if it had explained what “average risk” means (something that a competing Washington Post story on the recommendations explains well). The story also offers a good discussion of issues related to what the USPSTF recommendations may mean for insurance coverage of mammograms, though it does not tell readers how expensive mammograms may be without insurance. Breast cancer screening is a big deal. As the CDC notes, “Not counting some kinds of skin cancer, breast cancer in the United States is the most common cancer in women, no matter your race or ethnicity.” In 2012 alone, 41,150 women died of the disease. Breast cancer also has a profound impact on the economy, with researchers estimating that it costs the U.S. billions of dollars each year. In other words, it affects the health and well-being of millions of patients and their loved ones, as well as having an adverse impact on the economy. News that relates to the early detection and treatment of breast cancer is clearly news worth covering, particularly when it could inform the decision-making of women and health professionals — and have an effect on women’s access to screening.
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true
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mammography,US Preventive Services Task Force
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The story does a good job of explaining how the USPSTF recommendations may affect insurance coverage of mammography screening — which is laudable, given the complexity of the issue. However, the story does not tell readers the bottom line: how much would a mammogram cost if it were not covered by insurance? While we found varying estimates, a 2011 paper stated that the overall cost of a mammogram was $266 — a considerable sum, and likely out of reach for many women. This was a shortcoming of both the New York Times and Washington Post stories. The story does a good job of articulating the benefits of mammography screening for different age groups. For example, it notes that “For every 10,000 women screened repeatedly over 10 years, four lives are saved in women 40 to 49; eight in women 50 to 59; 21 in women 60 to 69; and 13 in women 70 to 74, the task force found.” However, the story does not explain what it means to be “screened repeatedly” — does that mean every year, or could it mean every other year? Still, we’re very happy to see the story include numbers rather than referring solely to a general increase or decrease in benefits. The story also notes that the recommendations apply only to women with average risk of breast cancer. The story would have been significantly stronger if it had explained what “average risk” means — most readers probably don’t know. The quote from the Susan G. Komen For the Cure Foundation demonstrates the importance of reinforcing that these guidelines apply to average risk patients – they express concern that “a lack of coverage would hit ‘high risk and underserved’ women hardest” – high risk women are not affected by these recommendations. A discussion on risk assessment is absent from most stories covering screening mammography, and has led to much confusion. One issue is that there are a variety of risk assessment models, and their use in particular patient populations is not always well understood by physicians. However, a brief discussion about how risk is assessed would be helpful for patients and others reading these stories. This is really a strong point for the story. The story devotes several paragraphs to explaining — and quantifying — the potential harms of false positives and overdiagnosis. It then spends an additional two paragraphs trying to place these harms in context. For example, citing a cancer expert’s position that the potential harms are significantly outweighed by the potential benefits. The story also made clear that there was an emphasis in the recommendations that women be able to decide for themselves on when to begin screening, and how often to be screened. That’s an important point — women should know that they have a role to play in weighing risks against potential benefits and — ultimately — making decisions about their health. The story does not offer a detailed description of the USPSTF review process, but it does make clear that the task force looks only at the scientific evidence, rather than at potential costs or insurance coverage. That’s enough for a satisfactory rating in a story like this one. However, the story would have been stronger if it had explicitly stated that the USPSTF bases its recommendations on an evaluation of all the available research literature on mammography and breast cancer screening. No disease mongering here. The story says nothing that isn’t backed up by the numbers. The story did a good job of incorporating input from multiple independent sources. The alternatives in a story like this one are the recommendations from other organizations, and the story does a good job of explaining the varying recommendations from the USPSTF and three other groups: the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Cancer Society. Well done. The story makes clear that the use of mammograms as breast cancer screening tools is longstanding and well established. The story also discusses insurance coverage issues that would affect availability for many women. The story states, “The recommendations are not immediately expected to affect insurance coverage. In December, Congress passed a bill requiring private insurers to pay for screening mammograms for women 40 and over every one to two years without copays, coinsurance or deductibles, through 2017.” The story does a nice job of placing the new recommendations in context, discussing its similarities (and differences) to the USPSTF’s 2009 recommendations on mammograms and breast cancer screening — and how it fits into a broader, ongoing debate on the subject. The story goes well beyond whatever could be found in a news release on the recommendations.
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37957
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A young Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) fought for a woman named Susan Struck, who sought to avoid being forced to terminate a pregnancy.
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A popular September 20 2020 Facebook post asserted that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in the aftermath of her death, left a legacy associated specifically with the right to abortion codified under Roe v. Wade. As the Facebook post described, Ginsburg was instrumental in Struck v. Secretary of Defense as well, successfully contesting Susan Struck’s automatic discharge and preserving her right to choose.
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On September 20 2020, two days after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Facebook user Amber LeBeau shared a post claiming that Ginsburg had intervened on behalf of combat nurse Susan Struck, more broadly addressing the narrative around reproductive choice:LeBeau wrote:It’s disheartening to see the “Pro-life” response to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death. It’s very clear that the folks who think RBG was a vehement “baby killer” have never heard of the name Susan Struck.In the 1960s & 1970s, before Roe vs Wade, abortion was not only legal on US military bases, it was actively ENCOURAGED and basically mandated. Yes, really.Captain Susan Struck was a combat nurse in Vietnam. When she got pregnant in 1970, the Air Force starkly gave her two choices. Get an abortion or be discharged. Struck wanted to keep her baby. So she was kicked out of the service.When she got back to the US, Struck sued the US Government for putting women in such a horrible position that they had to choose between either not being able to serve their country or getting an abortion that they didn’t want.Do you know which ACLU lawyer took her case and got the military to change their policy?Ruth Bader GinsburgGinsburg approached this case with the same tenacity she would later use to help Congress draft the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978. In the dark days after Roe in 1973, it was perfectly legal for employers in many states to put women in the same situation that Struck was put in–“deal with your pregnancy” or suffer the consequences of a lost job, responsibilities or pay.Ginsburg fought for the rights of women to choose life. She also fought for the rights of women to be able to work without discrimination, purchase homes, have bank accounts and a myriad of other things that make it easier for women in desperate situations to choose life in the first place.Life is never as black & white or simple as it looks through a myopic lens. It’s never either/or. There’s always “ands” and “buts” to everything.So before you paint Ginsburg as some satanic villain, at least acknowledge the many abortions that likely DIDN’T happen because of her tireless advocacy for women and families. #RBGIn her text-only post, LeBeau said that Ginsburg was often characterized as a “vehement” advocate for abortion rights, but that Ginsburg’s advocacy for reproductive rights in general extended well beyond the singular topic of abortion. She pointed to a case involving a woman, Susan Struck, being forced to choose between her pregnancy and her role in the Air Force in 1970.However, the post did not include any citations for the story. Nevertheless, the post proved popular, and was shared over 20,000 times.RBG and Susan StruckIn October 2014, Elle published a profile of Struck’s case, subtitled “When told to pick her job or her unborn baby, Susan Struck found herself a lawyer: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”That article noted that “compromises weren’t an option when Struck discovered that she was pregnant in 1970,”; the choices were either “resign” or “get an abortion”:Air Force rules prohibited pregnant women and mothers from serving.Indeed, military bases were one of the few places abortions were legal in the U.S. at the time. But Struck was Catholic and objected to terminating her pregnancy; she was also single and objected to losing her job just as she was expecting a child. With the help of a young ACLU lawyer named Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Struck sued, arguing that she was a victim of gender discrimination, since male soldiers who got women pregnant or became fathers weren’t treated the same way, and that her Constitutional rights to liberty and personal choice were being violated. In 1972, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, at which point the Department of Defense—perhaps realizing they’d lose, or at least lose in the PR arena—retracted Struck’s discharge, effectively changing its policy and eliminating pregnancy as grounds for dismissal.It was definitely a victory, but Ginsburg had hoped Struck’s case would be the one to establish all American women’s right to control their fertility. “I so much wanted the first reproductive-freedom case to be one where the choice [the plaintiff was making] was for birth,” Ginsburg says. “Roe v. Wade was as much about a doctor’s right to practice his profession as about a woman’s right.”The resulting May 1972 case, Struck v. Secretary of Defense, is available here.The same article noted that Struck managed to hide the fact she was pregnant for seven and a half months, but eventually “a supervisor ordered her to leave Vietnam within 48 hours.”In December 2019, The Guardian profiled Struck’s case and reported that she originally planned to go through with an abortion. But then she had a dream which changed her mind and led to Ginsburg’s later involvement:Air force rules then were as clear as they were coercive: face immediate discharge unless the pregnancy was terminated. Keep your job or keep the pregnancy.So Struck went to bed resolute: she would take early R&R to terminate the pregnancy, probably in Japan. “The sooner the better,” she figured.“But that night I had a dream,” recalled Struck, [in December 2019] aged 75, speaking in a joint interview with the Guardian and WNYC in the city of Sierra Vista, Arizona, some 50 years later.She dreamed about the fetus, and being called “Mommy”, and the next morning she says: “I sat up in bed, and I said, ‘No way. No way are they going to do this. Susan Struck is not going to fall for this crap.’”Her defiance against the air force would lead to a legal fight that could have become the signature abortion case taken up by the supreme court rather than 1973’s Roe v Wade – and in fact Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who would become Struck’s lawyer, thought it was a superior case.That story elaborated on Ginsburg’s interest in Struck’s forced discharge during the Vietnam War:[Struck’s] future attorney would become one of the best recognized names in American law – supreme court justice Ginsburg – who was heading the Women’s Rights Project at the time. Ginsberg believed Struck’s case was powerful because it showed reproductive rights are interconnected – if government could compel pregnancy, as many states limiting abortion access do today, it could also compel abortion.“One thing that conspicuously distinguishes women from men is that only women become pregnant,” Ginsburg said at her confirmation hearings in 1993. “And if you subject a woman to disadvantageous treatment on the basis of her pregnant status, which was what was happening to Captain Struck, you would be denying her equal treatment under the law.“It was her right to decide either way, her right to decide whether or not to bear a child,” Ginsburg said. “In this case, it was her case for childbirth. The government was inhibiting that choice. It came at the price of remaining in the service.”A September 21 2020 New York Times piece on Ginsburg and Roe v. Wade included comment by Mary Hartnett, a law professor at Georgetown University and a co-author of Ginsburg’s biography:The way Justice Ginsburg saw it, Roe v. Wade was focused on the wrong argument — that restricting access to abortion violated a woman’s privacy. What she hoped for instead was a protection of the right to abortion on the basis that restricting it impeded gender equality, said Mary Hartnett, a law professor at Georgetown University who will be a co-writer on the only authorized biography of Justice Ginsburg.Hartnett later addressed Struck’s legal battle, and Ginsburg’s overall view of contemporaneous debate on reproductive law:Justice Ginsburg “believed it would have been better to approach it under the equal protection clause” because that would have made Roe v. Wade less vulnerable to attacks in the years after it was decided, Professor Hartnett said. She and her co-author on the biography, Professor Wendy Williams, spent the last 17 years interviewing Justice Ginsburg for the book and, though it initially didn’t have a release date, they are hoping to publish it some time next year, Professor Hartnett said in an interview. […]During the same term that Roe v. Wade was decided, Justice Ginsburg was preparing to appear before the court, on the other side of the bench, as a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union representing Capt. Susan Struck.In that case, Captain Struck, an Air Force nurse who was stationed in Vietnam, had become pregnant. She was given two choices: have an abortion or leave the military (before Roe, though abortion was prohibited in most states, it was allowed on military bases). When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, the Air Force, realizing it had a very real chance of losing, changed its policy and let Captain Struck have her child and keep her job and the court never heard the case.An undated Military.com article published after Ginsburg’s death (“How Ruth Bader Ginsburg Helped End the Military’s Policy of Forced Abortion”) concluded:Later, as a Supreme Court Justice, Ginsburg would often remark that she wished Struck had been the first reproductive rights case the Supreme Court heard, rather than Roe v. Wade. The Roe case legalized abortion procedures based on the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. A decision in Struck would have provided for reproductive rights based on the Air Force officer’s rights to equal protection under the law, her right to privacy and her right to free exercise of religion.SummaryA popular September 20 2020 Facebook post asserted that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in the aftermath of her death, left a legacy associated specifically with the right to abortion codified under Roe v. Wade. As the Facebook post described, Ginsburg was instrumental in Struck v. Secretary of Defense as well, successfully contesting Susan Struck’s automatic discharge and preserving her right to choose.Comments
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10964
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New robot may ease prostate surgery for Oklahomans
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"This story about a local surgical center’s new daVinci ""robot"" surgical device describes the patient being operated on in the opening anecdote as ""unconscious."" So was someone at the newspaper. The story fails to: describe the new daVinci machine sufficiently, and compare it to its predecessor or conventional surgery cite any data that might verify the surgeon’s claims about the device’s benefits–including his provocative statement that using the new daVinci device in prostate removal reduces risk of incontinence and impotence get commentary or context from an independent source examine the assertion that the device saves money The report is not very clear, coherent, informative or important. Its greatest virtue is that it is short. How local newspapers deal with issues of medical technology assessment, of community ascertainment of need, of resource allocation. of costs, of evidence is vital to public understanding of why we spend more than any other country on health care without the outcomes to show for it. Stories can educate or they can advertise. This one falls in the latter category."
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false
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"The story says the new daVinci machine costs $1.7 million. But it fails to say how much this affects the cost of surgery. It also accepts without verification the sketchy assertion that the cost of the machine is offset by shorter hospital stays. The report does not provide any data on the benefits of daVinci-assisted surgery. The story does not cite any potential harms of the daVinci-assisted procedure. The writer cites no evidence to show the device is safe or effective, or how its use improves outcomes compared to conventional ""open"" surgery. Indeed, the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality states that ""there isn’t enough research yet to tell us how well (this works) compared with other treatments."" (It is easy for anyone to find it on the web.) That lack of evidence is a key issue that was completely ignored. The story features at least three ineffectual attempts to generate false drama–the patient in the opening anecdote is ""unconscious"" (good thing! ), his prostate is described as ""cancer-ridden,"" and the machine is said to move into ""tighter corners of the human body."" The story cites the fact that the surgery in question was stopped due to a fear of bleeding, despite its irrelevance to understanding the device itself. The story also quotes a satisfied patient who said he chose the daVinci because he didn’t want to be ""cut open like a watermelon""–the fate, presumably, of those who do not get robot-assisted surgery. However, because the story really gives no background on prostate cancer, it is judged N/A on this criterion. Only two sources are used: The story would benefit from the perspective of an independent expert. The story properly mentions that prostate cancer can also be treated wtih radiation and drugs. But it fails to mention watchful waiting, an important and often under-reported option people should know about. The story indicates that the Oklahoma University Medical Center’s Center for Robotic Surgery has a new daVinci surgery device. It doesn’t say whether other facilities in the area [or the country] use these machines. A reader would have no idea if the technology is in widespread use and where. They simply know one place to go for it – just like you’d get in an advertisement! The story implies novelty, calling it the ""lastest generation of high-tech machinery"" used in surgery. Yet the daVinci machine has been used for a decade, with about 1,000 units operating in the U.S. The new version of the machine cited is a minor upgrade over exisiting models. We can’t be sure of the extent to which the story may have been influenced by a news release. We do know that all the cited info came from one doctor at one medical center. Pretty much what you get in a news release."
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3612
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NY lawmakers to review school health, P.E. programs.
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New York state lawmakers want to review the current state of physical education, mental health and health instruction in the state’s schools.
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true
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Albany, Mental health, Physical education, New York, Health, Education
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The Assembly’s Education Committee has scheduled a public hearing Tuesday in Albany to review the current programs in place related to student health and fitness. Under a new state law that took effect this year schools are required to teach mental health in traditional physical education and health classes. The mandate is intended to help students understand more about emotional and mental wellness, and help them understand when to seek help for themselves or others. Tuesday’s hearing comes two months before lawmakers return to Albany for the 2019 legislative session.
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5704
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UConn men’s coach Hurley back at work after spinal surgery.
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UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley says he spent his life believing that when it came to his health, he was bulletproof.
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true
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Health, Basketball, Mens basketball, Dan Hurley, Mens college basketball, College basketball
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But that was before being told by doctors in August that he had a degenerative spinal condition that could have left him paralyzed. Hurley returned to work full time Wednesday, less than two weeks after having surgery to replace two disks in his neck with artificial ones. He expects to make a full recovery, but says as health scares go, this was terrifying. “I started worrying and having a lot of anxiety about my health and my ability to get back to being myself,” he said. “You start playing worst-case scenarios in your head.” Hurley said doctors told him the condition was part hereditary and part a result of years of the wear and tear associated with being a life-long athlete. He said he was hoping to deal with the discomfort and tingling he was feeling through physical therapy or maybe an injection, but doctors quickly told him that he needed immediate surgery and that any hard fall or bump could leave him paralyzed. He had the surgery on Sept. 6, with the doctor using an incision in his throat to get to his spine. He said he was told that for experts, it’s a relatively routine procedure. The 46-year-old coach said he felt better immediately, but still has some restrictions for the next month, such as being prohibited from flying or lifting anything heavier than 10 pounds. Hurley, known for his animated coaching style, said he’s kept recruits informed and is very confident the situation won’t have any long-term effects on his ability to do his job the way he always has done it. But, he said the first major health issue has changed his perspective on life. “How important my faith is to me was reinforced; how important my family is to me was reinforced,” he said. “And just how important I am to my players, to not just succeed and excel in their careers. My true sense and purpose as a coach came into much clearer focus for me.” His players gave him a warm welcome back on Wednesday. He said that meant a lot to him, but didn’t make him go any easier on them. “Any of like that feeling sorry for me or good will toward the coach returning from injury went out the door when I got on guys for their lack of defensive prowess,” he said. “Yeah, all that love is gone.” UConn opens its season Nov. 8 against Sacred Heart.
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37500
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If wearing a fabric mask, Meharry Medical president just stated to place mask in ziplock bag and heat in microwave for 2-3 minutes to sanitize after each use.
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Did the President of Meharry Medical Advise Sterilizing Cloth Face Masks in the Microwave Between Uses?
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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Discourse regarding personal protective equipment (PPE, including cloth face masks) was a large part of COVID-19 discussion on social media in early April 2020, including a viral Facebook post that repeats purported advice to sterilize cloth masks by microwaving them between uses:The brief post attributed the recommendation to the president of Meharry Medical College in Nashville:If wearing a fabric mask, Meharry Medical president just stated to place mask in ziplock bag and heat in microwave for 2-3 minutes to sanitize after each use.As is the case with most text-based Facebook status updates, the claim appeared without specific citations or links indicating the advice was authentic or correctly described.A quick search led to an April 6 2020 WMOT article (“Nashville Coronavirus Task Force member calls for mask use in public.”) As suggested, the information had to do with new COVID-19 recommendations involving the use of masks in public spaces; as of early April 2020, multiple media reports advised people in all states to wear personal protective equipment if possible.Disposable face masks (as well as N95 respirators) were in notoriously short shrift, meaning that most non-medical workers lacked access to any sort of commercial face mask. Consequently, people began fabricating their own out of household materials such as T-shirts, bandannas or scarves, and dish towels or fabric scraps.WMOT’s article referenced an April 3 2020 press conference, and it highlighted recommendations that people wear cloth face masks:A member of Nashville’s Coronavirus Task Force has called on Metro residents to begin wearing masks in public.Meharry Medical College CEO Dr. James Hildreth made the suggestion [on April 3 2020] during Nashville’s daily pandemic press briefing. Dr. Hildreth noted the latest research suggests infected individuals can spread the illness before they even show symptoms.Hildreth stressed that high-quality manufactured masks need to be reserved for front line medical staff. He [recommended] that individuals using [homemade] masks [] wash their hands each time they take the mask off. He also stressed the need to sterilize the mask regularly.An April 3 2020 YouTube video, titled “Mayor John Cooper News Conference,” was embedded in the story. Just before the 12:30 mark, Meharry President and CEO James E.K. Hildreth Sr., Ph.D., M.D. began speaking.Hildreth first spoke about visible signs of infection with respect to other illnesses, explaining that there were, unfortunately, no visible signs for COVID-19 infection in the general population. He subsequently indicated there was a “reason why” citizens of other countries are known to wear masks, and people in those countries have lower rates of COVID-19 transmission.Hildreth stated that if everyone wore masks, the chain of transmission of COVID-19 would decrease across the board. He emphasized it was necessary to reserve commercial PPE like disposable face masks for medical professionals and those on the front line. Then he added that if you are following recommendations, there are a couple of things “you really need to know,” explaining:There’s a national urgency — and I’m gonna repeat this — that the PPE must be reserved for healthcare providers and those on the front line. So many people have resorted to making homemade masks out of bandanas and other kinds of materials … there are a couple of things you really need to know if you’re doing this:If the mask has served its purpose, there’s every possibility it’s contaminated on the outer surface. What that means is that you should do two things: wash your hands when you take it off, and sterilize it or sanitize it if you’re gonna use it repeatedly.If possible, wash it in soap and water. And if it’s made out of cloth or has no metal staples in it, you can do what I do: stick it in a plastic bag, and microwave it for two or three minutes at the highest setting.Numerous studies show that many, many types of bacteria, fungus, and viruses are killed by microwave radiation. You must make sure that your improvised device is compatible with microwaving, and if it is, stick it in a plastic bag and zap it for two or three minutes at the highest setting.I want to emphasize as you heard earlier that our best strategy still for controlling the virus is to stay at home. My heart breaks every time I hear a new story about a nursing home where the people have gotten infected.The virus is not floating in the air … someone delivered the virus to that facility, that’s how it started.Someone was a vector. Please stay at home — comply with the order to stay at home. Only go out when you absolutely have to, and if you have to go out, please cover your face to avoid becoming a vector.Additional information about sterilizing cloth face masks and PPE from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is available here. That guidance also included instructions for fabricating a coronavirus mask at home.The Facebook post accurately identified both the speaker — Meharry Medical College president and chief executive officer James Hildreth — and the advice. Hildreth made the recommendation on April 3 2020 (the day the post appeared), and he included some important caveats about correct use of improvised face masks to avoid contracting or transmitting COVID-19. Hildreth emphasized the necessity of handling masks as if contaminated, and also checking the mask for any metal parts before microwaving them. In the case of compatible masks, Hildreth suggested two to three minutes of microwaving them “at the highest setting.”
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2761
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AbbVie sees 2014 approval of hepatitis drugs, shares rise.
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AbbVie Inc issued a cautious 2014 profit forecast, but said it expects U.S. approval this year for its potentially lucrative new all-oral treatment for hepatitis C, sending its shares up 3.4 percent.
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true
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Health News
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The company, before releasing fourth quarter earnings on Friday, released favorable data from four additional Phase III studies of its experimental treatment for the liver disease. AbbVie previously had said it expected approval of the treatment in early 2015. “The excellent hepatitis C safety and efficacy data published today is positive for the shares” of AbbVie, Jefferies analyst Jeffrey Holford said. But he noted that expenses for launching the medicines will now be incurred in 2014, which had not been expected. AbbVie’s treatment is a combination of five oral medications that has been shown to knock out the hepatitis C virus in as soon as eight or 12 weeks of treatment, without serious safety issues. AbbVie’s drugs have produced cure rates well above 90 percent in clinical trials, without the need to be taken with older standard drugs that cause harsh side effects and must be taken for longer periods. But the drugs, which are taken together, could face tough competition from a more convenient and highly effective once-daily pill against the hepatitis C virus being developed by Gilead Sciences Inc. “Overall, the hepatitis C Phase III results are good” for AbbVie’s drugs, “but not as good as Gilead’s,” BMO Capital Markets analyst Alex Arfaei said Friday in a research note. But Arfaei said AbbVie’s drugs could capture peak annual sales of $2.8 billion, even if they only claim a 10 to 13 percent share of the hepatitis C market. AbbVie, spun off early last year from Abbott Laboratories Inc, said it earned $1.13 billion, or 70 cents per share, in the quarter. That compared with $1.54 billion, or 98 cents per share, in the year-earlier period. Excluding special items, the company earned 82 cents per share, matching the average analyst estimate, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Global revenue totaled $5.1 billion and was also in line with Wall Street expectations. AbbVie said it expects full-year earnings of $3.00 to $3.10 per share, excluding special items. That is below the average estimate of $3.16, according to a Thomson Reuters poll. Sales of AbbVie’s rheumatoid arthritis treatment Humira, the world’s biggest-selling drug, jumped 13 percent in the quarter to $3.04 billion - more than offsetting lower sales for most of the company’s other medicines. Sales of AndroGel, a gel that delivers the male hormone testosterone, fell 21 percent to $289 million in the quarter, while sales of HIV treatment Kaletra fell almost 9 percent to $228 million. Combined sales of TriCor and Trilipix, treatments for blood fats called triglycerides that are now facing cheaper generics, plunged 85 percent to $29 million. Humira represented 60 percent of total AbbVie sales in the quarter, underscoring the company’s reliance on the injectable product and its need to introduce big-selling new drugs such as its hepatitis C medicines. Although Humira’s U.S. patent lapses in late 2016, AbbVie officials have predicted it will take years longer for other drugmakers to develop their own biosimilar forms of Humira and win approvals for them. Company shares jumped 57 percent last year, on faith that Humira will not be fettered by generic competition for years, and that AbbVie will successfully develop new medicines for hepatitis C, blood cancers and other diseases that will spur continued earnings growth. Hepatitis C affects an estimated 170 million people worldwide, and if left untreated can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer or the need for a new liver. Current treatments include use of interferon, an injectable drug that causes flu-like symptoms. AbbVie shares were trading at $49.93 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
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9564
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More Breast Cancer Patients Should Consider Radiation, New Guidelines Say
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department said a federal appeals court should reverse a lower court verdict finding Bayer AG liable in the case of a California man who blamed its Roundup weed killer for his cancer.
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true
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breast cancer
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The government said in a friend of the court brief filed on Friday that glyphosate, the weed killer’s active ingredient, is not a carcinogen and as a result a warning on the label was not required as California state law demands. The backing by the EPA and Justice Department comes days after Bayer asked a U.S. federal appeals court to throw out a $25 million judgment it was ordered to pay Edwin Hardeman. Bayer had denied its Roundup weed killer causes cancer. In April, the EPA reaffirmed that glyphosate does not cause cancer. Farmers spray glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in U.S. agriculture, on fields of soybeans and other crops that are genetically engineered to resist it. Roundup is also used by consumers on lawns, golf courses and elsewhere. Hardeman’s lawyers previously accused Roundup maker Monsanto, which Bayer acquired last year in a $63 billion deal, of having failed to warn consumers about the herbicide’s cancer risk. Bayer stock has lost about 23% in value since the first Roundup verdict for plaintiffs in August 2018. Bayer argued it would be impossible to comply with the Hardeman verdict, a lawsuit brought under state law, because any warning label would be in conflict with guidance from a federal agency. The EPA and Justice Department agreed in their Friday filing. “It is unlawful for manufacturers and sellers to make claims on their labels that differ from what EPA approves,” the U.S. government said.
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5086
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Oil and gas defenders, critics test Colorado’s new law.
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The petroleum industry’s defenders and critics are testing the limits of a new Colorado law that flips the state’s priorities from producing energy to protecting the public.
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true
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Bills, Colorado, Hydraulic fracturing, Statutes, General News, Jared Polis, Denver, Environment, Longmont, Laws
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Officials in energy-friendly Weld County say the law gives the county complete control over the location of new wells in unincorporated areas. That could challenge the state’s attempts to tighten regulations. Just across the county line in Longmont, environmental activists are trying to use the same statute to revive the city’s ban on hydraulic fracturing, which the courts threw out under the previous laws. Because fracking is standard practice in the area, the ban would essentially prohibit all drilling. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law on April 16. In addition to switching the state’s top priority to public health and the environment, it gives cities and counties new powers to regulate the drilling locations. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is in the early stages of rewriting its rules to comply with the law — referred to as Senate Bill 181 — and several counties are looking at drafting their own regulations. It’s too early to measure the impacts, but the industry is clearly concerned. The Colorado Oil and Gas Association invited Polis to speak Wednesday at a session titled “Can You Still Drill for Oil in a Blue State?” Polis told the audience that was a silly question. He said international markets and overseas instability have more impact on the industry than state regulations. “Energy is not inherently political, it’s inherently economic,” he said. Dan Haley, president of the Oil and Gas Association, asked Polis several times to respond to industry concerns about its standing in the state. The governor eventually replied he values industry jobs but added that they’re part of a diverse state economy. Colorado ranks fifth in the nation for crude oil production and sixth in natural gas, and much of that is concentrated in Weld County northeast of Denver. Weld County Commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer, a fierce defender of the industry, argued hard against the new bill and led a short-lived campaign to overturn it after it became law. Now she maintains the bill, coupled with older statutes on local government powers, gives counties like hers the final word on land-use decisions that affect the industry in areas outside cities. “Basically what S.B. 181 said is the state no longer has land use authority,” she said in an interview. Weld County established an oil and gas department and adopted its own rules, but Kirkmeyer said energy companies won’t have free rein to drill wherever they want. The county rules are similar to ones the state had before the new law was passed, she said. The goal is to ensure a common-sense approach to regulating oil and gas companies, Kirkmeyer said. “We are willing to work with them for responsible energy development in our county,” she said. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Stephen Fenberg, a sponsor of Senate Bill 181, disputed Kirkmeyer’s interpretation of the law. The intent was to give both the state and local governments a say in regulating the surface impacts of oil and gas, and to allow cities and counties to enact stricter rules than the state’s, but not more lenient ones, he said. “I would argue that the Weld County commissioners know this,” he said, accusing them of “political theater.” Polis said Wednesday that state officials are working on a written agreement with Weld County officials but offered no details. Environmental groups Colorado Rising and Our Longmont say the new law clears the way for Longmont and other local governments to ban oil and gas drilling. Longmont voters approved a fracking ban in 2012, but the Colorado Supreme Court overturned it in 2016, saying only the state could regulate the industry under the laws in force at the time. Senate Bill 181 “flips the script” on state and local control, said Democratic state Rep. Jonathan Singer of Longmont, who supports the ban. “The state does not take precedence over what local governments want to do when it comes to protecting our health and safety,” he said. The two environmental groups asked the courts to restore the ban earlier this month. The case is pending. Fenberg said the law doesn’t specifically allow or prohibit local drilling bans. But he said they could open a city or a county to damage claims from mineral rights owners who can’t access their underground oil and gas reserves. If the goal is to protect public health and safety, strong local regulations are a better option than a ban, he said. ___ Follow Dan Elliott at http://twitter.com/DanElliottAP .
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31461
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"CNN aired a story about a university student who discovered a ""diet hack"" involving apple cider vinegar."
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Although we can’t speak to the effectiveness of drinking apple cider vinegar with Refresh Garcinia Cambogia, we can say that this text did not originate in a genuine news article. This is an advertisement that used a fabricated interview, falsified claims, and an unrelated photograph to sell a diet product.
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false
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Food, Amanda Haughman, apple cider vinegar, diet
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In April 2017, an advertisement for a diet product called “Refresh Garcinia Cambogia” or “Garicinia Slim” was disguised as a genuine news report and published on web sites such as Running Evolutions.com and The Platinum Beard: Student from Cornell University Cuts 31lbs On University Budget! Amanda Haughman, a student at Cornell University, was able to drop 31lbs off her waist in 1 month without ever using a dime of her own money. Amanda is studying nutrition sciences at Cornell, and for a required research project Amanda thought it would be perfect to use university funds to find out how to ‘hack’ her weight loss. According to Amanda, “the most expensive piece of it all was actually finding what worked. But the actual solution only cost about $5.” “I had struggled with my weight my whole life. I tried things like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, which just didn’t work as good as they promised. I am a single Mom with a kid at home and I am also working towards my degree, so I don’t have any time to be at the gym. When I was assigned this big research project, I saw it as a perfect opportunity to get a deeper look at the natural weight loss opportunities that are out there, and that is when I found out about combining Refresh Garcinia Cambogia and apple cider vinegar. The best part of it all, I can tell that my daughter is proud of me.” – Amanda Haughman These reports included a number of false and misleading claims. For instance, the lead photograph purportedly showing Amanda Haughman’s tremendous weight loss is actually Rachel Graham, who lost nearly 100 pounds in a year. Graham told Today in 2016 that she credited her weight loss to exercise and a healthy diet. Graham did not mention the alleged magic formula of apple cider vinegar and garcinia cambogia: Ask Rachel Graham how she’s managed to lose almost 100 pounds in one year and the formula is simple: Healthy food and exercise. No secrets. No gimmicks. No quick fixes. She’s also honest about the impact of going from 235 pounds to 144 pounds, especially the loose skin on her stomach, thighs and arms. […] “I want people to know that it is 110 percent possible,” Graham told TODAY. “I used to feel as though it wasn’t. That I didn’t have ‘what it takes,’ and that it was just too far out of reach… If you want to make changes, it is completely possible with healthy food and exercise.” This weight loss advertisement also fabricated an interview with CNN and claimed that the network ran a segment on this Cornell student’s “amazing discovery”: We sat down with Amanda to ask her more about how she found out about Refresh Garcinia Cambogia and whether or not that is all that she used to lose 31lbs so quickly. CNN: Tell us, how did you know where to start? Amanda: To be honest, I really didn’t. I was given a budget for the project by the university, and I spent nearly all of it researching everything under the sun. I looked into other previous research, case studies, and even successful weight loss stories of others. This story never appeared on CNN. Not surprisingly the Platinum Beard post links to a site selling Garcinia Cambogia. The Running Evolutions article links instead to what is apparently borrowed content from Barry’s Boot Camp, a personal training program. We reached out to Barry’s Boot Camp for comment, but have not yet received a reply.
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6262
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Teens to share their vaping experiences with Melania Trump.
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Melania Trump will hear directly from teens and young adults about their experiences with electronic cigarettes and vaping.
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true
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Alex Azar, General News, Kellyanne Conway, Politics, Vaping, Public health
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The White House says she has invited a group from the Truth Initiative to participate in a “listening session” Wednesday. It will be the second time this week that the first lady has highlighted e-cigarettes and vaping among youth. Mrs. Trump used a speech Monday to call on companies to leave children out of marketing campaigns for e-cigarettes. Scheduled to join her at Wednesday’s session are Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway. The Truth Initiative says it’s the largest nonprofit public health organization dedicated to achieving a culture where all youth and young adults reject tobacco.
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12324
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The GOP health care proposal would slash more than $135 million in federal funding available to PA schools.
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"In a tweet, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said: ""The GOP health care proposal would slash more than $135 million in federal funding available to PA schools."" His office pointed to data that indicated schools in the state received a total of $134.5 million in the 2014-15 fiscal year in Medicaid reimbursements for School Based ACCESS services. First off, $134.5 million is not ""more than"" $135 million. Beyond that, Casey’s tweet implies all $135 million in Medicaid reimbursements to schools would be cut under the GOP healthcare plan. But there is no provision in the GOP healthcare bill that specifically cuts Medicaid funding to schools. Overall, the CBO estimates Medicaid spending would decrease by about 26 percent by 2026, meaning a statewide cut of $35.1 million to schools might have been a more reasonable estimate. But even that cut wouldn’t be guaranteed under this plan and would occur if states chose to reduce Medicaid reimbursements to school districts because of cuts in funding from the federal government."
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false
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Health Care, Pennsylvania, Bob Casey,
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"U.S. Sen. Bob Casey says the Senate GOP’s healthcare plan could devastate already cash-strapped public schools that receive Medicaid reimbursements for programs benefiting poor children and students with disabilities. Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat who has been outspoken on social media against the Senate GOP plan, tweeted last week: ""The GOP health care proposal would slash more than $135 million in federal funding available to PA schools."" But Casey didn’t specify in the tweet where that number came from, and Republican officials say their bill doesn’t target vulnerable populations like children with disabilities. So what’s the deal? First, a little background on the Medicaid funding that schools receive. Since 1988, schools can register with the federal government as Medicaid providers and receive reimbursements, similar to hospitals. For the last 30 years, Medicaid reimbursements subsidized primary or preventive services at schools — think hearing and vision tests — for children already covered by Medicaid under the School Based ACCESS Program. It’s also been used to fund special education and services to children with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA. Now, as the Senate GOP is floating its healthcare plan (A.K.A. the Better Care Reconciliation Act), some school administrators and advocacy groups say they’re concerned cuts to Medicaid could impact their ability to provide services to both children living in poverty and children with disabilities. About $4 billion in Medicaid funding goes to schools annually. Under the GOP’s most recent plan, Medicaid spending would be 26 percent lower in 2026 than it would be under the agency’s extended baseline, and the gap would widen to about 35 percent in 2036, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO estimated that overall Medicaid spending would drop by $772 billion between 2017 and 2026 under the BCRA. The vast majority of that reduction, per the CBO, would come from three key provisions: The repeal of the individual mandate, a reduction in the federal matching rate for adults covered by Medicaid after it was expanded under the Affordable Care Act and a per capita cap on Medicaid payments beginning in 2020. This reduction in Medicaid spending is likely to push more financial responsibility onto states and municipalities in the coming decade, should the bill become law as is. In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, the School Superintendents Association and dozens of related groups wrote: ""Under the per-capita caps included in the BCRA, health care will be rationed and schools will be forced to compete with other critical health care providers — hospitals, physicians, and clinics — that serve Medicaid-eligible children."" So now we come back to Casey, who claimed in a tweet that the GOP’s healthcare plan would ""slash more than $135 million in federal funding available to PA schools."" Casey’s spokeswoman Jacklin Rhoads said the figure came from the Department of Health and Human Services, and provided a spreadsheet that indicated how much each Pennsylvania school district received from Medicaid in the 2014-15 fiscal year. For example, the School District of Philadelphia, which has an annual budget of about $2.5 billion, received about $10.9 million that year in total reimbursement for direct claims and administration. In total in fiscal year 2014-15, Pennsylvania schools received about $134.5 million, according to the figures provided by Casey’s office. That’s the key figure referred to in the tweet. In the same document was a second column titled: ""How much money would be lost from a 30 percent cut."" That column indicates Pennsylvania schools could stand to lose $40.3 million per year, with the School District of Philadelphia losing about $3.3 million, or less than 0.2 percent of its total budget. (The District largely declined to comment, though a spokesman said officials are ""monitoring the proposed legislation and will assess the impact when there is a final version for consideration."") The 30 percent figure cited by Casey's office came from a report published by the School Superintendents Association. Here's their rationale from the report: ""Republicans have expressed a desire to reduce federal Medicaid spending by 25 percent by distributing Medicaid funding through a block-grant or a per-capita cap, which would shift costs to states. However, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the block grant like the one proposed in the House 2017 budget would cut Medicaid spending by $1 trillion over a decade, which would be the equivalent in 2026 of cutting away one-third of the program’s budget. Other estimates include a proposed cut closer to 30 percent or 35 percent in the long-term since it encompasses a 25 percent cut over 10 years on top of the cuts that would occur with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act."" The report was released in January, several months before the Senate GOP unveiled its healthcare plan. Our ruling In a tweet, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said: ""The GOP health care proposal would slash more than $135 million in federal funding available to PA schools."" His office pointed to data that indicated schools in the state received a total of $134.5 million in the 2014-15 fiscal year in Medicaid reimbursements for School Based ACCESS services. First off, $134.5 million is not ""more than"" $135 million. Beyond that, Casey’s tweet implies all $135 million in Medicaid reimbursements to schools would be cut under the GOP healthcare plan. But there is no provision in the GOP healthcare bill that specifically cuts Medicaid funding to schools. Overall, the CBO estimates Medicaid spending would decrease by about 26 percent by 2026, meaning a statewide cut of $35.1 million to schools might have been a more reasonable estimate. But even that cut wouldn’t be guaranteed under this plan and would occur if states chose to reduce Medicaid reimbursements to school districts because of cuts in funding from the federal government."
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26849
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Back in 2005, when we did that first point-in-time count, there were over 188,000 thousand people that were deemed homeless in the state of California. … That’s 35,000 more than we have today.”
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Gov. Newsom's figures are technically right based on federal homelessness reports. But his statement ignores a key change in how those reports count homeless people. In the past, they tallied a large number of “hidden homeless,” those living temporarily at a friend’s home or motel. Today, those people are no longer counted, meaning Newsom’s comparison is problematic, at best.
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mixture
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National, Homeless, Housing, Poverty, State Budget, California, Gavin Newsom,
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"Gov. Gavin Newsom dedicated his second State of the State address almost entirely to California’s deepening homelessness crisis. He said the problem today requires ""a coordinated crisis-level response,"" one that gets ""the mentally ill out of tents and into treatment"" and produces affordable housing to ensure no Californian is homeless. But Newsom also said the crisis ""has persisted for decades"" and made a claim that suggests it was worse 15 years ago. ""Back in 2005, when we did that first point-in-time count, there were over 188,000 thousand people that were deemed homeless in the state of California. … That’s 35,000 more than we have today,"" Newsom said during his address, held at the state Capitol. Those figures caught our attention. Has the state’s homeless population really dropped by 35,000 over the past decade and a half? We set out on a fact check. ‘Apples To Oranges’ Comparison? The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development tracks homeless figures for each state based on point-in-time counts conducted every two years by local agencies. For 2005, HUD listed California’s homeless population at 188,299, matching Newsom’s figure. Last month, HUD released its 2019 report showing California had 151,278 homeless people, or about 37,000 fewer than in 2005. That also generally lines up with the governor’s statement. But we found there’s been a major change in how homeless people are counted since 2005. At that time, some communities, including Los Angeles County, would count the ""the hidden homeless,"" or those who were temporarily living in a motel or on someone’s couch, in addition to those who lived on the streets, in cars, shelters or abandoned buildings. HUD stopped allowing the practice of counting the hidden homeless several years ago. That makes comparing past data to today’s ""apples to oranges,"" said Bob Erlenbusch, executive director of the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness. ""It’s not even close."" Sharron Rapport, director of the California Policy Corporation for Supportive Housing, said a significant number of people who were counted as homeless residents in the past are no longer tallied. ""There may not be an actual decrease of 35,000 people experiencing homeless. It could just be that we counted them differently before,"" said Rapport, who serves on the governor’s homelessness task force. Advocates for homeless people have criticized HUD’s methodology for not counting these less-visible individuals. They have said point-in-time counts, which are conducted on a single night at the end of January and largely by volunteers, tally only a fraction of the total homeless population. ""We know there’s an epidemic, right? You would have to be blind to not understand the nature of the epidemic,"" Margaretta Lin, executive director of the Dellums Institute for Social Justice said in a CityLab news article in 2019. ""But HUD defines homelessness as people who are literally homeless. People who are in a motel for that night or couch surfing for that night, under the HUD definitions, they are not considered homeless."" While the change in HUD’s methodology partially explains the lower homeless population, Rapport said California is also doing a better job housing people without a permanent home than it did in the past. Los Angeles County, for example, is now housing 133 homeless people per day, a significant increase from the past, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said at a forum last week on homelessness. The mayor noted, however, that an estimated 150 people per day are becoming homeless in the county. A More Visible Crisis Setting the numbers aside, Rapport said there are several reasons homelessness is more visible now compared with 15 years ago. For one, it’s in more communities. ""It used to be more concentrated in specific areas. Now it is more dispersed,"" Rapport said. ""We see homelessness in every part of our state. … It’s not just in our urban centers, it’s in our suburban areas, it’s in our rural areas. People notice it more, I think, because of that."" The high-profile Hepatitis A outbreaks that spread in homeless communities in San Diego and Los Angeles, along with more media coverage of the topic have also raised awareness, she said. When we asked about Newsom’s statement, the governor’s office told us it’s ""not a perfect"" comparison. But, they said, the federal reports are the only comprehensive source available. They added that Newsom was not trying to suggest that the crisis has improved, just the opposite. Our Ruling Newsom claimed: ""Back in 2005, when we did that first point-in-time count, there were over 188,000 thousand people that were deemed homeless in the state of California. … That’s 35,000 more than we have today."" His figures are technically right based on homelessness reports issued every two years by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But his statement ignores a key change in how the reports count homeless people. In the past, they tallied a large number of ""hidden homeless,"" those living temporarily at a friend’s home or motel. Today, those people are no longer counted, meaning Newsom’s comparison is problematic, at best. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. Gavin Newsom's 2020 State Of The State One year in, Gov. Gavin Newsom shows bold action, but California’s homelessness crisis deepens ‘A Real Emergency’: Newsom Issues Executive Order To Use State Land, Travel Trailers, Hospitals For California Homeless Crisis A promise stalled: Eight months in, Gov. Gavin Newsom has yet to hire a homelessness czar"
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5017
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Study: Mud stirred up during PortMiami dredge killed coral.
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Dredging at PortMiami killed far more coral than the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers predicted, scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the University of Miami have concluded in a new study.
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true
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Panama Canal, University of Miami, Miami, Panama, Florida, Environment, U.S. Army, Dredging, Corals
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Researchers set out to determine what killed coral near the $205 million dredge work at the port, which was done to make way for the larger ships sailing through an expanded Panama Canal to bring cargo to South Florida. Their study, published this month in the online journal PeerJ, compared work done in the channel to nearby coral. It puts at odds two governmental agencies that clashed over the dredge. Environmentalists had long worried that that $205 million dredging would damage the coral. The Miami Herald (http://hrld.us/2gFJYNi ) reports the Corps contended a disease outbreak was responsible. State environmental regulators argued that mud stirred up by the dredge or leaked by a barge as it ferried sediment offshore smothered coral. The research team studied pictures taken before, during and after the dredge and said sediment spread across an area about 14 times bigger than the Corps permit allowed for. The study found that warm temperatures in the summer of 2014 triggered widespread bleaching and disease and the coral — stressed by the sediment — died in larger numbers than nearby coral. The project deepened the port’s channel by 6 feet, making it 52-feet deep. It completes a $1 billion makeover that includes a new tunnel at the port. “We now know the Corps dramatically underestimated both the severity and the geographic extent of the sediment impacts on the reef,” said Miami Waterkeeper Rachel Silverstein, whose group joined other conservationists in a legal fight to clean up the dredge. “The monitoring and the protocols that were supposed to protect this reef during the dredge clearly failed and this study is providing peer-reviewed, statistically valid evidence showing that impacts from the dredging resulted in widespread impacts.” Beginning in the summer of 2015, the fisheries service repeatedly warned the Corps that damage appeared to be more widespread and the agency was in danger of violating its permit. The Herald reports that the Corps also failed to provide updated surveys of the work, which prompted the fisheries service to issue a sharp letter accusing the agency of selectively choosing “certain results to downplay the permanent effects” of the dredge. Corps officials said the study used limited data and failed to distinguish between the types of sediment that buried coral during the dredge. “Drawing broad scale conclusions based on limited data is very misleading and not good science,” Corps spokeswoman Susan Jackson told the Herald via email. She said the agency is “committed to understanding potential impacts” and has expanded monitoring efforts, which include cameras on the ocean floor to record conditions. The researchers conclude that the study highlights the need to be more careful when dredging near sensitive reefs and should serve as a warning for the upcoming $374 million expansion at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale. ___ Information from: The Miami Herald, http://www.herald.com
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8370
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Support builds to end free EU carbon permits for aviation.
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A proposal to end free European Union carbon allowances for airlines and make them buy all the pollution permits they need gained momentum on Thursday, as at least seven member states backed the idea, EU officials said.
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true
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Environment
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The change would increase costs for airlines when they already face multiple challenges, including a drop in demand because of the coronavirus. But critics say the current system has removed the incentive for the sector to tackle its rising emissions. Poland, itself under fire because of its dependency on carbon-intensive coal, proposed the idea at a meeting of environment ministers representing the 27 EU member states. It said the carbon credit handouts - worth 800 million euros ($894 million) in 2019 - undermined the aim of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) to cut emissions in a cost-effective way. Free allowances to airlines for flights inside the European Economic Area could not be justified as the sector “is not directly exposed to the risk of carbon leakage,” Poland said. Carbon leakage is the idea industry will relocate beyond Europe to avoid European climate levies. ETS-covered emissions from aviation increased every year from 2013 until 2018, according to EU data. Irish carrier Ryanair RYA.A became one of the carbon market’s 10 largest emitters in 2018, joining nine coal power plants in the top ten. So far aviation accounts for about 3% of the EU’s emissions, but its share is expected to grow rapidly unless checked. Countries, including the Netherlands and Spain, are exploring using environmental taxes to make airlines pay for their pollution. Poland’s proposal, which EU officials speaking on condition of anonymity said had the backing of at least seven member states, said ending free allowances for aviation would have a similar effect to environmental taxes. It would, however, be easier to impose because the EU can only agree on tax changes if all states are unanimous. An ETS review scheduled for 2021 would probably be the EU’s first opportunity to adjust aviation’s free allowances. The sector will face increased scrutiny, as the European Union seeks to meet a goal to reduce its net emissions to zero by 2050. But any plan to tighten the EU carbon market’s grip on aviation could face opposition from ICAO, the UN aviation agency, which next year will launch a global scheme to require airlines to buy carbon offset credits. ICAO, which is meeting in Montreal this week, wants the EU to remove aviation from its carbon market so the U.N. scheme, known as CORSIA, will be the only market-based measure tackling aviation emissions. Brussels has said it will consider doing so, but only if CORSIA upholds strict environmental standards. Environmental groups have criticized CORSIA, saying it would allow aviation emissions to keep rising after 2020 if airlines bought enough carbon offset credits to cover the increase. ($1 = 0.8945 euros)
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9402
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GOOGLE RETINAL SCANS CAN PREDICT IF YOU WILL HAVE A HEART ATTACK
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Scanning of an eye in progress. Concept for Biometrics This vague Newsweek story describes how scientists from Google have reported developing an algorithm that can use large data sets of retinal scans to determine a person’s risk ofdeveloping cardiovascular problems. The story establishes the novelty of this approach and mentions current assessment tools. However, there’s no mention of costs or possible harms from this approach, and no numerical data on how effective it might be. There are also no outside sources nor alternatives mentioned, and it doesn’t indicate when, if ever, this method might be available. Heart disease is the leading killer in the U.S., causing more than 600,000 deaths per year, according to the CDC. So if there was a simple, non-invasive method of gauging a person’s risk for developing a heart attack later on, simply by scanning a person’s eyes, that would be a substantive aid in public health. Sadly this story fails to back up that dream with any real substance, and by doing so, harms readers by leading them on. Better to have not offered the story at all.
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false
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heart disease
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This Newsweek story offers no information on what the cost of such retinal scan might be, nor does it mention whether health insurance would cover such screening, if it is proven to eventually work. There are a number of free cardiovascular risk assessment tools available online. The only numerical data offered by this story is that they used “data from more than a quarter of a million patients.” There is no comparison of the success rate of this new approach with other mechanisms for determining cardiovascular risk, so readers have no way of assessing its potential value. The story offers no mention of potential harms that might arise from using this new approach and since it would be non-invasive, it is hard to imagine many. But the potential for incorrect assessments is always present as either false-positives or false-negatives and the harms from either of those can be considerable. The story really doesn’t offer any evidence of the success of this approach. The only statement that relates to results from this research says, “the scientists were able to predict the cardiovascular risk factors that were not previously thought to be present in retinal fundus images.” But how effective were those? How does this method compare with other techniques for determining cardiovascular risk? The published abstract pointed out that the results were “validated on two independent datasets of 12,026 and 999 patients” suggesting that some additional data was available to the story’s author. It’s not clear that any patient has been tested using this method, even though both the headline an the lede sentence of the story emphatically state it works. There’s no outright disease-mongering here. However, the story provides no context about how many people are at risk of a heart attack. For that reason, it doesn’t meet our criteria. The story does point out that the researchers work for “Google’s parent company Alphabet” and for the company Verily, which used to be Google Life Sciences, so the conflict of interest is obvious. But it fails to identify any of the researchers, even though it includes two quotes from a nameless source. No independent sources are quoted. The story mentions cardiovascular risk calculators, which use parameters such as a person’s gender, smoking status, blood pressure, and age. “Most cardiovascular risk calculators use some combination of these parameters to identify patients at risk of experiencing either a major cardiovascular event or cardiac-related mortality within a pre-specified time period, such as 10 years,” the paper states. “However, some of these parameters may be unavailable…We therefore explored whether additional signals for cardiovascular risk can be extracted from retinal images, which can be obtained quickly, cheaply and non-invasively in an outpatient setting.” The story indicates that “further tests” are needed, but readers are left with no idea as to when, if ever, this new approach to determining risk might be available. There’s no mention of when, if ever, clinical trials might be done to gauge its efficacy. The idea that a non-invasive scan of a person’s retina could yield enough information to calculate that person’s risk of a heart attack appears to be novel. This story does not appear to be based on a news release.
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11227
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Knowledge That Can Save You: After gene testing, more women choose surgery
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The risk of developing breast cancer for a woman with BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation increases dramatically. Recent advances in genetic testing can identify these women, but leaves them with very difficult decisions to make. Should they remove both breasts and/or the ovaries to drastically reduce the risk of breast cancer? This story gives a very human face to this quandry and presents some useful information. However, it has several flaws. Although the story mentions double mastectomy and oophorectomy as treatment options, it does not mention other important alternatives, such as chemoprevention or active surveillance (watchful waiting). The story also does not address the important issue of timing of treatment. The increased risk is not for one year, but spread over a long period of time, so often women do not need to act immediately. Furthermore, the story does not adequately describe the nature of the available evidence for using the genetic test in combination with preventative surgery. Have there been controlled trials evaluating the benefit of this approach? The story provides quantification of benefits in relative terms only. The story states that removing both breasts reduces the risk of breast cancer by 90% and that removing the ovaries also reduces the risk of ovarian cancer by 90%. From what % to what %? Readers need the absolute risk reduction figures. The story also states that women who test positive for BRCA1 or BRCA2 have up to an 87% change of developing breast cancer. However, according to the National Cancer Institute, this risk varies between 36% and 85%, a wide range not explictly stated in the story. The story does mention some important potential harms of the testing, inlcuding the threat of lost insurance, the emotional impact, and the ethical questions it raises. The story quotes multiple independent sources.
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mixture
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The story does not mention costs of the test. The story provides quantification of benefits in relative terms only. The story states that removing both breasts reduces the risk of breast cancer by 90% and that removing the ovaries also reduces the risk of ovarian cancer by 90%. But 90% of what? Readers need the absolute risk reduction figures. The story also states that for women who test positive for BRCA1 or BRCA2 have up to an 87% change of developing breast cancer. However, according to the National Cancer Institute, this risk varies between 36% and 85%, a wide range not explicitly addressed in the story. The story should have provided this baseline risk for ovarian cancer as well. The story does mention some important potential harms of the testing, inlcuding the threat of lost insurance, the emotional impact, and the ethical questions it raises. The story does not adequately describe the nature of the available evidence for using the genetic test in combination with preventative surgery. Have there been controlled trials evaluating the benefit of this approach? By accurately describing the incidence and seriousness of breast cancer, the story avoids disease mongering. However, the story quotes the upper range of the risk of developing breast cancer in women who test positive for the gene mutations. The story states that women who test positive for BRCA1 or BRCA2 have up to an 87% change of developing breast cancer. However, according to the National Cancer Institute, this risk varies between 36% and 85%, a wide range not specifically addressed in the story. The story quotes several sources. Although the story mentions double mastectomy and oophorectomy as treatment options, it does not mention other important alternatives, such as tamoxifen or active surveillance (watchful waiting). And none of the patient interviews was with a woman who chose active surveillance. This throws the story out of balance. The story also does not address the important issue of timing of treatment. The increased risk is not for one year, but spread over a long period of time, so often women do not need to act immediately. The article clearly states that the genetic test for BRCA1 and BRCA2 have been on the market for 10 years. It does not elaborate on how widely available the tests are. The story clearly states that genetic testing is a new, but growing industry. Because the story quotes multiple independent sources, the reader can assume that the story does not rely on a press release as the sole source of information.
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9857
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Hormone use: Studies suggest two years max
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"Hormone therapy remains the most effective treatment for menopausal symptoms (hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness). However, it is clear that taking hormone therapy has certain risks – stroke, heart attack, blood clots – and if taken for five years – breast cancer. New studies and analyses indicate that the breast cancer risk associated with hormone therapy goes up after 3 years and now women are being advised to stop taking the medication after 2 years if they wish to avoid this risk. Whether 2 years or 3 years should be the right cut-off for stopping hormone therapy remains controversial. What is not controversial is that women can safely take hormone therapy for short periods of time if they are bothered by menopausal symptoms, or chose among several other non-hormone therapy options. This story does a good job of describing the design of the latest studies and pointing out that these ""observational"" retrospective survey studies are less reliable than more robust study designs. The story adequately quantifies the increased risk of breast cancer. While the story does provide quantification in relative terms only for the WHI study (it mentions a 60% increase), it does use absolute numbers to quantify the increase in the American Cancer Society analysis (the story describes how the risk of breast cancer would increase from 1 in 52 to 1 in 26). Everyone quoted was either involved in the study or works for the drug manufacturer. This is the main flaw in an otherwise high quality story."
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true
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"It would not be necessary for the story to discuss the costs of hormone therapy. The story adequately quantifies the increased risk in breast cancer. While the story does provide quantification in relative terms only for the WHI study (it mentions a 60% increase), it does use absolute numbers to quantify the increase in the American Cancer Society analysis (the story describes how the risk of breast cancer would increase from 1 in 52 to 1 in 26). The story mentions risk of stroke, heart disease and blood clots in addition to breast cancer. The story does a good job of describing the design of the current studies and pointing out that these ""observational"" retrospective survey studies are less reliable than more robust study designs. The story does not exaggerate the seriousness or prevalence of breast cancer. Everyone quoted was either involved in the study or works for the drug manufacturer. This is the main flaw in an otherwise high quality story. Because the point of the story is to discuss the risk of breast cancer associated with hormone therapy, it would not be necessary for the story to mention alternative treatment options. Clearly hormone therapy is available. Clearly hormone therapy is not a new idea. It’s clear there was enterprise reporting involved in this story."
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36581
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"Photograph shows used needles found in ""Democrat run"" San Francisco."
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Is This a Picture of Used Syringes Recovered in ‘Democrat Run’ San Francisco?
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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On December 20, 2018, the Facebook page Try Decaf shared a photograph, purportedly showing used needles “found on the streets of Democrat run San Francisco”:As of January 4, 2019, the image had been shared thousands of times. Angry users commented on the photograph:paid for by these cities! give them free drugs and needles! WTF is wrong with people! thanks democrats!This is the new world order that the UN and the LIBERALS promised!! How are you liking it? ?The libtards logic is to ban PLASTIC straws but give out PLASTIC syringes….you can’t make this shyte up 🤡🤪🤪As it turned out, you can (and apparently did) just make it up. A reverse image search proved that the photograph was captured in Everett, Washington, as part of a larger six-month-long effort to keep dirty syringes off the streets:One million used syringes were collected in six months this year by a Snohomish County needle exchange, according to new figures from the local health district.Stray needles have become a symptom and a symbol of the nationwide opioid crisis. Recovering addicts spent days cleaning nine tons of garbage and thousands of heroin needles from their former home, a patch of woods behind a Home Depot south of Everett.Robert Smiley stayed in the camp years ago, when he abused alcohol and smoked crack. He dumped a bucket of 7,624 needles onto a tarp [in October 2017], to show how many carpeted the ground days ago.The needles shown in the photograph were collected in a wooded area behind a Washington State Home Depot, and did not come from the streets of San Francisco; furthermore, they were collected over time and displayed as part of a press conference to offer a visual representation of the opioid crisis. That image was then stolen, mislabeled, and reappropriated in order to make a political point.
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9484
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Scientists Edge Closer To Elusive Lab Test For 'Chronic Fatigue Syndrome’
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This story about the potential use of cytokine testing to diagnose and then guide the treatment of chronic fatigue is cautiously worded. It reports that a new study “could point the way.” Yet even with such careful language, readers are likely to get an inflated sense of what the latest study actually reported, because the story seems to assume that high levels of cytokines are causing CFS/ME and that tracking these levels will help guide treatment. However, the study under discussion, which is observational in nature, is incapable of proving such a relationship. As such, it’s too early to suggest that these lab markers can be used to diagnose the condition or monitor treatment — at least not without the inclusion of strong qualifying language. Back in 2015, a flurry of stories announced “A Test For Chronic Fatigue Syndrome”, “Researchers are hopeful that an immune test could help improve diagnosis”, “A Test for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and a New Hint at Its Origins” and so on. Helping readers clearly understand that the latest study is still fairly preliminary is important.
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mixture
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chronic fatigue syndrome
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The story talks about work to develop a commercially available test, but there is no discussion of what such a test might cost. A story needs to at a minimum discuss what is known about the costs of diagnosing and potentially treating a cytokine-based condition. The most relevant text here is: “Out of 51 cytokines investigated via sophisticated fluorescence-based testing, only two of the cytokines differed, in their total concentrations, between the ME/CFS and control groups. But, levels of 17 of the cytokines varied dramatically between the patients with mild versus severe ME/CFS symptoms. Of those 17 cytokines, 13 were types that promote inflammation.” The issue is, though, what does this actually mean in terms of diagnosing a patient as having ME-CFS and treating them with a potentially risky drug such as rituximab that is mentioned in this piece. While the story could have done a better job on that point, we think the discussion here is sufficient for a satisfactory grade. We’ll address the broader implications and the story’s shortcomings below under the evidence quality criterion. There is no discussion of potential harms of testing. Notably, since the researchers noted broad overlaps between cases and healthy controls in the levels of almost all the cytokines measured, it seems likely that test results could be easily misinterpreted to either label healthy people as sick or sick people as health. In short, the story seems to assume that high levels of cytokines are causing CFS/ME and that tracking these levels will help guide treatment. However, the study under discussion, which is observational in nature, is incapable of proving such a relationship. As such, it’s too early to suggest that these lab markers can be used to diagnose the condition or monitor treatment — at least not without the inclusion of strong qualifying language. Moreover, it’s unclear based on current evidence how accurate any test based on this research would be and therefore how useful in the clinic. Highlighting these and other limitations would have helped the story make clear to readers just how much work remains. The story does not commit disease-mongering. It would have been helpful to explain that fatigue is a very common symptom and that most patients with fatigue–even prolonged fatigue–won’t be considered as having ME-CFS. The story reports that the researchers are “working on developing a panel that could be used commercially,” thus at least implying that they stand to financially or professionally benefit from positive research results. The story includes comments from one of the reviewers of the study, but should have noted that the reviewer and the lead author of the study also collaborate on other research. This connection was clearly noted in the footnotes of the journal article. The story would have been better if it had included comments from at least one expert not closely associated with the authors of this journal article, and more strongly pointed out the potential conflict of interest. The story reports some of the possible explanations for the failure of existing tests to accurately diagnose chronic fatigue. The story reports that both this type of test and proposed treatments are still experimental. The story establishes novelty in this way: “The link to gradation in severity, rather than simply seeking a positive versus negative result, represents a new approach to the search for biological markers for the illness.” And: “What the latest research shows, Komaroff tells Shots, is that “levels of many cytokines do correlate with symptoms: The higher the blood level, the worse the symptoms. That supports the theory that the cytokines are a cause of the symptoms.” But, the story doesn’t note previous publications by the same researchers and others that also point to some of the same cytokines as potential targets for tests and treatments. A flurry of stories two years ago (examples here, here and here) appear to include broad statements that are remarkably similar to those reported in this latest story. Readers of this story do not get a clear picture of how the results of this study compare to those of earlier studies. The story includes quotes that appear to be directly from interviews with an author and a reviewer of the study.
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13083
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Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!
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"Trump tweeted, ""Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!"" The company is actually building two planes, not one. As for the price tag, Trump has more of a point. The project’s current cost is $3.73 billion, which is within shouting distance of Trump’s ""more than $4 billion."" That’s a projection over 12 years. Also, that figure is an amount that could rise as time goes on. However, Trump glosses over some important context. National-security requirements, not Boeing, have been the primary driver of high costs. Experts say the costs are broadly in line considering the high-tech and security requirements of a presidential plane. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details."
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mixture
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National, Federal Budget, Military, Donald Trump,
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"President-elect Donald Trump tweeted criticism about Boeing, the lead contractor on the next generation of Air Force Ones, early in the morning on Dec. 6, 2016. Trump tweeted, ""Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!"" Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order! He later elaborated to reporters staking out Trump Tower, ""Well the plane is totally out of control. It's going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program. I think it's ridiculous, I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money."" The political and defense worlds and the stock market immediately took note, since Boeing is a major American corporation that gets a lot of Pentagon money and employs significant numbers of manufacturing workers in high-wage jobs. When we looked into Trump’s tweet, we found that Trump’s description of the contract lacks some context. (His press office did not respond to an inquiry.) Some background on the Air Force One replacement project As the trade publication Defense One has noted, the two current Air Force Ones -- a modified version of a Boeing 747-200 aircraft known as VC-25 -- were purchased under President Ronald Reagan and were delivered in 1990 under President George H.W. Bush. With Boeing closing down its 747-200 production line 24 years ago, spare parts for the two current planes have become hard to find. And the plane is approaching the end of its expected 30-year life. So during his second term, President Barack Obama ordered a replacement fleet. (By tradition, a president does not order planes that he will expect to use personally.) Since the old model of the basic aircraft isn’t being made any longer, a new one had to be created. The new model will be based on the Boeing 747-8, with four engines and two floors. Trump’s tweet referenced one plane, but the Air Force One program will actually produce two planes, not one. That allows one to undergo maintenance while the other one is available. Of course, Air Force One is more than just a plane. It’s also a mobile command center, with state-of-the-art communications and safety features. The plane must be able to refuel while flying, and the president and his staff need to have communications capabilities equivalent to what is in the Oval Office -- secure video conferences, classified computer access, and nuclear-strike controls. It also needs robust defensive systems such as missile evasion. The new planes will be ""both the fastest and longest commercial airliner in the world,"" according to military.com. They will be able to fly 7,730 nautical miles -- nearly 1,000 more than the current planes -- and will produce 16 tons less of carbon dioxide on a typical flight, according to the company. The extra features, obviously, do not come cheap. In fact, they comprise the bulk of the planes’ cost. Each basic plane costs about $380 million, said Richard Aboulafia, vice president for analysis at the Teal Group Corporation, an aerospace and defense market analysis firm. Ultimately, Aboulafia said, the basic aircraft itself will account for just one-fifth of the entire project cost. How much will the project cost? The Air Force has published a budgetary document that says research, development, testing and evaluation of the new Air Force Ones -- officially known as the Presidential Aircraft Recapitalization -- will cost $2.87 billion between fiscal years 2015 and 2021. However, the project is expected to extend beyond 2021, and experts told PolitiFact it would likely require another $1 billion in subsequent years to finish the job. The Teal Group has estimated that the project will require an additional $858 million between fiscal years 2022 and 2026. That adds up to a grand total of $3.73 billion over 12 years. That’s not ""more than $4 billion,"" as Trump said, but it’s reasonably close -- and it’s no secret that defense contracts have a history of escalating in cost over time. Already, in response to inquiries from the media after Trump’s tweet, an Air Force spokesman told reporters to expect the interim $2.7 billion figure ""to change as the program matures."" So as a raw number, Trump’s $4 billion figure is in the ballpark. We should add that none of this price-tag includes operations and maintenance, such as aviation fuel, maintenance and pilot salaries. ""Operations and maintenance are an inherent part of any such program,"" said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org. ""Canada was in line to buy the F-35, but then realized that they would actually had to operate the things, and they had sticker shock. Malaysia bought a bunch of MiG-29s without a service contract, to save money, and they soon turned into hangar queens."" Such future costs would not involve Boeing, which is tasked with designing and building the planes, not operating them. What the tweet leaves out Clearly, $4 billion is a lot of money. But it’s important to keep some context in mind. First, it’s not clear that Boeing is behind any spiraling of costs; the demands of the project are dictated by the federal government. In addition, while Boeing is serving as the lead contractor on the project, much of the project’s costs are going for electronics and other items that Boeing itself does not produce. If costs on such items are going to go down, Boeing can’t do that directly. To cut such costs, ""it is up to Boeing to jawbone their subcontractors,"" Pike said. Boeing offered some spin of its own in the statement it released after Trump’s tweet. In the statement, Boeing said: ""We are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serves the unique requirements of the president of the United States. We look forward to working with the US Air Force on subsequent phases of the program allowing us to deliver the best planes for the president at the best value for the American taxpayer."" By citing only the $170 million allocated to date, the company is ignoring the overwhelming majority of dollars for the project that the company expects to be paid in future years. Second, it’s important to note that the nearly $4 billion figure for the project as a whole is scheduled to be paid out over 12 years, not all at once. And in the context of the entire defense budget, that makes it a pretty small slice. The most recent presidential budget proposal shows defense spending between 2015 and 2026 equaling $8.132 trillion. So the Air Force One project amounts to four-one-hundredths of 1 percent of all defense spending over that 12-year time frame. It’s also a modest project within Boeing’s ledger of business. In 2015, Boeing had $96 billion in revenues. If one assumes the same revenues for all 12 years of the Air Force One project, then the project will account for three-tenths of 1 percent of the company’s overall revenues. Even looking just at the company’s defense, space and security revenues, the Air Force One project would represent about 1 percent. Finally, Trump’s contention that spending is ""out of control"" is more open to debate. While the program is expensive, it’s so new that it hasn’t busted through budgetary targets yet. ""There have been no overruns,"" Aboulafia said. ""This has always been the plan."" Our ruling Trump tweeted, ""Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!"" The company is actually building two planes, not one. As for the price tag, Trump has more of a point. The project’s current cost is $3.73 billion, which is within shouting distance of Trump’s ""more than $4 billion."" That’s a projection over 12 years. Also, that figure is an amount that could rise as time goes on. However, Trump glosses over some important context. National-security requirements, not Boeing, have been the primary driver of high costs. Experts say the costs are broadly in line considering the high-tech and security requirements of a presidential plane. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so"
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35983
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Current world food production makes enough to feed 10 billion people; there are only 7.5 billion people on Earth.
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Current World Food Production is Enough to Feed 10 Billion People, Starvation isn’t Profitable to Solve?
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Politics
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Amid election primary policy debates in December 2019, a post about current world food production being sufficient to feed more than three times the world’s population circulated on Facebook in screenshot form:Labeled “when you accidentally have a good idea,” the screenshot showed two tweets — one from Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), and a response from Twitter user @MrMaxwellmusic.On November 29 2018, Massie joked about #FoodStampsForAll, proposing that if “healthcare is a right, is food as well?”How long until someone runs on the platform of #FoodStampsForAll ?If healthcare is a right, is food as well?— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) November 29, 2018The second tweet was published the same day. Notably, it cut off after “Starvation exists because it isn’t profitable to solve,” and contained additional commentary about commodification of food distribution:Yes.Current world food production makes enough to feed 10 billion people, about two and a half billion more than currently live. Starvation exists because it isn't profitable to solve.By decommodifying food we remove the profit motive and allow for efficient distribution. https://t.co/ybj2UbxGml— Mr. Maxwell Ⓐ (@MrMaxwellmusic) November 29, 2018In full, the response tweet read:Yes.Current world food production makes enough to feed 10 billion people, about two and a half billion more than currently live. Starvation exists because it isn’t profitable to solve.By decommodifying food we remove the profit motive and allow for efficient distribution.Perhaps the simplest aspect of the claim had to do with total world population, described as two-and-a-half billion fewer than ten billion, or 7.5 billion. That figure was accurate in 2018 (where figures were based on 2017 estimates), and again in 2019 (based on 2018 estimates.) According to figures from the World Bank, the estimated population as of 2017 was 7.51 billion and 7.59 billion for 2018, an increase of 1.1 percent year over year.A number of articles examined food supply projections for 2050; by then, the United Nations projected, the world population would increase by nearly 29 percent, to 9.8 billion. A March 2018 article about food production in TIME about food supply noted that sufficient quantities of food were produced to feed everyone in the world, but 11 percent of the population endured hunger in 2016:The world currently produces more than enough food to feed everyone, yet 815 million people (roughly 11% of the global population) went hungry in 2016, according to the U.N.A July 2012 editorial in the Journal of Sustainable Agriculture referenced some of the points made in the second tweet — that then-current food production was sufficient to feed one and a half times the number of people on Earth, and could feed the projected 2050 population of 9.8 billion people:Hunger is caused by poverty and inequality, not scarcity. For the past two decades, the rate of global food production has increased faster than the rate of global population growth. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2009a, 2009b) the world produces more than 1 1/2times enough food to feed everyone on the planet. That’s already enough to feed 10 billion people, the world’s 2050 projected population peak. But the people making less than $2 a day—most of whom are resource-poor farmers cultivating un-viably small plots of land—cannot afford to buy this food.Immediately thereafter, the editorial pointed out some nuanced background about those estimates — such as the use of crops for fuel and agriculture rather than for food:In reality, the bulk of industrially produced grain crops (most yield reduction in the study was found in grains) goes to biofuels and confined animal feedlots rather than food for the one billion hungry. The call to double food production by 2050 only applies if we continue to prioritize the growing population of livestock and automobiles over hungry people.Finding the underlying citation was less straightforward, buried as it was in annual United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reports on world hunger. Those reports do not seem to directly say whether world food production in and of itself is sufficient to feed current or future populations — instead, hunger was addressed within the context of far more complex issues like agriculture, sustainable farming, supply chain, and distribution.In fact, the same FAO cited in the editorial’s 2009 report “How to Feed the World in 2050” made similar projections about population in that year, but specifically stated that production would need to amp up significantly (by 70 percent):By 2050 the world’s population will reach 9.1 billion, 34 percent higher than today. Nearly all of this population increase will occur in developing countries. Urbanization will continue at an accelerated pace, and about 70 percent of the world’s population will be urban (compared to 49 percent today). Income levels will be many multiples of what they are now. In order to feed this larger, more urban and richer population, food production (net of food used for biofuels) must increase by 70 percent. Annual cereal production will need to rise to about 3 billion tonnes from 2.1 billion today and annual meat production will need to rise by over 200 million tonnes to reach 470 million tonnes.Notably, the FAO holds that hunger and sufficient food supply can and do co-exist in regions where starvation is pervasive, because “of lacking income opportunities for the poor and the absence of effective social safety nets.” In other words, the problem is not necessarily profitable to solve.The claim that current food production in any given year is one and a half times the amount needed to feed the world is typically attributed to the FAO, repeated in the widely-cited 2012 editorial and dated to 2009. In that year, the FAO issued a report estimating that global economic crises were to blame for an increase in starvation the world over:“A dangerous mix of the global economic slowdown combined with stubbornly high food prices in many countries has pushed some 100 million more people than last year into chronic hunger and poverty,” said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, with the lower incomes and rising unemployment reducing access to food for the poor. […]In the wake of the food and fuel crises of 2006-2008, food prices still remain high in developing countries, hurting poor consumers who spend up to two-thirds of their incomes on staple foods.In 2012, the Guardian reported that the figures widely cited after the FAO’s 2009 report might not have borne out when final data came in. Although that item focused on the estimates of a billion people going hungry globally (the same number cited in the Journal of Sustainable Agriculture editorial), the estimates seemed in part to tie in to global production of food:Though they flourished in headlines, the projections produced in 2009, and again in 2010, were never without their critics. Crucially, because the USDA model focused on low-income countries, any figures for countries like India and China – where most of the world’s poorest people live – were “guesstimates” at best. […]A long list of issues with global hunger numbers, past and present, was on full display last week at an under-reported UN statistics symposium. Because of growing concerns about its estimates, the FAO did not release new figures in 2011. Instead, it quietly backed away from its 2009 and 2010 projections. Now, it’s undergoing a root-and-branch review of how it constructs estimates on global hunger, looking for ways to improve the underlying data and make the FAO hunger indicator more sensitive to crises, shocks, changes in income and food prices.As the number popped up again and again through 2017 and 2018, it was always tied to the 2012 editorial and the 2009 FAO report:Some believe the solution lies in simply producing more food. A study recently published in the journal Bioscience suggests that overall food production will need to increase by anywhere from 25-70% between now and 2050.But, what if we told you that there’s already enough food grown on farms to feed 10 billion people? Yes, enough food for more than 2.5 billion humans than currently exist.A 2002 FAO report contained the same claim (and made the same point) about food supplies worldwide being sufficient to feed everyone on the planet:Although enough food is being produced to feed the world’s population, there are still some 840 million undernourished people in the world, 799 million of whom live in developing countries (FAO, 2002a). This situation led the World Food Summit in 1996 to set a goal of halving the number of hungry people by 2015 … To reach the goal by 2015, the annual decrease in the number of hungry people would have rise tenfold to 24 million. As Jacques Diouf, FAO Director General, says in the foreword to the 2002 State of Food Insecurity in the World Report, the cost of inaction is prohibitive; the cost of progress is both calculable and affordable.As was often the case, a 2016 World Economic Forum (WEF) item contained the claim in its headline (“The world produces enough food to feed everyone. So why do people go hungry?”), but then the text of its reporting described a far more complicated issue than simply the existence of food:Last September [2015], world leaders made a commitment to end hunger by 2030, as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It sounds like a massive undertaking. In fact, the world already produces enough food to feed everyone. So why does the problem persist?Poverty and hunger are intimately connected, which is why the SDGs target elimination of both. For someone living at the World Bank’s poverty line of $1.90 per day, food would account for some 50-70% of income. The Bank estimates that almost four-fifths of the world’s poor live in rural areas, though those areas account for less than half of the world’s population. The obvious conclusion is that raising rural incomes sustainably is required to eradicate hunger … That will not be easy. Most developing countries nowadays are burdened by high rates of unemployment and underemployment. And with current economic prospects bleak, especially given low commodity prices, and insistence on fiscal austerity continuing in most places, downward pressure on rural incomes is likely to worsen.In addition to economic fluctuations and myriad factors in the distribution of global food supplies, the matter of food waste was also a concern. A 2010 review published in Science cited estimates between 30 and 40 percent of all food supplies globally are “lost to waste” rather than eaten by the hungry — itself again a multi-layered issue:Roughly 30 to 40% of food in both the developed and developing worlds is lost to waste, though the causes behind this are very different). In the developing world, losses are mainly attributable to the absence of food-chain infrastructure and the lack of knowledge or investment in storage technologies on the farm, although data are scarce. For example, in India, it is estimated that 35 to 40% of fresh produce is lost because neither wholesale nor retail outlets have cold storage. Even with rice grain, which can be stored more readily, as much as one-third of the harvest in Southeast Asia can be lost after harvest to pests and spoilage. But the picture is more complex than a simple lack of storage facilities: Although storage after harvest when there is a glut of food would seem to make economic sense, the farmer often has to sell immediately to raise cash.Back to the question of whether we currently produce (or have recently produced) not only enough food to feed not just the current 7.5 billion population in 2018-2019, but also the projected 9.8 billion population in 2050, research published in 2018 in Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene maintained that could be true — but with major caveats:The current production of crops is sufficient to provide enough food for the projected global population of 9.7 billion in 2050, although very significant changes to the socio-economic conditions of many (ensuring access to the global food supply) and radical changes to the dietary choices of most (replacing most meat and dairy with plant-based alternatives, and greater acceptance of human-edible crops currently fed to animals, especially maize, as directly-consumed human food) would be required.A 2018 exchange between Massie and a Twitter user about “food stamps for all” being a logical progression from healthcare as a right includes a widely-repeated claim that the world currently produces one-and-a-half times the food needed to feed everyone living on it, but that hunger was not a profitable problem to solve. A cursory examination of the data around the amount of food produced by the world showed that, at a base level, global agriculture is indeed sufficiently productive to feed significantly more people.However, detailed research noted that a factor in dropping hunger levels would involve major changes to distribution practices and inequality worldwide, and also that some of the crops being counted in as potential foodstuffs were being used to feed livestock and for fuel. Although an exceedingly broad interpretation of the claim is true and commodification of necessities like food is clearly a huge factor in it.
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33327
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The NRA banned the carrying of guns at their own national convention.
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A popular claim about the NRA confused that organization's rules with those of the venues at which they held events.
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false
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Politics Guns, nra
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Ahead of the National Rifle Association’s annual national convention, scheduled to take place in Nashville from 10 to 12 April 2015, an online rumor began to spread holding that the organization had paradoxically banned attendees from carrying guns at that gathering: If you would believe the logic the NRA has used to justify guns everywhere from inside capitol buildings to bars to schools, more guns equal more safety. With that premise, one would think an NRA convention — a place where thousands of gun-owners congregate to buy, sell, and talk weaponry — would be the safest place in the world. The NRA disagrees. In fact, they’d rather you kept your guns at home, please. Oddly, the NRA has decided that it wouldn’t feel safe allowing 70,000 people packing heat to mill about. According to local paper The Tennessean, the organization put together a plan that they say will keep people safe — namely, “no guns.” Editorials and online memes started popped up decrying the NRA’s purported dissonant and hypocritical standards of gun regulation, as reflected in the following passage from the (original version) of a 10 April 2015 New York Times editorial: Seventy-thousand people are expected to attend the National Rifle Association’s convention opening in Tennessee, and not one of them will be allowed to come armed with guns that can actually shoot. After all the N.R.A. propaganda about how “good guys with guns” are needed to be on guard across American life, from elementary schools to workplaces, the weekend’s gathering of disarmed conventioneers seems the ultimate in hypocrisy. There will be plenty of weapons in evidence at the hundreds of display booths, but for convention security the firing pins must be removed. So far, there has been none of the familiar complaint about infringing supposedly sacrosanct Second Amendment rights — the gun lobby’s main argument in opposing tighter federal background checks on gun buyers after the 2012 gun massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut. Anyone interested in buying the guns on display, many of them adapted from large-magazine battlefield weapons, will have to apply later at a federally licensed gun dealer where, sensibly enough, background checks are required. The referenced report in the The Tennessean that apparently kicked off the rumor misleadingly suggested that it was part of the NRA’s own security plan to require that all guns shown on the convention floor be rendered nonoperational (through the removal of firing pins), and that any guns bought at the convention would have to be picked up elsewhere by their purchasers: A multilevel security plan went into works not long after Nashville was chosen as the convention destination. All guns on the convention floor will be nonoperational, with the firing pins removed, and any guns purchased during the NRA convention will have to be picked up at a Federal Firearms License dealer, near where the purchaser lives, and will require a legal identification. However, the NRA did not in any way ban the carrying of guns at their convention; rather, the rumor to that effect stemmed from a misunderstanding of varying convention practices, local regulations, and existing laws. The NRA convention is a very large event, with expected attendance in the range of 70,000 to 80,000 persons, and will sprawl multiple venues. At the primary venue, Music City Center, gun owners with proper carry permits can indeed bring their guns with them during the association’s convention. However, one of the auxiliary venues, the Bridgestone Arena (which will be hosting an NRA-sponsored concert by country music artist Alan Jackson and comedian Jeff Foxworthy), is a private venue that prohibits the possession of firearms, and attendees are bound to follow its regulations when they are in that particular arena. When attendees are at other convention locales, such as the main exhibit hall, they will be free to carry firearms in a manner consistent with state law. Moreover, the NRA did not mandate that any firearms displayed on the convention floor have their firing pins removed, nor that guns purchased at the convention be picked up elsewhere. It is common safety practice for guns put on display by their manufacturers at such shows to be non-operational, and state and federal laws govern the sale and buyer pick-up of firearms. The NRA did not originate or insist on these practices for their convention, as Bob Owens, the editor of the gun rights web site BearingArms.com, noted: This year in Tennessee, that means that attendees can indeed carry firearms in the Music City Center with the proper license in accordance with Tennessee law. Bridgestone Arena prohibits the possession of firearms, and always has. Attendees to the concerts held there are not allowed to carry weapons according to these pre-existing laws. Is it really news that the NRA asks members to follow laws? The only guns to have their firing pins removed are the display guns put up by the vendors, not the self-defense weapons of attendees. It is a common safety practice at every sporting goods show or convention for firing pins to be absent from weapon displays being handled by thousands of people. Don’t quote me on this, but I seem to recall that this is an insurance requirement. As for gun sales at the convention, they are simply following — once again — federal and state laws on the purchase and possession of firearms. Vendors typically only bring representative display firearms to large outdoor shows like the NRA annual meetings, and attendees can order firearms that they like at the event. The vendors will take these orders, and then send the ordered firearms to the customer’s specified local gun dealer, at which point they will have a NICS background check and any additional local checks before the firearm is transferred to them. The NRA also published a message on to their official Twitter account confirming all of this: “Lawfully carried firearms will be permitted in the Music City Center with the proper license in accordance with Tennessee law,” the tweet said. The NRA also published a statement on its page for the Annual Meetings & Exhibits, www.nraam.org, that weapons are not allowed in Bridgestone Arena on Saturday when an NRA-sponsored concert is scheduled to be held there. “Bridgestone Arena prohibits the possession of firearms,” the statement said. “When carrying your firearm, remember to follow all federal, state and local laws.”
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8468
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Thailand reports 30 new coronavirus cases, two new deaths.
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Thailand reported 30 new coronavirus cases and 2 deaths on Wednesday.
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true
|
Health News
|
Of the new cases, 19 patients were linked to previous cases, and three had no links to old cases, said Taweesin Wisanuyothin, a spokesman for the government’s Center for COVID-19 Situation Administration. One of those infected was in state quarantine, and the cases of seven people who tested positive were being investigated. Since the outbreak escalated in January, Thailand has reported a total of 2,643 cases and 43 fatalities, while 1,497 patients have recovered and gone home.
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16254
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"Ebola is ""incredibly contagious,"" ""very transmissible"" and ""easy to catch."
|
"Paul called Ebola ""incredibly contagious,"" ""very transmissible"" and ""easy to catch."" A person who comes into contact with bodily fluids from an Ebola patient for a short period can contract the virus. In that limited sense, Ebola is ""easy to catch."" Health care workers and individuals handling patients at or near death are also at greater risk, because that appears to be when the disease is at its most infectious, experts said. However, the overwhelming evidence shows that Ebola is less contagious and transmissible than many other diseases. By the numbers, Ebola patients go on to infect relatively few people. This is because a patient only spreads the disease while showing symptoms; the virus cannot be spread through the air; and people don’t often come into contact with the bodily fluids of other individuals. Contracting the disease through other methods, like touching surfaces or standing close to infected patients, while possible, are rare and present a low risk. Ebola is a serious and deadly disease that is absolutely capable of spreading if necessary precautions aren’t taken. But in using words like ""incredibly,"" ""very"" and ""easy,"" Paul vastly inflates the virus’ ability to move from person to person."
|
false
|
National, Ebola, Public Health, Rand Paul,
|
"Count Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., among Republicans who don’t think the White House has taken the Ebola threat seriously enough. While campaigning for Republicans in New Hampshire on Oct. 16, Paul told Concord News Radio that President Barack Obama ""has so tried to downplay the transmissibility of"" the Ebola virus that it’s putting people at risk. ""This is an incredibly contagious disease,"" Paul said. ""People in full gloves and gowns are getting it. So really they need to be honest — this is a very transmissible disease."" Paul added: ""They’re still learning about this. We’re all still learning about this. But this is not something that is hard to catch, this is something that appears to be very easy to catch."" Is the Ebola virus ""incredibly contagious,"" ""very transmissible"" and ""easy to catch""? We decided to check it out. Paul’s office said his comments implied that he was talking about how easy it is to get the virus from contact with an infected individual. In a lengthy response to PolitiFact, spokesman Brian Darling said that ""exposure to even a small amount of virus can cause infection."" The 2014 outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa is the largest in history, according to the World Health Organization. It’s also the first time the virus has made its way to the United States; health officials confirmed the fourth U.S. case Thursday in a doctor returning to New York from treating Ebola patients in West Africa. So far, though, only two individuals — both Texas health care workers that treated an African man who later died from the disease — have contracted the virus on U.S. soil. This despite the fact that infected individuals have come into contact with dozens, if not hundreds, of people while they purportedly had the disease, including close family members. That seems to dispel, at least anecdotally, the idea that the disease is ""incredibly contagious"" and ""easy to catch,"" even from an infected person. But let’s get into the nitty gritty. How does Ebola spread? Ebola is not an airborne infection. For example, it is rare — if it’s even possible at all — that the disease would spread through coughing or sneezing (which are not even symptoms of Ebola, as our colleagues at PunditFact recently noted). According to the World Health Organization, Ebola spreads through ""human-to-human transmission via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people."" This means that the most common way Ebola is spread is direct contact with vomit, blood or fecal matter of an infected patient. Individuals who have such contact are at high risk. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says ""being within approximately 3 feet of an (Ebola) patient or within the patient’s room or care area for a prolonged period of time,"" is also potential cause for concern. But the organization noted the risk is low. There is also potential risk of transmission through contaminated surfaces and objects, however the World Health Organization notes the danger is, again, low, and most studies from previous Ebola outbreaks show that ""all cases were infected by direct close contact with symptomatic patients."" Finally, experts note that individuals are not infectious — meaning they cannot spread the virus — until they are showing symptoms, which takes between 2 and 21 days. Symptoms start with a fever, followed by vomiting and diarrhea. So to be at a high risk of contracting Ebola, you need to come into contact with the blood, feces or vomit of someone who is showing symptoms. The number of people who find themselves in this situation are relatively small. There is potential for it to spread other ways — such as being in close range with someone who has the disease or touching an object contaminated by an infected person — but the risk is low, because ""as an enveloped virus, it has a low tendency to stay viable outside the body,"" said Thomas Fekete, a professor of infectious diseases at the Temple University School of Medicine. ""And because it is not aerosolized it isn't especially easy to catch through the respiratory tract."" How contagious is it? The CDC defines contagious as ""a very communicable disease capable of spreading rapidly from one person to another by contact or close proximity."" In Africa, the disease has claimed so many victims because of poor health systems that lack supplies and safeguards and because of burial practices where people directly handle bodies without necessary protections. This is what caused such a large outbreak there. Burials are especially problematic because the near dead or recently dead have very high levels of the virus and are ""very infectious as a result,"" said Christopher Whalen, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the University of Georgia College of Public Health. But even in the worst outbreak Africa has experienced, health care officials have noted that the disease does not spread from one host to many others. The basic reproduction number, or R0, of a disease is calculated as the average number of secondary cases resulting from an infected individual entering an uninfected population. The higher the R0 is above 1, the greater the chances it has of spreading. The R0 of the Ebola virus in Africa during the recent outbreak has ranged from 1.20 to 2.02, depending on the country. That’s in line with historical data on the disease. How does that compare to other viruses? Well, HIV, which is only transmitted by sexual intercourse and blood transfers, has a R0 of 4. The measles has a R0 of 18. Meaning, while the disease has the potential to spread, ""minimum requirements for the containment of Ebola are far less severe than for the containment of more contagious diseases, such as measles,"" according to the World Health Organization Ebola Response Team. Rachael Jones, a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health, told PolitiFact: ""The epidemiological evidence suggests that Ebola is less infectious than many other viruses that commonly affect people, such as influenza."" What if you come in contact with someone who has Ebola? Ebola is ""easy to catch"" in the sense that you don't need prolonged contact with infected fluids to pick it up, Fekete said. However, not many people come in contact with these infected fluids. And, the evidence shows some people who do spend time around an infected patient don’t get the virus, either. ""It seems as though even a brief exposure to the virus can lead to a transmission event, as some patients describe one contact event with an ill patient,"" Whalen said. ""But, on the other side, think of all of the family members of Ebola patients who were exposed in the household of a case, but didn’t develop the disease. We tend not to hear about them, yet they constitute an important part of our understanding the attack rate."" But Paul’s spokesman, Darling, argued, ""The reason why doctors and nurses who come into contact with an infected individual wear 100 percent protection then have to go through a thorough disinfection process, is because it is ‘easy to catch’ from somebody who is showing symptoms."" That’s not necessarily the case, according to health experts we spoke with. For one, health care workers are in close contact with infected individuals at their most infectious state and are handling bodily fluids known to carry higher concentrations of the virus. That puts them at greater risk than someone sitting next to a person who is infected, even if that person is showing symptoms. Further, unlike much more contagious diseases, Ebola causes death in 50 percent of patients. That sparks extra precaution. ""These recommendations arise from the seriousness of the infection, not from the infectivity of the pathogen,"" Jones said. Given the high mortality rate from the disease, if it was ""incredibly contagious"" and ""easy to catch,"" the United States would likely have more deaths already. ""The joke that more Americans have been married to Kim Kardashian than have died of Ebola would not be true if it were so easy to catch,"" Fekete said. Our ruling Paul called Ebola ""incredibly contagious,"" ""very transmissible"" and ""easy to catch."" A person who comes into contact with bodily fluids from an Ebola patient for a short period can contract the virus. In that limited sense, Ebola is ""easy to catch."" Health care workers and individuals handling patients at or near death are also at greater risk, because that appears to be when the disease is at its most infectious, experts said. However, the overwhelming evidence shows that Ebola is less contagious and transmissible than many other diseases. By the numbers, Ebola patients go on to infect relatively few people. This is because a patient only spreads the disease while showing symptoms; the virus cannot be spread through the air; and people don’t often come into contact with the bodily fluids of other individuals. Contracting the disease through other methods, like touching surfaces or standing close to infected patients, while possible, are rare and present a low risk. Ebola is a serious and deadly disease that is absolutely capable of spreading if necessary precautions aren’t taken. But in using words like ""incredibly,"" ""very"" and ""easy,"" Paul vastly inflates the virus’ ability to move from person to person."
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26774
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“Florida hospital reports a coronavirus ‘infestation’ with multiple confirmed patients.”
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presumptively confirmed two cases of the 2019 coronavirus in Florida. No Florida hospital has reported multiple confirmed patients.
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false
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Public Health, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, YourContent,
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"A popular article is inflating the number of 2019 coronavirus patients in Florida. The story was published March 1 by a website called YourContent. Using an anonymous source, it claims there are multiple patients with the coronavirus at Doctors Hospital in Sarasota, Fla. ""A total at least (sic) three but possibly as many as 8 individuals have been exposed,"" the article reads. ""However, that figure does not include individuals that might’ve contracted the virus prior to the patient’s initial arrival, the source says."" The article was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) It has been shared several hundred times. (Screenshot from YourContent) Neither the state, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor the hospital in question have confirmed the report. The story comes from a website run by Nikolaos Hatziefstathiou, a Pennsylvania man who has been accused of fabricating documents, impersonating journalists and writing news stories. In August, he was charged with tampering with public records, forgery and identity theft. Public domain records show that YourContent runs digital ads. In a March 1 press release, the Florida Department of Health announced that there were two presumptively confirmed cases of the virus in Florida. One patient is a resident of Manatee County, which is directly north of Sarasota, and is being treated at Doctors Hospital. ""This person did seek health care, is isolated and will continue to remain isolated until cleared by public health officials,"" the Health Department said. Presumptive confirmation means that a patient has tested positive for a disease by a public health laboratory but is pending confirmation testing from the CDC. ""This patient was admitted to our facility in late February, and remains in our care,"" the letter reads. ""Upon recognizing that the patient was a potential COVID-19 case, Doctors Hospital of Sarasota immediately and appropriately activated all protocols for handling potential COVID-19 cases, including immediate isolation."" YourContent cites the letter in its story. But the letter does not say anything about additional cases of the coronavirus or how many people may have been exposed to the infected patient. We reached out to Doctors Hospital and YourContent for comment, but we haven’t heard back. Since its outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December, the 2019 coronavirus has infected more than 87,000 people in 58 countries. In the United States, there have been 43 confirmed cases and six deaths, as of March 2, not including those repatriated to the country. The Florida hospital mentioned in the article did not ""report a coronavirus ‘infestation’ with multiple confirmed patients."""
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2055
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Extending daylight could boost health, help planet.
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Putting the clocks back in winter is bad for health, wastes energy and increases pollution, scientists say, and putting an end to the practice in northern areas could bring major health and environmental benefits.
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true
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Environment
|
The sun shines through the pillars of a memorial in Hyde Park, in London October 11, 2010. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor Countries across Europe, the United States, Canada and parts of the Middle East mark the start of winter by ending Daylight Saving Time (DST) and putting their clocks back by an hour — often in late October or early November — a move that means it is lighter by the time most people get up to start their day. But this also robs afternoons of an hour of daylight, and some experts argue that in more northern regions, the energy needed to brighten this darkness, and the limits it puts on outdoor activities are harming our health and the environment. Leaving clocks alone as winter approaches would allow an extra hour of daylight in the afternoon and could boost levels of vitamin D as well as encourage people to exercise more. In some countries, such as Britain and Russia, politicians are being asked to consider parliamentary bills suggesting it’s time for a change. “It must be rare to find a means of vastly improving the health and well-being of nearly everyone in the population — and at no cost,” said Mayer Hillman of the Policy Studies Institute in Britain, where a bill on DST is coming up for consideration in parliament soon. “And here we have it.” Almost half of the world’s population has lower than optimal levels of vitamin D, often called the sunshine vitamin. Vitamin D deficiency is a well-known risk factor for rickets and evidence suggests it may increase susceptibility to autoimmune diseases. Hillman conducted a study focused on Scotland, the northern-most part of Britain, which found that switching to Central European Time — to Greenwich Mean Time plus one hour (GMT+1) in the winter and GMT+2 in the summer — would give most adults 300 extra hours of daylight a year. A “lighter later” campaign in Britain has gained support from many of the country’s major sporting bodies. Writing in the British Medical Journal on Friday, Hillman said research shows people feel happier, more energetic and have lower sickness rates in the longer, brighter days of summer, whereas moods and health decline during duller days of winter. Dr. Robert Graham of Lenox Hill Hospital in New York said leaving clocks alone in winter should be considered to encourage people to get out more and get more exercise. High rates of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity are caused in part by lack of exercise — adults are advised to do 30 minutes moderate or vigorous activity a day, and children at least an hour. “As a society we are always looking for accessible, low cost, little-to-no harm interventions,” he said by telephone. “By not putting the clocks back and increasing the number of accessible daylight hours, we may have found the perfect one.” A study published earlier this year found that advancing clocks by an hour in the winter would lead to energy savings of at least 0.3 percent of daily demand in Britain. Elizabeth Garnsey, one of the study’s authors and an expert in innovative studies at Cambridge University, said this was equivalent to saving 450,000 metric tons of CO2 during winter alone.
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38564
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Former Miss Arkansas Sally Miller, who claims that she had an affair with Bill Clinton in 1983, has said that Hillary Clinton had a coke habit, had multiple abortions and is secretly a lesbian.
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Sally Miller Dishes on Hillary Clinton’s Coke Habit.
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unproven
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9/11 Attack on America
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Sally Miller’s claims that Hillary Clinton had a coke habit, multiple abortions and relationships with women in the early 80s are unproven. Sally Miller first emerged on the public scene in 1992 during Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. Miller claimed that she had had an affair with Bill Clinton in 1983, but she didn’t provide any proof and her claims were largely dismissed due to concerns about her credibility — some of which were stoked by Clinton’s campaign, according to the book, “The Hunting of a President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton,” by reporters Joe Conason and Gene Lyons. Conason and Lyons wrote of Sally Miller, her allegations of an affair with Bill Clinton and the fallout in this section: It was much the same with Sally Miller Perdue, a fifty-three-year-old former Miss Arkansas. Regarded as kooky and unreliable by most reporters in her hometown of Pine Bluff, Perdue had once kicked off a quixotic campaign for mayor with a press conference strenuously denying that she was a lesbian– a charge nobody present had ever heard. Not long before the Democratic convention, the Clinton campaign learned, Lenora Fulani of the fringe New Alliance Party planned to launch her own presidential candidacy in a joint appearance with Perdue, who would detail what she claimed had been her own passionate love affair with Bill Clinton. The New Alliance Party was a strange, quasi-Marxist group based on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, whose members were mostly psychotherapy patients of the party’s leaders. (Eventually it dissolved into another group that was simultaneously allied to Louis Farrakhan and H. Ross Perot.) Behind the scenes, [notorious anti-Clinton smear merchants Larry] Nichols and [Larry] Case had helped broker the deal between Perdue and the eccentric New York activists. In their phone conversations, the two Arkansans had a derisive nickname for the New Alliance Party: “the Snake Doctors.” Clinton denied ever having met Sally Perdue. Assisted by Wright, the [Carl] Palladino [private investigation] firm lined up several relatives and former associates who agreed to talk to reporters about the woman’s eccentricities. The tactic succeeded. Although Perdue made an appearance on the nationally syndicated Sally Jessy Raphael TV program, no major news organization gave credence to her account. The National Enquirer, of all papers, derided Perdue’s tale under the headline “WEIRD CULT OUT TO DESTROY CLINTON.” As Hillary Clinton emerged as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, Miller emerged once again. In January, Miller warned in a Facebook post that the Clinton’s might try to kill her, and right-wing outlets like Info Wars and The Blaze reported on the post. Then, in February, The Daily Mail, reported that Sally Miller was planning to release a “tell all” memoir that includes more secrets about the Clintons. The article reported that Miller planned to out Hillary Clinton as a lesbian. Then, in May, Sally Miller took her claims even further with a series of posts about the Clintons posted at The American Mirror, a site founded by right wing commentator Kyle Olson. Miller wrote about it in an article headlined, “Hillary and Her ‘Coke Habit’”: When I asked Bill if he shared his fantasies with Hillary, he laughed. “What a joke! Sex is a waste of time to Hillary. When we were dating, she talked about making-out with her girlfriends in college because she knew it turned me on. Hillary seemed worldly and more sexually-experienced than me and, at the time, I liked it.” “Before we married, I got her pregnant and she had an abortion. It bothered me because I didn’t know about it until it was over. Then, several months after the wedding, she slipped up again because she was too lazy to take the pill. “Hillary hates kids. She was one nasty bitch when she was pregnant. My God, for nine months, she made my life a living hell and blamed me! “From the beginning, our political advisors warned us that Hillary must take my last name and concentrate on having a child if I was going to have a future in politics. I saw the real Hillary after we got married. “She’s a damn frigid bitch who prefers women; she won’t even compromise and be bi-sexual. All I hear is how much she despises penises; she thinks they are fucking ugly, like snakes.” Bill mentioned, “The only time Hillary gets aroused or agree to ‘play sexy’ is after she snorts coke. But, even then, she’s rigid and frigid. Hillary goes ape-shit crazy–I mean screams, hits, and cusses–if I touch her breasts! Right after we started fooling around, she warned me to stay away from her tits, even telling me: ‘If you want to nurse–go home to your momma!’” Sally Miller has been tied up with Clintons in one way or another for more than 25 years. Still, during all that time, there hasn’t been any evidence presented to back up Miller’s central claim that she had an affair with Bill Clinton in 1983, or that he told his and Hillary’s deepest darkest secrets to her during that time. For that reason, we’re calling Sally Miller’s claims “unproven” at this point. Comments
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5252
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Wrestling Wonsettlers are now getting physical with therapy.
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Cliff Wonsettler had wrestled with the idea for a while.
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true
|
Health, Washington, Wrestling, Physical therapy
|
“From the time I was in physical therapy school, I wanted to do something like this,” he said, relaxing for a few moments inside his own PT facility. Wonsettler has been a physical therapist for more than a decade, mostly in the Seattle area. He became somewhat disillusioned in the Great Northwest, though, after working at a practice owned by a large company that, he believes, operated in an impersonal manner and compromised his ideal of a PT center. “After three years, I told my wife that I couldn’t do this.” So they relocated to his roots, to Washington County, where Wonsettler decided to “build a building we could grow into.” Two years later, Wonsettler Physical Therapy and Specialized Health is up and going. Cliff and his youngest brother, Charlie, comprise the WPT staff, licensed physical therapists who began serving patients in early February. Cliff owns the business, which operates in a glistening two-story building about 100 yards off Route 40 in North Bethlehem Township. Wonsettler PT is on a flat stretch of the rolling Wonsettler farm - where they grew up. Their father, Chuck, a retired Bentworth School District teacher, is a sixth-generation family farmer there. He raises beef cattle, sheep and pigs on the 154-acre spread, which has stretched to a seventh generation. Cliff, his wife and their two sons live in a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor of the PT building, which has 5,000 square feet. “I have a pretty short commute to work,” Cliff said, beaming. So does Charlie, who is engaged to be married in 2020. He resides in the family’s farmhouse. The term “physical” has been a substantial element in the siblings’ lives. Cliff (class of 2000), C.J. (2002) and Charlie (2007) were outstanding wrestlers at Bentworth, where all topped the milestone of 100 victories and were PIAA tournament qualifiers. C.J., the only state champion among them, wrestled at Penn State with Cliff, while Charlie competed at Bucknell University. C.J., or Christopher, is in the military as his brothers are providing services of a different sort. Cliff and Charlie attended graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh, became PTs and practiced out of state for a while. Charlie was a Montana resident for a time, but now is back home with Cliff, working at the center while also handling inpatient rehabilitation assignments in Morgantown, W.Va. Their facility has a postal address of Scenery Hill, and while it isn’t in close proximity of the Century Inn, the center offers a fabulous panorama. You can see for miles and miles. The location was intentional. “A lot of (PT) places are so small and sterile, you don’t feel welcome,” Cliff said. “We wanted a place that is welcoming and comfortable, where you feel everything is working for you. A view like this helps. “We also want to offer more of a fitness component. A lot of physical therapy is reactive. We want to help people who are dealing with something, but we want to offer something that’s preventative.” Although he was turned off by the corporate mindset in a previous job, Cliff admitted, “I can see why a big company wants a physical therapy facility to see 20 to 30 people a day.” But he pledges that will not happen on the Wonsettler property. “We want to see eight patients a day,” he said. “What we lack in dollar amount, we make up with quality treatment.” The brothers’ corporate plan includes a short-term strategy - adding a staffer to handle the front desk - and to have five therapists on board within five years. Wonsettler Physical Therapy, appropriately on Wonsettler Road, is open weekdays only - at least for now. Hours are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Wednesday; noon to 7 p.m. Thursday; and 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday. Although both have been out of high school for more than a decade, Charlie and Cliff look as if they could take a brawny opponent to the mat today. Both are trim and well-muscled. Having exercise machinery in their workplace should keep them fit. “Part of this is it gives us a place to work out, too,” Cliff said. “We have to practice what we preach.” ___ Online: https://bit.ly/2HCYd15 ___ Information from: Observer-Reporter, http://www.observer-reporter.com
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31127
|
Major cities harbor rodent populations equivalent to one rat per person.
|
In 1949, [rodent control expert] Dave Davis analyzed New York’s rat population and called the one-rat-per-human statistic “absurd.” He had just completed a precise calculation of the rat population of Baltimore — by trapping, counting burrows, and measuring such things as rat runways and rat droppings. In New York, he began his work on six blocks in East Harlem. He brought in an experienced trapper to trap rats in East Harlem apartments for a week. Davis determined there were an average of three rats per apartment in infested Harlem buildings, mostly living in the kitchen and bathroom but traveling through many floors. He further determined that more people thought they had rats than actually had them — about 10 percent more. But when he added up his calculations, New York’s rat population was nowhere near eight million. Even the New York waterfront, which was mythically associated with rats, was less infested than assumed. In all, Davis put the rat population of New York at one rat for every thirty-six people, or 250,000 rats.4
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false
|
Critter Country, Wild Inaccuracies
|
Rats (at least the kinds commonly kept as pets) are for the most part intelligent, clean, quiet, sociable, and even affectionate. Still, there are many people who are absolutely repulsed at the sight of any rat and will run screaming even from the tamest Rattus norvegicus. This reaction is due in large part to our culture’s association of rats with filth, poverty, disease, and death. Rats are the furtive invaders who hide in the dark, dank spaces of our buildings and towns, emerging en masse after dark to feed on garbage and food scraps. They can carry disease, either directly or via the insects that feed on them (such as the fleas whose bite spread the bubonic plague). Although in the wild they’re shy and prefer to avoid contact with humans, they have long, narrow teeth housed in strong jaws that can deliver powerful defensive bites when necessary. Rats tend to live where humans live, since the presence of man generally creates an abundance of food and shelter. Because rats live for the most part out of the sight of people and usually emerge from their dwelling places when we’re either asleep or not around to see them, it’s easy to imagine that far more of them are lurking in those impenetrable dark spaces than really are there. We create maxims that are far more reflections of our anxieties and fears about feeling surrounded by unseen crawly things than they are accurate estimators of populations — sayings such as “You’re never more than six feet away from a rat” and “For every cockroach you see, there are ten more you don’t see.” Another statistic in this vein is the “one rat per person” rule — the claim that in any sufficiently large urban area, the rat population is as large as the human population: No one knows exactly how many rats there are in Arlington. Neither can officials say whether there are more today than five years ago. But private exterminators say they are increasingly busy, and some estimate that the county’s rat population has hit the defining mark for an urban area: one rat per person. This statistic reflects the frightening belief that no matter how much we may try to trap, poison, or otherwise chase away those fearsome rodents, we cannot vanquish them; they will always be able to field an army of insurgents equal in number to our own. But, according to Robert Sullivan, the author of Rats, this statistic is based upon a nearly century-old misunderstanding and greatly exaggerates the true number of rats to be found in a typical city. The “one rat per person” claim stems from a study of rats conducted in England by W.R. Boelter and published in 1909 under the title The Rat Problem. Boelter surveyed the English countryside (but not villages, towns, or cities) and came up with an educated guess, estimating that England had one rat per acre of cultivated land. Since England had 40 million acres of cultivated land at the time, Boelter pegged the country’s rat population at 40 million. And since England also had a human population of 40 million at the time, there was some basis for claiming that the country was host to one rat per person. But Boelter’s estimate may have been way off the mark, and even if it was accurate, the putative 1:1 ratio between people and rats derived from it was merely coincidental, an artifact of England’s just happening to have a human population equal to its number of cultivated acres. “One rat per person” was a figure unique to the time and place in which Boelter conducted his study, not a generalized figure that could be applied everywhere. Nonetheless, as Sullivan noted, “People loved that statistic, maybe because they abhorred it,” and the figure is still frequently cited in news articles dealing with rat control efforts in large metropolitan areas, particularly New York City: E. Randy Dupree, who oversees the [New York City] Health Department’s Bureau of Pest Control, says his agency is taking a closer look at the problem. But he said people must take some responsibility for making the city a place where rats thrive. “If people took better care of their garbage and their property, there just wouldn’t be as many rats as there are,” he said. He added that there are about eight million rats living in the five boroughs. “That’s about one rat per person,” he said. Even figures several orders of magnitude higher than “one per person” are sometimes quoted in reference to New York’s rat population: Life in the big city is a rat race, and it looks as if the rats are winning. City health officials believe there are several times as many rats in New York City as people — and the human population of the Big Apple is slightly more than 7 million, according to the 1990 U.S. Census. “There’s no official rat census,” says Pamela Miller, a deputy city health commissioner. “The estimates are anywhere from one rat per person to 10 rats per person. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.”3 Just how many rats are to be found in a large city like New York? Far fewer than one might think:
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17680
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The U.S. Department of Defense spends $80 million a year on prostate cancer research, $25 million a year on ovarian cancer research and $150 million a year on breast cancer research.
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Senator questions some areas of Defense budget
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true
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Georgia, Federal Budget, Military, Saxby Chambliss,
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"Remember the classic U.S. Army slogan? ""We do more by 9 a.m. than most people do all day,"" a voice said in the famous commercial. What you may not know is that the military is doing some significant multitasking. In addition to chasing down terrorists and conducting humanitarian rescue missions in places such as the Philippines, the Defense Department is also working to prevent and cure some of the deadliest diseases known to mankind. U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., recently said the medical research may not be the best use of Defense Department resources. ""What I don’t understand is why the … military is spending $80 million a year on prostate cancer research, why we’re spending $25 million a year on ovarian cancer research and $150 million on breast cancer research. We’re also doing lung cancer research,"" Chambliss said during a Nov. 7 meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Chambliss wants additional money for the Defense Department, but he says it should be spent wisely. ""Now if there are particular needs that the military has regarding military research and there are some, particularly because of the casualties we’ve suffered recently, I can understand it,"" the senator continued. ""But these are types of research that simply have no place in my opinion in (the Defense Department). They ought to be done in (the National Institutes of Health)."" Chambliss complained there is little coordination between the research done by the Defense Department and the National Institutes of Health. PolitiFact Georgia was unaware that the Defense Department was doing that kind of research. We’re not early-risers like the Army. We embarked on a mission to determine whether the senator was correct that the military was conducting research on these serious conditions and whether his math was correct about how much in taxpayer dollars it was spending on such work. In late 1992, Congress began to set aside annual funding toward research of various illnesses and diseases to be done by the Defense Department. Some of the research is for conditions that appeared directly related to the battlefield, such as Gulf War Illness and traumatic brain injuries. Other research is for conditions faced by Americans that are not necessarily military-related. The list of conditions includes, as Chambliss noted, breast cancer, lung cancer, ovarian cancer and prostate cancer. As Chambliss told it, the now-deceased Sen. Ted Stevens, an Alaskan Republican, asked for some prostate cancer research dollars to be allocated to the Defense Department. Chambliss said Stevens later realized those funds should be allocated to the NIH. We looked up the most recent funding totals for the various forms of research. The Defense Department Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs website said $80 million was spent in fiscal year 2013 on prostate cancer research, but the totals were slightly less for the other forms of cancer Chambliss mentioned. The website said $20 million was spent on ovarian cancer research and $120 million on breast cancer research in FY 2013. The 2013 federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, 2012, and ended Sept. 30. Lauren Claffey, a spokeswoman for Chambliss, said he was using numbers for fiscal year 2010. To sum up, Chambliss said the federal government gives the U.S. Department of Defense $80 million a year for prostate cancer research, $25 million a year for ovarian cancer research and $150 million a year for breast cancer research. The senator is correct that there is such a program. The numbers are slightly off for two of the three forms of research. Chambliss used numbers three years older than the most recent material."
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18175
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"Rachel Maddow Says Ohio budget item later signed into law by Gov. John Kasich requires women seeking an abortion to undergo a ""mandatory vaginal probe."
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Rachel Maddow says that Ohio budget includes requirement for transvaginal ultrasound
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false
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Abortion, Ohio, Pundits, Women, Rachel Maddow,
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"Ohio’s new operating budget calls for $62 billion in spending over two years and several abortion restrictions, including one that requires patients seeking one to first undergo an ultrasound. And while Democrats are plenty upset about the economics of the plan that Republican Gov. John Kasich ratified on June 30, they sense a political opening on the women’s issues. Viewers of MSNBC’s ""The Rachel Maddow Show"" recently got a preview of the heated rhetoric that will typify this debate over the next 16 months as Kasich seeks a second term. Maddow, the cable news program’s liberal host, noted on her June 28 broadcast the anti-abortion measures the GOP-controlled General Assembly had added to the budget, which Kasich had yet to sign. In interpreting some of the budget’s more-ambiguous abortion language, Maddow contended that the new regulations included a ""mandatory vaginal probe at the insistence of the state."" Maddow was referring to a new requirement that women seeking abortions first receive ultrasounds to determine whether a fetal heartbeat is present. Her provocative words quickly went viral and sent PolitiFact Ohio in search of a full copy of the massive state budget. Did it go as far as she claimed? Did it mandate a transvaginal ultrasound, as Maddow claimed, or did it allow for an external transabdominal procedure? We found our answer in the new Section 2919.191 that with the budget’s approval is now part of Ohio Revised Code. Division A of that section says that before performing an abortion, a provider must ""determine whether there is a detectable fetal heartbeat of the unborn human individual the pregnant woman is carrying."" The method for detecting a heartbeat is then spelled out in Division C, which says: The director of health may promulgate rules pursuant to section 111.15 of the Revised Code specifying the appropriate methods of performing an examination for the presence of a fetal heartbeat of an unborn individual based on standard medical practice. The rules shall require only that an examination shall be performed externally. In other words, not only are external methods such as transabdominal ultrasounds allowed under the new law; they are required. That sinks Maddow’s claim of a ""mandatory vaginal probe."" We reached out to MSNBC and asked representatives if Maddow had anything more to say, but we did not hear back from them. Because Maddow is an opinion leader on the left, others ran with her claim. The Raw Story, which describes itself as a progressive news website, called attention to the Maddow segment in a June 29 post. And on Twitter, several users seemed to parrot Maddow in tweets at Kasich. ""Nothing says Small Government like a mandated trans vaginal ultra sound,"" read one tweet. ""Ohio Gov @JohnKasich just ended his re-election chance, by signing into law mandatory big-government-forced object-rape of pregnant women,"" tweeted another critic. Abortion is a hot-button issue in politics. And with Kasich up for re-election next year, it’s no surprise that Democrats are eager for a debate that draws contrasts with the governor. But there should be no debate about what types of ultrasounds these new regulations require. Had Maddow read the language closely, she would have seen a mandate -- for external detection methods. That puts Maddow’s ""vaginal probe"" claim about as far as can be from the truth, into the realm of the ridiculous. Or, in Truth-O-Meter terms: !"
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3837
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Some North Dakotans turn to Canada for prescription pills.
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Roger Roehl four years ago found the “silver bullet” for leukemia — a medication called Gleevec.
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true
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Medication, Health, General News, Financial markets, Bismarck, Prescription drugs, North Dakota, Canada
|
Roehl, of Mandan, was 64 years old and had a state health insurance plan that covered the life-saving medication minus a $10 copay. But when he turned 65 and enrolled in Medicare, the price of the drug skyrocketed to $2,400 for a 30-day supply. Roehl, a retiree living on a fixed income, couldn’t afford the medication, so he stopped taking it. He was warned the leukemia — which was in remission — would come back. Then, a brochure came in the mail from a Canadian pharmacy advertising the drug for a fraction of the price — $684 for 30 days. He purchased a three-month supply and got it in the mail days later. “There are just so many inequities (in prescription drug prices),” he said. “To go from paying $10 to $2,400, that’s a tough pill to swallow.” Roehl joins an unknown number of North Dakotans who seek out lower drug prices in other countries, particularly Canada. Buying his medicine from across the border saves Roehl roughly $20,000 a year, The Bismarck Tribune reported. The pharmaceutical industry has long maintained that high drug prices are necessary to fund expensive research and development of new drugs. Federal and state legislation has been proposed in recent months to combat the rising cost of prescription drugs and to increase price transparency. In Congress, it remains to be seen what, if any, legislation could pass. Members of North Dakota’s all-Republican congressional delegation have signaled their support for various bipartisan measures making their way through Congress aimed at lowering prescription drug prices. These include the Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act, introduced by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, and the Lower Health Care Costs Act, introduced by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennessee, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington. North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven said in a statement that two bills he co-sponsored to increase prescription drug price transparency and to “close existing loopholes hindering the development of generic drugs” were included in Alexander’s legislation. North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer said he also supports Alexander’s and Grassley’s bills, and Rep. Kelly Armstrong said he also has backed similar drug-pricing legislation in the House. None of these bills have made it to a floor vote. Buying from Canada Roger and Vicki Roehl thought they prepared for retirement. Both had successful careers: Roger Roehl headed the mapping section for the state Department of Transportation, and Vicki Roehl was a high school English teacher and a counselor. They had saved up for retirement and hoped to travel the world. “Haven’t done much of that,” Roger Roehl said. His leukemia diagnosis brought their travel plans to a halt. But the chemotherapy drug Gleevec has brought him and his wife newfound optimism. Roger Roehl is in “hematological remission,” meaning: “The blood is normal and will stay normal as long as I take this pill,” he said. “It’s working. It’s the silver bullet of leukemia,” he said, adding he’s been taking the pill for three years. Roger and Vicki Roehl now have to budget for a three-month supply of the drug and tap into their savings to afford it, even with the north-of-the-border savings. Purchasing prescriptions drugs from Canadian pharmacies is a phenomenon not commonly talked about in the United States. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration prohibits importing prescription drug medication, except for people who buy drugs in small amounts for personal use. The cost of prescription drugs is lower in Canada and some other countries because their governments run their health care systems and are able to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers. In researching buying prescription medications from Canada, Roger Roehl found that other North Dakotans do it, as well. He said he’s aware of a bus in Minot that takes groups of people across the border. Some states have enacted laws that allow for prescription drug importation from other states, but no such law exists in North Dakota. In July, the Trump administration announced plans to allow for pilot projects developed by states, pharmacies or drug manufacturers to import certain prescription medications from Canada. It’s unclear when these programs could be implemented, as the administration has to go through a rulemaking process that could take months to years. Price transparency In North Dakota, lawmakers are looking to jump-start legislation related to prescription drug price transparency. During an interim Health Care Committee meeting last week, the group’s chairman, Rep. George Keiser, R-Bismarck, proposed a bill draft modeled after drug transparency legislation that passed in Texas this year. The bill draft requires information be reported by drug manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers and health insurance companies. Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, are referred to as middlemen in the prescription drug supply chain who negotiate prices with drug manufacturers for health care companies. The bill would require manufacturers to report every time the price of their drugs rises more than 10% in a year or 40% or more over five calendar years. PBMs also would be required report data annually, including the amount of “rebates” they collect from manufacturers, and health insurance companies also would have to report data on prescription drug costs. The information would be submitted to the state Board of Pharmacy and then published on a public website. Committee members last week mostly expressed support for the proposed legislation, which still has a long way to go before it’s introduced during the 2021 legislative session. Keiser told the Tribune the bill likely will go through a number of amendments. “What this is attempting to do is begin to bring transparency to the marketplace and the justification for (increasing drug prices),” Keiser said. “The key to this legislation — the most important element for me — is, you want to increase (the cost of) a drug 10% within a year, that’s fine, just tell us why.” The data will in turn help state health policymakers understand the problem and look for solutions, according to Keiser. “The public doesn’t know what’s involved. But until we can provide information for policymakers and the public, we can’t take the next step,” he said. Several states have enacted laws in recent years related to prescription drug prices, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Keiser said his bill draft is the first of its kind in North Dakota. Lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry contend that drug-pricing and transparency bills don’t result in actual savings for consumers, and that others in the supply chain, such as PBMs, contribute to price increases. ‘An important first step’ Josh Askvig, state director of AARP North Dakota, spoke in support of Keiser’s bill draft at the committee meeting last week. Prescription drug prices are “a very high priority” for his group and a recurring issue he hears among its members. Askvig cited data from his organization that shows the average annual cost of prescription drugs in North Dakota increased 58% from 2012 to 2017, while the average income for North Dakotans increased only 6.7%. AARP recently launched a nationwide campaign aimed at lowering prescription drug prices. Askvig said his organization and its members have been advocating for a number of reforms at the state and national level. “We know that states can’t solve the problem alone, but knowing this committee’s willingness to dig into this, we think, is an important first step,” Askvig said. ___ Information from: Bismarck Tribune, http://www.bismarcktribune.com
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9695
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Why Tortillas May Hold The Key To Healthier Babies
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In this story, the FDA is weighing a request to add folic acid to corn flour in order to possibly prevent neural tube defects during pregnancy. Hispanic women are at higher risk of giving birth to babies with these issues. Corn flour is often consumed more than white or wheat flours in some diets. Folic acid is already added to white and wheat flours. The story does a good job of explaining the logic of adding folic acid to corn flour and what benefits it might yield. A bit more attention to the costs of such a program and the alternatives to it (e.g. vitamin pills) would have been welcome. Prevention gets short shrift in most health stories, so it is great to read this one about how some prevention (adding folic acid to corn flour) might decrease the number of babies born with neural tube defects. We would have liked the story to discuss alternative ways to get high-risk women to consume folic acid.
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true
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FDA,folic acid,Hispanic,March of Dimes,neural tube defects
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The story does not talk about any costs. There are a few places where cost might have been valuable. The story could have discussed whether refining corn flour by a different method would cost more than the existing method. The story might have included whether fortified corn flour would be equal or higher in price for consumers than unfortified. We also would have welcomed some comment on the cost of caring for a baby born with a neural tube defect. The story gives the reader an idea of how many neural defects could be prevented by adding folic acid to corn flour. “And studies suggest that fortifying corn masa with folic acid could prevent an additional 40 to 120 cases of neural tube defects among babies born to Hispanic mothers each year.” The story discusses the FDA’s worry that a chemical used on corn flour could interact with the corn masa flour. It quotes the FDA which says: “The FDA is concerned that the breakdown of folic acid in corn masa flour could yield a substance that raises concerns about safety.” It would have been nice for the story to explain more clearly what concerns are raised — this seems pretty vague — but we’ll give the benefit of the doubt. The story mentions a study about the potential impact of fortifying corn flour on Hispanic women at higher risk. The study is a high-quality one. We wish the story had talked more explicitly about the quality of the evidence. There was no disease mongering. The story quotes independent sources. The story never really discusses the alternative of taking vitamin supplements. Standard preventive advice for women of childbearing age who are considering pregnancy is to take a multivitamin in order to have enough folic acid for any future pregnancy. But this advice may be unheeded, vitamins may be too expensive, or pregnancy may be unintended. The story explains that extra folic acid is already widely available in other flours. It notes that there is debate about adding it to corn flour. Concerns about the technical difficulty of adding folic acid that remains in usable effective form is a central point. There is nothing novel about the suggestion (made in 2012) that folic acid be added to corn flour, and the story explains why this issue is newsworthy now. The story quotes multiple sources and does not rely on a news release.
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26763
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“Shands Hospital of Gainesville Florida has confirmed its first case of coronavirus.”
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As of March 2, 2020, the CDC has confirmed two cases of COVID-19 in Florida. Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Florida, has not confirmed a coronavirus case.
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false
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Florida, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Viral image,
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"Wash your hands and beware suspicious-looking posts on social media claiming the novel coronavirus has arrived in your community. ""CNN Breaking News Update,"" reads the text of what looks like a screenshot published on Facebook on March 1. ""Shands Hospital of Gainesville Florida confirmed its first case of coronavirus."" This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Florida is among 12 states reporting cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. As of March 2, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have confirmed two cases in Hillsborough and Manatee counties. Gainesville is in Alachua County. Shands Hospital in Gainesville is part of the the University of Florida Health medical network. A spokesman for UF Health did not immediately return PolitiFact’s call about the Facebook post. But a member of UF Health’s communications team responded directly to the Facebook post saying he could ""state we have no cases of the 2019 novel coronavirus to date."""
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9818
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Nicotine Patch May Improve Memory
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This was an ambitious piece for such a short amount of space. The story tries to cover all the relevant ground and give readers enough context to make sense of the findings. While we applaud some of the conflict of interest information it provides, it does not quote any independent sources. As we age, one of the things that worries us most is memory loss. So a drug that promises to restore memory to nearly half of what it used to be is certain to be gain a lot of interest and attention. The most important line in the story is the caveat from the researchers themselves: “whether these effects are clinically important will require larger studies.”
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true
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mild cognitive impairment
|
The story didn’t mention cost. The nicotine patch is readily available over the counter. We found a range of prices online, including one big chain’s patch for roughly $2.70 a day. Quantifying changes in cognitive function for readers is a challenge. Exactly what does a long term memory performance of 46% of normal mean? Are these changes important for daily living or are they statistically significant but clinically irrelevant? The story included that important caveat from the researchers: “whether these effects are clinically important will require larger studies.” The story reported: “The study found no problematic side effects associated with the nicotine patch and none of the patients had withdrawal symptoms when it was stopped. However, patients on nicotine did lose a few pounds, which is a known side effect.” The study also reported a small drop in systolic blood pressure in subjected treated with nicotine – an unusual finding which the story did not report. We like that the story, unlike the MSNBC piece, noted that “nicotine might enhance the cancer-causing properties of other substances.” The study design, number of subjects and other information is provided. Both this story and the one by MSNBC used information that we could not find in the journal article, but which did appear in news releases by the American Academy of Neurology and by Vanderbilt – the “46% of normal” and “26% decline in recall” statistics. We liked that this story, unlike the MSNBC piece, stated that “when clinical experts rated overall change in the patients, they did not see a significant difference between the two groups.” That’s an important finding and, possibly, could have led to a different lead and headline for both stories. The story does not resort to disease-mongering. Like the MSNBC story, though, it could have more clearly distinguished between mild cognitive impairment and forgetfulness. We can’t give this a satisfactory score because, unlike the MSNBC story, this one does not include any information from clinical experts not involved in the study. It does, however, note that some of the authors on the study have received drug company funding and funding from tobacco makers. It also noted that the nicotine patches themselves were provided by Pfizer. There is no mention of alternative strategies to either improve or slow down the degradation of cognitive function in people with mild cognitive impairment. We’re going to rule this one Not Applicable because – while availability was not explicitly addressed – this is a product that’s probably well known to most readers. However, both stories we reviewed could have been more specific about the exact types of patches that were studied and in what doses. The story didn’t make any claims of novelty. However, the story could have briefly explained whether there has been other research studying nicotine’s effects on memory. (There has been.) As explained in the “evidence” criterion above, there were numbers used in this story and that by MSNBC that we couldn’t find anywhere in the journal article but which did appear in in news releases by the American Academy of Neurology and by Vanderbilt. But it’s clear that the story didn’t rely solely on news release, as it brought in enough good contextual information, including the conflict of interest information and the information about nicotine and cancer.
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34667
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A woman and her daughter narrowly avoided sex traffickers in the parking lot of a Hickory, North Carolina, Walmart.
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We contacted police in Hickory, North Carolina, to determine whether they’re aware of any incidents at Walmart (or elsewhere) matching the example above. According to the department, no reports of attempted abductions or unwanted solicitations in local parking lots had been received.
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unproven
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Crime
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On 4 August 2015, a Facebook user published a claim that she and her daughter had encountered kidnappers working on behalf of human traffickers in the parking lot of a Walmart store in Hickory, North Carolina: My daughter saved my life today! My daughter, Amanda […], and I were at Wal Mart in hickory earlier and were walking back to the car when we were approached by a young, nice looking man in a gray suit by a big white van with two ladders on top. He was handing out gift bags of make up samples. As we walked by, he came up to us and said, “Just in time!” And, while following us to the car, kept insisting that we take the gift bags. You could see the fear in Mandy’s face while I had no clue what was going on other than a persistent salesman trying to make some sort of deal. Mandy read about men going around giving out free samples of different things to women only and then after they accept them, they are kidnapped and then sold into the sex slave trade. Apparently, women all over North Carolina have fallen victim to this scam. She repeatedly refused him while I was dazed and confused as to what was going on. She finally demanded that I get in the car, then explained everything. If I had been alone, I would be on my way to God knows where right now. If this happens to any of you ladies, RUN! Go back in the store and tell somebody! And don’t go to WalMart or any other store alone if you don’t have to! Thank you, Jesus for giving me a daughter that’s smarter than I am and for watching out for both of us. P.S. A few of you have shared this post and I want to say thank you so much! I encourage everybody who reads this to PLEASE share this post and get the word out! You could be saving a life! The claim bore many similarities to a rash of similar rumors shared by social media users that summer. In May 2015, a separate Facebook user claimed she was scouted in a similar fashion at an Oklahoma Hobby Lobby store; in June, Twitter was awash in warnings of sex slavery rings targeting college kids via summer job interviews; later that month the theme park abduction urban legend recirculated; and simultaneously, a terrifying tale of purported drug-dispensing teenaged assailants in the bathroom of a Denton, Texas, Dillards department store made the same rounds. As with some of the near-subsequent rumors, the Hickory Walmart sex trafficking claim resembled a few long-circulating urban legends. The use of a desirable gift to “soften” potential victims to the abductor’s approach echoed an enduring (but false) story about carjackers utilizing $100 bills as bait to lure victims. It was also similar to widely-circulated (and old) rumors about ill-intentioned folks trawling parking lots with drugged perfume samples. Finally, the claim wasn’t dissimilar to the more recent Hobby Lobby abduction rumor in as much as it was quite likely based (at least in part) on a real-life event, and the poster’s account was not implausible as unwelcome solicitations involving pesky salespeople indeed occur from time to time in busy parking lots. But nothing the woman wrote definitively pointed to (or even hinted) at anything more interesting than an unwanted sales pitch. The claim that “men [are] going around giving out free samples of different things to women only and then after they accept them, they are kidnapped and then sold into the sex slave trade” wasn’t a very logical one, as nothing prevents a potential kidnapper from abducting a victim who refused the offer of a gift bag (and acceptance of a bag of makeup doesn’t make anyone easier to kidnap). The assertion “women all over North Carolina have fallen victim to this scam” is unsupported by news reports (and inaccurate, given that the scenario described constitutes a serious crime and not a “scam”). A search for incidents that matched the above account in Hickory yielded some unrelated results of note, albeit none substantiating rumors of human trafficking activity. On 6 August 2015 (after the status update above was shared, not before) the Hickory Daily Record published an article about “meth trafficking” in the parking lot of a local Walmart. Chronological aspects aside, the article specifically described drug (and not human) trafficking and did not reference any sort of sex-related crime. A separate article titled “Human trafficking rampant in NC?” was published in the same paper on 29 June 2015. Although that article made no specific mention of incidents in or around Hickory, it might have inspired fears (and subsequent “sightings”) of sex ring operators among residents. It isn’t uncommon for more upsetting elements of a newspaper article to make an impression upon readers while general details fade more quickly, and the article in question described victims initially consenting (under somewhat different and invariably coerced circumstances) to go with an abductor or abuser: “Slavery is not a new problem, but the fact that predators can find and groom victims through the internet heightens the danger to our children and grandchildren. Before, traffickers would need to wander the streets looking for runaways, but now they can spend their days on Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat looking for vulnerable young people,” [author Kimberly] Rea said, adding that many victims go with their traffickers willingly. “We often think of trafficking in terms of people being abducted, but one study showed that only accounted for 11 percent of the trafficking cases. Over 30 percent were trafficked through offers of help (a job, money, place to live, etc.). The horrible part of that statistic was that over 50 percent of victims were trafficked by someone who pretended romantic interest.” The newspaper passage quoted above additionally serves as a decent reminder of why inaccurate warnings about sex trafficking (often shared with a “better safe than sorry” caveat) can do more harm than good. Individuals potentially at risk of falling victim to traffickers would be better equipped with information about the circumstances under which human trafficking realistically occurs in the U.S., and rarely is that between strangers with no previous acquaintance in a shopping mall or chain store parking lot.
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22119
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"Gwinnett Medical Center is operating in the negative,"" in part, because of illegal immigrants."
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Illegal immigrants hurt hospital's bottom line, Georgia senator says
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mixture
|
Georgia, Immigration, Health Care, Renee Unterman,
|
"A Georgia state senator recently shared some distressing news about one of metro Atlanta’s largest hospital systems. ""Gwinnett Medical Center is operating in the negative,"" Renee Unterman, who represents a portion of Gwinnett County, said in a speech on the Senate floor. ""And one of the reasons they are is because people are not paying their bills, and that includes illegal immigrants,"" she said. Unterman, a Republican, was making a speech in support of House Bill 87, legislation aimed at reducing illegal immigration in Georgia. The Senate, largely along party lines, voted in favor of the bill, which Gov. Nathan Deal has said he will sign into law. The former nurse said some people in her district complained to her that they couldn’t get inside the hospital’s emergency room because it is often filled with illegal immigrants. We wondered whether Unterman was correct about her claim. Gwinnett Medical Center spokeswoman Beth Okun confirmed that it had a negative operating margin so far this fiscal year, which ends June 30, by nearly $7 million. That’s about 2 percent of the system’s annual budget. Gwinnett Medical Center, Unterman said, had been in the black for several years beforehand. So why is Gwinnett Medical Center, which has medical facilities in Lawrenceville and Duluth, in financial trouble this fiscal year? Are illegal immigrants partially to blame for the red ink? Indigent care costs at Gwinnett Medical Center, which includes Medicare and Medicaid, have nearly quadrupled since 2000, according to our review of the center’s annual reports. Gwinnett Medical Center has a $20 million funding gap for Medicare reimbursements, Okun said to explain some of the shortfall. The center is receiving 80 cents in Medicare reimbursements for every dollar it spends on care for Medicare recipients, Okun said. Georgia Hospital Association spokesman Kevin Bloye said more Georgians are losing their health insurance, and hospitals are treating a larger percentage of uninsured patients, which likely includes illegal immigrants. Okun noted other financial problems. Gwinnett Medical Center is also short $1.1 million due to the provider fee, also known as the ""bed tax,"" passed by state lawmakers in 2010. Gwinnett Medical Center has balanced its books, Okun said, by cutting some expenses and seeing an increase in its investment income. The hospital system cut 160 positions in November. Officials have stressed Gwinnett Medical Center is not in long-term financial danger. So is Unterman right about this funding shortage being the result, in part, of illegal immigrants without health insurance flooding the ER? There’s no clear way to answer that question, Okun and others said. Okun said the hospital system does not ask patients their immigration status. ""The problem is we can’t quantify it,"" Bloye said. ""Hospitals don’t ask patients whether they are legal or illegal."" Georgia has an estimated 425,000 illegal immigrants, according to a February study by the Pew Hispanic Center, whose figures on such topics are widely accepted by political leaders and some government officials. That estimate accounts for about 4.4 percent of Georgia’s 9.7 million residents. The study does not estimate how much Georgia spends on health care for illegal immigrants. Research on the topic is scant. A 2006 report on immigrant health care costs in Los Angeles County by the RAND Corp., a nonprofit research organization, found per capita spending in a one-year period on illegal immigrant men and women was 39 percent and 54 percent, respectively, of native-born residents. The study also found illegal immigrants there made fewer visits to the doctor because they considered themselves in better health and had less access to health care. The Federation for American Immigration Reform, whose data is frequently used by some Georgia lawmakers, released a report in July and revised it in February that found Georgia spends more than $317 million a year on medical care for illegal immigrants. Those costs include Medicaid, the state’s children's health insurance program, PeachCare, and emergency childbirth. Georgia spends about $1.4 billion a year on Medicaid and PeachCare, state officials say. If both numbers are correct, illegal immigrants account for 22 percent of such costs. FAIR included U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, but the Constitution guarantees citizenship to any child born in this country. Some organizations have accused FAIR of xenophobia. The Washington, D.C.-based organization has been critical of the federal government’s efforts to halt illegal immigrants from working inside the U.S. Unterman noted in her speech to lawmakers that the federal Hill-Burton Act, which requires some health care facilities to provide free or reduced care if a patient can’t afford it, does not require U.S. citizenship for eligibility. It does, however, maintain that a recipient must have lived in the United States for at least three months. The senator said Philip Wolfe, the chief executive officer of the Gwinnett Medical Center, explained some of its financial problems before this year’s legislative session began. Unterman told us she did not have scientific research about the financial impact of illegal immigrants on Gwinnett Medical Center, but she said she believes there is a significant impact by some of the calls she has received from people in her district. ""I think it’s pretty serious when you get calls from your constituents,"" Unterman told us. We found that Unterman was correct about Gwinnett Medical Center’s troubled finances for the current budget year. The senator could also be right about illegal immigrants being part of the reason why the center is ""in the negative."" But there are no concrete numbers on how much illegal immigrants are costing the center. They could be a major burden to its finances or a minor blip on the spreadsheet. Under current reporting requirements, the numbers just aren’t verifiable. Without that additional information."
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8421
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Singapore reports 728 new virus cases in biggest daily jump, total 4,427.
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Singapore’s health ministry confirmed 728 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, a new daily record, taking the total in the city-state to 4,427.
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true
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Health News
|
It said 654 of the new cases were linked to migrant workers’ dormitories. The latest count of new infections was much higher than the previous record of 447 reported on Wednesday. No new deaths were reported on Thursday, leaving the toll at 10. Authorities have managed to mitigate the spread of the virus and the COVID-19 respiratory disease it causes among Singapore’s citizens by rigorous contact tracing and surveillance, earning praise from the World Health Organization. But the disease is spreading rapidly within the large migrant worker community, highlighting what rights groups say is a weak link in containment efforts.
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10814
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Antibiotic might help after stroke, study says
|
"This article on a study about potential benefits of the antibiotic minocycline in reducing brain damage when given up to 24 hours after a stroke is very well balanced and reported. It makes clear that the findings are promising but preliminary, and that any clinical application at this point would be off-label and at a physician’s discretion. The reporter explores the question of clinical application with four independent sources, which permits a reader to understand more fully how and under what circumstances the drug might be used. The report would have been stronger if the differences in symptoms between the drug group and the placebo group had been detailed. Stroke symptoms can be mild or debilitating, and it’s not clear exactly how much practical benefit the treatment provides. The report is particularly strong at the top: the author properly uses the word ""intriguing"" when the study is first mentioned, which keeps expectations in check. The following paragraph says ""more research is needed to confirm"" the findings. Too often these qualifiers are buried deeper in a story. We’re pleased to give this story one of our highest five-star scores."
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true
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"The article is sufficiently clear that the drug is generic and inexpensive. Because this use would be novel, and not used as an alternative to existing treatments, more information about its cost is not required. While the report uses study data to describe the findings, it does not clarify what those findings mean to people who have had strokes. The findings indicate the drug group (NIHSS scale rating 1.6) had ""little nor no disability,"" and the placebo group (rating 6.5) ""the high end of mild disability."" Translating these into specific symptoms (slurred speech, difficulty walking, cognitive impairment, etc.) would be useful. It’s also not clear how high the stroke scale goes–to 10? 15? 20? Knowing that would help readers understand the magnitude of the difference. Finally, the study found that there was no difference in heart attacks, additional strokes or deaths between the two groups. Data on these critical outcomes should have been reported. One credible source states that the antibiotic has a well established safety record. Other sources confirm this indirectly. Because the potential benefit is so large–preventing permanent brain damage resulting from a stroke–minor side effects are not essential to mention. It would have been useful to know, however, whether this drug could interact with clot-busting medications if they are given within the three-hour window. The article indicates that the study is small and the first to produce these findings. It also explains that it was an ""open label"" study, meaning the patients knew whether they were getting the antibiotic or a placebo. Several sources reiterate that the findings are preliminary and require replication. The reporter also mentions that a similar study of a neuroprotective agent had promising results but was later shown ineffective in a larger study. This context is very useful; it discourages readers from jumping to conclusions about this study’s value. The article does nothing to exaggerate the effects of stroke or the drug’s capacity to minimize them. The writer interviews four independent sources in addition to the study author, an unusual amount of reporting on a single study that adds to the story’s value. The article makes clear that the study was not funded by an interested party, which also adds credibility to the findings. The article makes clear that there are no treatment options outside the 3-hour treatment window when administration of the IV clot-buster tPA is effective at protecting against brain damage. The article makes clear that the drug is cheap and widely available, but properly adds that any use as a treatment for stroke would be off-label at a doctor’s discretion. The report makes clear that the use of the antibiotic as a neuroprotective agent is novel, though the product is widely used for other purposes. There is no evidence the article was based on the press release."
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40886
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There were no Covid-19 deaths in Ireland in August.
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Incorrect. There were 14 confirmed Covid-19 deaths in Ireland in August.
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false
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online
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There were 700 deaths from cancer in Ireland in August. We don’t know these figures yet as it is too soon after the fact. The figure for cancer seems realistic from past trends, as there were around 830 deaths caused by cancer in Ireland per month in Q1 of 2020. There were 70 deaths from alcohol in Ireland in August. We could find no source for this figure. A 2013 average of 88 alcohol-related deaths a month in Ireland includes a number of different factors, such as the coroner mentioning alcohol dependency, certain alcohol-related diseases, and if they were an alcoholic. There were 32 deaths from suicide in Ireland in August. It’s too soon to know this figure as only a coroner can officially rule a death as a suicide, but this figure is realistic looking at past data. Claim 1 of 4
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26398
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Dr. Anthony “Fauci told us there’s nothing to worry about. That’s his quote, ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’”
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"Former White House advisor Steven Bannon says Anthony Fauci, director of the Centers for Control and Prevention, said Americans shouldn't ""worry"" about corona-19. In late January, Fauci twice said the country shouldn't fret. But both times, he added that the situation could change."
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mixture
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Coronavirus, Steve Bannon,
|
"Former White House advisor Steve Bannon has been defending President Donald Trump against criticism that he was slow responding to the coronavirus. Bannon recently lauded Trump's Jan. 31 order restricting travel with China, the original source of the virus. Bannon said the action came while a key medical adviser - Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases - was saying covid-19 was not a threat to the United States. ""Fauci told us there’s nothing to worry about. That’s his quote, ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’"" Bannon said during an April 14 radio interview on The John Fredericks Show, a conservative broadcast based in Portsmouth, Va. We fact-checked Bannon’s claim. Bannon, a Richmond, Va. native, cited two instances in late January when Fauci said the disease wasn’t a big threat to Americans. Each time, however, Fauci added that the situation could change. On Jan. 21 - the day the first covid-19 case in the U.S. was confirmed - Fauci appeared on conservative Newsmax TV. ""Bottom line, we don’t have to worry about this one, right?"" asked Greg Kelly, the host. Fauci said, ""Obviously, you need to take it seriously and do the kind of things the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the Department of Homeland Security is doing. But this is not a major threat to the people of the United States and this is not something that the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about."" So Fauci, in a qualified response said, don't worry ""right now;"" ""you need to take it seriously;"" and although ""this is not a major threat,"" keep an ear open to the CDC and Homeland Security. On Jan. 26, Fauci gave an interview to John Catsimatidis, a syndicated radio host in New York. ""What can you tell the American people about what’s been going on?"" Catsimatidis asked. ""Should they be scared?"" ""I don’t think so,"" Fauci said. ""The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It’s a very, very low risk to the United States, but it’s something we, as public health officials, need to take very seriously."" Fauci reiterated that the covid-19 ""isn’t something the American people need to worry about or be frightened about"" because, at the time, it was centered in China and the U.S. could screen travelers from that nation. But Fauci also twice described the virus as ""an evolving situation,"" and said, ""Every day, we have to look at it very carefully."" On April 13, PolitiFact National examined a tweet by Republican DeAnna Lorraine, a unsuccessful California congressional candidate. She said Fauci ""was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and (covid-19) posed no threat to the US public at large."". Although Fauci said that day he saw no immediate need for social distancing, PolitiFact noted that his comments were ""filled with caveats that the situation could change."" And contrary to Lorraine’s tweet, Fauci’s didn’t say then ""there was nothing to worry about."" Bannon’s remark is based on different Fauci statements from an earlier time with different words and different context. Bannon said, ""Fauci told us there’s nothing to worry about. That’s his quote, ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’"" Fauci did say twice in late January, when there was one reported covid-19 case in the U.S., that American shouldn’t worry about the virus. But Bannon omits an important detail: Both times, Fauci added that the situation could change."
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3370
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Cuomo to propose ban on e-cig flavors and ads aimed at youth.
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday he’ll introduce legislation to ban all flavored nicotine e-cigarette products as well as vaping advertisements aimed at youth.
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true
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Health, Andrew Cuomo, General News, Legislation, Vaping, Public health, Tobacco industry regulation
|
The Democrat announced that legislation he’ll propose in his 2020 State of the State agenda on Jan. 8 will also prohibit online, phone and mail-order sale of e-cigarettes to anyone but registered retailers. “Vaping is a public health crisis, claiming too many lives and making countless others sick in a short period of time,” Cuomo said in a statement. “The problem is made worse by unscrupulous vaping companies who are targeting young people with candy flavored products like cotton candy and bubble gum and other marketing ploys.” The legislation would codify emergency regulations adopted by state health officials in September to ban flavored e-cigarette sales. That ban is on hold pending a court challenge by the vaping industry led by the Vapor Technology Association. Cuomo said nearly 40% of 12th graders and 27% of all high school students are using e-cigarettes, with flavored products driving the increase in use. Cuomo said his legislation will also empower the state Department of Health to ban the sale of vaping carrier oils that have been blamed for respiratory ailments. Action against e-cigarettes has gained urgency amid the rise of a vaping illness nationwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that as of Dec. 17, more than 2,500 people across the United States have reported respiratory issues related to vaping and 54 people are known to have died.
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33829
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"The lyrics to the song ""Louie Louie"" contain multiple obscene references."
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Sightings: John Belushi’s ‘Bluto’ character (anachronistically, because the film is set in 1962) references the dirty “Louie Louie” lyrics to a group of fraternity pledges in 1978’s Animal House, and the three Libner brothers hold a hilarious debate over the real lyrics in 1990’s Coupe de Ville.
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false
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Entertainment, song meanings and origins
|
“Sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll” is more than an Ian Dury slogan; it also neatly encapsulates the three pastimes of America’s youth that adults have expended the most effort in trying to control for the last half-century. Films such as Reefer Madness and Blue Denim have been supplanted by “Just Say No” and sex education programs, and the lyrics of rap songs may concern parents more than Elvis Presley’s hips or the Beatles’ haircuts once did, but the battle continues. By 1963 the rock ‘n’ roll genie had long since been let out of the bottle, but what one could say (and sing) about sex and drugs on the public airwaves was still often circumscribed by the government and corporate standards and practices divisions. Lou Christie’s “Rhapsody in the Rain” and the Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” both struggled against radio airplay limitations in 1966 for allegedly dealing too explicitly with sex and drugs (respectively), and in 1967 the host of America’s premier television showcase for entertainers, Ed Sullivan, was still trying (unsuccessfully) to coerce groups like the Doors and the Rolling Stones into altering their “suggestive” lyrics about drugs and sex (respectively) when they appeared on his program. As rock critic Dave Marsh noted: In a culture that interprets puberty as a tragedy of lost innocence rather than as a triumphal entry into adulthood, the possibility of someone actually giving vent to sexual feeling remains deliciously scandalous. Sex is bad, and somebody singing about it would be really bad. So it was that the youth of America scored a major coup in 1963 by spreading the rumor that a popular recording of an otherwise innocuous 1956 song about a lovesick sailor’s lament to a bartender named Louie was really all about sex. You had to listen carefully, the rumor went, maybe even play the single at 33 RPM instead of 45 RPM, but if you did, you’d find that “Louie Louie” was chock full of smutty lyrics. (Another version claimed the dirty words could only be heard on the single and not on the album, even though both were pressed from the same master.) A more effective means of aggravating the older generation could scarcely have been devised: they could neither reassert control by proving the lyrics dirty and punishing those responsible for them, nor could they demonstrate they had never relinquished control by proving the lyrics clean. Or, as Marsh wrote: [I]n the viperous new generation arising in America’s schools, no greater sport could be had or imagined than making all repositories of respectability cringe and groan over the unprovable. Somebody, somewhere, came up with the idea of dirty “Louie Louie” lyrics not only as a way of putting on other kids and panicking authority, but as a way of creating something rock ‘n’ roll needed: a secret as rich and ridiculous as the sounds themselves. Perhaps the time was right, and if “Louie Louie” had not come along, some other song would have been tagged as the “dirty” one. (After all, the word was already out that the Peter, Paul and Mary children’s song about a dragon named Puff was actually about drugs.) We’ll never know, because “Louie Louie” did indeed come along. “Louie Louie” was the creation of Richard Berry, a Los Angeles sideman, session player, and singer-songwriter. Inspired by Rene Touzet’s “El Loco Cha Cha” and Chuck Berry’s “Havana Moon,” Berry crafted his immortal three-verse sailor’s lament and recorded it with a group called the Pharaohs in 1956. His laid-back version was released in 1957 (as the B-side of a single), enjoyed moderate success on the Pacific coast, and then promptly sank from sight. The song itself remained popular in the Pacific Northwest, however, and it was revived in 1961 by Seattle’s Rockin’ Robin Roberts and the Wailers, who recorded it in the much more raucous fashion most familiar to modern listeners. Their version also fared moderately well in the Pacific Northwest but failed to catch on outside the region. Still, “Louie Louie” had an appeal that wouldn’t die, and in 1963 two Portland-area bands, the Kingsmen and Paul Revere and the Raiders, recorded the song within days of each other at the same studio. The two discs battled it out on the national charts at the end of 1963, with the Kingsmen’s version eventually emerging victorious and establishing itself as the definitive “Louie Louie.” What happened next was presciently covered by Marsh in his book-length exploration of the “Louie Louie” phenomenon: Back in 1963, everybody who knew anything about rock ‘n’ roll knew that the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” concealed dirty words that could be unveiled only by playing the 45 rpm single at 33-1/3. This preposterous fable bore no scrutiny even at the time, but kids used to pretend it did, in order to panic parents, teachers, and other authority figures. Eventually those ultimate authoritarians, the FBI got involved, conducting a thirty-month investigation that led to “Louie”‘s undying — indeed, unkillable — reputation as a dirty song. So “Louie Louie” leaped up the chart on the basis of a myth about its lyrics so contagious that it swept cross country quicker than bad weather. Nobody — not you, not me, not the G-men ultimately assigned to the case — knows where the story started. That’s part of the proof that it was a myth, because no folk tales ever have a verifiable origin. Instead society creates them through cultural spontaneous combustion. In retrospect, it’s easy to identify the aspects of the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” that made the “filthy lyrics” myth even a tiny bit plausible. The pidgin English narration of the lyrics was unusual enough, and comprehension difficulties were compounded on the Kingsmen’s recording by several factors: o Lead singer Jack Ely had strained his voice participating in a marathon 90-minute “Louie Louie” jam the night before the session. o Ely was singing with braces on his teeth. o The boom microphone in the studio was reportedly fixed way too high for Ely, requiring him to stand on tiptoe and sing up into the mike: “We were initially just going to record the song as an instrumental, and at the last minute I decided I’d sing it. All of this in a 10-by-10 room with one microphone. I’m standing on my tippy toes yelling into the microphone: Louie Louie! Louie Louie! We gotta go! '” o What the band thought was a rehearsal run-through turned out to be their one and only take of the song. At this point we should probably make note of the song’s true lyrics: Louie, Louie, me gotta go. Louie, Louie, me gotta go. A fine little girl, she wait for me; me catch a ship across the sea. I sailed the ship all alone; I never think I’ll make it home Three nights and days we sailed the sea; me think of girl constantly. On the ship, I dream she there; I smell the rose in her hair. Me see Jamaica moon above; It won’t be long me see me love. Me take her in my arms and then I tell her I never leave again. What circulated among adolescents by word of mouth and on furtively-passed crib sheets for the next several years were numerous variations like the following: Louie, Louie, grab her way down low. Louie, Louie, grab her way down low. A fine little bitch, she waits for me; she gets her kicks on top of me. Each night I take her out all alone; she ain’t the kind I lay at home Each night at ten, I lay her again; I fuck my girl all kinds of ways. And on that chair, I lay her there; I felt my boner in her hair. If she’s got a rag on, I’ll move above; It won’t be long, she’ll slip it off. I’ll take her in my arms again; tell her I’d rather lay her again. An example of the contemporaneous debates over the dichotomy between the real and imagined obscene lyrics to “Louie, Louie” was hilariously recreated in the 1990 film Coupe de Ville: Once concerned parents began to report their outrage about this allegedly “obscene” song to the FBI, the Bureau made the mistake of expending all their effort in proving it true rather than investigating the rumor itself. It was as if a frightened mother had written to J. Edgar Hoover concerning a story she’d heard about a maniac with a hook being on the loose, and Hoover responded by sending out field agents to investigate whether or not a criminal with a missing hand had recently escaped from a psychiatric hospital. The FBI didn’t try to find out where these dirty lyric sheets were coming from; instead, they spent two and a half years analyzing “Louie Louie” played at a variety of speeds and interrogating nearly everyone connected with the song, including Paul Revere and the Raiders, Richard Berry, the Kingsmen, and even record company executives. One person they never, ever talked to was the one person who indisputably knew what words had been sung on the Kingsmen’s recording: singer Jack Ely. (Ely had been fired from the band well before “Louie, Louie” hit it big, a fact the remaining Kingsmen were not anxious to publicize.) After thirty-one months of trying to unravel the mysteries of “Louie Louie,” the FBI could conclude only that they were “unable to interpret any of the wording in the record.” As original Kingsmen member Dick Peterson later said in an interview: Q: “Louie Louie” was just a harmless record, wasn’t it? A: Just a bunch of boys having a party, letting it all go. The F.B.I. made a big deal out of something that, those days … well, listen to the lyrics on records today! We were tame. We were nothing. You couldn’t even understand what was being said. Nowadays they’re talking about killing women on records. Give me a break!
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5654
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Doctor: Hernandez’s brain was severely damaged by disease.
|
Former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez suffered substantial damage to parts of the brain that affect memory, judgment and behavior from the most severe case of a degenerative disease linked to head blows ever found in someone so young, a researcher said Thursday.
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true
|
NFL football, New England Patriots, Health, Boston, Aaron Hernandez, Boston University, North America, Sports, Football
|
Dr. Ann McKee, director of Boston University’s CTE Center, stressed she could not “connect the dots” between the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy and the behavior of the 27-year-old who hanged himself in April while serving life in prison for murder. But McKee said CTE had significantly impacted key parts of Hernandez’s brain, including the hippocampus — which is associated with memory — and the frontal lobe, which is involved in impulse control, judgment and behavior. “We can say collectively, in our collective experience, that individuals with CTE — and CTE of this severity — have difficulty with impulse control, decision-making, inhibition of impulses or aggression, often emotional volatility and rage behaviors,” said McKee, who has studied hundreds of brains from football players, college athletes and even younger players, donated after their deaths. Hernandez hanged himself in prison days after he was acquitted in the 2012 drive-by shootings of two men in Boston and just hours before his former teammates visited the White House to celebrate their latest Super Bowl victory. Prosecutors contended he gunned the two men down after one accidentally spilled a drink on him in a nightclub — and then got a tattoo of a handgun and the words “God Forgives” to commemorate the crime. He had been serving a life sentence without parole in the 2013 killing of semi-professional football player Odin Lloyd when he killed himself. Hernandez, who said he was innocent, did not raise CTE in his defense at either trial. CTE, which can only be diagnosed in an autopsy, has been found in former members of the military, football players and boxers and others who suffered repeated head trauma. BU researchers confirmed in September that Hernandez was diagnosed with Stage 3, out of 4, of the disease. But McKee had not publicly discussed her findings until a conference at the university on Thursday. After Hernandez’s CTE diagnosis, his attorneys filed a lawsuit against the NFL and football helmet maker Riddell, accusing them of failing to warn Hernandez about the dangers of football. The lawsuit, which seeks damages for Hernandez’s young daughter, said he experienced a “chaotic and horrendous existence” because of his disease. While the outside of Hernandez’s brain appeared normal, the inside was riddled with CTE, said McKee, who showed images of Hernandez’s brain next to those of a typical 27-year-old. In Hernandez’s brain, there was evidence of previous small hemorrhages, which is associated with head impacts, she said. Other parts, like the hippocampus, had begun to shrink and large holes were found in his brain’s membrane, McKee said. Before Hernandez, the youngest brain they’ve examined that showed such severe CTE damage was 46 years old, McKee said. “These are very unusual findings to see in an individual of this age,” McKee said. “We’ve never seen this in our 468 brains, except in individuals some 20 years older,” she said. Hernandez inherited a genetic profile that may have made him more susceptible to the disease, McKee said. ___ Follow Alanna Durkin Richer @aedurkinricher . Read more of her work here .
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4733
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Louisiana leaders exchange barbs over health care ruling.
|
Louisiana’s governor and attorney general are trading criticism and suggesting state legislation in the wake of a Texas federal judge’s ruling that, if upheld, will jettison the entire federal health care overhaul.
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true
|
John Bel Edwards, Health care reform, Lawsuits, Legislation, Jeff Landry, Health, Medicaid, Louisiana, Texas
|
Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, said the decision could eliminate insurance coverage for 480,000 people enrolled in Louisiana’s Medicaid expansion program and 850,000 residents who are estimated to have pre-existing conditions. He criticized Attorney General Jeff Landry for joining other Republican attorneys general in support of the Texas lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act. Edwards said the lawsuit creates uncertainty for hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana. “Being diagnosed with breast cancer or diabetes should not automatically mean that you are denied coverage to protect an insurance company’s profits, and if you put in a full day’s work, you should not be priced out of coverage,” Edwards said in a statement. “This was a short-sighted lawsuit, to say the least.” Landry defended his decision to join the lawsuit, calling the health law an “unconstitutional federal overreach.” “For John Bel Edwards to say the only solution for health care is Obamacare shows he is more interested in playing politics than solving problems,” Landry said in a statement Monday. “We can truly lower costs, improve health care access and cover pre-existing conditions if people set aside politics and work together.” Edwards said he intends to seek state law changes to require coverage of people with pre-existing conditions, and Landry said he was talking with state lawmakers about the same idea. The governor sent a letter Monday to Republican House Speaker Taylor Barras describing the legislation he’ll support, which also would allow children to stay on their parents’ health insurance until the age of 26 and restrict benefit limits for health coverage. Edwards said Rep. Chad Brown, a Democrat from Plaquemine, will sponsor the measure for consideration in the legislative session that starts in April. Friday’s ruling in the federal court in Texas isn’t expected to take effect during the appeals process, with the federal health department saying it will continue administering and enforcing the law.
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41634
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There are four young people with no underlying illnesses in an intensive care unit in Cork due to Covid-19, who had all been taking anti-inflammatory drugs.
|
This is not true. It has been denied by the clinical lead of Ireland’s public health service and the whole message branded ‘misinformation’.
|
false
|
health
|
A medical alert says to stop the use of anti-inflammatories for pain or high temperatures. This message is fake. Current advice from health authorities in the UK and Ireland say to continue taking previously prescribed medication, including anti-inflammatories unless told otherwise by a healthcare professional. The NHS says there is no strong evidence that taking ibuprofen can make Covid-19 worse, but advises people with symptoms to take paracetamol if they can. Claim 1 of 2
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4136
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Offices of Brazil’s environmental protection agency torched.
|
Police in Brazil say gold miners have torched the offices of the country’s environmental protection agency Ibama in the northern jungle state of Amazonas.
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true
|
Brazil, Environment, Biodiversity, Latin America
|
The Environment Ministry’s Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation was also set afire. The offices were torched Friday by miners who were angry with Ibama’s seizure of nearly 40 barges used in the illegal extraction of gold from the bottom of the Madeira River, which cuts through the city of Humaita. Commander of the Amazonas State Police Department Col. David Brandao said Saturday calm has returned to the city and no one was hurt in the incident. It was unclear if anyone has been arrested.
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37571
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While Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida was allowed to wear a gasmask on the House vote, Democrat Bobby L. Rush was removed from the same grounds for wearing a hoodie.
|
Was Rep. Bobby Rush Removed From the House Floor for Wearing a Hoodie?
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true
|
Fact Checks, Politics
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After Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) donned a gas mask while Congress debated a bill securing emergency funding to fight the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the United States and beyond, one of his colleagues rebuked both him and an apparent set of double standards.“In 2012, I wore a hoodie on the House Floor to make a statement about the deadly consequences of racial profiling,” Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Illinois) wrote on Twitter. “On Wednesday, @RepMattGaetz wore a gas mask in the chamber, making light of an epidemic that has killed 14 Americans. Guess which one of us was forcibly removed.”Rush’s post, which showed photographs of himself alongside Gaetz, was also picked up on Reddit:Rush, a former member of the Black Panthers liberation group who has represented Illinois’ 1st congressional district since 1993, was indeed stopped from speaking and ordered off of the floor on March 28 2012, after revealing that he was wearing a hooded sweater under his blazer in remarks criticizing racial profiling on the part of law enforcement:As soon as Rush removed his jacket and put the hood on his head, Rep. Greg Harper, R-Mississippi, who was presiding over the House floor, began to gavel Rush down, saying he was out of order.Rush ignored him, and with the hoodie still pulled over his head, continued to speak, citing the Bible.Harper continued to bang the gavel. “The gentleman will suspend. The member is no longer recognized,” he said. “The chair must remind members that clause 5 of rule 17 prohibits the wearing of hats in the chamber when the House is in session.”A floor clerk approached Rush as he finished his remarks and led him away from the podium.Afterward, Rush told CNN he was wearing a tie, suggesting he was appropriately dressed for the House floor. He said the purpose of putting on the hoodie was to send a message to young people, “to stand their ground, stand up and don’t stand down.”Rush’s comments came less than a month after the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida by George Zimmerman, a “community watch” member who claimed that he shot and killed the teen in self defense. Martin’s death was the impetus for nationwide demonstrations, including the “Million Hoodie March” in New York City happening the same day Rush made his remarks:Too often, this violent act that resulted in the violent murder of Trayvon Martin is repeated in the streets of our nation. I applaud the young people all across the land who are making a statement about hoodies [and] about the real hoodlums in this nation. Particularly those who tread on our laws wearing official or quasi-official clothes. Racial profiling has to stop, Mr. Speaker. Just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum.After Rush donned the hood on his sweater, Mississippi Republican and acting Speaker Rep. Greg Harper said, “The gentleman will suspend. The member is no longer recognized.” Harper then ordered an aide to escort Rush from the House floor, citing a rule barring members from wearing coverings on their heads.Martin’s father, Tracy Martin, later commended the lawmaker for his show of solidarity.“My question would be why wasn’t Congressman Rush allowed to address racial profiling. This is something that needs to be talked about,” he said. “This is a country of freedom of speech.”By comparison, Gaetz — a white Republican — was apparently not admonished at all for wearing a gas mask as he and his colleagues voted on the measure allocating $815.2 billion in funding to fighting COVID-19, commonly known as the coronavirus. He later claimed that he was doing so out of concern for his own safety. “Look, members of Congress are human petri dishes,” he said. “We fly through the dirtiest airports. We touch everyone we meet.”As of March 7 2020, more than 225 COVID-19 cases had been diagnosed in the United States, and at least fourteen deaths have been attributed to the disease.It is true that there has been a ban on hats on the floor while the House is in session since 1837. It’s also true that one could make the argument that a gas mask — which covers the face and part of the head — is not a hat. One could also make the same argument about a hoodie. Finally, it’s true that Rep. Bobby Rush was escorted out for pulling a hoodie over his head in 2012, and Rep. Matt Gaetz and his gas mask were allowed to stay in 2020.
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1776
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U.S. military specialists in Liberia to conduct Ebola testing: general.
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About two dozen U.S. military specialists deploying to Liberia will test laboratory samples for Ebola, but most of the nearly 4,000 troops due to go there are not expected to be in direct contact with the virus, defense officials said Tuesday.
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true
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Health News
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General David Rodriguez, head of U.S. forces in Africa, said three mobile labs had deployed to Liberia and four more were being sought to run tests that would distinguish between people infected with Ebola and those who have diseases with similar symptoms, such as malaria. Each lab would be staffed by a team of three to four experts trained to operate in the worst chemical, biological and nuclear environments, Rodriguez told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. The teams operate in full protective clothing. Ebola, which can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhea, spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood or saliva. The U.S. military is ramping up its response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, where it has already killed more than 3,400 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Concern is growing that the virus could spread to other parts of the world. The United States has 348 military personnel in Liberia and Senegal working on combating the spread of Ebola. Rodriguez has been authorized to send some 3,900 troops if needed. He said at this point he expected the effort to last a year and did not think more troops would be necessary. “We’re going to stay as long as we’re needed, but not longer,” said Rodriguez, who estimated the cost of the military operation at $750 million for the next six months. Many of the military personnel due to go to Liberia in the coming months are construction workers who will build up to 17 100-bed Ebola treatment facilities. Rodriguez said health officials estimated at least 70 percent of those diagnosed with the virus need to be in treatment facilities in order to slow the spread of the disease. Assistant Defense Secretary Andy Weber, who is responsible for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, said the Pentagon was working with international partners to ensure there are more beds than patients, aiming to contain the spread by isolating the patients. “If you’ve seen the modeling from CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), it’s on a fast rise. But we can turn it. We know what to do,” said Weber, who is leaving the Defense Department to become the deputy to the State Department’s Ebola Coordinator, Ambassador Nancy Powell. “Over half the people infected with Ebola can survive if they have just basic medical support,” he said. “So we can get ahead of this, but right now we’re playing catch-up because it really started to spread at an exponential rate in August.” Weber said the U.S. departments of Defense and Health and Human Services had been primary investors in the search for drugs, vaccines and diagnostic tools to counter the Ebola virus, including the promising experimental drug ZMapp produced by Mapp Biopharmaceutical. “Ebola has always been on the threat list of agents that we’re concerned about,” he said, noting that rare diseases like Ebola are “not a commercial market so big pharma doesn’t have an interest in pursuing these, which is why the government involvement is so important.”
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6628
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Officials: 1 more vaping-related illness in Oregon.
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Health officials say one more Oregonian has a vaping-related severe lung illness, raising Oregon’s toll to nine victims, two of whom have died.
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true
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Health, Vaping, Kate Brown, Oregon
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The Oregonian/OregonLive reports Gov. Kate Brown on Oct. 4 ordered a six-month ban on sales of all flavored vaping products with nicotine or THC. It’s unclear when the ban will start. The governor told state agencies to “immediately” pass emergency rules to ban the products. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says at least 1,080 people across the country have been struck with lung illnesses connected to vaping and at least 18 have died. Officials do not know what is causing the illness. Medical tests have pointed to oils lodged in victims’ lungs, while others have pointed to lung reactions typical of exposure to toxic chemicals. Of Oregon’s nine victims, at least five used products they bought at legal marijuana retail stores.
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469
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Massive bushfires send Australia's clean and green reputation up in smoke.
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Breathing masks are selling out in Sydney with the city enveloped in the smoke from bushfires sweeping across a large swath of Australia’s east coast, damaging the country’s clean and green reputation.
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true
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Environment
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Office workers wearing protective masks, previously a rarity, have become a common sight in recent weeks in downtown Sydney, where record pollution levels have consistently ranked the city above the likes of Jakarta, Shanghai and Mumbai. The world-famous Opera House and Harbour Bridge have regularly been shrouded by thick smoke that has turned the daytime sky a dark orange. Ash has fallen like a shroud over the sky, propelled by strong winds from the fires burning on the outskirts of greater Sydney. Australia has been fighting wildfires across the country’s east coast for weeks, with blazes killing eight people - including two firefighters overnight - destroying more than 700 homes and razing nearly 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) of bushland. State health officials have warned people with respiratory conditions to stay inside as much as possible, but health experts said that advice is not a good enough response given the crises has now been running for weeks. “It breaks my heart when I see my patients because they’re like my family and when I see that they’re being punished by the smoke and heat I have felt powerless,” family doctor Kim Loo told protesters at a rally outside Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Sydney residence on Thursday. “I’ve gone to government for the last five years, state and federal, and it looks as though we have no health policies to deal with climate change federally.” Bunnings Warehouse, one of Australia’s largest retailers, said some of its stores have run out of breathing masks amid warnings the smoke pollution could impact lung function and lead to the development of respiratory diseases. “We’re working closely with suppliers to get more masks into impacted areas,” Bunnings regional operations manager Robyn Hudson said in an emailed statement. Morrison’s conservative Liberal-National coalition government has come under sustained pressure to defend its climate change policies as it has downplayed links to the unprecedented early arrival and severity of this year’s bushfire season. Morrison cut short a family holiday in Hawaii on Friday to head back to Sydney amid the criticism, as worries grew about Australia’s own tourism credentials. “Australia’s reputation as clean and green has been a major contributor to luring tourists,” said David Beirman, senior lecturer in tourism at the University of Technology in Sydney. “The longer this crisis goes on, the more damage it will have to that image and potentially on tourism.” Medical experts said the health damage to both locals and tourists could be long-running and difficult to immediately diagnose. Edward Jegasothy, an expert at the University of Sydney’s school of public health, said one of the biggest risks came from invisible small particles suspended in the atmosphere that are produced from the burning of wood. Those particles, which can travel long distances, can get down into the lungs and bloodstream, causing inflammation and other system effects, Jegasothy told Reuters. “When air pollution is short, it’s easy to tell people, give people advice about how to avoid it, stay indoors, avoid physical activity,” he said. “But when it’s sustained over a number of days or weeks, then the messaging becomes more complicated.” GRAPHIC - Forests in flames: Images from space show Australia’s bushfires in different light:
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25891
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The CDC said it “made a mistake” and reduced its count of Florida COVID-19 cases from 90,000 to 11,000.
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The CDC did not admit making a mistake that resulted in any systematic undercount of coronavirus cases in Florida.
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false
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Public Health, Florida, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Viral image,
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"Was it a conspiracy that made Florida a coronavirus hotspot? That’s the suggestion made in a viral image shared by a Facebook account called ""Stay with Trump."" The image, which includes a photo of comedian Tim Allen smiling, says: ""So, now that Trump has said hospitals are to report numbers to WH instead of the CDC, they came out & said they made a mistake in FL and they’ve been counting pneumonia and flu as covid, dropping their # from approx 90,000 to 11,000. Weird how that works, ain’t it?"" The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The Centers for Disease Control did not admit any kind of systematic error in its Florida COVID-19 counts. The Trump administration on July 10 did order hospitals to bypass the CDC and send COVID-19 patient information to the Department of Health and Human Services. Trump administration officials say the change will streamline data gathering, but the HHS database is not open to the public, which could affect the work of health officials who relied on the CDC database, the New York Times reported. The Facebook post we’re checking was published July 21. The same day, the same claim was made in a tweet by former congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine. Lorraine, a pro-Trump Republican, finished last among five candidates in the 2020 primary for the U.S. House seat held by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. In a reply to her tweet, Lorraine cited what she said were the ""sources"" for a her claim, including: a report that a Florida motorcyclist’s death had been added to the COVID-19 and then was removed; a partially debunked claim that hospitals are paid $13,000 for the admission of a COVID-19 patient and $39,000 if the patient goes on a ventilator; and her own statement that the CDC has admitted that it includes pneumonia and seasonal flu in its count of COVID-19 cases. Bob Anderson, chief of mortality statistics at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, told PolitiFact that similar claims were made in June. ""The claim was then and is still now. I’m not even sure where those numbers come from. They seem to have been pulled out of thin air,"" he said. As of July 27, the day we published this fact-check, Florida had nearly 419,000 cases, according to the CDC. The CDC counts as COVID-19 cases those patients whose cases are confirmed by testing as well as those that are considered ""probable"", CDC spokesman Jason McDonald told us. According to the epidemiological standards, a ""probable"" case is one that meets clinical criteria and epidemiologic evidence even though there hasn’t been testing; one in which antigens or antibodies have been detected and the person meets clinical criteria or there is epidemiologic evidence; or, one in which a death certificate lists COVID-19 disease or SARS-CoV-2 as a cause of death or a significant contributing factor. Cases that involve pneumonia or flu but not COVID-19 are not included in COVID-19 counts, McDonald said. However, a case would be included if, for example, a patient gets pneumonia that was caused by COVID-19, Anderson said. The CDC gets its Florida case counts from the Florida Department of Health, and no change from 90,000 to 11,000 was made, McDonald told PolitiFact."
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7550
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With fewer humans to fear, flamingos flock to Albania lagoon.
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Home confinement rules have upset some people in Albania, but humans getting their wings clipped during the coronavirus pandemic has allowed flamingos and other birds to flourish in a coastal lagoon by the Adriatic Sea.
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true
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Albania, International News, General News, Health, Adriatic Sea, Science, Virus Outbreak, Europe, Birds
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Local officials and residents say the flamingo population is up to about 3,000 at Narta Lagoon, an important waterfowl habitat that greater flamingos returned to in recent years after a long absence. Bird watchers also have noticed more pelicans, herons and other species this spring at the 28-square-kilometer (10-square-mile) lagoon, which is 145 kilometers (90 miles) south of Tirana, the capital. “Isn’t that beautiful to see fearless flamingos all around?” Dhimiter Konomi, part of a local group that manages commercial fishing in Narta Lagoon, said as the big, long-necked birds stood in the shallow water. Operations halting at a nearby saltworks and reduced human activity of all types during the pandemic explains why birds are flocking to the lagoon, said Nexhip Hysolokaj, a regional biodiversity expert. Flamingos are “a very delicate species,” and not having vehicles or visitors around suits them, he said. “They have found food and calmness, and that has likely helped them increase the numbers,” Hysolokaj said. Researchers plan to study the flamingos to see if the coronavirus-induced calm is conducive to establishing the lagoon as a place where they can nest and breed. Konomi says a lagoon crowded with feathered life is a treasure that could boost tourism. But Hysolokaj is less keen to attract conventional tourists to the lagoon, which is part of a protected landscape of sand dunes, wetlands, islands and beaches that supports diverse fauna as well as birds. He described it as the “lung” of Vlora, the nearest city. “There should be a stable but alternative tourism, naturally letting campers come, beaches used, with environmental biking, educational paths and more because it’s so close to Vlora,” Hysolokaj said. ___ Associated Press writer Llazar Semini contributed from Tirana, Albania. ___ Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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10878
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Pill as good as chemo on lung cancer, but costlier
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This was a concise (only 430-word) story reporting on the outcomes of a recent study which compared outcomes for patients with lung cancer who had previously undergone platinum-based treatments and received either the oral medication Iressa or chemotherapy infusions. It shows how efficiently critical elements can be relayed by a thoughtful reporter: the skeleton of study design, the bias implied by the funding source, the results, along with the comments from experts. While the piece did a good job describing the study it was reporting on, it could have done a better job of putting the study into the perspective about what is already known about the medication Iressa. And while the headline did the story a disservice in that this treatment is not appropriate for all persons with lung cancer, this was a generally informative piece that a reader with a previously treated lung cancer would find useful for initiating a conversation with their physician.
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true
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The story mentioned that the cost of this drug treatment was several thousand dollars a month and that this was higher than the costs of other treatments. It would have been better to provide a more concrete estimate of costs (several thousand – does this mean 2,3 or 6 thousand?). The story might have included some information about additional costs that would be encountered with the comparison treatment such as the cost of intraveneous infusions, testing to evaluate side-effects, and other connected costs. The story did a good job reporting the data comparing patient survival with Iressa as compared to individuals treated with IV chemotherapy. The story skimmed over the side effects; reducing the frequency of bothersome or life threatening side effects would seem to be an advantage. The story mentioned quality of life factors that appear to be better with Iressa but did not quantify the benefit observed. Borderline satisfactory. The story listed the common side effects of the treatment though it failed to indicate the frequency with which these were seen. In addition, rather than than merely listing these, the story could have included some information about the severity of the side effects (i.e. bothersome vs. fatal). The story provided information about the size of the study conducted, the nature of the patients that were enrolled, and that the drug company that markets the drug funded the study. The study was designed as a non-inferiority survival trial to compare this medication with docotaxel, a chemotherapy treatment often used in individuals who have lung cancer and have had platinum based treatment but who are experiencing a return of their cancer. (While the story did provide information about the survival outcomes, it also included information comparing side effects.) The story ended with a comment from one of the interviewed clinicians about quality of life being better with Iressa. The story should have been clearer about the predetermined endpoint of the study (longevity) and should not have ended with less data driven information. The story did not engage in overt disease mongering. However the headline does not hint that the trial is not about first-line cancer treatment, rather just patients who have been treated previously with a platinum-based chemotherapy. The story included quotes from two individuals identified as not being connected with the study reported upon but with relevant expertise. The story provided information about two treatment options for individuals who have recurrence of a previously treated lung cancer. It did not provide information about the natural history of not undergoing additional treatment for this condition which is necessary for evaluating the relative merit of the two treatments discussed. The story did not mention radiation and surgery which are both options for some limited cancers. The story mentions that the medication Iressa (gefitinib) is sold in the United States but that its availability in Europe is limited. The story presented the use of Iressa as a treatment of individuals with lung cancer who had previously been treated with a platinum-based regimen as though it was a novel application. However – this drug was approved by the FDA in 2003 for this purpose. While the results of study reported on are interesting, the story did not provide the reader with a realistic picture of about the novelty of this product. Does not appear to rely on a press release.
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39151
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A picture is being circulated that says it is from surgery on a 21-week-old fetus…and the fetus is holding a doctor’s hand.
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Picture of a Surgeon Holding Hands With a 21-week Old Fetus
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mixture
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Inspirational, Medical
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"The surgery cited in this story did take place, but the accounts of what actually happened are hotly disputed. Photo by Michael Clancy Dr. Joseph Bruner at Vanderbilt is known for his work in fetal surgery, especially on babies with spina bifida, a condition in which the spine does not close properly during development. Vanderbilt confirms that little Samuel Armus was 21 weeks-old in the womb when this surgery took place in 1999, which made the surgery very risky because if anything went wrong, the baby wouldn’t survive on its own. Dr. Bruner and his colleagues, however, had done numerous successful spina bifida surgeries on fetuses that are not yet viable. In this particular surgery, photographer Michael Clancy was in the operating room to document surgery on such a young fetus. Clancy said that “out of the corner of my eye I saw the uterus shake, but no one’s hands were near it. It was shaking from within. Suddenly, an entire arm thrust out of the opening, then pulled back until just a little hand was showing. The doctor reached over and lifted the hand, which reacted and squeezed the doctor’s finger. As if testing for strength, the doctor shook the tiny fist.” The picture became a sensation as a forwarded email especially among opponents of abortion. The surgeon, Dr. Bruner, told USA Today in 2000 that the picture was being treated like an urban legend and that he’d even received a report that a team of medical experts had called it a hoax. Bruner confirmed that the surgery and the photo were real but said that it was “not true” that the baby reached out of the womb and grabbed his hand, as some of the forwarded emails alleged. “Samuel and his mother, Julie, were under anesthesia and could not move,” he said. “The baby did not reach out. The baby was anesthetized. The baby was not aware of what was going on.” Michael Clancy, who owns the copyright to the photo, was stunned by Bruner’s comments and maintains that they do not fit what he saw happen during the surgery and when he took his pictures. On his website at www.michaelclancy.com, Clancy said he knows what he saw and also quoted a nurse at Vanderbilt who told him that she’d seen babies do that “all the time.” The surgery was successful and little Samuel Armas was born on December 2, 1999."
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37563
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There is an International Men's Day (in November), but the only time people care to verify that via Google search is on International Women's Day (in March).
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Do Searches for International Men’s Day Peak on International Women’s Day?
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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"On March 7 2020, one day before International Women’s Day, @the_female_lead tweeted a screenshot claiming that there is also an International Men’s Day — but searches for the latter spiked around International Women’s Day every March:Happy ""When's International Men's Day?"" Day 🤣 👇#IWD2020 pic.twitter.com/I2IlL7unmu— The Female Lead (@the_female_lead) March 7, 2020Jokingly wishing fellow users a “Happy When’s International Men’s Day” day, the tweet included a screenshot of a separate tweet, which was originally posted by @MattBinder on March 8 2015:reminder that there is international men's day and the only time men care about it is on international women's day pic.twitter.com/alCxoF8IFo— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) March 8, 2015Alongside a graph of searches, Binder wrote:reminder that there is international men’s day and the only time men care about it is on international women’s dayFor additional context, The Independent‘s viral news arm Indy100 claimed that “When is International Men’s Day” was trending on Twitter as of March 7 2020. In scenarios like that, it is also likely the appearance of a full phrase in Twitter’s trending topics prompts people to engage in discourse they might not have otherwise.That site attributed it to an annual joke by one user, not necessarily people complaining about a presumed absence of an International Men’s Day:Meanwhile, “When is International Men’s Day” is trending on Twitter, in large part due to comedian Rickard K Herring, who takes 8 March every year to reply to every such tweet, reminding men that yes, there is an International Men’s Day, and it’s on 19 November (coincidentally the same day as World Toilet Day, which provides no end of amusement).Two of the involved claims are true right off the bat: First that there is an International Women’s Day, celebrated annually on March 8th. Second, there is also an International Men’s Day, celebrated on November 19th.For search data, we used Google Trends’ search data tool. First we looked at 2014, the most recent full year of data before Binder’s tweet appeared in March 2015. The first graph is searches from the United States, the second is worldwide:In 2014, it was true searches for International Men’s Day in the United States were higher in March than November; the same was true when the search data was global, but the second spike (November) was far larger than it was in the US.We repeated the US and worldwide searches for 2015, the following year:By 2015 in the United States, the spikes were fairly even — meaning people searched for International Men’s Day both in March and November. When we moved to global searches, there were still two spikes — but more searches occurred in November than March outside the United States.Skipping ahead to 2018, search data from the United States was pretty similar to the year 2015. Worldwide search data still showed two spikes, one in March but and a larger spike in November:2019 brought another spate of coverage of and commentary around the claim (“Google searches for International Men’s Day are through the roof – the sexist society we live in can’t even let women have one day”), and it was the last total year of search data available in March 2020. Once again, we looked at the United States and worldwide searches:Relative to March 2018 and 2015’s November spikes for “International Men’s Day,” 2019’s was smaller. In the United States, far more people searched for “International Men’s Day” in March (around International Women’s Day) than November (the actual month for International Men’s Day).Incidentally, when we performed full year searches for International Women’s Day for 2015, 2018, and 2019 in the U.S., the charts showed no corresponding search spike in November:That said, there were a number of variables for which the search data did not account. For example, there is no way to tell who is searching, so we were unable to discern whether men specifically tended to search out “International Men’s Day” in March versus November, or if women were searching too. Another was whether the claim about searches circulating since at least 2015 (that more men searched for International Men’s Day in March than November) influenced the number of overall searches in both months in all years.However, it was true that in most years in the United States, searches for International Men’s Day were higher around International Women’s Day in March than they were in November. Outside the United States the spike in November was typically higher than inside, and searches for International Women’s Day seemed to spike only in March — not November."
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10451
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Simple measures can reduce post-operative cognitive dysfunction in older patients
|
This news release focuses on a recent article published in the journal PLOS ONE, reporting that the use of the corticosteroid dexamethasone and avoiding “deep” or “profound” anesthesia during surgery can reduce the incidence of post-operative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) in older patients. However, the release does not give readers any context for understanding the reduced incidence of cognitive dysfunction after anesthesia, and does not discuss costs or potential harms associated with dexamethasone use. POCD is not uncommon. A 2014 literature survey paper found that 41.4 percent of patients age 60 or older who had major surgery (other than cardiac surgery) were exhibiting symptoms of POCD when discharged from the hospital. Three months later, 12.7 percent of those older adults were still experiencing POCD. But older adults aren’t the only ones affected; more than 30 percent of adults under the age of 60 also experience POCD after major surgeries. And in addition to being fairly common, POCD can have a significant impact on a patient’s health, quality of life and recovery. A major issue for older adults who have cognitive issues after surgery is their ability to care for themselves. All of these factors make POCD prevention a subject of public interest. However, as with any health-related research news, the costs, benefits and risks need to be clearly outlined. And that’s missing here.
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true
|
Foundation/nonprofit news release
|
The release doesn’t discuss cost at all, which is somewhat surprising given that dexamethasone has been on the market for many years with various clinical applications. It’s not that dexamethasone is especially expensive (it isn’t — though the cost isn’t necessarily negligible), but that cost needs to be addressed. Readers are simply given no information about cost. The release explains that the overall pool of 140 patients was split into four groups: Group One did not receive dexamethasone and was under “deep” anesthesia; Group Two did not receive dexamethasone and was under “superficial” anesthesia; Group Three received dexamethasone before surgery and was under “deep” anesthesia; Group Four received dexamethasone before surgery and was under “superficial” anesthesia. Got all that? The release tells readers that patients in Group Four had a 15.3 percent incidence rate of POCD immediately after surgery, and that none of the Group Four patients had POCD six months after surgery. We’re glad that the release provides a specific, quantified benefit. However, the release does not give readers the information they need to understand what that number means. For example, what was the POCD incidence rate for any of the other groups immediately after surgery? What was the incidence rate for other groups after six months? What does the literature have to say about how common POCD is for patients in this age range and receiving this type of surgery? Without any of that information, it is impossible for readers to determine whether a 15.3 percent incidence rate of POCD is good or bad. While the release refers in general to the risks inherent with both deep and superficial anesthesia, it does not mention any of the potential side effects associated with its recommended intervention, dexamethasone. And there is no shortage of information on dexamethasone available. According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s Medline Plus page on dexamethasone, the drug’s side effects range from vomiting to insomnia to depression. The page indicates that dexamethasone may also interact with a variety of other widely-used drugs. In addition, giving patients steroids, of which dexamethasone is one, increases the risk of infection or worsening severity of existing infections. We don’t expect a release to provide an exhaustive list of side effects, but acknowledging that there are known risks associated with the drug is important. The release explains that “The researchers evaluated 140 patients aged between 60 and 87 who underwent surgery under propofol-induced general anesthesia at the Central Institute of Hospital das Clínicas, FM-USP’s teaching hospital, in most cases for removal of gallstones.” The release further explains that patients were divided into four groups (as we described above, under the Benefits section), and defines what constitutes “deep” anesthesia and “superficial” anesthesia. Those are all good things. However, the release would have been much stronger if it had done three things. First, it should have made clear that all of the surgeries were non-cardiac, non-neurological surgeries. Given how common these surgeries — particularly cardiac ones — are for older patients, this is an important point. Second, the release should have made it more clear that the benefits observed were based on one group (i.e., Group Four) of only 32 patients. This is a preliminary finding, and that needs to be stressed. Third, while the release tells readers that the anesthetic used was propofol, it doesn’t tell readers how common or widely-used this drug is as a surgical anesthetic. That would be valuable context. The release does not engage in disease mongering. The release does not explicitly note who funded the study. However, the study does not appear to have received any external funding. According to the ClinicalTrials.gov page for the study, the work was sponsored primarily by the University of São Paulo and Duke University (where the authors work), with additional support from the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (or São Paulo Research Foundation), which is public. It’s not unusual for universities to avoid mentioning funding for projects that they funded themselves. But it would have been a stronger release if it didn’t leave readers wondering who paid for the work. Frankly, there’s not a lot of research out there on steps to pro-actively reduce rates of cognitive dysfunction after anesthesia, and we’re not aware of alternative interventions designed to do so. It’s clear from the release that the relevant tools involved in this particular intervention — the use of dexamethasone and avoidance of “deep” anesthesia — are currently available. However, as noted above, this is a relatively small study, and we suspect that more research would be needed before this approach was considered for widespread clinical practice. Since we already dinged it for that point earlier, we’ll give it a satisfactory here. It’s clear from the release that this is a new (and, ergo, novel) approach addressing a well-established problem. The release uses responsible language to discuss the findings, although it could have been more clear about the preliminary nature of the work. A larger study is almost certainly called for on this intervention. We do have some concerns over the use of the acronym “POCD” to describe cognitive dysfunction following anesthesia. It appears to be a coined medical term that few clinicians use.
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35309
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Nancy Pelosi visited Wuhan, China, in November 2019, just a month before the COVID-19 outbreak there.
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Praising the meeting between the two presidents, Pelosi said she expected the legislative bodies of the two countries to strengthen exchanges to promote friendship between their peoples.
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false
|
Politics, COVID-19
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In April 2020, as the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic continued to take its grim toll in countries around the world, a meme circulated on social media held that U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had undertaken a trip to Wuhan, China — the apparent origin place of the coronavirus outbreak — just a month before the initial cluster of COVID-19 cases was reported to the World Health Organization: The meme suggested (that is to say, overtly stated) that Pelosi was engaged in “traitorous” activity in China related to “this virus release.” However, Pelosi’s House website and social media accounts neither display, nor have been scrubbed of, any mention or documentation of her having traveled to Wuhan (or anywhere else in China) during that timeframe. The Foreign Travel Reports lodged with the House Clerk don’t record Pelosi’s making a trip to China during the fourth quarter of 2019. (She accompanied a Congressional delegation to Jordan, Afghanistan, and Qatar in mid-October 2019). And no contemporaneous news accounts in either the U.S. or China reported Pelosi’s having been in latter country in November 2019. As well, the accompanying photograph used in the meme does not show Pelosi visiting Wuhan or meeting with Chinese officials at any time in 2019. It dates from November 2015, four full years before the COVID-19 outbreak, and pictures Pelosi (who was then the House Minority Leader) meeting with now-retired Chinese politician Zhang Dejiang as the head of a Congressional delegation to Beijing. Xinhua, China’s state-run press agency, described that meeting as follows: China’s top lawmaker Zhang Dejiang met with Nancy Pelosi, head of the Democratic Minority in the US House of Representatives, calling for more exchanges and communication between l Supreme Legislative Body of China and the United States Congress. “Sino-US relations are” very important,” said Zhang, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (AFN, Chinese parliament), said that China and the United States had agreed to build a new type of relations between major countries during President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States in September. The presidents of the two countries clearly indicated the correct direction of the development of bilateral relations and reached a series of agreements during this visit, sending a positive signal to the rest of the world that China and the United States were attached to the dialogue and cooperation, according to Zhang. He called on the AFN and the United States Congress to strengthen communication and exchange, deepen mutual understanding and promote substantial cooperation in the spirit of mutual respect and the search for common ground. Zhang urged the two sides to redouble their efforts to promote mutual trust and cooperation, with the aim of promoting the development of bilateral relations and benefiting the people of both countries and the world.
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2855
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"Vaping"" a slow burner in China, world's maker of e-cigarettes."
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When Qu Liang’s wife became pregnant, the 30-year-old Shanghai salesman switched from smoking to “vaping”, a practice uncommon in China although it is the world’s leading producer of electronic cigarettes.
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true
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Health News
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E-cigarettes were invented about a decade ago by a Chinese medical researcher and the country supplies nearly all global demand. Puffing on the devices, or vaping, is surging worldwide, but it forms only a tiny part of China’s 1.2 trillion yuan (about $200 billion) cigarette business. Now, rising public awareness about the hazards of smoking, coupled with China’s hardening stance on smoking in public, is opening up an opportunity for e-cigarettes to make inroads into the world’s biggest tobacco market. “As more and more places become off limits to smoking, I find myself using e-cigarettes more often,” said Qu. Since starting using the product six years ago for health reasons, Qu has started selling e-cigarettes himself, expanding the business from exports to the domestic market this year. E-cigarettes are mostly sold online in China, where government regulation around the product is still lax. Countries like Singapore and Brazil currently ban e-cigarettes. Centered in the southern metropolis of Shenzhen, Chinese manufacturers including Shenzhen Smoore Technology, FirstUnion Group, Shenzhen Seego Technology Co Ltd and Ruyan Tech make around 95 percent of the world’s e-cigarettes, slim, battery-powered metal tubes that turn nicotine-laced liquid into vapour that is inhaled. Vaping is potentially a healthier alternative to smoking as the absence of combustion averts some of the harmful side-effects of tobacco smoke. But a big issue is the lack of long-term scientific evidence to support the safety and effectiveness of e-cigarettes, prompting critics like the British Medical Association to warn of the dangers of their unregulated use. Nevertheless, the e-cigarettes market is growing fast, although it is still only a tiny proportion of the global tobacco business. Last weekend, Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Julia Louis-Dreyfus were seen smoking e-cigarettes at the globally televised Golden Globes awards ceremony. Some analysts predict e-cigarettes could outsell conventional cigarettes within a decade, particularly as Big Tobacco grapples with declining sales due to government regulation and health-aware consumers. E-cigarette sales in the United States grew at 115 percent each year between 2009 and 2012, and could grow us much as 240 percent this year, according to experts. The global e-cigarette market could increase fivefold to $10 billion by 2017, according to some estimates. For Chinese manufacturers of e-cigarettes, while the export market is surging, the domestic potential is tantalizing. Even a tiny portion of its 300 million-plus smokers would offer an attractive prize. In 2012, Chinese smoked a total of 2.46 trillion cigarettes - 4.8 per person, per day - and the country accounts for one-third of global consumption. “The harsher control of tobacco is great news for electric cigarettes,” said Lai Baosheng, general manager of e-cigarette maker Smoore, adding lax smoking rules in China had previously slowed the development of the business. Beijing has moved to clamp down on smoking, reinforcing a ban on officials smoking in public and increasing the price of tobacco by 5 percent this month. Health authorities said they would enforce a ban on smoking in public places nationwide this year - a law that has long been in the works. Smoore shipped over 100 million e-cigarettes to mostly Europe and the United States in 2013 with a sales value of 800 million yuan, double the level a year before, although Lai says the company is starting to eye the opportunity within China as smoking rules harden. Analysts say China’s domestic market would have to eventually open up to e-cigarettes. “There’s an unavoidable logic here that eventually no one will smoke regular tobacco on this planet,” said Shane MacGuill, London-based tobacco analyst at Euromonitor. “China won’t be able to become a kind of ghetto of tobacco, so there will have to be some movement towards an alternative, though how soon it’s going to happen I’m not sure. It will happen but it will take longer.” Tobacco companies such as British American Tobacco Plc and Philip Morris International Inc as well as independent U.S. firms already source e-cigarettes from China. But e-cigarettes could also give them entry into the Chinese market - currently tobacco sales in China are largely governed by a state monopoly. Tobacco imports made up less than 1 percent of China’s market in 2012, according to Euromonitor, with the China National Tobacco Corporation dominating 98 percent of the domestic market, according to a paper from Brookings. E-cigarettes offer a potential route into China’s closely controlled tobacco market for brands such as Lorillard Inc’s blu e-cigarette, Philip Morris parent Altria’s MarkTen, BAT’s Vype or Reynolds American Inc’s Vuse. With China’s large state-owned tobacco firms largely steering clear of e-cigarettes - only one has made an obvious mention of looking into the technology - global Big Tobacco could target wealthier, more health-conscious smokers in China’s urban centers. But regulation of China’s e-cigarettes market is still in flux, and there are serious obstacles, not least China’s reluctance to risk losing the massive tax revenues currently derived from regular tobacco. The country could also decide to control any e-cigarette market as strictly as it does the traditional tobacco industry, leaving little room for outside players. “Nonetheless, I think it has to be seen as a potential way in to the Chinese market,” said Eddy Hargreaves, tobacco analyst at Cannacord Genuity. “The potential generally is huge and we’d expect it (to catch on in China), albeit it at a slower rate to the United States and Europe.” ($1 = 6.0412 Chinese yuan)
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1593
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U.S. women push back against stigma, cost of menstruation.
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Sixteen-year-old Emma Joy and her younger sister Quinn recently spent an evening stuffing bags with a full year’s supply of tampons or sanitary pads for women who often miss work or school because they cannot afford menstrual products.
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true
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Health News
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The South Orange, New Jersey, residents got the idea for their charity, Girls Helping Girls Period, when Emma learned that federal assistance programs for the indigent do not cover menstruation products, leaving many low-income and homeless women to cope with their cycles on their own. “We found out a lot of people don’t know that,” Emma said. “That’s the point: to educate the public and to eliminate this issue of being afraid to talk about it. It shouldn’t be a thing we hide.” The project, Girlshelpinggirlsperiod.org, is part of a growing national movement to address the inequities that have sprung up as a result of the stigma that still surrounds menstruation. Some prisons, for example, force female inmates to buy pads at the commissary, and public restrooms rarely provide them free of charge for emergencies. New York and 39 other states impose sales taxes on tampons and sanitary napkins, while exempting the Rogaine hair regrowth treatment, condoms and other products mostly used by men. Advocates have sued in New York, citing a double standard. Women’s advocates say budgets for homeless shelters, schools, prisons and public restrooms should provide free tampons and sanitary napkins, just as they do for soap, toilet paper and other essentials. In a country where erectile dysfunction ads fill television commercial slots and jokes about flatulence and bowel movements have inspired entire books, the bodily function of menstruation endures as a taboo subject. “It goes all the way back to Eve, to religion, misogyny, all the societal norms we’ve been brought up with,” said Maplewood, New Jersey, lawyer Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, who advocates for equitable menstrual policy in the United States. The shame and embarrassment that many women still feel is reflected in the proliferation of euphemisms for menstruation around the world. “Shark week,” “the curse,” “a visit from Aunt Flo” and “having the painters in” are a few of the 5,000 names documented in a 2015 survey of 90,000 people in 190 countries that was carried out by German healthcare company Clue. “We are trained not to talk about it,” Weiss-Wolf said. “When we don’t talk about it, we don’t consider it. We don’t think, ‘Hey, for poor people, this is actually expensive; this can be a problem.’” Experts say the average woman spends $70 a year on tampons and pads, not to mention the cost of replacing underwear and clothing when accidents inevitably happen. Eighty-six percent of U.S. women aged 18 to 54 say they have experienced the unexpected onset of their period in public without the supplies they needed, according to a 2013 survey conducted on behalf of FreeTheTampons.org, an Ohio-based initiative to provide free tampons in restrooms. “Menstrual products are not luxury items,” said U.S. Representative Grace Meng of Queens, New York. Because of her efforts, the Federal Emergency Management Agency updated its rules to allow homeless people to pay for tampons with funds once restricted to such items as diapers and toothpaste. “We’ve heard stories of young girls using rags, where girls are not able to go to school on days that they get their period,” said Meng. “If you’re missing an average of five days of school each month, this affects more than just menstruation time.” The problem extends far beyond the United States, with 17 percent of women around the world saying they had missed school, work or an event because they were afraid someone might find out they had their period, the Clue survey found. At the same time, American girls are menstruating at an increasingly earlier age due to improved nutrition. The average girl starts having her period at age 12 and bleeds for up to seven days a month until she is about 50 years old, according to the womenshealth.gov website. A more matter-of-fact attitude toward menstruation appears to be gaining traction, as evidenced by straightforward advertisements on New York City subways touting Thinx “period-proof” underwear as absorbing “2 tampons’ worth of blood.” In another sign of change, a free tampon dispenser is being installed in a Queens high school as part of a pilot program aimed at putting the machines throughout the New York City public-school system, the nation’s largest, with more than 1 million students. “It used to be a nasty subject in health class,” said 12-year-old Quinn Joy. “But the moment I found out people were missing school and work, I got over it. Now it’s just woman toilet paper.”
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13225
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"Global warming leads to much quicker spread of the Zika virus because the increased temperature, ""makes mosquitoes mature faster, . . . bite more due to having a higher metabolism, and makes the Zika virus inside of them incubate faster."
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Al Gore claims global warming will lead to faster spread of Zika virus
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mixture
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Global News Service, Climate Change, Public Health, Science, Florida, Al Gore,
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"In a nod to environmentally oriented voters, Hillary Clinton campaigned in Miami with Al Gore to detail her plans for investing in green energy and combatting global warming. During his speech, Gore highlighted the dangers that global warming poses to public health in the United States. While discussing Florida’s Zika outbreak, he claimed that increased temperatures energize Zika-carrying mosquitoes and make the disease spread faster. ""The change in climate conditions changes the places where these tropical diseases become endemic and put down roots,"" he said. ""Increased temperature from global warming makes mosquitoes mature faster, makes them bite more due to a having a higher metabolism, and makes the Zika virus inside of them incubate faster, leading to much quicker spread of the disease."" Gore’s overall message was focused on Zika transmission in the United States. But scientists across the world have expressed concerns that global warming could increase transmission of tropical diseases such as dengue fever and malaria in many countries. We decided to take a closer look at the effect of global warming on mosquitoes and the diseases they carry. Global warming and mosquitoes Research suggests that higher temperatures from global warming could increase the habitat range of Aedes aegypti, the species of mosquito that transmits Zika virus, yellow fever and dengue. For example, a recent study simulated the change in habitat for Aedes aegypti in two different global warming scenarios until the year 2080. The researchers found that even in a model with moderate greenhouse emissions, the mosquitoes would be able to expand into areas that were previously too cool to live in, such as the northeastern United States and southern Europe. They concluded that up to an additional 298 million to 460 million people could end up exposed. Graphs showing the projected spread of the Aedes aegypti mosquito in two global warming simulations. Figure A shows the mosquito’s current distribution, where red regions have the highest level of activity and blue regions the lowest. Figure B models changes in habitat between 2061 and 2080 with moderate greenhouse emissions. Figure C is the same, but assumes a higher level of emissions. Purple shading shows regions where the mosquitoes would become more prevalent. Source: Monaghan et al. But how do rising temperatures directly affect the metabolism and life cycle of Zika-carrying mosquitoes? Andrew Monaghan, lead author of the mosquito habitat study and a researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told us that global warming has the potential to elevate transmission risk due to changes in the mosquito’s behavior. ""Warmer temperatures increase Aedes mosquito development and survival rates, affect biting behavior, and speed up the extrinsic incubation period for Aedes-transmitted viruses such as Zika,"" he said. ""There is strong scientific consensus on these aspects, based on numerous laboratory and field studies."""
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13752
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"Jerry Brown Says Indiana Gov. Mike Pence ""denies that there's such a thing as evolution."
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"California Gov. Jerry Brown said GOP Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence ""denies that there's such a thing as evolution."" Pence, in a 2009 interview on MSNBC, said: ""I embrace the view that God created the heavens and the earth and the seas and all that’s in them."" When asked again and again whether he believes in evolution, he demures, stopping short of explicitly rejecting it. He clearly did not want to answer the question, which ends up sounding like a ‘No.’ Our research found no evidence that Pence has expanded on his less-than-clear view on evolution, leaving it open to interpretation. In more recent years, the Indiana governor has criticized other science-based initiatives, including efforts to slow climate change. Brown’s statement says Pence ""denies"" evolution. The Indiana governor certainly doesn’t affirm it. That’s not the same as denying it."
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mixture
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Religion, Science, California, Jerry Brown,
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"EDITOR'S NOTE: On July 28, 2016, PolitiFact California rated as True a statement by Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown that Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence ""denies that there's such a thing as evolution."" We based that ruling on Pence’s comments in a 2009 MSNBC interview. Subsequently, our readers made some good points that led us to reconsider the fact check. They pointed out that Pence never explicitly denies evolution in the interview. Instead, Pence dodges the question multiple times. With his past skepticism of science, this gives the impression that Pence rejects evolution. Taking all of this into account, we are changing our rating to and providing this new analysis. California Gov. Jerry Brown came out swinging against Republicans Donald Trump and Mike Pence in his speech at the Democratic National Convention. ""Trump says global warming is a hoax. I say Trump is a fraud,"" Brown, who has made climate change a top priority, said of the GOP presidential nominee. Last month, PolitiFact rated a similar statement by Hillary Clinton about Trump’s ‘hoax’ claim. But did Brown stretch the truth in his attack on Pence, the Indiana governor and GOP Vice Presidential candidate? Brown said of Pence: ""... it’s not surprising that Trump chose as his running mate a man who denies that there's such a thing as evolution."" Our research Asked about Brown’s claim, his spokeswoman pointed to Pence’s 2009 interview on MSNBC’s Hardball. The interview has been widely discussed in recent weeks with Trump’s selection of Pence. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is first asked about evolution at the 8:00 minute mark in this video. Chris Matthews, the show’s host, asked Pence in the interview: ""Do you believe in evolution, sir?"" Pence responded: ""I embrace the view that God created the heavens and the earth and the seas and all that’s in them."" Matthews continued: ""But do you believe in evolution as the way he did it?"" Pence replied: ""The means, Chris, that he used to do that, I can’t say."" Several minutes later, Pence responded similarly to the same question: ""Chris, I believe with all my heart that God created the heavens and the earth, the seas and all that is in them. … How he did that, I’ll ask him about some day."" Pence certainly dances around the topic, but nowhere does he outright deny evolution. Pence’s comments could be interpreted as rejecting evolution, but there’s no hard evidence to back up that idea. One could also say Pence’s comments place him in the category of theistic evolutionists, or those who believe religious teachings are compatible with evolution, said Rodney Duke, a professor of religion at Appalachian State University in North Carolina. ""There are many Christians, including scientists, who will affirm that God is creator and yet accept -- or at least not deny -- that natural evolutionary means were used,"" Duke said in an email. ""Therefore, although Pence's remarks were quite circumspect and he did not affirm evolutionary means, his careful wording did not reject them."" Our research found no evidence Pence has publicly clarified his comments on evolution. Asked about Pence’s current view on the topic, his spokesman pointed to the same 2009 interview without elaborating. Evolution is not the only science-based process Pence has been circumspect about. He’s also been skeptical of climate change. And, on his campaign website in 2000, Pence challenged established health science, declaring: ""Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill."" He went on to say ""In fact, 2 out of every three smokers does not die from a smoking related illness and 9 out of ten smokers do not contract lung cancer. This is not to say that smoking is good for you…"" Christian faith Pence has described himself as ""a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order."" He was raised Catholic. But, as the New York Times reported in July, ""His evangelical Christianity is now the driving force behind his political agenda, whether he is working to deny federal funds to Planned Parenthood or to make it legal for religious conservatives to refuse to serve gay couples."" Though clear on some social issues, Pence has been reticent to state his specific beliefs on science. Asked, for example, whether he supports federal funding for stem cell research by Matthews in the 2009 interview, Pence responded: ""I think in our schools we should teach all of the facts about all of these controversial areas, and let our students, let our children and our children’s children decide based upon the facts and the science."" Pence takes a ‘have-it-both-ways,’ approach, declining to clarify his personal opinion on these scientific topics. But, again, that approach can’t be described as outright ‘denying’ evolution. Our ruling California Gov. Jerry Brown said GOP Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence ""denies that there's such a thing as evolution."" Pence, in a 2009 interview on MSNBC, said: ""I embrace the view that God created the heavens and the earth and the seas and all that’s in them."" When asked again and again whether he believes in evolution, he demures, stopping short of explicitly rejecting it. He clearly did not want to answer the question, which ends up sounding like a ‘No.’ Our research found no evidence that Pence has expanded on his less-than-clear view on evolution, leaving it open to interpretation. In more recent years, the Indiana governor has criticized other science-based initiatives, including efforts to slow climate change. Brown’s statement says Pence ""denies"" evolution. The Indiana governor certainly doesn’t affirm it. That’s not the same as denying it. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context.
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26176
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“You see suicide rates are skyrocketing now…”
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"""You see suicide rates skyrocketing now,"" Murtaugh said, in amplifying Trump’s call for an end to COVID-19 business restrictions that have hurt the economy. He addresses a subject of great concern because suicide rates historically have gone up when there were prolonged increases in unemployment rates. But Murtaugh is way ahead of himself. There’s no way to know whether suicides are rising this coronavirus year - let alone ""skyrocketing"" - because national statistics aren’t available and won’t be for some time. The burden is on Murtaugh, Trump’s top campaign spokesman, to provide broad evidence of his unqualified claim. He comes up short."
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false
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Economy, Public Health, Coronavirus, Virginia, Tim Murtaugh,
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"Are COVID-19 business restrictions causing U.S. suicides to soar? Tim Murtaugh, the communications director for President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, made that claim during a May 26 interview on Newsradio WRVA in Richmond. Murtaugh has deep Richmond connections, having worked in the city as television reporter and as a spokesman for the Republican Party of Virginia, former Attorney General Jerry Kilgore and several statewide GOP campaigns. Lately, he’s been a regular guest on conservative Virginia radio shows, giving updates on Trump’s campaign. On May 26, Murtaugh defended Trump’s demands to reopen the economy, saying the shutdown is causing its own death toll. ""You cannot shut the economy down and have it be dormant for an extended period of time,"" he said. ""That comes with significant health risks of its own; known health problems that we will get, never mind that we see suicide rates skyrocketing now because people are in despair, and some of that is economic pressure on people. We know that to be the case. So we have to get our economy moving again."" Fact checking Murtaugh’s claim, we found that mental health experts are deeply concerned that the sharp economic downturn could lead to more suicides - particularly if there is a long period of high unemployment. But there is no broad evidence that U.S. suicides have increased this year, let alone skyrocketed, as Muraugh says. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps national suicide statistics, a lengthy process that requires verification of reported self-inflicted deaths. The latest data is from 2018 - more than a year before the first COVID-19 death occurred in the U.S. Suicide statistics for this year will be ready in 2022. ""It’s too soon to know whether COVID-19 is associated with suicide increases,"" Courtney Lenard, a CDC spokesperson, told us. ""There is no evidence that suicide rates are increasing,"" said Jerry Reed, senior vice president of the Education Development Center, a global nonprofit that studies suicide and other mental health issues. Murtuagh’s backup We asked Murtaugh for proof of his claim, and he sent us three anecdotal news stories. A May 21 TV report from KGO in San Francisco featuring Dr. Mike deBoisblanc, head of the trauma department at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, Calif. He called for an end to coronavirus quarantining, saying he’d seen ""a year's worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks."" A May 25 TV report from KIMA in Yakima, Wash., saying the county has seen seven suicides in the last 10 weeks - a 30% over the same time last year. ""I can't speculate to the reason why,"" said Coroner Jim Curtice. An April 29 article from the Daily News in New York saying there had been 16 suicides in the borough during the last six weeks. In comparison, there were 17 suicides in Queens during the first four months of 2019. """"There is a mental health component to this health crisis,"" said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. Murtaugh also sent us articles from The Washington Post and U.S. News & World Report with an array of mental health experts voicing concern that the poor economy and social distancing brought on by COVID-19 could cause increased depression and anxiety leading to suicides. Neither article said, however, that suicides have increased this year, and both articles quoted experts hoping no surge will come. ""Could the numbers go up? Yes, but it isn’t inevitable. We know suicide is preventable,"" said Christine Moutier, chief medical officer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, told The Post. Research has shown a connection between extended periods of high unemployment and suicide. A Rutgers University study of the Great Recession from 2007 to 2009 found that for every 1% increase in the unemployment rate, there was a 1.6% in the suicide rate. Reed told us that calls to national suicide hotliness have increased in recent months, but said he’s hopeful that’s a good sign that more people are seeking counseling. Our ruling ""You see suicide rates skyrocketing now,"" Murtaugh said, in amplifying Trump’s call for an end to COVID-19 business restrictions that have hurt the economy. He addresses a subject of great concern because suicide rates historically have gone up when there were prolonged increases in unemployment rates. But Murtaugh is way ahead of himself. There’s no way to know whether suicides are rising this coronavirus year - let alone ""skyrocketing"" - because national statistics aren’t available and won’t be for some time. The burden is on Murtaugh, Trump’s top campaign spokesman, to provide broad evidence of his unqualified claim. He comes up short."
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32818
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Visitors to Hollywood's Walk of Fame regularly defecate on Donald Trump's star.
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We contacted the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to ask about the rumor, and the representative with whom we spoke said that the rumors were false on both counts: Not only are there no plans to move or remove Donald Trump’s star, but the Chamber had received no reports or complaints of visitors defecating on the landmark (thus far).
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false
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Uncategorized, donald trump
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The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a collection of five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars that adorn the sidewalks along Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Hollywood, California, to honor the achievements of individuals from the entertainment industry. More than 2,000 actors, musicians, directors, producers, and musical and theatrical groups (and even fictional characters) have been memorialized with the placement of stars bearing their names along the Walk of Fame. Although much more widely known as a real estate developer and business magnate rather than an entertainer, Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump was awarded a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in 2007 for his work on the popular reality series The Apprentice. (Critics contend that the real reason Trump has a Hollywood star is because the Walk of Fame is primarily about popularity and publicity, and money and influence count for far more than than actual achievement in determining who is to be so honored.) Donald Trump’s controversial remarks about illegal immigrants in 2015 prompted a movement to have his star repealed. But Leron Gubler, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce President, stated that “once a Star has been added to the Walk, it is considered a part of the historic fabric of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Because of this, we have never removed a Star from the Walk.” Nonetheless, in April 2016 some online sources were reporting that so many Hollywood visitors were defecating on Donald Trump’s Walk of Fame star that the Hollywood Historic Trust was considering removing it altogether: Anyone who lives in or has traveled to a big city knows how difficult it can be to find a public restroom when nature calls. Luckily, however, those living in or visiting Hollywood, Calif., can rest easier knowing their bladders and bowels will have a fantastic new, entirely free place to relieve themselves—Donald Trump’s Walk of Fame star. In fact, so many people have been utilizing the shifty facility that rumor has it the Hollywood Historic Trust is thinking about removing Trump’s star from the iconic tourist attraction altogether. Such reports seemed to stem from the web site Rimmed, who reported on 3 April 2016 (with a headline in the form of a question): In hilarious news, we got a report today that the Hollywood Historic Trust is considering removing Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame because so many tourists keep defacing it. The Rimmed item provided no documentation that humans were intentionally choosing to publicly answer nature’s call on a Hollywood street rife with tourist traffic, just mostly Twitter-culled images of folks behaving badly while visiting Trump’s star. And while it is true that the Hollywood Historic Trust plays a role in maintaining the Walk of Fame, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce administers the Walk of Fame (including the addition of stars) and the City of Los Angeles “owns” the Walk of Fame (since it is a public sidewalk). It would therefore fall to one of the latter two agencies to remove a star if it were causing problems, but the Chamber of Commerce has already stated (in reference to controversies involving political comments made by Donald Trump and multiple sexual assault accusations leveled against comedian Bill Cosby) that: Once a Star has been added to the Walk, it is considered a part of the historic fabric of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Because of this, we have never removed a Star from the walk. It is true that Donald Trump’s Walk of Fame star has been vandalized multiple times through the addition of graffiti such as swastikas, muting icons, and derogatory comments: Somebody has defaced Donald Trump’s Hollywood star and people aren’t sure whether it was a supporter or a protester… pic.twitter.com/LRRFNA6zuH — Rhoda Sharp (@So2012Trust) March 25, 2016 Someone spray painted a mute symbol on Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame ? pic.twitter.com/CjkRzrZYdH — Jacob (@sunxnes) March 30, 2016 A picture I took of Donald Trump’s star on the Walk of Fame in LA a few months ago pic.twitter.com/FnuKhRY7n4 — Khalid (@WorldOfK_) March 10, 2016 It’s also true that one doesn’t have to search very long online to find purported images of dogs defecating, or people urinating, on Trump’s star: My friend’s service dog accidentally took a shit on Donald Trump’s Hollywood star. Best thing I’ve seen all day. pic.twitter.com/8lvqkTZPfk — Taylor McCollum (@Taybuggxoxo) March 16, 2016 Nonetheless, rumors of an abundance of rogue human pooping on Trump’s Walk of Fame star do not appear to be well-documented. Given the nature of the claim and its popularity on social media, if such an activity were common, we’d expect to see multiple social media users snapping and sharing photographs of this comical new trend.
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5291
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11-year-old girl gets heart transplant after visit by Drake.
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A suburban Chicago girl has received a heart transplant just days after she danced her way into a hospital visit from Drake.
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true
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Heart transplants, Chicago, Hip hop and rap, Entertainment, Drake, North America, Health
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Surgeons performed the transplant on 11-year-old Sofia Sanchez on Monday at Chicago’s Lurie Children’s Hospital. The Canadian rapper visited Sofia there after seeing a video of her dancing in a hospital hallway to his song, “In My Feelings.” The video inspired a viral dance craze. Cardiovascular surgeon Carl Backer says Sofia’s nine-hour surgery went extremely well, although the first 48 hours after are critical. A Facebook video shows Sofia being told of the transplant on Sunday and then exclaiming “I’m getting a heart, Mom? Oh my God!” ___ This story has been corrected to show that the surgery took nine, not 12 hours.
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27440
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A man named Shane Patrick Boyle died shortly after starting a GoFundMe fundraiser for insulin.
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Last night/ this morning, I was so depressed I did not want to live in this world anymore (and as a type one diabetic, I honestly don’t know how long I will live if I lose access to affordable healthcare). Today, I feel more optimistic, not because I think everything is going to be okay, but because I have seen so many of your posts, recognizing the fight that is ahead, and talking about organizing, not just sitting back and complaining or planning for the next election.
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true
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Politics, diabetes, insulin
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In February 2017, Shane Patrick Boyle started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for “a month of insulin.” A few weeks later, he died after developing diabetic ketoacidosis. Although several local outlets reported on Boyle’s death at the time, it wasn’t until November 2017 that Boyle’s story reached many readers, thanks in part to a Facebook post from United States Sen. Bernie Sanders linking to an article in The Nation about the rising cost of insulin: We cannot call ourselves a great country as long our young people are literally dying because they cannot afford life-saving medication. This young man, Shane Patrick Boyle, died on March 18 after his GoFundMe campaign to pay for insulin came up $50 short. Something has got to change. Our job is to stand up to the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and enact policies that make prescription drugs affordable for everyone—not ones that make the CEOs of the pharmaceutical industry rich. In addition to highlighting the sad circumstances surrounding Boyle’s death, The Nation also pointed to Alec Raeshawn Smith, a 26-year-old who died in June after he lost his insurance and started to ration his insulin: Alec Raeshawn Smith, age 26, was found dead in his apartment on June 27. He was rationing his insulin after he aged out of his parent’s insurance coverage. The sad fact is more people would be alive today if insulin was affordable for all Americans. The deaths of Smith and Boyle and their reported struggles with health insurance were met with skepticism by some readers. Others encountered this news on social media, where it was shared with incomplete or incorrect information. For instance, comedian David Anthony conflated the deaths of these two individuals when he wrote that a 26-year-old had started a GoFundMe to get insulin: For the rest of my life I will never forget a 26 year old started a gofundme to get insulin, didn’t get the amount he needed and died rationing his not costly medicine. Just before Thanksgiving. — Dave Anthony (@daveanthony) November 24, 2017 Alec Raeshawn Smith was 26 years old at the time of his death; however, we have not been able to find anything to indicate that he had set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for insulin. (A fundraiser was set up after his death to cover funeral costs.) Shane Patrick Boyle, on the other hand, was older when he died, and he did set up a fundraiser for medication. Smith passed away on 27 June 2017. In his obituary, his family asked for donations to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, and encouraged everyone to sign a petition for affordable health care: In lieu of flowers memorial donations may be given to Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, www.jdrf.org. We would also like to encourage everyone to go to www.jdrf.org and sign the Coverage 2 Control petition which will provide affordability, choice and coverage for people with Diabetes. Boyle died of the same treatable complication that killed Smith: diabetic ketoacidosis. Before his death on 18 March 2017, he set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for one month of insulin: The only archived version of this campaign is from 23 March 2017, five days after Boyle’s death. Although this copy shows that Boyle had raised $1,590 of a $750 goal, it appears that the majority of this money was raised after his passing. (All eight comments were posted in the days following Boyle’s death and the visible donations, more than $200, were posted within a day of its archival date.) Ted Closson, a comic book artist and friend of Boyle’s, wrote that Boyle was “$50 shy of his goal” for over two weeks: A second GoFundMe campaign to raise money for a memorial for Boyle and his mother also suggests that the fundraiser was short of the $750 goal at the time of Boyle’s passing (emphasis ours): The world lost a wonderful man due to complications of type 1 diabetes. My cousin, Shane Boyle, put everything into taking care of his ailing mother at the expense of his own needs. Shane’s mother, Judy Boyle, passed away on March 11th and we lost Shane to diabetes exactly a week later on March 18th. After his death, we learned that Shane lost his prescription benefits when he moved to Mena, Arkansas to care for his mom. We found a GoFundMe where he was trying to raise $750 to get just one more month of insulin and supplies. Unfortunately, he didn’t get help in time. Shane died because he was trying to stretch out his life saving insulin to make it last longer. Shane was working hard to take care of his mother’s funeral arrangements when he died. Her service had to be cancelled because of the unexpected financial burden of losing two family members in a week’s time. I am hoping we can raise the funds for a combined funeral service for Shane and Judy Boyle. If we can raise more than is needed for the service, any remaining funds would go to a charity that provides insulin to diabetics like Shane. We don’t want other families to suffer the pain of losing a loved one because they couldn’t afford medications. Thank you for any help you can provide, even if all you can offer is a kind message or sharing a special memory. Vice also mentioned the circumstances surrounding Boyle’s death in a story about the rising price of insulin. Long before Boyle launched a fundraising campaign, he worried about a Trump presidency’s effects on the price of insulin. Immediately after the election, on 9 November 2016, Boyle wrote on Facebook (emphasis ours):
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26052
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A “face mask exempt card” allows you to cite the ADA and not wear a mask.
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The Justice Department has debunked the claim. The Freedom to Breathe Agency isn’t a real federal agency. The Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability, does not specifically say anything about face masks. While it’s true that businesses are not allowed to ask customers about their disabilities, and there may be some exceptions to the law, governments have broad authority to issue health mandates during a pandemic.
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false
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Civil Rights, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Instagram posts,
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"As more cities impose mandatory mask-wearing rules, some Americans are looking for loopholes. Enter the so-called ""face mask exempt card."" A June 23 Instagram post shows a photo of a laminated card that says it exempts the owner from ""any ordinance requiring face mask usage in public."" The image bears the seal of the U.S. Justice Department and includes a logo for another entity called the FTBA. ""Wearing a face mask posses a mental and/or physical risk to me,"" reads text on the card, spelling error included. ""Under the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), I am not required to disclose my condition to you."" Below the text, there’s the ADA phone number for reporting violations, followed by potential fines for offending businesses and organizations. ""Denying access to your business/organization will be also reported to FTBA for further actions,"" reads the card, which includes a link to ftbagency.com. The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook, which owns Instagram.) Similar posts started circulating on conservative Facebook pages in late April and early May. The first instance of the ""face mask exempt card"" we could find was posted in several pro-Donald Trump and Fox News fan groups on June 20, according to CrowdTangle, an audience metrics tool. (Screenshot from Instagram) The advisory is not real. The FTBA — which stands for the Freedom to Breathe Agency — is not a part of the U.S. government. ""These postings were not issued by the Department and are not endorsed by the Department,"" the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement published on the ADA website. ""The Department urges the public not to rely on the information contained in these postings."" The FTBA website was registered June 12, according to public domain records, and it now appears to be down. FTBA’s Facebook group, which had more than 5,000 members and was created in early June, also appears to be offline. While the card is phony, we wondered whether there is a point about citing an ADA exemption for face masks to evade some state and local mask requirements. The ADA only provides legal protections to Americans who genuinely have disabilities. Legal experts say it’s possible that there could be some situations in which businesses may have to adjust their practices to accommodate people who cannot wear a mask and comply with the law. It’s also possible that some people could abuse the ADA to try to get around mask requirements. ""People that are not disabled are not protected by the ADA,"" said Vinh Nguyen, project director at the Southwest ADA Center. ""I realize that does not prevent people from lying."" Governments have broad authority to issue health mandates in a pandemic. From New York to California, dozens of states across the country have implemented requirements for people to wear face masks in certain public spaces. The legal framework for mask requirements varies across the country. ""Think of it like this: The government has the right to ban smoking in public places because your smoking can affect my health,"" wrote Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute in a June 22 column. (Poynter owns PolitiFact.) ""And some places have signs that say, ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service.’ Just add ‘no mask’ to the sign."" The Americans with Disabilities Act, a federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability, does not specifically say anything about face masks. However, there may be situations in which, by requiring people to wear face masks in public, businesses would need to consider aspects of the ADA. As uncomfortable as masks are we’ve all gotten used to them by now, but some people are saying you can use ADA cards as exemptions from public mandates to wearing them. But is it legit? A post shared by MediaWise (@mediawise) on Jun 25, 2020 at 12:07pm PDT For example, let’s say you’re deaf and primarily rely on lip-reading to communicate. You go to pick up takeout from a restaurant that requires everyone to wear face masks, including employees. Since you can’t read the employees’ lips, that business must provide ""auxiliary aids and services"" so they don’t deny you service, according to the ADA. Perhaps the cashier could communicate with you via text message or a dry-erase board to complete your order. ""What the ADA basically mandates is that they have to consider serving the customer in another way,"" Nguyen said. ""They don’t have to allow entry into the actual store."" There also may be a case in which a customer has a respiratory condition where their breathing cannot be restricted. Similar to the previous example, a business would not have to alter its mask policy to comply with the ADA; it could provide curbside pickup or delivery. It’s true that, per the ADA, businesses are not allowed to ask customers specific questions about their disabilities. ""They cannot ask for medical documentation,"" said Robin Jones, director of the Great Lakes ADA Center. ""They can ask if you’re not wearing a mask due to a disability, but they cannot ask me what my disability is."" That creates a situation in which people could potentially abuse the law to try to get around mask requirements. ""We know that people abuse these things — just like people take their dogs into places and claim they’re a service animal,"" Jones said. ""This is just unfortunately the nature of human nature. There is no good way for an entity to monitor that."" Newsom has the authority to make masks mandatory In California, legal experts say The ADA permits retailers to deny goods or services to customers if they pose a ""direct threat"" to the health and safety of others — but only when the threat cannot be mitigated by changing their practices or procedures. That stipulation may apply if someone without a mask exhibits COVID-19 symptoms in a business that requires face coverings. ""In this type of scenario, where there’s a chance where an unmasked person may transmit the virus to their employees or to their other customers, they have a right to restrict people from coming into the store,"" Nguyen said. An Instagram post claimed that a ""face mask exempt card"" allows you to cite the ADA and not wear a mask. The advisory is not real. The FTBA is not a part of the U.S. government, and the ADA only provides legal protections to Americans who genuinely have disabilities. Legal experts say it’s possible that there could be some situations in which businesses may have to alter their operations to comply with the law. It’s also possible that some people could abuse the ADA to try to get around mask requirements. But that does not mean those people are exempt from wearing face masks. The Instagram post is inaccurate, so"
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26118
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“FREE HORSES!!!! 52 thoroughbred horses need homes. Will go to Sugarcreek this Sat. for slaughter. Gentleman died due to COVID-19 and his son wants nothing to do with them.”
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A U.S. judge on Wednesday appointed prominent attorney Kenneth Feinberg as mediator for court-mandated settlement talks in the federal litigation over allegations that Bayer AG’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer caused cancer.
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false
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Animals, Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, Facebook posts,
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Feinberg has been instructed to meet with lawyers for Bayer and plaintiffs within the next 14 days, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco said during a court hearing on Wednesday. Chhabria, who oversees some 900 federal Roundup lawsuits, on April 11 ordered the parties to start confidential mediation. He appointed Feinberg after the parties failed to agree on a mediator. Feinberg is well known for having facilitated dispute resolutions in high-stakes litigations in the past. He led mediation talks over the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal and General Motors ignition switch litigation. Chhabria on Wednesday also scheduled the next federal Roundup trial for February 2020. The case would mark the second bellwether, or test trial, to help determine the range of damages and define settlement options for federal cases. The judge also wants to prepare some 20 cases currently pending before him for trial and send them to other courts across the country. More than 13,400 plaintiffs nationwide allege Roundup caused non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and that the company failed to warn about that risk. The majority of lawsuits are pending in state courts across the country. Bayer, which acquired Roundup maker Monsanto in a $63 billion deal last year, denies the allegations, saying studies and regulators have deemed glyphosate and Roundup safe for human use. The company in the past said it would comply with Chhabria’s mediation order in good faith, while believing strongly in the “extensive body of reliable science supporting the safety of Roundup.” Bayer has also said it would defend itself in all cases and await the appeals process underway for the three cases that have gone to trial and resulted in jury verdicts against it. A California jury on May 13 awarded $2 billion to a couple alleging Roundup caused their cancer. In March, a federal jury in San Francisco awarded $80 million to a California man after finding Roundup caused his cancer. That decision came after another California jury in August 2018 awarded $289 million to a groundskeeper in the first U.S. Roundup trial. That award was later reduced to $78 million.
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18134
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"The ocean is now ""much more acidic . . . than it has been for many millions of years."
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"Former Vice President Al Gore said the ocean today ""is much more acidic, more than it has been for many millions of years."" It's clear that the ocean is more acidic than it was before the Industrial Revolution. It's also clear that many millions of years ago it was much more acidic. But the best estimates suggest that the oceans reached levels of acidity comparable to today’s levels sometime between about 900,000 years ago and 3 million to 4 million years ago -- far more recently than the ""many millions of years"" ago that Gore suggested. ""If I had one of your meters, this would be halfway up,"" said Dickson, one of our experts on ocean acidification. We agree and rate Gore’s statement Half True. (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, e-mail us at [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.)"
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mixture
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Environment, Animals, Rhode Island, Climate Change, Economy, Energy, History, Population, Public Health, Science, Weather, Al Gore,
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"Former Vice President Al Gore, now a crusader against climate change, argues that the continued release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is going to do more than just raise temperatures. It's going to alter the balance of sea life by changing the acidity of the oceans. During a June 11 keynote address at U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's 4th Annual Rhode Island Energy & Environmental Leaders Day, Gore said ocean acidification has been characterized as the evil twin of global warming. The process ""disrupts ocean chemistry,"" he said. Ocean water is still more base than acid on the pH scale, ""but it's much more acidic, more than it has been for many millions of years."" That's important, he said, because, ""This disrupts the process by which shells are formed, not only for shellfish but also for the little critters, the zooplankton, the little tiny critters at the base of the ocean food chain. They have little thin shells. That's being disrupted now."" On Sunday, we checked a similar claim from Whitehouse, who said the acidity of the oceans had increased 30 percent since the industrial age. We were equally interested in Gore's assessment of the problem over a much longer span. Is the ocean currently ""much more acidic"" than it has been for ""many millions of years?"" As we outlined in our examination of Whitehouse’s claim, acidity is measured on the pH scale. The lower the number, the greater the acid level. Currently, the oceans have a pH of about 8.1. That's more acidic than it was before the Industrial Revolution, when the level was 8.2. When we contacted Gore's office, spokeswoman Betsy McManus directed us to an ocean acidification fact sheet from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She highlighted this statement, which starts out by describing that scientists measure ocean pH in ancient times by using telltale chemical signatures in tiny creatures buried in ocean sediment: ""Additional geochemical evidence and modeling provide strong evidence that the average surface ocean pH has not been much lower than about 8.2 for millions of years."" That seems far less extreme than Gore's statement that the ocean is much more acidic than it has been for many millions of years. So we contacted several oceanographers to get data from the geologic record, where ocean pH is inferred from a variety of methods using cores taken from ancient ice and deep sea sediment. Just as you can get different temperature readings at the same time if you have thermometers in different locations, the pH measurements in any particular era and from cores taken from different locations can vary. If you look at individual data points, you don't have to go back ""many millions of years"" to find ocean levels as acidic as today. A 2009 study in the journal Science that went back 2.1 million years by analyzing the shells of single-celled plankton buried off the west coast of Africa, found that while the pH averaged around 8.2 during that period, there were a few points -- 100,000 and 900,000 years ago -- when the surface ocean pH hit 8.1, where it is today. But Barbel Honisch, a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and chief author of the Science paper, cautioned that ""the uncertainty in the data points is very large."" She said she has more confidence in data published a year later in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, which went back five million years, because it dovetails with other evidence. That study suggested that pH levels dropped to between 8.0 and 8.1 about 3 million to 4 million years ago. ""If you go back 4 million years, you're there,"" Honisch said, adding that other data support that conclusion as well. ""The ocean was more acidic or just as acidic as it is now."" Again, that's not ""many millions of years."" Acid levels also seemed to rise to today's level around 15 million to 16 million years ago, according to Honisch. And Andrew Dickson, an oceanographer at the University of California San Diego, said, ""Once we go back beyond about 23 million years, the average surface ocean pH is lower than today,"" he said. Another Science paper by Honisch and her colleagues, this one from 2012, looked at a broad array of evidence in 10-million-year blocks. Beginning 10 million years ago, acid levels gradually grew until the pH dropped to about 7.5 110 million years ago. That's five times more acidic than today's oceans. The climate experts we spoke with stressed that it's important to put this in perspective. Changes in pH typically occur over millions of years, giving life forms -- whose biology can be thrown akilter by a small change in pH -- time to adapt. Scientists fear that today's shift will come so rapidly, organisms won't be able to compensate, and many species will simply die off. It would have been more accurate to say, said Honisch, ""The ocean is acidifying faster today than it has in millions of years."" Our ruling Former Vice President Al Gore said the ocean today ""is much more acidic, more than it has been for many millions of years."" It's clear that the ocean is more acidic than it was before the Industrial Revolution. It's also clear that many millions of years ago it was much more acidic. But the best estimates suggest that the oceans reached levels of acidity comparable to today’s levels sometime between about 900,000 years ago and 3 million to 4 million years ago -- far more recently than the ""many millions of years"" ago that Gore suggested. ""If I had one of your meters, this would be halfway up,"" said Dickson, one of our experts on ocean acidification. We agree and rate Gore’s statement . (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, e-mail us at [email protected] And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.)"
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10325
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A Rubber Twist On Treating Tennis Elbow Pain
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The story said that a study showed the new treatment improved strength and decreased pain from tennis elbow — but it never said by how much or how this improvement was measured. We also never learn about important limitations in the study design that should have been mentioned. A link to the study abstract provided in the story wasn’t sufficient to address our concerns on these points. As this story points out, tennis elbow isn’t confined to the country club set and can do a lot more than throw off your serve. It can also directly threaten the livelihood of painters and other manual laborers whose movements are restricted by debilitating pain. Since there is no single treatment that is broadly effective for this condition, the identification of new therapeutic approaches, such as the FlexBar discussed in this story, is an important research priority.
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true
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NPR
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The story states that the FlexBar costs between $16 and $33. It could have compared this cost with that of some other treatment options, which can be quite expensive. The story makes no attempt to quantify the benefits associated with the FlexBar, and we don’t think linking to the study abstract is sufficient to satisfy this criterion (especially when the full text of the published study is also available online). The average reader can’t be expected to interpret differences on a “visual analog pain scale” or “DASH questionnaire” without some explanation of what these measures mean. The FlexBar is probably safer than some other commonly used treatments for elbow pain such as steroid injections. However, the story doesn’t really address safety, except to say that traditional hand weights can sometimes make tennis elbow pain worse (and by implication, that the FlexBar won’t). While this isn’t a major concern of ours, we think it’s probably premature, based on a single 21-person study, to suggest that the FlexBar is safer than other noninvasive approaches to treating tennis elbow. The story cites a study which documented improved strength and less pain among patients who used the FlexBar device. Although it links to an abstract of the study presented at a conference, the story made no attempt to evaluate the quality of this research or address its limitations. On the positive side, the study was a randomized, controlled comparison of adding the FlexBar to a traditional physical therapy program for tennis elbow — a relatively strong design. But the study’s very small sample size (21 patients) and short duration (7 weeks) are important limitations that should have been mentioned. Tennis elbow frequently relapses, so it is unclear if the short term relief reported here will translate into a longer-term benefit for patients. The story did not overstate the consequences of tennis elbow, which can cause debilitating pain that interferes with work and activities. The story notes the involvement of the FlexBar manufacturer in the study that is referenced. It also quotes an independent physical therapist who suggests there are other ways to achieve the effect attributed to the FlexBar. The story mentions other treatment approaches to tennis elbow, including ultrasound, strengthening and stretching exercises, cross-friction massage, heat and ice. It is clear from the story that the FlexBar is commercially available. The story earns credit for noting that there are other ways to achieve the effects attributed to the FlexBar (as an expert source points out, “There’s a variety of methods you can use to achieve the strengthening technique.”). However, the story didn’t satisfactorily address what is new and potentially important about this treatment–which is that it allows patients to do isolated eccentric exercises for tennis elbow at home. The only way patients could do this previously was in the clinic using an expensive machine. An at-home treatment would make this kind of therapy much more affordable and easier to access, which might also make it more effective. Nonetheless, we’ll give the brief blog post the benefit of the doubt since it ended with the note: “The FlexBar is easy to use and you can do it at home.” This story wasn’t based on a news release.
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9999
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J&J Psoriasis Drug Shows Promise in Study
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This 207-word story must have made the Johnson & Johnson drug company happy because it conveyed everything the company probably wanted to convey about a study of its experimental drug ustekinumab for psoriasis. But it didn’t tell readers anything about the quality of the evidence in that study, the harms found in the study, the precise benefits found (or how they were measured), or the cost of the experimental drug. Yet the story did let the company project that it would seek FDA approval within the next two months. For people living with psoriasis, the story raised more questions than it answered. The lack of full disclosure on the results of the trial might lead some to a misinterpretation of the importance of the findings and the relative market value of the product if it in fact achieves FDA approval.
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false
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"The story didn’t project any ballpark of costs for the drug, yet it was able to project the company’s plans to file for approval within the next two months. You can be sure if they’re ready for that, they have a ballpark idea of how much they will charge for the drug. The story only said that more than two-thirds of those taking the drug had at least a 75% reduction in psoriasis. That’s not clear. Does that mean 75% a reduction in the number of psoriatic plaques? Or does it mean a 75% reduction in the severity of existing plaques? And 75% of what baseline? Were these people wth extensive psoriasis? What precisely were the measurements? There was no discussion of harms found in the studyu of ustekinumab. There was no explanation of the nature of the study undertaken. In addition, there was no caveat given about the potential pitfalls in drawing conclusions from presentations at scientific meetings – which is the source of the news in this case. There was no disease mongering but it would have been nice for the author to have provided some estimates concerning the size of the problem. Although psoriasis is a relatively common ailment, moderate to severe forms requiring systemic treatment are much less common. The article suggest the standard treatment is systemic ignoring the use of topical products for less severe forms of the disease. Only non-peer-reviewed company-sponsored research was reported. No independent sources were cited. Although competitors’ drugs were mentioned, the context in which they are used was neglected. The majority of people with psoriasis use topical products (never mentioned) to manage their skin disorder. The focus on very expensive biologic treatments without noting the drugs are used in patients with moderate to severe disease is a skewed picture. It’s clear that the drug ustekinumab is an experimental drug still being studied. The relative novelty of this class of ""self-injectable biologic"" drugs was discussed in the story. It’s unclear if the story relied solely or largely on a news release, although only non-peer-reviewed company-sponsored research was discussed."
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2451
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Bigger and healthier: European men grow 11cm in a century.
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The average height of European men grew by a surprising 11 centimeters from the early 1870s to 1980, reflecting significant improvements in health across the region, according to new research published on Monday.
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true
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Science News
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Contrary to expectations, the study also found that average height accelerated in the period spanning the two World Wars and the Great Depression, when poverty, food rationing and hardship of war might have been expected to limit people’s growth. The swift advance may have been due to people deciding to have fewer children in this period, the researchers said, and smaller family size has previously been found to be linked to increasing average height. “Increases in human stature are a key indicator of improvements in the average health of populations,” said Timothy Hatton, a professor economics at Britain’s University of Essex who led the study. He said the evidence - which shows the average height of a European male growing from 167 cm to 178 cm in a little over a 100 years - suggests an environment of improving health and decreasing disease “is the single most important factor driving the increase in height”. The study, published online in the journal Oxford Economic Papers, analyzed data on average men’s height at around the age of 21 from the 1870s up to around 1980 in 15 European countries. The study only looked at men, the researchers said, because extensive historical data on women’s heights is hard to come by. For the most recent decades, the data on men were mainly taken from height-by-age surveys, while for the earlier years the analysis used data for the heights of military conscripts and recruits. On average, men’s height had grown by 11 centimeters (cm) in just over a century, the researchers found, but there were differences from country to country. In Spain, for example, average male height rose by around 12 cm from just under 163 cm in 1871-1875 to just under 175 cm in 1971-5, while in Sweden, men’s average height increased by 10 cm from just over 170 cm to almost 180 cm in the same period. The researchers found that in many European countries - including Britain and Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Germany - there was a “distinct quickening” in the pace of advance in the period spanning the two World Wars and the Great Depression. “This is striking because the period largely predates the wide implementation of major breakthroughs in modern medicine and national health services,” they wrote. Hatton said one possible reason, alongside the decline in infant mortality, for the rapid growth of average male height in this period was that there was a strong downward trend in fertility at the time - and smaller family sizes have previously been found to be linked to increasing height. Other height-boosting factors included higher per capita incomes, more sanitary housing and living conditions, better education about health and nutrition and better social services and health systems.
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31834
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"A ""YXX"" notation on Donald Trump's Selective Service record indicates he suffers from the genetic condition Klinefelter syndrome."
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A 2015 statement by Trump’s physician listed no genetic abnormalities, noting that he was in “excellent physical health” overall. Given, then, that it was prompted by the misinterpretation of an entry on his Selective Service record, that it is not supported by actual medical records or a physician’s diagnosis, and that Trump appears to exhibit few, if any, outward signs of the condition, we find the suggestion that he suffers from Klinefelter syndrome unfounded and more than a little absurd.
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false
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Politics Politicians, donald trump, klinefelter syndrome, the smoking gun
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In April 2011, online rumors surfaced to the effect that billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump (who was already being spoken of as a potential presidential contender) might be suffering from a genetic disorder known as Klinefelter syndrome. Klinefelter syndrome, also known as XXY, is caused by a redundant X chromosome in males. Whereas women normally have two X chromosomes (XX), and men one X and one Y (XY), Klinefelter sufferers have two X and one Y (XXY), leaving them with a variable array of symptoms including smaller-than-normal testes and abnormally low testosterone. According to the National Institutes of Health: Testosterone is the hormone that directs male sexual development before birth and during puberty. A shortage of testosterone can lead to delayed or incomplete puberty, breast enlargement (gynecomastia), reduced facial and body hair, and an inability to have biological children (infertility). Some affected individuals also have genital differences including undescended testes (cryptorchidism), the opening of the urethra on the underside of the penis (hypospadias), or an unusually small penis (micropenis). Older children and adults with Klinefelter syndrome tend to be taller than their peers. Compared with unaffected men, adults with Klinefelter syndrome have an increased risk of developing breast cancer and a chronic inflammatory disease called systemic lupus erythematosus. Their chance of developing these disorders is similar to that of women in the general population. Children with Klinefelter syndrome may have learning disabilities and delayed speech and language development. They tend to be quiet, sensitive, and unassertive, but personality characteristics vary among affected individuals. Based on that symptom list, Donald Trump would hardly seem to be a prima facie candidate for an XXY diagnosis. At six-foot-three, he’s taller than most men, but Trump is the opposite of infertile (having five children), displays no obvious cognitive disabilities (indeed, he succeeded in being elected to the presidency of the United States), and is anything but quiet, sensitive, and unassertive. However, the case for Donald Trump allegedly suffering from Klinefelter syndrome is not based on observable symptoms, but rather on an obscure, handwritten “YXX” notation found on Trump’s 1968 Selective Service record, which was released by TheSmokingGun.com in 2011: Despite the fact that the chromosomal anomaly associated with Klinefelter is usually expressed in the medical literature as “XXY,” partisan bloggers such as Darryl Holman of Horse’s Ass chose to interpret the “YXX” entry on Trump’s draft record as evidence that Trump may have the syndrome: What caught my attention was the line labeled “Entries from Remarks Column” that says, simply, “YXX”. Huh? Would that be YXX as in one extra X chromosome? The condition, called Klinefelter syndrome, is not uncommon – it occurs in somewhere from 0.1% to 0.2% of males. Aside from having an extra X chromosome, these are symptoms of Klinefelter syndrome: Hmmm…. Among other things, the syndrome increases ones risk of attention deficient hyperactivity disorder, autoimmune disorders, depression, and learning disabilities (including dyslexia). Hmmm…. So, while I cannot be certain the “YXX” note really means Trump was disqualified because he suffers a chromosomal disorder, it would explain the medical disqualification. And his lousy memory! And the only way to know for sure is for Trump to — you got it — release his medical records. Otherwise, we will never know whether the Republican’s latest star candidate has a chromosomal disease…. While we suspect Mr. Holman was not entirely serious in speculating about Trump’s chromosomal health, repetition is golden when it comes propagating rumors, and Holman was aided and abetted by his colleague David “Goldy” Goldstein, who rehashed it in a column in The Stranger: A chromosomal disorder of this type could explain both Trump’s bizarre behavior and his faulty memory surrounding his selective service records. But of course the only way voters can know for sure is if he releases his medical records including a complete karyogram [photographic representation] of his chromosomal pairs. You’d think Trump of all people wouldn’t want there to be any confusion over the circumstances of his birth. Some rumors, instead of going viral, simply fester (sometimes for years), and that proved to be the case with the claim that Donald Trump has Klinefelter syndrome. It didn’t come up during the 2016 presidential campaign (amazingly, given how popular fraudulent medical diagnoses were at the time), but it did resurface amidst the post-election scramble to dig up dirt on the President-elect, in the form of a handy web graphic: Once again, however, despite an exhaustive listing of Klinefelter symptoms, few actually seem to apply to Donald Trump, so the main point of evidence remains the “YXX” notation on his Selective Service record. Is it plausible to suppose that “YXX” designates a chromosomal abnormality on his part? Absolutely not. Genetic testing was never a part of a standard military pre-induction physical exam. Moreover, the three-letter code has a standard meaning in Selective Service records, as noted in Trump’s own Selective Service classification history: Remarks Column: “yxx” — these symbols indicate the registrant’s physical, mental and administrative qualifications, in that sequence. A symbol with the letter “y” appearing in one of the three elements indicates that the registrant may be acceptable for service in the Armed Forces only in time of war or national emergency declared by Congress. Vietnam was not a declared war or national emergency by Congress. We have no record which provides the specific reason the registrant was found conditionally acceptable for service. All Selective Service registrants received what was called an “X-Y-Z evaluation,” which was used by the local draft board to determine their classification (another famous registrant, rock star Ted Nugent, was also given a “YXX” rating, according to TheSmokingGun.com). After receiving several student deferments between 1964 and 1968, Donald Trump was ultimately classified 1-Y (qualified for service only in time of war or national emergency) for medical reasons (specifically, bone spurs in both heels, according to a 2015 statement from his presidential campaign).
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The Australian government's Threatened Species Strategy has as one of its aims the culling of 2 million feral cats by 2020, largely using a sausage bait carrying a lethal toxin.
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“The focus on killing cats runs the risk of distracting attention away from other threats to biodiversity, most prominent of which is widespread, ongoing habitat loss, which has been largely overlooked in the Threatened Species Strategy. The culling target is a highly visible symbol of a broader campaign around feral cat research and management in Australia, rather than a direct indicator of conservation action and success. We are concerned that progress toward the 2 million target could be misinterpreted as progress toward conserving threatened species, when the link between the two is not clear.”
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true
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Critter Country
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In April 2019, several news articles from around the world reported that the Australian government had a plan to cull millions of feral cats using poisoned sausages dropped by air. CBS News published an article with the headline “Australia is Trying to Kill Millions of Stray Cats by Airdropping Poisoned Sausages,” which went on to report that: “The Australian government wants to kill two million feral cats by next year — and it wants to do it by airdropping poisonous sausages. There are currently an estimated 2 to 6 million free-roaming cats across the country, and officials say they are threatening native wildlife populations.” On 29 April, the UK Independent published an article with the headline “Australia Plans to Kill Millions of Feral Cats by Airdropping Sausages Laced With Poison” and on 26 April CNN reported that: “Australia is at war — with feral cats. By 2020, the government wants to kill two million free roaming cats, a large chunk of the total feral cat population, which is estimated to be between 2 and 6 million.” We received multiple inquiries from readers about the accuracy of these reports, and in particular about the claim that the primary or exclusive culling method was to be sausages laced with poison. The Australian government has indeed begun an initiative aimed at culling millions of feral cats, which they have described as “one of the greatest threats to Australia’s land-based mammals” and blamed for driving some species into extinction. However, the culling project was first announced in 2015 and was already well underway when reports happened to emerge about it in April 2019. In 2015, Australia’s government launched the Threatened Species Strategy. One of its four key strategies related to feral cats, and the policy outlined a target of culling 2 million such cats by the year 2020 and eradicating feral cats entirely from five of Australia’s islands, among other goals. A government report launching the initiative stated that: “The scientific evidence is unequivocal that feral cats are one of the greatest threats to Australia’s land-based mammals. They have been a major contributor to the extinction of at least 27 mammals since they were first introduced to Australia. Today, they imperil at least 142 species or more than one third of our threatened mammals, reptiles, frogs and birds. As an extinction driver for so many of our native animals, and a threat that has been relatively neglected in the past, tackling the threat of feral cats is the highest priority of this Action Plan.” By the end of 2016, researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne reported that an estimated 211,000 feral cats had been culled as part of the initiative, but also estimated that 83 percent of those animals had been shot, rather than poisoned. More up-to-date figures were not included in the progress report relating to the period ending in December 2017. In order to achieve the goal of eradicating 2 million feral cats, the first action listed by the government was the “development and deployment of Curiosity, the new humane feral cat bait.” Australia’s Department of Environment and Energy had spent years developing and testing Curiosity, a new form of sausage bait that, according to the government, is less likely than existing baits to be consumed by other animals: The Curiosity bait for feral cats has been a long-term $5.1 million project to develop a humane, broad-scale toxic bait to control feral cats in conservation areas. The Curiosity bait for feral cats comprises a small meat-based sausage containing a small hard plastic pellet encapsulating a humane toxin. Cats do not have molar teeth and tend to chew their food less so they may swallow portions of the sausage including the pellet. Most Australian native animals nibble and chew their food and are likely to reject the pellet. The pellet is designed to dissolve in the cat’s stomach and deliver a rapid dose of the toxin. The Curiosity bait for feral cats uses a new humane toxin called para-aminopropiophenone, or PAPP, which is considered best-practice world-wide. In brief, the toxicant, PAPP, converts the animal’s red blood cells to a form that cannot carry oxygen, causing death through oxygen starvation to the brain and other vital organs. It is considered to be humane and death takes minutes to hours. The RSPCA [Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals] have indicated that PAPP is a clear improvement in humaneness over previous toxins. The mode of action means that secondary poisoning of any other animals from consuming a carcass of a cat that ate a Curiosity bait containing PAPP is much less likely than when using previously employed toxins. (Although the excerpt serves to explain the Australian government’s reasoning in favoring the Curiosity bait, it does contain a factual error: cats do have molar teeth, albeit only two, and they are used for tearing flesh rather than grinding, so the overall claim that cats tend to chew less and swallow more readily than other animals, appears to stand). In government-commissioned field trials of Curiosity, the bait has been distributed on the ground in target areas using both aircraft and ground vehicles. As of April 2019, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority was still assessing the PAPP variant of Curiosity. But the national government appeared confident it would be registered as a pest-control product, because in November 2018 the Department of the Environment and Energy solicited applications for a commercial partner to manufacture and sell the bait. Although no significant developments in relation to the culling program took place in the spring of 2019, interest in the initiative was revived by a 25 April article published by The New York Times, which bore the headline “Australia is Deadly Serious About Killing Millions of Cats,” and mentioned the existing use of another kind of sausage-borne cat bait containing the active ingredient sodium fluoroacetate, known as “1080.” In February 2019, a group of Australian scientists questioned the basis of the government’s target of culling 2 million feral cats by 2020, in part saying the government had not given a clear metric or scientific rationale for that number; had failed to indicate how or whether the cull would lower the overall population of feral cats (given the rapid rates at which they reproduce) and also increase the populations of endangered species; and because estimates vary widely over how many feral cats actually live in Australia. In a paper published in the journal Conservation Letters, the researchers wrote:
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36379
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Delta Airlines created a union-busting poster urging workers to buy video gaming consoles with would-be union dues.
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Delta Union-Busting ‘Video Games’ Poster
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On May 9 2019, a poster attributed to Delta Airlines apparently urging workers to forgo union dues in favor of purchasing video gaming consoles circulated on Facebook and Twitter:lol fuck off @Delta pic.twitter.com/fMNOeW9uFG— Eoin Higgins (@EoinHiggins_) May 9, 2019Above a rendering of a video game controller, blue and red text urged Delta employees to purchase expensive consoles instead of paying union dues:UNION DUES COST AROUND $700 A YEARA NEW VIDEO GAME SYSTEM WITH THE LATEST HITS SOUNDS LIKE FUN. PUT YOUR MONEY TOWARDS THAT INSTEAD OF PAYING DUES TO THE UNION.The image also featured Delta’s logo and a website: DontRiskItDontSignIt.com. Eoin Higgins’ tweet above was shared more than 50,000 times in under six hours:Yikes, @Delta. Call us when Xbox makes a model that can raise wages, guarantee paid leave, and make jobs safer and more secure. Until then, we’re sticking with the #union. #1u https://t.co/8Bb8phfzeK— Transp. Trades Dept. (@TTDAFLCIO) May 9, 2019Union contract: ✅ Can afford a new video game system ✅ Guard against bad bosses ✅ If I get laid off my boss has to negotiate the terms with my union ✅ Free access to lawyers ✅ More benefitsVideo game system: you have $700 lessDelta help me I’m not sure what to decide— Brett Banditelli (@banditelli) May 9, 2019Reminder that companies only start printing anti-union myths and propaganda once they start seeing worker power in action and realize what they are up against.Keep it up Delta employees! ✊🏿✊🏼✊🏾 https://t.co/UV8wlJ6tKg— Game Workers Unite ✊🏿✊🏽✊🏾 (@GameWorkers) May 9, 2019Wow. Delta would give you plenty of time to play video games when they fire you for no good reason because you’re an At Will employee. But a union contract protects your paycheck from arbitrary terminations. @AFLCIO @EoinHiggins_ pic.twitter.com/bM9cTtWn0o— RWDSU (@RWDSU) May 9, 2019The image shared by Higgins was also shared to Reddit’s r/WTF and r/ChapoTrapHouse:Gamers please don’t rise up. from ChapoTrapHouseIn response to questions about the origin of the image, Higgins said that he would explain further in an upcoming article:I’ll have answers to that and more in a piece— Eoin Higgins (@EoinHiggins_) May 9, 2019Delta’s anti-union site DontRiskItDontSignIt.com featured a “printables” section, but the viral “video games” poster had either been removed, or it had never appeared on the site to begin with. However, many of the available images closely resembled the poster:One of the “printables” available as of May 9 2019 (archived here) featured a structure similar to the circulating image:However, we were unable to locate any images of the same poster uploaded to the internet prior to Higgins’ tweet. On the day the tweet began circulating, IAM issued a statement about attacks from Delta on the website IAMDelta.net and on Twitter:Our statement on @Delta's attack on their own employees. #DoBetterDelta pic.twitter.com/2Kby5wTkbu— Machinists Union (@MachinistsUnion) May 9, 2019We contacted Delta and the International Association of Machinists (IAM, the target of Delta’s union-busting efforts) to ask about the origin and authenticity of the “video games” poster. We have received no response from the airline, but the union confirmed their existence on Twitter:In employee break rooms.— Machinists Union (@MachinistsUnion) May 9, 2019There was more than one poster in the same vein, all of which shared the aesthetic of the website:Video games, baseball, and football? Really @Delta? Our workers want a voice on the job. #GameOverDelta #1u pic.twitter.com/AdSgxSxVHh— AFL-CIO (@AFLCIO) May 10, 2019According to investigative journalism site Sludge, the site and posters are the work of a public relations firm that is notorious for its aggressive campaigns:FTI employees don’t just create websites and messaging. They also work as undercover agents for some of their clients.Earlier this year, FTI employees posed as journalists for Western Wire—another website that shares a server with Delta’s anti-union site—and attempted to question attorneys working with environmental nonprofit EarthRights International about its lawsuit against ExxonMobil. Legal ethics prohibit attorneys from speaking with representatives for opposing parties without their attorneys being present, so the attempt by FTI to question the EarthRights International attorneys under the guise of journalism can easily be seen as an attempt to circumvent legal ethics to gather intel for their client, ExxonMobil.We asked Delta for comment, but have not yet heard back.
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37544
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"Amazon is suspending shipping of all items except medical supplies and ""high-demand items"" in March 2020."
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Is Amazon Suspending All Non-Essential Shipments Except for Medical Supplies and and ‘High-Demand’ Products?
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false
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On March 17 2020, a number of tweets suggested a massive looming disruption in the flow of products from Amazon to customers, claiming that only medical supplies and “high-demand items” would be available for up to a month:BREAKING – Amazon suspends all non-essential shipments amid the #COVID19 outbreak. The company sent a memo to sellers it will stop deliveries other than medical supplies and household staples.https://t.co/ImSxgFItkl— Disclose.tv 🚨 (@disclosetv) March 17, 2020Breaking: $AMZN tells sellers it's suspending shipments of all non-essential products to its warehouses. Prioritizing following categories: baby product; health & household; beauty & personal care; grocery; industrial & scientific; pet supplies.https://t.co/ZTjg3qRTxb— Eugene Kim (@eugenekim222) March 17, 2020Amazon is suspending all non essential shipments to prioritize household staples and medical supplies.👍https://t.co/24UKKpy6Sf— Joseph Patrick 🧢 (@JoeyGDNBoss) March 17, 2020Amazon is suspending all shipments of non-essential products. Since Amazon is a monopoly, thousands of sellers forced onto its e-commerce platform will now be crushed. Are we OK with this reality where our economy is Amazon's plaything & its word is law?https://t.co/NWE6iygHMp— Edward Ongweso Jr (@bigblackjacobin) March 17, 2020Tweets typically claimed that Amazon.com would cease shipping all but “medical supplies” and “high-demand items” (the latter usually going undefined), news that stood to cut Americans off further from their access to household goods in a time of shortages.Exacerbating matters was the fact that the source for the claims appeared to be Business Insider, and that the article itself was behind a hard paywall. (Soft paywalls allow a number of free views, or the option to turn off ad-blocking software.) Not long after the article circulated, users tweeted archives of the link so those on the other side of a paywall might read it:for those that don't want to deal with the paywallhttps://t.co/7FakILbfIG— Kyle (@shotkb22) March 17, 2020The linked article was headlined “Amazon is suspending all shipments other than medical supplies and household staples to its warehouses amid coronavirus crisis — read the memo it just sent sellers”:• Amazon told sellers on [March 17 2020] that it was suspending shipments of all nonessential products to its warehouses to deal with the increased workloads following the coronavirus outbreak. • Amazon is now prioritizing medical supplies, household staples, and other high-demand products to its warehouses until April 5 [2020]. • “We are temporarily prioritizing household staples, medical supplies, and other high-demand products coming into our fulfillment centers so that we can more quickly receive, restock, and deliver these products to customers,” the message read.In the first three paragraphs of the article, however, some important detail appeared:Amazon is blocking sellers from shipping nonessential products to its warehouses in response to the significant increase in orders it’s seeing as the novel coronavirus spreads across the US.On [March 17 2020] the company told sellers in an email that it would accept only shipments of “household staples, medical supplies, and other high-demand products” to its warehouse until April 5 [2020] to deal with the high demand of those products amid the coronavirus crisis.That means sellers who use Amazon’s storage and delivery network for a fixed fee, through a program called Fulfillment by Amazon, will no longer be able to ship nonessential products to Amazon. It doesn’t affect last-mile shipments of those products to consumers.Amazon shoppers and particularly Prime members might be aware that some products from Amazon are sold by Amazon.com and others by third-party merchants, with some of the latter’s products available for “Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)” and Prime shipping. Per the excerpt, a segment of products available on Amazon — sold by third-party sellers — would be subject to restrictions. But items sold by Amazon.com would not have those same restrictions.In a tweet, journalist Tony Webster highlighted both that key detail, as well as confusion caused by a viral claim from behind a paywall, describing the combination as problematic during a time of crisis:Tons of tweets spreading that Amazon is suspending all shipments except medical supplies and household staples, citing a @businessinsider article. But Business Insider paywalled their article, which clarifies *from suppliers to warehouses. * If you care about facts, end paywalls. pic.twitter.com/Chli6kujNi— Tony Webster (@webster) March 17, 2020Other users noted that a spate of partly-informed tweets led to panic as the article spread:I very rarely delete tweets, but I deleted my previous. Amazon is suspending deliveries *to* their warehouse except medical and staples. There's enough of a bullshit epidemic going on without me contributing to it.— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) March 17, 2020Business Insider also included a copy of the email sent by Amazon.com to its marketplace sellers:Hello from Fulfillment by Amazon,We are closely monitoring the developments of COVID-19 and its impact on our customers, selling partners, and employees.We are seeing increased online shopping, and as a result some products such as household staples and medical supplies are out of stock. With this in mind, we are temporarily prioritizing household staples, medical supplies, and other high-demand products coming into our fulfillment centers so that we can more quickly receive, restock, and deliver these products to customers.For products other than these, we have temporarily disabled shipment creation. We are taking a similar approach with retail vendors.This will be in effect today through April 5, 2020, and we will let you know once we resume regular operations. Shipments created before today will be received at fulfillment centers.You can learn more about this on this Help page. Please note that Selling Partner Support does not have further guidance.We understand this is a change to your business, and we did not take this decision lightly. We are working around the clock to increase capacity and yesterday announced that we are opening 100,000 new full- and part-time positions in our fulfillment centers across the US.We appreciate your understanding as we prioritize the above products for our customers.Thank you for your patience, and for participating in FBA.After the link and confusion started to spread, Business Insider tweeted a “CLARIFICATION” highlighting that the suspension of shipping was to its warehouses, not from them:CLARIFICATION: Amazon is suspending all shipments other than medical supplies and household staples *to its warehouses* amid coronavirus crisis — read the memo it just sent sellers https://t.co/LAhlOGZoFh— Business Insider (@businessinsider) March 17, 2020As observed by Webster and others, implementation of hard paywalls presented an information risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Business Insider’s paywalled article about changes to logistics at Amazon caused the mistaken belief that Amazon.com would suspend shipping all but medical supplies and high-demand items to its customers; in actuality, the paywalled article reported that Amazon sellers (not shoppers) were the ones primarily affected by the company’s announcement. To further clarify, Amazon.com announced temporary suspensions directly affecting Amazon’s merchants, not its shoppers — changes which would possibly affect availability of some items to a degree. However, it was not true that Amazon was suspending all shipping of all products to everyone; it was limiting what it received, not what it sold.
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9095
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Longtime antidepressant could slow Parkinson's
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Researchers at the University of Michigan observed by looking at medical records a correlation between patients taking anti-depressants known as tricyclics and what appeared to be a delay in the worsening of Parkinson’s disease symptoms. Using rats and then test tubes full of cells, they experimented to see if the drug nortriptyline would slow the creation of alpha-synuclein protein, a hallmark of Parkinson’s. They did not do experiments on people. The release does not give us any metric for the “slowing” that they observed. We wish there had been some numbers putting the results in context to help us judge the importance of such a small early study, or perhaps that the University had waited to issue a release until more was known. [Editor’s note: The summary was revised to refer to alpha-synuclein protein, not amyloid plaque.] This “early concept” study does not prove that the anti-depressant known as nortriptyline will “slow” Parkinson’s disease in people. We fear the headline and lead sentence of the news release will mislead most readers into thinking there is proof where there is none. About 50,000 people are diagnosed each year in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health and the economic and emotional burden of this degenerative disease is massive. Health news releases and stories should carefully avoid such quick fix reporting on preliminary research.
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false
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Michigan State University,Parkinson's disease
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The story is about a proof-of-concept study, which is the very earliest step in research. But if it’s not too soon to issue a news release, it’s not too soon to address cost impacts. The release could have mentioned the cost of the medication, nortryptiline, or alternatively, the economic burden of Parkinson’s. No numbers are offered in the release. We don’t know how many patient records were examined. We don’t know the number of rats in the animal studies. We don’t know the number of test tubes in the cell-only stage of this early proof-of-concept study. The release includes this statement on benefits: “In a proof-of-concept study, published in the journal Neurobiology of Disease, the drug nortriptyline, which has been used to treat depression and nerve pain, stopped the growth of abnormal proteins that can build up in the brain and lead to the development of the disease.” What does “stopped the growth” mean if we don’t have a measurement of growth in the absence of nortriptyline? For how long was the growth stopped? Was the impact temporary or permanent?The release doesn’t say. The research was not done in humans but only in rats and in cells. The release should have included this information early in the text and in the headline. The drug nortriptyline has side effects. These include nausea, rare allergic reactions and liver toxicity in some patients. The release should have made some reference to potential harms, even if these are not well-known for this new therapy yet. The release does not provide enough detail about the work to give us a sense about the quality of the evidence. As we explained in the Benefits section above, the release does not give any numbers for the patient records analyzed, or the rats in the laboratory or the test-tubes of cells. Without any numbers, we can’t judge evidence. Reports on early animal research must be handled carefully. Only about 1 out of 500 compounds that look promising in mice make it to human use. There is no disease mongering. The release says this about the funding of the study: “The National Institutes of Health, as well as the Michael J. Fox and St. Mary’s Foundations, funded the study.” But the release does not identify any potential conflicts of interest. In our own reading of the material, we found that two of the study’s authors — C. Justman and P. Lansbury — are on staff with a for-profit biotech company, Lysosomal Therapeutics, of Cambridge, Mass.That should have been disclosed in the release. Parkinson’s disease is complex, unfolds over many years, and has many dimensions. It is often misdiagnosed. The release should have included some description of treatments available. Besides the drug levadopa, surgery and other therapies have been used to ease symptoms. The release is about a “proof of concept” and no therapy is available based on this research. We’ll rate this Not Applicable but note that the release should have been more clear in the headline and lede that this therapy hasn’t been tested in humans. The release suggests researchers have taken a novel approach to finding a new treatment strategy for Parkinson’s. It states: “The idea that this clustering effect is controlled by how fast or slow a protein reconfigures itself is typically not a standard way of thinking in research on proteins, but our work has been able to show these changes.” “Understanding how these proteins can clump together could point researchers in new directions and help them find other possible drugs that could potentially treat Parkinson’s.” But as already noted above under Benefits, without testing the drug in humans, the claim of a novel finding seems unwarranted. The headline and lead sentence suggest there is “proof” that nortriptyline slows progression of Parkinson’s in people. Here’s the first sentence: “Michigan State University scientists now have early proof that an antidepressant drug that’s been around for more than 50 years could slow the progression of Parkinson’s.” The most we can say is based on this study is that researchers established an association between nortriptyline and Parkinson’s progression, and that the drug seems to affect proteins related to the disease in mice. That’s not proof — early or late — that the drug could slow Parkinson’s in people, and the statement is unjustified.
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20692
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"Susan Combs Says she ""wiped out"" the state Agriculture Department’s inspections of eggs at retail sites like grocery stores."
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"Comptroller Susan Combs says she ""wiped out"" Agriculture Department's egg inspections at stores"
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false
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Agriculture, Regulation, Texas, Susan Combs,
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"Reflecting on her time heading the Texas Department of Agriculture, Susan Combs told a blogger that she shrunk the size of government in 2003 by getting rid of a program to ferret out broken eggs at stores. Combs, who has been the state comptroller since 2007, made the statement in an interview with David Bellow, a blogger for the website Texas GOP Vote, who had asked her about remarks she made during a December 2011 meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee. ""You also mentioned ... that people were getting paid to go into stores and open the egg cartons and look at the eggs and make sure none were broken,"" Bellow said. ""How crazy is that?"" Combs responded by saying that she didn’t think it made sense for the government to be spending money on such a program. ""It was not a health issue,"" she said. ""If you can’t tell when you open the carton that it’s broken, then you really are going to have some hard time buying the eggs."" Combs then said she tried to end the practice during the 2001 legislative session but wasn’t successful until 2003, when Republicans secured a Texas House majority. ""I went back to the House Appropriations (Committee) and the Senate Finance (Committee), and I showed them again, and I got it wiped out,"" said Combs, who served two four-year terms as agriculture commissioner, winning election to the statewide office in 1998 and 2002. A reader alerted us to the video — which was posted on the Texas GOP Vote website Dec. 6, 2011 — and questioned Combs’ claim that she ended the egg inspections. Is that what she did? Not eggs-actly. From Agriculture Department officials and documents, we learned that the agency continues to inspect eggs at retail sites like grocery and convenience stories as part of its Egg Quality Program. According to the department’s website, the program’s mission is ""to ensure that the eggs sold to Texas consumers meet (the agency’s) quality standards,"" and to achieve that goal, the agency ""inspects eggs at packing plants, distribution centers, and retail outlets."" Agency spokesman Bryan Black told us in emails and interviews that retail egg inspections began in 1957 and continue today. While packing plants and distribution centers are inspected every year, retail sites, which are significantly more numerous, are randomly inspected. Black told us that in addition to looking for broken or cracked eggs, inspectors check labels and examine eggs ""for interior and exterior qualities, as well as size."" Inspectors are checking to see whether eggs meet the standards for ""quality, grade and size"" that have been adopted by the USDA and the federal Food and Drug Administration, as required by state law. ""Qualities such as shell shape, yolk movement, air cell size, shell appearance and shell integrity determine whether the egg is graded as AA, A or B,"" Black said. ""These are factors that consumers themselves cannot verify without the use of specialized instruments to conduct the assessments and extensive training."" Black said inspectors also check storage temperatures at retail sites and notify the Texas Department of State Health Services if eggs are being stored at above 45 degrees. Inspectors also notify local health agencies if they ""observe unsanitary conditions during an egg inspection,"" Black said. ""The reason there are egg inspection programs in Texas and in other state is for consumer protection,"" Black said. ""It is the same reason why we inspect gas pumps and scales. When Texans are purchasing products, it is imperative they get exactly what they are paying for. No one should get ripped off if they are buying fuel, fruit or eggs. We provide oversight to keep businesses honest and make sure the marketplace is fair."" Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the Department of State Health Services, told us that its inspectors also check eggs at retail sites — including distributors, grocery stores and restaurants — as part of its overall inspections of the facilities. The health inspectors are looking to see that food safety standards are being met. ""We’re looking mainly at storage temperatures and whether (the eggs) are graded,"" Williams said. Black told us that the state Agriculture Department has 64 full-time inspectors that conduct egg checks. However, he noted, inspectors have additional responsibilities. According to an undated job posting on the department’s website, an inspector’s duties include becoming ""proficient in accurately conducting a variety of inspections administered by TDA, which may include"" inspecting and grading eggs in retail stores and processing plants, as well as inspecting ""nursery stock and agricultural commodities leaving or entering the state,"" ""growers and/or retailers for organic certification,"" and ""cotton fields for proper stalk destruction to enforce the cotton pest laws."" So, what did Combs succeed in wiping out in 2003? That was a challenging year for Texas lawmakers, who resolved a $9.9 billion projected revenue shortfall with funding cuts, fee increases, federal aid and other strategies. In her interview with Texas GOP Vote, Combs said she took her idea to cut retail egg inspections to the budget-writing House Appropriations and Senate Finance committees. Combs’ spokeswoman, Brooke Botello, pointed us to a March 27, 2003, meeting of the Senate’s finance panel at which Combs testified on her department’s funding requests for the 2004-05 budget, which lawmakers were writing. According to video of the meeting, Sen. Kip Averitt, R-McGregor, presented Combs’ recommendations that egg inspections be reduced by about one-third and that the Agriculture Department stop doing inspections at 10 packing plants where the USDA was also inspecting. Averitt said at the hearing that stopping the duplication would save the state about $145,000 a year. Although Combs’ recommendations detailed at the meeting did not include ending the Agriculture Department’s egg inspections, one of the senators — we couldn’t identify the speaker in the video — floated that idea while questioning Combs. She replied that the Legislature could certainly pass legislation to do that but said she had not calculated how much money ending egg inspections would save the state. The senator then asked whether she thought it would be ""logical"" for the Legislature to consider shrinking the Agriculture Department’s egg inspection duties down to simply checking the 22 packing facilities not being inspected by the USDA — and halting retail inspections. Combs’ response: ""Yes, with one observation. When you’re at the point of sale, one of the things that comes up is ‘Are the eggs broken?’ and we talked about the fact that a broken egg is readily ascertainable by the consumer flipping the box. It does not require some kind of arcane testing. … I would say, yes, we could go to the packer-only (inspection)."" Ultimately, however, that’s not what happened. Instead, lawmakers that year reduced the number of overall state Agriculture Department egg inspections. When appropriating funding for the department for 2004-05, lawmakers set the target amount of annual ""egg packer, dealer, wholesaler, and retailer inspections"" at 2,000, compared with the 3,500 in the previous budget. That was a decrease of 42 percent. According to Black, the department has conducted about 2,100 inspections every year since then. Looking specifically at retail inspections, the annual number dropped along with the overall inspection figure, going from 2,746 in fiscal 2003 to 1,455 in fiscal 2004, a 47 percent decline. Retail checks continued while Combs was commissioner, with 1,955 in fiscal 2005 and 2,055 in fiscal 2006, according to data from the Agriculture Department. Other changes made in 2003: Black told us that the number of full-time positions devoted to inspecting eggs was reduced by 1.5 and that the department adopted a policy implementing Combs’ recommendation that it stop inspecting egg packing plants already inspected by the USDA. Upshot: While the number of annual egg inspections dropped after lawmakers acted, Agriculture Department inspectors continued checking eggs in stores — and still do. Combs’ statement rates ."
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10306
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Cancer cells killed with extreme cold by Tulane University surgeon
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Faced with imminent new global marine pollution rules, shipping companies and insurers are puzzling over the risks.
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false
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To reduce emissions of toxic sulphur that cause premature deaths, shipowners who have long relied on the dirtiest residues of oil extraction will have to either switch to low-sulphur fuel or install exhaust gas cleaning systems from Jan. 1. Neither option has been fully tested for long, and some problems have already been reported, both with the more expensive new fuels and with devices known as scrubbers which extract the sulphur on board. Interviews with key players in the industry show varying levels of alarm at potential risks, which they say range from unexpected fires or collisions due to engine failure to liability for inadvertently flouting the rules. The container shipping industry alone is having to invest $10 billion to adhere to the new rules, analysts say, and is concerned about extra costs were things to go wrong. If different types of the new, cleaner fuel are mixed, for example, they may produce a residue which could eventually clog up an engine and, in a worst-case scenario, damage or break it. Several large ship owners said handling the new fuels correctly and making sure the scrubbers were properly deployed would minimize danger, but that if care was not taken, problems could arise. “The big guys are going to be serviced by the right people … there is bigger risk for the smaller ships,” Hugo De Stoop, chief executive of leading Belgian tanker operator Euronav (EUAV.BR), told Reuters. Euronav has bought the equivalent of almost six months’ supply of compliant fuel and is storing it in a megatanker off Malaysia. If a ship is too far away and has to buy fuel, it will try to buy a single type, or, if only a blend is available, ask to see the seller’s lab tests. “We don’t always believe that people have done the test, been diligent about it,” he said. Graphic: Global shipping density (here) Khalid Hashim, managing director of one of Thailand’s largest dry cargo ship owners, Precious Shipping (PSL.BK), said it had not allowed co-mingling of marine fuel, also known as bunker fuel, for over five years and required all of it to be sample tested. “Of course this costs us annually around $100,000, but we prefer that cost than to use untested bunker oil based solely on the Bunker Delivery Receipt and find that we have a massive problem on our ship,” he said. The company had taken measures to reduce its ships’ fuel consumption to offset some of the extra costs and had installed extra compartments for the tanks on board to avoid mixing, he said. “That way we would have future-proofed our ships for the IMO 2020 regime,” Hashim said, referring the U.N. International Maritime Organization’s rules, agreed by more than 90 countries in hopes of saving more than half a million lives by 2025 alone. Around 172 ships have avoided the problem because they are powered by sulphur-free liquefied natural gas (LNG), data from Norwegian risk management and certification company DNV GL showed, but this in an expensive option. Some ship owners have balked at paying for the new 0.5% sulphur fuel, which is quoted at more than twice the price of the 3.5% high-sulphur grade in northern Europe at the moment. <0#HFOFARAA:> <0#LFO05FARA:> More than 3,000 ships - around 5% of the global fleet - will have scrubbers fitted by 2020 so they can clean the exhaust gas and so continue using existing fuel, the DNV GL data showed. Some ports have banned one type of scrubber, the open-loop version which empties washwater residues into the sea, and insurers have reported cases of fires or corrosion with the devices. Norwegian ship insurer Gard cited a few cases where sparks from welding or cutting fell into a scrubber through uncovered openings: in one case it spread to the engine room through glass reinforced epoxy piping. If corrosion was legally deemed to be inevitable, underwriters might try to deny related claims, said Stephen Harris, senior vice president with insurance broker Marsh. “Whether underwriters adopt this line or not could depend on how frequent and how big the problem becomes next year.” Roger Strevens, VP of global sustainability with Norwegian shipping company Wallenius Wilhelmsen (WALWIL.OL), said its experience with scrubbers had shown risks could be minimized if done properly. “If you buy cheap, you’ll pay twice,” he said. Nautilus International, a union which represents over 20,000 workers in shipping, said the use of new fuel types would place extra strain on crews, who have reported incidents including power loss when changing fuels, filter problems and leaks. “These are complex requirements,” Nautilus professional and technical officer David Appleton said, calling for comprehensive training and protection in cases of inadvertent infringements. An underlying problem is that oil refineries are not obliged to produce tailor-made shipping fuel, said Neil Roberts, head of marine underwriting at Lloyd’s Market Association, which represents the interests of all underwriting businesses in London’s Lloyd’s insurance market. “The ship’s crew has to test it and filter it,” he said. The IMO said it does not have a remit to regulate the fuel industry but that international standards for the new fuel and information about compatibility between types had been issued as part of comprehensive preparations. “IMO is ready, and we are confident IMO member states and the shipping sector are ready for January 1,” an IMO spokesperson said. Protection and Indemnity (P&I) clubs, through which groups of shipping companies cover injury and pollution claims, are in wait-and-see mode. Alvin Forster, deputy director with North P&I club, cited possible engine failure in busy shipping lanes, while Precious Shipping’s Hashim said members investing in expensive low-sulphur fuel should not have to share the loss on any scrubber claims. Harris from Marsh, a broker active in marine insurance including hull and machinery, said assessing cover was still guesswork: for instance, who should pay a fine for a ship using high-sulphur fuel because no alternative was available? “Is it non-compliance?” he said. “The question marks are bigger than the answers.”
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37486
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A form of therapy involving nebulized hydrogen peroxide can prevent the user from contracting COVID-19.
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Will ‘Nebulized Hydrogen Peroxide’ Help You Avoid Contracting COVID-19?
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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A self-proclaimed “health activist” with a history of incurring warnings over his practices from the federal government used Twitter to push another questionable treatment idea involving COVID-19 (also called SARS-CoV-2 or “the coronavirus.”)“Nebulized hydrogen peroxide therapy is an inexpensive and simple way to treat most viral respiratory illnesses,” Joseph Mercola wrote on April 9 2020. “All you need is a nebulizer with a face mask that covers your mouth and nose, and common household hydrogen peroxide, available at most grocery stores and pharmacies.”In a separate tweet, he added: “Ideally you would use food grade hydrogen peroxide (12 percent) but then dilute to between .5 percent-3 percent,” directing users to a YouTube video he said would explain his claim. But in reality, Mercola conceded in the 30-minute video that there is no evidence to support it, saying:It appears that nebulized peroxide can act as a topical disinfectant or a biological signalling molecule. But we don’t know. The studies haven’t been done. And the studies certainly haven’t been done — the randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trials — to see if this works in coronavirus infections. But you know what? There are no double-blind placebo-controlled randomized trials that are published yet for any intervention in SARS-CoV2, for COVID-19. So considering that nebulized peroxide is a) inexpensive; b) incredibly safe if used in the right concentration — especially if you’re using food-grade peroxide — [and it] essentially has no toxicity, it would seem that it would be beyond reasonable to try this as a simple strategy to not only treat but prevent any viral infection like SARS-CoV2.Dr. Joy Phillips, a research assistant professor of immunology with the Donald P. Shiley BioScience Center at San Diego State University, took issue with Mercola’s characterization of peroxide as “incredibly safe.”“I’m not sure what he’s talking about with ‘food grade,'” she told us. “Twelve percent peroxide is really, really dangerous. I don’t know how he can possibly say that it has ‘essentially has no toxicity.’ I mean, really, if it were non-toxic, why would he even be talking about it? Obviously it’s toxic.”Dr. Christopher Labos, a cardiologist and associate with the office for science and society at McGill University in Canada, also questioned Mercola’s claim. He told us:I think it is potentially very dangerous for people to be inhaling hydrogen peroxide. It can be toxic and the possibility for people to accidentally poison themselves is potentially quite high. This is not a good idea at all. There is literally zero evidence that hydrogen peroxide would do anything to treat covid-19.For people who are afraid of getting covid-19, the best evidence is just stay home. We have seen quite convincingly that physical distancing works.Phillips also told us that she had seen two studies cited by Mercola in the video touting hydrogen peroxide:Both papers focus mainly about sterilizing surfaces. Vaporized or nebulized hydrogen peroxide is really great for that, because it nebulizes well and decomposes pretty quickly. However, he’s using data from solid surfaces like countertops to talk about the lung. With that logic, he could just as easily propose using undiluted Clorox in the lungs, because Clorox does a great job sterilizing surfaces. The lung is one cell layer between life and death. You can use lots of things on a metal counter or even on your skin that you cannot put in a living lung.Mercola argues in the video that nebulized peroxide helps beat the disease because “it will act as a topical local disinfectant where the viruses reside,” adding, “this is probably one of the reasons why sauna therapy works so effectively.” In reality there is no evidence to suggest that “saunas” or high-temperature environments can deter the disease.The video is currently featured on Mercola’s website, which has a long history of promoting conspiracy theories and unproven “cures.” As The Ringer reported in 2017:Mercola says he believes fluoride is a neurological poison foisted upon Americans by a malevolent government. (Fluoride is a community health tool, as studies by the U.S. Public Health Service and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate). Mercola has also recommended following an alternative anticancer routine that includes coffee enemas even though other doctors have warned against the procedure, calling it risky.He has also run afoul of the federal government on several occasions. In April 2016, he agreed to settle a lawsuit brought against him by the Federal Trade Commission for false advertising by paying up to $5.3 million in refunds to customers after selling them tanning beds that he claimed made users less likely to catch cancer.“These types of false claims are especially troubling because of the serious health risks posed by indoor tanning,” an FTC official, Jessica Rich, told the Chicago Tribune at the time. “The fact is, indoor tanning is not safe because it increases the risk of skin cancer, including melanoma.”Before having to settle that lawsuit, Mercola incurred several warnings from the Food and Drug Administration. The agency contacted him in 2005, 2006, and twice in 2011 over false claims he has attached to various products sold on his website.“Joseph Mercola is among the top misinformation vectors of our time when it comes to health, medicine, food, parenting, and more. He promotes chemophobia and spreads fear of chemicals, GMOs, and vaccines, all while peddling alternatives to line his pockets,” writer and activist Kavin Senapathy told The Ringer. “His promotion of pseudoscience helps fuel a culture that turns its nose up at beneficial technologies and medical treatments.”Shortly before promoting the “nebulized” treatment for COVID-19, Mercola suggested on Twitter that 5G radio waves “could be having an impact on the COVID-19 pandemic,” a claim that has been roundly debunked — despite the insistence of social media users, celebrities, and other conspiracy theorists.A Twitter spokesperson confirmed to us on April 15, 2020 that the platform “took enforcement action” regarding Mercola’s posts in keeping with the company’s efforts to stop the spread of disinformation. According to a March 2020 blog post, Twitter said it would continue to prioritize removing content when it has a clear call to action that could directly pose a risk to people’s health or well-being,” adding, “We want to make it clear that we will not be able to take enforcement action on every Tweet that contains incomplete or disputed information about COVID-19.”When we looked at Mercola’s Twitter feed, we saw that his original tweet describing the use of nebulized hydrogen peroxide as “an inexpensive and simple way” to treat the disease had been removed, but not the follow-up directing users to watch his claims on YouTube. However, users visiting that link now see a message stating that it was “removed for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines”:Update, April 15 2020, 7:38 a.m. PST: Updated with comments from Dr. Christopher Labo. Update, April 15 2020, 3:39 p.m. PST: Updated with note from Twitter regarding enforcement of its terms of service regarding Mercola’s tweets, as well as the removal of the video from YouTube.
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9908
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Study: Prostate cancer vaccine extends survival
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"Given about double the space of the USA Today story we also reviewed, this report includes important information about conflicts of interest and the financial impact of research reports, as well as details that bring the trial results into clearer focus, such as median survival data and the fact that the FDA declined an earlier application for approval of Provenge. The story meets most of our criteria, and, thus, gets a high rating. But it has its flaws. The quotes in this story almost uniformly praise the drug as an advance or even groundbreaking. Only one comment suggests questions remain about side effects. None highlights the point that despite treatment, two out of three participants died within three years. While other stories quoted experts who called the results an ""incremental"" advance, no such cautionary perspectives were included in this story. The reporter erred by comparing survival data from this Provenge trial to the typical results of standard chemotherapy. Since the trial merely compared Provenge to placebo, not to standard treatment, it is inappropriate to claim the experimental drug is superior. Rather than raising expectations by saying doctors ""hope for even greater benefit if they give the drug earlier,"" the story should have simply stated that it is not known what effect this treatment might have if given earlier in the course of prostate cancer. This point is important because if the FDA approves the treatment for advanced prostate cancer, doctors may begin offering it to men with less extensive disease based on belief, instead of evidence, of effectiveness."
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true
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"While no price has been set, this story still confronts cost by pointing out that other biotech drugs cost thousands of dollars per month of treatment. The story included key details about the difference in survival rates and length between the treatment and control arms of the trial. The story gives both the median survival length and the three-year survival figures for participants in the treatment and placebo arms of the trial. It might have been helpful to say ""half the men survived at least"" rather than ""median survival was."" The story lists the serious side effects reported in the trial and the fact that earlier trials raised worries about strokes related to treatment. Although this story, like the USA Today report that we reviewed, stated in the lead that patients receiving Provenge lived four months longer without specifying that it was four months longer than placebo, not standard therapy, it does a better job of detailing the available results. The story improperly compares the reported survival advantage of the experimental treatment to the expected survival of men receiving standard chemotherapy, implying the two treatments have been tested head-to-head. The story also includes speculation that Provenge could be more effective when given earlier in the course of the disease, even though there is no evidence to support the statement. Quotes at the end of the story from leaders of some patient advocacy groups overstated the evidence of effectiveness, but they seem to accurately reflect the perspective of these activists. The story didn’t discuss the condition of advanced prostate cancer in detail, so this is N/A. The story includes comments from independent experts. It notes that the drug developer paid for the study and that the lead researcher owns company stock. In addition, the story notes how the company stock price was fluctuating; a good reminder that research reports can have substantial financial consequences. The story did not refer to the stock price jump earlier this month that followed the vague company announcement at a meeting with analysts claiming that the treatment extended patient survival. The story mentions that chemotherapy with Taxotere is the only approved treatment for patients with advanced prostate cancer. It should not have stated that Provenge produces a greater survival benefit, since the treatments have not been directly compared. The story points out that Provenge has not been approved by the FDA. The story reported that Provenge is the first therapeutic cancer vaccine ""to meet a preset goal for improving survival in late-stage testing."" The story included original reporting. However, one comment from a spokesman for the American Urological Association appears to have been taken from a news release without specifying that it was contained in a statement, rather than in an interview."
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7184
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2020 hopeful O’Rourke unveils plan to protect LGBTQ rights.
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Democratic presidential candidate Beto (BET’-oh) O’Rourke has unveiled a plan to protect LGBTQ rights on the morning he led a Pride Run through a New York City park.
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true
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Universal health care, Politics, Election 2020, General News
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The former Texas congressman promises to use executive orders to overturn the Trump administration’s transgender troop ban and reverse the practice of discharging HIV-positive service members. O’Rourke wants to work with Congress to pass The Equality Act, which he says would ensure LGBTQ people can “fully participate in public life without discrimination” in employment, housing and “public spaces and services.” The plan released Wednesday includes a universal health care system that would guarantee LGBTQ people access to hormone “and other gender-affirming treatments.” O’Rourke also pledges to make it easier for LGBTQ refugee seeking U.S. asylum. He announced his 2020 campaign in March.
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10641
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Ultrasound found to affect brain development in mice; experts urge limited use
|
Sonograms are a routine part of monitoring the developing fetus. Until recently, they were only done for medical purposes. However, women can now get songorams in many malls and shopping centers across the US, often in color and 3-D, to keep as mementoes. This story reports on a new study showing that prolonged exposure to ultrasound can damage the growth of nerve cells in mice. Because this study was done in mice (not humans) and the implications of these results are not known, few conclusions can be drawn from these results. This story attempts to explain the controversies, but is flawed in several ways. The story does not adequately describe the harms of ultrasound. The story states that “a small number of nerve cells …. failed to extend correctly.” This is not sufficient information on harms. It is also not clear what “prolonged” use of ultrasound means — are these some special ultrasounds that happen in these consumer-based settings, or is this the kind of exposure that might result from usual medical use? Furthermore, the story also does not adequately describe the design of the study or comment on the strength of the available evidence. By focusing on “disorders thought to be the result of misplacement of cells during their development,” the story engages in disease mongering. By implying that sonograms could lead to disorders such as retardation, epilepsy, autism, and mental illness, the story exaggerates the seriousness of the findings. The story does quote two sources, the lead researcher of the study and the president of an ultrasound association. The story could have quoted additional, independent researchers or clinicians who could have provided some additional perspective.
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mixture
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The story does not discuss costs. Because this story focuses on harms of ultrasound, quantification of benefits is not applicable in this case. The story does not adequately describe the harms of ultrasound. The story states that “a small number of nerve cells …. failed to extend correctly.” This is not sufficient information on harms. Also, it is not clear what “prolonged” use of ultrasound means — are these some special ultrasounds that happen in these consumer-based settings, or is this the kind of exposure that might result from usual medical use? The story does not adequately describe the design of the study or comment on the strength of the available evidence. By focusing on “disorders thought to be the result of misplacement of cells during their development,” the story engages in disease mongering. By implying that sonograms could lead to disorders such as retardation, epilepsy, autism, and mental illness, the story exaggerates the seriousness of the findings (which were in mice not humans). The story quotes two sources, the lead researcher of the study and the president of an ultrasound association. The story could have quoted additional, independent researchers or clinicians who could have provided some additional perspective. The story mentions the obvious alternative, avoiding unnecessary sonograms. The story states that “keepsake sonograms” are popular. The story should have described how widely available they are. The story implies that “keepsake sonograms” are a new phenomenon. And the wider concern is for obstetric ultrasound in general – a long-established practice. We can’t be sure if the story relied on a press release as the sole source of information.
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30502
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The National Rifle Association was formed for the express purpose of driving out the Ku Klux Klan and helping freed slaves defend themselves against racist attacks.
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While it is not impossible that some black Americans were indirect beneficiaries of the NRA’s firearms training evangelism after the Civil War.
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false
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History, guns, KKK, ku klux klan
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Since its inception as a group dedicated to providing marksmanship training in 1871, the National Rifle Association has grown into a powerful lobbying organization with a single overriding purpose: to promote and defend the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Some of the NRA’s rhetorical tactics on behalf of gun ownership have been condemned as racially divisive, exploiting wedge issues such as illegal immigration and urban crime to sow fear and increase membership, critics say. In one frequently cited instance, the NRA’s executive vice president Wayne LaPierre penned an editorial encouraging Americans to “buy more guns than ever” to meet a purported threat of border-crossing gang members bent on the “murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping” of law-abiding citizens. He went on to describe south Brooklyn in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy (when the borough actually underwent a lull in violent crime) as a “hellish world” where “looters ran wild” and anyone who failed to get home before dark “might not get home at all.” Some NRA supporters have countered accusations that the group has been racially insensitive by claiming the opposite is true — that the organization was, in fact, founded in order to combat racist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and ensure that African Americans, particularly freed slaves, could defend themselves against racist attacks: … In addition, Barton addressed the founding of the NRA. While some like to demonize pro-Second Amendment group and even call it prejudiced, it turns out the powerful group was in fact started by two Union generals in 1871 as a means to driving out the Ku Klux Klan and ensuring that blacks, who although then-free were not allowed means with which to defend themselves — could in fact legally own a gun. Barton’s statement echoed one made by Harry Alford, the president and chief executive officer of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, who had praised the National Rifle Association during a February 2013 press conference on gun control: I want to thank the Lord for our Constitution. I also want to thank the NRA for its legacy. The National Rifle Association was started, founded by religious leaders who wanted to protect freed slaves from the Ku Klux Klan. They would raise money, buy arms, show the free slaves how to use those arms and protect their families. God bless you. Many of us probably wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for the NRA. The same claim has turned up in the form of social media memes emphasizing the NRA’s purported role in training black Americans to fight back against the Ku Klux Klan: These sources fall short when it comes to providing evidence to support their claims, however. Indeed, the notion that the National Rifle Association originated as a group devoted to protecting freed slaves and “driving out” the Ku Klux Klan contradicts the NRA’s own account of its origin (as posted on their web site): Dismayed by the lack of marksmanship shown by their troops, Union veterans Col. William C. Church and Gen. George Wingate formed the National Rifle Association in 1871. The primary goal of the association would be to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis,” according to a magazine editorial written by Church. After being granted a charter by the state of New York on November 17, 1871, the NRA was founded. Civil War Gen. Ambrose Burnside, who was also the former governor of Rhode Island and a U.S. senator, became the fledgling NRA’s first president. According to NRA co-founder George Wingate’s own account in his 1896 History of the Twenty-Second Regiment of the National Guard of the State of New York, the organization was founded to fulfill a perceived need to provide marksmanship training for members of the armed forces, prompting his authorship of a rifle training manual and participation in the creation of the National Rifle Association: The instructions which had thus been prepared by the writer were afterwards elaborated by him in a series of articles published in the Army and Navy Journal during 1869 and 1870, which excited much discussion in military circles. They led to the formation of the National Rifle Association in September 1871, of which their author was made secretary, and afterwards vice-president and president. These regulations constituted the foundation of Wingate’s Manual of Rifle Practice, which was written at the request of the National Rifle Association to supply a book which would serve as a manual of instruction for the National Guard. The NRA’s mission statement, as published in the organization’s 1873 Annual Report, tells the same story in greater detail: REASONS FOR ITS ORGANIZATION Although the introduction of the rifle as a military weapon was owing to the lessons of our Revolution, and although our success in the earlier contests of our history depended upon the skill in its use displayed by our ancestors, no recognition has been given by our citizens of the fact that the change which has taken place in the habits of the American people is rapidly depriving them of that personal skill in arms and marksmanship which has hitherto formed one of the greatest elements of our national strength. This is the more to be regretted, as the introduction of long range breech loaders has made this skill of even more importance at the present time; than under the ancient system for not only the conflict between Prussia and Austria, but the more recent French and Prussian contest have demonstrated that the very accuracy and rapidity of fire, which renders these arms so formidable in the hands of trained marksmen, simply results in a waste of ammunition with those unfamiliar with their use, which leaves an army helpless at the decisive moment of battle. Other nations, recognizing these facts, have long since instituted a thorough system of instruction in rifle practice, France, Germany, Switzerland, and above all, England, and Canada unite in giving to rifle practice a leading position in their systems of military training. […] In this country, on the other hand, the matter has been entirely neglected, although our entire system of defense is based upon the levying of volunteers in cases of emergency, who, to be valuable or even available, must understand the use of arms and supply by their skill as individuals the confidence which discipline gives to regular troops. While England has a system of rifle practice which is required to be annually and thoroughly performed by every soldier in her army whether stationed in India, Australia, or Europe, our War Department has not even enforced the system of Major Willard, adopted in 1862, and sends raw recruits against the Indian hunters of the plains. In the National Guard of New York, and other States, a similar apathy has prevailed so that it has been the rule, not the exception, for a man to serve out his full term of enlistment in their ranks without firing a shot. FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION This anomalous condition of affairs, having excited considerable discussion among military men through the press, finally on November 24 1871 led to the formation in the City of New York of The National Rifle Association, which was designed and bids fair to be the parent of many similar associations throughout the country. We found similar accounts in any number of books on the history of firearms and gun politics in the United States, including Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law (2012), Gun Violence in America: The Struggle for Control (2003), and Gun Politics in America (2016). All of them cited the need for organized firearms training in the military as the primary motivation for the NRA’s creation; none of them mentioned protecting freed slaves or doing battle against the Ku Klux Klan.
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5191
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Supreme Court leaves Kentucky’s ultrasound law in place.
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The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a Kentucky law requiring doctors to perform ultrasounds and show fetal images to patients before abortions.
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true
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AP Top News, Matt Bevin, Health, General News, Abortion, Politics, Kentucky, U.S. Supreme Court, Ultrasound, Courts, Gun politics, Laws
|
The justices did not comment in refusing to review an appeals court ruling that upheld the law. Enforcement of the law had been on hold pending the legal challenge but will begin shortly, said Steve Pitt, general counsel to Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin. The American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the law on behalf of Kentucky’s lone remaining abortion clinic. The ACLU argued that “display and describe” ultrasound laws violate physicians’ speech rights under the First Amendment. The federal appeals court in Cincinnati upheld the Kentucky law, but its sister court in Richmond, Virginia, struck down a similar measure in North Carolina. The Supreme Court had previously upheld “informed consent” laws for women seeking abortions. The court will hear an abortion case in March, over Louisiana’s attempt to require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. Doctors’ speech also has been an issue in non-abortion cases. The federal appeals court in Atlanta struck down parts of a 2011 Florida law that sought to prohibit doctors from talking about gun safety with their patients. Under the law, doctors faced fines and the possible loss of their medical licenses for discussing guns with patients. In Kentucky, doctors must describe the ultrasound in detail while the pregnant woman listens to the fetal heartbeat. Women can avert their eyes and cover their ears to avoid hearing the description or the fetal heartbeat. Doctors failing to comply face fines and can be referred to the state’s medical licensing board. The ACLU called the law unconstitutional and unethical. ACLU lawyer Alexa Kolbi-Molinas said that the Supreme Court “has rubber-stamped extreme political interference in the doctor-patient relationship.” Pitt painted a different picture of the law. “It’s a five-minute procedure that takes place before the abortion is performed to give women who might have a lack of understanding of what’s actually in the womb, that this is a real living human being there, they might change their mind,” he said. The high court’s decision not to review the ultrasound case came on Bevin’s final day in office. Bevin, a Republican, is an outspoken abortion opponent. During his term, he signed a series of measures passed by the GOP-led legislature that put limits and conditions on abortion, including the 2017 ultrasound law. Those laws have triggered several legal challenges. Bevin was defeated in last month’s election by Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear, but Republicans remain in control of the state legislature. ___ Associated Press writer Bruce Schreiner contributed to this report from Frankfort, Ky.
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11060
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Fiber-based Lipozene’s weight-loss claims rest on thin evidence
|
"Lipozene, a weight-loss supplement containing a type of fiber called glucomannan, is being promoted as a magic bullet for weight loss. The evidence supporting this claim is weak at best as aptly indicated in this story’s headline. This story was well researched and did a good job evaluating and refuting Lipozene’s weight-loss claims based upon review of the medical literature and by interviews with independent experts. Lipozene’s manufacturer, the Obesity Research Institute, did not respond to requests for justification of these claims. As pointed out in this article, the Obesity Research Institute paid a large settlement in response to the Federal Trade Commission charge that they made false and misleading claims about two of its other products containing the same fiber compound as Lipozene. This story did a very good job of documenting its ""bottom line"" – that despite aggressive marketing there is no evidence that Lipozene is a ""weight-loss breakthorugh"". This story is credible and was well done."
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true
|
"A one month supply of Lipozene can cost up to $90 as reported in this story. This article also pointed out that other companies sell similar supplements for a much lower cost. This story is clear and accurate in its overall message that there appear to be no weight-loss benefits from taking Lipozene. This story uses expert opinion to point out the severe diarrhea and gastrointestinal distress would be adverse effects of taking the very large doses of the glucomannan fiber in Lipozene that might help someone to lose weight. This story also noted that glucomannan is not FDA approved as a weight-loss supplement. This authors of this story should be commended for their thorough research in medical literature and in consultation with independent experts to verify the lack of evidence supporting Lipozene’s weight loss claims. The headline of this story ""Fiber-based Lipozene’s weight-loss claims rest on thin evidence"" sums up the lack of credible evidence on which Lipozene bases its weight-loss claims. This story does a good job at pointing out that Lipozene’s ""clinically proven"" ""fat-reducing power "" does not appear to be based on any data published in the medical literature. Perhaps this claim is based upon a small study reporting that individuals taking a fiber supplement similar to Lipozene on a very low calorie diet lost weight. Mathematically the amount of weight lost would be accounted for by diet alone. This story debunks Lipozene claim that people can lose weight without dieting or exercisisng by citing current medical opinion, and common sense. The story does point out that the Federal Trade Commission has taken legal action against the Obesity Research Institute for making false claims about its other gucomannan containing products. As a footnote, the Obesity Research Institute does not appear to conduct any research despite its ""lofty"" name. This story does not engage in disease mongering but clearly points out that the makers of Lipozene do. The parent company, Obesity Research Institute, capitalizes on the public’s desire for a quick fix weight loss pill. This story took a well balanced approach to presenting both sides of the Lipozene story. Beneficial claims by the manufacturer were balanced with comments by two independent experts who expressed the opposite opinion. The story also tried unsuccessfully to verify claims that could not be otherwise verified with the manufacturer. The only significant omission ofthe story was not including basic information on weight-loss. This story briefly mentions diet and exercise, but could more clearly state these are the proven ways to lose weight. Also, a brief sentence about gastric bypass surgery in cases of severe obesity could have easily been included. There is no shortage of ‘get thin quick products’ being aggressively marketed in the media and widely available in drugstores trhoughout the country. Lipozene is no excpetion, as this story points out at the onset. This story makes it clear that weight-loss supplements including Lipozene are common place. We are confident the story did not rely on a news release."
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2784
|
Georgia bill would seek limited access to medical marijuana strain.
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Georgia state representative Allen Peake introduced a bill on Tuesday that would legalize a non-psychoactive strain of marijuana strictly limited to patients with severe seizure disorders.
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true
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Health News
|
The Republican lawmaker’s proposal is similar to legislation introduced recently in Florida and Alabama, while limiting its availability to a handful of medical research facilities. Peake’s interest in the issue was prompted by a constituent’s 4-year-old daughter, who suffers from a seizure disorder. “When I saw her, she reminded me so much of my granddaughter, who is about the same age,” said Peake. “It made me realize that if this was my child or my grandchild, I’d be moving heaven and earth to get this legislation passed to provide some hope and relief to these families.” Medical marijuana in various forms is currently legal in 20 states, and at least 10 other states are considering legalizing it, including Florida, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee, said Erik Altieri, spokesman for the Washington-based pro-marijuana group, NORML. “Traditionally, this was the realm of Democratic lawmakers. But we’re beginning to see a lot more Republicans get behind this issue,” he said. “It really seems like finally, legislators are catching up with the will of the people.” None of the 20 states where medical marijuana is currently legally available are in the south, Altieri said. If the Georgia medical marijuana bill is enacted, patients would not be able to obtain the drug from their corner drugstore, Peake said. The drugs would be dispensed by five university research centers in the state. Georgia law already allows medical marijuana to be prescribed at medical research facilities for cancer patients and to relieve eye pressure for glaucoma sufferers, though a state board has never been authorized to administer the program, according to Peake. In Alabama, a bill called Carly’s law, initiated to help a toddler with violent seizures was filed in the first days of the 2014 Alabama Legislative session that convened January 14. The bill, which is still in committee review, also makes it legal to possess a prescribed medical grade extract known as cannabidiol, or CBD, which is non-intoxicating. Florida lawmakers are also considering legalizing CBD, which has shown promising results for controlling seizures. The strain is low in TCH, the psychoactive compound that gives users the feeling of being high. The product has no value to traditional marijuana consumers and comes as an oil. Passage of the bill in Georgia would be tough, said Peake, but added it had the key backing of the Medical Association of Georgia (MAG). The association’s president William Silver told Reuters that MAG supported marijuana use for medicinal purposes in academic settings.
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10115
|
New colon cancer test makes screening easier
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Early detection of colorectal cancer can save some lives. The perfect screen for the disease would be noninvasive, inexpensive, convenient, and highly accurate. Such a test has proven elusive, and researchers continue to look for better ones. This news story reports on a new colorectal screening test that uses a genetic marker to detect changes in DNA that signal colon cancer. Although the story explains how the test works and why the American Cancer Society recommends it, it fails to provide most of the key information readers would need to weigh the potential benefits and harms for themselves. The story does not explain the quality of the science to support the screen. It also fails to quantify the screen’s benefits: What is a 50-year-old person’s chance of dying of colon cancer over the next 30 years if he or she does not screen for colon cancer (answer: about 2%)—and how does that compare with that person’s chance of dying of colon cancer if he or she undergoes noninvasive stool DNA screening? (The article doesn’t say, but the answer is probably a little less than 1%.) The story does not mention potential harms. How many cancers does the new test miss (false negatives)? What is the rate of cancers it detects which turn out to be false positive? How many people with a healthy bowel are hospitalized with a serious complication incurred during the follow-up confirmatory colonoscopy? The article also fails to cite an independent expert. The only person interviewed is the scientist who led a research team that developed the screen. Finally, the story’s opening paragraphs are designed to alarm readers (some 150,000 people will be newly diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer this year) and prod them to action (if you are over age 50, get screening to detect and, presumably, cure early cancer). Readers could easily come away with the impression that colorectal cancer causes death in a significant proportion of people over the age of 50. Although any life lost prematurely to colorectal cancer is a terrible misfortune, the chances that it will happen to the average reader are quite small. To our eye, the story is teaching fear when it should reassure.
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false
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"The story notes that one test that was available through June 1 costs about $800. It also mentioned that some insurance and health plans covered the cost partially or in full. The article says that experts at the American Cancer Society have added the newly recommended stool DNA screen to its screening guidelines because many people are averse to the leading alternative–invasive, inconvenient, and expensive colonoscopies. But when it says the screen is “a huge step forward” that can “significantly increase the rate of detection,” the story’s quantification of benefits is more hype than help. By how much will this screen reduce the likelihood that someone will die of colorectal cancer? How many people over the age of 50 will need to be screened—for how long, and how often—to prevent one death by colon cancer? How does that compare to other screening methods? (For example, with the traditional fecal occult blood test, about 1000 people over the age of 50 must be screened for 10 years to prevent one death from colon cancer.) Is there evidence that ""you could reach a lot of people and prevent deaths from happening every day of the year""? Compared to other methods, is there any added benefit for people whose genetic makeup increases their likelihood of colorectal cancer? The story makes a brief pass at discussing harms when it says: ""Compared to more invasive procedures, the test still might miss some polyps and cancers and may need to be repeated more often. If results are abnormal, a colonoscopy would still be required."" But readers should be told how many cancers does the test miss (false negatives)? What is the rate of false positives—and how many people will believe they have colon cancer, when in fact they don’t? How many people will find themselves hospitalized with a serious complication caused by a follow-up confirmatory colonoscopy? The reader is led to believe that there must be high-quality evidence to support the stool DNA screen for colorectal cancer, since the American Cancer Society has added the test to its screening guidelines. Is this an accurate assumption? The story provides no information about the quality of the evidence to support the screen. How accurate is the stool test? What is the sensitivity, specificity, etc.? The story’s first several paragraphs are designed to alarm readers (some 150,000 people will be newly diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer this year) and prod them to action (if you are over age 50, get screening to detect and, presumably, cure early cancer). Although any life lost prematurely to colorectal cancer is a terrible misfortune, the chances that it will happen to the average reader are quite small. About 2% of those over age 50 will die of colorectal cancer during the next 30 years if they don’t receive screening, and less than 1% if they do. To our eye, the story is teaching fear when it should reassure. It is problematic that the only reasons given for NOT having a colonoscopy are: ""fear of doctors, the prospect of being poked and prodded in strange places, lack of insurance to cover the costly test""; another perfectly sane reason is that a person made a well-informed decision against colorectal cancer screening. The story does not even consider that many patients are making a choice here. The only source cited in the news story is the researcher whose team developed the stool DNA test. There are no independent sources. The story mentions other screening alternatives, including colonoscopy and CT colonography (or virtual colonoscopy). But it does not mention traditional fecal occult blood testing, the mainstay stool test for decades. And it provides only a cursory comparison of the advantages/disadvantages of the new test compared with existing approaches. It’s clear from the story that one stool DNA test has been commercially available since 2003. Others will be available later in 2008 and in 2009. The story explains that stool DNA screening is relatively new, with one product on the market and others on the way. The story borrows a phrase from a company press release, saying the noninvasive stool test can be used “in the privacy of one’s home,” but it does not appear to be overly reliant on a press release."
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16690
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We know how to stop AIDS: persuade men not to have sex with men.
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"Fischer said, ""We know how to stop AIDS: persuade men not to have sex with men."" Though men who have sex with men are at the highest risk of contracting HIV/AIDS in America, this is not a serious solution to ending a pandemic disease. Not in the United States, and certainly not worldwide. Women, children, and men who don’t have sex with men are also at risk, and women make up about half of people worldwide who have HIV/AIDS. Fischer’s claim is ridiculous."
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false
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Gays and Lesbians, Health Care, PunditFact, Bryan Fischer,
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"Some of the 298 passengers who died aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 were HIV/AIDS researchers and advocates headed for the 20th International AIDS Conference in Australia, a fact President Barack Obama mentioned after the plane was shot down over eastern Ukraine. Obama also said in July 18 comments about the crash that ""the United States of America is going to continue to stand for the basic principle that people have the right to live as they choose."" That touched a nerve with Bryan Fischer, director of issues analysis of the conservative American Family Association. Fischer claimed that Obama was using the MH 17 downing as a platform to legitimize gay relationships. ""Obama politicizes deaths of AIDS researchers on Malaysian plane. We know how to stop AIDS: persuade men not to have sex with men,"" Fischer said in a message on Twitter that was retweeted 66 times and attracted national attention. His comments were lambasted by writers of The Daily Beast, Salon and Patheos. Still, Fischer doubled down in another tweet and column. We wanted to dig into the facts behind his claim that the way to stop AIDS is to ""persuade men not to have sex with men."" Fischer’s evidence Experts say Fischer’s idea of an AIDS solution is highly flawed. But Fischer stood by his claim in an interview with PunditFact, citing a report from UNAIDS that the rate of HIV is 19 times higher among men who have sex with men than the adult population. Also, he said that while his tweet isolated on men having sex with men, he made a somewhat broader argument on his radio show. ""We know how to stop the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Persuade men not to have sex with men,"" he said on his radio show Focal Point. ""Persuade prostitutes to go straight, and persuade people not to shoot up with drugs. If we can get everybody persuaded to do that, then the epidemic begins to diminish overnight."" Dr. Stefan Baral, a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health epidemiology professor and director of the Key Populations Program of the Center for Public Health and Human Rights, said Fischer’s post on Twitter reveals a misunderstanding about human nature and societal behavior. ""His recommendation is akin to making recommendations for people not to drive cars for fear of car accidents or riding a bike for fear of falling,"" Baral said in an email. ""In other words, this is a natural and healthy normal practice that in the context of an additional determinant induces risk. It would not be dissimilar from saying that there would be no cervical cancer if heterosexual people didn’t have sex."" HIV/AIDS overview There is no cure for AIDS or HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS and ravages the body’s immune system if untreated. The statistics are staggering. About 35 million people have HIV in the world, including about 3.3 million children and 1 million Americans, according to the Foundation for AIDS Research, or amfAR. Among Americans, about 50,000 are newly infected each year, and 18 percent do not know they have the virus. In 2012, 1.6 million people died from AIDS, which was a 30 percent drop from 2005, according to UNAIDS. In the United States, gay men contract the virus at disproportionate rates to their share of the American population. In 2010, men who have sex with men comprised 78 percent of new HIV infections among men -- 63 percent of all new infections -- even though they made up just 4 percent of the male American population, according to the CDC. Still, preventing men from having sex with men (if that were even feasible) will not end HIV/AIDS in the United States. About 20 percent of Americans infected with HIV in 2010 were women, mainly through heterosexual sex, according to the CDC. HIV is carried through body fluids. The virus is passed when HIV-infected fluids enter the bloodstream of someone else, such as through contact with a cut or sore, sharing needles or syringes, or through the vagina, rectum, mouth, or tip of the penis. In the United States, anal sex is the highest-risk behavior for spreading HIV, followed by vaginal sex, sex with multiple partners and sharing needles with someone infected with HIV. Mother-to-child transmissions are not common in the United States thanks to widespread HIV testing of pregnant women and drugs that prevent the virus from affecting a child. Neither is getting the virus through blood transfusions and organ donations and transplants, which are intensely tested for HIV. But what’s true for Americans is not true for other people in the world. World picture About 70 percent of all people infected with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa, about 24 million people. This region is also home to the most children living with HIV whose infections originated during pregnancy, childbirth of consuming breast milk, according to AIDS.gov. Globally, the dominant form of transmission is heterosexual sex, said Sophie Barton Knott, UNAIDS spokeswoman. Nearly half of people with HIV are female, and most were infected through heterosexual sex. Most of the 50.9 percent of men with HIV got it through heterosexual sex, too, she said. The highest rates of AIDS among 15- to 24-year-olds is among women in many parts of the world, said Seth Faison, spokesman for The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. And in Eastern Europe, the highest transmission rates of AIDS are among people who inject drugs. ""Men who have sex with men are a high-risk group, but not the only one,"" he said. The bottom line? Preventing men from having sex with men will not end AIDS. Faison said the criminalization of same-sex activity actually can increase transmission rates. Being gay is a crime in at least 76 countries, and in those places, gay men are less likely to receive treatment, testing and prevention. The CDC also says stigma and homophobia are likely one factor behind the rise in HIV infections among young gay men in the United States. ""In effect, efforts to ‘persuade men not to have sex with men’ is counterproductive,"" Faison said. ""It will not stop AIDS."" Our ruling Fischer said, ""We know how to stop AIDS: persuade men not to have sex with men."" Though men who have sex with men are at the highest risk of contracting HIV/AIDS in America, this is not a serious solution to ending a pandemic disease. Not in the United States, and certainly not worldwide. Women, children, and men who don’t have sex with men are also at risk, and women make up about half of people worldwide who have HIV/AIDS. Fischer’s claim is ridiculous. It rates ."
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1729
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Australian wildfires threaten to produce ashtray wine vintage.
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Wildfires sweeping through southeast Australia are carrying with them the specter of a silent killer for grapes growing in the nearby Adelaide Hills wine region.
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true
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Environment
|
The vineyards have so far escaped the direct ravages of the worst bushfires for 30 years but winemakers fear their grapes may have fallen victim to “smoke taint”, which results in wines that taste like an ashtray and can ruin an entire vintage. As fears grow that climate change is lengthening the time and severity of Australia’s bushfire season, government funding to find a solution to the phenomenon is drying up. “It’s a nightmare of a problem,” said Mark Krstic, a specialist in smoke taint at the Australian Wine Research Institute who is liaising with worried growers in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia state. “Smoke taint is one of the symptoms of climate change for the wine industry and it’s only getting worse.” Smoke taint first caught the industry’s attention when Victoria state’s severe bushfires in 2003 cost grape growers more than A$7.5 million ($6.05 million) in lost vintages. Since then, it has recurred in vintages around the country in four other years. The contamination occurs when smoke compounds enter vines through the stomata - the minute pores in the epidermis of the leaf - and are transported into grape skins. Those compounds are then released into the wine when the crushed grapes come into contact with the skins during fermentation. Tasters commonly liken the resulting wine to an ashtray, burnt rubber and hospital disinfectant. Grape growers with tainted crops have two options - abandon the vintage or continue the costly harvesting and fermentation process to make a significantly devalued product. “It’s a no-win,” said Chris Pfieffer of Pfieffer Wines in the Rutherglen wine region, who lost his 2003 crop to smoke taint. “It’s a risk that’s at the top of climate change concerns in the industry.” Australia’s main wine growing regions are growing ever hotter and drier, with temperatures projected to increase by between 0.3 and 1.7 degrees celsius by 2030, according to the CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency. That has prompted many major growers such as Treasury Wine Estates Ltd to look for cooler climate vineyards in places like the southernmost island state of Tasmania. There are also mitigation measures in place to deal with some of the warming effects, such as new irrigation methods and specially developed sunscreen for grapes. But attempts to find a way to extract the smoke taint compound have so far failed and the industry is concerned about a lack of public money for research into the problem. There are no funds from Australia’s current Conservative-led coalition government, which has played down the role of climate change on agriculture. A A$4 million project over four years run by the Victoria government, the only assistance at state level, ends in the middle of 2015. A complicating factor for growers is that smoke taint is not immediately detectable. Samples of suspected contaminated grapes cannot be taken for clinical testing and a mini-fermentation to determine taste until a couple of weeks before normal harvest time. That can mean an agonizing wait of weeks or months for growers who think they may have affected vines. Worse, as young wines mature the smoke taint can develop further as the guilty compounds continue to break down. That risk means many wine makers like Treasury and Australian Vintage Ltd have in recent years inserted blanket clauses in their contracts with growers saying they reserve the right to reject the grapes if there is any sign of smoke taint, no matter how mild. Chris Pfieffer chose to harvest his 2003 crop “to the ground” and forgo the cost of fermenting. Pfieffer’s grapes were infected again to differing degrees in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2013. While a grape grower can command between A$3 and A$4 a liter for good quality grapes, that falls to just 50 to 60 cents a liter for the bulk sale of partially smoke tainted grapes. If the grapes are so badly affected they can only be distilled to recover the alcohol, the price falls to around 10 cents per liter. Those reduced returns line up against the A$2 per liter average cost to grow grapes. “I chose not to work that out,” Pfieffer said when asked about the accumulated financial toll. “If you do that in the wine industry, you’d end up crying, but it’s certainly significant.” Concerned growers in the Adelaide Hills, many of whom have been evacuated as the current fires rage, are meeting with the AWRC’s Krstic next week to consider their options. “Wine may ultimately be seen as too much of a luxury,” Pfieffer said. “We might be better off using our water to grow lettuces.”
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9923
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New milestone for device that can 'smell' prostate cancer
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News video screen grab: Prostate cancer screening sensor developed at the University of LiverpoolThis news release summarizes findings from a pilot study on a device that would screen for prostate cancer in men by “smelling” urine samples. The device employs gas chromotography, which separates and detects the presence of certain compounds in the urine, along with computer algorithms. The pilot study of 155 patients included those already diagnosed with prostate, bladder, haematuria or poor stream but without the presence of cancer. The researchers claim the device, which is still under development, accurately identified urological cancers from the samples. The release would have been improved had it given more attention to the device’s benefits and evidence found in the study and placed less emphasis on the “urgency” of early diagnosis. Currently, in the United States the standard test for prostate cancer is a biopsy. The prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test, once widely used, is no longer recommended by many medical organizations. Universal screening of men using the PSA test does not lead to a decrease in mortality. On the contrary, it produces a high level of false positives leading to unnecessary biopsies and mental anguish. Prostate cancer is a common cancer in men, but accurate diagnosis is important because the symptoms are often confused with benign disorders. Also, some small prostate cancers are so slow growing they are sometimes not treated. Finding an improved method for diagnosing this disease is desirable and important.
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false
|
Academic medical center news release,Prostate cancer,Screening tests
|
There is no mention of the cost of this diagnostic test aside from the implication that it would be inexpensive. A lead researcher of the device states, “With help from industry partners we will be able to further develop the Odoreader, which will enable it to be used where it is needed most; at a patient’s bedside, in a doctor’s surgery, in a clinic or Walk In Centre, providing fast, inexpensive, accurate results.” The release is clear that this was a pilot study and that the system is not yet available for mass use. That’s good. But the release does speculate that the test might mean that “invasive diagnostic procedures that men currently undergo eventually become a thing of the past.” We think that if it’s not too soon to speculate about these kinds of benefits, it’s not too soon to provide some idea of what the test might cost. There is no quantification of the benefits. An allusion is made to the necessity of early diagnosis and the eventual ease of testing, but there is no quantification of how this test compares to other tests. It is unknown how accurate the test might be when used in the general population (no discussion of sensitivity or specificity) or if a biopsy will be needed if the test is positive or if the test will detect cancer at a stage that can be cured nor if it will lead to a decline in mortality. Thus, benefits cannot be quantified and they release should have made that clear. The release speculates about potential benefits, but never acknowledges that the test might have downsides similar to the PSA test. False-positive results could lead to unnecessary biopsies and take a psychological toll on men who are tested — the release should have mentioned this. We liked that this release is fairly clear about the fact that this was a preliminary study and the test is not yet ready for general use. However, there is no mention of any of the findings that appear in the published report. The release does not state more than that the screens were successful. In the study, the test distinguished between prostate and bladder cancer without overlap and the results were found to be statistically significant. In addition, the release should have pointed out that the study was not blinded, that the patients were not representative of the general population and that the results, while promising, may not be that good if used in a general population. The release doesn’t engage in disease mongering, but we were concerned that the release unjustly pushes the “urgency” of the need for testing. More on that under the “Unjustifiable language” section below. The funding sources are stated and the origins of the equipment being used and tested is also made clear in the release. The story goes into some detail about how this test might compare with the PSA test and gives a brief mention of biopsies. The lead author states: “There is currently no accurate test for prostate cancer, the vagaries of the PSA test indicators can sometimes result in unnecessary biopsies, resulting in psychological toll, risk of infection from the procedure and even sometimes missing cancer cases.does indicate that the PSA test is problelmatic for false positives.” It is clear that this screening tool is still in development and that the developers are seeking funders to expand the testing. The device is similar to many other technologies in development that are said to “sniff” cancer based on specific odor signatures. But the release makes it sound as though this device is unique. The release contains several instances of unjustifiable language when it calls the test “revolutionary” and says earlier diagnosis is “urgent.” Examples: In fact, earlier diagnosis often does not yield expected benefits, because it’s difficult to tell which cancers are aggressive and fast-growing and which ones grow so slowly that they would never cause a problem during the patient’s lifetime. The release also suggests the test could replace biopsy when there’s no evidence for that. “An accurate urine test would mean that many men who currently undergo prostate biopsy may not need to do so,” according to the release.
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33485
|
A photograph captures a racially contradictory sign imploring that everyone be treated equally.
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A follow-up Photoplasty contest from the same site in 2013 featured “The 28 Least Effective Public Service Announcements Possible.”
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false
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Fauxtography, Signs Of The Times
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Public service announcements (PSA) are a type of message that originated in the mid-20th century with the intent of informing the public in order to raise awareness of and change attitudes towards various social issues, such as racism, drug use, environmentalism, obesity, animal cruelty, compulsive gambling, drunk driving, AIDS, etc. PSAs have been disseminated though a variety of media, including short films, television and radio commercials, pamphlets, print advertisements, billboards, and posters. One supposed PSA-like poster appeared to be a plea for racial tolerance, entreating viewers that “everybody deserves to be treated equally” — then subverted its own message by suggesting that people of other (i.e., non-white) races fall outside the norm: “It doesn’t matter if you are black or yellow or brown or normal.” This self-contradictory message left some people who encountered wondering whether whoever designed the ad was shockingly clueless and oblivious or deliberately intended it to be a put-on: Is this a real advertisement or a joke? A friend posted it on her Facebook page as an appalling example of clueless racism, but it’s hard for me to believe that anyone is really that clueless. The answer is the latter: This graphic was created as an entry for a September 2010 CRACKED Photoplasty contest that solicited participants to come up with “Counterproductive Public Service Announcements”: The PSAs you saw as a kid didn’t exactly shape you into who you are today. If you never took drugs, it probably had more to do with your parents or the fact that your friends never had any. But maybe they would have if they weren’t utterly insane, no matter where or when you grew up. The point is, it’s pretty hard to do worse than the actual Service Announcements provided to the actual Public. We asked you to give it a shot.
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