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"Sometimes television and films use computer-generated tails for dogs or wolves because the animals are so excited to be doing ""a good job"" that they won't stop wagging their tails."
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‘Sometimes Dogs or Wolves in Movies Need CGI Tails Because They’re So Excited to be Doing a Good Job Acting’
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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"On October 6 2019, the following post spread rapidly on Facebook, concerning wolves and dogs in the movie industry and how they may sometimes need computer-generated editing to make them look less happy or excited:View post on imgur.comBeneath an image of a dog, text read:Maybe not mind-blowing, but sometimes dogs/wolves in movies need CGI tails if they’re supposed to be acting mean bc they’re so excited to be doing a good job that their tails can’t stop wagging.Comments on the post typically took the claim at face value:“SO WHOLESOME”“oh my heart”“such good bois”“we truly do not deserve dogs”Text at the start of the meme contained a clue involving the source of the claim, as it began “maybe not mind-blowing, but …” The exact same text appeared in a number of blog posts based on a popular Reddit thread, as a number of sites exist solely to transcribe individual Reddit thread comments into standalone posts.One such site called “22 Words” didn’t include the text of the meme in an August 2019 article, “A Father Asked for Simple, Fascinating Facts to Tell His Daughter and the Internet Delivered,” but it cited a thread in which the comment appeared:What mind-blowing (but simple) facts would satisfy a 4-year old daughter’s daily request for 1 fact before bedtime? from AskRedditShared to r/AskReddit in April 2019, the voluminous thread featured a number of unsourced, purported facts the original poster could reference each night while putting his four-year-old daughter to bed. At the time the thread was active, u/janello710 replied:Maybe not mind-blowing, but sometimes dogs/wolves in movies need CGI tails if they’re supposed to be acting mean bc they’re so excited to be doing a good job acting that their tails can’t stop wagging. 🙂That person did not provide a reference or citation to support their claim, nor did most users participating in the thread. That comment only received 23 upvotes and two comments, the latter of which read:“Still true: we don’t deserve dogs.”“This is the happiest fact!”When this claim first showed up in a more generalized thread, readers became emotionally affected to the point they were not likely to question this “fact.” When it moved to Facebook, all comments we saw were in the same vein.It didn’t take long for the former comment to make its way back to Reddit as a meme, shared to r/MadeMeSmile on the same day it appeared on Facebook:Good actor boi from MadeMeSmileBut the meme was far more popular when shared to r/wholesomememes the following day:Found this in r/MadeMeSmile from wholesomememesOn March 10 2018, a Twitter account made a similar claim, but only about one cast in one film:TIL the White Witch's wolves in the movie The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe all have CGI butts.Why? Because the huskies being filmed couldn't stop wagging their tails, which kinda detracted from the whole ""menacing"" appearance the movie was going for.— Julia Galef (@juliagalef) March 10, 2018That person claimed that the White Witch’s wolves in the film The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe all had “CGI butts,” “because the huskies being filmed couldn’t stop wagging their tails.” She further stated that the tail-wagging made the huskies appear friendlier, which “detracted from the whole ‘menacing’ appearance the movie was going for.”Galef did cite a source in a subsequent tweet. That source was a 2005 ANW.com post, which was part of a series on the making of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In that piece, Jim Berney of Sony Pictures Imageworks said:We had live-action wolves to match in our effects shots for certain kinds of action and when the wolves have dialogue. They had cast Maugrim and Vardin with dogs that were half-wolf, and there were some random wolves that would run around with them, that had to move and be militaristic. We filmed as many shots as possible with the real dogs, but pretty much every plate we shot with a real dog had to be covered as a visual effects shot after the fact. [We would] work with the second unit director for five hours to try to get a shot of the wolves searching the beaver hut for the kids. But in reality, you get half a beaver hut set, hide meat everywhere, let the dogs go and all you see are a bunch of dog butts pointing at the camera. The dogs are happy, their tails wagging, tongues hanging out. Theyre not thinking about the drama, theyre not wondering where are those kids? So, we had to replace their wagging tails in a bunch of shots to make them look more menacing. What helped was that we had to make our CG wolves look exactly like these two wolves, which is hard and scary, but at least you have a clear direction and know where to go. The two main wolves were different breeds. Maugrim had a big head with weird spiky fur. Vardins kind of a Malamute, black-and-white. For the other wolves, wed kind of blend the two six different ways so wed have variations on their look and color. Once we really got into editing, and Andrew saw the live action and CG wolves cut back to back, like, literally, heres their wolf and heres our CG shot of the same wolf, it was nice to see that it looked just like the real wolf. I have so much faith in these guys at Imageworks, I was confident that we could get it done in time.There is, however, a secondary reason that the claim may be misleading, based on veterinary information [PDF] about tail-wagging.According to VCA (formerly the Veterinary Centers of America), tail wagging is not solely a “happy” indicator for dogs. The site lists “preparedness or agitation,” “negotiation, “aggression,” “submission,” “curiosity,” and “happiness” as emotions indicated by a dog’s tail position. With respect to the rate of tail wagging, VCA cites “excitement,” “insecurity,” “friendliness,” and “aggression” as factors in reasons behind “wagging speed.”A 2011 Psychology Today article about tail wagging notes:Just as there are different dialects to a human language, such as a southern drawl or a New England twang, there are also dialects in dog tail language. Different breeds carry their tails at different heights, from the natural nearly vertical position common to Beagles and many Terriers to the low-slung tails of Greyhounds and Whippets. All positions should be read relative to the average position where the individual dog normally holds its tail.Movements give additional meaning to the signals. The speed of the wag indicates how excited the dog is. Meanwhile, the breadth of each tail sweep reveals whether the dog’s emotional state is positive or negative, independent from the level of excitement.Wolves or dogs on screen are not simply selected at a local animal shelter then put to work. An entire sub-industry in film has long involved the training and handling of dogs, and tail-wagging is one behavior training can affect.According to HollywoodPaws.com, dog owners interested in canine acting careers should know that the training can be intensive:A dog can never be too well trained for the film business. To be considered for film, TV or even a photo shoot, an animal must be solid on all off-leash basic obedience – with distractions. The American Kennel Club’s Canine Good Citizenship test is a good measure; a dog with CGC certification has a foundation to begin training for entertainment. Hollywood Paws classes emphasize specific behaviors that are not found in your basic obedience school, which is why it’s the perfect place to prepare your dog for possible work in film, television and commercials.When it comes to rapidly-spreading claims about “doggos,” readers are inclined to put aside all critical thinking in favor of animal love. A factoid about CGI tails due to “good boys” and incessant wagging ticked all users’ boxes for dog-related excitement, rapidly spreading the claim regardless of accuracy.It is true that computer-generated tails were used to counteract excited dogs in at least one film (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), and it seems a Reddit commenter remembered the anecdote but not its specificity. We did find a 2005 interview substantiating that it happened at least once, but the comment assumed that dog training and handling in films is not as well developed as it is overall. Finally, not all tail-wagging is indicative of happiness or excitement.Regardless, the comment languished in obscurity with a mere 23 upvotes until a number of Reddit-cannibalizing sites mined that thread for “fun facts” in August 2019. In September 2019, someone took a screenshot of the Reddit-comment-turned-fun-fact, and dog-loving readers spread the claim far and wide."
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3446
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Paris streets near Notre Dame to be decontaminated from lead.
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Paris authorities shut down streets surrounding the Notre Dame Cathedral to decontaminate them Tuesday, after high levels of lead were registered in the area following the April blaze that damaged the landmark.
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true
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Lead poisoning, Health, General News, Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, Fires, Travel, Poisoning, Europe, International News
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The painstaking cleanup work inside Notre Dame itself was suspended last month for safety reasons, as activists and residents accused authorities of underestimating the threat of lead poisoning. Hundreds of tons of lead melted in the fire, which destroyed the cathedral’s metal and wood roof. Authorities have launched multiple lead prevention operations: cleaning up neighborhood schools, de-toxifying surrounding streets, and setting up a stricter new decontamination zone for experts working inside the cathedral. On Tuesday, police blocked several streets and a bridge around the monument, and high fences were erected to keep out Parisians and tourists alike. Experts plan to use two decontamination techniques for the surrounding neighborhoods, according to the culture ministry. One method will feature high pressure water jets with chemical agents. Another involves spreading a gel on public benches, street lights and other fixtures to absorb the lead, letting it dry for several days before removing it. The overall operation is expected to take about three weeks. Police union official Frederic Guillo said that after the current street-cleaning effort is over, authorities “will have to ask the question if we should extend the decontamination zone” to any other neighboring streets. Workers began decontaminating last week some Paris schools tested with unsafe levels of lead, and city authorities say all schools are expected to be decontaminated when children return to school in early September. Separately, work is continuing on the new decontamination zone for workers who’ve been clearing hazardous debris from inside Notre Dame, to ensure that their activities don’t generate any pollution outside the work zone. Authorities expect that to be ready by Aug. 19 and for cleanup work to resume. However that debris cleanup is still just a first step — to ready the cathedral for a massive, multimillion-euro reconstruction effort. French President Emmanuel Macron said he wanted Notre Dame rebuilt within five years but experts doubt that’s possible, and the belated lead prevention measures are further slowing down the process.
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3643
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Sao Paulo zoo reopens after yellow fever scare.
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Brazilian officials have reopened Sao Paulo’s zoo and botanical gardens after a monkey was killed by the yellow fever virus.
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true
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Brazil, Caribbean, Health, Environment, Sao Paulo, Monkeys
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The Sao Paulo state Environmental Secretary says the virus that killed a monkey was an isolated case and the transmission risk was low. The virus has not been detected in the area occupied by the two parks. Both have been closed since Jan. 23 and were reopened on Thursday. A total of 29 other parks in the city of Sao Paulo remain closed as a preventive measure. On Wednesday, the Health Ministry said that 900 cases of yellow fever were reported since July 2017 nationwide and 300 people have died from the disease. During the same period last year, 610 cases and 196 deaths were reported.
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16165
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"Austin mayoral candidate Steve Adler has ""never been active in anything that has to do with City Hall."
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"Martinez said Adler has ""never been active in anything that has to do with City Hall."" Adler hasn’t been a member of city boards or commissions and we accept Martinez’s assertion Adler hasn’t addressed the council. Then again, Adler had a leadership hand in developing the hate crimes task force and the city’s cultural master plan. All told, this never/anything statement strikes us as incorrect and ridiculous. The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim."
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false
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Candidate Biography, City Government, Criminal Justice, Crime, Texas, Mike Martinez,
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"Austin mayoral candidate Mike Martinez says his opponent, Steve Adler, lacks experience in municipal matters. Martinez, an Austin City Council member since 2006, told Austin’s KVUE-TV for a news story aired Nov. 11, 2014: ""He’s never been active in anything that has to do with City Hall,"" stressing ""anything."" Adler and Martinez are vying in a Dec. 16, 2014, runoff. Adler’s campaign manager, Jim Wick, asked us to look into Martinez’s claim. Asked how Martinez reached his conclusion, Martinez spokesman Nick Hudson emailed: ""Mike meant something specific when he made this statement. While Mike Martinez has been on the Austin City Council for nearly eight years and has a near-perfect attendance record, Steve Adler has not, to our knowledge, ever taken an active role in our local government by appearing before Council on an item."" That’s a way to get to ""never."" To be sure, Adler has been running as a City Hall outsider eager to get city government moving in a fresh direction. Wick told us Adler never has been on a council-appointed board or commission. But Wick said by email the eminent-domain lawyer has built familiarity with city affairs, in part by representing clients whose land was being condemned by the city. In 2004, Adler represented Lowe’s when the store and city of Austin tried to keep construction of a store continuing in Southwest Austin. The project ultimately proceeded after a 2005 legal settlement involving the city of Sunset Valley and environmental groups. Adler also has volunteered in causes that connected with city government, Wick wrote. According to an October 2014 Austin American-Statesman profile, Adler led the board of the Austin-area Anti-Defamation League from 2009 to 2012. In that role, Wick told us, Adler ""helped conceive of and serves on the city-led Hate Crimes Task Force."" The Austin ADL says on a web page that when the task force was launched in December 2010, its ""convenors"" included the ADL, several council members and more than 70 individuals representing 40 organizations or departments. A May 2011 Austin Chronicle news story, pointed out by Wick, listed the ADL among groups having a hand in starting the task force. The story described Laura Morrison as one of three council members behind the task force’s creation in the wake of the beatings of two men outside City Hall in 2010. ""The attack prompted Morrison and colleagues Sheryl Cole and Randi Shade to ask the Austin chapter of the Anti-Defamation League to put together a proposal for what a city-led task force might look like,"" the Chronicle said. The story said: ""The idea is for the group – which includes"" Travis County’s district and county attorneys, the Austin Police Department, ""University of Texas and Austin Independent School District police, members of the Anti-Defamation League, Out Youth, and other civil rights groups, among others – to identify and develop an approach to dealing with hate-motivated violence ‘before, during, and after’ it happens."" That story didn’t mention Adler. But in May 2014, an Adler profile in the Austin Bulldog quoted Austin ADL board member Kirk Rudy saying Adler ""was instrumental"" in creating the task force. By phone, attorney Karen Gross, a former ADL staff member, told us she and Adler helped launch the task force by reaching out to any group with a possible stake in the collaboration of city, county and non-governmental entities. Wick said Adler also had a hand in writing the city’s cultural master plan. An April 2008 consultant’s report lists Adler among 71 members of the CreateAustin Leadership Council, an appointed group of ""civic, business and cultural leaders who agreed to provide the visible leadership in reaching out to engage the community, to assist in crafting the CreateAustin Cultural Master Plan and to galvanize the effort to implement the plan’s recommendations."" By telephone, Janet Seibert, the city’s civic arts program consultant, said the members were chosen by city staff. The report says the city’s Cultural Arts Division launched the CreateAustin ""strategic planning process"" in September 2006 because the city ""wanted to review and refine municipal roles and responsibilities for cultural support, but that was only half of it. The City recognized they couldn’t support arts, culture and creative industries alone. They sought to trigger and develop community leadership to explore major issues and develop strategies to sustain the creative culture of Austin."" The leadership council, the report said, ""met regularly to review research, findings and community input in order to help shape the cultural plan."" Adler, the report says, was on the body’s Cultural Infrastructure task force. Adler co-chaired that task force, Seiberg said to our query. She said the Austin City Council accepted the master plan in June 2010. Our ruling Martinez said Adler has ""never been active in anything that has to do with City Hall."" Adler hasn’t been a member of city boards or commissions and we accept Martinez’s assertion Adler hasn’t addressed the council. Then again, Adler had a leadership hand in developing the hate crimes task force and the city’s cultural master plan. All told, this never/anything statement strikes us as incorrect and ridiculous. ! PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim."
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5311
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Solar eclipse, loveable baby hippo warmed hearts in 2017.
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It wasn’t all doom and gloom in 2017. The year was also filled with awe-inspiring moments that united us and warmed the heart.
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true
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AP Top News, Solar eclipses, Science, Eclipses, U.S. News, 2017 - The Year in Review
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The first total solar eclipse to cross the U.S. in a century bought millions together in what some could only describe as a primal experience. Thousands of immigrants took the oath of citizenship, realizing their dreams of becoming Americans. And one adorable baby, Fiona the hippopotamus, became a story of survival as she overcame the odds and tumbled into the world’s heart. The stories provided some lighthearted moments amid a series of deadly mass shootings, terrorist attacks, hurricanes, wildfires, sexual harassment scandals and other tragic news in 2017. Here’s a look at a few of the moving, unifying and just plain fun moments of 2017: YAY, SCIENCE! It seems nothing brought Americans together more than the first total solar eclipse to move across the U.S. in a century. For one moment in the middle of an August day, millions of people stopped what they were doing and gazed upward in wonder as the moon slipped over the sun — leaving a path of total darkness that stretched from Oregon to South Carolina. Some eclipse watchers sang, some danced and some were moved to tears. Kids thought it was pure magic, and people traveled to remote sections of the country to get the best glimpse. A study by the University of Michigan, requested by NASA, estimated that 215 million American adults — or 88 percent of the country’s adult population — viewed the eclipse either directly or electronically. That’s 104 million more than the 2017 Super Bowl. “People were really just about nature, about this phenomenon that was happening,” said Mamta Patel Nagaraja, who works on public engagement for NASA. “It didn’t matter what color, creed, race, economic ladder you were on, people just went out and enjoyed it. “It transcended all the other things,” she said. ___ #TEAMFIONA This little one wasn’t expected to make it. Fiona, a Nile hippopotamus, was just 29 pounds (13 kilograms) when she was born prematurely in January. After early health scares, she’s now thriving at more than 600 pounds (272 kilograms). This sassy girl has become a symbol of survival — and the star attraction at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. Fiona has captivated the masses and the Team Fiona craze isn’t slowing down. She stars in her own internet video series. Tens of millions have gone online to watch her take a bottle, splash in the pool or learn to run. T-shirts bear her image. She’s the subject of children’s books. An ice cream flavor and local brew are named in her honor. She gets so many cards and letters that she has her own mail bin. Grown men will lean over the pool in their suits and ties to get close to her, said zoo director Thane Maynard. “It’s Fiona’s world, and we’re just living in it,” Maynard said. In her early, most vulnerable days, Fiona received letters and pictures from kids who were preemies themselves, urging her to stay strong. After nurses at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center helped care for the hippo, the zoo sent Fiona-themed onesies to the preemies there. “We are working with Fiona and her story to spread a number of messages — one is a message of not giving up,” Maynard said. __ INSPIRING GENEROSITY Out of cash and out of gas on an interstate exit ramp in Philadelphia, Kate McClure found help from an unlikely source: a homeless man who told her to stay put, then used his last $20 to buy her gas. Johnny Bobbitt Jr.’s selflessness was not lost on McClure. She set up a GoFundMe page for the military veteran and former paramedic, and raised more than $400,000. Now Bobbitt has enough money to buy a home and his dream truck — a 1999 Ford Ranger. An attorney and financial adviser helped create a plan that will allow him to collect a small monthly salary and have some money for retirement. Bobbitt has said he’s overwhelmed. He told “Good Morning America” he plans to pay the generosity forward by donating some of the money to organizations that will help others. “Everybody out there is facing some kind of struggle, so if I can touch their life, the way mine was touched, (it’d be) an amazing feeling,” he told “Good Morning America.” ___ “YES!” OVER ROAST CHICKEN From a simple proposal over roast chicken to plans for a royal wedding, news that Prince Harry is engaged to American actress Meghan Markle has many cheering. The story drew people in for many reasons. For one, it’s fun. The happiness exuded by the couple as they announced their engagement was contagious, while details of their courtship read like a fairy tale. Harry, an army veteran who had a one-time bad-boy image but is now devoted to wounded veterans and charitable causes, met Markle on a blind date. The prince later said that’s when he realized he needed to up his game to win her heart. They grew closer while camping in Botswana, and now there is talk of starting a family. But for some black women the engagement offered more than entertainment. It gave them a Cinderella story they could picture themselves in. Markle, who is divorced, is bi-racial and will be the first woman of color in modern history to join the British royal family. “We all have this fantasy of being swept off our feet by the prince. It’s validation that, of course, we can be princesses,” Essence Magazine Editor-in-Chief Vanessa K. DeLuca said at the time. ___ PROUD AMERICANS Manny Macias came to America when he was just 3 months old. Three decades later, he became a citizen of the only place he’s called home. “The U.S. has always been home for me,” said Macias. “Now it’s official.” The federal government says more than 600,000 people became naturalized U.S. citizens in the first nine months of 2017. The ceremonies can be huge moments for those involved. Many times they are family affairs, complete with proud smiles or tears of joy as the newest Americans realize dreams that were years in the making. Many dress in their best and pose for photos while clutching American flags. Macias, 31, said he’s now glad to be able to vote, have more stability and live without fear of being deported. “It was important to me to get the documentation saying I was a citizen,” he said. “I did get a little emotional, because finally for me, the journey was done.” ___ Follow Amy Forliti on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/amyforliti. More of her work at: https://apnews.com/search/amy%20forliti
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37535
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Rapunzel was quarantined in Tangled and she was from the kingdom of Corona.
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Rapunzel Was Quarantined in ‘Tangled,’ Google the Name of Her Kingdom?
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mixture
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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As coronavirus quarantine memes circulated in mid-March 2020, one referenced the Disney film Tangled, first stating that Rapunzel was “quarantined” during the film, and then tacking on people should “Google” the name of her kingdom — purportedly because it was named “Corona”:If Rapunzel can entertain herself in her tower for 18 years, I think you can handle being in quarantine for a few weeks.— dιɴαн♡ | ᴊᴇᴅɪ ᴋʀɪsᴛᴏғғ (@KristoffsHoe) March 15, 2020so you’re tellin me rapunzel was in quarantine all her life cause her mom was hiding her from CORONA pic.twitter.com/Urcimv6LWN— indy (@itsindysev) March 16, 2020In the March 15 2020 tweet above, the first user says that if “Rapunzel can entertain herself in her tower for 18 years, I think you can handle being in quarantine for a few weeks.” The second tweet, one day later, claimed:so you’re tellin me rapunzel was in quarantine all her life cause her mom was hiding her from CORONAScreenshots of the meme also circulated:In that one, a Facebook status update and comment are shown, reading:“let’s not forget that rapunzel was quarantined and met her future husband so let’s think positively here”“So…. Right now… go google the name of the KINGDOM in TANGLED …The second example showed a similar conversation, reading:– Wanna know something weird– What– Know the movie tangled– Yes – ?– Her mom keeps her quarantined right– Yea?– Google the name of the kingdom in tangledIt appeared as if memes organically began saying that in Tangled, Rapunzel was effectively (if not explicitly) quarantined; then, almost immediately, response memes suggested that Rapunzel’s kingdom was called “Corona,” an odd quirk of the tale causing far more interest in the memes. Following on from there, memes in the question and answer format (first saying Rapunzel was quarantined in Tangled, then adding the “kingdom of Corona” element as something of a punchline) looked more widespread than those combining the two claims into one initial statement.In response to the meme, people did Google the name of the kingdom in Tangled:As to whether the memes were accurate, it seemed early on in their circulation, Disney fans hinted that Rapunzel’s circumstances were similar to quarantine — not that Rapunzel was explicitly quarantined. A synopsis from Wikipedia explained the premise of Tangled:Long ago, a drop of sunlight fell onto Earth and grew a magical flower capable of healing illness, decay, and injury. For hundreds of years, the flower is used by a woman named Mother Gothel to retain her youth, until soldiers from a nearby kingdom of Corona, find the flower and use it to heal their ailing and pregnant queen. Shortly afterward, the Queen gives birth to a shockingly blonde Princess Rapunzel. While attempting to recover the flower, Gothel discovers that Rapunzel’s golden hair contains the flower’s healing properties. She tries to steal Rapunzel’s hair but discovers that cutting her hair destroys its power. Gothel instead abducts the baby and raises Rapunzel as her own daughter in an isolated tower. In order to keep Rapunzel content in the tower, Gothel lied about the outside world being dangerous and filled with bad people who will hurt her and take advantage of her magical capabilities. Gothel often left their tower to find gifts for Rapunzel, leaving the girl alone most of the time. Once a year, the King and Queen release sky lanterns on Rapunzel’s birthday, hoping for their daughter to see them and return.According to the excerpted text, Rapunzel was kidnapped from her parents (the king and queen of Corona) by a woman named Mother Gothel, and isolated. That isolation was not a quarantine, but Gothel’s attempt to conceal her crime of kidnapping the princess.On Disney.fandom.com’s Tangled summary, Rapunzel’s kingdom was described as “Corona,” and the events of the beginning of the film are explained:That night [when Rapunzel was born], an already-aging Gothel sneaks into the palace and cuts a piece of Rapunzel’s hair to use instead of the flower. Though when she cuts it, the lock of hair turns dark brown. Gothel realizes that cutting Rapunzel’s hair causes it to lose its power, and so she kidnaps the princess, escaping out the window with her. Flynn’s narration explains that she locked her away in a hidden tower and raised her as her own child, having Rapunzel sing the healing song to restore Gothel’s youth. Every year afterward, on the princess’ birthday, the kingdom would release hundreds of flying lanterns as a symbol of hope that the lost princess would return to them.A separate entry on the Kingdom of Corona explains:Corona is an island kingdom and the birthplace of Rapunzel in Disney’s 2010 animated feature film, Tangled.Initial memes claimed that in Tangled, Rapunzel was “isolated in a tower,” comparing her plight to quarantine. Later memes just said Rapunzel was “quarantined,” and her “mother was keeping her safe from Corona.” The latter explanation did not reasonably reflect the plot of the film. Rapunzel was kidnapped, trafficked, and isolated by her captor — not to “protect” her from “Corona,” but to prevent her parents (the rulers of the kingdom of Corona) from recovering her and in the process, disrupting Gothel’s spells. Although the kingdom was called “Corona,” it seems more accurate to say the risk to Rapunzel was her kidnapper, not her parents’ efforts to bring her home.Finally, “Corona” in Latin (and Spanish, and Italian, and various other Latin-derived languages) means “crown,” which is a reference in the film to her royal status. With coronaviruses, the reference is to the characteristic spiked shape of the virus, making the perceived coincidence far less striking.
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37583
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Democratic lawmakers voted in February 2020 against protecting children born following an abortion procedure.
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Did 41 Democrats Vote Against ‘Protecting Already Born Babies’?
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false
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Disinformation, Fact Checks
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In February 2020, pundits and blogs launched a round of invective against Democratic Party lawmakers after a bill targeting healthcare providers fell short of garnering enough votes for debate on the Senate floor.The latest salvo followed a cloture vote regarding the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” a bill proposed by Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse that he claimed would protect “abortion survivors” — live births allegedly taking place after an abortion procedure. The bill required 60 votes to move forward, but fell short after 41 Democrats voted to block it. Three Democrats joined with all 53 Republican senators in voting for it. It also failed to advance in the Senate in 2019.The measure would have required healthcare professionals to “exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health” of a child carried to term in those circumstances as they would in a regular birth. The penalty for failing to do so would be up to five years in jail.In arguing for the bill, Sasse claimed that its opponents were misrepresenting it by calling it another instance of the GOP attempting to limit access to abortion procedures. “There’s nothing in the bill that’s about abortion. Nothing,” he said before the cloture vote. “It’s about infanticide. That’s the actual legislation.”In reality, abortions under those circumstances account for 1.4 percent of all abortions, and abortions after 24 weeks — which are typically undergone either to protect the mother’s life or because the fetus has a fatal condition — occur in less than 1 percent of all abortions.Medical professionals have also offered rebukes to Sasse’s take. Kristyn Brandi, the board chair for the healthcare advocacy group Physicians for Reproductive Health and OB-GYN, criticized supporters of the bill for describing births following abortions after a fetus has gestated for more than 21 weeks as children being “born alive” after “botched abortions.”“These terms are insulting to doctors that provide compassionate care to their patients and to the patients receiving care,” Brandi told Rewire News, which focuses on reproductive health. “More importantly, they are insulting to the real-life experiences of families that need this care. What this bill does is create a vehicle for false narratives and inflammatory language around abortion built to further stigmatize abortion care and the patients needing it.”In a separate statement opposing the bill, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said that it “uses dangerous rhetoric that undermines the public trust in obstetrician-gynecologists, stigmatizes necessary health care for women, and callously disregards the tragedies and difficult decisions women and their families face.”The bill’s emergence followed a disinformation attack against Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) in 2019 concerning state House Bill 2491, which would have eased restrictions on third-trimester abortions. Northam was asked during a radio interview what would happen in the event of a birth following an abortion. “The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired,” he said at the time. “And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”The bill was tabled in the state House of Delegates in January 2019. Republicans, including United States President Donald Trump, would go on to spin Northam’s remark as him (and by extension, the Democratic Party as a whole) endorsed “executing babies.”But as the New York Times reported, late-term procedures do involve preservation of life:For instance, a condition called pre-eclampsia, involving high blood pressure and other problems, can kill both mother and fetus, and in most cases the only treatment is to deliver the baby. If it seems unlikely that the baby will survive, the family may choose to provide just comfort care — wrapping and cuddling the baby — and allow the child to die naturally without extreme attempts at resuscitation.A 2002 law, the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, already extends legal protections to children born at any stage of a pregnancy.
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1597
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Expectant couples avoiding Latin America, other Zika hotspots.
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Expectant couples planning “babymoon” vacations are increasingly steering clear of Latin America and the Caribbean amid warnings about a suspected link between a Zika virus outbreak in the region and birth defects, travel agents say.
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true
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Health News
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Airlines and hotel chains say it is too early to tell if the Zika epidemic is affecting bookings. But some “babymooners” - parents-to-be taking last-hurrah vacations - have backed out of trips and changed itineraries. “There’s been a lot of cancellations,” said Lauren Machowsky, a travel advisor at New York-based SmartFlyer. “Some people are freaked out.” Machowsky, who is herself expecting a child and called off a planned vacation to Anguilla, said she is redirecting a lot of people to Florida and pointing clients to travel warnings issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “I refer them to the CDC website and say, ‘Listen, this is my experience. I was going away and had to cancel,’” Machowsky said. On Monday, the World Health Organization declared the Zika outbreak an emergency because of evidence that the mosquito-borne virus is linked to a spike in birth defects in Brazil. The current outbreak has spread to at least 25 countries and territories, most of them in the Americas. The CDC has advised pregnant women to avoid travel to areas with an active Zika outbreak. Parenting website babycenter.com asked pregnant readers with plans to travel to Zika-affected areas if they would change course. About half of 1,118 respondents said they planned to cancel, and 27 percent said they were keeping their plans. The rest were undecided. New Hampshire-based travel agent Darcy Allen, of Travel by Darcy, said she’s had a handful of cancellations and estimated 80 percent of her babymoon clients are avoiding Mexico. “It’s certainly a factor in deciding where they want to go,” said Allen. In another sign of Zika’s impact on travelers, sales of trip cancellation insurance have surged among people booking Latin American vacations, RoamRight, a top U.S. provider, told Reuters on Monday. Newlyweds hoping to start a family also are cautiously evaluating honeymoon options, said New Jersey-based Mindy Gilbert of My Vacation Lady. “I have been asking personal questions like, ‘Are you pregnant? Do you plan on conceiving,’ - something I’ve never asked before,” she said. One couple that had hoped to spend their honeymoon in Mexico’s Riviera Maya is now waiting to see how the virus situation develops, she said. Several travel agents said they were steering clients toward Europe and Hawaii. Ilonka Molijn, founder of Netherlands-based BabyMoon Travel, said visiting Mexico and the Caribbean was not a huge draw for her clients before the Zika outbreak, but now “there isn’t any interest in it at all.” Concerns are extending beyond babymooners and honeymooners. Florida-based Travel Planners Inc owner Marieanne Syverson said 70 percent of her clients in January - only a small portion of whom were honeymooners - had asked about Zika. A few are rethinking their plans, she said, but she’s had no cancellations. “People are considering different destinations, absolutely,” she said. “Those who were thinking of Puerto Rico or Brazil for Carnival and the Olympics are thinking maybe they shouldn’t go there.”
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31532
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Adolf Hitler never used chemical weapons (against his own people).
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Two days before Spicer’s remarks, French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was criticized in her country for trying to downplay the role of French citizens who collaborated with the Germans in the deportation of Jewish citizens to Nazi camps in 1942, saying: “I think that in general, more generally, if there were those responsible, it was those who were in power at the time. This is not France.”
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false
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History, adolf hitler, Sarin gas, sean spicer
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Critics responded with outrage after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said on 11 April 2017 that Adolf Hitler “didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.” Spicer made the comments while criticizing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s reported use of chemical weapons in an attack in northwestern Syria that killed at least 70 civilians. Assad’s troops reportedly used sarin gas in an attack on the town of Khan Sheikhun, prompting President Donald Trump to order an air strike against an airfield allegedly used by the Syrian military for the 6 April 2017 attack. When asked during a press briefing about the probability that Russia would stop supporting their longtime ally Syria, Spicer said: We didn’t use chemical weapons in World War II. You had someone as despicable as Hitler, who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons. You have to ask yourself if you’re Russia, is this a country and a regime you want to align yourself with? You have previously signed on to international agreements rightfully acknowledging that the use of chemical weapons should be out of bounds by every country. By continuing to stand alongside Syria, Spicer argued, Russia risked being on “the wrong side of history in a really, really bad way.” Sarin gas was developed under Hitler’s government and Nazi Gen. Hermann Ochsner, who led the German Army Weapons Office, called for it to be deployed via airstrikes, arguing: “There is no doubt that a city like London would be plunged into a state of unbearable turmoil that would bring enormous pressure to bear on the enemy government.” Nazis did not use chemical weapons against American and British troops in the field, though they reportedly employed them against Russian forces at various points. And although German troops may not have used chemical weapons on the battlefield, they were wielded with abandon against German citizens (and numerous others) in prison camps. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Hitler’s regime started using poisonous gases against Germans in 1939, with mental patients being the first people put to death through the use of carbon monoxide gas under a practice the Nazis referred to as “euthanasia.” Starting in December 1941, this method of killing expanded through the use of “gas vans” employing engine exhaust as well as carbon monoxide and crystalline hydrogen cyanide (a.k.a. Zyklon B) in concentration camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, and Treblinka, among others. The museum states on its website that “Under SS management, the Germans and their collaborators murdered more than three million Jews in the killing centers alone. Only a small fraction of those imprisoned in Nazi camps survived.” Later in the briefing, Spicer sought to clarify his statement while also using a euphemism (“Holocaust centers”) to refer to Nazi concentration camps: When it comes to Sarin gas, [Hitler] was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Assad is doing. I understand your point. Thank you. I appreciate that. He brought them into the Holocaust centers, I understand that. I was saying in the way that Assad used them where he went into town, dropped them into the middle of town. I appreciate the clarification. That was not the intent. He later released a separate statement saying: In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust, however, I was trying to draw a contrast of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on innocent people. Hitler did indeed use “gas on his own people the same way that Assad is [allegedly] doing” in the sense of employing it to kill innocent civilians; the only difference (to which Spicer was referring) was the delivery method: herding people into prison chambers to be gassed versus dropping gas bombs on them from the air. Spicer may have been technically correct in that particular sense, but his words still left many listeners puzzled (if not outraged) about why that distinction was significant. The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, which accused President Trump in February 2017 of not offering “a single proposal” to combat a wave of threats against Jewish community centers across the U.S., released a statement calling for Spicer to be fired: On Passover no less, Sean Spicer has engaged in Holocaust denial, the most offensive form of fake news imaginable, by denying Hitler gassed millions of Jews to death. Spicer’s statement is the most evil slur upon a group of people we have ever heard from a White House press secretary. Sean Spicer now lacks the integrity to serve as White House press secretary, and President Trump must fire him at once. Israeli minister of intelligence Yisrael Katz also demanded on Twitter that Spicer apologize or retire, saying, “There is a moral obligation that trumps policy.”
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7137
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Apparent suicides renew concern for end of Minnesota hotline.
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The apparent suicide by celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain Friday, just days after fashion designer Kate Spade’s, is renewing attention to Minnesota’s cash-starved suicide hotline, which is expected to shut down at the end of the month.
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true
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Health, Celebrity, Minnesota, Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade, Mark Dayton
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Funding for Crisis Connections, Minnesota’s half-century-old hotline, was a casualty of budget disputes between Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican lawmakers, leading to the governor’s veto. The timing couldn’t be worse, as statewide suicide rates have been rising. Public health officials agree that early intervention, including a voice on the other end of the phone line, drastically reduces the chance a person will die by suicide. “Treatment works, and suicide is preventable,” said Melissa Heinen, a suicide epidemiologist with the Minnesota Department of Health. Heinen points to the hundreds of calls hotlines like Crisis Connect receive each year compared to the actual number of people who die by suicide. “It must be effective. We’re saving hundreds of lives every day,” she said. Calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline are routed to Crisis Connection, which is operated by Canvas Health, a nonprofit based in the Twin Cities area. Following the planned closure, callers will reach out-of-state counselors who might not be as familiar with Minnesota and local services, said Canvas Health CEO Matt Eastwood. Crisis Connections was spared shutdown last year when the Minnesota Department of Health propped up the center with a last-minute cash infusion. The nearly $1 million legislative proposal to fund the call center this year was seven lines in a 990-page document that became bogged down in political gamesmanship between Republicans who control the Legislature and Dayton, a Democrat. “We got caught up like a lot of other valuable proposals and programs that also didn’t get funded,” Eastwood said. Neither the Department of Health nor the Department of Human Services have any plans at present to fund the hotline, spokesmen said. The suburban Twin Cities nonprofit was on pace this year to take more than 55,000 calls per year and linked callers to local mental health professionals and emergency first-responders. Sue Abderholden, director of the Minnesota chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said it’s a loss for the community. She said Minnesotans still have many options, including 24-hour county crisis hotlines and services in the Twin Cities allowing people to get help by dialing ”(asterisk)(asterisk)crisis” on their cell phones or by texting 741741. State officials don’t anticipate any interruptions during the transition. Recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed statewide suicide rates have been increasing. Between 1999 and 2016, Minnesota’s suicide rate rose 40.6 percent, though the overall suicide rate remains much lower than in other states. The study confirms what the Minnesota Department of Health has observed in recent years. In 2016, Minnesota’s health department noted 745 suicides, up from 606 in 2010. State health officials have increased efforts to identify at-risk communities to help reduce suicides, especially in growing rural cases and in men ages 35 to 49, who account for the highest share of suicide deaths in the state. “If they are feeling the thoughts themselves, they need to know they can get better and tomorrow will be another day. The sun will still come up, and they should reach out and get the help that they need,” Abderholden said. “It’s not a sign of weakness.” The 24-hour National Suicide Prevention Lifeline phone number is 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
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19906
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"Vincent Prieto Says Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed budget is ""the biggest spending budget in the history of the state of New Jersey. It is the largest in the nation at this point in time."
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Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O) hopes to soon introduce a pricey new pill to prevent HIV in people at risk of contracting the infection, but the drugmaker faces opposition from an unusual source: patient advocates.
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false
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New Jersey, State Budget, States, Vincent Prieto,
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Such groups have traditionally lobbied for insurance coverage of newer HIV drugs regardless of expense. But at least three U.S. organizations now question whether Gilead’s Descovy would be the best option for most people at risk of exposure. A generic version of the current prevention pill, Truvada, is due in the United States in September 2020, which should bring down costs and give many more people access to the therapy, they say. Their resistance is being echoed by some insurers, which are hinting that price will be a barrier to providing coverage for Descovy. “Based on the science that we have seen thus far, there is no indication that everyone needs to be taking Descovy,” Tim Horn, director of medication access and pricing at the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD) told Reuters. “We see no reason to push back against commercial payers or Medicaid programs that would move to prefer generic Truvada (for prevention), provided there are guard-rails that do not deny access to Descovy for those who need Descovy,” he said. Truvada, also made by Gilead, has been used to treat people infected with HIV since 2004. It was approved as a daily pill for pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, in 2012, and remains the only preventive therapy on the U.S. market. Descovy, shown to be less toxic than Truvada to the kidneys and bones in clinical trials, was approved in 2016 for people already infected with HIV. Advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommended on Wednesday that the agency approve Descovy to reduce the risk of sexually acquired HIV infection in men and transgender women who have sex with men. When asked about the patient groups’ criticism, Gilead said Descovy is safer than Truvada and offers more efficient delivery of its antiviral component, resulting in greater concentration of the drug in cells where HIV infection can occur. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1.1 million people in the United States could benefit from PrEP. High-risk populations include people having sex with someone who is infected with HIV or who share injection needle equipment. Gilead said 213,000 people were taking Truvada for HIV prevention in the second quarter of this year. The company has pledged to help the Trump administration achieve a goal of stopping the spread of HIV in the United States within a decade. In May, Gilead said it would donate enough Truvada annually to supply 200,000 uninsured Americans with PrEP until Descovy is approved for HIV prevention, then switch patients to the new drug. HIV drugmakers have largely been shielded from generic competition. Each time one of their therapies came close to losing patent protection, scientific advances allowed them to introduce a new drug that improved on its predecessor, often with a higher price. Both Truvada and Descovy are priced at $21,000 per year, before discounts provided to public and private health insurers. In the first half of 2019, Gilead’s Truvada sales totaled $1.3 billion. Descovy sales amounted to $700 million and are expected to rise to $3 billion dollars annually by 2024, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (TEVA.TA) is due to sell a generic version of Truvada next year. More significant price competition is expected when other competitors emerge in 2021. Teva’s Chief Executive Kare Schultz expressed confidence that he will find a market for generic Truvada, and said the company has held preliminary talks with U.S. payers. Health insurers “will normally say that if there was something that was the gold standard then they will prefer to use the generic for the gold standard rather than switch to a new product,” Schultz told Reuters. Some prominent patient advocates, including community-based Treatment Action Group (TAG) and NASTAD, which advocates for public health, told Reuters that Gilead has not proven the newer treatment provides enough of a benefit to justify its use beyond people at risk of kidney or bone density problems. At a time when HIV drug prices are soaring, their views may provide support to health insurers who routinely push generic drug use to curb costs. Jeremiah Johnson, HIV project director at TAG, told Reuters he is open to a conversation about health plans requiring individuals try a generic drug before using a significantly more expensive regimen like Descovy. TAG and PrEP4All Collaboration, which aims to expand access to PrEP for all Americans, earlier this year called for the FDA to convene the advisory committee review of Descovy, citing concerns over Gilead’s trial data and pricing practices. Not all experts are as vocal in questioning Gilead’s aims. Dr. Paul Volberding, director of the AIDS Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, told Reuters that Descovy for PrEP should be made available to people that have insurance to pay for it, while a generic could make sense for people with less access to coverage. “The safety difference is small, but real,” he said. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Reuters that Descovy may provide an advantage because it remains in the body for longer than Truvada. “If you miss a dose or two it is unlikely that there is going to be a gap in protection,” he said. But some health insurers, which largely cover Truvada for PrEP, are not convinced of a significant benefit from Descovy. “Based on the current information and data available to us at this time, we believe generic Truvada will be the most cost effective option for PrEP,” said David Lassen, chief clinical officer at Prime Therapeutics, which manages pharmacy benefits for Blue Cross Blue Shield health plans. Express Scripts, the pharmacy benefit manager owned by Cigna Corp (CI.N), said cost is a big barrier to U.S. use of Truvada for PrEP. “We would certainly look to leverage cost savings from generic Truvada to help improve affordability for patients and payers,” the company told Reuters.
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11441
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Adult stem cells help weak hearts
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While attempting to update readers on a new experimental approach for heart disease, this article did not clearly explain that the use of autologous bone marrow stem cells in the treatment of ischemic heart disease was, indeed, an experimental approach currently being evaluated for safety and effectiveness. The results of some recent studies suggest that this approach may hold some promise for some patients. But it should have been emphasized, as in the New England Journal of Medicine editorials, that the effects were clinically marginal, even if statistically significant. It should have been emphasized that the studies were not all positive. The cheaper and well established alternative therapies are relevant but were not discussed in this story. Only about half of patients who have previously had a heart attack are taking the cheap medications we already know could be helping them prolong their lives. There was no mention of any risks associated with the experimental approach, which is delivered as an intracoronary infusion, nor was there any discussion of short term vs. long term benefit that may be come from this approach. There was also no discussion of what this approach might cost.
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false
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There were no estimates for the cost of this experimental approach. While it was interesting to see the results presented in terms of percent improvement, the article ought to have included some information regarding the statistical and clinical significance of these results. The editorialists in the New England Journal of Medicine emphasize that the findings may be statistically significant but not clinically significant. The author of the news article should be commended for mentioning both absolute benefit (2.9%) as well as relative benefit (7%). But missing the points raised in the editorial is a problem. There was no mention of any harms associated with the experimental approach. The article mentioned that patients received an infusion of stem cells. It did not mention that the infusion was intracoronary. Readers should be told the details of the process and the potential risks. The evidence for this article comes from three studies presented in a single recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The author fails to put the most positive study into context with the other two. One of the three studies showed no benefit, and this should be emphasized at the outset. The article was less clear than it ought to be about the nature of the studies. The article did provide estimates for the number of heart attacks and the number of lethal heart attacks per year. But it failed to indicate what proportion of the group having heart attacks might benefit from the experimental approach described. Are we to believe that this is for all “weakened hearts”? The subheadline reads “Even patients who suffered an episode decades ago can benefit.” In addition to the information gleaned from the New England Journal of Medicine publications, this article contained additional quotes from clinicians in the field. One of experts quoted in the article is a senior author of one study. An accompanying editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine points out that after the research article was accepted for publication, this researcher formed a commercial venture using this stem-cell technique. The reader should know of the biases of the “experts.” Midway though the article it mentioned that the patients in the study “were already receiving state-of-the-art drug treatments for their heart disease, including use of beta blockers and cholesterol-lowering statins”. Beyond this statement, there were no other details about treatments for ischemic heart disease. The article failed to mention that the use of bone marrow stem cells in the treatment of ischemia is an experiment. In fact, it confuses the reader when it says “the researchers are uncertain why the therapy works.” It’s not a therapy yet; it’s an experiment, which the story goes on to admit when it says “stem cells may be gradually moving from the laboratory into viable human therapies.” Furthermore, the editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine accompanying the reports clearly recommends that this approach be limited to controlled experiments with willing subjects. But that editorial isn’t mentioned in the story. This article reported on recent study results that were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. They represent the latest study results on the use of bone marrow stem cells as an experimental approach for ischemic heart disease. The article does not say what standard treatment is after a heart attack or for chronic congestive heart failure. While indeed stem cell infusion is novel, the reader of the article will not know why. This article does not appear to rely exclusively on a press release.
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35977
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In 2018, Uber received 235 reports of rape, 280 reports of attempted rape and 5,981 reports of sexual abuse between 2017 and 2018.
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Did Uber Receive 235 Reports of Rape and 5,981 Reports of Sexual Abuse?
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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On December 8 2019, the Facebook page “Feminists United” shared a screenshot of the following tweet about 235 reports of rape purportedly received by Uber in a year:For every man that doesn't understand why women are fed up. Last year Uber received 235 reports of rape, 280 reports of attempted rape & 5,981 reports of sexual abuse between 2017 and 2018. So, men, I ask you, have you ever called your Uber and feared the driver may rape you?— Michelle Guido (@heyyguido) December 6, 2019In the December 5 2019 tweet, Michelle Guido (@heyyguido) wrote:For every man that doesn’t understand why women are fed up. Last year Uber received 235 reports of rape, 280 reports of attempted rape & 5,981 reports of sexual abuse between 2017 and 2019. So, men, I ask you, have you ever called your Uber and feared the driver may rape you?In a tweet immediately following, the user added context, but she did not link to any substantiating information so readers could learn more about the claim:These are US numbersIn the aggregate, the tweet addressed a broader debate about whether regular taxi cabs were safer than ride-sharing services such as Uber or Lyft. In 2015, The Atlantic addressed then-percolating reports of assault by Uber drivers and the lack of data regarding the safety of rideshare apps in general across major cities:“There’s no way to search for that,” said Neva Coakley, a spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department. “We wouldn’t be able to speak to that because we don’t have data to support it. We don’t distinguish between what type of suspects they are.”[…]“We don’t keep specific data with relation to passengers being assaulted,” said Lee Jones, a spokesman for the New York Police Department.“We don’t track offenses by whether they occurred in a taxi cab,” said Gwendolyn Crump of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C.“As far as tracking the offenses in taxi cabs specifically, I don’t have a way to look this up,” said Grace Gatpandan, a public information officer with the San Francisco Police Department in the city where Uber is headquartered. Police officers in Chicago did not respond to multiple interview requests.That article included comments from New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission spokesman Allan Fromberg, and it paraphrased his suggestion that “some Uber complaints are invisible to law enforcement” because, he said, Uber received complaints directly.In 2016, the relative risk of Uber or Lyft versus taxis was still a matter of speculation. An Associated Press story after a shooting incident involving an Uber driver reported:[The issue of fingerprinting and background check protocols is where] taxi advocates hit Uber hardest, saying that Uber’s checks fail because they do not include fingerprinting of would-be drivers. Many law enforcement experts say a fingerprint search is the most comprehensive way to check someone’s background, and taxi regulators typically require one.Uber counters that fingerprint checks are imperfect and that its background check process — which it says includes searches of motor vehicle department files and several criminal databases going back seven years — is excellent. But Uber can no longer claim its methods are “industry-leading.” Uber agreed to pay $28.5 million to settle a lawsuit (not the one filed by San Francisco) that alleged such safety claims were false. As part of the settlement, Uber’s “safe ride fee” will become a “booking fee.”In that 2016 story, Associated Press cited available statistics from Austin, Texas, but noted that context to fully understand rates of risk were unavailable:Amid a fight over whether Uber drivers should be required to submit to fingerprint checks, Austin, Texas, has released some information. According to a document compiled by the city, in 2015 Uber drivers allegedly were involved in 13 sexual assaults and one rape; taxi drivers, five; and Lyft drivers, six. One sexual assault was listed as Uber or Lyft.But those numbers lack essential context, such as how many miles, trips or hours on the job cabbies log versus Uber drivers. Without that information, it’s impossible to tell whether a passenger is more at risk with one or the other.In reporting in 2015 and 2016, a common element was a lack of data held on rider risk while using Uber and Lyft. Guido didn’t reference any particular news article in the two tweets, but on December 5 2019 (the day the tweet was published) a number of news organizations published reports about statistics about Uber and assault.CNN Business published an article about Uber safety stats, and NBC News reported:• 235 reports of rape in 2018, up from 229 in 2017. • 280 reports of attempted rape in 2018, down from 307 in 2017. • 1,560 reports of groping in 2018, up from 1,440 in 2017. • 376 reports of unwanted kissing to the breast, buttocks or mouth in 2018, down from 390 in 2017. • 594 reports of unwanted kissing to a different body part in 2018, up from 570 in 2017. In all, Uber received 5,981 reports of sexual abuse between 2017 and 2018.Statistics reported across outlets on December 5 2019 came from a December 6 2019 “Safety Report” released by Uber itself. An introduction to the report held:[In 2017], Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi convened a dozen of the company’s top executives in a room to discuss an important issue: the safety of drivers and riders. The topic was broad: how could Uber — with nearly four million trips happening every day in the US alone — become the safest ridesharing app in the world? […]What began that day was a 21-month effort that has included a review of hundreds of thousands of customer support requests; a complete rethink of how we categorize the most serious safety incidents that happen during Uber trips; an overhaul of how we train our support staff; and an even bigger investment in cutting-edge safety technology.All of that work culminates in the Safety Report that we are sharing with you, the public, today.Numbers referenced in both Guido’s tweet and in the media did not appear on the landing page for Uber’s 2017-2018 Safety Report, nor did they appear on a linked “Executive Summary” [PDF]. A “Frequently Asked Questions” section on the main page linked by the introduction defined the scope of the report:Uber’s US Safety Report includes information about Uber’s actions related to safety and data on the most serious safety incidents reported on our ridesharing platform in 2017 and 2018. These incidents include traffic fatalities, fatal physical assaults, and sexual assaults … This report includes sexual assault incidents reported by both drivers and riders, plus fatal physical assaults and fatal motor vehicle crashes that occurred in connection with the Uber platform, regardless of who the victim or acccused [sic] party was.Numbers in the tweet and articles, such as the 235 reported rapes, appeared in an 84-page long “Full Report” [PDF]. Figures of 235 rapes and 280 attempted rapes were on page 59, in a table titled “categories of sexual assault”:Those figures were for incidents reported by Uber in 2018; in 2017 Uber said that there were 229 reports of rape (“non-consensual sexual penetration”) and 307 reports of attempted rape (“attempted non-consensual sexual penetration.”) Each “number of incident reports” entry across the five categories was bookended by a “frequency of incident reports” (tallied in “less than one per X million” units) and “percentage of total trips” (tallied in a fraction of one percent. )A final column calculated a “year over year incident rate change,” contrasting the percentage of reports to trips and recording any changes in those percentages. All five were negative percentages even when the figures were higher in 2018, presumably because the increased number of rides made the relative percentage lower.Of the two widely cited figures, the number of rapes in 2018 (235) was a -17 percent change from 229 in 2017, and the number of attempted rapes (280) was down -26 percent from 307 in 2017. Three remaining categories not frequently referenced in reporting on Uber’s stats were “non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual body part,” “non-consensual touching of a sexual body part,” and “non-consensual kissing of a sexual body part.”In a section immediately following the table, titled “Rate Decrease,” the Uber report reads:From 2017 to 2018, Uber saw approximately a 16% decrease in the average incident rate across the 5 most serious sexual assault categories reported. Additionally, there were rate decreases across each of the 5 individual categories. These decreases may correlate with Uber’s substantial investments in safety over the past 2 years (see Safety commitments), although causation is difficult to determine given the myriad factors that can impact reported sexual assault rates.We also know these decreases may not always be the trend. Experts and advocates have told us that releasing this type of report may actually lead to an increase in the number of reports in the future. That’s because, when it becomes clear that Uber is paying close attention to reports of sexual violence and taking action, survivors may feel more comfortable coming forward.In the tweet and in articles, three figures were commonly cited. One was the number of total rapes reported by Uber for 2018, which was 235. A second was the total number of attempted rapes reported by Uber for 2018, which was 280.A third was a claim that Uber received 5,981 reports of sexual assault in total, a number which appeared nowhere in the various documents but was present in the tweet and CNN’s coverage of the report. That particular number was tallied by adding the numbers from all five categories in the table above for both 2017 and 2018. Added together, the reports numbered 5,981.A factor about the figures that was not commonly expressed in third-party reporting on Uber’s figures was that the numbers themselves were provided by Uber — a business which would benefit from lower rather than higher numbers. The report included sections on methodology for both non-sexual related incidents (such as driver or rider fatalities and accidents) as well as a section on sexual assault methodology.According to Uber, in 2018 the company partnered with experts from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) and the Urban Institute in order to “develop a new taxonomy to better understand the reality of unwanted sexual experiences.” Of its final methodology in compiling the numbers, Uber said on page 15:In order for a sexual assault to be established as Uber-related for purposes of data classification for this report, one or more of the following must be true: • The incident occurred during an active Uber-facilitated trip, not necessarily with parties paired by the Uber app • The incident occurred between parties that were paired by the Uber app, and it occurred within 48 hours of the trip’s completionA footnote next to “48 hours” explained Uber’s reasoning in choosing a 48-hour window:Incidents between parties paired via the Uber app may occur after the trip has ended. In general, post-trip incidents happen either immediately after the trip has ended or within a few hours of the trip’s completion. For audit consistency, and to err on the side of overinclusion, we determined that 48 hours is an auditable standard and adopted it for the purposes of this report only.Another figure which didn’t commonly make it into reports had to do with physical assault-related fatalities, numbering 19 in total in 2017 and 2018:Among the 19 deceased parties in 2017 and 2018 included in this report, 8 were riders using the Uber platform, 7 were drivers using the Uber platform, and 4 were third parties.As for the data source, Uber indicated that “user reports” were their primary source:To prepare for this publication, Uber created a specialized audit team to review and accurately categorize the data contained in this report. This team reviewed approximately hundreds of thousands of user reports, representing a range of safety- and non-safety-related consumer issues to ensure that all necessary information was documented and all incident reports were categorized accurately and comprehensively.Guido’s tweet and myriad articles indicated Uber received “235 reports of rape, 280 reports of attempted rape” and “5,981 reports of sexual abuse between 2017 and 2018.” It is true that Uber’s Safety Report released in December 2019 indicated that the service had received 235 reports of rape and 280 reports of attempted rape in 2018. It is also true that all five categories of unwanted sexual contact on the table containing that data, calculated and combined for 2017 and 2018, added up to 5,981 total reports. Of note is that those figures came from Uber and appeared to be based on reports sent to the company by users; no competing law enforcement dataset appeared to exist to contrast Uber’s self-reported numbers against tallies compiled by a neutral third party.
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16670
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"Mary Burke Says a $12.5 million incentive deal she approved for Abbott Laboratories contained ""strong protections for taxpayers if job creation goals were not met."
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"Burke’s campaign said the $12.5 million incentive deal she approved for Abbott Laboratories contained ""strong protections for taxpayers if job creation goals were not met."" While the land provides some collateral, the deal’s protections and structure fell short of those used in many such cases, leaving the state vulnerable to picking up some or most of the pieces if Abbott doesn’t deliver. And it’s hard to reconcile how ""strong protections"" could have allowed the scenario now unfolding in which the state is paying cash to HUD."
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false
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Jobs, State Budget, Wisconsin, Mary Burke,
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"Gov. Scott Walker alleges that former state Commerce Secretary Mary Burke ""wasted"" nearly $25 million in the so-far failed attempt to attract a major Abbott Laboratories expansion in Wisconsin. But Burke, Walker’s main Democratic challenger in the 2014 governor’s race, says her agency built tough failsafes into the deal. ""Everyone from local officials to the local chamber of commerce to Walker's own administration agrees that this was and is a good deal from an economic development standpoint,"" Burke’s campaign said on July 9, 2014. ""The grant,"" she continued, ""contained strong protections for taxpayers if job creation goals were not met or infrastructure was not developed for economic development."" On July 31, 2014, we rated Walker’s $25 million claim , noting that Walker double-counted the $12.3 million cost of the deal. In the jousting over the strength or weakness of the deal’s protections, the two campaigns cite the same sections of the complicated Abbott aid agreement as evidence for their side’s view. Let’s start there. The 2006 deal passed $12.5 million in federal block grant funds through the Village of Pleasant Prairie and the Kenosha Area Business Alliance to purchase 40 acres of land to hold for Abbott, which already had amassed 500 acres for a potential Kenosha County corporate campus. If the pharmaceutical giant’s Wisconsin expansion proceeds, Abbott could buy the land for $1. State officials wanted a so-called ""clawback"" provision that would require Abbott to pay back the money if the company did not create at least 2,400 jobs, but Abbott declined to sign one, according to Michael Pollocoff, Pleasant Prairie’s administrator. Burke and then-Gov. Jim Doyle pushed forward without such a provision. It’s common for Commerce Department grants and loans to businesses to be tied to performance measures mandating partial or full return of such aid if jobs are not added, according to a 2006 state audit. Often the state’s contracts call for personal loan guarantees and financial penalties in case of non-repayment. Such conditions vary depending on the situation, but in the Abbott case, the state’s approach meant that the party the state was hoping to come through with jobs was not directly on the hook. It was subject only to indirect financial pressure to do so -- the loss of a ""free"" piece of land. Land sale envisioned The plan, however, did not leave the state without any recourse. Under the agreement, the business alliance, known as KABA, is responsible for returning some funds to the state if the Abbott jobs don’t emerge by 2016. That refund, though, was tied to what the 40-acre property could bring in a sale, and the plan came with some terms that weakened the possibility the full amount could be recovered. At this point, the land’s assessed value is about 55 percent of what KABA paid for it -- nearly $5 million lower than the $12.3 million purchase price (a pre-recession price paid to a truck stop developer who had leverage in the negotiation.) So at least as things stand now, far less than the full $12.3 million seems recoverable. The deal called for KABA and Pleasant Prairie to recoup their own costs related to holding and preparing the Abbott site for development. Those costs are nearly $4 million, said Pollocoff. So if the state were to immediately sell the property, the leftover funds might total only $2 million to $3 million. There’s nothing in the deal that would block the state from holding the land in hopes that its value in a busy corporate corridor would increase. ""This is a unique piece of collateral with significant growth potential,"" Burke spokesman Joe Zepecki argued in an email to PolitiFact Wisconsin, ""40 acres of land along a busy highway, next to up-and-coming businesses like Amazon and Uline."" Todd Battle, president of the KABA group, didn’t respond to interview requests for this story, but in 2006 he described the land as ""some of the most valuable real estate along the (Interstate 94) corridor."" But there’s one more, major point here. Because federal officials in 2013 declared the deal ineligible for federal money in the first place, and the promise of jobs was so vague, the state is being forced -- now -- to pay back HUD from state tax revenue. Federal officials say the project was overly speculative and has not paid off over eight years. That’s something no one contemplated as a possibility, and one that a stronger and more properly drawn deal would have prevented as a matter of course. Mike Huebsch, state Department of Administration secretary and a top member of the Walker administration, is not impressed by predictions of money coming back to the state. ""The deal was constructed in a way that put us at a disadvantage every step of the way,"" he told us. ""The state’s position was not strong."" We sought an outsider’s opinion and turned to Ronald D Berkebile. He’s a founder of Dominion Scientific Analytics, a financial analyst with the city of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and an author of articles on the financial impact of economic development projects. Berkebile didn’t fault the general structure of the deal, and said there’s an element of hindsight in the criticisms. If the economy had not soured, Abbott might have met the agreement’s expectations, and ""no one would have asked about this situation,"" he said. ""The economy (in 2006) likely supported the promise of a large pharmaceutical company developing the land. A promise of this nature is very enticing."" But he said more performance milestones should have been built in to protect the investment, and there should have been better monitoring to avoid violating state and federal rules. If Abbott couldn’t produce by a date certain, ""then KABA should have had the ability to exercise alternative property rights to develop the land in accordance with (block grant) standards,"" he said. Our rating Burke’s campaign said the $12.5 million incentive deal she approved for Abbott Laboratories contained ""strong protections for taxpayers if job creation goals were not met."" While the land provides some collateral, the deal’s protections and structure fell short of those used in many such cases, leaving the state vulnerable to picking up some or most of the pieces if Abbott doesn’t deliver. And it’s hard to reconcile how ""strong protections"" could have allowed the scenario now unfolding in which the state is paying cash to HUD."
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6400
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Residents of Russian city protest ‘black sky’ air pollution.
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Residents of Chelyabinsk are expressing worry over industrial pollution after heavy smog enveloped the Ural Mountains city this month and remained for two weeks.
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true
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Mountains, Industrial pollution, Health, Air pollution, Smog, Europe, Russia, Pollution
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On Sunday, about 700 protesters braved temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit) to demand cleaner air. They held banners reading “We want clean skies!” and “Stop poisoning our children!” Low winds helped the thick grey layer of smog called “black sky” by the locals settle over the city of 1.2 million. The Chelyabinsk meteorological office reported that air pollution exceeded healthy levels before the smog dissipated. “The ecological situation in the city is getting worse and worse, and the government does not want to take measures to correct it,” protester Artur Abuzarov said during Sunday’s rally. The protest followed an earlier one in which participants tried unsuccessfully to force their way into the mayor’s office. The situation went unreported in state-controlled media. Locals say the pollution problem has persisted for years and they fear air quality will worsen further if a new copper mining enterprise opens next year as planned. “We are suffocating, children are ill, the ecology is bad,” said another demonstrator, Tatyana Pominova. “What is happening in Chelyabinsk is a complete disgrace. It is impossible to breathe and it is impossible to live.” Anastasia Zubareva, a doctor who specializes in conditions of the ear, nose and throat, attributed the city’s high number of childhood illnesses to air pollution, noting that her patients only feel better when smog dissipates. And it’s not only children. Galina Gurina, 58, attributes her chronic headaches and asthma to industrial emissions. Chelyabinsk officials have dismissed the residents’ protests. Vitaly Bezrukov, a local official who deals with environmental issues, acknowledged that power plants and other sites sporadically produce pollutants in concentrations that exceed permissible levels. But he said they do not pose a danger for people.
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6207
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As troops prepare to leave Afghanistan, will aid stream out?.
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The children will inherit any peace that comes to Afghanistan, if only they can live to see it.
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true
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Afghanistan, AP Top News, Foreign aid, General News, Kabul, International News, Asia Pacific, Health, United States
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Whimpering and badly malnourished, they are among the most vulnerable in a country that remains one of the poorest in the world. Now an expected United States-Taliban agreement to end nearly 18 years of fighting raises questions about whether the foreign aid largely propping up the country will drop as troops withdraw. Much depends on the Taliban, who have indicated they want that aid to continue even as they call for armed “invaders” to leave. But if the insurgent group that already controls roughly half of Afghanistan tries to assert a harsh form of Islamic law across the country or continues its attacks, some donors could walk away. The urgency of aid is seen in Jebul Siraj, a mountainside community north of the capital, Kabul, where a burqa-clad woman held a gaunt, startled-looking boy named Abdullah, just 7 months old. Days ago, he was at an emergency ward. Now he sipped curiously at a supplement as part of a new nutrition monitoring program at a clinic in Parwan province supported by the United Nations children’s agency. Mothers and children lined up outside. Some 2 million children in Afghanistan face acute malnutrition, according to UNICEF, about 600,000 of them so severely malnourished that without urgent treatment they could die. The hospital in nearby Charikar city treats more than 1,000 children a month for malnutrition and the problem is growing, nurse Fariba Hashimi said. “It’s mostly an economic issue, for mothers as well,” she said. “They can’t breastfeed because they don’t have enough income to feed themselves.” Aid has dropped in recent years, with supplemental biscuits and wheat flour that was once provided for patients now unavailable. Health care and other basic services are precarious in a country where the World Bank says grants finance some 75% of total public expenditures. This year it warned against the dire consequences of “any rapid decline in international aid flows.” Afghanistan has been the largest single recipient of American aid since the U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban in 2001, but despite billions of dollars in assistance more than half of its people still live in poverty. Much of the aid has gone to security efforts, and frustrated Afghans assert that untold amounts have been lost in corruption and mismanagement. U.S. aid to the country was cut in half in 2014, the year that U.S. and NATO forces formally ended their combat mission. About 20,000 forces remain, largely to train and support Afghan counterparts. If a U.S.-Taliban agreement on ending America’s longest war brings badly needed peace, Afghanistan could see an increase in aid, said Alex Thier, who once directed assistance for the country with the U.S. Agency for International Development. But if the peace process drags out or fails, that could “depress enthusiasm for giving,” he warned after a visit to Kabul this month. Some donors could be reluctant to fund a government in which the Taliban wield power and don’t respect the rights of women and others. The Taliban have indicated they want international aid to continue, and understanding how to keep it flowing is part of talks with the U.S., Thier said, citing what he has heard from diplomats, Taliban proxies and people who met with Taliban leaders in intra-Afghan dialogues in Moscow and Qatar this year. “Part of the Taliban motivation in the peace process is, they clearly want to avoid being a pariah state as before,” he said. But no one knows what they will give up to keep receiving support. The local U.N. humanitarian coordinator, Toby Lanzer, who has spoken with “all of the authorities across Afghanistan,” said he believes aid won’t drop, calling the country’s case so compelling that efforts must continue, whatever happens. He has spoken with the United States and other “particularly generous” countries and believes donors are in Afghanistan for the long haul. Asked how the interest of President Donald Trump’s administration in cutting overall foreign aid complicates the situation, Lanzer paused for more than 10 seconds before saying that “when it comes to a strategic location such as Afghanistan, everybody has to chip in, and everybody has been chipping in. And I would very much count on the continued generosity of the people of the United States of America, of institutions such as USAID, to stay the course.” Next year could be Afghanistan’s most pivotal, he said, as the latest round of international aid pledges ends. He expects another pledging conference in 2020 for “the new government, whichever government that might be.” At the Indira Gandhi children’s hospital in Kabul, which treats 70 to 80 malnourished children a month, director Dr. Mohammad Bashir Qurishi worried about how doctors will be paid and medicine purchased if aid follows troops out of the country. Everyone is afraid of losing the progress made since 2001, he said, as the U.S. and the Taliban negotiate the country’s future while excluding the Afghan government. “If Trump wants to take us back to Stone Age time, then it is their policy,” he said. In the ward for malnourished children, decorated with aid stickers from UNICEF and Japan, a nurse pointed out fragile toddlers. One 2-year-old, her face covered in tape to keep a nasal feeding tube in place, breathed with discomfort, a Barbie-like doll next to her on her pillow. Nearby was Bibi Warai. Her 2-year-old granddaughter had just died at home outside the eastern city of Jalalabad, and now the girl’s 3-year-old sister, Humaira, was undergoing treatment. After their hours-long journey to the capital she wished for more such wards so that all Afghans can reach help in time. “My son told me, ’How can you leave us at this time of mourning?”″ she said. “I told him, ‘I can’t stay, I have to take my child for treatment.’ Maybe God will help us, and she will survive.” She placed her hand gently on the girl’s forehead and began to cry. ___ Associated Press video journalist Ahmad Seir in Kabul contributed to this report.
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17469
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Forty years ago, hardly anybody in the country had health insurance.
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"Gohmert said that ""40 years ago, hardly anybody in the country had health insurance."" Even ignoring the millions of Americans covered in 1974 by Medicare and Medicaid, 80 percent of Americans under age 65 back then had private insurance coverage, and a solid majority of those plans covered routine doctor visits and prescription drugs in addition to hospital care. These numbers are so far off from Gohmert’s claim."
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false
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National, Health Care, Louie Gohmert,
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"Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, went on Fox News recently to explain an unusual decision he’d made: intentionally going without health insurance. Fox host Brian Kilmeade asked Gohmert about it during an interview on Jan. 23, 2014. Gohmert told him, ""When Obamacare actually kicked in, just as we knew, if you liked your insurance, as I did -- I had a health savings account -- then I wasn't going to be able to keep it because it doesn't meet the requirements."" Gohmert continued, ""I don't have an extra $1,200 a month. And we are setting money aside in the event we need it. But Brian, don't forget, you know, 40 years ago, hardly anybody in the country had health insurance, and this is one of the areas we really need reform in."" Going without insurance is Gohmert’s decision to make. Presumably, he would be subject to the penalty under Obamacare for not having insurance. That would be $95 per adult or 1 percent of family income, whichever is higher, for 2014, and $325 per adult or 2 percent of family income for 2015, whichever is higher. The penalty goes even higher starting in 2016. For this fact-check, however, we wondered whether Gohmert was right that ""40 years ago, hardly anybody in the country had health insurance."" Gohmert’s office didn’t respond to an inquiry, but right off the bat, we knew there was a problem with this claim. Forty years ago was 1974 -- almost a decade after the creation of Medicare (the universal health care program for Americans age 65 and up) and Medicaid (the health care program for qualifying low-income Americans). By 1975, Medicare was covering almost 25 million Americans, and Medicaid was covering about 20 million Americans. Even accounting for some overlap between the two programs’ beneficiaries, that’s a lot of Americans who had insurance 40 years ago. The U.S. population at the time was about 214 million, so roughly one of every five or six Americans was covered by these two programs alone. But maybe Gohmert was talking only about private insurance. So we located data on that, too. A 2009 paper published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that in 1974, nearly 149 million Americans had private insurance, mostly from their employers but in some cases purchased individually. That works out to four out of every five Americans under age 65 with private insurance coverage in 1974 -- a far cry from ""hardly anybody."" Gohmert’s claim ""might have been closer to being true in the 1930s or ‘40s, but it does not characterize the United States 40 years ago,"" said Gail Wilensky, who headed Medicare and Medicaid under President George H.W. Bush. (Here’s an earlier story we published about how health coverage operated prior to Medicare and Medicaid. It’s fair to say that health coverage was a whole lot spottier in the early part of the 20th century.) Michael Tanner, a health-policy specialist at the libertarian Cato Institute, suggested that 40 years ago, insurance may have been more likely to cover big-ticket items such as hospital care and less likely to cover smaller, more routine medical procedures. Tanner appears to have a point. According to 1974 data published by the Social Security Administration, 75 percent to 80 percent of Americans with private insurance were covered for hospital stays, surgery and X-rays, but only about 60 percent were covered for ""office and home visits,"" and about 70 percent were covered for prescription drugs outside of the hospital setting. Still, not even these figures help Gohmert’s case, since even the lower percentages for non-hospital care aren’t anywhere near the trivial numbers of insured Americans Gohmert claimed. Gohmert’s statement is ""just flat wrong,"" Wilensky said. Our ruling Gohmert said that ""40 years ago, hardly anybody in the country had health insurance."" Even ignoring the millions of Americans covered in 1974 by Medicare and Medicaid, 80 percent of Americans under age 65 back then had private insurance coverage, and a solid majority of those plans covered routine doctor visits and prescription drugs in addition to hospital care. These numbers are so far off from Gohmert’s claim that"
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28437
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News media outlets misrepresented a photograph of a two-year-old migrant girl whose mother was arrested at the U.S-Mexico border as depicting an instance of family separation.
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What's true: A photograph of a crying toddler widely used to illustrate mainstream media reports on the Trump administration's policy of separating immigrant families at the border was later found not to depict an instance of a child separated from her parents; in a very few instances, news outlets incorrectly reported that the toddler had, in fact, been separated from her mother. What's false: We found no evidence that any news outlets knowingly or intentionally misled the public about the context of the photograph.
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mixture
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Politics Immigration, family separation, immigrant children, viral images
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Editor’s Note: This article is an updated version of the original from 22 June 2018, which has been rewritten to better frame the issue, provide additional detail, and correct errors, omissions, or ambiguities in the previous version. In June 2018, as the controversy surrounding the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy that led to more than 2,000 undocumented migrant children being separated from their parents grew to a fever pitch, a photograph of a sobbing, 2-year-old Honduran refugee came to stand, in the minds of many, for everything that was wrong with that policy. In the minds of others, however, it came to represent bias and dishonesty in the media, for although it wasn’t clear at the outset whether the girl had actually been separated from her mother (it was eventually determined that she was not), the image was widely used to illustrate press coverage of the policy and dominated the news cycle for days. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders condemned the image’s use in a 22 June tweet: It’s shameful that dems and the media exploited this photo of a little girl to push their agenda. She was not separated from her mom. The separation here is from the facts. Dems should join POTUS and fix our broken immigration system. #ChangetheLawshttps://t.co/Y6KrTp4Ulk — Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) June 22, 2018 The Daily Wire, among other pro-Trump web sites, objected that media organizations who published the image were attempting to score political points under false pretenses: [T]he media and the Democrats used the photo to try to portray the Trump administration as being heartless toward immigrants, specifically young children. Various individuals on the political Left then used the photo to score political points, either suggesting or stating as fact that she had been separated from her family. And even the mainstream Washington Post ran an opinion piece critical of what the author termed the “misleading” use of the image: The implication was clear: This was a girl who, like 2,500 other children, was being separated from her mother. Time and many others made a decision to suggest that this was an example of Trump uprooting our American ideals. But that’s not what it was. As The Washington Post‘s Samantha Schmidt and Kristine Phillips report, the girl’s father says the child and her mother were never separated. U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed it, as did the Honduran deputy foreign minister. But while the implication that the child was separated from a parent was widespread, to call it misleading is to suggest that the outlets who ran the image knew all along that no such separation took place. Moreover, whether the girl was ultimately taken from her mother or not, the photograph documents a real instance of the enforcement of the zero-tolerance policy that could have led to separation. And although it was contextualized in terms of family separation from its earliest public iteration, the number of times news media organizations explicitly claimed that the photograph depicted a child being taken from her parent can be counted on one hand. The picture was snapped on 12 June 2018 by Getty Images photographer John Moore near McAllen, Texas, during a ride-along with Border Patrol agents as they took asylum seekers from Central America into custody. Moore posted the picture the next day on his personal Instagram page with commentary noting that the administration’s zero-tolerance policy meant that children would be separated from their parents in detention: A Honduran asylum seeker, 2, and her mother are taken into custody by federal agents near the US-Mexico border. They had just crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico and were to be transported to a US Customs and Border Protection processing center. The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy for undocumented immigrants calls for the separation of parents and children while their cases for political asylum are adjudicated, a process that can take months – or years. As a father myself, this photograph was especially difficult for me to take. It is one from a series i took while on a ride-along with the Border Patrol in Texas’ Río Grande Valley. #gettyimages #undocumented #gettyimagesnews A post shared by John Moore (@jbmoorephoto) on Jun 13, 2018 at 10:48am PDT The image went mainstream two days later (on 14 June) atop a GettyImages.com feature highlighting Moore’s photographs of what was termed “soon-to-be-separated migrant families” under the title “When the Government Takes Your Children.” The text didn’t indicate what ultimately happened to the girl and her mother, although Moore was quoted as saying he last saw them entering a transport van together. (The headline of the article was subsequently changed to “The Face of Zero Tolerance,” and the phrase “soon-to-be-separated” was deleted. An editor’s note said the article was updated “to reflect new information regarding the government’s policy as well as the families in these photos.”) The image began turning up in national and regional news publications that same day. Among the first to use the image was the Houston Chronicle, which ran it in a 14 June story about immigrant detention centers above a boilerplate caption (presumably supplied by Getty) that would accompany the photograph in dozens more venues in the several days that followed, including the Baltimore Sun, Newsday, New York magazine, BuzzFeed News, and the web site of National Public Radio. The caption did not say that mother and daughter had been separated, but rather that they faced “possible separation” at a U.S. Border Patrol processing center: A two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker cries as her mother is searched and detained near the U.S.-Mexico border on June 12, 2018 in McAllen, Texas. The asylum seekers had rafted across the Rio Grande from Mexico and were detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents before being sent to a processing center for possible separation. Other venues, while they did use the photograph to illustrate articles about family separation, made no specific claims about what it did or did not depict (these included the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, ABC News, the Daily Beast, and Vanity Fair). Still other outlets went the opposite way, stating more than they knew. On 18 June, in a Business Insider article quoting John Moore on his feelings about taking the photograph, the author described it as depicting “an asylum-seeking young girl crying at a detention center as Border Patrol agents questioned her mother before separating them.” On 19 June, the New York Daily News featured the image in an article headlined “Photographer Describes Harrowing New Images Showing 2-Year-Old Girl Bawling as She’s Separated from Mother at U.S. Border.” And, on 21 June, in a story recounting the genesis of what was undoubtedly the most controversial use of Moore’s photograph — a TIME magazine cover juxtaposing the image of the diminutive migrant girl with that of a towering Donald Trump — the Washington Post described the subject matter of the original as “a young girl crying as her mother was patted down by a Border Patrol agent before the two were separated.” Compounding the Post‘s error was the fact that the Daily Mail Online (which itself had previously run a story describing the photograph as showing a “crying two-year-old asylum seeker being separated from her mom”) published an interview with the girl’s father that same day in which he denied that the mother and daughter were ever separated. Reuters followed up with their own interview with the father, Denis Valera, who said, again, that the two had been detained together, not separately. Honduras deputy foreign minister Nelly Jerez confirmed Valera’s claims. The Post corrected their article as follows: Clarification: The initial version of this story said the child depicted on Time’s cover had been separated from her mother, based on the magazine’s account. As The Washington Post and others have since reported, the child was not separated from her mother during their encounter with a Border Patrol agent. The story has been updated. The TIME article referenced in the correction was published on 19 June. The magazine had issued a correction as well: Correction (Posted June 19): The original version of this story misstated what happened to the girl in the photo after she was taken from the scene. The girl was not carried away screaming by U.S. Border Patrol agents; her mother picked her up and the two were taken away together. By the time the truth about the image was sorted out, President Trump had signed an executive order calling a halt to family separations (though not to the underlying zero-tolerance policy that led to the separations). In addition to covering Trump’s order and its implications for immigrant families, many of the news organizations that had previously run the photograph published reports setting the record straight about its content. It would be difficult to make the case that John Moore’s gripping image did not play a crucial role in causing a reversal of the family separation policy. But it’s just as difficult to make the case that its emotional impact derived from a misrepresentation of its content. As TIME‘s editor-in-chief, Edward Felsenthal, told CNN, “None of us in the media who used the photo knew what had happened to the girl after this precise moment. And I actually think part of the power of the image is that unknown.” In an official statement, Felsenthal added: The June 12 photograph of the 2-year-old Honduran girl became the most visible symbol of the ongoing immigration debate in America for a reason: Under the policy enforced by the administration, prior to its reversal this week, those who crossed the border illegally were criminally prosecuted, which in turn resulted in the separation of children and parents. Our cover and our reporting capture the stakes of this moment.
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9446
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New Treatment for Fibroids Without Surgery
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This Wall Street Journal article describes the advent of a new oral medication, uliprital acetate, or UA, to treat severe bleeding and other symptoms associated with uterine fibroids. Although the article does a good job of putting Allergan’s new oral drug in context and noting alternative treatments (hysterectomy, myomectomy) and similar drugs in the pipeline, it offers no numerical context that women and their physicians might use to evaluate the relative benefits and risks of the newer treatment. As the article aptly points out, uterine fibroids are a source of significant pain, bleeding, anemia, infertility and disability in tens of millions of women, most of them in their childbearing years. The symptoms and complications can seriously interfere with everyday life. The causes of uterine fibroid have been intensively studied over the past decade. More is understood now about the important role of genetic and hormonal factors in development of fibroids. For decades, the common treatment for uterine fibroids has been their surgical removal (where they often grow back) or hysterectomy. But some newer less invasive procedures such as uterine artery embolization and MRI-guided focused ultrasound have provided other treatment options. Use of medication has been limited to hormone affecting medications that can cause drug-induced menopause. Thus, a pill like UA — already available in Europe — adds a treatment option that may be helpful. What is missing from the article are data documenting and explaining what proportion and kind of patient group the drug would most and least benefit; and other data to help women determine if UA is a good option for them.
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true
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fibroids,UA,uliprital acetate
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The article does not offer any cost information. The article offers general statements about the “dramatic” and rapid effects of UA from Allergan researchers, but does not provide any numerical context or offer summaries of research with that information. The article notes the side effects of UA and potentially two other similar drugs in the pipeline. The main concern about these agents is the effects they may have on the endometrium (uterine lining) over time. The evidence is generally AWOL. A personal testimonial from a celebrity with fibroids does not stand in for evidence one expects to see from a clinical trial or trials. No mongering here. The article quotes one outside expert whose comments focused on the use of an injectable alternative to the oral drug, and the downsides of this alternative. But it also has a comment from Allergan’s researcher noting that longer-time follow up is needed for UA. These source’s commercial relationships are appropriately disclosed. [Editor’s note: Following publication of this review, we learned that Allergan provides financial support to the White Dress Project. The story would have done well to acknowledge this relationship.] The article mentions some alternative treatments in detail. One strength of the article is that it prominently points out that many women with fibroids who have no symptoms do not require treatment of any kind. The article notes the new drug could be available in the US next year. The drug is already available in the US for another indication but is packaged in doses that are much larger than those used for fibroid treatments. The article makes clear that the advantage of the new drug is that it is an oral medication, and is taken for a limited time. However, ulipristal is not the first oral medication. There are some older oral hormonal medications, including pills in some cases, that have been tried. GnRH agonists (delivered by injection or nasal spray) such as Lupron have been used in limited situations to treat fibroids, but their use is limited by side effects related to medically induced menopause. The story includes comments from two experts and it appears as though the second one had no involvement with the study.
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6380
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Arizona is only state where tribes avoid Medicaid work rules.
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Arizona has become the only state in the country where members of federally recognized tribes are exempt from work or volunteer requirements for Medicaid benefits, while 120,000 state residents risk losing health coverage if they don’t comply.
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true
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Medicare, Arizona, Health, Politics, Native Americans, North America, Treaties, Business, Medicaid, U.S. News
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The announcement came Friday from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which said it believes the exemption is consistent with the tribes’ status as political entities. Early last year, the agency wrote to tribes saying exempting all Native Americans from work requirements could violate equal protection laws. Tribes across the country pushed back, saying the position ignored Supreme Court decisions that allow federally recognized tribes to be treated differently than others, disregarded the U.S. Constitution and violated treaties. They also cited high unemployment rates on reservations and funding shortfalls at the federal Indian Health Service that Medicaid reimbursements help fill. The tribal exemption in Arizona sets a precedent for other states with significant Native American populations. Eight states have taken up the Trump administration on its offer to approve work requirements for low-income people on Medicaid. Now that the administration has granted Arizona’s request, it’s expected to follow suit for any other state seeking the exemption. Arizona initially wanted to include all Native Americans, which might have raised concerns under civil rights laws that the exemption wasn’t allowed based on race, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spokeswoman Yvonne Hylton said. After negotiating, the request was limited to members of federally recognized tribes. “We have long stressed the importance of meaningful tribal consultation when states are contemplating program reforms, and I’m pleased with how this important process informed Arizona’s approach,” agency Administrator Seema Verma said. The Trump administration urged changes to Medicaid programs to encourage work and independence. Others see work requirements as unfairly targeting the working class. Arizona residents will have a three-month grace period when the work requirements take effect next January. About 120,000 of Arizona’s 1.8 million residents on Medicaid, ages 19 to 49, must work or volunteer at least 80 hours a month and report those hours. If not, coverage will be suspended for two months. Christina Corieri, a senior policy adviser for Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, said he believes the requirements will improve residents’ financial situations, help them engage in communities and become healthier. “We believe that those who can work should, and we think that’s backed up by evidence as well,” she said. “This can improve people’s lives.” Arkansas implemented work requirements last summer and has seen 18,000 people lose coverage, said Jessica Schubel, a senior policy analyst for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “It’s just one more burden on people who are more likely already working, but are in jobs that are low-wage jobs, and they are relying on Medicaid to help them treat their condition,” she said. Most of those affected in Arizona were added to the Medicaid rolls in 2013 after the state expanded coverage under former President Barack Obama’s health care law. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services denied Arizona’s request for a five-year limit on coverage for those who fail to meet the work requirements. Others who are exempt in Arizona include the mentally ill, those with disabilities and pregnant women. Arizona has 21 federally recognized tribes, whose reservations take up about a quarter of the state. Navajo President Jonathan Nez said approval of Arizona’s plan is a victory for all of them. Victoria Stevens, vice chairwoman of the governing board for the San Carlos Apache Healthcare Corp., said the tribe’s hospital stood to lose $15 million in Medicaid funding if tribal members were forced to work or volunteer. About 70 percent of patients there have Medicaid, she said. She and others worked to pass a law in Arizona last year with similar language. She said classifying tribes as anything but political entities is illegal. “Native American people are entitled to health care because of treaty rights and settlements when tribes were defeated in war,” she said. In Maine and Wisconsin — two other states with work requirements for Medicaid — tribes can satisfy them by participating in tribal work programs, including traditional subsistence activities. Federal regulators approved the plans last year. Maine also exempts tribal members from paying proposed premiums. ___ Associated Press writer Marina Villanueve in Augusta, Maine, and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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19107
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"Bill Nelson Says Connie Mack initially said he would have voted ""yes"" for the Paul Ryan budget plan, and then, ""you said it was stupid and you would vote no. And then your folks corrected you, and you changed your position again, yes."
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Four dominant e-cigarette manufacturers face a probe into the health impacts of their products, as the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee asked on Wednesday about the firms’ research and marketing practices.
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mixture
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Candidate Biography, Federal Budget, Florida, Bill Nelson,
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The committee sent letters to Juul Labs Inc, 35% owned by Marlboro maker Altria Group Inc, Fontem Ventures, Japan Tobacco Inc, and Reynolds American Inc, a unit of British American Tobacco Plc. The letter to Juul asked if the company has conducted or financed studies on the health implications of using its products and the effectiveness of Juul in helping users quit smoking. It asked if Juul has sent information to the Food and Drug Administration. Kaelan Hollon, a spokeswoman for Reynolds American, said the company is reviewing the letter and believes “minors should never use tobacco products, including vapor products.” Japan Tobacco said in a statement it welcomes any opportunity to “set out the responsible approaches” it takes in its marketing. Juul and Fontem Ventures did not respond to requests for comment. The probe comes amid growing scrutiny of the e-cigarette industry by lawmakers. A separate House panel in July released internal Juul emails that committee staff described as attempts to “enter schools and convey its messaging directly to teenage children.” James Monsees, Juul’s co-founder and chief product officer, told the panel the company’s target audience is adult cigarette smokers. Representative Frank Pallone, the Democratic chair of the committee, cited vaping-related lung illnesses recently reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He requested answers and documents by Sept. 20. The CDC said on Wednesday it is investigating 153 possible cases of severe lung illness associated with e-cigarette use in 16 states. No deaths have been reported, they said.
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11462
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Brain scans accurate at spotting autism: U.S. study
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This story is one of two we reviewed describing new research in the use of diffusion tensor MRI. Unlike the competing story by CNN, this story starts off on the wrong foot and does not recover. The headline badly distorts the true value of the research study. The story itself does little to analyze the evidence, provides no solid quantification of harms or benefits, leaves costs to the imagination and relies on one source: the lead author of the study in question. The story brings together two favorites of health writers: the frightening specter of autism and the MRI, the medical hero with X-ray vision. Neither topic is given a complete picture here. Autism and autism spectrum disorders are characterized by dysfunction in communication, socialization and behavior. Many children do not show signs of the disorder until 18-24 months of age. Identifying children at risk early is essential if any intervention is to work in reducing the impact of the disorder. The currently available specific testing methods for the diagnosis of autism and autism spectrum disorders are blunt instruments. While more accurate than routinely used tools, the current autism diagnostic tools are not as sensitive and specific as needed. To be useful, a diagnostic test for autism should have a high degree of sensitivity especially in young children. Given the estimated high prevalence of autism and the high costs — both financially and emotionally — to families, it is important for reporters to approach any study about autism with caution. Screening for autism early and making decisions based on that screening can have very real consequences. In the absence of proven clinical treatments for autism, parents spend whatever they can on natural remedies, specific diets and behavioral therapies. That is why we take strong issue with the overly effusive headline and the lack of context in the story. No one is served by exaggerating research findings in such an emotionally fraught arena.
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false
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Autism,Reuters Health
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The cost of the specialized MRI scan and its interpretation is not provided. MRI scans are a major driver of healthcare costs and the use of this technology as a routine screening instrument could have a significant direct financial impact. The cost of a routine MRI could have been provided The second sentence of the story says, “The test, which uses conventional magnetic resonance imaging or MRI machines, detected 94 percent of individuals with a high-functioning form of autism, they reported on Thursday.” The 94 percent number is completely out of context and exactly the kind of overstated statistic that gives readers false hope based on flimsy evidence. This was, after all, a study in 30 people with autism and 30 without. Unlike the CNN story we reviewed, this story fails in keeping inappropriate enthusiasm at bay. The potential benefits of such a scan can only be speculated at this stage, and readers should have been provided absolute numbers to make it clear how many people were correctly identified, at what ages and to what end. One would think from reading these stories that getting an MRI is as harmless as taking a shower. Neither this story nor the CNN story explained the real psychological and physical impacts of brain scans. For those who have had the pleasure, you know how tight and confining the scanner “chamber” can be. Younger children frequently require deep sedation for a scan due to the tightness and to the loud banging that occurs during the scan. Although there is no radiation emitted, MRI scans are uncomfortable, loud and intimidating especially for younger children. If this test is to become useful it would need to be conducted early in a child’s life. This should have been conveyed to the reader. The story did not evaluate the quality of the evidence and missed several limitations of the study that were pointed out in the CNN story that we also reviewed. Unlike the CNN story we reviewed, this story provides comments from two of the investigators with no reservations. The only caveat noted suggests the study results are preliminary. That single statement is overshadowed by the headline and the remainder of the story content. To their credit, the study authors provided their view of the study limitations and a word of caution about over interpretation in the manuscript. Indeed, the press release comments of the senior author noted, “this is not yet ready for prime time use in the clinic yet, but the findings are most promising thus far.” The story should have shown similar restraint. The story did not engage in disease-mongering. Like the CNN story, the story correctly notes that 1 in 110 children in the US potentially has an autism spectrum disorder according to the CDC. This story has no independent sources, and, worse yet, it gives readers the mistaken impression that the lead author of the study is an independent voice. After the lead and setup, the story says. “These results are the best yet in the search for a biological basis in terms of being able to distinguish those with and without the disease,” said Nicholas Lange of Harvard Medical School, who directs the Neurostatistics Laboratory at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. Doesn’t that sound like someone outside the study explaining why the findings are important? Unless readers latched on to a passing reference to “researchers at McLean” they might read the entire story thinking Lange was unaffiliated. As CNN points out in its story, Lange actually helped create the MRI being used and would likely stand to benefit financially from its commercial rollout. At the present time there are no biologically based tests for autism. The diagnosis is made on the basis of subjective signs and symptoms. Unlike the CNN story we reviewed, this story makes no attempts to provide information on existing diagnostic testing. The story includes this odd claim: “You don’t need any fancy equipment. This is performed around the world,” Lange said in a telephone interview. Interestingly, neither the actual published study nor the McLean press release provides any explicit information about the MRI scanner used or the way in which its programming may have been altered. And neither does the story. The novelty of the test is unclear from this story. Diffusion tensor imaging is not new and it has been used in previously published reports, a fact not provided to the reader. The way in which it was used was new and novel. We usually take people to task for suggesting a drug or medical device or procedure is novel when it is perhaps not. The story should have indicated that although the scanners used were conventional and others have employed the technique described, the programming is novel and not routinely available. The story does not rely on a news release. The story provides quotes from the investigators that do not appear in the institutional press release. Having said that the press release provides a far more balanced story that this one does.
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29333
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There is a meaningful link between terrorist attacks and the 22nd day of the month
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"What's true: Certain terrorist attacks on the 22nd day of a month may have been commemorations of previous attacks on the 22nd day of the same month in previous years. What's false: The 22nd day of the month is statistically no more prone to attacks than any other day -- and even when terrorists do pick specific dates for ""anniversary"" attacks, what matters is the full date - a particular day in a particular month - and not just a particular day in any month."
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false
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Politics
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By our nature, humans look for patterns to help us understand and explain seemingly random and chaotic events and phenomena. Consider, for example, the old superstition that “deaths come in threes.” Faced with horrific and seemingly incomprehensible events like the slaughter of children in a suicide bombing at a pop concert, the impulse to find patterns becomes even stronger. On 23 May 2017, a number of memes pointing out that a handful of high-profile terrorist attacks had taken place on the 22nd day of certain months gained popularity on social media. The latest of these was the suicide bomb attack in Manchester, England, on 22 May 2017. This tweet accurately states that: On 23 May 2017, the Daily Mail joined the chorus, publishing an article whose lengthy headline begins “Another jihadist attack on the 22nd.” The article, like many tweets and Facebook posts in the days following the Manchester bombing, outlines some significant recent attacks on the 22nd day of various months. The story claimed that “Security agencies are understood to be examining the possibility that the date – the 22nd of the month – is significant,” before adding, “Initial indications suggest there is no link.” The next day, the Men’sXP web site also published an article pointing to a “dark and scary theory” about the timing of terrorist attacks: For some reason, the number 22 holds a lot of significance and seems to have a rather sinister link to the events of previous attacks… Others accurately pointed out that the Utoya massacre, in which Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in a bomb attack and shooting rampage in and near Oslo, Norway, took place on 22 July 2011, and that a suicide bomb attack on a Christian church killed more than 120 people in Peshawar, Pakistan on 22 September 2013. Is there a pattern here? Sure – all these events took place on the 22nd day of a month. But there are patterns everywhere, if you look for them. For example, here’s a selective list of prominent transport disasters and crashes that took place on the 23rd day of the month: This is just a small selection of similar events that have taken place on the same day of different months, in different years. Some even took place on the same day of the same month (the final three in our list), and two took place on the same day of the same month in the same year. Spooky, right? Not really. All this list illustrates is that patterns can be found almost anywhere, if you go looking for them. Whether a pattern has any greater meaning, or a common factor that is anything more than coincidental, is the real question. Choice vs Coincidence Plane crashes are not like terrorist attacks, however. They are (generally) accidental, and therefore the date on which they occur is not chosen in advance. Are terrorists choosing their attacks for the 22nd day of various months, because it’s the 22nd day of the month? Not exactly. We know that some terrorist attacks are timed for specific dates because they mark the anniversary of another attack or significant event. For example, Timothy McVeigh planned the Oklahoma City bombing for 19 April 1995 because it marked the second anniversary of the violent end of the FBI’s siege at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas – which McVeigh had witnessed firsthand. And in December 2015, Mohammed Rehman and Sana Ahmed Khan were convicted of planning a thwarted bomb attack in London on 7 July that year, specifically to mark the 10th anniversary of the 7 July 2005 “7/7” attacks, which killed 52 people. We don’t often get such clear confirmation of “anniversary” plots, though. German police suggested Ali David Sonboly‘s 22 July 2016 shooting rampage in Munich may have been inspired by Anders Behring Breivik’s Utoya massacre, exactly five years earlier. The country’s Interior Minister said investigators had discovered that the 18-year-old had been researching Breivik’s attacks. However, Sonboly killed himself after the attack and so did not face police questioning or a trial, during which the reasoning behind the date might have emerged more definitively. Similarly, Khalid Masood was shot dead by police after killing four people at Westminster in London on 22 March 2017, a year to the day after three terrorist bombings in Brussels. Julian King, the European Union’s Security Commissioner, told a European Parliament committee: “I don’t think it was a complete accident that this attack took place on the first anniversary of the Brussels attacks…” It is also possible that Salman Abedi, the suspected Manchester Arena attacker, timed the bombing to mark the fourth anniversary of the death of British soldier Lee Rigby, who was brutally murdered in an Islamic extremist attack in London on 22 May 2013. But Abedi was killed in the suicide bombing on 22 May 2017, and so far, such a motive for the date of the attack hasn’t been established, and may not have been present at all. Conclusion There are three essential points to bear in mind if you see a meme highlighting terrorist attacks that took place on the 22nd of the month: It’s true that terrorists do sometimes choose the date of their attack to commemorate an event that’s important to them — often a previous attack. So as time passes, it could become more likely that certain dates might see an exponential growth in the number of incidents planned or carried out. Of course, police and security agencies around the world are also very aware of these dates, and so the increased prevention and enforcement that comes on dates like 7 July and 11 September may mean such plots are more likely to be thwarted before being executed. But where a date has significance, it is the full date that matters – not the day of the month. There is no symbolic significance, mystical power, or terrorist conspiracy surrounding the number 22.
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10560
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‘Bonding’ Hormone Might Help Some With Autism
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Overall this 633-word story captures the essence of the study and places the test results into a reasonable context. This small study supports the hypothesis that oxytocin is involved in the social behaviors associated with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders, and it suggests a potential therapeutic role for oxytocin in people with such disorders.
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true
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"Although this is a very preliminary study, some mention of costs should have been included, even if simply to note that the cost of potential treatments is unknown at the present time. The published study itself does not quantify benefits clearly , perhaps understandable given that it is a laboratory study, not a clinical one. But we give the story a satisfactory rating for doing a reasonable job of putting the study results into context. The brevity of the response and the inconsistent findings across individuals were noted appropriately in the story. While harms are not quantified in the published study itself, this story does well to emphaszie the importance — and current lack — of safety data for an alluded-to use of oxytocin in children with autism. We do know a good deal about the toxicity of oxytocin when given to women to induce labor and for a few hours. In addititon to possible severe allergic reactions, water intoxication is an important side effect. We give the story kudos for noting several limitations in this research, including the wide variations in individual responses and a lack of evidence that the strategy ""would be effective at all"" in children or young adults. The author also notes a lack of long-term safety data, and she describes challenges in translating the delivery method to a real-world application. We would have liked to have seen a bit more characterization of the preliminary nature of this laboratory study and its very small sample. The story does not resort to disease-mongering. The story cites several independent sources and provides several quotes for balance. The study authors themselves identified no conflicts of interest. The story does discuss the treatment of autism and that no drug therapies are currently available for the social dysfunction observed in people with Asperger syndrome and other forms of autism. The story is clear that the strategy used in this laboratory study is uNPRoven in the real world, particularly in children and young adults. They even note the issues in translating the delivery method to clinical practice. The article notes that there have been prior studies that also demonstrated an effect of oxytocin in people with autism. The story does not appear to rely on a news release."
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28408
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U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh argued that disabled people could be forced to have elective surgeries, including abortions.
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What's true: As a D.C. circuit judge, Kavanaugh overturned a lower court decision that enjoined Washington, D.C.'s disability services officials from authorizing elective medical procedures without first making an attempt to ascertain the wishes of the patient. What's false: Kavanaugh's ruling did not involve abortion.
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mixture
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Politics, brett kavanaugh, disabled, supreme court vacancy
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In mid-August 2018, as confirmation hearings for President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh drew near, social media users shared a meme relating to a 2007 opinion Kavanaugh wrote as a D.C. circuit court judge: The meme presented an over-simplified representation of a complicated legal case and misstated Kavanaugh’s role in it. In 2007, Kavanaugh was part of a three-judge panel that overturned a district court injunction blocking Washington, D.C.’s Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Administration (MRDDA) from authorizing elective medical procedures on patients who were certified to be intellectually incapacitated without first making a documented effort to ascertain those patients’ wishes. (The agency’s name has since been changed to Department of Disability Services.) The matter before Kavanaugh did not pertain to specific medical procedures, but rather to the injunction itself. Kavanaugh supported reversing a 2005 lower court ruling that had found D.C.’s standard to be unconstitutional and had ordered the following: Before granting, refusing, or withdrawing consent for any elective surgery on any MRDDA consumer, the District of Columbia must attempt to ascertain the known wishes of the patient; an inquiry which is not limited to but which must include documented reasonable efforts to communicate with that person regarding her wishes. If after such an inquiry the wishes of the patient are unknown and cannot be ascertained, the District of Columbia must then make a good faith determination of the best interests of the patient, a determination that requires consideration of the totality of that person’s circumstances … MRDDA appealed that lower court decision and won, with Kavanaugh writing in his opinion that “Consideration of the wishes of patients who are not and have never been competent is … not required by the Supreme Court’s procedural due process cases,” and that “plaintiffs have not shown that consideration of the wishes of a never-competent patient is ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,’ such that ‘neither liberty nor justice would exist if [the asserted right] were sacrificed. '” Washington, D.C.-based attorney Shep Williams, who represented the plaintiffs in the appeal, told us that Kavanaugh “made a bad decision and he was wrong, but the issue of whether [the plaintiffs] could consent to an abortion was not before the court.” What was before the court, he said, was the idea that intellectually disabled people “are entitled to have an informed decision made on their behalf just like anyone else.” Williams added that he felt the lower court had it right: “We argued that they shouldn’t be making decisions until they talk to these people. They’re individuals, they’re not lumps of flesh.” In the underlying case, Does v. D.C., three intellectually-disabled women who lived in an MRDDA-administered group home filed suit claiming they had been forced to undergo elective procedures they did not want: One had an eye surgery, while two underwent unwanted abortions. As Kavanaugh’s opinion noted, however, D.C. law already rendered performing abortions (along with sterilization and “psycho-surgeries”) without consent to be off-limits in the absence of a court order. Williams told us that in 2016 his clients won summary judgment against Washington, D.C. for the abortions and the case was settled, bringing the 15-year litigation to an end. Kavanaugh’s 2007 opinion has been cited by disability advocacy groups that have come out in opposition to his nomination to the Supreme Court bench. They include the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), the National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) and the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), which said in a 15 August 2018 statement that: The principle of self-determination holds that people with disabilities must have the freedom and authority to exercise control over their own lives. Based on his ruling in Doe ex rel. Tarlow v. D.C., Judge Kavanaugh believes otherwise. The Doe plaintiffs were subjected to elective surgeries based on the consent of DC officials; Judge Kavanaugh dismissed the notion that the plaintiffs could express a choice or preference regarding medical treatment on the basis of their intellectual disability. AAPD will not support a Supreme Court nominee who does not affirm the rights and abilities of people with disabilities to determine the course of their own lives. Silvia Yee, senior staff attorney for DREDF told us that “There’s a movement being pushed across states and courts to recognize there are levels of capacity [among intellectually-disabled people] and we need to figure out what those levels are.” Kavanaugh’s 2007 decision “flies so much in the face of that.” Although his ruling in the 2007 appeal was only binding in the court’s geographical jurisdiction, Yee pointed out the concern among the disabled community is that as a Supreme Court justice, his opinions could potentially impact lives of throughout the entire country.
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2866
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FDA asks doctors to limit acetaminophen in combination drugs.
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U.S. health regulators recommended on Tuesday that healthcare professionals stop prescribing combination drugs that contain more than 325 milligrams of acetaminophen per tablet, capsule, or other dosage unit, citing the risk of liver damage.
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true
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Health News
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Limiting the quantity per dosage unit will reduce the risk of inadvertent overdose, which can lead to liver failure, liver transplant and death, the Food and Drug Administration said. It cited the fact that no available data showed that taking more than the recommended dose provided benefits that outweighed the added risks. (link.reuters.com/nen95v) Inadvertent overdose from combination drugs containing acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol in most countries outside the United States, accounts for nearly half of all cases of acetaminophen-related liver failure in the United States, the agency said. Combination acetaminophen products are commonly prescribed to patients to treat pain from acute injuries, post-operative pain, or pain following dental procedures. In January 2011, the FDA asked manufacturers of combination drugs containing acetaminophen, sold globally under trade names such as Tylenol and Panadol, to limit acetaminophen doses to no more than 325 mg in each tablet or capsule by January 14, 2014. (link.reuters.com/hyn95v) Some of these products still remain available, the agency said. The FDA also suggested that pharmacists who receive a prescription for a combination product with more than the recommended dose contact the prescriber to discuss using a lower dose. In the near future, the FDA plans to institute proceedings to withdraw approval for combination drugs that remain on the market, it said in a statement. Acetaminophen, one of the most commonly used drugs in the United States, is widely used in both prescription and over-the-counter products to reduce pain and fever.
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30750
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"The song ""Over the Rainbow"" was written about the Jewish experience during the Holocaust."
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Although the song “Over the Rainbow” may be have come to be retrospectively viewed as a message of hope and resilience contemporaneous with the Holocaust period, no evidence supports that the song was written with the horrors to come in mind. Neither the outspoken Yip Harburg nor his son Ernie indicated that the song had any connection to the Holocaust, even as they analyzed the political meanings of Yip’s works years after they first emerged on screen and stage.
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false
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Entertainment, holocaust, the wizard of oz
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Which single movie has had the greatest influence, in both artistic and economic terms, on the film industry? Anyone born in the last half century or so might venture that the ongoing massive appeal of the Star Wars universe means that film should claim the crown. Many cinema buffs would argue that elements of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane can be found in virtually every film that followed it. Fans of Casablanca would likely point out that it is probably the most-referenced movie of all time. Yet the winner of that honor, according to a 2018 study, is the beloved 1939 MGM musical The Wizard of Oz. One of the most iconic moments in that most iconic of films was Judy Garland’s rendition of the song “Over the Rainbow,” a ballad that resonated with Depression-era audiences for its expression of Dorothy Gale’s yearning wish to be somewhere better, somewhere other than the current bleak landscape. And ironically, that magic moment almost didn’t make it into the final version of the movie: [“Over the Rainbow”] was almost cut from the film during the process of test screenings and final editing in the summer of 1939. According to one report, studio head Louis B. Mayer thought the song was too sad. In another account, half a dozen MGM executives were in favor of cutting the song, questioning why Judy Garland was singing in a farmyard. Eddie Mannix, manager of the MGM studio, claimed that the song slowed the pace of the movie. Producer Mervyn LeRoy and assistant producer Arthur Freed argued passionately for the song’s inclusion; Mervyn reportedly threatened to quit the film if the song was cut. Their protests were effective, and Mayer decreed that the song remain in the film. Originally popularized by Judy Garland’s rendition in the film, the standard received new attention when it was covered in 1993 by Hawaiian artist Israel Kamakawiwoʻole (as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”). By 2014, “Over the Rainbow,” penned in 1938 by Yip Harburg, had become became attached to a new legend: that its lyrics were about the Jewish experience during the pattern of suppression, oppression, and violence that comprised the Holocaust: @CandaceMHill I’ve been watching it already.The music part is fabulous about Somewhere Over the Rainbow is about the holocaust. — vocemom (@MMstrikesback) April 13, 2014 In some versions of the rumor, a Holocaust survivor wrote the words during the events of World War II — even though The Wizard of Oz debuted before the start of the war, and Harburg was not a Holocaust survivor. (He spent the 1940s writing music in Hollywood.) @jillaustein The writer of Over The Rainbow is a Holocaust Survivor. The imagery in OtR is his dreams while he was suffering through WWII. — Goldie (@jillaustein) June 16, 2014 In December 2014, Rabbi Bernhard Rosenberg published an editorial about the song “from a Jewish perspective” which began by establishing some context for his subsequent musings: The 2014 Oscars celebrated the 75th anniversary of the release of “The Wizard of Oz” by having Pink sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” to a backdrop of highlights from the film. What few people realized while listening to that incredible performer singing that unforgettable song is that the music is deeply embedded in the Jewish experience. Portions of Rosenberg’s column were pasted into e-mail forwards claiming that the song was about the Holocaust, but his actual published words contradicted that claim (albeit subtly): But perhaps the most poignant song to emerge out of the mass exodus from Europe was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. The lyrics were written by Yip Harburg, the youngest of four children born to Russian-Jewish immigrants … The song’s music was written by Harold Arlen, also a cantor’s son. His real name was Hyman Arluck, and his parents were from Lithuania. Together, Hochberg and Arluck wrote “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” which was voted the 20th century’s No. 1 song by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. In writing it, the two men reached deep into their immigrant Jewish consciousness — framed by the pogroms of the past and the Holocaust about to happen — and wrote an unforgettable melody set to near prophetic words. Read the lyrics in their Jewish context and suddenly the words are no longer about wizards and Oz, Jewish survival … The Jews of Europe could not fly. They could not escape beyond the rainbow. Harburg was almost prescient when he talked about wanting to fly like a bluebird away from the “chimney tops.” In the post-Auschwitz era, chimney tops have taken on a whole different meaning than the one they had at the beginning of 1939 because the Nazis had not yet created the crematoriums and gas chambers that they used during the Holocaust. Rabbi Rosenberg’s words indicated that his perspective was one of looking back at the song through the lens of historical events, not that he was suggesting those events inspired the song itself. In 2004, Democracy Now profiled Yip Harburg and interviewed his son Ernie Harburg. The segment included an archival interview featuring the elder Harburg (who died in 1981) discussing the manner in which “Over the Rainbow” was written for The Wizard of Oz. Although the interview addressed broader political themes in Harburg’s body of work, neither the Holocaust nor World War II was cited as inspiration for the song. One passage quoted Yip Harburg on how he worked out the song’s lyrics as Harold Arlen wrestled with composing the music for the classic tune: Now, here’s what happened, and I want you to play this symphonically! OK, I said, “My god, Harold! This is a twelve-year-old girl wanting to be somewhere over the rainbow. It isn’t Nelson Eddy!” And I got frightened, and I said, “I don’t — let’s save it. Let’s save it for something else. But don’t — let’s not have it in.” Well, he felt — he was crestfallen, as he should be. And I said, “Let’s try again.” Well, he tried for another week, tried all kinds of things, but he kept coming back to it, as he should have. And he came back, and I was worried about it, and I called Ira Gershwin over, my friend. Ira said to him, he said, “Can you play it a little more in a pop style?” And I played it, with rhythm. OK, I said, “Oh, well, that’s great. That’s fine.” I said, “Now we have to get a title for it.” I didn’t know what the title was going to be. And when he had [sings] dee-da-dee-da-da-da-da, [talking] I finally came to the thing, the way our logic lies in it, “I want to be somewhere on the other side of the rainbow.” And I began trying to fit it: “On the other side of the rainbow.” When he had a front phrase like daa-da-da-da-da — now, if you say “eee,” you couldn’t sing “eee-ee.” You had to sing “ooooh.” That’s the only thing that would get a — and I had to get something with “oh” in it, see: “Over the rain” — now, that sings beautifully, see. So the sound forced me into the word “over,” which was much better than “on the other side.”
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31660
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Several brands of baby wipes available in the U.S. were recalled in 2017 because they pose a risk of serious infection.
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We contacted Nutek on 1 March 2017, and a company representative described the circulating baby wipes recall rumor as simply a scam. No recall notice was distributed by Nutek about several brands of baby wipes in January 2017, and the wording for the viral rumor appears to have been stolen from an October 2014 Food and Drug Administration press release and updated just enough to ensure clicks and shares on social media.
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false
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Medical, baby wipes, health and diy tips, nutek
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On 11 February 2017, a web site operating under the names “Health and DIY Tips” or “Daily Tips” falsely claimed that several brands of baby wipes were recalled in January 2017, and that the products posed a serious risk: Ten brands of baby wipes produced by the Pennsylvania-based Nutek Disposables, Inc., were recalled on January 25, 2017, following complaints of foul odor and discoloration. Upon further testing, the baby wipe and adult washcloth manufacturer discovered that some of their products contained Burkholderia cepacia, a species of antibiotic-resistant bacteria frequently found in soil and water, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Known for its vinegar-like odor, B. cepacia has emerged as a human respiratory pathogen in people with weakened immune systems or chronic lung disease, especially cystic fibrosis patients. Pulmonary infections involving these bacteria are capable of causing accelerated decline in lung functions and can induce “cepacia syndrome,” a progressive form of pneumonia that can be fatal and untreatable, according to MicrobeWiki. The site specifically said that the wipes were recalled on 25 January 2017, but its content closely matched an October 2014 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) press release about to an obsolete but nearly identical recall: Nutek Disposables, Inc. of McElhattan, PA has initiated a nationwide voluntary product recall at the retail level of all lots of baby wipes that it manufactured under the brand names Cuties, Diapers.com, Femtex, Fred’s, Kidgets, Member’s Mark, Simply Right, Sunny Smiles, Tender Touch, and Well Beginnings, because some packages may contain bacteria. These wipes were distributed by Nutek prior to October 21, 2014 to the following retail stores: Walgreens, Sam’s Club, Family Dollar, Fred’s, and Diapers.com. After receiving a small number of complaints of odor and discoloration, Nutek conducted microbial testing that showed the presence of a bacteria, called Burkholderia cepacia (B. cepacia), in some of these products. Soon after, on October 3, 2014 the company initiated a voluntary withdrawal of lots that had tested positive for the bacteria, as well as other baby wipes in the surrounding time frame. After some additional lots were tested, as a precautionary measure, Nutek believed it was a prudent decision to withdraw all its baby wipe products. On Twitter, Sam’s Club (a retailer mentioned prominently in the claim) repeatedly promoted baby wipes in February 2017. No mention of any sort of recall was made in 2017 or 2016 by the account; in 2015, the brand advised a customer that there was no baby wipes recall: @SarahRaphael At this moment there is no active recall for Member’s Mark baby wipes. Thank you for asking and have a great day! — Sam’s Club (@SamsClub) July 10, 2015 The Consumer Product Safety Commission did not have any January 2017 wipes recall notices on its site. A wipe warmer was recalled in August 2016, but the notices were clearly unrelated to the claim of a January 2017 baby wipes recall.
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2538
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Medical tourism offers travel firms untapped growth.
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A dentist’s office may not be everyone’s idea of a perfect holiday destination.
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true
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Health News
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But a growing number of Europeans are travelling abroad for medical treatment to save money, or maybe to combine a visit to the doctor with some sightseeing, creating a fast-growing market that is still largely untapped by traditional tour operators. “It was simply cheaper for me to go to a dentist in Hungary,” said a 42-year-old physical therapist from Berlin, who did not want to give his name. He chose the clinic near Budapest from an Internet advertisement, enticed by hundreds of euros in savings compared with the same treatment in Germany. He was happy to find when he got there that the clinic was clean, the staff competent and the work thorough. Greater efforts by clinics to lure customers from abroad for routine procedures are creating new opportunities for tour operators looking to expand into faster-growing markets. Helmut Wachowiak, a professor at the International University of Applied Sciences at Bad Honnef in Germany, says the global medical tourism market is worth $40 billion to $60 billion and is growing at about 20 percent per year. “The medical tourism market is still very much passing by traditional tourism, though it is increasingly recognized as an opportunity for the travel industry,” said Wachowiak, an expert on tourism management. People travel abroad for medical treatment for various reasons: it’s cheaper, they face a long wait at home, or the treatment they want is not available in their own country. Robert MacLaren, professor of ophthalmology at the University of Oxford, said some patients who have immigrated may prefer to return to be close to their families when they undergo surgery. “People will want to take the opportunity to seek treatment in places where it might be cheaper and where they have relatives who might be able to look after them. I’m seeing that especially with younger people from eastern Europe,” he said. The British-based Medical Tourist Company refers about 100 patients a year to hospitals in India for treatments including cardiac surgery, knee and hip replacement, in-vitro fertilization and dental work. Chief Executive Premhar Shah reports rapid growth in demand from customers in Africa, where it can be harder to find well-equipped medical facilities for complex surgeries. Shah, a medical doctor by training, said he competes with hospitals that market directly to prospective patients as well as companies trying to expand into medical tourism. “It’s a very competitive market because everybody wants to jump into it,” he told Reuters. HOCKEY-STICK CURVE Some countries such as Germany market themselves as a destination for medical tourism. According to the German National Tourist Board, about 77,000 foreign patients were treated in the country in 2010, spending 930 million euros ($1.24 billion). They came mostly from other European countries, Russia, Gulf states or the United States. Hospital operator Helios helps organize visas, hotels and sight-seeing trips for patients coming to Germany for treatment, mostly from Russian-speaking countries and the Middle East. “Many patients specifically opt for a city where they can enjoy what the place has to offer alongside the treatment,” Helios manager Stefan Boeckle said. “Provided their medical condition allows for it, of course.” He cited the example of a Kuwaiti businessman who came to Berlin for a check-up in December and booked a hotel and theatre tickets for himself and his son, plus a limousine to take him to hospital during the two-day stay. Boeckle says patients from the Middle East have tailed off slightly now that countries such as the United Arab Emirates have started building more hospitals to attract medical tourists themselves. A survey by consultancy IPK International has shown that 3-4 percent of the world’s population travels to foreign countries for medical treatment, and as many as 52 percent of Europeans say they could imagine doing so. “I think booking numbers (in health-related tourism) could rise on a hockey stick-shaped curve in coming years,” said Claudia Staedele, a board member of German medical tourism company Dr. Holiday. “There is still incredible room to grow.” Dr. Holiday, part of Germany’s second-biggest tour operator Rewe, focuses on vacations that have health-related elements such as exercise classes, but also offers trips to Hungary for dental treatment and to Turkey for laser eye surgery. Between 2003 and 2007, the number of trips Dr. Holiday has sold sky-rocketed from 300 to 30,000. Since then, growth rates have been double-digit and Staedele said she sees an 18 percent rise this year. By comparison, overall international tourism grew by 4 percent in 2012, according to the U.N. World Tourism Organisation. Staedele said the combination of an ageing population and growing acceptance of medical treatments abroad will bolster growth in coming years. Companies can also help those with chronic conditions enjoy a holiday like everybody else. Chiara Frattini works for Holiday Dialysis International, part of Germany’s Fresenius Medical Care, which arranges dialysis for people on holiday. The service started in 1996 and has seen growth of around 6 percent a year, she said. Around 2,000 people contact the service each year, with customers mostly from the United States and Japan, where people tend to travel in large tour groups. She has organized dialysis in destinations such as the Philippines, Senegal, Kenya and Thailand. “But in the Saharan countries, it can be very difficult due to lack of good water and treatment facilities, and some places are just not politically advisable,” she said. The company sets up dialysis wards on cruise ships with nurses and a specialist doctor on board. After a lull for the European financial crisis, Frattini is more confident. “If the patient is facing money problems, the first thing they decide to cancel is their vacation. But I expect that this year will be much better,” she said. For some, there is the attraction of free treatment abroad, at which point politics comes into the equation. In Britain, where most medical care is funded by general taxation and delivered free within the National Health Service, health tourism has become a contentious issue. Legislators have called for tighter checks on patients arriving for treatment, amid concerns that foreign citizens are travelling to Britain to take advantage of the free service. ($1 = 0.7490 euros)
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33688
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The son of child care expert Dr. Benjamin Spock killed himself.
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Did the son of baby specialist Dr. Spock kill himself?
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false
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Medical, ASP Article, Doctor Doctor
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The Internet was at one juncture hopefully dubbed “the information superhighway,” but there are times (and far too many of them) that it might more accurately be referred to as “the misinformation superhighway,” given the apocrypha frequently spotted toddling along in the slow lane, its left indicator constantly signaling a lane change that never comes. Even when its errors aren’t of the egregious variety, so often the new knowledge imparted to readers by the Internet is woefully wrong. So it is with the Internet claim that the son of child-rearing expert Dr. Spock died by his own hand. That wasn’t the case; both children of Dr. Benjamin Spock are still alive, even though the doctor himself is no longer with us. Dr. Spock had two sons by his first marriage: Michael, a museum director, and John, who studied architecture and became the owner of a construction company. (The doctor’s first marriage ended in divorce after 48 years; his second marriage of 22 years ended with his death in 1998.) The seed of this rumor was undoubtedly planted when Dr. Spock’s grandson Peter took his own life on December 25 in 1983 by jumping from the roof of Boston’s Children’s Museum. (Peter’s father, Michael, was director of the museum, and Peter himself worked there part-time while a student at University of Massachusetts at Boston.) The family has remained close-mouthed about what might have impelled the 22-year-old to end it all, so the circumstances surrounding this young man’s decision remain murky. Still, the choice of suicide location is curious, and one wonders if at least some of the burdens that overwhelmed young Peter didn’t involve his relationship with his father. (He jumped from the roof of the building where his father worked, and on Christmas Day at that — most assuredly those choices of location and timing would be read by anyone trying to ascertain the deceased’s state of mind as strong, deliberate statements. However, Spock biographer Thomas Maier points out that Peter had schizophrenia.) Suicides occur far more often than we would care to consider. This tragedy visits the homes of both the wealthy and the poor — it makes no distinctions, and fame, power, and influence are no magic talismans that can fend off this threat to one’s nearest and dearest. Suicides take place in all manner of homes and in all manner of families, and the famous are doubly burdened when what would be a personal tragedy in any other household becomes fodder for media scrutiny (as in the death of Diane Linkletter, daughter of television personality Art Linkletter.) The confusion over who died in Dr. Spock’s family has been picked up and repeated widely because some choose to see this mistaken tidbit not only as compellingly ironic but as a telling condemnation of the doctor’s teachings. Dr. Spock’s book Baby and Child Care was published in 1946, just in time for the post-World War II baby boom. It became the widely-accepted bible on child rearing, and much of the advice Dr. Spock offered therein ran against the grain of what had previously been the accepted standard for bringing up children. Spock encouraged parents to treat their offspring with respect rather than arm themselves with leather belts put to use at the first sign of disobedience. This led some critics to call him the “Father of Permissiveness” even though he advocated disciplining one’s children, just not beating them. The following snippet harvested from a 2002 embellishment of the 2001 remarks on the September 11 tragedy offered by the daughter of evangelist Billy Graham provides an example of the context in which this rumor is often promulgated: Then, Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide) and we said, an expert should know what he’s talking about so we said OK. In this instance, the fallacious ‘son committed suicide’ claim is used to support a position that Dr. Spock’s teachings were dangerously wrong and should be thrown out with the baby’s bathwater. “How much of an expert could he have been,” we’re supposed to muse, “if his own son was driven to suicide? Maybe corporal punishment is the right way to go, seeing as how eschewing the belt led to that result.” But whether spanking is ultimately helpful or harmful, neither of Dr. Spock’s sons killed himself. Those who hold up the “suicided son” tidbit as their shining proof that the world went to hell in a handbasket because parents listened to wrongheaded experts rather than keeping faith with their sturdy Sam Brownes only make fools of themselves, because their example is wrong. An ironic twist to this legend is that it is true about a psychologist who advocated a child-rearing approach diametrically opposed to the one Dr. Spock would later champion: By the late 1920s, John B. Watson, the notably harsh but popular behavioral psychologist, combined rigorous views on child care with a dire estimation of the dangers of maternal affection. “Mother love is a dangerous instrument. An instrument which may inflict a never healing wound . . . which may make infancy unhappy, adolescence a nightmare, an instrument which may wreck your adult son or daughter’s vocational future and their chances for marital happiness.” Parents were advised to “never hug or kiss [their children]. Never let them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when you say goodnight.” Watson’s son, William, committed suicide at age 40. (A similar but apocryphal tale is attached to the child of another behavioralist, B. F. Skinner.) Although the debate over the effectiveness of spanking children continues, Dr. Spock’s book Baby and Child Care was a runaway success and remains a best-seller today. With over 50 million copies in print, it has become one of the world’s best selling non-fiction publications (second only to the Bible in that category).
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23310
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Alan Grayson Says Daniel Webster wants to make divorce illegal, even for abused wives.
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Alan Grayson says opponent wants to make divorce illegal in stinging new ad
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mixture
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Marriage, Message Machine 2010, Religion, Women, Florida, Alan Grayson,
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"U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson -- the man who described the Republican Party's health care plan as ""die quickly"" and who later equated the health care system to an American holocaust, who suggested former vice president Dick Cheney was a vampire who could turn into a bat and fly away at a moment's notice, and who said putting Republicans in charge of government was akin to making members of al-Qaida pilots -- is making another series of eye-catching claims. Grayson, an Orlando-area Democrat facing a difficult re-election fight against former Florida House speaker Daniel Webster, launched a stinging television attack Sept. 25, 2010. The title of his advertisement? ""Taliban Daniel Webster."" The meat of the ad is a back-and-forth between a female narrator and Webster, speaking his own words. Here's the transcript: Female narrator: (Speaking over images of terrorists holding guns and people burning the American flag) ""Religious fanatics try to take away our freedom in Afghanistan, in Iran and right here in Central Florida."" Webster: (Black-and-white video, dressed in a suit, holding a microphone) ""Wives submit yourself to your own husband."" Female narrator: ""Daniel Webster wants to impose his radical fundamentalism on us."" Background type: Daniel Webster wants to MAKE DIVORCE ILLEGAL. Webster: ""You should submit to me. That's in the Bible."" Female narrator: ""Webster tried to deny battered women medical care and the right to divorce their abusers."" Webster: ""Submit to me."" Female narrator: ""He wants to force raped women to bear the child."" Webster: ""Submit to me."" Female narrator: ""Taliban Daniel Webster. Hands off our bodies. And our laws."" The ad is fertile ground for fact-checkers. In an earlier item, we found that Grayson used some heavy-handed editing to take Webster's words out of context. We rated a claim that ""Daniel Webster thinks wives should submit to their husbands"" as False. In this item, we wanted to examine two other sweeping allegations in the ad -- that Webster wants to make divorce illegal and that he tried to deny battered women the right to divorce their abusers. Both claims in the Grayson ad come with an attached footnote: ""SOURCE: House Bill 1586 (1990)."" So that's where we'll start. The Florida Legislature maintains an excellent online bill database, but only back to 1998. For House records from 1990, we turned to the State Archives of Florida. Researchers there told us that Grayson cites the wrong bill. Webster, who was a deputy minority whip in the state House in 1990, filed another bill, HB 1585. It deals with marriage, researchers said. But the State Archives didn't have a copy. The Capitol Branch Library did. Researchers there provided PolitiFact Florida with a copy of the original filed version of HB 1585. The bill, according to the House summary, ""creates a form of marriage known as 'covenant marriage,' which may be dissolved only on grounds of adultery."" Florida law currently allows married couples to divorce if a court finds that the marriage is ""irretrievably broken."" It's a common standard throughout the country. The term can be interpreted broadly and critics say the standard of proof makes divorce too easy. Enter Webster and his 1990 legislation creating a voluntary ""covenant marriage."" Here's what he proposed. Men and women would have the option on their application for a marriage license to elect a covenant marriage. Under terms of the covenant marriage agreement, the husband- and wife-to-be would have to have their parents' permission and attend premarital counseling by a member of the clergy or a marriage counselor before proceeding. As part of their marriage license, the husband and wife would then have to sign notarized documents declaring: ""I, (insert name), do hereby declare my intent to enter in Covenant Marriage. I do so with the full understanding that a Covenant Marriage may not be dissolved except by reason of adultery. I have attended premarital counseling in good faith and understand my responsibilities to the marriage. I promise to seek counsel in times of trouble. I believe that I have chosen my life-mate wisely and have disclosed to him or her all facts that may adversely affect his or her decision to enter in this covenant with me."" The covenant marriage agreement ""may not be dissolved except by reason of adultery,"" according to the bill Webster filed. ""A divorce may be granted on grounds of adultery if the defendant has been guilty of adultery, but if it appears that the adultery complained of was occasioned by collusion of the parties with the intent to procure a divorce, or if it appears that both parties have been guilty of adultery, a divorce shall not be granted,"" HB 1585 reads. The bill includes no mention of physical abuse. It also discusses alimony, noting that ""no alimony shall be granted to an adulterous wife,"" but makes no mention about the alimony rights of an adulterous man. Democrats controlled the state House in 1990, and the bill never came up for a vote, researchers at the State Archives and the Capitol Branch Library said. But Webster's proposal helped launch the movement for covenant marriage nationwide, said Alan J. Hawkins, a professor of Family Life at Brigham Young University and an expert on covenant marriage. Hawkins said Webster's proposal was the ""original"" covenant marriage bill, though it never went anywhere in the legislative process. Three states have since adopted some form of voluntary covenant marriage, Hawkins said, but all are demonstrably different than what Webster proposed for Florida. In 1997, Louisiana became the first state to offer covenant marriage. Under the Louisiana law, couples who select a covenant marriage can divorce 180 days after being legally separated, if either spouse has committed a felony, or for adultery. Arizona followed in 1998 with an even broader covenant marriage law. Besides adultery and committing a crime, couples can divorce over drug or alcohol abuse, over sexual or physical abuse, and if, simply, both spouses agree to a divorce. In Arkansas, which passed its law in 2001, couples who participate in covenant marriage can divorce for a variety of reasons -- adultery, physical or sexual abuse, or if someone in the marriage committed a felony. On top of that, married couples can divorce after a period of separation (between 12 and 30 months, depending on the case). Webster's proposal was ""significantly more restrictive and less sensitive to other 'justifiable' reasons for divorce such as abuse, addiction, imprisonment, abandonment, etc.,"" Hawkins said. What has been the outcome of covenant marriages in the states where they are allowed? We asked John W. Senner at the Health Statistics Branch of the Arkansas Department of Health. From 2002-2007, 1,358 couples have agreed to enter covenant marriage, compared to almost 218,000 who haven't. That means about .6 percent of all marriages in Arkansas are covenant marriages. (Old marriages that were converted to covenant marriage aren't tracked by the state, Senner said.) And though the sample size is small, couples who enter into covenant marriage are less likely to divorce. From 2002-2007, 4.4 percent of couples who enter covenant marriage wound up divorced compared with 6.5 percent for those who don't. Back to Grayson's claim. In his ad ""Taliban Dan Webster,"" Grayson says that Webster wants to make divorce illegal, even for abused wives. Here are the facts. When Webster was a member of the Florida House, he introduced a bill that would have created something called covenant marriage. This special form of marriage was entirely voluntary, but if couples agreed to it, they would not be able to divorce under state law except in the case of adultery. The bill did not list physical or sexual abuse as grounds for divorce. Webster's bill wouldn't make all divorce illegal. It wouldn't even make divorce for all people who chose covenant marriage entirely illegal. There's a small window out for adultery. But Grayson is right that there was no protection in Webster's marriage bill for abused wives. So, in theory, someone who chose covenant marriage and was being abused might not be granted a divorce. Because all of that context is critical to understanding Grayson's claim,"
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35913
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NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci criticized the Trump administration's decision to impose travel restrictions on China to stem the spread of COVID-19.
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During an April 13 Coronavirus Task Force press briefing, Fauci said that he (and others) had recommended the China travel restriction to Trump, and at that same briefing, Trump averred that he and Fauci had been “on the same page” about dealing with the COVID-19 threat “from the beginning”:
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false
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Politics, 2020 election, COVID-19
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One of the staples of press conferences and rallies held by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020 was his attempts to deflect criticism of his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic by asserting that he imposed a ban on travel from China in February over the objections of nearly everyone else — particularly over the objections of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). For example, during a Fox News Business interview with Maria Bartiromo in May, Trump maintained that, “When I closed the border to China, [Fauci] disagreed with that,” and his decision to restrict travel to the U.S. from China was “criticized by everybody, including Dr. Fauci”: And during a July interview with Greta Van Susteren, Trump claimed that Fauci and other “experts” had told him, “Don’t close off China. Don’t ban China,” but he imposed a ban over their advice: I disagree with him. Dr. Fauci said don’t wear masks and now he says wear them. And he said numerous things. Don’t close off China. Don’t ban China. I did it anyway. I didn’t listen to my experts and I banned China. We would have been in much worse shape. You wouldn’t believe the number of deaths more we would have had if we didn’t do the ban. But comments made by Fauci — and Trump himself — at the time the China travel restriction was implemented (and afterwards) contradict Trump’s later claims. It is true that after participating in a Jan. 24 briefing on Capitol Hill (when only a small handful of COVID-19 coronavirus disease cases had been reported in the U.S.), Fauci said both he and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Robert Redfield told senators that imposing travel restrictions was “not a good idea at this time” and averred it “would create a lot of disruption economically and otherwise and it wouldn’t necessarily have a positive effect.” He also stated that a travel ban wasn’t something that was being considered at the time: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has gone further than most, sending a letter to the Trump administration asking whether travel from affected areas in China to the United States should be restricted or banned. Leaving the briefing, Hawley said officials told senators they don’t think that step is necessary right now but that they had not closed the door on it. “They don’t think travel restrictions, where we just say we’re not going to allow people in, they don’t think that that’s necessary quite yet, but they’re monitoring it, they’re seeing what the spread is like,” Hawley said. But Fauci told reporters after the briefing that a travel ban is not on the table. “It’s not something that I think we’re even considering,” Fauci said. But by Jan. 31, the day that the travel restrictions were announced, Fauci spoke supportively of them during a press briefing: There are a number of countries outside of China that have travel-related cases. And now what we’re seeing is that there are secondary cases from them, and, as [CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield] mentioned, we also have that in this country. The WHO has issued, as you know, a Public Health Emergency of International Concern declaration. If you put all these things together, I underscore what Bob said: We still have a low risk to the American public, but we want to keep it at a low risk. And because there are so many unknowns here, we’re going to take the action that the Secretary [of HHS] will describe, in a temporary way, to make sure we mitigate, as best as we possibly can, this risk. Thank you. Three days later, during an interview with CNBC, Fauci again spoke supportively of the China travel restrictions, referring to them as part of “good public health measures”: Fauci credits “good public health measures” in the United States for helping to stop “sustained transmission” of the virus in America. “As the entry into the United States of potentially infected people is diminished because of the travel restrictions on both sides … I think you are going to see a dampening down” of U.S. cases, he added. A week after the China travel ban was enacted, The Hill quoted Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar as saying that the travel restrictions were “the uniform recommendations of the career public health officials at HHS” (which includes Fauci’s NIAID) and also quoted Fauci as stating that “the positives [of the travel ban] outweigh the negatives”: “The travel restrictions that we put in place in consultation with the president were very measured and incremental,” Alex Azar, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), told reporters. “These were the uniform recommendations of the career public health officials here at HHS.” Anthony Fauci, head of the infectious disease division at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), said the U.S. restrictions are not a perfect solution, but the positives outweigh the negatives. “This is a temporary thing. We’re not talking about something that’s permanent, so we recognize the potential negatives of it, but this decision was not made lightly,” he said. During another press briefing at the end of February, Fauci again spoke of the importance of the travel restrictions in helping to contain the spread of COVID-19: I hearken back to the original decision that was made by the President of making sure that we knew the scenario that was going on in China. We prevented travel from China to the United States. If we had not done that, we would have had many, many more cases right here that we would have to be dealing with. In a Feb. 28 appearance on Fox Business’ “Lou Dobbs Tonight,” Fauci again emphasized the importance of the China travel restriction in limiting COVID-19 cases in the U.S.: We’ve done really quite well thus far, and I think one of the reasons why is that what we did early on was that travel restriction from China, preventing a lot of people who are infected, particularly from Wuhan, from coming into the country. Which really made the total number of cases, starting off, really quite low. According to a March 2020 Wall Street Journal article, it was HHS health officials (including Fauci) who had to convince Trump to agree to the China travel ban, not the other way around: The president also spent weeks playing down the disease. On Feb. 26, he told reporters that there were only 15 people infected and the total “within a couple days is going to be down to close to zero.” He also was reluctant to sign off on the first virus-related travel ban aimed at China, concerned about the signal it would send to markets and his relationship with President Xi Jinping, aides said. He eventually agreed to it on the advice of Mr. Azar, aides said, and now touts it as one of his proudest actions during the crisis. Similarly, The New York Times reported in March 2020 that Trump had been “skeptical” about imposing travel restrictions, but he was convinced of the necessity for action by public health officials, including Fauci: By Thursday, Jan. 30, public health officials had come around [to take the step of banning travel from China]. Mr. Azar, Dr. Redfield and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, agreed that a ban on travel from the epidemic’s center could buy some time to put into place prevention and testing measures. “There was so much we didn’t know about this virus,” Dr. Redfield said in an interview. “We were rapidly understanding it was much more transmissible, that it had a great ability to go global.” The debate moved that afternoon to the Oval Office, where Mr. Azar and others urged the president to approve the ban. “The situation has changed radically,” Mr. Azar told Mr. Trump. Others in the room urged being more cautious, arguing that a ban could have unforeseen consequences. “This is unprecedented,” warned Kellyanne Conway, the president’s counselor. Mr. Trump was skeptical, though he would later claim that everyone around him had been against the idea. The president sided with his more aggressive aides, and announced the ban next day.
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5132
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Commission’s order supports ban on marijuana vaping products.
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The state’s four-month ban on marijuana oil vaping products will remain in place after the state’s Cannabis Control Commission issued a quarantine order Tuesday.
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true
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Medical marijuana, General News, Marijuana, Charlie Baker, Vaping, Tobacco industry regulation
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The order targets vape pens, vape cartridges, aerosol products, and inhalers that use oil-based vaping materials. It doesn’t apply to medical marijuana vaping devices designed for marijuana flower, which don’t use oil-based materials. The commission is also asking testing labs if they can check for vitamin E acetate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified vitamin E as a culprit in vaping-associated lung injuries. The labs currently test for contaminants like heavy metals. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Douglas Wilkins had ruled last week that marijuana cultivated for medical use, including oil-based vaping materials, must be exempted from Republican Gov. Charlie Baker’s four-month ban on vaping materials starting Tuesday — unless the cannabis commission took action since the commission is the single state entity authorized to regulate marijuana. Tuesday’s action by the commission continues the ban for oil-based vaping materials for medical use. The vaping industry is also challenging the broader ban in court. Shops caught selling vaping materials during the ban face fines of up to $1,000 per offense. There is no prohibition against individuals owning or using vaping products. The industry has argued the ban will destroy the state’s $331 million nicotine vapor products industry and irreparably harm local businesses. Baker issued the emergency ban in September in response to lung illnesses attributed to use of e-cigarette products. State health officials last week announced that a third state resident died from a vaping-related lung illness. The state Department of Public Health announced Wednesday that a man in his 50s from Worcester County died, after telling officials he vaped both nicotine and the marijuana compound THC. Officials say more than 200 suspected cases of vaping-associated lung injury have been reported to the health department since September. The action by the cannabis commission comes as state lawmakers prepare to debate a bill that would ban flavored vaping and tobacco products, including menthol and mint flavors. Lawmakers argue that the flavored products are meant to entice young teens into smoking. Anti-smoking activists praised the Massachusetts House for taking up the measure. “Ending the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including mint and menthol, is smart public health policy and will prevent thousands of kids in Massachusetts from becoming enticed into a lifetime of addiction,” said Kevin O’Flaherty from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Some convenience store owners oppose the ban on menthol cigarettes and have pressed lawmakers to eliminate that portion of the bill. House lawmakers plan to debate the measure on Wednesday.
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26771
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YouTube videos Says the Vatican confirmed that Pope Francis and two aides tested positive for coronavirus.
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Pope Francis canceled a few engagements after he was seen coughing and sneezing during an Ash Wednesday mass. The Vatican has denied the stories, saying the pope has a “slight illness.”
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false
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Facebook Fact-checks, Coronavirus, YouTube videos,
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"Pope Francis recently canceled some engagements after he was seen coughing and sneezing during an Ash Wednesday mass in Rome. The rare cancellations came as the coronavirus outbreak in Italy has infected more than 1,600 people, mostly in the northern region, and has people questioning whether the pope himself has contracted the virus. One YouTube video takes the rumor further by stating that the Vatican confirmed ""Pope Francis and two aides"" tested positive for the coronavirus. This isn’t true. There has been no official confirmation that the 83-year-old Catholic leader, or any of his aides, tested positive for the virus. The video was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We could find no credible sources that say the pope — who lost part of a lung to an illness as a young man — was tested for the current coronavirus, or that he tested positive. The Vatican has repeatedly denied the claims and described his condition as a ""slight illness"" without giving more details. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni dismissed the coronavirus speculation, telling journalists that there’s ""no evidence that would lead to diagnosing anything but a mild indisposition."" The pope appeared at the Vatican Apostolic Palace window on March 1 to address thousands in St Peter’s Square in his first public appearance in days."
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20758
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[N]early one in three primary care doctors are forced to limit the number of Medicare patients they see.
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Congressman's claim about Medicare mostly rings true
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true
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Georgia, Health Care, Tom Price,
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"Seniors, if you’re struggling to find a doctor that takes Medicare, U.S. Rep. Tom Price has diagnosed your problem. Doctors won’t take patients covered by the federal health insurance program for seniors because Medicare pays them less than what the care actually costs, Price said in a recent op-ed in the Boston Herald. ""Already, nearly one in three primary care doctors are forced to limit the number of Medicare patients they see,"" said Price, who worked as an orthopedic surgeon. We thought the Roswell Republican’s number was worth a closer look. If there is a problem, it could get worse Feb. 29. That’s when Medicare will cut doctor pay by some 27 percent, unless Congress does something about it. Medicare calculates how much it pays doctors according to a special formula set up in 1997 to keep the federal deficit in check. In 2002, that formula gave doctors a pay cut, but physician backlash was so bad that lawmakers have put off reductions ever since. Each time Congress puts off the problem, the cost of fixing it grows. We asked Price spokesman Ryan Murphy for more information on the congressman’s Medicare figure. He said it was confirmed by a May 2010 survey by the American Medical Association, a group that represents doctors’ interests and promotes medicine and public health. The AMA’s online survey of more than 9,000 physicians found that 31 percent of primary care doctors ""restrict"" the number of Medicare patients in their practice. Some of these doctors don’t accept new Medicare patients, and only treat the ones they already have. Others have stopped treating them at all. Some 83 percent said they did so because Medicare payment rates are too low, the AMA survey said. And 82 percent said they made the move because they were concerned about the threat of future payment cuts. We asked the AMA for the poll’s methodology and found it has a major shortcoming. It wasn’t scientific. Also, the AMA is a powerful lobbying group with its own set of interests. We therefore sought out data from independent sources that took a scientific approach. The data we found was not strictly comparable to the AMA’s, but it did tell us that the findings of the physicians group did not clash with other research. For instance, there’s a 2008 survey by the Center for Studying Health System Change, which provides research used by the federal government and policymakers on both sides of the aisle. The center conducted a nationally representative mail survey of 4,700 physicians. It found that among primary care physicians, 37 percent said they accept some or no new Medicare patients. Of those, more than 56 percent said that inadequate reimbursements were a moderately important or very important reason why. About 48 percent of those who restricted how many Medicare patients they took on said a moderately important or very important reason why was that their practices were already at capacity. There’s also 2009 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which found that some 19 percent of primary care physicians did not accept any new Medicare patients. This number is a lot lower than the AMA’s figure, but it doesn’t mean the doctors group is incorrect. About 10 percent of the CDC’s respondents said they did not know if they accepted new Medicare patients. Also, the data did not specify whether the doctors who accept new ones limit how many they bring on. On its face, the AMA data is not unreasonable. None of the data we reviewed expressly contradicts the finding that 31 percent of primary care doctors ""restrict"" the number of Medicare patients in their practice. Furthermore, data from the Center for Studying Health System Change appear to support the AMA’s finding. So, is Dr. Price right? Are nearly one in three primary care doctors ""forced to limit the number of Medicare patients they see""? The congressman’s number seems sensible, but his language is overheated. It’s not clear that the physicians who drop or restrict Medicare were ""forced"" to do so because of declining reimbursements or red tape. Nearly half of the primary care physicians responding to the Center for Studying Health System Change survey said one of the reasons they accept so few new Medicare patients is that their practices are full. We recommend Price give his feverish rhetoric an aspirin. And it wouldn’t hurt if he got a second or third opinion on the American Medical Association’s data. Price earns a ."
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9783
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Researchers report progress in cancer immunotherapy
|
The piece felt top-heavy with words of “progress…more effective…complete remission (in one patient)…hopes,” etc. Half-way through came this line: “Several independent researchers said the study results were promising. But they also noted that the trial involved only 11 patients and said the therapy was less effective than in other published trials.” But the only detailed caveat came at the very end – from Dr. Steven Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute. What is so ironic is that while we were reading the piece, but before we got to Rosenberg’s quote, we actually reflected on the exuberant early news coverage of Rosenberg’s interleukin-2 research back in the 1980s – and how similar this felt. Now, about this new work, Rosenberg is quoted as saying “Cloned cells don’t work. These results are inferior.” It would have been easy to pull out news coverage of the IL-2 work (such as the Newsweek cover story in 1985) and help readers think about similarities. So, while we applaud the overall work of this story, we wished for a bit more historical perspective. Journalists and the public should remember Santayana’s quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We were urged to review this by breast cancer advocate Jody Schoger, who wrote on Facebook, “This seems like announcing a new chemo regimen that extends survival by one or two months…. I do appreciate that hope and optimism – I always prefer that it’s anchored with the reality of time; and how long it takes to go from these new realizations to making significant progress against melanoma.” Schoger’s note elicited this response from Sally Church, PhD (a biochemist interested in cancer biology): “Ugh yet more hype about immunotherapy with a small number of patients… don’t get me started!”
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true
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immunotherapy,melanoma
|
An early experiment of immunotherapy against melanoma may be too early to allow for a cost estimate. We’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt for reporting: “In six of the 11 patients in the trial, the melanoma stopped progressing for 12 to 19 weeks. Another patient was declared in remission because his cancer ceased to spread and, after several months, disappeared altogether. Three years later, researchers continue to detect the presence of the cloned cells they infused into the patient” The story stated: “Currently, the T cells have limited staying power and often die off before their work is done. Doctors give them a boost by administering a growth factor called interleukin-2. But at high doses, it can cause dangerously low blood pressure, breathing problems, kidney failure and heart arrhythmias. Yee’s group showed that by choosing T cells more selectively, patients can get by with much lower doses of interleukin-2, making the treatment less toxic.” But we’re not told what side effects were observed in the 11 patients in the study. In reality the study originally involved a high dose (3 subjects) and low dose (8 subjects) IL-2 arm. The high dose arm was closed by the Data and Safety Monitoring Board prematurely due to unacceptable toxicity. The early, small, preliminary nature of the study was clear from the story. Steven Rosenberg’s comments at the end also gave perspective. No disease mongering at play here. Several independent sources were quoted. Brief reference was made to one patient having had 6 years of chemotherapy “only to have his melanoma return.” And Rosenberg’s comments at the end note a competing immunotherapy approach. But the story didn’t give readers a clear context of melanoma treatments, or of why and for whom immunotherapy would be tried, etc. We think it’s clear from the story that this is only an experimental approach right now. The relative novelty of this approach for melanoma was evident in the story. It’s clear that the story did not rely solely on a news release.
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3209
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Bolsonaro vs NGOs: Amazon town becomes ground zero for spat.
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A sleepy Amazon town has become the flashpoint for the growing hostility between Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and environmental groups following the arrest of volunteer firefighters he has said set blazes in the rainforest.
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true
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Brazil, Caribbean, Leonardo Dicaprio, International News, General News, Forests, Latin America, Environment, Jair Bolsonaro, Non-governmental organizations
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The episode prompted leaders of nine non-governmental organizations on Tuesday to denounce the persecution of activists, academics and scientists since the election last year of Bolsonaro, who has accused many of them of working in the Amazon on behalf of foreigners— including actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The groups have been critical of Bolsonaro’s push to develop the world’s largest tropical rainforest. “The government regards the third sector, Brazilian civil society, as the enemy of the country,” Ricardo Borges, executive coordinator at Pact for Democracy, said on the video call with reporters that also included the Brazilian branches of the World Wildlife Fund and Amnesty International. Police last month accused several volunteer firefighters of setting forest fires to get funding through local NGOs in Alter do Chao, a town of less than 10,000 people on the bank of the Tapajos river in the state of Para. Federal prosecutors quickly said their investigation found no such evidence, the local police officer leading the investigation was removed from the case and a judge ordered the firefighters be released from prison. Still, Bolsonaro, a former army captain, publicly backed the police allegations against the firefighters and NGOs. Television footage of police making arrests and raiding NGO offices served, for some, as confirmation of the claims. Bolsonaro even accused DiCaprio of providing the funds to the NGOs - something the U.S. actor denied. The controversy has cast Alter do Chao, known as “The Caribbean of the Amazon,” into the national spotlight. Speaking at the edge of his verdant yard, Caetano Scannavino, coordinator of Health and Happiness, one of the two nonprofits investigated by local police, told the Associated Press incendiary rhetoric has created a climate of terror, and security consultants have recommended he leave Alter do Chao as soon as possible. Already he’s stopped sleeping at home. “Today we’re in a war of narratives. The country is polarized and unfortunately we’ve created an environment of deconstruction instead of construction, in which people shout at each other and don’t debate,” Scannavino said. “It’s not justifiable to feed more hatred into an environment already polarized with hate.” The same day, on the other side of Alter do Chao, a group of travelling soy farmers spoke to the AP over breakfast at their hotel and expressed the sort of skepticism about NGOs that Bolsonaro shares. One suggested NGOs outnumber farmers in the surrounding region. Another said most of their funding goes to employee salaries rather than valid projects. The volunteer firefighters and nonprofits deny any wrongdoing and say the investigation is politically motivated. Para state’s government said it won’t comment on the probe until the police inquiry is concluded. The press offices of the president and the environment minister didn’t reply to requests for comments. Bolsonaro has accused NGOs of feeding off the “industry of fines” in the country’s environmental sector and vowed to no longer allocate fine-related revenue to nonprofits. Environment Minister Ricardo Salles also announced earlier this year he was temporarily suspending funding to NGOs, pending review of contracts and partnerships to catch possible irregularities. Such targeting hasn’t been limited to non-profits. In the midst of the international outcry over the Amazon fires in August, Bolsonaro accused the then-head of Brazil’s space research institute, Ricardo Galvão, of manipulating satellite data on deforestation in order to undermine his administration. Galvão publicly countered the claims and was fired. Brazil’s annual deforestation report released last month showed a nearly 30% jump from the prior year. While the government eventually acknowledged logging had increased, the academic community remained shaken by the high-profile dismissal at a scientific institution. “In the Bolsonaro government, there is a group that has a clearly negative view of science,” Galvão said in a phone interview. “They have this idea that all scientists are on the left.” In November, a group of international academics published a research paper in the journal Global Change Biology, debunking the Brazilian government’s claims that Amazon fires in August were normal. More than one of the paper’s authors remained anonymous for fear of reprisal like that Galvão suffered, co-author Erika Berenguer told the AP. “It was really tough for them to make that decision,” she said. In Alter do Chao, the arrest of the firefighters wasn’t the first controversy this year to perturb the town’s peaceful vibe. In July, Brazil’s education minister was eating in the central plaza with his family when indigenous activists staged a short demonstration beside his table. The minister responded by taking a nearby microphone to address the crowd. “I just want to show the difference between the left and people who aren’t on the left,” he said. “I’m here with my family on my vacation, one week of the year, three little kids, and you try to humiliate me in front of my kids. Is that it? Is that what you are?” It quickly escalated into a shouting match, with video of the episode going viral nationwide. Two days later, a list with names of NGOs, activists and professors from the region allegedly responsible for “the mistreatment of the minister” started circulating in local WhatsApp chat groups, according to a local journalist who writes under the name Hellen Joplin, who also works with local activists. She found herself on the list, described as being anti-Bolsonaro and a “leftist of the worst kind.” “It was a total witch hunt: get them and punish them,” Joplin said in an interview. That night, four police officers drove to her home with red lights flashing as she hosted a meeting of indigenous activists. Terrified attendees hopped Joplin’s back fence and hid in the jungle, while officers standing at Joplin’s doorway warned her about supposed motorcycle theft in the area and peered into her home, she said at the AP’s Rio de Janeiro office. She skipped town with her two toddlers and plans to return only to move her things out permanently. For now, the volunteer firefighters and nonprofits remain under investigation in Alter do Chao. For Ana Torrellas, who helps run a restaurant in the town’s plaza, the process looks like arbitrary persecution. “Boom, it was their turn, as can happen with me, as can happen with you,” said Torrellas, who moved to town from Venezuela two years ago. “I don’t need glasses to see the plan. They don’t want people who think differently.” ___ AP writer Diane Jeantet reported from Rio de Janeiro ___ This story was been corrected to reflect that Ricardo Galvão is the former head of Brazil’s space research institute, not the international space agency.
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14052
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Under (Obamacare), you can’t reward a person for better behavior. You can’t have incentives to be healthier.
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"Ryan said, ""Under (Obamacare), you can’t reward a person for better behavior. You can’t have incentives to be healthier."" Ryan is largely on point if the ""you"" refers only to insurance companies, but there’s nothing in the context to justify such a narrow interpretation. The claim was broad and implied a ban on incentives. That’s not the case. Wellness programs, while not available to everyone, are specifically authorized by the Affordable Care Act as a means for employers to raise or lower premiums by up to 30 percent based on employees’ health-related behavior. For a statement that is partly accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context, our rating is Half True."
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mixture
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Health Care, Wisconsin, Paul Ryan,
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"The health care overhaul known as ""Obamacare"" is as complex as it is far-reaching, so it’s hardly a surprise that arguments over what the law requires or prohibits are lingering years after it took effect. U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan drifted into those murky waters in an April 27, 2016, town hall meeting, asserting healthy people can’t be rewarded for their lifestyle under President Barack Obama’s landmark legislation. Ryan framed his criticism around a comparison to a hypothetical neighbor. ""I’m 46, I stay in shape, I don’t smoke, I have a couple Miller Lites now and then, but I stay healthy, I work on it,"" Ryan said during the meeting at the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service. ""My next-door neighbor could be (the) same demographic, same age, he could drink a case of beer each night, two steaks, you know, not run, be 100 pounds overweight."" Then the claim about Obamacare: ""Under the law, you can’t reward a person for better behavior. You can’t have incentives to be healthier. That makes no sense."" Does Obamacare (officially the Affordable Care Act), really prohibit incentives that would charge less to healthier people? ""Like Bill Clinton would say, it depends on what ‘you’ means,"" said Soeren Mattke, managing director of Health Advisory Services for the nonpartisan Rand Corp. think tank. A tale of two interpretations Indeed, insurance companies under the Affordable Care Act cannot require different rates based on a person’s health and lifestyle. The HealthCare.gov website even expressly states companies ""can’t take your current health or medical history into account"" when setting premiums. The one caveat lies in the definition of health history. The ACA allows five factors to be considered in setting premiums: location, age, plan category, whether dependents are covered and tobacco use. Tobacco use could fall into the health ""behavior"" category Ryan referenced, though smoking wasn’t among the unhealthy vices he laid out for the hypothetical neighbor. But Ryan’s claim doesn’t specify insurance companies. And if the ""you"" is interpreted as referring also to employers — that’s how many of the experts we consulted read it — the claim gets dicier. ""The Affordable Care Act allows employers to vary premiums by up to 30 percent to be able to reward employees not only for participating in wellness programs but to achieve specific metrics of health,"" said Meena Seshamani, director of the Office of Health Reform at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The law even increased the maximum reward for involvement in a wellness program from 20 percent to 30 percent of the premium, also boosting the max to 50 percent for those in a smoking cessation program. Some 49 percent of Americans are insured through their employer, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. But not all employers have such programs, and then only a portion tie in financial incentives. Kaiser’s 2014 employer survey found 74 percent of firms offering health insurance have some kind of wellness program. Among those with programs, 36 percent of large firms and 18 percent of small firms offer financial incentives for participation. Ryan’s office didn’t respond to our inquiries seeking clarity on who he was referencing or evidence to support his statement. Wellness programs in dispute Despite the Affordable Care Act language, wellness programs remain a gray area of health care law — and a moving target. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued some companies over wellness programs they believed went too far with incentives or disincentives. Wellness programs are typically a combination of screening activities (questionnaires and/or clinical tests) and interventions to specifically address risks such as weight, smoking, fitness and drug use. One such case stemmed from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, where the EEOC alleged Flambeau, Inc., a plastics manufacturer based in Baraboo, violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by requiring employees to participate in a wellness program in order to get company health insurance. Judge Barbara Crabb dismissed the case in December 2015, however, agreeing with the company that the program fell under an exception allowing for activities related to administering an insurance plan. The EEOC is appealing the ruling, even as it issued a new rule in mid-May attempting to clarify how wellness programs can comply with the ACA, the disabilities act and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This and similar EEOC lawsuits elsewhere are making employers hesitant to implement wellness plans that require certain benchmarks, said Tom Miller, resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank. ""It’s one thing to participate and be rewarded for it, it’s another set of hurdles if you start requiring people to succeed at achieving certain goals,"" Miller said. ""It doesn’t mean you can’t do it, but there’s a lot of smoke in the air that discourages employers from going that far as a general rule."" Our rating Ryan said, ""Under (Obamacare), you can’t reward a person for better behavior. You can’t have incentives to be healthier."" Ryan is largely on point if the ""you"" refers only to insurance companies, but there’s nothing in the context to justify such a narrow interpretation. The claim was broad and implied a ban on incentives. That’s not the case. Wellness programs, while not available to everyone, are specifically authorized by the Affordable Care Act as a means for employers to raise or lower premiums by up to 30 percent based on employees’ health-related behavior. For a statement that is partly accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context, our rating is ."
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36924
|
In 1981, a pediatrician saved the life of a 3.2-pound premature baby boy by working around the clock to beat the odds & stabilize him. In 2011, the pediatrician was pinned inside a burning vehicle after a car collision, but was saved by the premature baby, who had grown up to become a paramedic.
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In 1981, a Pediatrician Saved a Premature Baby, in 2011, the Baby Saved Him from a Fiery Car Crash
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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A meme showing a picture of a doctor and the paramedic who saved each others lives has long circulated on social media, in large part due to an April 2016 Unbelievable Facts Facebook post:That meme read at the bottom:In 1981, a pediatrician saved the life of a 3.2-pound premature baby boy by working around the clock to beat the odds & stabilize him. In 2011, the pediatrician was pinned inside a burning vehicle after a car collision, but was saved by the premature baby, who had grown up to become a paramedic.An identical version was shared on November 22 2019 to r/nevertellmetheodds, a subreddit for posts about long-odds scenarios occurring in real life:What goes around comes around from nevertellmetheoddsThe story (and appended photograph) originated with a March 2015 KTLA report about the doctor and the once-premature baby — Dr. Michael Shannon and Chris Trokey — reuniting at a fundraiser four years after Trokey saved Shannon’s life in 2011:Exactly four years ago, on March 29, 2011, Dr. Michael Shannon was driving on Pacific Coast Highway in Dana Point when a semi-truck T-boned his SUV, pinning his vehicle underneath the truck as it caught fire.Firefighters from Paramedic Engine 29 were returning from another call and responded within minutes to the fiery crash.By the time they arrived, Shannon’s vehicle was also ablaze and the flames were burning his legs. Fire crews then worked to extinguish the flames and rescue him using the Jaws of Life.The seriously injured Shannon was taken to Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo where he spent the next 45 days recovering from internal injuries. He also had to have two of his toes amputated.Among those who had helped save Shannon that day was Orange County Fire Authority paramedic Chris Trokey, whose own life had been saved 30 years earlier by the pediatrician.“I didn’t know about until I went to the hospital and started talking about it, Dr. Shannon. And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Dr. Shannon? '” Trokey recalled [in 2015]. “That’s when I found out.”KTLA added:Trokey was just 3.2 pounds at birth, and doctors had initially gave him a 50/50 chance at surviving. But his pediatrician — Dr. Shannon — helped save his life, staying with the infant around the clock until his health improved and he was stable.According to the meme, a pediatrician (Shannon) saved a premature baby (Trokey) in 1981. Thirty years later, the then-grown baby was a paramedic, and a first responder to a serious car accident involving Shannon. When Shannon and Trokey met again in 2015, KTLA reported the story, inspiring memes which circulated for several years thereafter.
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5147
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Sanders accuses Biden of distorting ‘Medicare for All’ plan.
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Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders accused former Vice President Joe Biden on Friday of distorting his proposal to provide single-payer, universal health care through “Medicare for All.”
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true
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Health, General News, Universal health care, Joe Biden, Carson City, Campaigns, Election 2020, Medicare, Politics, Bernie Sanders, Nevada
|
Campaigning in the early caucus state of Nevada, the 78-year-old Vermont senator said one of the things that disturbed him about Thursday’s debate was that he was hoping “to have a serious discussion about the health care crisis in America.” “I was not pleased that Vice President Biden distorted what Medicare for All is and, in fact, simply parroted the line coming from the health care industry,” Sanders told about 300 people at a town hall meeting at the Carson City Community Center gymnasium. “Apparently the vice president thinks it is just wonderful for people to be paying $1,000 a month ... just for health care premiums. Having deductibles of $4,000 or $5,000 or more — not a problem. Paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs — not a problem. Well, I think those are problems,” he said. Sanders took heavy fire on his single-payer health insurance proposal at Thursday night’s debate in Houston, with Biden and others hammering the Vermont senator for the cost and the political palatability of effectively eliminating the existing private insurance market. The former vice president went hardest at Sanders when the senator argued that the estimated $30 trillion cost over a decade is cheaper than the “status quo,” which he put at $50 trillion — with most of the money being what Americans spend privately on premiums, copays and out-of-pocket costs. Sanders’ argument is that most U.S. households would pay less overall under his system, even if their taxes go up. Biden said that Sanders would effectively be handing Americans a pay cut, arguing that employers who now pay a share of workers’ premiums would pocket that money instead of giving workers raises if the government were to cover all health care costs. Biden punctuated the point with one of the quotes of the night: “For a socialist, you’ve got a lot more confidence in corporate America than I do.” Biden has aggressively defended the Affordable Care Act that was created while he was vice president under President Barack Obama. Biden released a proposal in July to add a “public option” to the 2010 health care overhaul, with expanded coverage paid for by tax increases on the wealthiest Americans. Sanders repeated his refrain Friday that health care is a human right and that Medicare for All would cover every man, woman and child in the country. It requires no premiums, no deductibles and no out-of-pocket costs and would expand Medicare to include such things as dental care, hearing aids and home health care, he said. “It’s not a terribly radical idea because in one form or another it exists in countries all over the world, including Canada,” Sanders said. “Is it free? No. It is funded out of the general fund in a progressive manner.” Sanders said the primary function of the existing American health care system — the costliest in the world — is to make profits for drug and insurance companies. Sanders and a supporter of President Donald Trump — who said he recently lost his insurance and job — initially shouted over each other when Sanders asked for input from the audience. But they eventually put their arms around each other as Sanders asked him to help deliver the message to health care corporations and pharmaceutical drug companies that “the function of health care is to provide quality care to all of these people.” Sanders dismissed others who suggested Medicare for All would prevent people from selecting their own doctor. “You can go to any doctor you want,” Sanders said. “Anybody who tells you Medicare for All limits your choices of doctors are not telling you the truth.” Sanders lost the 2016 Democratic caucuses in Nevada to Hillary Clinton 55% to 45% primarily because of her strength in Las Vegas and Clark County but has maintained fierce support in the key Western swing state. He carried northern Nevada’s Washoe County, where he drew loud cheers later Friday from hundreds of students at an outdoor “College For All” rally on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno. He also planned to campaign Saturday in Las Vegas.
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24170
|
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said this week that the Democrats have to pass their terrible health care bill so that the American people can actually find out what's in it.
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Texas GOP says Speaker Nancy Pelosi said people will know contents of terrible health-care plan after it passes
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true
|
Health Care, Texas, Republican Party of Texas,
|
"The Republican Party of Texas marveled — not in a good way — at an admission of sorts by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the long-stalled health care overhaul before Congress. According to an e-mail the GOP sent Friday, Pelosi said “the Democrats have to pass their terrible health care bill so that the American people can actually find out what's in it.” Talk about a banana-peel moment. Did Pelosi improbably denigrate her party’s promised legislation and say people can find out what’s in it after it passes? GOP spokesman Bryan Preston pointed us to the text of Pelosi’s March 9 speech in Washington to the National Association of Counties. We learned, for starters, that while the Texas GOP thinks the legislation is terrible, Pelosi clearly doesn't. Instead, Pelosi's remarks celebrate aspects such as a ban on denying health coverage because of a pre-existing conditions, “robust support for public health infrastructure,” more spending on community health centers and reductions in uncompensated care by hospitals. Pelosi also says in the speech that the plan won't require anyone to pay a deductible for preventive health care doctor visits. She summarizes: “It’s going to be very, very exciting.” Yet there’s heft to the GOP's claim that Pelosi said the legislation has to pass so people can find out what’s in it. Pelosi adds: “But we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy.” Pelosi's words stirred critics from the right including Marguerite Higgins, a senior editorial services associate at The Heritage Foundation. In a blog, Higgins named the moment the video of the week and called Pelosi’s statement a “stunning demonstration of political condescension.” Separately, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly offered this interpretation of Pelosi's comment: ""She meant there was so much talk about process (in Congress) that people have lost sight of what’s actually in the bill. Once it’s passed, we can remind them of all the good things that are in it."" Capital fusses aside, we wondered if Pelosi spoke accurately; will the plan need to pass before people know what's in it? We called the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which has posted side-by-side comparisons online of health care plans approved by the House and Senate. Its spokesman, Craig Palosky, reminded us that Congress posts the entire legislation online. Of course, that's not to say the final deal is settled — or, it stands to reason, open to public view. Palosky declined to comment precisely on Pelosi's forecast, saying her comment seemed more about politics than policy. ""It’s not our role to police such comments,"" he said. ""If you want to know what members of Congress are doing, you have to speak to members of Congress.” His nudge led us to call U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, among a handful of physicians in Congress and an opponent to the Democrats' proposal. Burgess told us it's often true that the ins and outs of legislation aren't widely known until after a measure passes into law; that held true, for instance, for the Republican-steered measure providing government aid toward prescription drugs for seniors. Pelosi's ""right,"" Burgess said, though ""I don’t think that’s a good strategy (to declare as much). I wouldn’t recommend anyone actually broadcasting that."" So how does the GOP's statement shake out? The party's e-mail errs when it makes it sound as if Pelosi thinks the health-care measure is terrible. It's very much the opposite. But it accurately quotes Pelosi as saying people will find out what's in the plan after it passes."
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5694
|
8 vaping lung illness cases reported in Oregon.
|
State health officials say three additional cases of severe lung illnesses linked to vaping have been reported, bringing the total to eight.
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true
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Kate Brown, Health, Oregon, Vaping, Jay Inslee
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The Oregon Health Authority said last week that two Oregon victims had died. That escalation prompted the state, lawmakers and Gov. Kate Brown to launch a barrage of anti-vaping messaging, including calls for action. The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the five victims Oregon officials reported last week all shopped at legal retail marijuana stores. A health authority spokesman did not say if the three new cases did, too. The state on Friday proposed a six-month ban on vaping products, part of a six-point list of options for the governor’s consideration for stemming the tide of vaping-related illnesses. Last week, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee directed the state Board of Health to exercise its emergency authority to ban all flavored vaping products, including those with THC. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said as of Sept. 27 there were 805 confirmed and probable cases nationwide. ___ Information from: The Oregonian/OregonLive, http://www.oregonlive.com
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11213
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Researchers close in on a blood test for Alzheimer's disease
|
Those who communicate research results about devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s should be prepared to present data to help readers assess the scope of the advances that are announced. This news release failed to deliver any such data. Worse, it catapulted beyond Alzheimer’s to say that the blood test being researched had shown promise in Parkinson’s, MS and breast cancer – without anything to back that up. We have been down this road so many times in the past – with news releases or news stories claiming an imminent test for Alzheimer’s disease. We – and we think the general public – become numb to the news. And that is unfortunate.
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false
|
Alzheimer's disease,Association/Society news release
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Our longstanding policy is that if it’s not too early to use such phrases as “nearing development of a blood test” or “closing in on a blood test” – as this story does – then it’s not to early to give at least a ballpark estimate of what this supposedly imminent test would cost. There is no discussion of cost in this story, No details are given about how the test has performed. Nothing about sensitivity or specificity. If the test is “nearing development,” the researcher should be able to provide positive and negative predictive values – the best measures to judge the performance of such a test. How many people who test positive really have the disease, and how many who test negative don’t? Then, in this data-free zone in which this news release resides, it goes even further beyond Alzheimer’s to say that “the blood test has also shown promise in detecting other diseases, including Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and breast cancer.” Again, without a shred of evidence provided. Without discussing sensitivity or specificity, the news release gives no picture of the potential for false positives or false negatives – always potential harms with any test. The news release provides no idea of the research results that lead to statements that the test is “close” or “nearing development.” There is no disease mongering of Alzheimer’s disease in the release. Two funding sources for the research are disclosed. If you simply looked on our website, searching for past news about supposedly imminent Alzheimer’s tests, you would get dizzy going down the trail of past promises. Much less if you did a literature search. This story provides no context about other work in the field, while providing no information about how the performance of this test sets its apart from others. What does “closing in on a blood test” mean? What does “nearing development of a blood test” mean? Does it mean a month? A year? A decade? And on what basis are these crystal ball predictions made? No information is provided to establish the novelty of this particular research approach, compared with myriad other research studies pursuing possible tests for Alzheimer’s. We find it unacceptable to drop in this completely-unsupported-by-any-evidence line in the middle of the news release: “The blood test developed by Dr. Nagele has also shown promise in detecting other diseases, including Parkinsons’s, multiple sclerosis and breast cancer.”
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7101
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UPMC partners to expand cancer care network in Ireland.
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The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is expanding its cancer care network in Ireland by entering a partnership on a new radiation therapy center in the country.
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true
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Radiation therapy, Cancer, Health, Pittsburgh, Ireland, University of Pittsburgh, Joint ventures
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UPMC announced its collaboration with Bon Secours Health System on a joint venture to expand the Maryland-based nonprofit’s campus in Cork, Ireland. The six-story facility will begin offering radiation therapy for cancer patients beginning in 2019. It will be the second radiation center operated by UPMC in Ireland. UPMC opened its first, the Whitfield Cancer Centre in Waterford, in 2006. That facility was the hospital system’s first international cancer center. Bon Secours is Ireland’s biggest independent hospital group. They operate hospitals in Cork, Dublin, Galway and Tralee. UPMC also manages a cancer radiation center in Rome, Italy.
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29973
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"Anthony Hanes was mugged in a ""drug dealing neighborhood"" while doing an online challenge inspired by the movie ""Bird Box."" "
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While this story may have been nothing more than a spoof, some people have truly been hurt while undertaking the “Bird Box Challenge. Needless to say, running around blindfolded isn’t the safest activity, and some of these challenge videos ended with people falling over or running into walls.
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false
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Junk News
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The Netflix horror film Bird Box, starring Sandra Bullock, featured characters who must make a journey blindfolded in order to avoid seeing monsters who will otherwise drive them to suicide by taking the form of their worst fears. Not long after the movie’s December 2018, viewers began engaging in a “Bird Box challenge” that involved creating videos of themselves making their way around blindfolded (sometimes for up to 24 hours) and posting the results to social media tagged #BirdBoxChallenge: So prevalent was the phenomenon that NetFlix tweeted out a plea for participants not to hurt themselves in performing the challenge: Can’t believe I have to say this, but: PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE. We don’t know how this started, and we appreciate the love, but Boy and Girl have just one wish for 2019 and it is that you not end up in the hospital due to memes. — Netflix US (@netflix) January 2, 2019 The entertainment website Huzlers took advantage of the hoopla surrounding the film and the resulting social media phenomenon by publishing an article reporting that a man named Anthony Hanes had been mugged after accidentally wandering into bad neighborhood while making a “Bird Box Challenge” video: Man Doing ‘Bird Box Challenge’ Gets Jumped And Mugged In Hood #BirdBoxChallenge Netflix’s new horror film “Bird Box” has people online attempting a new kind of challenge: going around blindfolded. The movie has spawned the internet sensation known as the #BirdBoxChallenge, with some people poking fun at the film. Anthony Hanes tried to do the challenge himself and ended up in a drug dealing neighborhood know [sic] robberies. Anthony says all he remembers is someone screaming “WORLD STAR! !” as he was attacked and robbed by criminals. No one has yet been arrested but Anthony Hanes told police he knew it was a bad idea. This story about Anthony Hanes getting mugged was just a bit of fake news, however. One red flag: The story didn’t mention where the alleged incident took place, referencing only a generic “drug dealing neighborhood.” Another red flag could be spotted in the footer ofHuzlers.com, where the site identifies itself as a satirical publication: “Huzlers is the most infamous fauxtire & satire entertainment website in the world. If it’s trending on social media you’ll find it here!”
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34312
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One or more U.S. presidents (or members of their families) kept live alligators either in the White House or on its grounds.
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Both visitors declared the alligators to be veritable mascots, and after a little persuasion they induced Mr. Harrison to go out to Bennings with them after each of the trio had rubbed fat pocket-books across the scaly backs of the saurians, the latter apparently enjoying the sensation and craving more. There were six races on the program when the party from the White House reached the pool lawn and began to invest their money, but somehow luck seemed to be dead against them. Not only did they fail to name winners in any of the six events, but they were equally unfortunate in their selections of horses for a place, and none of them believe now in alligators as harbingers of good fortune.
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unproven
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History, alligators, Benjamin Harrison, Herbert Hoover
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President Donald Trump won the 2016 election by promising, in part, to “drain the swamp” in Washington, D.C., a vow that prompted GOP pundit Newt Gingrich to serve notice on fellow Washingtonians that “the alligators should be worried.” They were speaking metaphorically, of course, about Trump’s intention to rid the federal government of corruption and waste. Still, it reminded us of a more literal claim about alligators in the nation’s capital, namely the oft-repeated “fun fact” that at least two previous chief executives, John Quincy Adams and Herbert Hoover, kept alligators as pets on the White House grounds. It has become a very popular trope on social media: Happy Presidents’ Day. Did you know John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the United States, had an #alligator in the White House? It was a gift from Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette. Visit #MightyMike 🐊 in Gator Alley. #WINTERinCincy pic.twitter.com/cX2zpcC06Q — Newport Aquarium (@NewportAquarium) February 19, 2018 Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette received many gifts and honors during his tour of the 24 states in 1824 and 1825, but probably none more unusual than an alligator. […] Now what exactly does one do with the gift of a live alligator, you might ask? Well, apparently if you are a French general who led troops alongside George Washington and fought in several crucial battles including the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania and the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia, you bring the animal with you to the White House. Unfortunately, we don’t know what President and Mrs. John Quincy Adams’s initial reactions were to this unusual re-gifting. (Where’s YouTube when you need it?) However, we do know that President Adams did what any president should do: He lodged the gator in the White House’s unfinished East Room and its nearby bathtub. […] Large reptiles made another appearance a century later at the White House during the Depression, during Herbert Hoover’s presidency in the early 1930s. Hoover’s younger son, Allan, had two pet alligators that frequented the White House grounds, amazing and quite possibly terrifying guests. Finding no sources cited in the article, we decided to look into both stories for ourselves, beginning with the tale of Gen. Lafayette re-gifting an alligator to John Quincy Adams. We weren’t surprised to learn that it’s been making the rounds for more than a hundred years. Among the pre-Internet mentions we encountered was a variant in the 1958 book The White House and Its Thirty-Three Families, by Amy La Follette Jensen, suggesting that the creature wasn’t so much a gift to the White House as an item temporarily stored there: Most of the excitement [in the Adams White House] came from visiting diplomats, and throughout July and August of 1825, visitors had the thrill of meeting General Lafayette. The General, who was making the White House his headquarters that summer, had left his live alligator in the East Room until he could find a suitable home for it, and was also using the room as a storehouse for the gifts that had been bestowed on him. They were piled haphazardly in the comers and on sofas and chairs. An equally brief account appeared 70 years before that (in 1888) in an article by Harriet Taylor Upton in the children’s magazine Wide Awake: When General Lafayette made his visit there, this famous East Room was given up to him to deposit the many curiosities sent him, some live alligators being among them. We were unable to locate any earlier published references to Lafayette and his alligators, a result confirmed by presidential history blogger Howard Dorre, who reports finding no primary sources confirming the anecdote at all. Though he concedes that the story could be true, Dorre feels the paucity of evidence points in the other direction: I doubt that renowned suffragist Harriet Taylor Upton made up the story. So where did she get it? We may never know. But the timespan from when it would have happened to when she wrote about it and the utter lack of corroborating accounts are too much to ignore. We agree with Dorre, and rate the John Quincy Adams story “Unproven.” As to the claim that alligators roamed the White House grounds during Herbert Hoover’s administration, we can report more definitively that it is false. Here’s how that story was synopsized in a 1997 syndicated trivia column by L.M. Boyd: Q. Name the U.S. President who sometimes let a couple of pet alligators loose to wander from room to room in the White House. A. That was Herbert Hoover’s son, Allan, according to the historical footnotes. There’s a wee grain of truth in that (as we learned from the blog of the Herbert Hoover Library and Museum), but the fact is that Hoover’s son, who graduated from Stanford University the same year his father was elected and went straight from there to Harvard Business School, never resided at the White House. Allan was fascinated by alligators as a young man, to be sure, and even raised two as pets, according to Herbert Hoover himself: Herbert Hoover makes reference to the alligators in the second volume of his memoirs: “Allan was still in the stage of adventure where all sorts of animals must be accumulated. By providing food and water for birds, he induced scores of them to daily visit us. He also provided them quarters by hanging gourds in trees. Two dogs and two cats were necessary, and among the transitory possessions were two ducks which he trained to sit on the front porch to the infinite entertainment of passers-by. A selection of land turtles gathered from the woods was all right; but two small alligators, presented to him by Clarence Woolley, were somewhat of a trial, for Allan believed they must be bedded at night in the bathtubs.” At this time Hoover was living at 2300 S Street in Washington, DC and Allan was roughly fourteen years old. But Allan Hoover divested himself of both specimens shortly thereafter, when his interest in reptiles gave way to stamp collecting. According to the 1922 annual report of the Smithsonian Institution, one “Allen [sic] Hoover” donated two alligators that year to the National Zoological Park in Washington. His father wouldn’t move into the White House until 1929. Parenthetically, our research uncovered at least two other reported instances of alligators taking up residency in the executive mansion, both predating the Hoover story. We can’t disprove these accounts, mind you, but given the journalistic standards of the day it would be wise to take them with a grain of salt. The first is an Associated Press item, dated 9 February 1921, announcing the impending arrival of a new White House pet in the company of President-elect Warren G. Harding: Florida Alligator Will Be White House Pet A Florida alligator with a six-foot smile, more or less, is to succeed as White House pet President Taft’s famous cow, Pauline, the pony that rode in an elevator in President Roosevelt’s administration, and more recently, President Wilson’s flock of lawn mowing sheep. Senator Trammell carried word to White House offices today that President-elect Harding had already accepted a “fair sized ‘gator” from Henry Hennett, of Jacksonville. And, lastly, here is our favorite alligators-in-the-White-House story, as told in 1890 (the second year of President Benjamin Harrison’s term in office) by the Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune, via the San Francisco Chronicle: Russell Harrison’s Alligator Didn’t Influence His Friends’ Luck. When Russell Harrison returned from his recent trip to Florida he brought with him two alligators as an addition to the White House pets. Members of the family in the Executive Mansion did not take very kindly to the new animals, however, and they were place in an ordinary tin foot-tub and consigned to the conservatory, which is connected with the main floor of the mansion. With a red brick to remind them of the St. John’s river banks, and amid clusters of oranges, growing upon trees in the conservatory, the alligators seem perfectly at home, and apparently in thriving condition. Among those to whom Russell Harrison exhibited his pets during the races now in progress at Bennings were W.J. Arkell and Artist Gillam of Judge, both of whom are interested in one of the stables of horses at the track.
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15673
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Medicaid patients were 97 percent more likely to die than those with private insurance.
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"Corcoran said, ""Medicaid patients were 97 percent more likely to die than those with private insurance."" Corcoran was citing a 2010 University of Virginia study that looked at Medicaid patients who underwent surgery, not all people in the program. Experts we spoke to -- including one of the study’s authors -- said it’s a misleading statistic to cite. While it’s accurate to say Medicaid patients who undergo operations have higher odds of dying than those with private insurance, it’s because they are sicker and tend to wait until the last minute for care, not because the program is inadequate. Other studies show using Medicaid improves access and quality of life for many patients, or at the very least doesn’t hurt them."
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false
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Health Care, Medicaid, State Budget, Florida, Richard Corcoran,
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"Constituents demanding a solution to the Legislature’s budget impasse over Medicaid expansion have been emailing Rep. Richard Corcoran, who has been telling voters that the federal program is dangerous for its patients. Several PolitiFact Florida readers have sent in an email response from the Land O’ Lakes Republican, who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and the Joint Legislative Budget Commission. In his reply, Corcoran decries the already high enrollment and expense of Medicaid, the joint state and federal health care program for the very poor, as a reason to not accept federal expansion money under the Affordable Care Act. ""Unfortunately, those Floridians belong to a troubled delivery system,"" Corcoran wrote. ""The largest national study, conducted by the University of Virginia, found that Medicaid patients were 97 percent more likely to die than those with private insurance. Expanding coverage through a health care program that delivers questionable care is not a public policy that Florida should embrace."" Saying patients are twice as likely to die is an eye-opening statistic to cite when arguing against Medicaid, implying not only is the program delivering substandard care, it’s actually bad for patients. We wondered if the federal plan was really to blame for such a high mortality rate. What we found is that if you’re on Medicaid and you have surgery, the study Corcoran cited did say you are more likely to die -- but it’s probably not because you’re using Medicaid to pay for treatment. The Virginia study The University of Virginia study was published in 2010, and followed the patient outcomes of almost 900,000 major surgeries across the country. That’s different than the Medicaid population as a whole. It also kept track of whether those patients had private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid or no insurance at all. The eight researchers adjusted for patient health care and population variables like age, income, where they lived, the type of hospital they were in, what kind of operation they were having and more. The results showed Medicaid patients were the most at-risk, and were 1.97 times more likely to die following a procedure than a patient with private insurance. That’s where Corcoran got his percentage, although experts we talked to said it was misleading to use as a reference. Medicaid patients also were more likely to die after a procedure than Medicare patients (1.54 more than insured patients) and even the uninsured (1.74 times). Medicaid recipients also had the highest total costs and longest hospital stays, although mortality rates varied depending on a variety of factors. So does that mean Medicaid is the culprit for the higher odds of patient deaths? Not at all, University of Virginia School of Medicine professor and cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Irving Kron (rhymes with ""phone"") told us. Kron was one of the researchers for the study. While it does adjust for socioeconomic factors, the study notes that if you’re on Medicaid, you’re probably suffering from a whole host of risk factors other categories of patients don’t have, he said. Medicaid recipients are the poorest, least educated and sickest of all patients, and often don’t seek medical help until conditions are at their worst. Those patients have the highest incidence of AIDS, depression, liver disease, neurologic disorders, psychoses and metastatic cancer, the study said. ""The reality is it’s apples and oranges,"" Kron said. ""The problem with Medicaid is there’s more emergencies, because they’re sicker than most people. … They wait for care and unfortunately, emergent patients don’t do as well as elective patients."" Kron said the study focused on whether socioeconomic status was a factor in medical treatment, which it clearly was, and not on the quality of the systems paying for health care. Corcoran insisted the study proved him right. ""My point was that Medicaid is a subpar health care delivery system,"" Corcoran said via email. ""The University of Virginia study supports that conclusion."" The study does include a caveat that there is a possible ""system bias"" that gives privately insured people access to better hospitals and doctors. ""For many surgical patients, private insurance status often allows for referral to expert surgeons for their disease. Alternatively, Medicaid and uninsured patients may have been referred to less skilled and less specialized surgeons,"" the study said. But Kron and health policy experts disagree with Corcoran’s takeaway. Leighton Ku, director of the Center for Health Policy Research for the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, said Medicaid patients are a very broad category that is tough to compare to others, even the uninsured. Echoing Kron’s concerns, he added that uninsured patients may elect to go without coverage and end up on Medicaid when they become sick, or that insured patients in the study may have reached lifetime policy limits and had to resort to Medicaid. ""As the researchers in the paper acknowledge, part of the reason that Medicaid is associated with higher mortality is that many people fall into Medicaid when they are very sick and impoverished,"" Ku said. Other reports Corcoran also directed us to a recent Oregon study that examined the difference between patients allowed to join expanded Medicaid rolls in a 2008 lottery versus others who did not get into the program. Over two years, the study found that while patients in the program initially reported feeling better, there was no real change in health indicators such as diabetes control, cholesterol or blood pressure. In essence, the research found Medicaid didn’t really improve physiological health, although patients said they felt better. That’s probably because they didn’t have to worry as much about getting treatment, Harvard health economist Ben Sommers said. People in the Oregon study did report better access to care and improvements in mental health. One thing it didn’t say, which Corcoran originally argued with the Virginia study, was that Medicaid hurt its patients. ""In any accounting, there is no evidence of people being worse off for having gotten Medicaid. Getting Medicaid is a major improvement over being uninsured in these studies,"" Sommers said. Sommers, who is a part-time adviser to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, helped research a report on the effects of Medicaid expansion programs in Arizona, Maine and New York. The team found patients in those states showed improved access to care, self-reported health and reduced mortality, compared to nearby states that didn’t expand Medicaid. Improvements were higher in minority and very low-income patients. He added that there are other reports that compare different primary payer categories to each other, but there was no evidence of what Corcoran implied in his email -- that Medicaid itself was to blame for the higher mortality rate by providing substandard care. ""To my knowledge there are no studies that examine the impact of states’ expanding Medicaid, or individuals going from uninsured to Medicaid, showing Medicaid to be harmful,"" Sommers said. Our ruling Corcoran said, ""Medicaid patients were 97 percent more likely to die than those with private insurance."" Corcoran was citing a 2010 University of Virginia study that looked at Medicaid patients who underwent surgery, not all people in the program. Experts we spoke to -- including one of the study’s authors -- said it’s a misleading statistic to cite. While it’s accurate to say Medicaid patients who undergo operations have higher odds of dying than those with private insurance, it’s because they are sicker and tend to wait until the last minute for care, not because the program is inadequate. Other studies show using Medicaid improves access and quality of life for many patients, or at the very least doesn’t hurt them."
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26262
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Facebook post Says Ron Johnson and 36 other senators “voted for federal agencies to have access to your internet history without obtaining a warrant.”
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There was a vote against requiring warrants, but it was to maintain the status quo, not create a new access requirement. This authority is nothing new. It’s been allowed for 20 years in foreign intelligence investigations, and is also allowed in basic criminal investigations -- all without a warrant. The vote referenced here applied only to Americans “relevant” to counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigation. Though a warrant isn’t needed, investigators still must get a court to sign off on the internet data access.
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false
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Homeland Security, Privacy Issues, Wisconsin, Facebook posts,
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"A viral Facebook post says Americans missed a big moment in privacy rights. Some provisions of the 2001 Patriot Act — which greatly expanded government intelligence gathering in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — expired earlier this year amid GOP gridlock. The legislation has drawn criticism over the breadth of surveillance it enables, particularly after classified documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed phone record metadata collected on a massive scale. The U.S. House reauthorized the three lapsed intelligence programs in March 2020, and the U.S. Senate passed its own version May 14 — making changes that sent the bill back to the House. Before final passage, though, the Senate by the narrowest of margins defeated an amendment that would have limited access to internet browser and search histories. This drew the ire of one Libertarian group, whose May 14, 2020, Facebook post on the subject has been shared almost 10,000 times. This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook). The post from Being Libertarian named the senators who opposed the amendment — including House Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, both Republicans — and said this: ""Here's the list of senators who sold out your freedoms. They all voted for federal agencies to have access to your internet history without obtaining a warrant."" But this statement is misleading in its simplicity. Access isn't as easy or widespread as that implies — or even a new thing. The statement implies this was a vote to enable internet history access without a warrant, but the government has actually been able to do that for nearly 20 years. That was among many powers granted by the 2001 Patriot Act. Section 215 can be used to compel third parties (such as internet service providers) to produce information related to intelligence investigations (not law enforcement investigations). This has long been considered compatible with the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure, since the Supreme Court has said since the 1970s that protection does not apply to records held by third parties, according to Robert Chesney, director of the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He noted this interpretation is now ""under pressure,"" but still in place. Section 215 allows government investigators to obtain internet browsing history or search queries, but there are several limitations, Chesney said. For an American, this can only be used to obtain web history related to a counterterrorism or counterintelligence investigation. (For a foreign person, any foreign-intelligence purpose can justify access to online history.) The request must be approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, made up of 11 federal judges from around the country. The court was established by Congress through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to approve electronic surveillance, physical search, and certain other forms of investigative actions for foreign intelligence purposes. The standard of proof to get such approval under Section 215 is somewhere between a subpoena and a search warrant, said Stewart Baker, a former general counsel of the National Security Agency who edited a book on the Patriot Act. ""Like a warrant, it requires the approval of a court (subpoenas often don’t),"" he said in an email. ""But unlike a warrant, the standard for granting access to records under Section 215 is ‘reasonable’ cause to believe the records are ‘relevant’ to a national security investigation."" This is short of the ""probable cause"" standard needed for the court to authorize a wiretap or physical search. The U.S. Department of Justice makes all government appearances in the surveillance court, though they use supporting documentation from the FBI and NSA, Baker said. We should also note the foreign intelligence court has come under fire after recent revelations. A December 2019 report from the DOJ’s independent watchdog, Michael Horowitz, found ""at least 17 significant errors or omissions"" in warrant applications related to Carter Page, Donald Trump’s campaign adviser. An ensuing review in March 2020 of 29 randomly selected wiretap requests revealed the FBI could not locate supporting documentation for four, and the other 25 each contained ""apparent errors or inadequately supported facts."" In 2019, the court received 1,010 applications for investigative action, of which it granted 688, modified 264 and denied in whole or part only 58, according to its annual report. It’s not clear how often the federal government has used Section 215 to obtain browsing history, NBC News reported on May 15, 2020. They said tech companies are legally prohibited from detailing national security requests they receive. The bill before Congress reauthorizes intelligence gathering that Congress first authorized decades ago through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The Senate passed its version 80-16 on May 14, 2020, after voting down two amendments — one to prevent surveillance act authority from being used against Americans and one to prevent the government from obtaining internet browsing and search history without a warrant (the one referenced in the claim). One of the sponsors of the warrant amendment, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, called Section 215 ""the most controversial and dangerous provision"" of the surveillance act. ""There is little information that is more personal than your web browsing history,"" Wyden, a Democrat who sponsored the amendment, told Vox.com for a May 13, 2020, story. ""If you know that a person is visiting the website of a mental health professional, or a substance abuse support group, or a particular political organization, or a particular dating site, you know a tremendous amount of private and personal. … This level of surveillance absolutely ought to require a warrant."" The measure gathered bipartisan support but fell one vote short of passage, 59-37. Such amendments require a 60-vote threshold. All of which brings us, finally, back to the claim that 27 Republicans and 10 Democrats in the Senate ""voted for federal agencies to have access to your internet history without obtaining a warrant."" Firstly, this implies the senators voted to actively allow this, when in fact the vote was against banning it. In other words, they voted to maintain the status quo. The reference to ""your internet history"" implies this is a widespread action allowing some kind of sweeping internet data-gathering, in the vein of the phone datamining Snowden revealed. But Section 215 allows this internet data gathering only in relation to foreign intelligence, international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities investigation. The post also implies unfettered access, when in fact government investigators must get a court to sign off on obtaining this data — even if getting approval requires a lower threshold than a warrant. Finally, the Facebook post leaves readers with the impression this is an unusual allowance. But gathering internet data without a warrant is already widely allowable under basic criminal law. ""Under criminal law, browser history can be obtained if relevant to any criminal investigation,"" Baker said. ""That’s probably the best reason not to adopt this (amendment). It makes no sense to say that no warrant or judicial review is needed to obtain such records in an investigation of securities fraud, but one is needed to investigate and try to stop an act of terrorism."" The House and Senate versions of the surveillance act include a provision specifying Section 215 doesn’t go beyond what can be used in criminal investigations, Baker noted. It says the government cannot seek an order in circumstances where ""a warrant would be required for law enforcement purposes."" The page that created the viral post did not respond to requests for comment, and the libertarian group the post credited as a source declined to provide supporting evidence. A viral Facebook post names 37 senators it says voted to allow ""access to your internet history without obtaining a warrant."" There was indeed a vote against requiring warrants, but the fundamental implication in this post is that it enabled widespread and unrestricted access to Americans’ web activity. And that’s not accurate. This data can only be obtained for an American after approval from a federal court, and only if it is related to a counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigation. And this authority is nothing new — this power relative to foreign intelligence was granted almost 20 years ago under the Patriot Act. And similar data is accessible without a warrant in standard criminal investigations as well. So we’re left with an element of truth, but a claim that ignores critical facts that would give a different impression."
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8955
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New cancer vaccine shows early promise for patients with HER2-positive cancers
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This release describes a phase 1 safety trial using a modified vaccine that researchers said showed a clinical benefit in some patients diagnosed with metastatic HER2 positive cancers. None of the 11 patients in the trial had previously been treated with standard therapies. The study was presented at a recent medical conference on immunotherapy. The release makes projections about the “promise” of the study results although phase 1 trials are fundamentally designed to assess safety and toxicity from different dosages. This trial had no control group with which to compare results. The release makes mention of these limitations but not until the very last sentence. Using immunotherapy through vaccines to combat breast cancer is an emerging area that in mice studies have shown some promising results. However, this study was a phase I clinical trial which is focused on a drug’s safety. It’s unclear what the outcomes in the human patients really mean without a comparison control group to truly understand what this vaccine could contribute in terms of treatment of metastatic cancer.
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mixture
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American Association for Cancer Research,cancer vaccine,HER2
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The release noted that the vaccines were individually customized using each person’s immune cells. That technology does not sound cheap yet there was no discussion of cost. The release explains that six of 11 patients had a complete response, partial response, or stable disease using the experimental treatment. To the lay audience, it’s not clear what is meant by these different levels of response. Also, this is a phase 1 trial which is testing the safety of the vaccine and not focused or powered to compare benefits with current available treatments. The only harm mentioned in the release was some injection site discomfort. The release also mentioned that the patients were tested to see if there was cardiotoxicity (heart dysfunction or muscle damage) and none was found. The release gives a fairly detailed description of the study protocol, and dosing in particular. The release described the limitations of the current study at the very end of the release, notably that since it was a phase 1 trial it had a small sample size and there was no control group to compare the results. The release did not engage in disease mongering. It provides brief background on what HER2 cancer is and how it drives the growth of different types of cancer, including breast, ovarian, lung, colorectal, and gastroesophageal. The release notes that the research was funded by the National Cancer Institute at NIH. The study abstract states the lead scientist declared no conflicts of interest. No alternatives were mentioned in the release. The only focus was on the current phase 1 clinical trial results. There was no discussion of the availability, although with it being a phase 1 clinical trial, you can assume that it is not available yet. There was no mention about scaling this work since the vaccine was produced using each individual’s immune cells to create the vaccine. It’s unclear if the trial moves forward and enrolls more subjects, how difficult (or costly) it would be to bring this method of treatment to a wider audience. Although using immunotherapy to combat cancer is becoming a well known field, the approach the authors are taking with this treatment appears to be novel. The release also mentions how the vaccine was previously studied in animal models. The release does not rely on unjustifiable language.
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10027
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A nervy approach to weight loss
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This was a story about an approach to augment weight loss involving manipulation of the vagus nerve that is currently under very limited investigation. While containing cost estimates for the approaches discussed, the story was rather vague about the risks and benefits of these means to weight loss. The story provided little detail that would enable an interested reader to pursue more in depth information about these techniques. While the story contained some discussion about historical precedent that suggested that disturbance of the vagal nerve could be utilized for the purpose of encouraging weight loss, the story did not include data about the efficacy of these approaches, whether such information had actually been compiled, or whether this approach to weight loss was entirely speculative. This is an important oversight. When comparing a medical device to disrupt neural signaling along the vagus nerve with surgical severing of the vagus nerve, the story did mention that surgical severing was irreversible and did discuss that implanting a device to disrupt the nerve involved having a foreign object within the body. However beyond these two suggested problems, the story was lacking in discussion for the role of the vagus nerve in the body. The vagus nerve is involved in far more than just mediating food intake; affecting it could have serious impacts on digestive system and on the cardiovascular system as well. There was insufficient comment from objective experts on weight loss who might have been able to provide some perspective for the relative merit or interest in this avenue of research. There was only a one line comment from Dr. Samuel Klein of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis predicting that vagotomy may produce only temporary weight loss. Better balance in sources – or in space provided them – was needed.
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mixture
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The story included cost estimates for the procedures mentioned. The story mentioned a study by a doctor of 30 people, involving a device that interfered with vagal nerve transmission in which 80% of the people lost 30% of their excess weight in the first six months. As the story mentioned that this was done in 2005 and it is currently 2008. One wonders what the long term weight loss for these people was. A query of the National Institutes of Health medical library database (PubMed) using the name of the doctor and vagus nerve failed to find any published report of this study. Was the weight loss only temporary? Beyond this information, there was no information on the amount of weight that might be lost using the techniques or procedures affecting the vagus nerve or whether weight loss with a method of this nature would be temporary or long term. The discussion of harms was much too brief, and with only the presentation of glowing anecdotes, readers might walk away with an imbalanced and incomplete view of harms and benefits. When comparing a medical device to disrupt neural signaling along the vagus nerve with surgical severing of the vagus nerve, the story did mention that surgical severing was irreversible and did discuss that implanting a device to disrupt the nerve involved having a foreign object within the body. However beyond these two suggested problems, the story was lacking in discussion for the role of the vagus nerve in the body. The vagus nerve is involved in far more than just mediating food intake; affecting it could have serious impacts on digestive system and on the cardiovascular system as well. An inadequate job was done exploring the ramifications of damaging the vagus nerve. The story included anecdotes from several individuals who had had procedures that disrupt the signal from the vagus nerve; these people attested to their perception that the procedure had better enabled them to lose weight. (One of the individuals interviewed claimed to have lost 20 pounds since December. Interestingly, as this piece was written at the start of June, this works out to around 4 lbs per month. There was no discussion about this magnitude of weight loss.) While the story contained some discussion about historical precedent that suggested that disturbance of the vagal nerve could be utilized for the purpose of encouraging weight loss, the story did not include data about the efficacy of these approaches, whether such information had actually been compiled, or whether this approach to weight loss was entirely speculative. This is an important oversight. The story did not engage in disease mongering; in fact, the story was clear that these are treatments for obesity, not simply overweight. Several physicians involved in the use of devices to disrupt the vagal nerve for the purpose of weight loss and several individuals who had experienced weight loss using this type of methodology were interviewed for this story. There was insufficient comment from objective experts on weight loss who might have been able to provide some perspective for the relative merit or interest in this avenue of research. There was only a one line comment from Dr. Samuel Klein of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis predicting that vagotomy may produce only temporary weight loss. Better balance in sources – or in space provided them – was needed. Although this piece did not discuss other options, it was part of a series of reports by the paper that did discuss other options. The story made it clear that the newer (non-permanent) vagal nerve treatments are only available via clinical trials at this time. And the availability of vagotomy surgery (and gastric bypass) was also clear. It was clear from the story that the surgery was not new and which approaches were experimental. There are enough different sources used in this story that it is safe to assume that it did not rely on a news release.
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7391
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Chinese researcher claims first gene-edited babies.
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A Chinese researcher claims that he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies — twin girls born this month whose DNA he said he altered with a powerful new tool capable of rewriting the very blueprint of life.
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true
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AP Top News, Genetics, Hong Kong, Genetic Frontiers, Health, China, Science, Asia Pacific, United States, International News
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If true, it would be a profound leap of science and ethics. A U.S. scientist said he took part in the work in China, but this kind of gene editing is banned in the United States because the DNA changes can pass to future generations and it risks harming other genes. Many mainstream scientists think it’s too unsafe to try, and some denounced the Chinese report as human experimentation. The researcher, He Jiankui of Shenzhen, said he altered embryos for seven couples during fertility treatments, with one pregnancy resulting thus far. He said his goal was not to cure or prevent an inherited disease, but to try to bestow a trait that few people naturally have — an ability to resist possible future infection with HIV, the AIDS virus. He said the parents involved declined to be identified or interviewed, and he would not say where they live or where the work was done. There is no independent confirmation of He’s claim, and it has not been published in a journal, where it would be vetted by other experts. He revealed it Monday in Hong Kong to one of the organizers of an international conference on gene editing that is set to begin Tuesday, and earlier in exclusive interviews with The Associated Press. “I feel a strong responsibility that it’s not just to make a first, but also make it an example,” He told the AP. “Society will decide what to do next” in terms of allowing or forbidding such science. Some scientists were astounded to hear of the claim and strongly condemned it. It’s “unconscionable ... an experiment on human beings that is not morally or ethically defensible,” said Dr. Kiran Musunuru, a University of Pennsylvania gene editing expert and editor of a genetics journal. “This is far too premature,” said Dr. Eric Topol, who heads the Scripps Research Translational Institute in California. “We’re dealing with the operating instructions of a human being. It’s a big deal.” However, one famed geneticist, Harvard University’s George Church, defended attempting gene editing for HIV, which he called “a major and growing public health threat.” “I think this is justifiable,” Church said of that goal. In recent years scientists have discovered a relatively easy way to edit genes, the strands of DNA that govern the body. The tool, called CRISPR-cas9, makes it possible to operate on DNA to supply a needed gene or disable one that’s causing problems. It’s only recently been tried in adults to treat deadly diseases, and the changes are confined to that person. Editing sperm, eggs or embryos is different — the changes can be inherited. In the U.S., it’s not allowed except for lab research. China outlaws human cloning but not specifically gene editing. He Jiankui (HEH JEE’-an-qway), who goes by “JK,” studied at Rice and Stanford universities in the U.S. before returning to his homeland to open a lab at Southern University of Science and Technology of China in Shenzhen, where he also has two genetics companies. The university said He’s work “seriously violated academic ethics and standards” and planned to investigate. A spokesman for He confirmed that he has been on leave from teaching since early this year, but he remains on the faculty and has a lab at the school. The U.S. scientist who worked with him on this project after He returned to China was physics and bioengineering professor Michael Deem, who was his adviser at Rice in Houston. Deem also holds what he called “a small stake” in — and is on the scientific advisory boards of — He’s two companies. The Chinese researcher said he practiced editing mice, monkey and human embryos in the lab for several years and has applied for patents on his methods. He said he chose embryo gene editing for HIV because these infections are a big problem in China. He sought to disable a gene called CCR5 that forms a protein doorway that allows HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, to enter a cell. All of the men in the project had HIV and all of the women did not, but the gene editing was not aimed at preventing the small risk of transmission, He said. The fathers had their infections deeply suppressed by standard HIV medicines and there are simple ways to keep them from infecting offspring that do not involve altering genes. Instead, the appeal was to offer couples affected by HIV a chance to have a child that might be protected from a similar fate. He recruited couples through a Beijing-based AIDS advocacy group called Baihualin. Its leader, known by the pseudonym “Bai Hua,” told the AP that it’s not uncommon for people with HIV to lose jobs or have trouble getting medical care if their infections are revealed. Here is how He described the work: The gene editing occurred during IVF, or lab dish fertilization. First, sperm was “washed” to separate it from semen, the fluid where HIV can lurk. A single sperm was placed into a single egg to create an embryo. Then the gene editing tool was added. When the embryos were 3 to 5 days old, a few cells were removed and checked for editing. Couples could choose whether to use edited or unedited embryos for pregnancy attempts. In all, 16 of 22 embryos were edited, and 11 embryos were used in six implant attempts before the twin pregnancy was achieved, He said. Tests suggest that one twin had both copies of the intended gene altered and the other twin had just one altered, with no evidence of harm to other genes, He said. People with one copy of the gene can still get HIV, although some very limited research suggests their health might decline more slowly once they do. Several scientists reviewed materials that He provided to the AP and said tests so far are insufficient to say the editing worked or to rule out harm. They also noted evidence that the editing was incomplete and that at least one twin appears to be a patchwork of cells with various changes. “It’s almost like not editing at all” if only some of certain cells were altered, because HIV infection can still occur, Church said. Church and Musunuru questioned the decision to allow one of the embryos to be used in a pregnancy attempt, because the Chinese researchers said they knew in advance that both copies of the intended gene had not been altered. “In that child, there really was almost nothing to be gained in terms of protection against HIV and yet you’re exposing that child to all the unknown safety risks,” Musunuru said. The use of that embryo suggests that the researchers’ “main emphasis was on testing editing rather than avoiding this disease,” Church said. Even if editing worked perfectly, people without normal CCR5 genes face higher risks of getting certain other viruses, such as West Nile, and of dying from the flu. Since there are many ways to prevent HIV infection and it’s very treatable if it occurs, those other medical risks are a concern, Musunuru said. There also are questions about the way He said he proceeded. He gave official notice of his work long after he said he started it — on Nov. 8, on a Chinese registry of clinical trials. It’s unclear whether participants fully understood the purpose and potential risks and benefits. For example, consent forms called the project an “AIDS vaccine development” program. The Rice scientist, Deem, said he was present in China when potential participants gave their consent and that he “absolutely” thinks they were able to understand the risks. Deem said he worked with He on vaccine research at Rice and considers the gene editing similar to a vaccine. “That might be a layman’s way of describing it,” he said. Both men are physics experts with no experience running human clinical trials. The Chinese scientist, He, said he personally made the goals clear and told participants that embryo gene editing has never been tried before and carries risks. He said he also would provide insurance coverage for any children conceived through the project and plans medical follow-up until the children are 18 and longer if they agree once they’re adults. Further pregnancy attempts are on hold until the safety of this one is analyzed and experts in the field weigh in, but participants were not told in advance that they might not have a chance to try what they signed up for once a “first” was achieved, He acknowledged. Free fertility treatment was part of the deal they were offered. He sought and received approval for his project from Shenzhen Harmonicare Women’s and Children’s Hospital, which is not one of the four hospitals that He said provided embryos for his research or the pregnancy attempts. Some staff at some of the other hospitals were kept in the dark about the nature of the research, which He and Deem said was done to keep some participants’ HIV infection from being disclosed. “We think this is ethical,” said Lin Zhitong, a Harmonicare administrator who heads the ethics panel. Any medical staff who handled samples that might contain HIV were aware, He said. An embryologist in He’s lab, Qin Jinzhou, confirmed to the AP that he did sperm washing and injected the gene editing tool in some of the pregnancy attempts. The study participants are not ethicists, He said, but “are as much authorities on what is correct and what is wrong because it’s their life on the line.” “I believe this is going to help the families and their children,” He said. If it causes unwanted side effects or harm, “I would feel the same pain as they do and it’s going to be my own responsibility.” ___ AP science writer Christina Larson, video journalist Emily Wang and researcher Fu Ting contributed to this report from Beijing and Shenzhen, China. ___ This Associated Press series was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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33795
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Glen Eagles hospital issued an urgent warning because seven women have died after sniffing perfume samples received in the mail.
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“We sincerely hope that all members of the public who had read this email and our clarification will inform everyone around them that this is a hoax and urge everyone to ignore and delete such emails in the future,” she added.
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false
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Horrors, ISIS warnings, malaysia
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A warning about women killed by poisoned perfume samples surfaced in e-mail in mid-October 2001, a month after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and versions of it have periodically circulated since then in various online forms: Very Important ! URGENT News from Glen Eagles Hospital URGENT !!!!! Seven women have died after inhaling a free perfume sample that was mailed to them. The product was poisonous . If you receive free samples in the mail such as lotions, perfumes, diapers etc. throw them away . The government is afraid that this might be another terrorist act . They will not announce it in the news because they do not want to create panic or give the terrorists new ideas. Send this Fwd: to all your friends and family members. Diane J. Ford Office of the Chief of Police Office of Risk Management 101 M Street, SW Washington, DC There was nothing to the claim, and no such deaths occurred. Its premise that the government was keeping such news from the public so as not to cause panic was rather far-fetched, given that at the time Attorney General John Ashcroft was repeating vague warnings about further terrorist activity to come and the media’s fascination with reporting the anthrax spore mailings that eventually killed five people. Even if the government had the power to keep such news under wraps, is it at all reasonable to believe seven grieving families would have stayed completely silent about the deaths of their loved ones? By 2010, the alert had morphed into one warning against all manner of samples offered to consumers, either placed in their mailboxes or handed to them directly. At that time as well, Tide detergent samples were particularly singled out, usually with the assertion that they contained anthrax. By January 2012, the warning about Tide detergent samples was being spread by cell phone text message. These subsequent rumors were also false. This baseless bit of scarelore appeared to be a combination of two older, equally unfounded pieces of the same genre: the perfume robbers tale (women in parking lots lured into sniffing cut-rate perfume lose consciousness and are robbed while they’re out) and the Klingerman virus scare (blue virus-laden sponges mailed in envelopes marked “A gift for you from the Klingerman Foundation” have caused 23 deaths). But lore moves forward with the times, so this newer caution incorporated “terrorists” (presumably Middle Eastern) into the mix. One of the ways we cope with terrifying times is to try to fill in the gaps of the unknown. In frantic pursuit of this goal, misinformation and information are accorded almost the same weight, and rumors and “warnings” speed along on very fast feet indeed. Such heads up as this fallacious e-mail express not only fears about deadly substances arriving by mail, but they also help us feel better about having to live in such dangerous times through the reduction of a nebulous lurking threat to a matter of something that can be dealt with. “Beware of perfume samples” is far less indistinct (and thus far less unsettling) than “Beware of all mail,” let alone the anxiety-ridden reality of “We don’t know where, when, or how the next attack will occur, so be wary of everything.” In early 2002, this particular warning received a shot in the arm from having been passed through the County Attorney’s office of Harris County, Texas. Franchell Plummer, an administrative assistant working for that service received the e-mailed warning from a friend and unthinkingly forwarded it to others in the manner that so many do. Her signature block became incorporated into the alert, with many taking its presence there as a sign that the information contained in the warning had been vetted by a state attorney’s office and that indeed this was an official warning about a real and verified threat. It wasn’t real; it was a case of a low-level employee’s forwarding baseless scaremail to others. Ms. Plummer was officially reprimanded for her act, and the Harris County Attorney’s office disavowed the e-mail and told everyone who called to ask that it was a hoax. A version that completed with the tagline “JHU Office of Communications & Public Affairs” has been similarly disclaimed by that institution. According to Dennis O’Shea, executive director of communications and public affairs at The Johns Hopkins University, “This warning message was not issued by my office nor has my office in any way authorized it or any message like it.” In June 2010 a version of this hoax prefaced with an “URGENT News from Gleneagles Hospital” headline surfaced and was disseminated not only via e-mail but also through cell phone text messages and Facebook posts. The rumor spread widely enough that Gleneagles Hospital and Medical Centre (which is based in Singapore) posted a disclaimer on their web site: Recently, an email and short message service (SMS) has been circulating amongst members of the public pertaining to a poisonous perfume sample which caused the death of seven women upon inhalation and exposure. It was purportedly sent by a person who claimed to be an employee of Gleneagles Hospital Limited, on behalf of the hospital, in order to warn the public as these seven women were supposedly admitted and treated at Gleneagles Hospital. We understand the panic and mystification that this email has caused and the public’s need to seek verification and consolation from a reliable medical institution such as ours. Thus, we would like to highlight that we have never admitted or treated such patients and have never been aware of such incidences. We would also like to categorically state that this email did not originate from our Hospital and / or any of our employees, current or otherwise. In addition, we declare that no one was ever at any time commissioned or authorised by the Hospital to deliver and circulate such warnings. Further to this, we would also like to point out that our registered company name is Gleneagles Hospital (Kuala Lumpur) Sdn. Bhd. (Co. No. 198498-T) and we were never at any point known as Gleneagles Hospital Limited as claimed in the email. This email hoax first surfaced five years ago, and we had posted a statement on the GIMC website to clarify and inform members of the public that the contents of the email were a hoax. In view of the above, we sincerely hope that all members of the public who had read this email and our clarification will inform everyone around them that this is a hoax and urge everyone to ignore and delete such emails in the future. Thank you. A variant of this scare which began circulating in mid-2010 cautioned about mailed samples of Tide brand detergent supposedly containing anthrax. In January 2011, that scare was spread by text messages sent to cell phones, some of them asserting “It was on CNN today!” Those warnings were equally spurious — no such incidents have been reported (on CNN or elsewhere), and Tide company representatives stated that: I can 100% confirm that the text message going around is not true. From time to time people do this kind of thing as a prank, unfortunately there is little we can do other than to share the fact that this is completely unfounded. If you are concerned or want further reassurance please contact our Consumer Relations team on: 1-800-879-8433 On or around 12 April 2016, the warning (reproduced as images above) began circulating on Facebook. Once again, it held that “Glen Eagles” hospital had warned that seven women had died after inhaling perfume samples sent to them via mail. The warning was widely shared across the United States, despite most sharers not knowing what or where “Glen Eagles” hospital might be. Many versions of the claim added speculation that ISIS might be behind the attacks, or that the news media had kept a lid on the seven deaths so as not to inspire terrorism or cause panic. No dates, cause of death, mechanism of poisoning, or other details were provided about the purported tainted perfume samples and their relationship with “Glen Eagles,” nor did those warnings anyone explain why seven women and one hospital had been targeted in the scheme. In 2013, Malaysia’s My Star published an article about the recurring e-mail hoax and its move to social media: Gleneagles Hospital Kuala Lumpur has refuted a message that has been circulating via email and SMS claiming that a poisonous perfume sample caused the death of seven women upon inhalation and exposure in the Hospital. Gleneagles Hospital Kuala Lumpur Public Relations and Communications manager Adeline Abdul Ghani said on Friday that the email was a hoax and did not originate from the Hospital from any of its employees, current or otherwise. “We understand the panic and mystification that this email has caused and the public’s need to seek verification and consolation from a reliable medical institution such as ours … we would like to highlight that we have never admitted or treated such patients and have never been aware of such incidences,” she said in a statement. “We would also like to categorically state in addition, we declare that no one was ever at any time commissioned or authorised by the Hospital to deliver and circulate such warnings,” she added. “This email hoax first surfaced eleven years ago, and we will post a statement on the GKL website and Facebook to clarify and inform members of the public that the contents of the email were a hoax,” Adeline said.
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15522
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"Lincoln Chafee Says Ronald Reagan ""talked about"" converting the United States to the metric system."
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"Chafee said, ""Reagan talked about"" converting to the metric system. The issue of metrication rose at the very beginning and at the very end of Reagan’s presidency. However, Chafee’s statement implies that Reagan had more than a passing interest in the issue, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The metrication process started before Reagan took office. He slowed the process to a standstill by taking away funding. He was silent on the issue for the next six years until he signed a law that directed federal agencies to make a more concerted effort to transition to metric units when practical -- though it’s unclear how much influence Reagan’s White House had on that tiny aspect of a 1,000-page omnibus bill. Without this additional context, Chafee’s claim is off by a few yards. Or meters."
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mixture
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National, Government Regulation, Regulation, Lincoln Chafee,
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"When former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee announced he was joining the 2016 Democratic primary race, some people scratched their heads when he said switching to the metric system would be one of his goals as president. Of the world’s major countries, only the United States, Liberia and Myanmar don’t use metric units as their primary measurement systems. Instead, America uses U.S. customary units. CNN anchor Dana Bash asked Chafee about his desire to have the country use meters instead of feet and kilometers instead of miles in a June 7 interview. Noting that he lived in Canada while they converted to the metric system in the 1970s, Chafee said this discussion has been going on for a while in the United States. ""I know many in the scientific community, the health care community that deal internationally, the business community, are saying this is way overdue,"" he said. ""(Former President) Ronald Reagan talked about it. Others have talked about it."" It’s amazing how often politicians use Reagan’s name as a way to advance their cause. In this case, we wondered if Chafee’s claim measures up. Falling short In 1975, Former President Gerald Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act, which created the United States Metric Board, charged with leading the planning and educational efforts for switching over to the metric system. (Check out this delightful cartoon about converting to the metric system from 1975.) So when Reagan took office in 1981, a government-backed push for metric conversion -- also known as metrication -- was already well underway. However, the Metric Board had limited effectiveness in that there was no mandatory conversion timeline, and the board included some members who actually opposed conversion. In 1982, Reagan effectively dismantled the metrication effort by stripping funding from the Metric Board. The group morphed into the Office of Metric Programs, under the Department of Commerce, with much less responsibility and less than a fifth of the budget. That year’s federal budget also cut a $2 million Department of Education program for metric education, according to the New York Times. The Reagan administration justified the Metric Board cut as part of a general reduction in federal spending, rather than opposition to conversion -- preferring to leave conversion to the private sector. Reagan’s budget proposal said, ""The board has accomplished its mission to familiarize the public with the metric system. Voluntary metrication will continue through market adjustments.'' The U.S. Metric Association, a current group dedicated to metric conversion, dug into this issue with Reagan Library materials. They found more than one piece of correspondence indicating that Reagan’s action against the Metric Board did ""not imply a lack of support for voluntary metrication."" It’s worth noting that Frank Mankiewicz, a former Democratic strategist and National Public Radio president, took at least partial credit for killing the Metric Board -- having convinced a top Reagan adviser that metrication could damage the country. We looked through newspaper archives with LexisNexis and found that for nearly the rest of the Reagan administration, there was very little talk of metric conversion, at least in Washington. (Other than in 1985, when the U.S. ambassador to Canada resigned in part because he called the Canadian metrication process ""rubbish."") But in 1988, his last year in office, Reagan signed into law an omnibus trade bill that included a slight amendment to the 1975 Metric Conversion Act. Tucked into the 1,000-page bill was a declaration that the metric system was ""the preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce"" and called for federal agencies to switch to the metric system wherever practical by 1992. While supporters of metrication saw this as a win because it had a timeline for implementation and a directive for federal agencies, unlike the earlier legislation, some believed the bill was without teeth because it allowed agencies an economic out from conversion, according to news reports from the time. It’s unclear how much influence Reagan had over this amendment to the Metric Conversion Act because it went over with little fanfare, and we were unable to track down any relevant White House statement. Reagan’s successor, President George H.W. Bush, further solidified that directive with an executive order in 1991. All in all, the Reagan administration seemed ambivalent toward metrication, at best. Today, not all, but many federal agencies -- including the military -- use metric units almost exclusively, according to a statement from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Many metric experts estimate that the United States is 50 percent metric, said U.S. Metric Association President Don Hillger, a meteorologist at Colorado State University. While most Americans use customary units in their homes, those in science and heavy industry typically use the metric system. He added that there is no longer a standard yard or pound because U.S. customary units are defined by their metric equivalents. ""So we really are on the metric standard in the U.S.,"" Hillger said. ""It’s just that we continue to use non-metric units that no other major country uses anymore."" Our ruling Chafee said, ""Reagan talked about"" converting to the metric system. The issue of metrication rose at the very beginning and at the very end of Reagan’s presidency. However, Chafee’s statement implies that Reagan had more than a passing interest in the issue, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The metrication process started before Reagan took office. He slowed the process to a standstill by taking away funding. He was silent on the issue for the next six years until he signed a law that directed federal agencies to make a more concerted effort to transition to metric units when practical -- though it’s unclear how much influence Reagan’s White House had on that tiny aspect of a 1,000-page omnibus bill. Without this additional context, Chafee’s claim is off by a few yards. Or meters."
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31104
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A group of former General Motors workers furtively produced 1957 Chevrolet automobiles on their own for ten years.
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In honor of the 50th anniversary of the classic automobile’s introduction, CARS Inc. announced in 2006 that they would begin offering newly-[re]built (from original cowls) 1957 Chevrolet convertibles.
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false
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Automobiles, chevrolet, Dream Machines, general motors
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Many a product has gone through the life cycle of development, marketing, and then eventual obsolescence when its manufacturer determined it no longer sold well enough to justify continued production or decided to focus on offering a newer and better version. Upon occasion, however, a discontinued product has retained a strong enough following among a devoted group of aficionados for another company to venture licensing or purchasing the rights from the original manufacturer and resuming production. (One example of this phenomenon occurred when INTV bought the rights to the Intellivision video game system from Mattel, selling off old inventory and then producing new consoles and game cartridges.) That’s the basic idea behind a tale from the original (1975) edition of The People’s Almanac, about a group of disenchanted General Motors stylists who left the company and spent ten years between 1958 and 1967 cranking out a few hundred thousand copies of the discontinued 1957 model Chevrolet at a small, private plant in Illinois — but the kicker is that they supposedly did all this without the knowledge, cooperation, or consent of General Motors: The 1957 Chevrolet was introduced by General Motors in late 1956, as part of their special Labor Day Sneak Preview of New Cars. The ’57 Chevy sported nonfunctional tail fins and excess side trim like most American cars of that era, and it would have passed into obscurity except for the amazing popularity of the design in the years that followed. While the Chevy’s competitors disappeared into the junkyards of the nation, the ’57 throve, particularly the 2-door Bel-Air model. The car became a favorite of customizers in Southern California, and its popularity spread across the nation. The ’57 Chevy has been almost as visible on the highways of America as the Volkswagen, particularly in California and the Midwest. In 1965, the California Department of Motor Vehicles listed 35,000 ’57 Chevies on the road — an astounding survival rate for an American car (although in 1957, Chevrolet enjoyed total sales of 775,000 units). No other American automobile has survived the years with equal fortitude. However, no other American automobile, with the exception of the limited-production Studebaker Avanti, has enjoyed the unique production facilities of the ’57 Chevy. There have been subsequent designs for subsequent Chevrolet model years, but the ’57, unlike any other American car and contrary to American industrial practice, enjoyed a manufacturer’s run of 10 years. A dedicated group of ex-Chevrolet stylists and franchised used-car salesmen continued to turn out close to 200,000 1957 Chevrolets, focusing on the 2-door Bel-Air model, between the years 1957 and 1967, in a small auto assembly plant located outside Jacksonville, Ill. The enthusiasts, led by ex-General Motors stylist Ardell Malowick, quit GM in mid-1957 when it was learned, to nobody’s surprise, that the 1957 design was to be scrapped in favor of the longer, lower, wider ’58 Chevy, which replaced the ’57’s peaked fins with contoured, sublimated fins. Malowick and his associates quickly decamped and purchased their own auto assembly facilities in southern Illinois. However, Malowick was unable to finance the die molds and giant steel presses which GM and Fisher Auto Body used to construct the basic body; rather, Malowick relied on the proved European coach-building technique of pounding body shape out by hand over wooden molds, formed from fiber-glass replicas of the real thing. In this way, some of the imperfections of Fisher’s mass production were eliminated. Malowick and associates knew that Chevrolet, which held all legal rights to the design, would not consent to the manufacture of ’57 Chevies to compete with their ’58s and subsequent models. Perhaps GM was aware, as Malowick now contends, that subsequent models could never compete with the ’57 for purity of design. Because of legal restrictions, the post-1957 new ’57 Chevies built by Malowick were sold as remarkably well-preserved used cars in car lots across the U.S. In the sale of these cars, Malowick enjoyed the clandestine cooperation of countless used-car merchants throughout the nation who were in sympathy with his cause. Certainly, used car dealers sought Malowick’s creations with a fervor they have not displayed for any other American vehicle before or since. Malowick was able to survive financially by his relatively high wholesale price, and a low overhead provided in part by engines and chassis pirated from Chrysler warehouses in northern Illinois (accounting partially for Chrysler’s bewildering stock nose dive during and immediately after their “forward look” phase), and from sales to special collectors and customizers, mostly in California, who were willing to pay anything for a ’57 Chevy in good condition. By far Malowick’s most successful model was, of course, the 2-door Bel Air with the metallic plum paint, many which can be seen on the streets of most American cities today. In 1967, Malowick was forced to close down shop because of rising costs and the rumors that General Motors was wise to his operations and was preparing legal action. Malowick has since gone into the business of manufacturing denim boots and book bags, but he is considering another automobile operation if he can locate favorable conditions, possibly in Germany. There is a rumor that the giant Volkswagen Corporation, which has thought about opening a factory in the U.S., has made overtures to Malowick regarding the 1973 Buick Riviera, another classic of American design. The story seems a fairly obvious bit of humor chock full of tongue-in-cheek jabs at the auto industry (especially evident in the closing reference to Volkswagen’s supposed interest in opening a U.S. plant to produce 1973 Buick Rivieras — this was written in 1975, shortly after the Riviera had also undergone a significant and much-criticized design change), but its inclusion in a reference work with no external indicator of its fictional status has led many readers in the years since to take it seriously. For those who prefer a more thorough debunking, we highlight a few of the tale’s many implausibilities below: We don’t know how this tale ended up being published in The People’s Almanac: whether the compilers decided to include bit of drollery in the book as lark, or a prankish writer managed to slip a gag past unsuspecting editors, or a gullible researcher was taken in by a tall tale. But the story is indeed a joke, and, judging by the results, a good one at that.
|
2948
|
California brain-dead girl nears deadline for ventilator.
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Relatives of a 13-year-old California girl declared brain dead after complications from a tonsillectomy pressed an 11th-hour effort on Monday to get her moved to an extended-care facility as a deadline neared for taking her off a breathing machine.
|
true
|
Health News
|
Doctors at Children’s Hospital in Oakland have said they intend to disconnect Jahi McMath on Monday evening from a ventilator that has been keeping her heart and lungs going since she lost all brain function more than two weeks ago. An Alameda County Superior Court judge issued a restraining order last week barring the hospital from removing Jahi - without the consent of her family - from the ventilator before 5 p.m. local time on Monday, December 30. The judge then denied a petition from relatives to extend that deadline, after two pediatric neurologists who had examined Jahi affirmed the hospital’s medical opinion that the girl was brain dead and beyond recovery. Family members, refusing to accept Jahi’s recovery as impossible, have sought to have her moved to a long-term treatment center in New York, and relatives said they had raised $20,000 in donations needed to pay for a cross-country airlift. The hospital said it would not stand in the way of Jahi’s being moved to another facility. But officials there also refused last week to perform additional procedures that might be required, such as doing a tracheotomy and implanting gastric tubes in her body before a transfer. The family’s lawyer, Christopher Dolan, could not be reached for comment on the status of the family’s efforts on Monday. Jahi’s grandmother Sandra Chatman, herself a registered nurse, told reporters outside the hospital in the afternoon that the girl had started to move her legs and appeared to be responding to voices of loved ones around her. “She’s moving and I’m excited,” Chatman said. “I know we’re going to have victory today.” Asked about whether it were possible for Jahi to be showing any signs of life at this point, Children’s Hospital spokesman Sam Singer said, “It would be wrong and cruel for anyone to suggest that Jahi McMath is alive.” He added, “The sad truth is that nothing could bring her back.” He also said it was possible that the family members might believe they had observed something that they wanted to see. According to medical experts, Jahi’s lungs and heart are only continuing to function because of air being forced in and out of her body by the ventilator, without which her breathing and heartbeat would cease. Unlike an individual in a coma or a vegetative state, Jahi lacks any brain activity whatsoever, rendering her unable to breathe on her own, doctors said. Jahi was admitted to the hospital on December 9 for surgery to remove her tonsils as a means of treating her sleep apnea. Shortly after the procedure, she began to bleed severely, suffered a heart attack and brain swelling, Dolan said. Hospital officials declared her brain dead on December 12.
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15404
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We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth.
|
"Sanders said, ""We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth."" His office later clarified that ""major country"" referred to those nations that were members of the OECD. The 2012 UNICEF report he pointed to agrees with him, but two studies released since then, including another one from UNICEF, show that while the United States does consistently have one of the highest rates of childhood poverty in the world, there are several OECD members with higher rates, notably Israel and Mexico."
|
false
|
National, Poverty, Bernie Sanders,
|
"One plank of Bernie Sanders’ increasingly popular presidential platform is his focus on decreasing poverty and income inequality in America. In a recent appearance on CNN, he decried the influence Wall Street has had on economic policy, and the wealth disparities and class differences that have arisen in the United States. The junior senator from Vermont promised that his administration would look elsewhere to alleviate Americans’ economic problems: ""There are a lot of great public servants out there, great economists who for years have been standing up for the middle class and the working families of this country, who know that it is an international embarrassment that we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth."" Sanders’ remark about the American rate of childhood poverty surprised us. But it’s not the first time Sanders has made this claim, so we decided to see if we could corroborate it. Different surveys, but America always near the top Jeff Frank, Sanders’ press secretary, clarified that when the senator said ""major country,"" he meant a member nation of the OECD, an international economic group composed of 34 generally wealthy countries. (OECD stands for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.) Frank also said that Sanders was referring to a 2012 UNICEF report on childhood poverty in which the United States ranked 34th out of 35 countries with a childhood poverty rate of 23.1 percent, besting only non-OECD member Romania. The report primarily uses data from 2009. According to that report, Sanders’ statement would be true; however, a later UNICEF report from 2014 with more recent OECD data put the U.S. rate of childhood poverty lower than that of Israel, Mexico, Spain, and Greece, as well as that of non-OECD Latvia. (Romania was not included.) The OECD also released its own report on childhood poverty in 2014, using data from 2010. According to that, the United States has less childhood poverty than Chile, Mexico, Turkey, Israel — all of which are OECD members — and Romania. Matters are further complicated by the fact that the two UNICEF reports use different metrics for determining how to set the threshold for childhood poverty. The 2012 report (and the OECD report) defines impoverished children as those living in households below 50 percent of the median national income. The 2014 report changes this relative poverty line to 60 percent of the 2008 median national income despite its results being from 2012. This is because the report aims to measure the impact of the recession on childhood poverty, something that could not be done if the poverty line were adjusted to the new national income, since incomes would presumably trend downward. Relative vs. absolute poverty Using a relative income line in both studies clarifies the confusion that many Americans may feel in seeing that the United States — with a higher income per capita than most other comparatively democratic nations — has such a high rate of childhood poverty. Since the reports define poverty as a household earning less than a certain percentage of the national income, countries with higher levels of income inequality are also more likely to have higher rates of poverty. The inverse is also true: thus, the Nordic countries, known for the parity of their wealth distribution, have the lowest rates of childhood poverty. As a result of this approach, some commentators have criticized the report for missing the point of a measurement of poverty. One can be less well-off, the argument goes, without being poor, since being poor is defined instead by a lack of access to certain key goods, not by where one’s income falls relative to everyone else’s. Nevertheless, other measures of child well-being tend to confirm what the high childhood poverty rate suggests: According to a UNICEF report on 29 similarly affluent countries, American children rank 25th in safety, 27th in education, and 23rd in housing and environment, among other metrics. These results are less open to charges of political bias; the education ranking, for example, bases its findings mostly on school participation rates and international test scores. The 2012 UNICEF report also defends itself against the charge of primarily measuring income inequality by pointing out that all forms of measuring poverty are relative, because poverty itself is a relative concept, specific to a certain time and place: ""Any poverty line intended to represent a minimum acceptable standard of living in the industrialized world today implies higher standards of food, clothing, housing, water supply, sanitation, health care, education, transport and entertainment than were available to even the wealthiest households of previous eras."" The report also points out that using an ""absolute"" poverty line — determined at some fixed income and pegged only to inflation — becomes less useful as time passes and incomes rise. This is the approach of the U.S. government, which sets a number of different poverty thresholds predicated on the basic needs of different sizes of families. From the 1960s to the year 2000, the fixed poverty line fell from 50 percent to 30 percent of median income. Our ruling Sanders said, ""We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country on Earth."" His office later clarified that ""major country"" referred to those nations that were members of the OECD. The 2012 UNICEF report he pointed to agrees with him, but two studies released since then, including another one from UNICEF, show that while the United States does consistently have one of the highest rates of childhood poverty in the world, there are several OECD members with higher rates, notably Israel and Mexico."
|
37584
|
A full 38 percent of Americans won't drink Corona beer under any circumstances in February 2020 because they fear coronavirus.
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Would 38 Percent of Americans Not Buy Corona Beer over Coronavirus Fears?
|
mixture
|
Disinformation, Fact Checks
|
"On February 28 2020, CNN published a tweet reporting that a full 38 percent of Americans — more than a third — refused to drink Corona beer under any circumstances, due to fears of coronavirus:38% of Americans wouldn't buy Corona beer ""under any circumstances"" because of the coronavirus, according to a recent survey.Just to be abundantly clear: There is no link between the virus and the beer. https://t.co/D8fL89Oe0E— CNN (@CNN) February 28, 2020According to that tweet, almost four in ten Americans feared Corona beer because of unrelated news about a novel coronavirus strain known as COVID-19. Immediately and predictably, social media castigated Americans for purportedly being so ignorant, and in such large numbers:Alternative Headline:38% of Americans are so fucking stupid they can't tell the difference between a communicable disease and a beer. https://t.co/JOa0DTYrZ2— Chris in Tacoma (@Chatham253) February 28, 2020My god. We‘re doomed. 38% of Americans won't buy Corona because of Coronavirus. We have a science denying President in office with a religious zealot leading our pandemic response operation. You really can’t make this shit up. We need to HEAVILY invest in our education system!— ♻️🇺🇸 Christopher Zullo (@ChrisJZullo) February 28, 2020Crosscheck this 38% of Americans with Trump loyal 38% base, and if I'm a betting woman…. https://t.co/PcwKh8lyqg— Amy Siskind 🏳️🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) February 28, 2020It was not clear whether many of those openly scoffing at the stupidity of that 38 percent of Americans had read CNN’s article, which asserted:Two surveys released [the week ending in February 28 2020] show that the Corona’s brand is suffering from negative buzz.5W Public Relations said that 38% of Americans wouldn’t buy Corona “under any circumstances” because of the outbreak, and another 14% said they wouldn’t order a Corona in public. The survey encompasses polling from 737 beer drinkers in the United States.In another survey conducted by YouGov, the firm found consumers’ intent to purchase Corona fell to its lowest level in two years. The survey also showed that Corona’s buzz score, a metric that that measures favorability, has dropped significantly since the beginning of the year.We first looked at YouGov’s information on the Corona beer/coronavirus polling. Although CNN said that Corona beer had fallen “to its lowest level” of popularity in two years, YouGov explained:For one, Corona’s Buzz score — a net score based on whether US adults have heard anything negative or positive about the brand — decreased among those who have an opinion of the brand, from a high score of 75 at the beginning of January to 51 as of late February … YouGov data also shows purchase Intent for the brand is at the lowest it’s been in two years, though the summer-y beverage which is closely associated with beach holidays does see substantial seasonal fluctuation.Methodology: Buzz score is based on an average daily sample size of 357 US adults with an opinion of the Corona brand on a 4-week rolling average. Purchase Intent is based on an average daily sample size of 2,110 US adults with an opinion of the Corona brand on a 4-week rolling average.CNN’s reporting didn’t include YouGov’s note about seasonal interest in Corona beer and its “beachy” associations; it could also be the case that interest in Corona beer started to slide from January to February 2020 for other reasons, like the end of football season. It was also possible that some of the people surveyed did react negatively or develop a temporary negative association between Corona the beverage and coronavirus during times of frequent reporting on the latter.But CNN’s key statistics did not come from any sort of formal or even in-house polling. It looked like CNN sourced the February 28 2020 story from a February 27 2020 press release from 5W Public Relations (5WPR) on February 27 2020. It’s not uncommon for public relations firms to attempt to get the attention of reporters with outlandish, attention-grabbing, or search engine optimization-friendly claims, which in turn result in viral stories about, for example, claims that 38 percent of Americans feared Corona beer.In its press release, 5WPR claimed it “conducted a survey via phone of 737 American beer drinkers over the age of 21 on February 25 & 26, 2020,” adding:5WPR’s survey found that:• 38% of beer-drinking Americans would not buy Corona under any circumstances now • Among those who said they usually drink Corona, only 4% said they would stop drinking Corona, but 14% said they wouldn’t order Corona in a public venue • 16% of beer drinking Americans were confused about whether Corona beer is related to the coronavirus“There is no question that Corona beer is suffering because of the coronavirus. Could one imagine walking into a bar and saying “Hey, can I have a Corona?” or “Pass me A Corona,” said Ronn Torossian, Founder and CEO of 5WPR. “While the brand has claimed that consumers understand there’s no linkage between the virus and the beer company, this is a disaster for the Corona brand. After all, what brand wants to be linked to a virus which is killing people worldwide?”The reason for this rather leading quote from the founder and chief executive officer of 5WPR himself opining (unscientifically) that there was “no question” Corona beer was “suffering” because of the stories about coronavirus may become more clear in light of the fact that 5WPR lists Anheuser-Busch among its clients, from whom Constellation Brands acquired the American distribution rights to Grupo Modelo — the company that brews Corona beer, among others — in 2013 (A-B InBev still has international rights to the brand):We integrate all viable elements including social media, cause marketing, sampling, product integrations, events, contests and promotions, celebrity seeding and more to drive powerful outcomes for brands like L’Oreal Professional, Welch’s, KRUPS, It’s a 10 Haircare, Anheuser-Busch, All-Clad, Sparkling ICE, Loacker, LifeStyles, T-Fal, and many other established and emerging brands.5WPR also did not elaborate about the wording of questions they asked the 737 “beer drinkers” they purportedly contacted for phone surveys, so we were unable to check whether they might have been created to lead those polled to certain conclusions in order to push forward a viral story.For instance, mentioning “coronavirus” and “Corona,” as in the beer, together might skew results, as would a number of other ways of articulating the questions. Of the information provided, it was impossible to guess what those purportedly surveyed were asked. Moreover, 5WPR led with “38 percent of beer-drinking Americans would “not buy Corona under any circumstances now,” a figure meaningless without knowing how many of those people would buy Corona beer ever. If those were Budweiser or Heineken drinkers, for example, they might not buy Corona under any circumstances ever.Even more illuminating was the second claim — that among drinkers of Corona, only four percent were turned off Corona beer — presumably due to coronavirus news, but that was impossible to know based on the carefully worded press release.Once again, their last claim was that 16 percent of Americans were confused over “whether Corona beer is related to the coronavirus.” That claim could suggest people were confused about the virus or made negative associations subconsciously. But without knowing what supposed respondents were asked, we can’t even say that figure was illuminating.To put it another way, if the survey revealed few people had feelings about Coronavirus and corona beer, 5PWR wouldn’t have much of a story to peddle to CNN and other outlets. It was in the firm’s best interest to generate virally interesting stories, and “only 4 percent of Corona beer drinkers would stop drinking” it because of coronavirus was not a great sell.Constellation Brands spokesperson Stephanie McGuane told CNN that sales of Corona remained “strong”:Sales of Corona remain very strong and we appreciate the continued support from our fans. Our advertising with Corona is consistent with the campaign we have been running for the last 30 years and is based off strong consumer sentiment.We examined the tendency of media outlets with digital arms to regurgitate PR and provide free advertising via viral and attention-getting claims back in 2015 in a fact check about another “shocking” survey. Incidentally, 5PWR discussed the difficulty in successfully pitching potentially viral stories to legacy media outlets to “lead more eyes to your campaign”; 5WPR’s other blog posts advised PR campaigns to carefully target journalists with active social media reach:Any marketing director will admit that their primary focus is to consistently create content that will achieve viral status; however, far too many marketing campaigns are using “hit or miss” content strategies that may or may not produce viral content. There is a proven method that when appropriately applied can produce consistent and measurable results on a regular basis.The use of media impressions has the capacity to create a ripple effect in public relations campaigns that will provide the consistent and lasting result that make PR campaigns successful. Using media impressions in PR campaigns creates a powerful marketing mechanism that allows businesses to effectively market their brand without constantly having to invest more revenue into their campaign on a weekly basis … Creating a viral campaign on purpose is not an easy task; however, the greater the initial reach of the content, the greater chance the content will have of going viral. One way to increase the reach of specific content is to partner with leading digital publications to help disseminate the content to a larger audience. This strategy can also prove successful with working with the leading bloggers in your industry. This baseline of content online will help lead more eyes to your campaign.By their own metrics, 5PWR hit it out of the park with their Corona/coronavirus story. By noon on the day CNN published the story, within two hours, “38% of Americans” topped Twitter’s trend list — perhaps a result of carefully crafted pitches to match the carefully crafted polls and stories:… it is extremely important to craft the content in a manner that it appeals to the specific audience that is being targeted. When this is done correctly, those who share the content will tend to share the content with others who will find the content relevant.In sum, news organizations seem to have run with a “phone survey” press release from a public relations company that counts rival brewing company Anheuser-Busch as a client, and a claim that 38 percent of Americans stopped drinking Corona beer because of novel coronavirus became Twitter’s top trend. 5WPR’s partial purpose is to get media mentions, and CNN making the story viral surely helped. 5WPR also said only 4 percent of Corona drinkers were put off the beverage, but that made a far less clickable headline, which incidentally would help rivals of the brand’s parent company not at all."
|
34716
|
Former New York Mets outfielder Kevin Mitchell killed his girlfriend's cat by cutting off its head with a knife.
|
With nothing more to go by, it’s a toss-up for us to determine whether this is a true story or not. By Gooden’s account there were a couple of witnesses to the alleged incident (Gooden’s friend, Meade Chassky, and Mitchell’s unnamed girlfriend), but we haven’t found any evidence that either of them has ever discussed the matter publicly. Dwight Gooden might have told the truth, he might have made the whole story up, he might have related a greatly embellished version of something that did take place, or he might even have heard about the incident (true or otherwise) from a third party and retold it in the first person as if he had actually been there. All in all, it adds up to a “We don’t know.”
|
unproven
|
Sports, baseball
|
The basic approach to an “Is this true?” query about a particular event is to find someone who witnessed or participated in the incident and can therefore provide a first-hand account of the facts. This approach is not always straightforward, however, because human beings, and their memories, are fallible. People forget, they misremember details, they exaggerate, and sometimes they even tell outright lies. Having two witnesses to an event is even better, of course, but that situation can create additional difficulties if their accounts of same incident differ substantially. One might be able to sift through their stories and piece together a reasonably accurate account from parts of each, but the process is usually problematic. And what about a situation in which two people, both supposedly participants in the same event, not only can’t agree on whether the incident took place at all, but the one who first maintained that it did also claims, incredibly, that he never talked about it! That last scenario applies to a pair of baseball players who were teammates on the New York Mets in the mid-1980s, pitcher Dwight Gooden and outfielder Kevin Mitchell. In his 1999 autobiography Heat, Gooden related a chilling and disturbing tale about his former teammate: Drinking allowed me to commune with Darryl [Strawberry] and Kevin Mitchell, who was a funny, but very wild and sometimes very dangerous guy. I liked Mitch, but I knew better than to ever fuck with him. I’d heard stories about his background in San Diego, some of which included rumors that he’d hurt some people in gang-related violence. I don’t know about that, but I got to witness, firsthand, Mitch’s temper. I dropped by his house along with Meade Chassky, a card show-and-events entrepreneur with whom I became good friends over the years. Meade and I had had lunch at my house, and we decided to pay Mitch an unannounced visit. That was a mistake. When we got there, I realized Kevin was both drunk and angry, a dangerous combination. He was holding a twelve-inch knife in his hands, having an argument with his live-in girlfriend. Kevin was right in the girl’s face, screaming at the top of his lungs. “I told you not to fuck with me, but you don’t want to fuckin’ listen to me, do you?” Mitch said. I saw this and started to turn around, but then Mitch wheeled on me and Meade. Now that we’d walked in, we were fair game.. “Sit the fuck down, the two of you. You’re not going anywhere.” He was serious. I could tell. I wouldn’t have wanted Mitch mad at me without a knife. With it, all he had to do was say jump, and I’d say, How high? Somehow, Mitch got it in his head that Meade and I were being followed by the cops and they were outside, staking him out. So he told us to barricade the doors. We looked at him like he was crazy, which, at that moment, he was. “You think I’m kidding? Do what I tell you,” Mitch shouted. Poor Meade; he was so scared, I swear he peed in his pants. I can’t say I blamed him, either, because I was worried about how crazy Mitch might get. His temper was one thing; but that knife in his hand was another. I had no choice but to barricade the front door. We put a couch in front of it, then stacked two chairs on top of the couch. After that, Mitch ordered us to pull the blinds down on all the windows, then he ripped the phone out of the wall. Finally, I tried to plead with him. “Mitch, listen to me. It’s okay, there’s nobody out there,” I said gently. “You calling me a liar, motherfucker?” he shouted. He met my eyes with a glaze so fierce, I had to look away. His girlfriend tried reasoning with Mitch, too. “Kevin, stop acting so crazy, these people are your friends,” she said. With that, Mitch turned to her and raised his anger to yet another level. Still holding the knife in his right hand, he grabbed his girlfriend’s little cat, who had the misfortune to be walking near his feet at that very moment. In one awful sweep of his hand, Mitch pulled the cat’s head back, exposing its throat. “You think I’m kidding when I say don’t ever fuck with me?” he shouted. Before the girl could answer, Mitch took the knife to the cat, and cut its head off. Clean. I was horrified by the sight: Mitch was still holding the cat’s head in one hand, while the body dropped to the floor, blood pouring out from where the head once was, limbs still twitching. The girl was practically out of control, screaming so loud I’m shocked the cops didn’t actually show up. Meade tried to run for the door, but Mitch wasn’t about to become reasonable yet. “Sit the fuck down, Meade. You and Doc, sit down on that couch and don’t move,” he said. Considering he had a severed cat’s head and a knife in his hands, he didn’t get an argument from either one of us. We sat down. So did the girlfriend. And Mitch sat across from us, shooting darts at us with his eyes. Sort of like a modern-day Mexican standoff. We remained like this for almost two hours, no one saying a word, until Mitch finally started to nod off. He’d start to close his eyes, then open them quickly, almost like he was testing us. Finally, for some reason, the dark cloud over him moved on. Mitch half smiled and said, “You guys can go.” We left, in about a half second, of course. The next day at the ballpark, I approached Mitch and asked, “You feeling okay?” Looking straight ahead, he said, “Yesterday never happened.” And we never mentioned it again. This narrative would seem to be everything necessary to confirm this tale as true: a detailed, first-person account related by someone who was a direct participant in the event (and found it significant enough to include in his autobiography). However, as author Jeff Pearlman documented while conducting player interviews for his book about the 1986 New York Mets championship team, The Bad Guys Won!, Kevin Mitchell not only vehemently denied that the incident described by Gooden ever took place, he insisted he was going to “get” Gooden for spreading such wild tales about him. And when Mitchell finally had an opportunity to confront Gooden, the latter insisted he hadn’t said anything about the alleged cat-beheading incident (despite that fact that it was described in his autobiography), and, incredibly, Mitchell seemed perfectly satisfied with that answer: Sometime in the early months of 2002, I flew out to San Francisco to meet with Kevin Mitchell, who was about to begin his first season as manager of the Sonoma County Crushers of the independent Western Baseball League. For two and a half hours Mitchell was everything one could hope for in an interview subject: Gregarious. Funny. Loud. Poignant. Chock full of stories. Near the end of our sit-down, I asked Mitchell to expound on an anecdote that appeared in Dwight Gooden’s 1999 autobiography, Heat. Before I even mentioned what the anecdote was, Mitchell’s mood went from sunny summer day to winter storm. “Lemme tell you one thing,” he said somewhat menacingly. “I didn’t do that shit.” That shit was cutting the head off a cat with a twelve-inch kitchen knife. According to Heat, in 1986 Gooden and a friend were visiting Mitchell’s Long Island home, and in the middle of a dispute with his girlfriend, the Mets outfielder picked up a small kitten and slashed it across the throat. The body fell to the ground. “I was horrified by the sight,” Gooden writes. “Blood pouring out from where the head once was, limbs still twitching.” Shortly after the book was released, Mitchell received a call from a friend who informed him that Jim Rome was telling feline mutilation stories on his radio program. Mitchell phoned Rome at his office. “I asked him why he was making false allegations about me,” Mitchell said. “Rome said, ‘Hey, Mitch, I’m getting it straight from the horse’s mouth, Dwight Gooden. '” Mitchell was furious. “How could I cut off a cat’s head with a kitchen knife? Hell, I love animals,” he told me. “I’m not the one who went out there and sucked up some lines [of cocaine], like Dwight Gooden did. I’m a decent guy.” For three years Mitchell waited patiently to face Gooden in person. He says he initially considered a lawsuit, then good old-fashioned violence. At the least, a tongue-lashing would suffice. The moment finally arrived on the afternoon of November 8, 2002, when the two men were scheduled to attend a memorabilia-signing event in New Rochelle, New York. Gooden arrived first, then Mitchell. It didn’t take long. MITCHELL: “Why did you write that I cut off a cat’s head?” GOODEN: “It wasn’t me.” MITCHELL: “It wasn’t?” GOODEN: “Nope.” MITCHELL: “Okay. We’re cool.” Moments later I asked Mitchell about the encounter. “Doc said he wasn’t responsible,” he said. “I guess I believe him.” But, I pointed out, it’s right there . . . in HIS autobiography. Mitchell didn’t flinch. All anger was gone. “I said my piece,” he said. “It’s over.” Remarkably, it was. Clearly, someone was lying. But who? Did Dwight Gooden fabricate an account of something that never took place, or did Kevin Mitchell fib in claiming that what Gooden had written was fiction? Jeff Pearlman suggested the former: Did Mitchell, in fact, slice a cat’s head off? Or was it Gooden, embarrassed by years of substance abuse and underachievement, trying to deflect attention onto an innocent teammate? Truthfully, we’ll probably never know. And after spending way too much time researching the team and its legacy, I genuinely wonder if the players themselves will ever know.2 It’s possible that Dwight Gooden (who was twice suspended from baseball after testing positive for cocaine use) was seeking to deflect attention from his own substance abuse problems and made up a salacious story about a teammate to accomplish that goal, but that explanation doesn’t seem likely. Gooden wrote candidly, at length, about his struggles with alcohol and drug addiction in his autobiography (indeed, the majority of Heat is a recounting of Gooden’s drug problems; discussion of his baseball career is a distinctly secondary portion of the book). Moreover, many of Gooden’s teammates on the Mets were enmeshed in scandals involving drug abuse, sex, and violence, but Gooden didn’t offer up comparable tales about any of them in his book. An obvious explanation that springs to mind is that, despite the paradoxical name, many celebrities (especially athletes) don’t write their autobiographies. It has long been the practice in the sports field to pay star players to put their names to newspaper columns, books, and even autobiographies “ghostwritten” by professional scribes, often with little or no input from the players themselves. New York Times reporter Buster Olney described an instance when a bit of newspaper ghostwriting came back to haunt Mets pitcher David Cone, one of Gooden’s teammates: Cone had not always controlled the press, of course, His career was covered with media scars. While pitching for the Mets in the 1988 playoffs, Cone agreed to cooperate with the Daily News and provide his name and thoughts to a column ghostwritten by beat reporter Bob Klapisch, and under Cone’s byline appeared taunting words for the Dodgers and a belittling of reliever Jay Howell: “Seeing Howell and his curveball reminded us of a high school pitcher.” The Dodgers, inflamed by Cone’s printed remarks, beat him in his next game and went on to win the series, and years later, Davey Johnson — the manager of the Mets in that era — would say his greatest regret of that season was “David Cone’s literary career.”3 Gooden’s autobiography, Heat, was written “with” that very same Bob Klapisch, so how much of the finished work was Gooden’s own words (rather than the product of his co-writer’s efforts) is difficult to discern. Nonetheless, Klapsich is a well-known sportswriter, and it’s rather unlikely he would have fabricated a libelous tale about Kevin Mitchell and inserted it into Gooden’s “autobiography,” all without any input or foreknowledge on Gooden’s part. And such an act would have been rather ironic, considering that Heat contains a passage in which Gooden maintained he was hurt by false accusations about him printed in teammate Darryl Strawberry’s autobiography, and accepted Strawberry’s explanation that his ghostwriter had put words in his mouth: For years, in fact, Darryl went out of his way to deflect attention from his drug use. In 1987, when I tested positive for cocaine, reporters naturally went to him and asked, “Should we fear for you, too?” Straw said he wasn’t raised that way, that he’d never considered using drugs. Eventually, Darryl was more open about his problems. Likewise, he corrected an assertion in his book, published in 1992, that I pitched under the influence of drugs in the ’86 play-offs. Straw later explained that those were the words of his ghostwriter, and that if he was guilty of anything, it was being too lax about the book’s editorial content. I had to accept his word on that, because he knew better. (Of course, Gooden could have engaged in a technically correct but deliberately misleading dodge when he responded by saying he didn’t “write” about the alleged beheading, since his co-author presumably was the one who actually put his words down on paper. We tried contacting Bob Klapisch to see if could provide any insight on the story, but we did not receive a response from him.) Darryl Strawberry supposedly confirmed the beheading tale when asked about it in a 2014 HuffPost Live interview, saying: “That’s a pretty good story. I think that’s pretty accurate. Kevin Mitchell did do that. Kevin Mitchell, he’s a different type of guy … I guess he figured that the girlfriend was acting a little crazy, so I’ll kill her cat.” Strawberry’s “confirmation” was less than convincing, though: according to Dwight Gooden, Strawberry wasn’t present when the alleged cat-beheading incident took place, so he couldn’t have witnessed it himself. And his remarks about how the tale was “a pretty good story,” that “I think [it’s] pretty accurate,” and “I guess [Mitchell] figured that the girlfriend was acting a little crazy …” suggest that, like most everyone else, Strawberry merely heard about the alleged incident second-hand and assumed it was true because it seemed like the kind of thing Kevin Mitchell was capable of doing.
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10770
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How to soothe baby’s colic? Pour a cup of tea
|
While HealthDay broke down the evidence in a clear, concise way for readers with a headline that read “No Good Evidence That Folk Remedies Ease Colic,” this story took the unsupported view that parents should start letting their colicky kids sip herbal tea. Unlike the HealthDay story, the MSNBC site’s “Today Moms” feature made no mention of the limitations of the studies being reviewed, failed to interview an single independent expert and even misstated some of the evidence. Parents who have children suffering from colic are desperate for solutions. Responsible reporting about new research, a review article surveying previous work, is important. Readers who saw no other coverage than this piece on the MSNBC website would be misled into thinking that their children would be better off drinking herbal tea.
|
false
|
MSNBC
|
None of the purported benefits of herbal tea (or of any of the other approaches) are quantified, giving readers nothing on which to base their decisions. No discussion of potential harms nor of overall safety record of the approaches mentioned. We do appreciate, though, that the story said, “The study didn’t include specific instructions on dosage, so check with your pediatrician before trying any herbal remedy.” The story said nothing about the quality of the evidence, despite the fact that the study itself concluded, “However, none of these randomized clinical trials were without flaws.” And, “Independent replications were missing for most modalities.” The HealthDay story did a much better job here. The story starts out by disease-mongering, rubbing the raw nerves of parents by saying, “Next time your fussy, colicky baby has you teetering on the brink of sleep-deprived lunacy, consider a cup of herbal tea.” The HealthDay story was much more measured, saying, “In the United States, between 5 and 19 percent of infants are estimated to have colic, according to background information in the article. Because pediatricians can’t offer parents much help with it — for the most part, babies grow out of colic in time — desperate parents often turn to alternative or complementary treatments, according to the study.” The story does not quote a single independent source. HealthDay used two. A general pediatrician could have given the usual sound advice and pointed out that colic is not harmful to the baby and that they grow out of it on their own. The story does a poor job comparing herbal tea to the other remedies studied in the Pediatrics review. This makes it even harder for us to understand why the MSNBC site chose the headline “How to soothe baby’s colic? Pour a cup of tea” while many other outlets took HealthDay’s approach with headlines such as “Little proof herbs or massage treat baby colic” and “Herbal remedies no help for colicky babies.” The story does not establish the novelty of herbal tea as a treatment for colic, even though it leads readers to believe that herbal tea is the first and best choice. The headline promotes tea as the only treatment that works for colic. And the story says, “Tea –made with chamomile, licorice, fennel and balm mint– was one of the most effective treatments for relieving symptoms of colic, according to a new Pediatrics study, which reviewed 15 randomized clinical trials of alternative treatments for infantile colic.” Without providing information about the limitations of those studies, the story makes tea sound like it is a proven cure. And we are bound to see this story used in marketing any day now. We also find it troubling that it cast the evidence — limited though it may be — for probiotics in such a negative light. The story says, “the least effective results came from treatments involving manipulation and probiotic supplements.” The study actually found enough promise in one brand of probiotic treatments to call for further study. As the HealthDay story explained, “A study of probiotics, which are reputed to help digestion, found that 95 percent of infants given L. reuteria probiotics seemed to reduce their average crying time compared to 7 percent of babies given simethicone, which is marketed to relieve gas under the brand names Mylicon and PediaCare Infants’ Gas Relief.” Not applicable because we can’t be sure whether the story relied on a news release. We do know that there are no interviews quoted in the piece.
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26311
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Republican National Committee Says Joe Biden said voting by mail is a way to “fundamentally change this country,” contradicting past statements by Barack Obama and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
|
The clip of Biden has nothing to do with voting by mail. The video includes short clips of Barack Obama and Debbie Wasserman Schultz sounding critical of voting by mail, but they were not condemning voting by mail overall. Both Obama and Wasserman Schultz were speaking about a proposal, which ultimately never went forward, to redo the Florida presidential primary by mail in 2008.
|
false
|
Corrections and Updates, Elections, Florida, Republican National Committee,
|
"A new video launched by the Republican National Committee suggests Democrats are pushing a ""radical plan to change our elections"" through widespread mail-in voting. ""This is a radical change from their past,"" the video says. As evidence, it flashes to clips of comments by President Barack Obama, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that are divorced from any context. The one-minute video plays snippets of journalists bashing Iowa Democrats over their bungled caucus in February before ending with a warning: ""Democrats couldn’t run the Iowa Caucus. Don’t let them redesign our entire election."" The RNC launched its Protect the Vote website May 8, vowing to fight the ""Democrats’ assault on the integrity of our elections."" But the clips of Democratic leaders are removed from the context of what they were talking about and ignore Obama’s support for voting by mail in general at the time. The video also wrongly portrays the push for more mail-in voting as solely a Democratic effort. While Democratic leaders have pushed for more mail-in voting, they aren’t alone. Republican officeholders in at least 16 states that do not have all-mail elections were encouraging voters to cast ballots via mail. The RNC’s former chairman in March called for conservatives to embrace broader use of voting by mail. The text on the screen says, ""Democrats have a radical plan to change our elections."" But Biden’s statement was about protecting essential workers, not voting by mail or in person. He used a May 4 campaign event to talk about providing a livable wage and paid sick leave to workers including meat packers and grocery store clerks. Biden’s campaign has said he wants safer options for voting, including voting by mail and in-person voting. At a virtual fundraiser in April, Biden told donors that we have to make it easier for everyone to vote if we are still in lockdown, including providing mail-in ballots. At a virtual fundraiser May 8, Biden praised a move by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to send a mail-in ballot to every voter. The video shows MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asking Obama a question related to mail-in voting. ""They are talking about people mailing in their ballots. Do you trust the security, the honesty of such an election process?"" Matthews asked. Obama responded: ""Well, I’d think we would have to figure out whether this was fraud-proof."" The video doesn’t clearly show the context of the interview; faint text on the screen says ""Decision 08."" It would be possible for viewers to assume Obama was criticizing voting by mail in general, but Obama was commenting about a specific set of circumstances related to the presidential primary in Florida. In 2007, the Florida Legislature moved up the date of the presidential primary to Jan. 29, earlier than either national party permitted. Hillary Clinton beat Obama, but the Democratic National Committee determined that the election violated party rules and stripped the state of its delegates. In March 2008, some Florida Democrats proposed a do-over election including a scenario of entirely voting by mail. Here was Matthews’ full question on March 11, 2008, to then-Sen. Obama: ""There’s word from Florida that they intend to put out a mailing sort of a campaign — I mean, an election process, whereby they make up for the primary they had before, which was ruled out of order by the Democratic National Committee and you did not campaign in. They’re talking about mailing it — people mailing in their ballots. Do you trust the security, the honesty of such an election process? The RNC video only included the first sentence of Obama’s cautious response. But Obama then made some positive statements about voting by mail: ""I mean, Oregon, for example, has a terrific mail-in system, but they’ve already scanned everybody’s signatures who’s registered to vote so that they can check to make sure that in fact the right people are voting. And that’s something that I think you’d have to figure out."" During the 2020 pandemic, Obama has not expressly called for only voting by mail. He called for safe voting options while tweeting a New York Times story that debunked the claim that absentee voting favors Democrats and an NPR story about proposals to expand voting by mail and early voting. The clip in the video of Wasserman Schultz does not clearly show the context. The text on the screen reads ""postal primary do-over"" — but it’s difficult to decipher. ""Debbie Wasserman Schultz argues a mail-in ballot has ‘wrong’ written all over it,"" a journalist says. The video then shows a clip of Wasserman Schultz, a Broward Democrat, stating: ""It would be a risky experiment for us with an election that has stakes as high as a presidential election does."" The RNC video omits her next sentence: ""We've never done a mail-in ballot statewide."" She also said that ""there's a way to solve this without totally redoing this and causing more chaos."" Those clips are from a CNN report on March 10, 2008, about the idea for a mail-in primary do-over. Wasserman Schultz was talking about voting by mail in the narrow context of the proposed re-do election that spring. After months of wrangling that spring, the DNC agreed that Florida could send a full delegation to the convention, but each delegate would only get half a vote. Amid the pandemic, Wasserman Schultz said she supports expanding early voting and vote by mail options. The video also includes a quote by Eric Holder, a former Attorney General under Obama. ""No form of electoral fraud ever has been or will ever be tolerated by this administration,"" Holder said. That stems from a speech he gave about voting rights in 2012; he wasn’t specifically talking about absentee ballot fraud. An RNC video says Joe Biden said voting by mail is a way to ""fundamentally change this country,"" contradicting past statements by Barack Obama and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The RNC video only includes snippets of statements by Obama and Wasserman Schultz to leave viewers with a misleading impression that they were bashing voting by mail in general, and that wasn’t the case. Obama and Wasserman Schultz were talking about voting by mail in a narrow set of circumstances: a controversial proposal to redo the presidential preference primary in Florida in 2008. There is no evidence that overall either Democrat was broadly critical of voting by mail as an option in elections. The portion of the video about Biden also omits context. The video quotes him stating ""we have an incredible opportunity to not just dig out of this crisis but to fundamentally change this country,"" before launching into the video’s theme that Democrats want to use mail-in balloting to ""radically change"" American elections. But Biden wasn’t talking about elections, he was talking about protecting workers amid the pandemic. This video includes actual quotes by these three Democrats, but lacks context to explain their remarks. UPDATE, May 15, 2020: We received a statement from the RNC after publication. It does not affect the rating of the fact-check."
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26053
|
Hays County in Central Texas has seen an “incredible 845% increase in (COVID-19) cases since June 7.”
|
Doggett's claim left out an important detail: the statistic he highlighted is about the growth in the 14-day average of new COVID-19 cases. The increase in the 7-day average and the actual count of new cases is significantly higher.
|
true
|
Texas, Coronavirus, Lloyd Doggett,
|
"Coronavirus infections are on the rise in Texas, with some areas experiencing a more dramatic increase than others. In Central Texas, Austin and its surrounding counties have reported an increase in the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 and hospitalizations. Hays County, which sits to the south of Austin, has been hit particularly hard. On June 19, the county reported more active cases than Austin’s Travis County — a remarkable feat considering that Travis County’s population is five times that of Hays County. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat whose district includes parts of both counties, shared two tweets about the Austin area, including one highlighting the impact of the virus in Hays County. ""Hays County is one of the only places in Texas with more trouble: an incredible 845% increase in cases since June 7,"" he wrote. There’s no question Hays County has experienced a dramatic increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, but is Doggett’s figure accurate? Hays County increase tied to activities In response to a question from PolitiFact Texas, Hays County spokeswoman Kim Hilsenbeck shared a press release outlining the impact of the coronavirus in the county since the onset of the pandemic. During April and early May — when local and statewide orders to stay at home were in place — the number of new daily cases in the county ranged from zero to ten. In late April, Gov. Greg Abbott initiated the first phase of a plan to reopen the state’s economy and allowed the statewide stay-at-home order to expire. He also allowed restaurants, retail stores, malls and movie theaters to reopen at limited capacity. In subsequent phases, Abbott allowed barbershops and salons to reopen with limited capacity and other restrictions. He also allowed rivers, parks and other natural areas to reopen. County health officials said they believe the gradual reopening of businesses might have contributed to an increase in COVID-19 cases. ""Through contact tracing, our health department staff were able to see the rapid increase in COVID-19 totals seemed to coincide with activities such as working at or going to restaurants and bars, activities such as floating the river, and attending large public gatherings,"" the release reads. Hilsenbeck also highlighted Mothers Day (May 10), Memorial Day (May 25) and protests against racism and police brutality as significant events in May. By the end of May and early June, the number of new cases in the county started to rise. On May 27 there were 18 new cases. On June 8, there were 43 new cases. More recently, the number of new daily cases in Hays County has ranged from 100 to 200. In April and May, the majority of new cases in the county were primarily in Kyle among people older than 30 who were Hispanic. But since early June, the group experiencing the largest increase in new COVID-19 cases is 20 to 29-year-olds in San Marcos. The number of people who identified as Hispanic has decreased. ""While not all 20-29-year-olds are college students, San Marcos has a large student population because of Texas State University, many of whom are now back in town following a period of virtual learning throughout the spring,"" the release reads. Examining data on new cases Doggett spokeswoman Kate Stotesbery said the figure he shared came from a graph published by an Austin-area television station. The graph shows the number of new coronavirus cases that have been reported each day in Hays County since April, plus a line showing the 14-day average of daily new cases. An arrow pointing upwards is overlaid on the graphic, with text on top that reads: ""845% 14-day average since June 7."" But Doggett’s remark on Twitter is missing that detail — that there has been an 845% increase in the 14-day average of new COVID-19 cases in the county since June 7. The increase in the actual number of cases is much higher. On June 7, the cumulative number of cases in the county was 385 and the number of new daily cases had been fluctuating. There were 24 new cases on June 2, 14 new cases on June 4 and zero new cases on June 7. By June 21, the cumulative count of cases in Hays County was 1,608, with 57 new cases reported that day. Looking at the 14-day average of new cases, it was 8 on June 7 and 87 on June 21. But the 7-day average is a more commonly used measurement by government agencies and news outlets to assess changes in the number of new cases in the area. The change in that figure during this period is substantially higher. Using weekly averages instead of daily tallies offers a more accurate picture of change over time, as it reduces the impact of daily spikes. From June 7 to June 21, Hays County experienced a roughly 1,569% increase in the 7-day average of new COVID-19 cases — from 8 cases on June 7 to 134 on June 21. Our ruling Doggett said that Hays County had experienced ""an incredible 845% increase in cases since June 7."" Doggett was actually speaking about an increase in the 14-day average of new COVID-19 cases — a less common measurement of the increase in COVID-19 cases in an area — but his figure is accurate."
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512
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China drafts new rules to control rural plastic pollution.
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China will tighten regulations on the use of plastic film by farmers to boost crop yields, which has become a major source of soil contamination throughout northern and western regions, according to a draft policy document published on Friday.
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true
|
Environment
|
The new rules, which have been opened to the public for consultation, will involve the establishment of a comprehensive “management system” covering the production, sale, utilization and recycling of thin plastic film in the countryside. Chinese farmers, mostly in the arid north and west, cover fields with vast amounts of “plastic mulch” to help maintain soil moisture and protect against pests. The technique has played an important role in boosting yields and raising the quality of crops, the agriculture ministry said in a notice. “But because of excessive use and inadequate recycling, agricultural-use plastic film pollution in some regions has been getting worse and worse, and it has already become a major environmental problem holding back the green development of agriculture,” the ministry said. In areas of northwest China that made use of plastic mulch, contamination rates stood at an average of 36 kilograms per hectare, with the figure as high as 138 kilograms in some regions, it said. The new rules would force farmers to use only film that meets quality standards, and they must also collect plastic waste from fields before its expiry date and deliver to approved recycling outlets. They will also be encouraged to reuse old film. China is said to use about 2 million tonnes of plastic film every year to cover around 200,000 square kilometers of farmland, an area the size of Belarus. But government researchers say the recycling rate stands at just 180,000 tonnes. If uncollected, the plastic waste eventually degrades the soil and could also infiltrate crops, with one parliamentary delegate from Shandong warning in March that some of the province’s exports of ginger and spinach had been contaminated. Beijing is aiming to make around 90% of its total farmland safe for agriculture by the end of next year, part of its efforts to guarantee food security.
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39639
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A forwarded email tells the story of a young Palestinian burn patient who was caught entering Israel wearing a suicide belt with plans to blow up the doctors who saved her life.
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Palestinian Burn Patient Turned Suicide Bomber.
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true
|
Medical, Miscellaneous
|
Dr. Arieh Eldad is a medical doctor specializing in plastic surgery in Israel, and he told of the young burn patient turned suicide bomber in a 2008 interview with the New English Review. Interviewer Jerry Gordon prompted Dr. Eldad to recount a story of the Palestinian burn patient turned suicide bomber after receiving skin transplants from Eldad and others at Beersheba Hospital. Eldad’s response has since been encapsulated in forwarded emails and posts about the would-be Palestinian suicide bomber: I was instrumental in establishing the Israeli National Skin Bank, which is the largest in the world. The National Skin Bank stores skin for every day needs as well as for war time or mass casualty situations. This skin bank is hosted at the Hadassah Ein Kerem University hospital in Jerusalem where I was the chairman of plastic surgery. This is how I was asked to supply skin for an Arab woman from Gaza, who was hospitalized in Soroka Hospital in Beersheba after her family burned her. Usually, such atrocities happen among Arab families when the women are suspected of having an affair. We supplied all the needed Homografts for her treatment. She was successfully treated by my friend and colleague Prof. Lior Rosenberg, and discharged to return to Gaza. She was invited for regular follow up visits to the outpatient clinic in Beersheba. One day she was caught at a border crossing wearing a suicide belt. She meant to explode herself in the outpatient clinic of the hospital where they saved her life. It seems that her family promised her that if she did that, they would forgive her. This is only one example of the war between Jews and Muslims in the Land of Israel. It is not a territorial conflict. This is a civilizational conflict. Dr. Eldad’s account of the Palestinian burn patient turned suicide bomber has since been widely circulated in blog posts and discussion forums. We can confirm it’s authenticity based on the transcript of his 2008 interview. This story was original posted 09/14/13, and it was updated 3/1/17 to provide a more thorough accounting Comments
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5568
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Student at Connecticut university diagnosed with meningitis.
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A Connecticut university is taking precautions after a student came down with a confirmed case of bacterial meningitis.
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true
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Health, Connecticut, New Britain, Meningitis
|
Central Connecticut State University President Zulma Toro in a message to the campus community said the state Department of Public Health on Monday confirmed meningitis and is now working to determine the subtype. The Health Department said it was an isolated case and not an outbreak. The infection is spread by close, person-to-person contact. Campus health officials have been in touch with all students who have had close contact with the sick student and they are being given preventative treatment. Most people recover from meningitis but it can be fatal. It can also cause permanent disabilities including brain damage and hearing loss. Symptoms include fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea, and light sensitivity.
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3846
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Feds: Pharmacy ignored red flags when filling prescriptions.
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Federal prosecutors say they’ve suspended a West Virginia pharmacy’s registration for improperly dispensing prescription drugs.
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true
|
Health, West Virginia, General News, Prescription drugs
|
U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart announced the suspension against Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy on Thursday. Stuart says the pharmacy filled about 2,000 prescriptions for a widely-abused drug called Subutex over a three-year period despite red flags that the pills were being misused. He says more than half of the prescriptions came from an out-of-state clinic and that almost all prescriptions were paid for in cash. Stuart says the pharmacy constitutes an “imminent danger to the public health or safety.” The Drug Enforcement Administration says Subutex is used to treat opioid addiction but has gained popularity as a drug of abuse. A phone call to the Oak Hill Hometown Pharmacy rang unanswered Thursday.
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24427
|
In the health care bill, we're now offering insurance for dogs.
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Glenn Beck claims health care bill includes insurance for dogs
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false
|
National, Health Care, Pundits, Glenn Beck,
|
"We're months into this health care debate and frankly a lot of the claims we've been fact-checking from opponents and proponents alike have gotten a little stale. So we were thrilled to hear a new one on the Glenn Beck radio program on Nov. 12, 2009: ""Do you know in the health care bill, we're now offering insurance for dogs,"" Beck said. ""Do I need to say any more?"" Actually yes. Keep going. ""If you are somebody who is like, 'Well, I just, I'm struggling and we're barely making ends meet,' I'm not paying for your dog cardiologist!"" Beck said. ""Not gonna do it. I'm sorry, the dog goes nighty night."" There was some discussion between Beck and his executive producer about their own dogs' medical issues, whether or not they have pet insurance, and whether the Obama administration is putting animals on par with humans. Like so many claims in the health care debate, Beck has taken a kernel of something in the bill and spun it to an absurd conclusion. Included in the House bill is the creation of a Public Health Workforce Corps to address shortages in the public health workforce. The program would provide scholarships and education loan repayment assistance for public health professionals serving in areas of need. Veterinarians are included among those public health professionals. ""The rationale is that with mad cow disease, swine flu and other animal-borne diseases and issues, there is logic in helping to create more and better trained individuals to treat animal health,"" said Vincent Morris, spokesman for the House Rules Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. But the inclusion of veterinarians in the health bill didn't sit well with Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., who noted on the House floor on Nov. 7, 2009, that the loan repayment program will cost $283 million over five years. ""So the real question I have for you folks (Democrats): Why are veterinarians part of this health care bill?"" Stearns asked. Rep. Slaughter responded: ""Have you ever heard of swine flu? Have you ever heard about food safety? Have you ever heard that 70 percent of all of the antibiotics produced in the United States are given to cattle and poultry even though they are not ill? But swine flu should make you worry a little bit, don’t you think?"" The bill also would provide funding for fellowships to support public health training, and again, veterinary medicine is included in the mix. Lastly, the bill would create an advisory committee to assess the health workforce and to make recommendations to ensure that workforce is meeting the nation’s needs. The bill says that would include public health professions ""including veterinarians engaged in public health practice."" In other words, not the local vet who gives your dog heartworm pills. Two other things about the scholarships and loan assistance programs. In order to qualify, the bill says applicants must ""have demonstrated expertise in public health"" and as quid pro quo must serve for a period equal to their scholarship in a public health program assigned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Again, not your pet vet down the street. ""Veterinarians are a part of the public health workforce, especially those that deal with disease outbreak,"" said Brian Cook, press secretary for Pete Stark, D-Calif., chair of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee. ""We have a shortage of veterinarians right now who are trained to deal with disease outbreak."" Still, scholarships, loan assistance and fellowships to veterinarians is one thing. Providing government health insurance to dogs is quite another. ""We are not offering insurance for dogs,"" Morris said. We pored over the bill and came to the same conclusion. There is no health insurance of any kind for dogs -- no public option for Rex, no death panels for Fido. So we've got to put Beck in the doghouse for this one -- !"
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31234
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A photograph shows Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) performing a pagan ritual in the nude.
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Warren had her first child at age 22, and hair requires months, if not years, to grow to the length it appears in this image. The image used in this meme had nothing to do with Warren, and the meme itself is easily debunked by the barest of Google searches.
|
false
|
Junk News, elizabeth warren, pagan, paganism
|
In June 2017, a blurry black and white image showing a group of nude people dancing around a circle appeared with text claiming that it shows Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) performing a pagan ritual: Photo of Elizabeth Warren at a nude pagan ritual. A roomate of Elizabeth Warren’s from college released this photo of her and a bunch of her “pagan friends” dancing around a tribute to the gods of wind and fire: The roomate, a hairdresser from Methuen named Francesca, said Warren was “flat-chested and awkward but always looked like she was having fun.” She added that marijuana, magic mushrooms, peyote and LSD were common at the rituals. The text included with the image was originally published in a hoax article on TheLastLineOfDefense.org, a web site with a long and storied history of posting factually challenged stories. To its credit, the web site does carry a clear disclaimer: DISCLAIMER: America’s Last Line of Defense is a satirical publication that may sometimes appear to be telling the truth. We assure you that’s not the case. We present fiction as fact and our sources don’t actually exist. Names that represent actual people and places are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and do not in any way depict reality. In other words, if you believe this crap you’re a real dumbass. Although we have not been able to definitively determine a time and place for the photograph, several sources claim that it shows a man named Alex Sanders (far right in the robe) leading a “skyclad ritual” somewhere in the United Kingdom. Sanders, who was known as the “King of the Witches,” founded Alexandrian Wicca in the 1960s: Sanders was a born showman who avidly courted publicity. In September of 1962 he even succeeded in convincing the Manchester Evening News to run a front-page article about Wicca. As a result he soon attracted a large following. During this period Sanders and his coven worked from his home at 24 Egerton Road North, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. One of his initiates was “Maxine Morris”, a Roman Catholic 20 years his junior. After her initiation, they handfasted and she became his High Priestess. They were married in a civil ceremony in 1968 and moved into a basement flat near Nottinghill Gate, London. Later that same year, Maxine bore him a daughter they called “Maya”. From their new home the Sanders’ ran his London coven and taught training classes, he claimed to have initiated more than 1,623 witches working in 100 covens around the country, all-practicing what had become known as the Alexandrian Tradition. At one meeting, a gathering of sixteen of his covens, Sanders was bestowed with the title of “King of the Witches”. Sanders frequently appeared in ritual photos as robed or wearing only a loincloth while Witches surrounding him were naked. His explanation for this was that the old “Witch laws” required that the Elder of a coven should be easily identifiable from the other coven members. Alex Sanders and his wife later consulted on the 1966 movie Eye of The Devil. A photograph of Alex, Maxine, and the film’s star Sharon Tate appears to show a circle similar to the pagan ritual shown above: Elizabeth Warren did enter college in the 1960s; she was born in 1949, and then accepted into George Washington University at just sixteen years old. She put her college career aside after just two years, however, dropping out to marry a NASA engineer she had been dating throughout her teens, then moving with him from job to job: she finished her undergraduate degree in Houston, taught elementary school, and then enrolled in law school at Rutgers, earning her J.D. when she was nine months pregnant and then going directly into law, then academia, with her new baby in tow. Nothing in her history suggests she ever practiced Wicca or danced “skyclad” in cabalistic and obscure rituals, or had the time to do so. But speculation is unnecessary; people change their haircuts throughout their lives for one reason or another, and images of Warren from that time in her life clearly show someone with long dark hair:
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5404
|
Person with measles visited popular LA tourist spots.
|
Los Angeles County health authorities say one of the most recent local cases of measles involved a person who visited popular tourism locations including The Grove shopping center, The Original Farmers Market and La Brea Tar Pits.
|
true
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Los Angeles, Health, Measles, Original, Travel, Public health
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People who were at those locations and nearby areas on April 27 may be at risk of developing the highly contagious disease for up to 21 days. Authorities say there is no current risk of exposure at those locations. Health officials have been dealing with a small outbreak of measles as well as cases among travelers passing through. So far, a large-scale outbreak has been avoided. The Department of Public Health is urging people to be vaccinated against measles, especially if they are traveling internationally.
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8939
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Johns Hopkins team identifies promising diagnostic tool for Alzheimer's disease
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The release focuses on two papers that discuss early research into developing a technique for identifying people who will develop neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. The papers were published in the December issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Specifically, the papers evaluated “tracer” molecules that might be useful for identifying “tau tangles” — proteins in the brain that occur in patients with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. The release does a good job of describing the research, but does not address costs, potential harms, or the potential accuracy of diagnostic tests that might be developed based on these tracer molecules. Also, we think the headline jumps the gun in calling this a “promising diagnostic tool.” New diagnostic tools that allow medical practitioners to track the development of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia may have significant effects on future research into treatment. However, news releases should caution that there’s a big leap from identifying particular tracers to a developing a useful diagnostic tool.
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mixture
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Alzheimer's disease
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Cost isn’t discussed. The benefit here would be the accurate diagnosis of tau protein tangles in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. There is no quantification of findings in this regard. Instead, the release uses general language, such as the statement that one of the studies “generated good and reproducible results.” Also, the news release could have been clearer that no diagnostic tool has been developed, as the few people tested with heavy tau tangle loads already were known to have Alzheimer’s. Harms aren’t discussed. Are there any risks associated with injecting these molecular markers into a study participant or patient? Even if there aren’t, that in itself is worth addressing. The release also doesn’t address two other potential harms (which are common to most, if not all, diagnostics): the failure to identify someone who has Alzheimer’s and the “false positive” misdiagnosis of people who do not have Alzheimer’s. This is the difference between “sensitivity” and “specificity.” Missing someone who has Alzheimer’s is problematic. And being told that one has a disease that one does not actually have can also have ramifications for future healthcare, with consequences both physical and financial. The release does a good job of describing the work and the design of the studies covered by the two journal articles. The release also provides background context for the studies, which is useful. No disease mongering here. The release notes the funding source for the research and addresses conflicts of interest. The release accurately notes that there is no definitive diagnostic tool for Alzheimer’s disease other than an autopsy of the brain. It also refers to a “currently used” tau tracer. We wish it had been clearer that the research being described is not the only work being done in this area. For example, this 2015 paper in the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia describes a number of innovative approaches being explored in this field. The release does not make clear that this work is still far removed from widespread clinical application. The background and context provided in the release do a good job of making clear what sets the work apart. For the most part, the release does not cross the line in its use of language. However, we think it’s premature to call this a “promising diagnostic tool,” as the headline does.
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9062
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Cinnamon turns up the heat on fat cells
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Cinnamon, or more specifically cinnamaldehyde, the essential oil that gives cinnamon its flavor, has been the focus of mouse studies on reversing obesity. This news release reports on a study that uses human stem-cell-derived fat cells to test if and how cinnamaldehyde activates fat metabolism in these fat cells. The news release reports that thermogeneisis — energy conversion that produces heat — is the way cinnamaldehyde activates fat cells to use fat. The release suggests that cinnamaldehyde might be a better alternative to synthesized drugs to reduce obesity because people might be more willing to stick with a regimen based on cinnamon. They caution, however, that more research needs to be done and that people should not go out and try this at this time because of potential side effects. Obesity is a major problem in the U.S. and other developed countries. Preventing and reducing obesity a major focus of public health endeavors, but success has been minimal. Diet and exercise as treatment for obesity is a difficult prescription for many people to stick with. Drugs to treat obesity have been problematic in the past. While some have found success with surgery-based treatments, serious side effects have thwarted many others. If it panned out, a non-drug, non-surgical approach to weight-loss would be of public interest.
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mixture
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cinnamon,University of Michigan,weight loss
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There are no costs discussed in this news release. However, this study is extremely preliminary, and it is not known how cinnamaldehyde would be sourced if this were to become a drug. Cinnamon is a common spice available on any grocery shelf, is fairly inexpensive and is made from tree bark. It can also be chemically synthesized, but the natural source is the least expensive. This news release does not offer any numbers providing context beyond making the claim that triggering fat burning in cells could reduce obesity. There are no numbers on how much or how quickly cinnamaldehyde induces fat burning, While we recognize that the objective of the study was to determine the mechanism through which cinnamaldehyde acted and to determine its metabolic pathways, we’d still like to see some description of the type of measurements used by researchers. There are no specific harms mentioned, however a disclaimer is included in the news release that “Wu cautioned that further study is needed to determine how best to harness cinnamaldehyde’s metabolic benefits without causing adverse side effects.” Consuming too much cinnamon can cause mouth irritation. Some people are allergic to the spice. According to WebMD, cinnamon can interfere with some medications, including antibiotics, diabetes drugs, blood thinners and heart medicines. It’s clear that the research is many years away from becoming a therapy and the release didn’t establish that fact clearly enough. The lede talks about how the spice “might be enlisted in the fight against obesity.” That kind of claim has to be accompanied by an acknowledgment of the extremely early state of the research. There is no disease mongering here. Obesity is a problem in the U.S. and around the world in places where food is not scarce. As the news release points our, fat storage is a hedge against starvation, but in economies without starvation, excess fat storage causes obesity and negative impacts on health. The funding sources are clearly included in the news release. There are no conflicts of interest listed in the news release or study. The release references traditional drug treatments while suggesting cinnamon might be a safer and easier to adhere to strategy for weight loss than a drug. But there are many other alternatives for weight loss that could have been mentioned such as diet, exercise and behavioral counseling. The release strongly suggests that cinnamon is not yet ready as a weight loss aid without saying the actual words. The news release warns that researchers have not yet determined “how best to harness cinnamaldehyde’s metabolic benefits without causing adverse side effects.” It also cautions against using cinnamon as an obesity protectant or treatment at this time. The release establishes novelty and acknowledges past research with this statement: “Scientists had previously observed that cinnamaldehyde, an essential oil that gives cinnamon its flavor, appeared to protect mice against obesity and hyperglycemia. But the mechanisms underlying the effect were not well understood.” This news release does not use unjustifiable language. It clearly states that this is work that has been done in mice and now in human cells. It also issues a warning not to use cinnamon as a treatment as there might be side effects.
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31770
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President Donald Trump posited that Canadian women were the second biggest threat to America following ISIS.
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… all news articles contained within burrardstrettjournal.com are works of fiction and constitute fake news. Any truth or actual facts contained in said stories or posts are purely incidental or coincidental and not intended to be, or be construed as, facts.
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false
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Junk News, burrard street journal, canadian women, donald trump
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Following reports on 21 January 2017 that Canadian women were prohibited from entering the United States to join the Women’s March on Washington, D.C., a web site called BurrardStreetJournal.com reported that U.S. President Donald Trump called them a threat to the American way of life comparable to the Islamic State: Trump immediately characterized women North of the border as “different”, claiming there is “no doubt” they are trying to “corrupt the minds” of their American counterparts: “Canadian women threaten our core values, our way of life and the very things we are trying to do here,” the President began, in front of an estimated 10 million supporters gathered on the White House front lawn. “In addition, Vice President Pence tells me there’s no estimating how many free abortions these women have already had … If they start spreading this rhetoric of political, social and economic equality across America, then what? Women start expecting to become president just because the vast majority of the American people vote for them? Then the whole damn system collapses … Can you imagine what would happen if our women find out how pussy-whipped Canadian men are?” “No. Canadian women must be stopped. They’re literally the worst. Second only to ISIS, I’m telling you,” the commander-in-chief added. However, this report is a hoax. Unlike many other outlets, the Burrard Street Journal’s “About” page clearly states: The Burrard Street Journal is a sometimes funny Canadian satire, parody and comedy news website based in Vancouver, BC. All articles, videos and images are fictitious and occasionally intended to be humourous. For more information please see our disclaimer at the bottom of the page. The referenced disclaimer adds: All burrardstreetjournal.com, FM News or FM Football News articles are satirical and entirely fabricated. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental, except for all references to sports personalities and/or celebrities, in which case they are based on real people, but still based almost entirely in fiction. Please feel free to copy and paste this disclaimer into you facebook comment to “prove this site’s bullshit”.
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3200
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Officials: Norovirus contributed to restaurant patron death.
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Norovirus was a contributing cause of the death of a person who had attended a function at a New Hampshire restaurant where a group of guests became sick, health officials said Tuesday.
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true
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Health, New Hampshire, Manchester
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Eighteen people who became ill attended the private function Nov. 24 at the Puritan Backroom conference center in Manchester, the state Department of Health and Human Services said. The person who later died was an adult from Hillsborough County. No other details were issued about the person, in accordance with federal and state privacy laws. The state medical examiner’s office completed its final report Tuesday after conducting an autopsy last month. The restaurant is co-owned by U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas. It has been in his family for more than a century and is a frequent stop for presidential candidates of both parties. The manager of the Puritan Backroom said recently that the restaurant’s top priorities are promoting health and excellent food safety and that he was confident it was doing everything possible to maintain those practices. After the outbreak, the Manchester Health Department conducted an inspection of the restaurant. Officials determined there was no ongoing norovirus risk to the public. Symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting, nausea and stomach pain.
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7543
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As virus makes goodbyes hard, fears of many more rise in US.
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The coronavirus outbreak could kill 100,000 to 200,000 Americans, the U.S. government’s top infectious-disease expert warned on Sunday as family members described wrenching farewells through hospital windows with dying loved ones.
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true
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AP Top News, Health, Anthony Fauci, Middle East, Latin America, Africa, New York, Infectious diseases, Travel, Donald Trump, Asia Pacific, Virus Outbreak, Europe, General News, International News
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Faced with that grim projection and the possibility even more could die in the U.S. without measures to keep people away from one another, President Donald Trump extended federal guidelines recommending people stay home for another 30 days until the end of April to prevent the spread of the virus. Trump’s extension of the original 15-day guidelines was a stark reversal just days after he said he hoped the economy could restart in about two weeks and came after Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made the dire prediction of fatalities, adding that millions in the U.S. could become infected. “We want to make sure that we don’t prematurely think we’re doing so great,” Fauci said of the extension of the federal guidelines. By Sunday night, the U.S. had over 140,000 infections and 2,400 deaths, according to the running tally kept by Johns Hopkins University, though the true number of cases is thought to be considerably higher because of testing shortages and mild illnesses that have gone unreported. Worldwide, more than 720,000 people have been infected and nearly 34,000 have died, almost half of them in Italy and Spain, where the health system is at the breaking point. New York state — where the death toll passed 1,000 — remained the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, with the vast majority of the deaths in New York City. But infections were spiking not only in cities but in Midwestern towns and Rocky Mountain ski havens. West Virginia reported its first death, leaving only two states — Hawaii and Wyoming — with none linked to COVID-19. The virus is moving fast through nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other places that house elderly or otherwise vulnerable people, spreading “like fire through dry grass,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. Since the first major outbreak in the U.S. — at a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington — similar facilities around the country have battled infections among residents and staff. A week ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 147 nursing homes in 27 states had patients with COVID-19. The problem has only worsened since. In Woodbridge, New Jersey, a nursing home relocated all of its residents after two dozen were confirmed infected and the rest were presumed to be. In Louisiana, at least 11 nursing homes, largely in the New Orleans area, have reported cases. In Mount Airy, Maryland, a death linked to the virus was recorded in a home where 66 people were confirmed infected. The Tennessee governor’s office said a nursing home there had about 60 residents and 33 workers confirmed positive. Residents’ loved ones are being kept away to try to slow the spread. Willa Robinson, whose husband, Vernon, died Thursday, said she last saw him healthy on March 13 — the day before his nursing home in Burbank, California, prohibited visitors. She brought him his favorite meal of baked chicken, garlic mashed potatoes and carrots and left with their customary farewell. “I love you,” she told him. “I love you more,” he replied. She sat outside his hospital room days ago and watched through a glass window as he struggled to breathe. Now she must mourn her husband of 55 years in isolation. “Nobody can come to me,” she said. Others feared they may get no goodbye. “I have a feeling that I very likely may never see my mother again,” said James Preller, whose 94-year-old mother, Ann Preller, is a resident at Peconic Landing, a retirement community on New York’s Long Island where seven have died recently. For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. But for others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause severe symptoms like pneumonia and can be fatal. In New York, the virus is overwhelming some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, with data showing high rates of infection in densely packed areas with big non-English-speaking populations. Dr. Craig Smith, who heads the surgery department at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, said the hospital will probably be forced into “apocalyptic scenarios” in the coming weeks in which ventilators and intensive care unit beds will need to be rationed. Trump spoke of the haunting images he had seen on television this week of bodies being removed from Elmhurst Hospital in his native Queens and put in large refrigerated trucks. “Body bags all over, in hallways,” Trump said. “I’ve seen things that I’ve never seen before.” New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio asked the federal government to deliver 400 more ventilators and warned that the city will run out of masks, gowns and other supplies in a week if they don’t get reinforcements. Worry for the poorest was being echoed around the world. In India, a lockdown covering the country’s 1.3 billion people has put day laborers out of work and families struggling to eat. With no jobs, those living in the country’s crowded cities are walking back to their native villages. Women in saris held babies on their hips. Others toted their belongings in bags normally used for cement. Prime Minister Narendra Modi apologized for the hardships but said, “These tough measures were needed to win this battle.” Though the U.S. has the most reported cases, five countries have higher death tolls: Italy, Spain, China, Iran and France. Italy reported more than 750 new fatalities Sunday, raising its total to nearly 10,800. But the number of new infections showed signs of easing, with officials expressing cautious optimism that the most severe shutdown in the industrialized West is showing results. Italy’s civil protection agency said more than 5,200 new cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, the lowest number in four days, for a total of almost 98,000 infections. Spain moved to tighten its lockdown and ban all nonessential work as it hit another daily record of almost 840 dead. The country’s overall official toll was more than 6,500. Egypt shut its beaches as cases in the Mideast surpassed 50,000. Police in the Philippines stepped up arrests of quarantine violators, and more tourists were evacuated from Mount Everest and the Indonesian island of Bali. Russia ordered borders to close on Monday, Moscow all but confined its 12 million residents to their homes, and the head of the Russian Orthodox called on believers to stay away from churches and pray at home instead. A prominent French politician with the virus died, the country’s first death of a senior official. Restrictions that would have been unthinkable weeks ago have been imposed in Europe and elsewhere. Parisians are fined if they try to leave the city, South Africans can’t buy liquor, and Serbians are upset over a ban on walking their dogs. In Italy, burials are being held with only one family member. As others tightened controls, China continued to ease its restrictions: Flights from Hubei province at the epicenter of the country’s outbreak resumed Sunday. The focus of China’s prevention measures has shifted to overseas arrivals, who have made up the bulk of new infections for more than two weeks. Virtually all foreigners are now barred from entering the country. ___ Sedensky reported from Philadelphia. Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Joseph Wilson in Madrid; Colleen Barry in Milan; Angela Charlton in Paris; Joe McDonald in Beijing; Geir Moulson in Berlin; Vanessa Gera in Warsaw; Jacquelyn Martin in Mount Airy, Maryland; Jonathan Drew in Durham, North Carolina; and Marina Villeneuve in Albany, New York. ___ This story has been updated to correct that Hawaii and Wyoming are the only remaining states with no reported deaths linked to the coronavirus, not Hawaii and Montana. ___ Follow AP news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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30312
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"A May 2018 study found that 99.9 percent of politicians throughout the United States are ""actual psychopaths."
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It’s possible that the prevalence of personality traits consistent with psychopathy might be as high in the world of politics, but despite the claims made by this article, any reliable figures are lacking.
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false
|
Politics, neon nettle
|
In June 2018, the disreputable Neon Nettle web site claimed that a new study had come to some interesting conclusions about America’s political class: A new study published by the Social Science Research Network has revealed that 99.9% of all politicians in the USA are actual psychopaths … The new analysis ranked 48 continental states and the District of Columbia by measuring the psychopathic personality of their residents … After all the number crunching, what was the top psychopath hotspot? Washington D.C. The Neon Nettle article’s central claim is false, and was arrived at using flawed logic and downright misrepresentation of the study’s actual findings. In fact, the article itself contains disclaimers about the significance of Washington, D.C.’s top spot in the rankings, suggesting that the headline is no more than inaccurate and sensationalist clickbait: [The author] wrote that people should take the capitol’s top spot with a little bit of skepticism. The D.C. area is small and entirely urban, so it is inherently different than comparing a state, which has a more diverse geography and population, he wrote. Contrast that measure of sobriety further down in the article with the headline Neon Nettle decided on: “99.9% of US Politicians Are Actual Psychopaths, New Study Reveals.” In his May 2018 paper (which has not yet been peer-reviewed), Ryan Murphy — an economist and research assistant professor at Southern Methodist University — arrived at an estimate for the prevalence of personality traits consistent with psychopathy in 48 states and Washington, D.C. Murphy used existing 2013 research which employed online personality tests to measure the prevalence of the “Big Five” personality traits: Extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. (Interestingly, one of the online tests used in the 2013 research was myPersonality, a Facebook app which in 2018 was revealed to have been involved in the leaking of three million users’ personal data.) Using these extrapolated estimates, Murphy came up with a ranking of 48 states and D.C. for the prevalence of traits consistent with psychopathy. Washington, D.C. had the highest prevalence, followed by Connecticut, California, New Jersey, Wyoming and New York. The states with the lowest prevalence of psychopathy, according to Murphy, were West Virginia, Vermont, Tennessee, North Carolina, and New Mexico. You can see the full list below: Murphy did not measure or estimate the prevalence of psychopathy among politicians, so Neon Nettle’s claim that the study had “revealed” that 99.9 percent of politicians are psychopaths is false on its face. Furthermore, Murphy’s research involved proxy measures of the prevalence of psychopathy. That is, he extrapolated estimates of the prevalence of certain personality traits consistent with psychopathy, rather than measuring rates of clinical diagnosis. This further undermines Neon Nettle’s claim that the study had found 99.9 percent of politicians are “actual psychopaths.” The paper did mention the fact that existing research has more strongly associated certain occupations with psychopathy than others. Research conducted by the University of Oxford psychologist Kevin Dutton found ten professions with an unusually high proportion of psychopaths: chief executive officers, lawyers, television and radio news anchors and analysts, salespersons, surgeons, journalists, police officers, clergy, chefs, civil servants. While “politician” is not on that list, elected politicians often emerge from some of the professions listed, such as lawyer, CEO, and civil servant. Dutton has observed elsewhere: Traits that are common among psychopathic serial killers -— a grandiose sense of self-worth, persuasiveness, superficial charm, ruthlessness, lack of remorse and the manipulation of others — are also shared by politicians and world leaders. Individuals, in other words, running not from the police but for office. And in the paper cited by Neon Nettle, Murphy wrote: “The presence of psychopaths in [the] District of Columbia is consistent with the conjecture found in Murphy (2016) that psychopaths are likely to be effective in the political sphere.” Another 2012 study codified certain subjective assessments of job performance, such as behavior and responses to crisis situations, among 42 United States presidents, then scored each of them according to several tests for personality traits consistent with psychopathy. It found that, on average, the presidents scored higher than the general population according to one of those metrics, which measured fearlessness and dominance. When it came to other personality traits consistent with psychopathy, there was no difference between the presidents and the general public. There is a basis in the existing research for concluding that politicians are more likely than the general population to possess and display personality traits consistent with psychopathy, such as ruthlessness, fearlessness, persuasiveness, boldness, and so on. However, the prevalence of psychopathic traits among politicians or those involved in politics is still likely to be very low. According to one widely-cited study, an estimated 1.2 percent of the general population possess personality traits consistent with psychopathy. Among business leaders, that prevalence appears to be higher. One study found 3.9 percent of managers displayed psychopathic traits, while another placed that figure at 5.76 percent, and estimated that as many as 10.43 percent of “white-collar” managers were “dysfunctional,” meaning “psychopathic characteristics were clearly present although not to a degree that would allow a reliable medical diagnosis to be made.”
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17705
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"Mr. Conservative Says the Obama administration is handing out a pamphlet titled, ""What To Do When The Veteran In Your Classroom Attempts A Mass Shooting"
|
"The website Mr. Conservative posted an article that claimed the Obama administration was handing out a pamphlet titled, ""What To Do When The Veteran In Your Classroom Attempts A Mass Shooting."" The story originated on a satire site and was in no way real -- a truth that could have been easily discovered through a few clicks on the Internet."
|
false
|
National, Corrections and Updates, Education, Military, Veterans, Guns, Mr. Conservative,
|
"On Nov. 12, 2013, a blog called Mr. Conservative posted an alarming headline -- especially so given that it was just one day after the Veterans’ Day holiday. The story, which was forwarded to us by a reader, was headlined: ""Obama Admin. Hands Out Pamphlet: 'What To Do When The Veteran In Your Classroom Attempts A Mass Shooting.'"" The story went on to say that ""veterans all across the country are upset"" with the Education Department-issued pamphlet. Veterans, the site said, ""are taking the stance that this makes it look like ‘all veterans are PTSD-crazed cauldrons of rage.’ "" The Education Department’s defense, according to the post, was that there were already other pamphlets ""like ‘What To Do When The Hispanic In Your Classroom Attempts A Mass Shooting,’ ‘What To Do When The Gay Student In Your Classroom Attempts A Mass Shooting,’ and ‘What To Do When The Special-Needs Child In Your Classroom Attempts A Mass Shooting.’"" The article quoted an unnamed representative of the Veterans of Foreign Wars calling the pamphlets ""incredibly frustrating"" and saying they offered ""several asinine recommendations."" Was the story true? A lot of people seemed to think so. A number of blogs and other social media sites referenced or reposted it, and commenters on Mr. Conservative appeared to take it seriously. ""I am ashamed that we are demeaning my fellow veterans in this manner. It seems to be part of Obama's grand scheme to diminish the military,"" said one. Said another, ""What is it going to take to get this guy impeached??? If he doesn't get impeached, nobody will."" Other commenters called Obama a ""disgusting pig"" or worse. But a few Mr. Conservative commenters wondered whether it was a spoof, and it turns out that they were on to something. It was actually a piece of satire -- one that Mr. Conservative posted without labeling it as such. Though Mr. Conservative didn’t cite the original source or link to it, some quick Googling enabled us to find the source easily -- a website called the Duffel Blog, which is a satire site aimed at members of the military. Here’s the disclaimer posted on the Duffel Blog’s ""About"" page: ""We are in no way, shape, or form, a real news outlet. Everything on this website is satirical and the content of this site is a parody of a news organization. No composition should be regarded as truthful, and no reference of an individual, company, or military unit seeks to inflict malice or emotional harm. All characters, groups, and military units appearing in these works are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual military units and companies is purely coincidental."" Indeed, a cursory glance at the Duffel Blog front page on Nov. 12 suggests that a visitor probably would have been able to figure that out on their own. The headlines included, ""Pentagon Proposes New Antarctica Command,"" ""Applebee’s Declares Bankruptcy After Offering Free Alcohol For Veterans Day,"" and ""Paperwork Error Sends Marines To Guard Streets Of Hell"" (the last one was datelined, ""The Pearly Gates of Heaven""). Just to be sure, we also asked the Education Department, and a spokesman said the pamphlet ""is obviously not ours."" An inquiry sent through Mr. Conservative’s website was not answered, and as of publication time, the site had neither taken down the story nor labeled it as satire. The Duffel Blog’s founder, former Marine Sgt. Paul Szoldra, did not respond to a request, but in 2012, he told Columbia Journalism Review, ""I think you have to have a dark sense of humor just to survive. ""It’s a way of coping with things beyond your control. Telling jokes or laughing about things you wouldn’t normally laugh at, especially in a combat situation, helps you cope with that kind of stress."" Our ruling The website Mr. Conservative posted an article that claimed the Obama administration was handing out a pamphlet titled, ""What To Do When The Veteran In Your Classroom Attempts A Mass Shooting."" The story originated on a satire site and was in no way real -- a truth that could have been easily discovered through a few clicks on the Internet. Editor's note: A few hours after our initial publication, Mr. Conservative appended an update to its post: ""Since the original posting of this article, we learned that the original news source that posted this story was not an actual news site but a satirical site. However, the fact that this story is believable, on its face, says something about our government and the society in which we now live."""
|
9144
|
Stem cells may significantly improve tendon healing by regulating inflammation
|
A basic study of the ability of stem cells to “regulate” inflammation in tendons seems promising enough to invite further research into the role stem cells might play in this important piece of body scaffolding. But examining stem cell activity in petri dishes and in rats does not get us within shouting distance of a treatment. The news release acknowledges the early stage of this work, but its headline heralds the study’s findings in ways that will encourage readers to anticipate help sooner rather than later. Injured tendons heal at an extremely slow pace, sidelining many people for months at a time. If inflammation is a major reason for this, then a treatment that addresses that problem would be of interest to active Americans and those who treat them. However, it’s premature to draw conclusions about the potential of treating inflamed tendons with stem cells based on this very preliminary work. Because of the rise in health news about stem cells we’ve written some tips for communicating stem cell research.
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false
|
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology,stem cells
|
This is basic research, so no one is in a position to talk about specific costs. But when a release broaches therapy as a likely goal, as is the case, then it indeed needs to speak to cost. Such treatments run into the thousands of dollars, with iffy participation by insurance companies. The release briefly notes two findings: that human stem cells in petri dishes, prodded by proteins that promote inflammation, expressed genes involved in regulating inflammation, and that inflamed rat tendons exposed to stem cells demonstrated improvement. But without further study details, we have little idea of what to make of these results. Since the release’s main source does reference the possibility of these findings leading to future treatment methods, the release really should offer some information about the possible harms of stem cell applications, which include immune reactions and even cancer. The release doesn’t tell us much about how the study was carried out. We wish the release would have highlighted the limitations of the research — the main one being that it hasn’t been tested outside of the lab. How this treatment might apply to people remains unclear and the release should have made this clear. No disease mongering here. Inflamed tendons make life miserable for many folks, who find that this type of injury is very slow to heal. The quoted expert source in the release is identified clearly as a co-investigator of the study, but we can find no information in the release about funding sources or possible conflicts of interest. Alternatives to the use of stem cells for treating inflamed tendons get no space in this text. Standard therapies including physical therapy and anti-inflammatory medicines are not mentioned. The release doesn’t provide any indication when a therapy might be available — if ever. This very preliminary basic research has a long research path ahead. The release makes a claim of novelty with this statement: “Many would have predicted that tendon healing is inflammation-linked,” said Thoru Pederson, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, “but that the anti-inflammatory roles of TSCs could be so potent, and so amplifiable, is a striking finding.” It also suggests the research is a building block for future research. A co-principle investigator is quoted saying the work is “an important foundation for the development of a new treatment.” The release doesn’t engage in sensational language. However, the release headline and some of the quotes by researchers appear more optimistic than warranted based on the preliminary nature of the work.
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3159
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California considers requiring zero emission truck sales.
|
The country’s most populous state could become the first to require a portion of new truck sales be electric or “zero emission” vehicles as California grapples with how to clean up its worst-in-the nation air quality.
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true
|
Health, General News, California, Science, U.S. News, Air quality, Pollution
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Home to the two largest ports in the country in Los Angeles and Long Beach, California has roughly 1.5 million medium and heavy duty trucks on the road that spew harmful pollutants as they haul freight to warehouses. The state’s transportation sector accounts for 41% of all greenhouse gas emissions, a cause of climate change, and is a major source of ozone and particulate matter pollution that can cause respiratory problems. Regulators estimate the new rules would result in roughly 74,000 zero emission trucks on the road in California by 2030, or about 4% of all trucks. California already has a rule requiring car makers to offer for sale specific numbers of clean cars. But Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, said the truck rule would be the first of its kind in the world. The board considered the new rule in a public hearing on Thursday that drew more than 100 public comments. The board won’t vote on the proposal until next year. But Thursday was the last chance for advocates and opponents to weigh-in. “Trucks are increasingly a major contributor to air pollution nationwide, but especially in our cities where they are among the largest sources of toxic emissions in vulnerable neighborhoods,” Nichols said. If adopted, at least 15% of sales of heavy duty pickup trucks like the Ford F-250 and full size vans like the Chevrolet Express must be zero emission vehicles by 2030. That standard also applies to the heaviest trucks, including tractor trailers. The standard is tougher for box trucks and delivery trucks, mandating at least half of all new sales be zero-emission vehicles by 2030. The rules are part of the state’s plan to have 100% zero emission truck sales by 2040. By then, state regulators say the phased-in limits could prevent more than 600 premature deaths due to poor air quality in California. Sales requirements for the heaviest trucks would begin in 2024 and gradually increase until 2030. Sales requirements for pickup trucks would not begin until 2027. The proposed rules continue California’s aggressive push on environmental regulations, which already include tougher emission standards on cars and trucks than the federal government imposes and a first-in-the-nation cap-and-trade system that requires big polluters to purchase credits to let them pollute. Most environmental groups support the rule, but they say it is not strong enough. Trucks last longer than passenger vehicles, which is why companies are slower to replace their fleets. While the rules would impact up to 50% of some new truck sales by 2030, it would only result in about 4% of trucks on the road being zero emission vehicles. Andrea Vidaurre, policy analyst for the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, said these types of trucks historically are clustered in poorer communities. That includes communities in the Inland Empire, an area next to Los Angeles where warehouses store freight from ports. The group says low-income communities can be most impacted environmental health hazards. “We have so much traffic going in right now just in this area, and the rule currently, it would barely cover it,” she said. Jed Mandel, president of the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, said he supports efforts to get more zero-emission trucks on the road. But he said making rules “on a naked sales mandate is fundamentally flawed.” “Trucks are not cars. Our customers invest capital to purchase vehicles that must return a profit,” Mandel said. “We all know today that (zero emission vehicles) are more expensive than traditionally fueled vehicles.” Mandel said California regulators should narrow the rule to apply to trucking segments that are “more readily suited to that technology,” including school buses and municipal fleet step vans.
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37870
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An unidentified man was seen shopping at a Vons supermarket in Santee, California, while wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood.
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Was a Man in California Spotted Shopping While Wearing a Ku Klux Klan Hood?
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true
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Fact Checks, Viral Content
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Social media users and officials in a small southern California city condemned photographs spreading online showing an unidentified man shopping in public while wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood as a “face mask” during the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.The man was first spotted and photographed at a Vons supermarket in Santee, California on May 2 2020.“Several employees came over together and told the man to either remove the hood or he would have to leave, so he removed the hood,” said Tiam Tellez, who posted his photos of the man on Facebook. “So troublesome in so many ways this is still happening in Santee at Vons. Disgusting!”Tellez’s post was shared 449 times within 24 hours of going live. But within a day of the incident, photos spread on both Facebook and Twitter after being shared by others — including Tammy Gillies, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) San Diego office.“Don’t know which angers me more – the person wearing this or the fact that no one in management [for] @Vons Santee did anything about it,” she wrote. “@ADL_SD would be happy to educate your team. San Diego is #NoPlaceForHate.”Don’t know which angers me more – the person wearing this or the fact that no one in management @Vons Santee did anything about it. @ADL_SD would be happy to educate your team. San Diego is #NoPlaceForHate pic.twitter.com/jMOzQqpcoi— Tammy Gillies (@tgilliesADL) May 3, 2020The story further spread to local media outlets, with other witnesses to the man’s racist display coming forward.“He was behind me in line. Standing quietly,” one woman told the Times of San Diego. “A man in a wheelchair [went] past and saluted him and he laughed. I took the photo because I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. I’ve grown up in Santee and have never seen such racism right before my eyes.”The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement at the time that it had “been made aware” of the incident but that deputies were not called to the store while the man was there.“Detectives from the Sheriff’s Department are looking into the matter and will pursue any appropriate criminal charges,” the department said. “The Sheriff’s Department does not condone hate or any acts of intolerance in our communities. We are a county that is welcoming of people from all backgrounds.”According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, though, the department later said that it would not pursue charges against the man citing “insufficient evidence.”Located in the eastern part of San Diego County, Santee has been derisively nicknamed “Klantee” by other San Diego residents. At least eight white supremacist groups are reportedly still active in the San Diego area, and local white nationalist figure Roger Ogden was identified as the organizer of an event protesting measures seeking to limit the spread of COVID-19 using “freedom” as a pretext. The demonstrations, largely organized via Facebook, have largely attracted white nationalist groups, who have taken the opportunity to spread anti-Semitic and Nazi-related rhetoric.Mayor John Minto released a joint statement with the Santee City Council condemning the unidentified Vons shopper’s behavior.“Many thanks to all who stepped forward to curtail this sad reminder of intolerance,” the statement read. “Santee, its leaders, and I will not tolerate such behavior. Santee and its citizens are great, and this particular individual’s actions are not representative of us as a people and a wonderful city.”Albertsons, the parent company for the Vons chain, also released a statement:At Vons, fostering an environment of courtesy, dignity and respect is one of our highest priorities, and we work hard to hold everyone in our stores to these standards, including customers.Unfortunately, an alarming and isolated incident occurred at our Vons store in Santee, where a customer chose an inflammatory method of wearing a face covering. Needless to say, it was shocking.Several members of our team asked the customer to remove it, and all requests were ignored until the customer was in the checkout area. This was a disturbing incident for our associates and customers, and we are reviewing with our team how to best handle such inappropriate situations in the future.A second man, identified as Dustin Hart, posted video online of himself shopping in a Food 4 Less store in the same community wearing a mask bearing the Nazi swastika symbol on May 7, 2020. Hart has claimed that he wore the symbol to “peaceful protest” stay-at-home measures implemented by Gov. Gavin Newsom. He refused to remove the mask when asked about it by both authorities and store personnel. The Sheriff’s Department is also investigating that incident.During its meeting on May 13, 2020 the city council voted to address the two incidents by allowing Minto to nominate more people to a separate group, the Community Oriented Policing Committee (COMPOP). The mayor said he planned to nominate at least one Black member as well as a member of the ADL. Video of the meeting can be found here.In both late December 2019 and February 2020, our own staff members repeatedly found copies of the Epoch Times publication displayed alongside actual newspapers in at least two different Vons stores in the San Diego and Los Angeles areas. The publication has been banned from buying advertising on Facebook due to its penchant for spreading disinformation.We have contacted Albertsons seeking further comment.Update, May 4 2020, 12:55 p.m. PST: Updated with comments from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. Update, May 15 2020, 3:40 p.m. PST: Updated with notes on a second racist display in Santee, as well as the response from the Santee City Council.Comments
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7760
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Up to 84,000 Americans hospitalized with flu in past three months: CDC.
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An estimated 69,000 to 84,000 Americans were hospitalized due to the flu in the last three months, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday.
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true
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Health News
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The nation saw one of the worst flu outbreaks in nearly a decade during the 2017-2018 season, with more than 900,000 cases of hospitalizations and over 80,000 deaths, the CDC estimates here Between Oct. 1, 2018 and Jan. 5, 2019, about 6 million to 7 million people were reported to have contracted the flu, according to data collected by the health agency. Health regulators have been trying to combat flu outbreaks in the United States and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first new flu medication in nearly two decades last year. The CDC last month signaled the start of the flu season (click here), saying that 24 states and Guam were reporting widespread cases, with the H1N1 virus being the predominant strain. The dominant flu strain during the last season, H3N2, has been linked with severe disease and death, particularly among children and the elderly. The agency continues to recommend vaccination as the best way to reduce the risk of flu and advised people who are at high risk category to approach hospital for treatment with a flu antiviral drug.
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9082
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Black tea may help with weight loss, too
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This news release was based on a very preliminary four-week study of mice. But readers of the misleading headline — “Black tea may help with weight loss, too” — will assume that the results apply to humans. The release attempts to quickly clarify the erroneous impression left by the headline, which is good. But then it later quotes a researcher who extrapolates far beyond what a mouse study can tell us when she says: “Our new findings suggest that black tea, through a specific mechanism through the gut microbiome, may also contribute to good health and weight loss in humans.” Mice are not people, and the results reported here are very unlikely to apply to humans. We have consistently learned, through mounds of research that’s much more relevant to humans than this study, that there’s no single food or nutrient that yields sustainable weight loss in people. Research that makes small incremental steps in improving our knowledge of the health benefits of various types of foods is useful. This study, done on mice and suggesting that black tea has “strong impact on the gut microbiome” needs to be contextualized in terms of its impact on human health. The study is very preliminary; it provides little if any support for the suggestion that those who like black tea “may have a new reason to keep drinking it.” And yet the news release framing has already been parroted by numerous news outlets with headlines like these: Men’s Health: Drinking Black Tea May Help You Lose Weight Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Drink up: Black tea helps you lose weight with gut bacteria, study says
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false
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animal research,black tea,weight loss
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There is no discussion of the costs of black, decaffeinated tea. While one might argue that the cost of tea is relatively well known, remember that this was an animal study. We don’t know how much a person would have to drink in order to achieve the equivalent dosage for humans. The release could have clarified this point. It’s disappointing that we are left without any idea of the magnitude of the findings. We are told merely that “the weights of the mice that were given green or black tea extracts dropped to the same levels as those of the mice that received the low-fat diet throughout the study.” No potential harms of consuming black tea were mentioned. Black tea contains caffeine, which can cause a range of adverse effects in high doses. Of course, the manuscript that’s the basis of the release specifies that the study tested decaffeinated black tea. However, the release doesn’t mention this. Clarifying this point would have been helpful. Although we do get some detail on the quality of the study and the composition of the different comparator groups, the release never explains the limitations of animal research. Instead of emphasizing the long road to proving an equivalent effect in humans, the release repeatedly suggests the possibility of human application right now. There is no disease mongering here. The funders of the study are disclosed and there don’t appear to be any obvious conflicts of interest. The study was, in a sense, a comparison of alternatives but there were no mentions of any alternatives to reduce weight in mice, other than the two teas in question. We think the release could have talked briefly about calorie balance as the most accepted way to avoid weight gain, and calorie restriction to encourage weight loss. Black and green tea are widely available so mentioning that fact is unnecessary. The release provides some background about previous research in this area and how the black tea hypothesis grew out of that previous research, a 2015 UCLA study. It’s never justifiable to imply a human effect based entirely on mouse research. Moreover, the release further suggests that it’s already been proven that green tea induces weight loss — something that certainly has not been conclusively established.
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6765
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Admissions ban on Florida nursing home tied to Irma deaths.
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Florida health officials will not allow new patients to be admitted to an assisted living facility associated with a nursing home where a dozen residents died after the facility lost power in a hurricane.
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true
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Health, Assisted living, Florida, Hurricanes
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The Agency for Health Care Administration banned Floridian Gardens Assisted Living Facility from taking new patients Friday, citing “an immediate serious danger to the public health, safety or welfare” at the Miami facility. The Miami Herald reports a survey uncovered at least two deaths and multiple falls due to “deficient practices.” The facility is owned by the same people that operated the Rehabilitation Center at Hollywood Hills. Regulators tried to shut down Floridian Gardens after the Hollywood deaths. A criminal investigation is ongoing into the deaths at the Hollywood facility. A telephone message could not be left Saturday and an email to the facility was not immediately returned. ___ Information from: The Miami Herald, http://www.herald.com
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7927
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World's governments draft manufacturers for virus treatment arsenal.
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From Washington to London, Beijing to Rome, governments are drafting automakers and aerospace manufacturers to ramp up production of ventilators and other medical equipment to bolster what most experts say is an inadequate arsenal of coronavirus treatment tools.
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true
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Health News
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Authorities are hoping large-scale manufacturers can use their low-cost supply chains and digital design expertise, including 3D printing, and repurpose some factories in order to make up the expected shortfall in vital medical hardware. Some of Britain’s biggest aerospace and car companies have formed three teams to produce basic ventilators to help the country’s National Health Service cope with the coronavirus outbreak. Meggitt Plc, which builds components including oxygen systems for civil aerospace and military fighter programs, is leading one consortium alongside engineers GKN, Thales SA and Renishaw Plc. The other two teams are being led by carmakers McLaren, which is looking at how to design a simple version of a ventilator, and Nissan Motor Co, which is working with others to support existing ventilator producers. Ventilators, machines which move air in and out of the lungs, could be the difference between life and death for coronavirus patients suffering breathing difficulties. But getting new production up to speed will not be easy, some in the manufacturing industry said. “Precision milling and 3D printing techniques could help manufacture complex parts,” said Rene-Christopher Wollmann, program and platform director at Automobili Pininfarina, which uses virtual design software to build electric hypercars. “But this depends on how much know-how existing manufacturers (of ventilators) are prepared to share about the design of such a machine,” he added. “Another bottleneck will be assembling such machines under conditions which are adequate for the medical industry.” The idea of using automakers to supply medical equipment got started in China, where electric car maker BYD earlier this month began turning out 5 million face masks and 300,000 bottles of hand sanitizer a day. The Shenzhen-based automaker is backed by U.S. investor Warren Buffett. Since then the idea has spread to other industries and countries. European aerospace group Airbus is working across its processes to see if its 3D printing or production facilities can be of use. “The aim is for there to be a (ventilator) prototype in two weeks and for manufacturing to start in four weeks,” one person familiar with the situation at the company said. In northern Italy, the epicenter of the virus outbreak outside China, Italian carmakers Ferrari and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV are in talks with the nation’s biggest ventilator manufacturer to help it boost production, company officials said on Thursday. The Italian government has embarked on a big expansion of intensive care beds, many of which will require ventilators. A source familiar with the matter said sports car maker Ferrari NV would be ready to start manufacturing ventilator parts in its famous Maranello headquarters, close to a ventilator factory operated by small medical equipment maker Siare Engineering. The luxury carmaker had yet to make a final decision. “We’re talking to Fiat Chrysler, with Ferrari and (component maker) Marelli to try to understand if they can lend us a hand in this process for the electronics part,” Siare Engineering Chief Executive Gianluca Preziosa told Reuters. Siare could also benefit from the automakers’ purchasing power, Preziosa said. A spokesman for Exor NV, parent firm of both Fiat Chrysler and Ferrari, said meetings had taken place on Thursday with Siare to study the feasibility of the idea and that a decision was expected shortly. The spokesman said two main options were being considered: help Siare to engineer a capacity increase at its plant with the support of technicians provided by Fiat Chrysler and Ferrari; or outsource production of ventilator parts to the carmakers’ facilities. In the United States, the federal government is in talks with Detroit auto giants General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co about how they can help expand ventilator production, the companies and White House officials said on Wednesday. It would not be the first time Detroit retooled auto plants to confront a national crisis. During World War Two Ford, GM and the former Chrysler stopped building cars and directed their factories and engineers to mass-produce airplanes, tanks and other weaponry at unprecedented levels, earning Detroit the nickname the “Arsenal of Democracy.” On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would invoke the Defense Production Act, a law dating back to the Korean War of the 1950s which grants the president broad authority to “expedite and expand the supply of resources from the U.S. industrial base,” which could allow the government to speed production of masks, respirators, ventilators and other needed equipment. Ford CEO Jim Hackett told employees in a town hall meeting that Ford is working on building ventilators if the idea is feasible. GM CEO Mary Barra spoke to White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow about the issue after the company announced it would suspend North American production through March 30. Separately, Tesla CEO Elon Musk used his Twitter account to offer his company’s services. “We will make ventilators if there is a shortage,” Musk tweeted, responding to a suggestion that the billionaire repurpose a factory for the task. The comment immediately drew hundreds of replies urging him to act.
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14133
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Amendment 2 will put almost 2,000 pot shops in Florida ... more pot shops than Walmart and Walgreens combined.
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"Vote No On 2 said, ""Amendment 2 will put almost 2,000 pot shops in Florida ... more pot shops than Walmart and Walgreens combined."" The state health department did project 1,993 medical marijuana dispensaries would be needed to serve potential patients, based on data from Colorado compared with Florida. That is more than the 840 Walgreens and 233 Walmart supercenters and discount stores in the state, although the comparison seems like a bit of a red herring. It’s important to remember that while the health department report is the only real estimate available, this figure isn’t definite. The agency and the Legislature would decide the actual number of stores and how they are regulated after the amendment passes. That total is anyone’s guess. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details."
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mixture
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Florida Amendments, Florida, Marijuana, Vote No On 2,
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"Opponents of Florida’s medical marijuana amendment have fired up a new round of attacks, claiming there will be a dispensary on practically every corner if voters approve the initiative. In a three-minute ad released May 16, 2016, the group Vote No On 2 calls Amendment 2 ""a scam to legalize pot."" Should the measure pass, they say, it’s likely that places to buy medical marijuana will outnumber two well-known retail outlets. ""Looks like Amendment 2 will put almost 2,000 pot shops in Florida ... more pot shops than Walmart and Walgreens combined,"" the video says. It goes on to deride California medical marijuana regulations and users, and implies Florida would become like the Golden State if the measure passes. While polls say medical marijuana is enjoying about 80 percent support among voters, Vote No On 2’s figures spark an interesting point. Would the number of medical marijuana dispensaries outnumber Walmarts and Walgreens locations in Florida? That's possible, according to one state estimate, but the figures are a little hazy. Dispensary data Amendment 2 was first on the ballot in 2014 but narrowly lost the 60 percent required to pass. The current version for the November 2016 ballot has the same name, but United for Care, the group behind the measure, altered the language to address some concerns that hounded the 2014 amendment. The amendment now requires parental consent and doctor certification for minors and more clearly defines the medical conditions it covers: cancer, HIV/AIDS, epilepsy, glaucoma, post-traumatic stress disorder, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis ""or other debilitating medical conditions of the same kind or class as or comparable to those enumerated,"" with a doctor’s recommendation. It works like this: If a patient with one of these conditions gets the okay from a doctor, they (or a certified caregiver) will get a state-issued ID card and be able to go to a state-regulated dispensary to buy their marijuana. Doctors technically can’t prescribe marijuana because it is still a Schedule I drug under federal law, meaning it’s considered highly addictive and has no known medical benefits, and is therefore illegal. Doctors would risk losing their ability to practice medicine. Pharmacies also can’t legally distribute cannabis, making dispensaries necessary. So how many dispensaries would there be? The proposed amendment leaves the details of medical marijuana regulations up to the Legislature and the Florida Health Department. Legislators would need to pass a bill for medical marijuana and the health department would develop and enforce regulations. In essence, there could be as few or as many dispensaries as the state wants. There’s only one estimate for how many patients and dispensaries there would be — a 2015 health department analysis. That report used Florida Department of Economic and Demographic Research data to estimate 440,552 patients in Florida would qualify for medical cannabis. The amendment would lead to 1,993 registered treatment centers, the health department said. That’s the figure Vote No On 2 is using in its ad. United for Care doesn’t dispute the figures, because the health department’s analysis is the only study that’s been done. ""It’s the best educated guess that we have,"" United for Care director Ben Pollara said. ""It’s up to the Department of Health and the Legislature. … It could be 2,000, it could be 20. It could be 5,000."" In any event, 1,993 dispensaries would outnumber all the Walmarts and Walgreens in Florida. Vote No On 2 spokeswoman Christina Johnson said the group chose those businesses to illustrate how ubiquitous dispensaries would be should the amendment pass. The video correctly shows 840 Walgreens drug stores in the state, but includes 191 Walmarts, a figure apparently derived from a January 2007 list from Reclaim Democracy, a group seeking limits on corporate influence in government. A more recent list from Walmart shows 223 supercenters and 10 discount stores. (Neighborhood Markets and Sam’s Club stores are not included in either count.) While Walmart and Walgreens do have pharmacies, we’re not convinced pitting small medical cannabis dispensaries against big chain retailers is a fair comparison. It may be better to compare so-called ""pot shops"" to the overall number of pharmacies. The state health department told us there are 9,725 licensed pharmacies in Florida. To provide more context for the dispensary estimate, we will note that the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation says Florida has 2,082 active licensed veterinary clinics — and 1,893 package liquor stores. Mile-high estimate With so little spelled out in the proposed amendment, we wondered how the health department arrived at its estimate of 1,993 dispensaries. The health department told us they used Colorado, with about 5.3 million people, for the analysis because the state has allowed medical cannabis for years and has a broad baseline of data. The report says there are 515 licensed medical marijuana centers as of October 2015 (there are 528 now, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue) serving almost 114,000 patients. Analysts then scaled that up to Florida’s population of 20 million. Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies and the pro-legislation Marijuana Policy Project, said of the 24 states and the District of Columbia allowing medical marijuana, it’s misleading to use either Colorado or California as examples for Florida. Not only did Colorado decriminalize recreational marijuana use in 2012 — its 421 retail shops are counted separately from medical dispensaries — but both states lacked the kind of initial regulatory oversight Amendment 2 would require. ""California dispensaries still have no state licensing or regulation to speak of, though a regulatory and licensing law should be phased in by 2018,"" O’Keefe said in an email. ""In Colorado, regulations went into effect in 2010-11, but hundreds of dispensaries pre-dated them."" A better state to look to would be New Mexico, O’Keefe said, because it required a licensing program in its law when it passed. New Mexico had 23 dispensaries for its 2 million residents, and expanded that to 35 in 2015. Extrapolating Florida’s total based on New Mexico’s regulations would net far fewer dispensaries, O’Keefe said. If it were based on total land area, Florida could limit the number to about 16. If there were the same number of dispensaries per capita as New Mexico, there could be about 340. ""I really can’t say how many are likely, since it will depend on many factors, with the primary one being regulations. But I would bet it’s far less than 2,000,"" O’Keefe said. Our ruling Vote No On 2 said, ""Amendment 2 will put almost 2,000 pot shops in Florida ... more pot shops than Walmart and Walgreens combined."" The state health department did project 1,993 medical marijuana dispensaries would be needed to serve potential patients, based on data from Colorado compared with Florida. That is more than the 840 Walgreens and 233 Walmart supercenters and discount stores in the state, although the comparison seems like a bit of a red herring. It’s important to remember that while the health department report is the only real estimate available, this figure isn’t definite. The agency and the Legislature would decide the actual number of stores and how they are regulated after the amendment passes. That total is anyone’s guess. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details."
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5622
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US to waive environmental reviews for San Diego border wall.
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The Trump administration on Friday waived environmental reviews to replace a 14-mile (22.5 kilometer) stretch of border barrier in San Diego, shielding itself from potentially crippling delays.
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true
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San Diego, North America, Environment, National security, Environmental policy, U.S. News, Donald Trump
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The Department of Homeland Security said it would issue the sixth waiver of Donald Trump’s presidency under a 2005 law that empowers the secretary to waive reviews required under environmental laws if the border barrier is deemed to be in national security interests. Those laws include the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act. The waiver, which was announced Thursday and published Friday in the Federal Register, helps clear the way for work to begin this month on replacing a second layer of barrier in San Diego, a steel-mesh wall that worked like a fortress when it was built about a decade ago but is now often breached with powerful battery-operated saws sold in home improvement stores. The waivers avoid time-consuming reviews and lawsuits challenging violation of environmental laws. The government awarded a $101 million contract to SLSCO Ltd. of Galveston, Texas, to build a barrier of 30-feet-high steel bollards, with options for an additional $30 million. Work is scheduled to begin this month. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a public notice that the Border Patrol’s San Diego sector is “an area of high illegal entry,” with more than 38,000 arrests and seizures of more than 4 tons (3,600 kilograms) of marijuana and 1,800 pounds (816 kilograms) of cocaine in the 2018 fiscal year. San Diego was the third busiest corridor for illegal crossings among the Border Patrol’s nine sectors along the Mexican border in 2018 after Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and Tucson, Arizona. Work on replacing the first layer of San Diego barrier is nearly complete, also 14 miles (22.5 kilometers) long and made of steel bollards up to 30 feet (9 meters) high. Environmental groups criticized the latest waiver. “Trump is ignoring laws that protect public health and endangered wildlife so he can fulfill a hateful campaign promise,” said Laiken Jordahl, borderlands campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity. “Communities and ecosystems along the border are being upended by this militarization, but Border Patrol won’t even give residents the decency of a public hearing. This is the definition of lawlessness.” President George W. Bush’s administration issued five waivers, paving the way for barriers to blanket about one-third of the border with Mexico. Barack Obama’s administration didn’t issue any waivers.
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24510
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"AARP is ""the largest reseller of insurance in the country"" and ""has a vested interest in seeing that the market for reselling supplemental insurance expands."
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AARP profits from insurance sales; GOP calls it a health reform conflict
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mixture
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National, Health Care, Legal Issues, Medicare, Ginny Brown-Waite,
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"AARP, the nonprofit advocacy group for seniors, has often said it does not endorse a particular plan for health care reform. But the group has been a high-profile supporter of overall reform and hosted a town hall event with President Barack Obama in July. That advocacy has bothered some Republicans. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida sent AARP a blistering letter after the group wrote her, questioning her statements about the health care reform bill under consideration in the U.S. House of Representatives. ""Every day I hear from constituents who are concerned that AARP no longer represents their values,"" Browne-Waite wrote. ""They are surprised to learn that AARP is the largest reseller of insurance in the country and as such has a vested interest in seeing that the market for reselling supplemental insurance expands."" ""AARP unfortunately has become a mouthpiece for this president at the expense of what is best for America's seniors,"" she added. The two letters are long and contain many details about the House health care bill. You can read AARP's letter here and Brown-Waite's response here . (AARP's letter cited PolitiFact.com as a source on employer mandates. See our full item here .) We wanted to check Brown-Waite's statement that ""AARP is the largest reseller of insurance in the country and as such has a vested interest in seeing that the market for reselling supplemental insurance expands."" Other critics have made similar charges, alleging more directly that AARP is supporting health care reform to bring in more money. We'll start with an explanation of AARP's involvement in the insurance business. AARP lends its name to insurance companies to sell policies to AARP members. The insurance companies then pay AARP a fee for the policies they sell with the AARP name. AARP calls these payments royalties. Medicare, the government-run health plan for seniors, requires people to pay a percentage of their health care costs, and there is no limit on this cost-sharing. For seniors with many health issues or catastrophic illness, this can be very costly. So seniors can buy ""Medigap"" policies from private insurers that help cover those costs, and this is the supplemental insurance that Brown-Waite mentioned. So AARP is not a reseller of insurance as Brown-Waite claims. It licenses its name to companies that sell the policies. Still, we wanted to know if we could quantify whether it's the biggest royalty collecter from insurance companies. Unfortunately, we were not able to quantify this. We checked with several insurance authorities, including the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). None of them kept data on branded plans as such, and none of the experts or private tracking organizations we asked had data on that point, either. When we asked Brown-Waite's office about why she said AARP was the biggest reseller of insurance, the staff said she drew that conclusion because AARP calls itself the largest membership organization for people age 50 and over in the United States. But in our view, that doesn't necessarily mean Brown-Waite is correct. On our own, we found that AARP's partner in selling Medigap insurance is the private insurer UnitedHealthcare Insurance Co., a division of UnitedHealth Group. UnitedHealth is the No. 1 seller of Medigap coverage, with nearly 30 percent of the market, according to Mark Farrah Associates, a health insurance analytics company that analyzes data filed with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. So how would health reform goose Medigap sales? Brown-Waite's argument centers around Medicare Advantage, a program in which the federal government pays private insurance companies a set rate to treat Medicare beneficiaries. Some Medicare Advantage plans offer extra benefits, so their patients don't need Medigap insurance. AARP has been critical of Medicare Advantage, because the program was conceived as a cost-containment measure on the theory that competition among private plans would drive down costs. That has not happened, and Medicare Advantage actually costs the government more. AARP has argued that people on Medicare are effectively subsidizing Medicare Advantage, and that should stop. We should point out here that AARP gets royalties from Medigap plans and from Medicare Advantage plans. It partners with UnitedHealth on both plans. UnitedHealth is also the No. 1 seller of Medicare Advantage, with 16 percent of the market, followed closely by Humana with 14 percent of the market, according to Mark Farrah Associates. We also found, through the public records that AARP is required to file as a nonprofit, that AARP derives significant income from its royalties. In 2008, it earned $652.7 million from royalities. Not all of this is from Medigap and Medicare Advantage, because AARP also offers life insurance, car insurance, dental insurance, credit cards and other services. All those royalties account for 57 percent of its total revenues. (The total is an eye-popping $1.14 billion.) Brown-Waite asked AARP to disclose how much money it makes off the Medigap policies and other health insurance products; her office told us it has not received a reply. AARP said in its annual report that 65 percent of its royalties are from health-related products, but it did not provide a detailed breakdown. AARP objects vigorously to Republican claims that AARP is motivated by money in the positions it takes on health care reform. Many of its younger members, aged 50 to 64, don't qualify for Medicare and have a difficult time finding insurance if they lose coverage, the group said. The royalty money goes to fund its advocacy work, and the attacks on it for its royalties are politically motivated, it said. AARP executive vice president Nancy LeaMond said in a statement, ""Similar to 'death panels' and other scare tactics, this latest effort is a misguided attempt to talk about anything other than the health care reform this country needs. ... The only benefit AARP is looking for in health reform is relief for the millions of Americans who are crushed by soaring prescription drug prices, relief for the millions of Americans who are told they can't get coverage because they’re too old or too sick, and relief for the millions of Americans who need Medicare strengthened. Period."" It's difficult to assess how AARP would fare under the many versions of health care reform being considered in Congress. If the Medicare Advantage plan was reduced, it's not clear to us if AARP would benefit or not. Keep in mind, it gets royalties off Medicare supplemental insurance and Medicare Advantage, so its mix of policy types might change but it's hard to say if that would affect its overall royalties. Another argument in AARP's favor is that AARP has marketed health insurance to its members since its inception, even predating Medicare's creation in 1965. (We found several confirmations of this in the history books we reviewed on the history of Medicare.) Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus founded AARP in 1958, and the AARP site says that even back then, part of her intent was to help seniors buy insurance. Andrus started the organization to help retired school teachers find health insurance, according to AARP's history. ""Dr. Andrus approached dozens of insurance companies until she found one willing to take the risk of insuring older persons,"" the site said. ""She then developed other benefits and programs, including a discount mail order pharmacy service. Over the years (the National Retired Teachers Association) heard from thousands of others who wanted to know how they could obtain insurance and other NRTA benefits without being retired teachers. After 10 years, Dr. Andrus realized the time had come to create a new organization open to all Americans."" Still, AARP's royalties have grown in recent years. Last year, the news organization Bloomberg reported a lengthy story about AARP's insurance royalties, including anecdotal complaints that some seniors were able to find cheaper policies. AARP disputed some of the article's details, as well as the notion that it was motivated by royalty payments. But Marilyn Moon, a noted Medicare expert and the former director of the AARP’s Public Policy Institute, said the organization is becoming too reliant on royalty payments. ""There's an inherent conflict of interest,"" Moon told Bloomberg. ""A lot of people there are trying to do good, but they're ending up becoming very dependent on sources of income."" We talked to Moon last week and she said she still considered the organization's growing royalty payments to be problematic, and a downside of its organizational growth. ""It's very hard for the tail not to wag the dog,"" she said. Getting back to the statement we're rating, Brown-Waite said, ""AARP is the largest reseller of insurance in the country and as such has a vested interest in seeing that the market for reselling supplemental insurance expands."" It is not a reseller, a word that suggests a greater financial involvement than AARP has. But AARP does attach its name to policies that private insurers sell and receive royalty payments. Is it the largest licensee? It might be — it certainly makes millions — but there is little data to confirm or refute that it is the largest. Does it have an interest? Yes, although we can't conclusively say health reform will lead to more money for AARP."
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8896
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Baxter recalls remaining heparin vial products.
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Baxter International Inc said on Thursday it was voluntarily recalling all remaining lots of its heparin injection and flush products now that U.S. regulators have concluded there is sufficient capacity from other suppliers.
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true
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Health News
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The company initially recalled nine lots of multi-dose vials of the blood thinner in mid-January after a higher than usual number of reports of adverse patient reactions. Baxter suspended production of multi-dose vials of the drug earlier this month while officials search for the cause of four deaths and hundreds of health problems reported in patients. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has admitted it never inspected a Chinese plant that supplies an active ingredient for Baxter’s heparin before approving it because it mixed up the name with that of another company. FDA officials have said it is unclear if the Chinese site is linked to the potential reactions, which include breathing difficulty, vomiting and rapid drops in blood pressure. The agency previously said it planned to start an inspection last week of the plant in Changzhou, China, which is owned by Wisconsin-based Scientific Protein Laboratories LLC (SPL). FDA officials have said it is agency policy to inspect all manufacturing sites before granting a drug approval and that the heparin plant mix-up was an isolated case. “We have assurance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that there is an adequate supply in the market to meet the demand for these critical and lifesaving drugs,” Peter Arduini, president of Baxter’s medication delivery business, said in a statement. Baxter said its recall does not involve heparin premixed intravenous solutions in bags.
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6041
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Iowa reports 622 impaired water segments, a 2% increase.
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Iowa will report water impairments on 622 river, lake and wetland segments to the Environmental Protection Agency as part of its biennial summary of water quality, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said Thursday.
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true
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Environment, Iowa, General News, Lakes, Water quality, Des Moines
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That’s a 2% increase over the 608 reported in the 2016 report. The federal Clean Water Act requires states to compile a report every two years. The 622 water body segments on this year’s list had 831 impairments up from 818 in the previous report, DNR officials said. An impairment means a segment of a water body doesn’t meet established quality standards. It doesn’t mean a river or lake is highly polluted, said Roger Bruner, supervisor of the DNR water monitoring and assessment program. He characterized most impairments on the list as “fairly minor” and said people still use impaired rivers and lakes for everyday recreation without impact. “An impairment can be thought of like you going to the doctor and finding out you have elevated cholesterol. It doesn’t mean you’re going to die but means you should be aware of it and work toward improving that,” he said. The most common river impairments in Iowa include the presence of bacteria and fish kills, for which the most common cause is animal waste. Iowa, with more pigs and egg-laying chickens than any other state, constantly struggles to balance water quality interests with those of the powerful agriculture industry which resists mandatory measures to control water contamination. The state’s current agriculture policy pertaining to water quality is primarily a voluntary nutrient reduction effort in which farmers may choose to implement practices that reduce erosion and farm runoff. The most severe problem for lakes is algae growth, often the result of nutrients such as phosphorous from fertilizer washing from corn fields. Iowa also leads the nation in corn production. Environmental activists Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement said the new report is evidence that the state isn’t doing enough to improving water quality. “This is one more sign that the state’s nutrient reduction strategy is a complete failure. The report fails to differentiate the magnitude of impairments in many of Iowa’s waterways. But the reality is that any impairment is unacceptable.” said Cherie Mortice, retired teacher and Iowa CCI member from Des Moines. The group and Food & Water Watch filed a lawsuit earlier this year alleging that the state has violated its public trust obligation to protect the Raccoon River by failing to limit the pollution running off industrial agriculture operations. The 31-mile tributary of the Des Moines River is a primary source of drinking water for about 500,000 central Iowa customers of Des Moines Water Works. The lawsuit, which asks the court to order the state to adopt a mandatory clean water plan and moratorium on new hog farms, is currently before the Iowa Supreme Court on an appeal. A spokeswoman for the Iowa Department of Agriculture said there are water quality improvement projects happening all over the state. “We remain focused on working alongside Iowa State University, DNR and more than 320 private partners to make a measureable impact on Iowa’s water quality,” spokeswoman Keely Coppess said in a statement. Three segments of the Raccoon River are on the impairment list for bacteria presence, fish kills caused by fertilizer and low fish count. Sixteen segments of the Des Moines River are on the list for fish kills, presence of E. coli bacteria or limits placed on fish consumption due to mercury content. ___ Follow David Pitt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/davepitt
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10076
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Hormone Replacement for Men? Perhaps
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"We wish there were more stories like this one which take a broad view of the evidence on a given treatment and aren’t simply reactions to a press release about a new study. This column on testosterone therapy rightly emphasizes the limited and conflicting data to support this treatment and the uncertain potential for harm. The comparison to hormone replacement in women provides a useful reminder of the limitations of observational studies. With that being said, there were some gaps in the coverage. The first relates to the cost of treatment, which can be quite high but isn’t mentioned. The second relates to the potential for a conflict of interest with one of the experts quoted in the piece. Both issues are important to the overall content of the story and discussion of them would have provided readers with a better understanding of the controversy There is evidence that some men suffer from a real problem with testosterone deficiency, and that testosterone replacement can be helpful for these men. However, it is difficult to distinguish pathological deficiency from the normal drop in testosterone that occurs in most men with age. And there is very little good evidence that testosterone therapy fixes the problems, such as fatigue, lack of libido, and sexual dysfunction, which most men who take testosterone think it will help them with. Despite this lack of evidence, there is an increasingly sophisticated effort to market testosterone patches and creams to a broad group of men who may have low testosterone levels, or, as the drug industry puts it, ""low T."" (Click here to take the ""low T"" quiz, which, as the Pharmalot blog notes, instructs you to ""talk to your doctor about your symptoms"" even if you have none.) These promotions imply that any number of nonspecific symptoms can be attributed to low testosterone levels. And they specifically tell the public to ask for testing that probably isn’t required and won’t lead to effective treatment. Meanwhile, men who take testosterone will be exposed to uncertain but potentially serious risks, and pay significantly for the privilege."
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true
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"Given the controversies about the benefit of testosterone replacement treatment in andropausal men, the costs of care are an important consideration. Testosterone replacement therapies can range from $10 to $300 a month not including testing and physician visits. This story notes that testosterone has inconsistent effects on sexual function, the primary reason men seek out this type of treatment. Other potential benefits of testosterone therapy are listed as improved muscle mass, increased bone density, decreased body fat and total cholesterol, and improved blood sugar metabolism. As with the harms, this story never provides statistical data on how often these benefits occur and how big a benefit can be expected. However, we’re not sure these numbers with would have been helpful, since the benefits are reflected in some fairly arcane scales (e.g. the ""libido scale,"" ""subjective vitality scale,"" etc.) that would be difficult to describe in a relatively brief piece like this. Does a 20% increase in the libido scale number mean anything to anyone other than researchers? We think the piece satisfies the spirit of the criterion and offers enough detail for a satisfactory grade. The story notes that a recent study was halted because of an unexpectedly high rate of cardiac problems in the testosterone group. It also mentions the possibility that testosterone therapy can result in thickening of the blood and may increase the risk of prostate cancer. The story isn’t precise about how often these harms occur, and it also didn’t mention some of the ""minor"" side effects associated with testosterone use, including acne, hair loss on the scalp, hair growth on the face, increased breast size, and testicular atrophy. A close one here. Overall, we felt the story called appropriate attention to the harms and did not try to minimize them — enough to earn a satisfactory. The point of this article is to call attention to the conflicting evidence on testosterone therapy, a goal which it achieves in the process of satisfying this criterion. Some high points include: We wish the story had been a bit more thorough in its discussion of a large European study that found that ""limited physical vigor"" and sexual symptoms were linked to low levels of testosterone. Elsewhere in the story we learn about the perils of relying too heavily on observational studies to guide treatment decisions. The article should have noted that this was an observational study which could not establish whether low testosterone or some other factor was responsible for these individuals’ symptoms. The concept of male ""andropause"" bears many of the hallmarks of disease-mongering. Low testosterone is common in aging men and has never been conclusively shown to cause the symptoms — such as low sexual desire and erectile dysfunction — that are typically attributed to it. So offering treatment for this ""condition"" can be seen as an unwarranted medicalization of the normal aging process. This article edges toward the line when it suggests that men being treated in one study had experienced ""a decrease in energy, mood, vitality and sexuality as result of low testosterone levels."" The evidence linking these symptoms to low testosterone levels comes from observational studies that cannot prove cause and effect. And many studies show that such non-specific symptoms can be caused by chronic diseases, such heart disease and diabetes, which are also common in aging men with low testosterone. These chronic diseases can also cause testosterone levels to decrease. This doesn’t mean that low testosterone is responsible for the symptoms, or that testosterone therapy will alleviate them. This questionable assertion notwithstanding, the article overall does a good job of presenting conflicting evidence on the subject. Elsewhere in the story it is noted that sexual performance and desire are not reliably linked to testosterone levels. And the story notes that any parallel to menopause — a comparison often made by supporters of testosterone therapy — is tenuous at best, since the hormone decline experienced by men is far more gradual and the symptoms are less disruptive. Although one source, Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, is identified as the author of a book which promotes testosterone therapy, the story does not disclose, as indicated in these recent CME conference materials, that Dr. Morgentaler also receives grant funding and is on the speaker’s bureau of companies which manufacture testosterone products. To avoid the appearance of any potential conflict, the story should have alerted readers to these relationships. The article could have mentioned lifestyle changes, such as getting more exercise and quitting smoking, that may improve libido, combat fatigue, and increase sexual function. But since there’s not much evidence that these or other approaches are effective, we don’t think the article should be dinged for failing to mention them. We’ll rule it Not Applicable in this case. The study notes that testosterone therapy is available in the U.S. as an intramuscular injection, a skin patch or gel, pellets inserted under the skin, and in oral preparations. The article does not try to oversell the novelty of testosterone replacement therapy. This article is clearly not based on a news release."
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31822
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An animated image shows Meryl Streep mocking a disabled person on a late night talk show.
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In short, the animated image supposedly showing Meryl Streep mocking a disabled person actually captures a portion Streep’s appearance on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien in which she told (and partially acted out) a story about being scared by a lion on the set of Out of Africa.
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false
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Fauxtography, disabled, donald trump, golden globes
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Several rumors aimed at discrediting Meryl Streep were circulated in January 2017 shortly after the actress delivered a controversial speech at the Golden Globes in which she criticized President-elect Donald Trump for (among other things) reportedly mocking a disabled reporter. For example, a video was circulated purportedly showing the actress applauding for Roman Polanski (who fled the U.S. to avoid sexual assault charges) at the 2003 Academy Awards (TRUE) and an article was published claiming that she was fired from a major movie project for lying about Donald Trump (FALSE). On 9 January 2017, radio personality Kayla Vas published an animated image on Twitter purportedly showing Meryl Streep mocking a disabled person on a late night talk show: #MerylStreep made fun of mentally challenged on late night tv here’s proof her entire speech was a fraud pic.twitter.com/vhjhEJPPsH — Kayla Vas On Air (@Kayla_Vas) January 9, 2017 The above-displayed image does depict a real moment from a talk show on which Streep appeared, but it had little to do with the mentally challenged. This clip was taken from a guest appearance by Streep made on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien on 27 July 2009 to promote her movie Julie and Julia. During the interview, O’Brien asked Streep about the movie 1985 movie Out of Africa, and the actress related a story about how a portion of the movie was filmed using real lions. The relevant portion of the interview (starting at around the 6:00 mark of the following video) is transcribed below: Conan: You get a more laid back lions that way. Streep: You do. They were kind of relaxed. And they were not charging me in the right way. There’s a scene inside of a boma, which is an enclosure for cattle made of thorns and stuff. And the cattle were on one side and then there was me with my whip and this little was just sitting there … because she was chained. So I’d go (whip sound) and she was supposed to charge me with the camera covering the side so it doesn’t show her leash. And she just wouldn’t do it. So on the last take Sydney told them to take the leash off. Because it was a wrap the next day and if they got the shot. They got the shot. Act three. (Whip sound). And the lion went (Roar Sound) and I went (scared gesture.) And Sydney says it didn’t happen. But it did happen.
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4520
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Army Corps approves $778M plan to block Asian carp advance.
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The head of the Army Corps of Engineers has sent Congress a $778 million plan to fortify an Illinois waterway with noisemakers, electric cables and other devices in the hope that they will prevent Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes, where the aggressive invaders could leave other fish with too little to eat.
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true
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Michigan, Dams, Lakes, Environment, Lake Michigan, Science, Illinois, Joliet, North America, Canada, Fish, Traverse City
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Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite on Thursday approved the plan to install defenses at the Brandon Road Lock and Dam near Joliet, Illinois, about 40 miles from Lake Michigan. The site is a crucial choke point in an aquatic pathway between the lake and the carp-infested Illinois River. The plan represents a compromise between proposals to erect barriers that would seal off Lake Michigan from the river and less drastic measures such as stepped-up commercial fishing. Environmentalists and states including Michigan had argued for physical separation, while Illinois and Indiana contended that it would disrupt cargo shipping and that a Chicago-area electric barrier was keeping the carp at bay. Although only a few live Asian carp have been found past the barrier, the fish’s DNA has turned up there as recently as April, when water samples were taken from Chicago’s Lake Calumet. The Corps says the leading edge of adult bighead and silver carp — the most feared of several Asian species because they gorge on plankton that other fish need — is about four miles from the Brandon Road complex. “The Brandon Road project is the only shot we have to get additional protections in place to stop the carp,” said Marc Smith of the National Wildlife Federation. “It will significantly reduce the risk.” The plan calls for installing a gantlet of technologies intended to repel approaching fish, including additional electric barriers and underwater speakers that would blast loud noises, plus an “air bubble curtain.” A specially designed “flushing lock” would wash away carp that might be floating on the water as vessels pass through. Semonite’s endorsement came more than five years after the Army Corps offered a series of options for blocking the carp’s advance. It’s now up to Congress to decide whether to authorize the project and provide most of the funding. A pending House bill recommends $3.8 million for preconstruction, engineering and design work in 2020. The expected completion date is March 2027. “With the Asian Carp on the doorstep of our region’s most vital natural resource, we have a small window of time to stop this invasive species before it inflicts irreparable damage on our Great Lakes and our $7 billion fishing industry and equally important tourism industry,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat who chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. Republican Reps. Paul Mitchell and Bill Huizenga of Michigan also pledged support. Bipartisan teamwork will be essential, particularly given the plan’s escalating cost, said Molly Flanagan of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. A draft released in 2017 estimated that the project would cost $275 million. The final version put the price tag at $778 million, and that would be under an “expedited” scenario in which the various technologies would be installed at the same time. It could reach $832 million under an alternative “phased” strategy, spokesman Allen Marshall said. Another key will be getting financial support from Great Lakes states. The Army Corps generally requires non-federal partners to pay 35 percent of a project’s construction costs, although Congress could waive some or all of the requirement. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker last month authorized his state’s cooperation with initial phases of the program but said he wouldn’t commit to long-term support without efforts to limit costs and contributions from other states. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Illinois Democrats, said Friday that they would seek congressional approval “under a cost-share agreement that will ensure Illinois isn’t left footing the bill for a project that will benefit the entire Great Lakes region.” ___ Follow John Flesher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johnflesher
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11587
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‘Super X-rays’ show promise for finding heart disease but produce high radiation dose
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"The concept of cardiac CT sounds like a great one: to be able to get high resolution images of the coronary arteries in a non-invasive way. One potential use of the scans would be to identify those without blockages to save them from getting the more invasive angiography procedure. Unfortunately, cardiac CT scans are being performed on those without symptoms or suspicion of heart disease, and in the absence of evidence to support its use in this population, the harms of the test (including radiation exposure) may not be worth its benefits. According to the 2006 American Heart Association Guidelines, ""For CT angiography, the higher radiation doses suggest the need for greater forethought when using these tests, and use of these higher radiation exposure tests in asymptomatic persons for screening purposes is not currently recommended."" In particular, ""Use of CT angiography in asymptomatic persons as a screening test for atherosclerosis (noncalcific plaque) is not recommended"". This story reports on a recent presentation of the results of a study comparing cardiac CT to angiography in high-risk individuals. The story accurately represents the availability, novelty, and costs of the scan. The story quotes multiple independent experts who provide valuable commentary on the implications of the new findings. By not exaggerating the seriousness or prevalence of heart disease, the story avoids disease mongering. However, the story could have been more clear about who the CT scans are intended for. The study in question was in those with suspected heart disease, not the assymptomatic or ""worried well"". The use of CT scans in the larger asymptomatic population is controversial. The story correctly describes radiation exposure as one of the harms of the heart CT. The story could have described other harms, such as the implications of false positive or false negative test results. The story adequately quantifies the benefits of Cardiac CT by describing the percentage of patients with blockages that were identified with either the CT scan or the angiogram. The story should have also described the probability of having blockages with a positive scan (positive predictive value). This is the more important piece of information to a consumer. Also not described in the story is whether the CT scans had any impact at all on downstream outcomes, such as heart attacks, deaths, or procedures."
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true
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"The story provides the cost of the CT scan as well as angiography. However, the story should have discussed insurance coverage for the scans. The story describes the percentage of patients with blockages that were identified with either the CT scan or the angiogram. The story should have also described the probability of having blockages with a positive scan (positive predictive value). This is the more important piece of information to a consumer. Also not described in the story is whether the CT scans had any impact at all on downstream outcomes, such as heart attacks, deaths, or procedures. The story correctly describes radiation exposure as one of the harms of the heart CT. The story could have described other harms, such as the implications of false positive or false negative test results. The story adequately describes the design of the current study, including a criticism from one expert that the study ""cherry-picked"" patients to include in the study in order to maximize the findings. The story does not exaggerate the seriousness or prevalence of heart disease. However, the story could have been more clear about who the CT scans are intended for. The study in question was in those with suspected heart disease, not the assymptomatic or ""worried well"". The use of CT scans in the larger asymptomatic population is controversial. The story quotes multiple independent experts who provide valuable commentary on the implications of the new findings. The story mentions angiography as the alternative to the heart CT. The story clearly states that the CT scans are relatively new and available in many hospitals, however it is not clear how many hospitals have purchased these machines. The story adequately describes the novelty of the scans. Because the story quotes multiple experts, the reader can assume that the story did not rely on a press release as the sole source of information."
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17901
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"Mental health provisions related to mass shootings ""got over 90 votes in the Senate."
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"Ayotte said that mental health provisions related to mass shootings ""got over 90 votes in the Senate."" While an early version of the bill never made it out of committee, the Senate did eventually vote, 95-2, for a mental-health amendment to a gun control bill. The full bill lacked enough votes to pass and was pulled from the floor, but she is correct that the amendment did get 90 votes."
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true
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New Hampshire, Health Care, Guns, Kelly Ayotte,
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"U.S. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, is again backing programs aimed at identifying mentally ill people who pose a risk for mass killings. Ayotte, saying she has strong bipartisan support, has co-sponsored a bill geared toward education, awareness and intervention relating to mental illness since the mass shootings in Newtown, Conn., in December 2012. Ayotte introduced the Mental Health First Aid Act in January 2013, which never made it past a congressional committee. However, elements of that bill went into the Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act that was part of the gun control legislation the Senate voted down in April. Two days after a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard in September 2013, Ayotte and Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, issued a joint statement to Senate leadership advocating programs to educate teachers in recognizing symptoms of mental health illness and how they could defuse potentially dangerous situations. Soon after, she appeared on CNN’s The Lead With Jake Tapper. She said a bill that addresses mental health issues would pass the Senate easily. Ayotte said the mental health amendment that was attached to last April’s gun-control legislation passed easily. However, it was not enacted because the gun bill itself lost. ""I actually think it can be taken up separately and easily passed because of the mental health provisions. It got over 90 votes in the Senate and very little gets 90 votes around here,"" Ayotte said. We wondered whether the mental health amendment really got such overwhelming support. We looked at the official roll call vote on the amendment and found that it had indeed passed by a 95-2 vote on April 18. Despite voting for the mental health amendment she co-sponsored, Ayotte later became one of 41 Republicans who voted against the gun control proposal sponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., that would have expanded background checks. Five Democrats also voted against it. The mixed messages these votes sent drew sharp criticism from critics. Ayotte responded with a statement that said: ""I believe that restricting the rights of law-abiding gun owners will not prevent a deranged individual or criminal from obtaining and misusing firearms to commit violence. While steps must be taken to improve the existing background check system, I will not support the Manchin-Toomey legislation, which I believe would place unnecessary burdens on law-abiding gun owners and allow for potential overreach by the federal government into private gun sales."" Our ruling Ayotte said that mental health provisions related to mass shootings ""got over 90 votes in the Senate."" While an early version of the bill never made it out of committee, the Senate did eventually vote, 95-2, for a mental-health amendment to a gun control bill. The full bill lacked enough votes to pass and was pulled from the floor, but she is correct that the amendment did get 90 votes."
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5310
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At Oscar nominees luncheon, a pitch for brevity.
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Winners at this year’s Oscars will need to be quick, both in their walks to the stage and their acceptance speeches.
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true
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Academy Awards, Steven Soderbergh, Entertainment, Movies, North America, Donna Gigliotti, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Glenn Weiss
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Producers told nominees for the 91st annual Academy Awards that they will have 90 seconds from the time their name is called until when their speech will need to be a concluded. The sprint is needed to keep the Feb. 24 ceremony to three hours, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President John Bailey told this year’s class of nominees Monday at a private, untelevised luncheon to honor them. “It means you can hit the parties by 8:15,” Oscars producer Glenn Weiss reminded the dozens of hopefuls in the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton, the same room where the Golden Globe Awards are held. Weiss and his co-producer Donna Gigliotti showed the room their ideal acceptance speech — Steven Soderbergh accepting the best director award for “Traffic” and promising to offer individual thanks in private, not public — and implored nominees to speak from the heart and not a sheet of paper. “The thing is, run,” said director Brad Bird, who has learned from experience. “Then keep your speeches short and simple as possible ... and then you get out alive.” Acceptance speech how-to is a standard fixture at the annual luncheon, which provides a chance for the nominees, from Lady Gaga to Rami Malek, to socialize ahead of the Oscars ceremony in a low-pressure environment. But beyond the truncated runtime, no mention was made of the uniqueness of this year’s show, where some awards will be handed out during the commercial break, and there may not even be a host for the first time in 30 years. While some below-the-line nominees in the editing and sound mixing categories complained in private about how “insulting” it is to not air all the awards during the main broadcast, the tenor of the star-studded event was largely celebratory. “Today in its purest sense is a celebration of being part of a collective community,” said film academy governor Laura Dern. “This is our opportunity to recognize your profound input.” Attendees included best actress nominees Glenn Close and Gaga, directors Spike Lee, Alfonso Cuaron, Adam McKay, actors Mahershala Ali, Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Malek and many more. Aside from the famed “class photo” in which every nominee is called individually to the front of the room, mingling is the main game at the luncheon, where many stars, like Gaga, ignore their salads and fish dishes to socialize. Gaga at one point made her way to Bradley Cooper’s table, where she ran into her fellow best actress nominee Yalitza Aparicio. At a nearby table, Cuaron, the “Roma” director, had a private conversation with “Green Book” director Peter Farrelly. One of the trickiest feats to coordinate is getting all the socializing nominees to actually take their seats to get the festivities started. With only one minute to go before the “official start,” Regina King, Amy Adams and Richard E. Grant stayed deep in conversation while Marvel chief Kevin Feige snuck in a word with Cooper. The academy joked about the problem on Twitter, writing: “We’ve reached the part of the #OscarsLunch where the announcer asks nominees to take their seats and...the nominees just continue to mingle and have amazing conversations. We get it.” The event often creates a fascinating mix of film stars and newcomers, as nominees are often seated with a mix of people from films that aren’t necessarily their own. One table had Adams, “Black Panther” costume designer Ruth E. Carter and “Bao” director Domee Shi. Another had Gaga, Feige, jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard, nominated for “BlacKkKlansman,” and “Hale County This Morning, This Evening” director RaMell Ross. Ron Stallworth, whose story became the basis for “BlacKkKlansman,” headed straight to the bar when he entered the venue and said being there was “crazy.” He was seated at a table with director Spike Lee, who brought Stallworth’s story to the big screen and earned six Oscar nominations, including for best picture and best director. “RBG” director Julie Cohen stopped to say hello to “A Star is Born” nominee Sam Elliott, while Bradley Cooper said hi to the filmmakers of the nominated documentary “Minding the Gap.” Before the luncheon started, Close, “Free Solo” climber Alex Honnold and director Phil Lord spoke in a circle for about 20 minutes as other guests trickled in. The hanging out even continued on the bleachers waiting for all the nominees to be called for the photo. But unlike the Academy Awards broadcast, there was no rush here. All the nominees proudly cheered on their own, one by one. And as if designed to ensure a teary-eyed Gaga, right as the photos were about to be snapped of the full class, “Shallow” started playing faintly in the background.
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10918
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Moderate Drinking May Cut Disease Risk for Women
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It missed several opportunities to help readers interpret these findings critically. Most of the deficiencies could probably have been remedied by talking to an independent expert or two. The Washington Post did slightly better in its competing blog post about the same study. This new analysis of the ongoing, prospective Nurses’ Health Study is not novel, but adds to the evidence base about the effects of moderate alcohol use on chronic disease incidence.
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false
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WebMD,women's health
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The cost of alcohol is not in question. We expect that a story will attempt to provide us with some measure of the size of an association beyond just the relative risks, which can often give an inflated sense of the effects. That’s what happens in this story when it says that women who drank lightly almost every day “were nearly 50% less likely to develop disease.” Sounds like a big difference, but the figure would certainly be much smaller if expressed in absolute terms. The story could have made these statistics more meaningful with comments from an independent expert. See how the “Behind the Headlines” project in the UK analyzed the evidence and included the absolute differences. Any story that discusses the potential benefits of alcohol consumption should say a word or two about the potential harms of overdoing it, since heavier drinking is unequivocally related to a host of health risks. This story didn’t include any such warning. We liked that this story is generally careful not to suggest that alcohol “reduced risk” for diseases, which is something an observational study cannot prove. But it lost focus where it counts most, which is in the headline. There, it uses cause-and-effect language. We might have forgiven this, but the story also should have included some caveats regarding the limitations of this research and some alternate explanations for the results. For example, older women who get together frequently for a drink might benefit from the increased social interaction and support they receive from one another. Women who drink lightly probably have other attributes (higher socioeconomic status, etc.) compared with teetotalers or heavier drinkers. Although the authors tried to adjust for these factors, they note that they might not have caught them all, and that “the findings should be interpreted with caution.” Readers should be given the same disclaimer. There was no disease-mongering. The story quotes from the study, but includes no independent perspectives. Again, an expert could have put these results in perspective with other factors known to promote healthy aging, such as a healthy diet and regular physical activity, which were not mentioned in the story. The availability of alcoholic drinks is not in question. The story didn’t really capture what is novel about this research. Many studies show potential health benefits for light to moderate alcohol consumption, but this is one of the few studies to look at whether the positive effects extend into older adulthood. The story didn’t hype the “newness” of the findings, but it didn’t quite earn a satisfactory here, either. The story didn’t lift anything direct from a press release about the study. Since there are no independent perspectives provided, however, we can’t say for certain how much this story relied on the release. We’ll call it not applicable.
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145
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CVS drug coverage plan based on outside pricing review is off to a slow start.
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A CVS Health Corp (CVS.N) health plan that uses an outside drug pricing group to help it decide whether to cover certain new medicines has gained little traction with customers, according to its top medical executive, and has drawn fierce criticism from patient advocacy groups.
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true
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Health News
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The company has held back on marketing the pharmacy benefit plan while it talks to these groups, CVS said. The plan, launched a year ago, is based on analyses by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), a Boston-based group that assesses effectiveness of drugs to determine appropriate prices. Using ICER’s cost effectiveness assessment, CVS decides whether to include second or third medicines entering the market if there are already similar ones in the plan. Opposition to the CVS plan is part of much broader concerns cited by drug companies and advocacy groups, many of which receive funding from the pharmaceutical industry. Some say that ICER’s analysis based on additional years of “quality life” gained from a given treatment is arbitrary and disregards the costs of drug development and patient needs. More than 50 groups, including drugmakers, PhRMA, the industry’s main lobby group, and other advocacy groups, have provided comment during a public input period included in a review by ICER of its assessment methods. Many asked ICER to eliminate price recommendations from its efficacy analyses. ICER has defended its methods, which are based on a widely-used cost effectiveness analysis. The soft rollout of CVS’ ICER-related product comes as employer health plan sponsors - its biggest clients - are showing increased concern over their cost for new high-priced drugs, and are considering refusing to pay for them at all, CVS Chief Medical Officer Troy Brennan said in a recent interview. If corporate customers follow through on that threat, CVS said it could change tactics with the plan. Rising drug prices, particularly for expensive specialty treatments for severe or deadly conditions, have pushed annual U.S. healthcare spending to $3.65 trillion, and made them unaffordable for many individuals. Earlier this year, Novartis AG (NOVN.S) launched Zolgensma, a more than $2 million gene therapy for a rare but deadly disease called spinal muscular atrophy. The new CVS program, cited as an example of ICER’s growing influence on U.S. drug pricing, would not apply to such a breakthrough treatment. It is a tiny plan by CVS standards as the company manages pharmaceutical benefits for more than 102 million people and also owns Aetna insurance and a national pharmacy chain. The plan’s scope is limited to so-called me too drugs, those where similar effective treatments already exist, and aims to pressure drugmakers to set lower prices. For example, two of three very similar drugs for migraine approved in 2018 could have been excluded, but drugmakers set prices ICER deemed cost effective. CVS has limited sales and marketing for the plan while it talks to patient groups who oppose it. About 240,000 CVS employees and a few large clients’ employees are enrolled thus far. The company declined to comment on exact membership. “We are not widely promoting this program,” Brennan said, adding that CVS is working to address patient groups’ concerns. Meanwhile, Brennan said some employers are considering refusing to pay for million-dollar treatments like gene therapy. They are saying, “I’m not going to cover these kinds of therapies no matter what their comparative effectiveness is if they’ve got a really high cost.” Large healthcare consultant and brokerage Mercer said it has begun to field similar concerns. “We have certainly gotten some plan sponsors saying ‘What if we don’t cover specialty drugs?’” said David Dross, who runs Mercer’s managed pharmacy practice. Two years ago, it never received any such questions, he said. Steve Wojcik, an executive with the National Business Group on Health which represents large employers, said he does not believe many will take that drastic step. Still, ICER President Steven Pearson said employers tell him they worry about their ability to cover everything and have suggested they might drop some high-cost treatments. He said employers can use cost effectiveness analysis to help them manage their spending. ICER has responded to outside criticism by meeting with patient advocates and by adding new measurements for a drug’s effectiveness, such as the value of life years gained, which does not focus on quality of life improvements, Pearson said. Since 2015, ICER has published up to a dozen reviews each year of drugs and classes of medicines. Most U.S. private insurers now use ICER clinical and cost analyses to inform coverage negotiations with drugmakers. ICER funding primarily comes from a non-profit foundation, but drug companies and health insurers provide some funds for ICER-related activities.
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3685
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Judge halts arbitration in Chemours-DuPont dispute.
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A Delaware judge has temporarily halted arbitration between the DuPont Co. and Chemours as he weighs DuPont’s request to dismiss a lawsuit claiming that it massively downplayed the cost environmental liabilities imposed on Chemours.
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true
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Environment, Lawsuits, U.S. News, Delaware, Dover
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The case centers on theliabilities Chemours was saddled with after DuPont spun off its former performance chemicals unit in 2015. The judge’s granted Chemours’ request to pause the arbitration on Thursday, one day after he heard arguments on DuPont’s dismissal motion. Chemours sued DuPont earlier this year, alleging that DuPont deliberately lowballed the cost of environmental liabilities Chemours would face in indemnifying DuPont for pollution related to man-made chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The chemicals have been used in firefighting foam, nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing and many other household and personal items. They sometimes are referred to as “forever chemicals” because of their longevity in the environment. The PFAS family of chemicals, which have been associated with increased risk of cancer and other health problems, includes perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, which was used in the production of Teflon. At the time of the Chemours spinoff, DuPont was facing multidistrict litigation involving 3,500 personal injury claims related to PFOA. DuPont pegged the maximum liability for those cases at $128 million. It settled 19 months later for $671 million, with DuPont agreeing to pay half the settlement amount, and up to $125 million more toward costs of other PFOA-related litigation. DuPont has argued that the lawsuit must be dismissed because the separation agreement with Chemours mandates that any disputes arising from the 2015 spinoff must be resolved through private arbitration. Chemours says it was never in the position to consent to arbitration and that the arbitration clause is therefore invalid. The judge ruled Thursday that if Chemours is correct, allowing the arbitration to proceed would force Chemours to submit to an arbitration absent a contractual obligation to do so, which he said would amount to irreparable harm to Chemours.
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26946
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“In sanctuary cities, local officials order police to release dangerous criminal aliens to prey upon the public instead of handing them over to ICE to be safely removed.”
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Sanctuary policies don’t mean that undocumented criminals get to walk free of charges, or that local officials order police to release them as standard operating procedure. Sanctuary policies protect noncitizens from being turned over to ICE after they’ve gone through the justice system. But many sanctuary policies have provisions allowing police to cooperate with ICE for noncitizens with previous felony convictions. Media reports and ICE have documented some cases in which noncitizens with serious criminal records were released by sanctuary cities in spite of detainer requests.
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false
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Immigration, Donald Trump,
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"During the 2020 State of the Union address, President Donald Trump slammed ""sanctuary cities"" for their limited cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ""In sanctuary cities, local officials order police to release dangerous criminal aliens to prey upon the public instead of handing them over to ICE to be safely removed,"" he said. Trump cited an incident in which an undocumented immigrant released from custody allegedly assaulted and killed a 92-year-old woman in New York City. Trump also spotlighted the brother of a man killed in a crime spree by an undocumented immigrant released in California. ""The United States of America should be a sanctuary for law-abiding Americans, not criminal aliens,"" he said, calling on Congress to pass a bill to let victims sue sanctuary cities. There’s no federal definition for a sanctuary city, and the details vary from place to place. But broadly speaking, the term refers to any jurisdiction that refuses to continue holding people in local jails beyond their jail or prison sentence solely because ICE has asked the jurisdiction to do so. (ICE’s request is formally known as a detainer.) The individual cases Trump addressed were documented in media reports, and the White House has published a list of other criminal noncitizens shielded from ICE officials. But Trump’s claim that local officials ""order police to release dangerous criminal aliens"" makes setting criminals free sounds like standard operating procedure. As we detailed while fact-checking a similar claim in 2018, that’s not the case. Even sanctuary cities typically turn over to ICE many of the felons Trump warns about. The White House and Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment. ICE news releases report numerous instances of ignored detainer requests that result in undocumented immigrants being set free and later arrested by ICE. According to ICE’s report for the 2019 fiscal year, 86% of the roughly 143,000 noncitizens arrested by ICE had criminal convictions or pending charges. It’s unclear how many were arrested after being released in sanctuary cities. The report says ICE issued 165,487 detainers to law enforcement officials, and that ""a number of aliens who have been released under these circumstances have gone on to commit additional crimes."" Some insight came during an October Senate hearing, when ICE official Timothy Robbins said the agency brought roughly 1,300 noncitizens into custody over the span of a ""few weeks,"" including ""large numbers"" of people who had been released in sanctuary cities. Robbins said three of those 1,300 people had prior convictions for manslaughter or murder, 100 had convictions for sexual assault or related crimes, 70 had convictions for drug-related crimes, and 320 had convictions for driving under the influence. ""Almost 200 of the aliens arrested during the most recent operation could have been taken into custody at local jails if the detainer had been honored,"" Robbins said. Robbins did not say whether any of the 200 people ICE targeted with detainers went on to commit further crimes or, in Trump’s words, ""prey"" on Americans. Sanctuary policies across the country treat dangerous criminals differently, but experts told us many have specific ways of dealing with them. ""A number of the sanctuary policies have carve-outs for individuals with certain types of felony offenses, and some non-felony offenses,"" Annie Lai, clinical professor of law at the University of California Irvine, told us. ""You want to see if the policy allows for detention for ICE, notification to ICE, transfer to ICE or transfer only with a warrant. Each of these mean different things."" California’s sanctuary law, for example, gives law enforcement officials leeway to hold someone for ICE if they’ve committed one of a number of crimes. The list includes gang-related offenses, assault, battery, sexual abuse and exploitation, rape, crimes endangering children, burglary, robbery, theft, fraud, forgery, any crime resulting in death, some domestic violence offenses, and drug and weapon-related offenses. In New York City, people convicted of one or more of 177 types of felonies within the last five years can be handed over to ICE authorities, but only if those authorities secure a warrant first. Michelle Mittelstadt, director of communications at the Migration Policy Institute, told us she’s ""unaware of a jurisdiction that releases ‘dangerous criminal aliens’ as a matter of policy."" ""Where jurisdictions have set limits on their cooperation with ICE typically revolve around the issue of whether the agency is seeking transfer of a noncitizen who has been booked or charged versus an offender who is completing a criminal sentence, as well as whether ICE needs to seek a court order for the request to detain a noncitizen,"" she added. Mittelstadt explained that when noncitizens are released in sanctuary cities, ""the criminal justice process has taken place or is taking place as it would in the case of anyone else."" ""When state and local prisons release noncitizens without transfer to ICE, the person has completed their criminal sentence, has been released without charge, or has been charged and released on bond pending further action in the criminal justice system,"" she said. The New York City murder suspect Trump mentioned had originally been arrested for attacking his father with a broken coffee cup and arraigned on charges of assault and criminal possession of a weapon before he was released pending trial, according to reports. He had not yet been convicted on those charges by the time of the alleged murder. Meanwhile, the California man who went on a crime spree in 2018 had previously been convicted of armed robbery. But the charge was 15 years old, meaning local police couldn’t use it to justify holding him for ICE, according to the Washington Post. He had been deported twice before, in 2004 and 2014, and was arrested in 2018 after a caller reported erratic behavior. He tested positive for use of a controlled substance, but because that offense only carried a misdemeanor charge, he was released after 10 hours in custody. Mike Boudreaux, the county sheriff on the case, blamed California’s sanctuary law for keeping his officers from coordinating with ICE authorities. ""That tool has been removed from our hands,"" he said, according to the Washington Post. ""And because of that, our county was shot up by a violent criminal."" Trump said, ""In sanctuary cities, local officials order police to release dangerous criminal aliens to prey upon the public instead of handing them over to ICE to be safely removed."" Sanctuary policies don’t mean that undocumented criminals get to walk free of charges, or that local officials order police to release them as standard operating procedure. Noncitizens facing arrest still go through the criminal justice system; sanctuary policies mean that they aren’t turned over to ICE authorities after they’ve done so. Still, many sanctuary policies include specific provisions allowing law enforcement to comply with ICE’s requests when it comes to noncitizens who have been convicted of felonies. That’s the case in both California and New York City — the two places Trump called out by name. Media reports and ICE press releases have documented some cases in which noncitizens with serious criminal records were released by police in spite of detainer requests. But these individuals had already gone through the criminal justice system in one way or another."
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18408
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Jim Marston Says Texas leads the nation in fatal industrial accidents.
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"Marston said that in Texas, ""we lead the nation in fatal industrial accidents."" Among the states, Texas ranked No. 1 in 2011 in the number of workplace deaths in four federal categories Marston tabbed as ""industrial accident"" deaths. Yet these results drew on raw counts of deaths, unadjusted for variations in state workforces. Our adjustment for each state’s relative workforce suggests that Texas, per worker, ranked 18th among the states in 2011."
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mixture
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Labor, Texas, Jim Marston,
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"Five days after the fertilizer plant explosion that killed 14 in West, talk turned to safety regulation at the Texas Tribune’s morning interview series. Jim Marston, founding director of the Texas office of the Environmental Defense Fund, opined from the Tribune stage on April 22, 2013, that state regulation should have prevented the deaths. In Texas, ""we lead the nation in fatal industrial accidents,"" he said. To support his statement, he referred us to Elena Craft, a toxicologist with the fund, who told us by phone that the information came from a Sept. 20, 2012, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report. That report, though, was on 2011 fatal occupational injuries -- including intentional acts such as murder and suicides and spanning, bureau economist Steve Pegula told us by phone, ""every occupation in the U.S."" Pegula told us the bureau does not use the term ""industrial accidents"" and has no definition for it. Others we talked with for this story used phrases such as ""an accident that arises out of the course of employment"" or ""workplace event that results in multiple fatalities."" ""Industrial,"" we found, could be defined as narrowly as manufacturing or as broadly as any business at all. The bureau tally, Pegula said, includes deadly events or exposure on or off an employer’s premises during or related to the employee’s job or work status. For example, the deaths of farmers, police or nurses are included if they take place on the job or related to their work. Not included are illnesses or events such as heart attacks or strokes, because onsets can be delayed and it can be hard to prove the connection to employment, Pegula said. Via email, Marston told us that although his claim had been based on the total deaths in the bureau’s count, ""I do agree with you that not all fatal occupation injuries listed in the BLS data can be attributed to poor environmental compliance."" Texas, he said, had the most deaths tabulated by the bureau in four areas he described as ""fatal industrial accident categories"": fires and explosions; falls, trips and slips; exposure to harmful substances or environments; and contact with objects and equipment. Representatives of groups we spoke with -- the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the National Safety Council and the Texas-based Workers Defense Project -- told us the bureau’s Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, which generated the figures Marston relied on, was the most comprehensive source of data on occupational injuries and deaths. Pegula said the Sept. 12, 2012, report gave preliminary 2011 data, ""which is going to differ slightly"" from the final numbers, ""but it’s a good guiding post."" Of the six types of event or exposure the bureau listed, Texas led in five -- the four Marston tabbed as ""industrial accident categories"" plus the transportation category. California led in deaths caused by violence and other injuries by persons or animals. The report showed Texas had 18 of the nation’s 143 work fatalities attributed to fires and explosions; 67 of the total 666 from falls, slips and trips; 43 of the 401 caused by exposure to harmful substances or environments; and 66 of 708 deaths resulting from contact with objects and other equipment. California had the second-most in each of Marston’s four categories: 9, 60, 36 and 50 deaths, respectively. Third in fires/explosions was Tennessee with 10; third in falls and slips was New York with 39; third in harmful exposure was Florida with 27; and New York was third in object/equipment contact deaths at 34. We looked at preliminary data for 2003 through 2010 and found Texas led those categories about 88 percent of the time. Texas’ totals are high, Pegula said, ""because it’s a very large state."" Texas, California, Florida and New York have some of the largest labor forces in the U.S. Seeking a way to account for that, we took each state’s 2011 raw numbers of deaths in the four categories Marston tabbed, added them together, then divided by the average number of workers employed in the state in 2011 per the federal bureau. Texas ranked 18th, with a rate of 1.7 such deaths per 100,000 workers. Observing that the five states with the ""worst"" rates all employed fewer than 1 million people in 2011, we checked to see how Texas fared among states employing more than 1 million. The answer: 10th place. ""Worst"" among all 50 states were Montana (3.4 deaths per 100,000 workers), North Dakota (3.3), West Virginia (3), Alaska (3) and New Mexico (2.8). ""Worst"" among states with more than 1 million employed were Arkansas (2.6), Louisiana (2.3), Kansas (2.3), Missouri (2.1) and Kentucky (2). Pegula at the federal bureau cautioned against comparing states, especially with such small amounts of data as the fatalities in specific categories. Not only the number of workers but also the industries represented vary widely from state to state, he said. The big difference in population sizes, Marston said, causes variability in comparing the rates -- one reason he chose to use raw counts rather than per-capita rates. Marston said he stands behind his statement ""as true and accurate using the best available data."" Our ruling Marston said that in Texas, ""we lead the nation in fatal industrial accidents."" Among the states, Texas ranked No. 1 in 2011 in the number of workplace deaths in four federal categories Marston tabbed as ""industrial accident"" deaths. Yet these results drew on raw counts of deaths, unadjusted for variations in state workforces. Our adjustment for each state’s relative workforce suggests that Texas, per worker, ranked 18th among the states in 2011."
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26583
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Speaking of his restriction on travel from China, “I had (Joe) Biden calling me xenophobic. … He called me a racist, because of the fact that he felt it was a racist thing to stop people from China coming in.”
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Biden has not directly said that the restrictions were xenophobic. Around the time the Trump administration announced the travel restriction, Biden said that Trump had a “record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering.” Biden used the phrase “xenophobic” in reply to a Trump tweet about limiting entry to travelers from China and in which Trump described the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus.” Biden did not spell out which part of Trump’s tweet was xenophobic.
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false
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China, Health Care, Public Health, Coronavirus, Donald Trump,
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"Amid criticism of his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump routinely flags one action as efficient and bold: restricting travel from China into the United States. Trump has said he instituted a travel ban against everyone’s wishes and that ""nobody,"" not even doctors, wanted him to restrict travel. But ""probably tens of thousands"" of people would be dead now if he hadn’t done so, he claimed on Fox News March 24. At the same time, he’s claimed that former Vice President Joe Biden, a contender for the Democratic nomination for president, called him racist and xenophobic for restricting entry from China. ""I had Biden calling me xenophobic,"" Trump said on Sean Hannity’s Fox News prime-time show March 26. ""He called me a racist, because of the fact that he felt it was a racist thing to stop people from China coming in."" Trump has said that about Biden at least three other times — on Twitter, at a White House briefing, and during the Fox News town hall. But Biden has not directly said that the travel restriction was xenophobic. He has used that phrase in reference to Trump and his handling of the coronavirus outbreak. Biden’s campaign told PolitiFact that Biden’s tweets were not specific to the restrictions on people coming from China. The White House press office said Trump’s claim is supported by a tweet Biden posted Feb. 1, the day after the Trump administration announced travel restrictions on people who were in China 14 days prior to their attempted entry into the United States. Biden tweeted: ""We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency."" But Biden did not explicitly tie xenophobia to the travel restriction. His tweet reflects coronavirus remarks he made during a campaign stop in Iowa Jan. 31, the day the travel restrictions were announced. Biden said: ""This is no time for Donald Trump's record of hysteria xenophobia, hysterical xenophobia, and fear-mongering to lead the way instead of science."" Biden again used the word ""xenophobic"" in March — once at a press conference and once in response to a Trump tweet. In the first, Biden was criticizing Trump for labeling coronavirus a ""foreign"" virus. In the second, it’s not clear whether Biden’s use of the word was in direct reference to the travel restriction. During a March 12 press conference Biden said, the United States should not be overly dismissive of the outbreak, ""but neither should we panic or fall back on xenophobia, labeling COVID-19 a foreign virus does not displace accountability for the misjudgments that have been taken thus far by the Trump administration."" Earlier that day, the Trump campaign tweeted that Democrats and news outlets were ""accusing President Trump of racism and xenophobia"" for his use of the phrase ""Chinese virus."" On March 18, Trump tweeted: ""I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the ‘borders’ from China - against the wishes of almost all. Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful & false!"" Biden replied the same day: ""Stop the xenophobic fear-mongering. Be honest. Take responsibility. Do your job."" Stop the xenophobic fear-mongering. Be honest. Take responsibility. Do your job. https://t.co/nQ5aLVrpyb The tweet that Biden responded to included the phrase ""Chinese virus,"" which experts say could foster discrimination toward people of Chinese or Asian origin. Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman, said Biden ""has decried Trump's xenophobia for years, and was saying that it shouldn't influence the U.S. approach to this outbreak. This was not in reference to coronavirus travel restrictions."" Travel restrictions that are supported by science, advocated by public health officials, and backed by a full strategy can be warranted, Bates said. Speaking of his restriction on travel from China, Trump said, ""I had Biden calling me xenophobic. … . He called me a racist, because of the fact that he felt it was a racist thing to stop people from China coming in."" Biden has not directly said that the restrictions were xenophobic. Around the time the Trump administration announced the travel restriction, Biden said that Trump had a ""record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering."" Biden used the phrase ""xenophobic"" in reply to a Trump tweet about limiting entry to travelers from China and in which he described the coronavirus as the ""Chinese virus."" Biden did not spell out which part of Trump’s tweet was xenophobic. Trump’s statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression."
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25967
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“To children and the vast majority of young and middle-aged adults and the vast majority of teachers, (the coronavirus) poses virtually zero threat.
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Carlson’s language paints a black-and-white picture for children and teachers between death and full recovery. Other outcomes — including hospitalization — have occurred and are also harmful. There’s a lot we don’t know about long-term health conditions associated with COVID-19. The risk of severe illness and death due to COVID-19 increases with age and for people with underlying medical conditions.
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false
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Children, Education, Public Health, Pundits, PunditFact, Coronavirus, Tucker Carlson,
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"Fox News host Tucker Carlson downplayed the risk of the coronavirus recently, arguing on his TV show that schools should reopen because, he said, the virus ""poses virtually zero threat"" to children and most working adults. ""For children, the risks of staying locked at home are high,"" Carlson said in the July 7 segment. ""The risks from the coronavirus, by contrast, are not high."" ""The virus is deadly to the very old and to those who are already sick. We know that,"" he continued. ""But to children and the vast majority of young and middle-aged adults and the vast majority of teachers, it poses virtually zero threat."" The risk of death from COVID-19 does increase with age and for people with underlying medical conditions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. The CDC’s demographic data shows that older adults account for the majority of COVID-19 deaths. But ""poses virtually zero threat"" is a loaded phrase, experts said. Carlson’s language paints a black-and-white picture between death and full recovery. A lot can happen in between those two outcomes. ""COVID is definitely not ‘zero threat’ in any of these age groups,"" said Cindy Prins, a clinical associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Florida. Case fatality rates do rise with age, a recent CDC report on U.S. cases through May 30 shows. Death is the worst — but least likely — outcome for COVID-19 patients. Counting deaths and calculating fatality rates can be tricky, since deaths due to COVID-19 may be undercounted and epidemiologists still don’t know the exact number of people who were infected. The CDC provides age-related data as part of its provisional death counts, which lag by a few weeks because they are based on death certificates. The data through July 4 showed the breakdown of cumulative, confirmed COVID-19 deaths to look like this: ""Among adults, the risk for severe illness from COVID-19 increases with age, with older adults at highest risk,"" the CDC says on its website. That doesn’t mean there’s zero threat facing children and the other age groups. Healthy children can still get and spread the virus, although the CDC says children account for a relatively small share of cases. Working-age adults are susceptible to it, too. The average age of teachers in 2017-18, the latest year for which data is available, was about 43 years old, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Across all schools, 15.1% of teachers were under age 30; 55.7% were ages 30 to 49; 11.6% were 50 to 54; and 17.6% were 55 or older. Andrew Noymer, an associate professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine, is on a task force advising a local school district in Orange County, where roughly 24% of COVID-19 deaths as of July 9 were patients between 25 and 64 years old. ""I'm thinking of teachers, teachers aides, school nurses, lunchroom staff, administrators, custodial staff and so on,"" Noymer wrote in an email. ""Twenty-four percent of county-wide mortality in this age group is hard to dismiss!"" And it’s not just a matter of death versus no consequences. By most standards, for example, anything that results in a hospitalization has done significant damage. The likelihood of hospitalization rises with age, according to the CDC, but patients of all ages are at risk. Using data from the recent CDC report on U.S. cases through May 30, we calculated that roughly 7.8% of U.S. COVID-19 patients under the age of 60 were hospitalized in that time, including about 5.3% of patients under 60 who reported no underlying medical conditions. There’s also plenty left to learn about the long-term effects of infection, experts said. Donald Thea, professor of global health at Boston University, told us that ""mild disease is oftentimes far from mild and can entail profound and prolonged disability."" Scientists suspect there could be links between mild cases and blood clots, chronic fatigue, strokes and other ailments in young people, according to reports. Doctors have also found some cases in which children previously infected with COVID-19 have developed a rare condition called multisystem inflammatory syndrome. ""The more and more we learn, we’re seeing things about what this virus can do that we didn’t see from the studies in China or in Europe,"" said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, during a May 12 Senate hearing. ""I think we better be careful (that) we are not cavalier in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects."" We also don’t know how schools could change the spread and impact of the coronavirus, said Prins, the University of Florida epidemiologist. ""If you’re opening up and sending kids back to school, you’re under a whole different set of circumstances."" Carlson said, ""To children and the vast majority of young and middle-aged adults and the vast majority of teachers, (the coronavirus) poses virtually zero threat."" The risk of dying from COVID-19 does increase with age. But Carlson’s claim that the virus ""poses virtually zero threat"" to the groups he identified ignores the possibility that people from those groups could still wind up sick, hospitalized or facing long-term health conditions. Many teachers are in the particularly vulnerable age groups."
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